Know That You’re Extraordinary, with Matt Mayberry – Episode 56 of The Action Catalyst Podcast

Speaker, author, former NFL linebacker, and CEO of Matt Mayberry Enterprises, Matt Mayberry, shares the 3 big failures in his life that shaped him, the similarities between the field and the boardroom, and why you shouldn’t forget that you are extraordinary.

About Matt:

Matt Mayberry is an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker and leading global expert in leadership development, culture change, and organizational performance.

His insights on leadership and business performance have been featured in Forbes, Fox News, Business Insider, Fortune, NBC, ESPN, Entrepreneur, and several other major media outlets.

His clients include a diverse list of who’s who in business with organizations like JP MorganChase, Allstate Insurance, Phillips 66, Ambit Energy, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, Optum, Mack Trucks, Fifth Third Bank, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and WESCO.

Prior to becoming an in–demand keynote speaker, author and management consultant, Matt was a linebacker for the Chicago Bears. Matt took the lessons he learned on the field and in the locker room straight to the boardroom. His playing days give him a unique perspective and platform to apply those lessons directly to business with a laser focus centered around leadership, culture, peak performance, and teamwork. These invaluable lessons as an athlete have been instrumental in helping him build stronger leadership teams and execute high–impact cultural transformations enhancing the performance of organizations in every sector for over a decade.

Matt’s unique experience as a professional athlete along with his extensive real–world examples of working in the trenches with leading organizations, Matt delivers actionable strategies that drive impact where it matters most. Matt has also authored the books “Winning Plays”, and “Culture Is the Way”.

Matt practices what he preaches and is an avid lifelong learner. He frequently publishes client case studies and insights on leadership, culture, and organizational performance.

Matt passionately believes that every organization has a deep responsibility to build a workplace where people love coming to work each day and become the best version of themselves inside and outside of the workplace. His life’s work is dedicated to helping organizations do just that.

Learn more at MattMayberryonline.com.

The Action Catalyst is presented by the Southwestern Family of Companies. With each episode, the podcast features some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Learn more at TheActionCatalyst.com, subscribe below or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave a rating and review!

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(Transcribed using A.I. / May include errors):

Host
He is a former NFL linebacker with the Chicago Bears. His name is Matt Mayberry. He also played at IU Indiana University. Was team captain from 2009 to 2010 he is one of the movers and shakers in the world of speaking. He works with some of the NFL teams, NBA teams. He shared the stage with Stedman Graham, and he’s just an all around stud and good guy. So Matt Mayberry, welcome to the show, my friend.

Matt Mayberry
Pleasure to be here.

Host
Can you tell us your story? Because it’s like you made it, and then you have this, this ankle thing, like, just kind of walk us through how you got started and how you how you made it to the NFL.

Matt Mayberry
Well, you know, really, it started for me, you know, I really have three big failures in life that I always come back to. It all started for me when I was a high school. I was raised by two wonderful parents provided me and my brother with really everything that we needed. I had to be successful young men and really be difference majors in this society. One of my first big failures came when I entered high school. I think when we enter high school, we’re around, you know, more opportunity for peer pressure to make wrong decisions. And that’s what happened in my life, you know, I always say associations, everything. I started hanging out with, you know, guys doing drugs and doing, you know, things that they shouldn’t be doing, breaking the law, you know. So basically, I was becoming a keen drug addict at 16 years old. And to put that in perspective for you, I’m not just talking about a little marijuana here and there. I’ve done every single drug besides heroin. That’s the life I started to enter. You know, robberies, getting arrested. You know, cocaine, almost every day, getting suspended every other week. My best sport growing up was baseball. You know, people that were close to me knew that baseball was my best sport and that I probably could get drafted out of high school. Well, two months later, I ended up getting kicked off the baseball team because I stole one of my teammates while and the other side of the story is it wasn’t just a teammate, it was one of my good friends. So, you know, you see what a dark place I was in and, you know, my fifth and he came one night after I went to an outpatient rehab facility, I missed school for about a month. This was my only way to stay in school. This is my only way really to keep living. My guidance counselor called me ID in prison or dead by my 18th birthday, before my 18th birthday, that’s what I was being told. So I knew that there was only one way out now to go to outpatient rehab and and try to get better. After two weeks in the program, I came home one night, had a conversation with my father. And, you know, like every other conversation when I was drugged out and being the way that I was for the past three years, you know, anything that he said went in one ear and out the other Well, for some reason this time, I just started to hear him more in depth. And, you know, really, it started to hit me and run through my mind, body and spirit. And after that conversation, I went in the bathroom, and for the first time in three years, I looked myself in the mirror, and I hated what I saw. I saw a monster. I saw anger, I saw disgust. I just hated what I saw. I started to realize, you know, all the terrible things that I’ve done in this world, all the people that I’ve heard, all the drugs that I’ve done. I got in a fight with my father before I broke both of his ridge. You know, my mother has seen me do cocaine, personally, all the stuff that I’ve hurt the people that love me most through I started to see that those memories started to play through my mind. And I go into my room, and I really just cry out to God, and that’s when I really get deep into my faith. That was all I had left at that time. You know, as I talk about, you know, a lot faith into the miracle. You know, you’re not going to get a miracle overnight, but what will happen is you can, you’ll get clarity and peace of mind and direction. And that night, when I asked, What can I do to get out of this better place? What can I do to pay back those people that I hurt most, and athletic came to mind. That was the only thing I knew. I knew I only had football. I got kicked off my baseball team, so I have football right here, right now. A scholarship was the first one that came to mind. That’s how I could pay back my mother and fire. That’s how I could pay back my grandparents that I nearly killed from all the stress I put them through. I mean, I think when you’re, you know, grown parents have, you know, cried to you almost every night for the past two years, and you know, you’ve seen your grandparents who were like parents as well in your life, almost completely die from everything that you’ve done, you know, other other stress and how pain to put them through. I’m so. It wasn’t very powerful. It wasn’t about what can I do? It’s about what can I pay back those people? And, you know, my father always just hoped, and I’ll put a Bible throughout the house. I put a motivational book throughout the house. And it just so happened at a, you know, the late great Zig Ziglar folks here at the pop was laying on my back, and for whatever reason, I saw, you know, the chapter was open. We’re talking about the power, of gold. And that’s why I truly discovered that that goals can change our lives, that goals could take it to the next level. And I from, you know, we all hear about goals and how important they are, but once we fully know how to set goals, the proper and correct one, and once you know how to carry out and you know, make definite plan to achieve those goals, our lives will never be the same again. And I learned this at 17 years old. I wrote a goal next year I will have the division one scholarship. I didn’t say, get a division one scholarship. I said, I will have a division one scholarship next week day I go into school. Everyone still thought I would drop. Everyone still thought I was high because I was going in there saying, Hey, I’m getting a visual on scholarship. I’m going to Tennessee, to Alabama. I already started head schools and made up in my mind. No one would believe me. Everyone doubted me. That’s when I devoted seven days a week. My parents helped me out. They hired a speed coach. I needed to factor. They hired a strength coach. I had to get younger for seven hours. I’m a weekend to devoted every ounce of effort. I researched schools that I had to, you know, get in contact with coaches, phone numbers, emails, long story short, after so much blood, sweat and tears, you know, night that I almost cried just because I wired it so bad, I ended up with 19 Division One scholarship offers. A year later, I ended up closing Indiana University Manny, for one reason, I still get it today yet tonight, football powerhouse, temperature. Some of the other offers I had, which was Georgia, Georgia pack, Maryland, but I connected real well with the late coach, Terry Heppner, big mentor to Ben rock with burger, he told me, Matt, if you come to Indiana, you won’t just become an asset. You become a bright young man that will make a tremendous difference in this world. I promise you that you’ll be more successful outside of football then you ever will be inside of football.

Host
So what was your big kind of second failure?

Matt Mayberry
Well, my big second failure came when I was, you know, as you previously mentioned, you know, projecting me to go in the third round of the NFL draft. You know, I was feeling good. I performed well, how my workouts, all the teams that I met with, the workout with, for with the patriots, Chicago Bears. So feeling good. You know, me and my family really thought that I was gonna go in the third fourth month. So as a player, you already have that made up in your mind. You know, get the big signing bonus. Okay, you got a little bit of security, if there’s a such thing called security in that league. So I’m feeling good, and we’ll come Draft Day. I didn’t get back Tennessee Titan called me. I’ll take a listen to fourth round. So give my family around TV. We’re getting ready to fit you. They didn’t pick, pick someone else. They can happen three other time throughout that night. And I think a lot of people, you know, they don’t understand the severity of how that makes you feel when you really project you to go, you know, in a certain round, you don’t get drafted at all. A lot of things have to question, you know, am I getting up to playing a big am I? Am I as good as I thought I was? You start to question your Billy. And luckily, 20 minutes later, that kind of, when I talk about my blessing in disguise, Chicago Bears from calling me Jerry Angelo, the general manager offer me a free agent contract I sign right there. Next thing you know, I’m a Chicago bear. You know, hometown kid playing for the hometown King. Kind of a Cinderella story. Everyone in my community kind of broke the story, and now everyone’s not rooting for me. And that enters my third biggest failure that kind of really shocked my whole world, which, you know, as I said, everyone in the community, everyone kind of built up this Cinderella kid story, rooting for me. Have a great training camp. I work my way from 14 to second king behind land bridge playing the San Diego charges on beautiful Saturday evening out in sunny San Diego, California, second quarter, big 320 pound lineman comes crashing down on my ankle with all the adrenaline and everything built up in a first NFL game, I said, Okay, you know, I might have sprained my ankle. Well, the following day, when I wake up and I’ll continue to play throughout that game, I had a great game, actually, even though I had a missed back opportunity, it was still a pretty good game for me, the rookie, my first outing. But the next day, when I get out of bed, I completely collapse and I realized, oh no, that can’t be good, because I know that under fells first thing the big business, big money business, and that decisions have to be made. Why go into this facility? Good treatment. That’s when I realized that they’re going to pick me. We’ll get MRIs ray comes back, that I can put the core bone off my ankle. I’ll be out for nine months. And I knew that…

Host
This is your first game? It happened in your first game?

Matt Mayberry
My first game as a rookie. And then, you know, obviously, as you know, as a rookie, you can’t afford that. I knew, hey, I’m out for nine months. I still remember sitting down with my head down. The doctor walked in and said, Matt, you won’t be stepping on a football field anytime soon. I said, What do you mean, Doc? He says, Matt, you completely tore a pulling off your ankle. You know, you continuing to play in that game hurt. You know your ankle. What it was, I said, Now, what do you mean? This is my dream. I’m living my dream. What do you mean? You’re out for nine months. You know that this is a part of the game. There’s nothing I could do. There’s nothing that you could do except heal and Rise and go to therapy and do what you got to do to get it healthy. I said, but I’m a rookie. They’re going to cut me. What do you mean? You know why I was saying that to the doctor. I knew we couldn’t do anything, but I knew that my parent, the dark place, the drug addict of me, everything was just starting to circulate through my thought process, you know, man, this is it. You know, we reached an injury settlement with the Chicago Bears. It means I take my money and I go my way. You go your way. And, you know that kind of when you know I was depressed, I was anger. I mean, that was one of the worst times in my life, because I’ve really felt that I was the biggest failure walking, even though, as an athlete, you can’t control injuries, but I felt that that was the biggest failure.

Host
So let me ask this now, Matt, so you go through this whole thing, you have this, this up and down story, and such a great story of redemption. So I know now, as you look to the professional world and and what you’re doing, do you find a big resemblance, you know, or connection to sort of the mindset of being successful in companies compared to performing in professional or division one athletics?

Matt Mayberry
Absolutely, you know, that’s why, wherever I go, you know, I always talk, even if you know the executives in the audience I’m speaking a corporation or a conference, you know, I always say, I personally believe, in my personal stories, that athletics degrees teacher of all. And you know, even if they want an athlete, obviously they’re not going to be an athlete, you know, five or 10 years from now. And maybe even that they might have a son or a daughter that you know might be at age that they want to go into athletics, and my hope is that one day they get to experience truly, one of the greatest teachers of all of life. You know, what it teaches about ourselves and our characteristics and the daily disciplines in order to be successful? Um, athletics is just unbelievable in that respect. But to answer your question, absolutely, I see 100% resemblance between the top athletes, between the top executives, and not only that, and from an individual standpoint, from a collective team standpoint, the top performing corporations compared with the top performing teams in athletics.

Host
What are some of those characteristics like, what are some of those things that they have in common?

Matt Mayberry
Number one is vision, first and foremost. And I think we know as a football team, you walk in the beginning of the season, Eric and you have one goal of doing the Super Bowl every single team meeting that you have, you revisit that subject. And not only that, you know exactly what you have to do in order to get to that big show. You know what you have to do day in and day out. Everything is scripted. You have a set routine, set schedule. The same thing is transferred over in the business arena. You you have one goal, your one mission, one vision. You know you 510, even 510, years from now the business world. But every single day, everybody has to be bought into that vision, every single employee.

Host
So I guess the part that I didn’t know so much about your story was the low points. If somebody’s listening right now, Matt, and let’s say that they’re going through one of those low points, what advice would you give to that person?

Matt Mayberry
Yeah, I think that the first advice is number one. Just know that you’re extraordinary. I think so many kinds. When we’ve been hit repeatedly over in light, day in and day out, we forget how powerful we are. We forget that, you know, hey, we truly are extraordinary. We come from an extraordinary guy, and I think once we can first realize that aspect, we’re destined for greatness, no matter how dark kinds may be throughout life, if we just continually move forward, find ways to better ourselves, day in and day out, work to become the best version of ourselves. We will get there. It’s a matter of time.

Host
Well, I admire your courage and stay the path. And thank you for being here.

Matt Mayberry
Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me.