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SPI 461: How YOUR Life Experiences Translate into Serving Others Online and on Stage with Darryll Stinson

We had Darryll on the show back in session 433 — Black Entrepreneurs Speak Out, Volume 2 — and I just had to bring him back on. Honestly, Darryll’s story is one of the most inspiring ones I’ve ever heard on the show — it’s a testament to how your life experiences translate into serving others.

How Darryll got here is a heck of a story. He was a Division I athlete when his football career essentially… imploded. By learning how to pick himself up from that event, including a serious turning point in his life due to a suicide attempt, Darryll realized an incredible new mission: to help people, specifically athletes, to find their next big passion. He’s now a two-time TEDx speaker and the author of an Amazon best-selling book: Who Am I After Sports? An Athlete’s Roadmap to Discover New Purpose and Live Fulfilled.

Darryll’s here today to share his story, how he created his foundation, Second Chance Athletes, and his roadmap for finding your next passion in life. You’ll even learn Darryll’s number one tip for landing a TEDx talk and his advice for anyone hoping to create their own foundation. I’m super grateful to have him back on the show today. He’s bringing the heat so let’s not hesitate, go ahead and hit that play button!

You can check out Darryll’s TEDx talks here:

Today’s Guest

Darryll Stinson

Darryll Stinson is a former Division I athlete, dynamic motivational speaker, and Founder of Second Chance Athletes. He’s been featured on FOX, ABC, NCAA, TEDx, and some of the top podcasts in the world. After going from suicidal to successful, Darryll uses his experience to give hope to the hopeless and to help heart-centered speakers build six-figure speaking careers that align with their highest purpose. Darryll is the author of the Amazon best-selling book Who Am I After Sports? An Athletes Roadmap to Discover New Purpose and Live Fulfilled. When he is not working, Darryll enjoys spending time with his wife and three beautiful daughters. #girldad

Learn more at DarryllStinson.com and SecondChanceAthletes.com.

You’ll Learn

SPI 461: How YOUR Life Experiences Translate into Serving Others Online and on Stage with Darryll Stinson

Pat Flynn:
Yo, today’s interview is one of the most inspiring interviews that I’ve had the pleasure of doing in such a long, long time. And I’ve done 460 of these prior to this episode, and it just might be up there with maybe even close to number one, to be honest. And so I cannot wait to share this story with you because our guest today, Darryll Stinson, is actually somebody who’s been on the show before. But in a brief moment in time, in episode 433 of the Smart Passive Income Podcast, which is where we featured a number of black entrepreneurs in the SPI audience. And Darryll’s story resonated with several of you. And I wanted to bring him on the show to understand exactly what he has gone through because he’s gone through so much in his life and now he helps others. And what I’m talking about is that he’s had in the past a number of – I’m just going to be up front with you, suicidal thoughts and not so great takes on life and himself.

And I know a lot of us may have an understanding of what that might mean, but we unpack that a little bit and we get into how he was able to eventually come out of this and be able to help others. And he has an organization that is truly inspiring. It’s called SecondChanceAthletes.com. And he helps those who, especially those who were once athletes even at the pro level, who don’t believe that the rest of their life is worth living or is not going to be as great as the first half. And man, dude, this guy is just incredible. And what an amazing communicator, speaker. And how’s this relevant to you? You have life experiences, you have a story. It may not be so big, it may not be so down and dark, but it doesn’t matter because it is what you say and how you craft the story that can help inspire and uplift others, no matter who it might be, whether it’s athletes or kids, or the person who you’re serving in your business. It doesn’t really matter.

And I really, really asked Darryll some hard questions to follow up on how we can learn from his experiences to taking something that has happened in our lives and best shape it and turn it into something that can transform other lives too. And as you all know, I’m all about serving first and Darryll definitely does that. So, wow. I just… We’re supposed to play the intro song, but I forgot because I just totally am in love with Darryll and everything he has to say. So let’s play the intro, I’ll do a quick sort of hello and then we’ll get right into it. Man, this is going to be great.

Announcer:
Welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, where it’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host – one day he wants to host an internet late night show – Pat Flynn!

Pat:
What’s up, y’all? Pat Flynn here and welcome to session 461 of the Smart Passive Income Podcast. Thank you again so much for joining me today. And today we have Darryll Stinson. All you have to do is check out his website. You can find him at Darryllstinson.com. I already talked about him so much here in the front of the show. So I’m not going to go too much into it because I want you to hear it. It’s awesome. DarryllStinson.com or SecondChanceAthletes.com. This is definitely one of those that you might want to pay it forward and share with others who you know might be affected by this kind of stuff. And he also has a book called Who Am I After Sports? Incredible, here he is.

Darryll, welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast my friend. Thanks so much for being here today.

Darryll Stinson:
Oh, thanks for having me. It’s about to go down.

Pat:
This is the second time actually, that we’ve heard you on the show. The first time you were in one of my favorite episodes and you told this amazing story. We’ll obviously drop the link in the show notes and stuff. And I just had to have you come on so I could talk to you personally about not just your story, but the result of your story and who it is that you’re helping and how you’re serving now. Tell us about what you do and then we’ll kind of dig in and we’ll go from there.

Darryll:
Yeah. So I’m a speaker. I give hope to the hopeless and I’m a mental health advocate because I’m a suicide survivor. And I love working with speakers to help them spread their message, specifically heart-centered entrepreneurs. Through Second Chance Athletes, we’re able to take athletes from a depressive, grieving state to thriving in significance, which is what I went through. And we use an athletes transition roadmap which is what my book talks about, Who Am I After Sports? And we help athletes really detach their identity from their activity, find their highest purpose, and really build that next dream.

Pat:
Why choose athletes? Obviously everybody suffers through some sort of mental challenges. Why athletes? Why are they special to you?

Darryll:
Because it was the help that I didn’t have when I transitioned out of sports. So I played division one sports at Central Michigan University, had emergency back surgery in my freshman year, I wasn’t supposed to play after that, but sports was my ticket out of the hood, it was the way that I was going to be famous, successful, rich, and put my whole family out of poverty. And so I signed a liability waiver to be able to alleviate the university from an injury or a death. And then I begged them to let me come back and play on the team. They did that, I came back, I played, but I put my body through two years of drug addiction, manipulating the healthcare system, getting multiple epidural shots in my back, the story goes on and on. And I did so with some success, I managed to earn a starting position, I played for two years. And the opioids that I was taking was so much that it was thinning my blood to the point where every time I made contact on the field, my nose would bleed.

Coaches saw that something was going on, they kicked me off the team. I was forced to deal with all that emotional baggage. And I was asking athletes the question, “What do I do?” And everyone was just saying, “Find your next passion.” And I’m like, “Dude football was my passion.” And so I didn’t want to live my future as if it was second best to my past, I didn’t want to deal with the emotional pain that I was hiding from my rage on football. So I decided to turn inward and implode. And that’s where the suicide attempts come from. So I choose to work with athletes because I know what it’s like to be successful externally, but inwardly failing. I know what it’s like to have people admire you for your gifts, but not know that you’re struggling on the inside.

I know what it’s like to tell people that you’re struggling with mental health issues and they go, “What do you have to worry about? You playing on national television. You play with some of the best athletes in the world.” And I said, “That has nothing to do with how much I like me.” And that’s what my passion is for working with athletes.

Pat:
I think a lot of people listening to this, although they might not be athletes, can relate to the idea of having lived through something, coming out of it, and then wanting to share it with others. How did you begin to start doing that when you yourself lived through something like this and now have wanted to help others too?

Darryll:
Yeah, man. So I thought my only gift in the world was my athletic ability. I didn’t think I was good at anything else. And so when I survived my suicide attempt and had this really crazy turnaround in the psychiatric unit, I started to recognize that there was people around who could benefit from my story. I was a black man who had mental health challenges. And so nobody was really talking about real suicidal thoughts, especially not for minorities. And so I felt like I could make a difference. And I just started to share my story and tell people about counselors and medication and dealing with these real depressing thoughts. And it was something about seeing my story help others that let me know, “I have to do more of this.”

Pat:
How did you start sharing that story? I think a lot of people want to share their story. And you said that you just started talking about it. How did you start talking about it? How did you start to get people to listen?

Darryll:
Yeah. I always tell people this, because oftentimes – you know, I work with speakers, helping build businesses. And oftentimes the question is, “Well, where’s my opportunity?” And I say, every conversation you have is a stage. I think we get so caught up in wanting paid gigs or the biggest podcast opportunities that we forget why we get in this in the first place, which is to help people. And I’m a huge component of being successful with what you have, where you are. And so my first stage was the person that I talked to on the football team, who was like, “Where have you been at, Stins?” I was like, “Well, actually, here’s where I’ve been at. I just came out of the psychiatric unit.” “Whoa, man, tell me about that.” And we start that conversation. So my first stage was people just asking me where I’ve been at.

And I took that as an opportunity to create awareness around mental health challenges. And that led to, “Hey, you should share with this sports team.” And then I started with some high school teams and then I spoke at my alma mater. And then you speak, you do a good job, and people ask you to come back. And that’s how that journey started.

Pat:
How do you get comfortable sharing such a personal story about yourself to others? There’s often a worry of being maybe looked down upon because of certain things that maybe you have done. This was a big struggle for me when I got laid off, I almost was embarrassed about it. So how do you get comfortable sharing that story?

Darryll:
The same way you grow a business, the same way you get good at anything. You realize that something isn’t working and you switch it up. So I realized that being insecure, being afraid, being timid, was not working for the maximum impact I could have as a speaker. And I was terrible. I know I sound awesome now, it’s either the microphone or the fact that I’ve had a couple of practices being a two-time TEDx speaker, but I’m telling you, I hated the sound of my voice. I used to be so embarrassed to speak, Pat, you’re going to laugh at me, that when we did icebreakers, where you go around the room and say, “Hey, what’s your name and your favorite animal.” I would get up and fake go to the bathroom so that they could skip me. That’s how much I hated my voice.

Pat:
I can kind of relate to that though.

Darryll:
You see what I’m saying?

Pat:
Yeah.

Darryll:
It made me nervous and I hated it. And so, here’s what started to change. Number one, I realized that my insecurities was creating my very fear. So in other words, I was like, “Man, nobody’s going to listen to me, they’re going to tune out, they’re not going to engage, nobody’s going to apply what I say.” And therefore that’s what was happening. It was all these insecurities coming through my speaking and I had somebody and I reached out to him, he co-leads with a very significant figure, Steven Furtick. And he comes up behind Steven Furtick. And I said, “Man, how do you do that? How do you come behind this great speaker and close out when nobody’s like… Everybody’s like, second-best’s coming.” He said, “You know what, Darryll?” He said, “I started focusing more on being helpful than being impressive.”

And when he said that, I was like, “That’s my problem.” I’m so worried about how I look, how I sound, how I feel that I forget that I’m there for them, not for me. And I can’t truly serve them if I’m really just trying to serve myself. I can’t really give affirmation, encouragement, motivation, inspiration, if all I’m trying to do is get affirmation. And so that is one shift that I made that really helped me to start stepping in more powerfully.

And then let me share one more because I think this is important. We all get into this, this business of sharing our message, whether that’s podcasting, speaking, whatever our platform is, because we want to help people. And I always say that the quickest way to break insecurity is effectiveness. So I’m insecure about speaking and I’ll never forget, I’d go to a youth conference, and I was speaking to them about mental health and stuff. And afterwards, you know how this is, people come up to you and want to connect with you, say thank you, shake your hand, do that type of thing.

And towards the end of the line, there was this teenage girl. She comes up to me and she’s shaking and trembling. She pulls up her wristband and she goes, “My parents dropped me off at the orphanage last year and they never came back.” She said, “I couldn’t understand why they didn’t want me. And I’ve been cutting myself ever since, because I figured something has to be wrong with me and I deserve pain.” She said, “And I never told anyone, but it was something about hearing your story as a successful athlete and your battles with mental health, that gave me the strength to come out about my struggle.” Wow! And I said, “I’ve got to do more of this.” So I always tell people, if you struggle with fear, insecurity, get in front of the people that you’re called to serve and help them. And when their success happens, when their breakthrough happens, you’re not worried about you anymore because you realize that the struggle is worth it.

Pat:
Thank you for that story. I’m remembering specific moments too, where I’ve met people who I didn’t even know who had been served in one way, shape, or form. And it’s interesting because you can’t give up any more after you start seeing that. And it can happen on a macro level, it can happen in just a thank you, but it’s not going to happen unless you put yourself out there. When it comes to storytelling, how do we tell effective stories? You being a two-time TEDx speaker, what within a story can get people to connect, to feel like they can then open up to you and take action and feel comfortable and learn?

Darryll:
I wholeheartedly believe… I’m going to give you an answer that’s not normal. Let me do it through a story. I heard Eric Thomas speak at a private breakfast and the guy was just blowing it up. And I’m sitting here and we’re all asking Q&A. And he said something that answers the question you just asked me. He said, “A lot of you guys think that I’m better speakers than you are.” He says, “In reality, I’m just more free than you are.” What he meant by that is he had learned to be himself, and it was actually that that helped them be successful as a speaker, that helped him be better at storytelling. And so if you want to get better at storytelling, I can give you StoryBrand Framework or tell you about emotion and all that stuff, but none of the strategies matter if you don’t know and love you. You have to learn how to be comfortable in your own skin. And when you’re comfortable, your audience is comfortable. We buy into you.

If you want to get into vibrancy and frequency and all that, the truth vibrates the fastest. Authenticity vibrates the fastest. And so people can tell when you’re not being authentic. You want to tell great stories, learn how to be yourself, because that’s the most interesting version of you. So be yourself. How do you do that? You learn your weaknesses, you learn your strengths, you learn your quirkiness, you learn the things that are so unique about you that makes you you. Like for me, it’s my high-pitched laugh. So when I tell a story, the story could be boring, I could get off of my five layers of a story, but when I do that laugh, there’s something about it that brings people back into message.

Pat:
So good, yeah.

Darryll:
And it’s different for every person. Be yourself, add emotion into your story, people are always looking for when the character changed. That’s the recipe, man.

Pat:
But my story is not that interesting. But I’m putting myself in the heads of those who are listening to this, you know what I mean? My story is not that interesting or, I don’t have charisma. I’m not as exuberant as that person or I don’t have a high-pitched laugh like Darryll, I don’t have anything unique about me. I can’t do this.

Darryll:
He that thinks he can, he that thinks he can’t: both are correct. If you think your story isn’t interesting, you’re going to talk yourself into believing that. But I can tell you that the people on the other side of your story aren’t thinking that. You don’t need… And it’s so funny because I have one of those stories and people say that to me. Like, “Oh, I don’t have this suicidal story, I’ve never sold drugs, I’ve never done all the stuff you did and I’ve never been as low and nobody wants to listen.” I’m like, “But what is your story?” You’ve learned something. It doesn’t have to be this sob story, it can be a success story. It could be a learning moment. You can tell a story about cooking and how you had fun and people can relate to it. The point is not to be impressive. The point is to be helpful. So my question to that person who says, “But I don’t have an amazing story or a heartfelt story,” I would say, “Do you have helpful information? Tell your story.”

Pat:
Tell me about your foundation. I want to learn more about it and how you got it started, because when you start to realize that you’re making an impact on one person, you begin to realize that you can make an impact on thousands, tens of thousands, potentially millions of others. I’d love to know how you are planning to do that with your organization.

Darryll:
Yeah. So five years after my suicide attempt, I had finally got to this place where I wouldn’t trade my life that I had built for an NFL contract. And I noticed that that was not the same as peers, former athletes that I knew. They were still bragging about their sports days and they called them the glory days. And for me, my glory days were in front of me, not behind me. And I was like, “Holy crap, how did I get here and them not?” And I started to notice that, man, I did some things to reflect, to learn self, to process my athletic experience that they hadn’t done. And I was like, “Man, I want to help them.” Because I didn’t believe that anybody should live their current life as if it’s second best to their former life. That’s depressing. And I always say it’s like you getting married, getting divorced, and then getting remarried and wishing you could be with your ex. Like this is the worst way to live.

And so I just started to have this conversation with athletes. I’d say, “Hey man, tell me about your career.” And they would tell me about their sports career and they’d be all excited and happy. And I’m like, “Okay, well, tell me about some of your dreams, some of your future. And they’d be like, “Oh, you know…” And it was like the energy shifted. And I was like, “Let’s fix that.” And they were looking at me like, “Can we? What’s better than being on national television?” And then I’d take them through this process, which is now our athletes transition roadmap. I didn’t call it that then, it was just like, what’s next? Trying to figure it out and started to see some change in the lives of people. Started to see people go, “Oh my God, I didn’t know that this was something that I would be passionate about more than I was passionate about at sports.” And we started telling their stories. And as we told those stories, more people come up and go, “Man, I’m depressed. Man, I didn’t know that this is what I was dealing with.”

And that’s kind of where it began and just one thing led to another, and here we are today trying to meet the demand of the pandemic because I always say it this way… I said this on the Fox interview, that athlete transition was a problem pre-pandemic, and the pandemic just multiplied it, just poured gasoline on the fire. So we’re just doing our best and there’s other players we run with. That’s how it happened.

Pat:
Where can we go to check out the foundation and help support?

Darryll:
SecondChanceAthletes.com, all the information is there. You can volunteer, you can give, you can advocate, whatever. If you know athletes that need help, get the resource in their hand, we’ve got lots of free blogs and materials. We’ve got stuff for parents as well that are dealing with kids, are trying to live through their children. We’ve got all that stuff. We cover it from a holistic perspective.

Pat:
That’s amazing. Thank you for doing what you’re doing. How did you build it into the foundation from where you were as a person, just sharing this story and trying to help others more on an individual basis? How did you make it formalized in this way?

Darryll:
Yeah. Yeah. So are you talking about the legalization process of the business?

Pat:
Yeah. Like if I wanted to create a foundation and help people in a similar way or create something that wasn’t just like, my blog, but something like what you have, how does one go about doing that?

Darryll:
The quickest way to be successful at anything is find somebody who’s already doing it and ask for directions. So that’s what I did. And so I am king of like… People say, “You haven’t walked a mile in my shoes.” And I was like, “Because I don’t want to. I’d rather learn from the mile you walked.” And so that was it, man. I just reached out to people. Athlete Network was huge for us, they’ve got over five million athletes in their database, they were already doing what we were doing, making the mistakes, had the heart-knocks lessons. I reached out to them. David Meltzer was a huge help to where we are today and just started reaching out to people and they formalized it, submitted our nonprofit status, got it legalized. And then I just had to learn how to understand the bylaws and run the organization. So I’d say this way, man, I surround myself with people who are smarter than I am and they help me look good.

Pat:
I love it. Thank you for that. You had mentioned that when you go to these athletes and they start considering their previous life or their career as the best part of their life, the glory days, like you said. I think a lot of people listening to this might consider their time prior to today in the same way. So how do you coach a person? How do you help them understand that there’s so much more to be excited about and how do you help a person navigate what their next great passion might be?

Darryll:
Oh my gosh! Thank you for asking that question. This is why you’re the man. You ask good questions.

Pat:
Thank you, Darryll.

Darryll:
All right. Five steps. Here’s the roadmap: Acceptance, belief, discover, pursue, persist. Each one is important. Acceptance is all about letting go of the past. It’s the five stages of grief on steroids. How do you fast-track the five stages of grief? You read that chapter in my book. Okay? We talk about how to process your pain in your past, which is very important. I always say it this way: Unprocessed pain becomes ill-processed pain. We tend to not want to review our past or review our pain because we think that we have to relive it, not realizing that there’s gold that we can get from it. So I teach you how to do that in the acceptance phase. Number two is belief. You know this, it’s all about mindset. You cannot achieve what you do not believe.

How do you elevate your mindset to really, truly, authentically believe that your future is going to be better than your past? Number three is discovery. You have to figure out what it is. This is Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, this is Simon Sinek’s Why, this is anything around purpose. You’ve got to figure out what’s that highest purpose in life that’s going to be the why that drives everything you do. Accept, believe, discover. Number four, you have to persist. You have to go get it. Now we’re talking goal setting, discipline, morning routines, calendar management, delegation, all the success principles that help you to go after a thing. Now remember, before you get there, you got to do the early work. You can’t chase another high. If you got to process, you got to believe, you’ve got to discover, and now you go after it. And there’s a level… because it has to not just be good in theory, it has to be better in reality. In other words, I got to become a better speaker than I was an athlete.

All right? So, that’s how we pursue. And then the fifth one is persist. Okay? So we’ve got accept, believe, discover, pursue, and then persist. And this is all mental, healthy habits. Man, oh my gosh! I cannot wait ’til we as entrepreneurs really figure out that you do not have to sacrifice your mental health on the altar of success. That you can win at work and succeed at life. That’s what this is all about. How do you develop mental healthy habits so that you are okay as you pursue and persist towards your dreams?

Pat:
How do you balance that with this hustle culture that we’ve become accustomed to where we do feel like, that we have to work harder. And as an entrepreneur, I know that there is no end to the workday. I have to be very disciplined with that, but I could always do one extra hour. I could always sacrifice one extra hour of sleep or I could always just like, “Okay, kids go play with the iPad, I got this thing to create or thing to do.” How does one manage that reality?

Darryll:
You realize that your perception is skewed. In other words, you think that that extra hour is going to help you, not if you’re at 60 percent of energy. The point is energy management, which is a higher goal than time management. And that’s what the successful people have figured out. Is that, hey man, me punching in three extra hours on 60 percent energy and caffeine and a foggy head and attitude is not very productive than me blocking out my time, being completely focused, doing deep work, and like Cal would say, and really getting after it and doing things strategically. Work smarter, not harder, but work harder at working smarter.

Pat:
Yeah. That’s so true. I love what you said, energy management is more important than time management, because you could do nothing during that time and go nowhere. Of the five parts of the transformation, which one seems to be the most difficult for most people, at least for those who you work with?

Darryll:
It’s a tie. It is a tie between acceptance and discovery.

Pat:
Okay. Because I would imagine persistence and… Those things athletes are inherently good at. Managing their time and focusing and going all-in. But the two that you mentioned, why do you think those are such big struggles?

Darryll:
Acceptance, because we don’t want to go there. Dude, I don’t want to revisit that. I don’t want to think about how the pandemic took from me. I don’t want to think about what happened to me as a child. I don’t want to think about my failures. I don’t want to think about that stuff because I made the mistake of attaching my identity to my activity. I can not separate from what happened to me or what I did from who I am. And so I don’t want to go there because then I’ll start saying, “Man, I was a terrible person. Man, I was abused. I was this, I was that.” And I start to attach labels to my identity that is just not true. It’s an event. It’s not an identity. And so that one’s the hardest.

To get somebody to say, “Hey, let’s go on this journey through your past,” it’s extremely difficult to do because you have to convince them that it’s worth processing. And that they’re not just going to come out with more pain, but they’ll also come out with treasure. That’s the hardest thing. And you know what? I’m going to say that’s harder than purpose discovery.

Pat:
I’m sure it doesn’t happen overnight either, like it just clicks. It takes some time to process. What questions are you asking them to help them understand how to sort of extract who they were and that doesn’t determine who they’re going to become?

Darryll:
Yeah. So every situation is different. And it does take time, but when you’ve done it time and time again with people, you learn how to make it happen faster. I can’t promise that on the front end, but the number of times where we’ve done one or two sessions with somebody and they’ve got healthy conclusions about things that happened there in their past is like, more times than not. So I would say it’s no different than when you build a business, you have the blueprint. So can you promise in 60 days you’ll make 6K? Not necessarily, but it’s likely if you kind of know what you’re doing, right?

Pat:
Yeah.

Darryll:
It’s the same way with this emotional care. So you can do it rather fast. One of the things that I always encourage people to ask themselves is what conclusion am I making about what happened to me? What did this event make me think? We do not take inventory of our thoughts. It is one of the most unhealthy things ever in life. And we think that we’re avoiding it, but we’re not. Subconsciously, we make the wrong conclusions. So when I slow down enough and I go there and I ask myself that question, okay, when this happened, I felt like I was a failure. And then you ask yourself the question. Well, is that true? When you see it on paper and it’s out of your head, you’re like, “Heck no, that’s not true.” Watch this. I’m not a failure. I had a moment where I’ve learned, I had a moment where I made a mistake, but I actually can be successful. I actually am called to this. I actually do have what it takes. And we start to make better conclusions. That’s just one example.

Pat:
I once heard that with anything, you either get the result you want or the lesson you needed. And I think that that fits in perfectly. I think that was James Wedmore just to give credit. But this has been amazing, Darryll. And you are an amazing guest and speaker, obviously I’d love to know as we finish up here, your TEDx talks, how have they helped your career? How have they helped you spread your message and how might one consider doing one themselves?

Darryll:
Oh, great question again. I’m going to save people a lot of time. Okay. It’s not just the TEDx talk, just like it’s not just the podcast. There’s a strategy behind it. but the TEDx talk did help me go from being unseen and kind of like, “Who’s this guy?” to, “We know this guy.” And then it’s a power play. “Two time TEDx speaker, yay, bring him on the podcast, I’m sure he’s good.” Two time TEDx talk… And so it is a credibility. It has helped establish me. You guys got to know me, I’m trying not to tear up, sorry. The impact that I’ve been able to have because of the TEDx stage is crazy. My first TEDx talk experience was terrible. I don’t want to throw them under the bus, but I didn’t do my best and it was not my best talk, the material’s pretty good. And obviously we’re our own worst critic.

The first nine months, it only had 30,000 views. When the pandemic hit, because so many people were dealing with rejection, it jumped up over 300,000 views in three weeks. Everybody’s dealing with rejection. And I started to get messages at two o’clock in the morning from people all over the world. Pakistan, the UK, everywhere. And I’m like, “I don’t know how they saw it.” And they all said the same thing. “Thank you.” And I’m like, “All right, I’m doing more TEDx talks.” Because they get the marketing and they’re easy on the search engine. And so if you want to get a TEDx talk, here’s one of my biggest tips. It’s not about the story, it’s about the idea. TEDx is about ideas that spread.

I know a ton of people who are like, “I have this amazing story, this amazing practice, this amazing service. I’m going to do a TEDx.” And I said, “Okay, well, what’s the idea? What’s the idea we’re spreading?” “The amazing product, the amazing story.” And I’m like, “No, it’s not the story, it’s the idea.” So for me, it wasn’t my story of drug addiction and selling drugs and football, it was this idea that rejection is our friend and not our enemy. You see the difference? When you find your idea, you put yourself in position to be on the TEDx stage.

Pat:
Beautiful. And there’s obviously resources to go and figure out technically how to do that. And we’re not going to talk about that here today, but I think that more important than anything is this framework that you might need before you even go and pitch this idea.

Darryll:
Absolutely.

Pat:
And we’ll drop in the links to the TEDx talks in the show notes. Tell me about your book really quick. Who’s it for? Why should we all read it?

Darryll:
My book is for anyone who’s in a season of transition, whether you’re an athlete or a foreign military veteran, or you just went through a divorce. If you need to learn how to transition from one thing to the next in a powerful way with a proven roadmap, this is for you.

Pat:
And where can we go it?

Darryll:
You can go to my website, Darryllstinson.com, SecondChanceAthletes.com. It’s on Amazon. It’s everywhere where books are sold. So you guys can grab it there.

Pat:
Thank you. And what’s the name of it? We didn’t drop the name of it yet.

Darryll:
I dropped the name. See, you got so exited.

Pat:
I got you though.

Darryll:
It’s Who Am I After Sports?: An Athlete’s Roadmap to Discover New Purpose and Live Fulfilled. The foreword is by NBA analyst Chris Broussard, It’s got some endorsements from Jack Canfield, David Meltzer, some great people that say it’s great material. So go check it out.

Pat:
Darryll, this has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for coming back on the show. And it’s been great to have an actual conversation with you here and thank you for all that you’re doing. Thank you for your story. Thank you for your energy. And I cannot wait to hear more about you. And if there’s anything we can do to help you, please just don’t be a stranger, always feel free to reach out.

Darryll:
Awesome. Keep doing what you’re doing, man. Thanks for having me. And you guys, choose something. What are you going to do differently today as a result of what you heard? Make a decision. And that’s why we do this, to help people. So we want to see you move forward. And reach out to us. Let us know if something today impacted your life, we’d love to celebrate your success.

Pat:
Darryll, where can we reach out to you on social?

Darryll:
Oh man. @StinsonSpeaks.

Pat:
All right. Go find him. Let them know that you heard this episode. Let them know you loved it if you did. And tag me too, because I want to see it as well @PatFlynn, StinsonSpeaks. Thank you so much, Darryll, we appreciate you and keep up the great work.

Wow, you talk about life-changing, right? Not just for Darryll, not just for his Second Chance Athletes, but for all of us to hear this story and to hopefully realize that no matter who we are, we have the ability to step forward and help and serve others. And hopefully Darryll has given us a little bit of inspiration, motivation, and some very specific advice on exactly how we can do that. And to also get out of our own head sometimes and out of our own way in order to do this and serve others. And like I said in the beginning, it’s always from a place of service. And when you serve first, of course, your earnings are a byproduct of how well you serve others. That’s a Pat Flynn original quote right there.

But anyway, Darryll, thank you so, so much for coming on the show again for a second time. And with the heat, for sure. So Darryllstinson.com, SecondChanceAthletes.com, his book, Who Am I After Sports? And of course all the links are available on the show notes page. SmartPassiveIncome.com/session461. Thank you so much for listening in today, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss more episodes, motivational, inspirational, educational, informative. I’m here to help and serve you in all different kinds of ways because this land of entrepreneurship and business, it’s a tough one. Sometimes it feels like that Oregon Trail, right? I remember that video game back in fourth grade. It was tough. And sometimes you don’t make the right decisions, but kind of like a video game with business, you can start over and try again and learn from your mistakes. And I’m so grateful that we get to connect with other people to share their journey as well on this trail we call entrepreneurship.

Thank you so much for coming in, I appreciate you. Thank you for all the reviews and until next week, keep crushing it. Cheers, take care, and as always, Team Flynn for the win. Peace out.

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