How to Redefine Success and Reclaim Your Edge After the Arena

Welcome to the Running Routes Podcast

Hello and welcome. If you're an overachiever that feels like you're a little off, or maybe you're just losing your edge just a little bit, this is the podcast for you.

My name is Alan De Graffenreed, and this is the Running Routes Podcast with Alan D. Grafenreed. Today, what I'd like to do is briefly introduce myself and just tell a little bit about what we do.

We're going to discuss what it takes for high achievers that might feel like they're on the slide to change the roadmap, to follow the roadmap, to get where they want to be in life. And that's what this podcast is all about.

Before I get into this couples, I'm gonna tell a few stories today. Before I get into those stories, what I wanted to do is introduce myself briefly.

As I said, my name is Alan D. Grafenreed. I'm formerly a collegiate and professional football player. I played college ball at the Ohio State University, also known as wide receiver U.

I also played professional football in the NFL, CFL, as well as World League of American Football in Europe. So I bounced around and did that for about five years. And what I want to do real briefly is tell you three stories.

If these stories connect with you in any way because of your corporate relationships, because as an athlete, some things have happened, then this, like I said, is the podcast for you.

The Reality of Disrespect After the Game

The first story is years ago, I was a mortgage guy. My responsibility was going to a brokerage house, stockbroker house, and talk to stockbrokers about doing mortgages within the company in an effort to keep their clients with them and make them more sticky.

It was real basic, right? But anyway, one day I'm walking down the hall, guy calls me to his office. I step into his office and he says, "Hey, I heard somebody say that you used to play for the House State Buckeyes."

I said, "Yeah, I play for the House State Buckeyes. I played receiver for for them for Coach Cooper for his first five years." And the guy looks at me and says, "I've got a buddy that's a huge Buckeyes fan. I'll be sure and ask him about you. What's your name?"

And I said, "My name's Alan D Grafenreed." I spelled it out for him, went on about my day. So fast forward a couple weeks.

I'm walking down the hall. A guy calls me in his office again. I'm like, "Hey, how's it going? You want to do a mortgage?" He's like, "Yeah, you know, well, let's talk about that later."

He says, "Hey, I talked to my buddy, the one I said is a huge Buckeyes fan, and he tells me he's never heard of you." And I'm like, "Okay, I don't understand what that means."

He says, "Are you sure you played for the Buckeyes?" Now, of course, my first thought is I should reach across this desk and slap this man out of his chair. But I didn't do that.

What I did instead is I asked him a question. So because your buddy is a huge Buckeyes fan, does that mean that all those catches, all those blocks, all those plays that I made on the field, all those shots I took didn't really happen just because your buddy doesn't remember me?

Obviously the level of disrespect was extremely high. And if you're a former athlete and you get disrespected, or if you're a corporate executive and you get disrespected, how do you deal with that? If that's ever happened to you, this podcast is for you.

Confronting Sports Trauma and Vulnerability

The second story is just over a year ago, it was me and there was about 10 old Buckeyes, right? We've strange from early 90s all the way to the mid to the second national championship team with Coach Meyer, Urban Meyer.

So we're all sitting there, we're at this event, we're helping raise money for cancer, and we just struck, we're just chopping it up to have a conversation. And all the athletes were sharing their experiences collegiately as well as professionally.

Just talking through the day, talking about what had happened, kind of talked a little bit NIL, a little bit transfer portal. Most of us probably would have gotten on the transfer portal, which I thought was interesting.

But as the conversation went on, the youngest guy there, like I said, the one that won the second national championship, he started telling a story about a time where he had gone to his coach and said to his coach, "Hey coach, I'm not quite picking this up. Can I get some time with you one-on-one to learn more about whatever this is?"

Coach says, "Yeah, yeah, we'll get together." And I don't know that he said the coach brushed him off, but it seems as though that might be what happened.

So fast forward maybe a couple days and he hasn't heard back from the coach as far as let's get together. So what he does is he goes to the coach's office.

He walks in the coach's office, the coach is sitting there with his competition, the guy he's competing with for that same spot. And yes, they're of a different race.

So he's like, "Why on earth? With the coach, I went to him for help, not help me to help this other guy." And he talked about how extremely frustrated he was about it.

And then the thing that blew me away was he said, "My time at Ohio State calls me trauma." And when I heard the word trauma, as an old the oldest guy standing there, I was like, trauma.

My immediate thoughts were, is this kid soft? What's wrong with this kid? Our time in Ohio State was, of course, I jumped in Ohio State's defense.

The time in Ohio State was the greatest time ever, and it was this awesome and that awesome and that. And I went on down this road in my head of how this guy was wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

And then fortunately a part of me snapped and said, "No, wait a second. Wait now, Dgrap, hold up. This young man just told you he was vulnerable here and told you what his situation was in Ohio State, and you totally blew the kid off."

So, first off to him, if he's listening, I apologize. But I didn't say anything out loud. And then I started to think, what if what I went through was traumatic?

What if what I went through has caused me harm, or not harm, but it caused me to have challenges in my life. And I'd never thought about that.

So I spent like two weeks thinking about that. And one of the interesting things is that during that hangout, one guy said, "We should start a podcast." And I thought, that's a really good idea.

So one of the things we're gonna talk about here on this podcast is what do athletes really go through in college as well as the pros? What's really going on?

We're gonna get behind the scenes, talk to athletes about what happened with them, what they went through, and we're also gonna identify things that they could do, would do, or should do different in order to reach the goals they have when they get done playing their sport. That's the second story.

The Humility of the Career Transition

The third story is probably the most vulnerable story I'm gonna tell today because it's super embarrassing now. It was embarrassing then as well.

But it's been some years ago. I was going to my class reunion. Remind me to tell you the story of Freddie. But I was going to my class reunion, and I in high school was a star athlete. I won the award for the best athlete.

I wore the award for I think the most likable, best leg. So I won all these different awards. I was vice president of student council, I was in the choir, I did all these different things, president of the athletic club.

All these things that made everybody think this guy is great. I then went on, walked on and played football for the House State Buckeyes and became a starter when I didn't really play high school football. I was the kicker on the team.

I went on and played professional book football for the Bengals, hometown Bengals, when once again I didn't really even play high school football. So you're thinking that all the people in your class are looking at you as this huge, bigger than life guy.

In your mind you're thinking, okay, I've got to really impress these people when I go. Luckily, I have a very beautiful wife. She's very charming. So if anytime I take her anyway, I look much better, regardless, because I've got her with me.

But the thing that was going wrong in my life at that time was that I was working at Amazon as a tier one associate, making maybe $13, $14 an hour. So here I am, going to my class reunion, and under no circumstance, I tell my wife, should you bring up anything about work.

We don't anyone to ask me where I'm working and what I'm doing because if they ask me and they find out, they're all gonna destroy me. They're gonna make fun of me, they're gonna talk bad about me, gonna call me a loser, they're all gonna go say, "We really thought that Alan was gonna do some of his life, but he's a tier one associate at Amazon."

And so I had this big fear. So if you're an athlete that's ever or any kind of executive, anything like that, by the way, we're gonna talk a little bit more about my time at Amazon.

Going to my class reunion making 14 something dollars an hour. A year and a half later, I doubled my income. Year after here, year and a half after that, I doubled that income.

So we're gonna talk about how I did that as well. That's a big part of the show as well. How to get from here to there when you're here right now and you're trying to climb out of that rut.

That's a big part of what we talk about here. So if that's something you've been through or going through, looking like it might come down the line for you, once again, this is the podcast for you.

The way the podcast is going to work is on Tuesdays, I'm going to bring in a former collegiate or professional athlete, not just football. We're going to talk basketball. We're going to talk track. We're going to talk soccer, swimming, we're going to talk all the different sports.

I'll also bring in some coaches, whether they played professionally or collegiate or not. If they coach professionally or collegiate, they'll also be invited. And we're going to talk to them about what it was like to be an athlete.

Why were they great? We'll start off with why they were great, what it took to be great. Then we'll move in a little bit more into their biggest moments.

Then we'll transition into what was the transition like for them. How did they go from being a superstar athlete to moving over and becoming a regular person? So we're gonna do some of that.

The ROUTES Framework for Growth

I have a framework that's called ROUTES, running routes, as the podcast is. Me introducing the athletes, cracking jokes, making fun of each other, talking about big moments, making fun of teammates. And then from there, like I said, we'll move into the transition.

What was the transition like for you? What would you advise other athletes going through the transition to do? What are some things to look out for? What's some advice? What's a good story around those types of things? So that's what the Tuesday podcast will be all about.

Then on Friday, I'll come back and do another shorter podcast, much like this one we're doing here now. Well, I'll talk about ROUTES. R-O-U-T-E-S.

For anybody that knows football, we know a quarterback takes the snap of the ball and there's three to four receivers that will go out. So there's wide receivers, tight ends, there's running backs, fullbacks that will—they don't have fullbacks anymore, sorry.

Running backs that will go out and they'll run routes. And once you get all those routes out there, all those routes together form a pattern. In the same way that in our lives, a lot of times we're forming patterns in our lives.

Whether they're good or bad, they're still patterns. And as those patterns are going our way, everything's great. But sometimes those patterns start to be dysfunctional.

They start to not work for us. And we start to see our life and the way we're living our life start to condense or just no longer be the way we want it to be. So what we do is we need to start running the right routes. We need to redefine success and change our routes.

R - Relationships: Look at all the relationships in your life, not just the one with your significant other. You have to consider your children. You have to consider relationships with your siblings, your parents, as well as your coworkers. And then you of course have your friends, your neighbors. All those relationships, if some of them are going poorly, can affect your overall route.

O - Occupation: Do you have a job or do you have a career? What kind of work are you doing? Do you enjoy the work you're doing? Do you enjoy the people you work with? Have you plateaued off? Or are you actually just feel like you're on your way out every single day?

U - Upkeep: It's both physical as well as mental health. Do you know your numbers when it comes to your blood pressure? Comes your A1C? Do you know what's going on with your heart rate? Are you actually lifting weights? Are you working on your flexibility, your balance? All those things are important to make sure that you are physically healthy. On the mental health side, are you taking care of yourself mentally? Are you overstressed out?

T - Training: What are you putting into your mind? Are you reading books? Are you listening to uplifting podcasts? Are you watching documentaries? Or are you death scrolling, sitting on the toilet and watching crazy TV shows, reality TV type stuff, and playing video games? What things are you doing as far as training to make yourself better so you can rise up and go to the next level?

E - Enterprise: Are you doing anything to grow yourself? Maybe you have a side business that you're growing? Maybe you have an opportunity to do things in your community. What are you doing to uplift yourself as well as your community and your family to make sure that long term everyone in your family is taken care of?

S - Spirit: How is your spirit? For some people, that's going to talk about their faith. Are you reading your Bible? For other people, it's more about is your qi aligned? Is your energy positive? That type of a thing.

So we'll talk about all six of those. R O U T E S. So that's what we're going to be doing on this podcast. We're excited you're here. Go ahead, like I said, like and follow this podcast.

Final Words: The Man in the Arena

Before we go, there's a couple things I wanted to do. First is a call to action. I have created what I'm calling the Routes Index. It's 18 questions around R O U T E S to help you redefine success in your own life.

Figuring out where you stand in those areas. The goal of it is to identify where you maybe have holes. A lot of us look at our entire life and the patterns we're running and we're like, our overall life is not going well.

In reality, what's going on is if you look at those six areas, maybe one or two of them are off. And if we get those one or two fixed, then that's gonna give you the opportunity to start go back to living the life that you wanna live.

So first thing is there's a down below in the notes, click it, take it. It's like I said, it's only 18 questions. There's also a higher level one. It's actually 60 questions, but just start out, take the 18 questions, find out what your routes index is.

And before we go, I just want to remind all of you who you are by reading my favorite quote. This is the quote from Theodore Roosevelt, 1912. I actually got this from Coach Marty Schottenheimer with the Kansas City Chiefs.

He kept this in the hallway in the locker room between the training room and the equipment room, and I would read it at least once a week. I would read it on days when things weren't going well to remind myself of my greatness.

I'd read it on days when things were going really well. And I always read it. Mr. Lamar Hunt would almost every single week walk up to me and remind me how special I was, why I mattered, that I was doing great things to help his organization.

He would let me know, he would fill me up every week, letting me know that I was important, the work I was doing was valued, the work I was doing with the D Vs, making them better, was something he appreciated. So if he ever talked to me, I'd always go and read this quote.

"It is not the critic that counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does not actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasm, the great devotions; who spends himself in a working cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

So for all of you that have done great things in your past and are looking to do great things in your future, that is for you. Let's find a way to get you back where you belong.

I'm gonna read this quote at least once a month to make sure I remind us all who we are and what we can do. So as I said, hey, I'm happy that you're here.

Hit like, hit follow, go ahead and take the quick 18 question routes index to find out where you stand so we can start working with you to get you ready to go. I want you all to remember that legacy is not what you did. It's who you helped along the way.

Hey, I'm out. Look forward to seeing you next time. Have a great day.

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Ready to find out if your life patterns are leading you to the right destination? Take the [ROUTES Index Survey here] to identify the holes in your roadmap and get back to winning at what matters most. No excuses, just results.