Finding Purpose Beyond Football | Tra Battle | SuperHuman Mindset Podcast

 In this episode of the Superhuman Mindset podcast, host Felix Asare interviews Tra Battle, a former NFL player who overcame significant obstacles to achieve his dreams. Tra shares his journey from being told he was too small to play football to becoming a professional athlete. He discusses the importance of resilience, belief in oneself, and the superhuman mindset that propelled him forward. The conversation delves into themes of faith, the significance of hardship in personal growth, and the challenges of finding identity after retirement from sports. Tra's near-death experience serves as a pivotal moment in his life, leading him to rediscover his purpose beyond football. In this conversation, Tra Battle shares his insights on life after reaching the peak of success, emphasizing the importance of having an exit strategy and legacy. He discusses the transition from being an athlete to finding purpose in life, prioritizing family, and focusing on mental health. The dialogue explores how to impart wisdom to the next generation and the significance of personal growth beyond professional achievements 

Transcript

Felix Asare (00:01.026)
Welcome to the superhuman mindset podcast. My name is Felix Asari. And today I have the guy that's heard it all. I mean, I don't know how a guy as small as he is, was able to get into the NFL. Trey Battle, you have actually battled the act of, you know what? It doesn't matter my size. It doesn't matter where I'm coming from. It doesn't matter what you put in front of me. I will break through the obstacle.

And I'm excited to have you on this podcast today. Trey, welcome to the Superhuman Mindset podcast.

Tra Battle (00:34.636)
Thanks for the invitation, Felix. an honor to be here today.

Felix Asare (00:38.424)
Wow. I even got to clear my throat. My man. Seriously. How does somebody with your size? I mean, how much you weigh right now?

Tra Battle (00:55.276)
Ooh, right now I'm about probably 160.

Felix Asare (00:58.712)
Wow, but when you were playing professional football, how much were you wearing?

Tra Battle (01:03.746)
So when I first got to the NFL, I was probably about 170, 175. By the time I retired, I had probably gotten up to roughly 190.

Felix Asare (01:05.818)
Thank

Felix Asare (01:09.707)
one.

Felix Asare (01:14.69)
Wow. So when I when I think of football, right? Well, I mean, this is fake football. When I think of the real football is the real football, you know, what y'all call soccer, it's okay, we'll let that one go for now.

Tra Battle (01:26.894)
Listen, I get it Felix, my wife is Colombian, so I understand the difference between football and football.

Felix Asare (01:34.174)
He even had to say it with the accent. Okay, okay. Fine. But for the purposes of this conversation, we will stick with the American football. When I think of football, I think of the guys that are so huge running around, know, knocking people down. How did you not just play in college? Damn, when I look at your roster, San Diego Chargers, Dallas Cowboys, Detroit Lions, Cleveland Browns, like it just keeps

Tra Battle (01:37.066)
Exactly.

Felix Asare (02:02.446)
going going going going how'd you do this my man

Tra Battle (02:07.278)
Well, we have this saying and it goes a little something like, doesn't matter the size of the dog in the fight. It matters the size of the fight in the dog. And that was my mentality from Pop Warner all the way up to the NFL. I always was a little guy and sometimes it makes you a little bit more scrappy. But honestly, what really triggered it, what really

no initiated turn on that superhuman mindset is when in high school, the college scouts, the college recruiters rather, they all told me no, they all told me no. And I had an unwavering belief in myself. And so when they told me no, I made a decision with my mother and really internally that I'm not going to accept no as an answer. And so I made some

life-changing decisions, mean life altering decisions in that moment to Really change the trajectory of my life and to give you a little bit of perspective. Was I was recruited in high school and Some schools were showing some interest but when it came down to it all of them said No, I'm not giving you a scholarship and it's not like I came from, you know Some rich family and I knew that I needed

to provide some type of support, some type of help for my mom in order for me to pay to go to college. And that was for me came in the form of a scholarship. And now I wasn't a poor student and I graduated top of my class, but I wanted a full ride, full ride. And so it happened one day, my recruiting coach from the University of Georgia, they were the last school that I thought I was gonna get a scholarship from. He called me at, well, I actually called him because as a recruit, I got

Felix Asare (03:47.8)
Hmm. Hmm.

Tra Battle (04:02.488)
tickets to any game that I wanted to go to. And so that meant the guys in the high school, they thought I was the man. It was like, hey, Trey, can I get tickets to this game? Say less, let me call the plug, you know? And I called him and he said, Trey, I'm glad you called. And that's something that he didn't usually say because when I called, he knew I wanted something. And we all have those people that, you know, we put asterisks, we put emojis in their names. When they call, they want something. So I knew he knew that I wanted something. But when he said,

Felix Asare (04:22.52)
Yeah.

Tra Battle (04:31.906)
He's glad that I called. I knew something was up. And what he said was, Trey, we're not going to give you a scholarship because we're going to offer scholarships to players who are more attractive size wise. And so essentially that meant was I wasn't big enough. I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't strong enough to be deemed worthy to compete on a level such as the SEC.

Felix Asare (04:43.908)
Wow.

Felix Asare (04:54.07)
Hold on, hold on. This is the guy who is a plug. This is the guy that can make a phone call and get all his buddies into a game for free, which is a big deal. And then you call your guy, say, hey, give me tickets. And he says, what?

Tra Battle (05:04.76)
Correct.

Tra Battle (05:13.038)
He told me I can still get these tickets, but I wouldn't be getting them under the pretense that I was going to be a scholarship athlete. what he said. Yeah, I mean, it's the nature of the business. It's the nature of the business. out of all the high school athletes, I think it's something like maybe 10%. I don't know that statistic right off the top of my head, but it's somewhere between nine and 10 % actually go on to play collegially.

Felix Asare (05:21.71)
Talk about bad timing.

Tra Battle (05:41.942)
and only 1 % of all high school athletes go to play in the NFL. so statistically speaking, those conversations had to happen all the time. Some people get scholarships, some people don't. I was just one that did not get a scholarship, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. And so in that moment, I went to the game and I brought my friends with me, but it was just a different field. We actually sat in a different part of the stadium.

Felix Asare (05:53.434)
Mm.

Tra Battle (06:10.434)
than the rest of the recruits. And then I knew that, well, I had this feeling that they turned their back on

Felix Asare (06:18.296)
Mmm. Mmm.

Tra Battle (06:19.704)
But what he said was, even though we can't give you a scholarship, you can still apply to school and you can come in as a walk-on. He said a preferred walk-on, meaning that they knew that I wanted to play football. I didn't just walk off the streets. And so I made a decision after that game, I went to my mom and I was supposed to go on a senior trip with my class. And I said, mom, I wasn't going. I thought she was going to knock me out.

Felix Asare (06:28.794)
Okay, preferred welcome.

Tra Battle (06:47.426)
because she had already put down the deposit. And like I said, we didn't come from, you know, this wonderfully rich family. And so she was like, what are you talking about? I said, well, mom, you and I are the only two people in this world right now who believe that I can actually play football and I have to show the world that I can do this. So I'm not going to go on my senior trip. I am going to, as soon as I graduate, I'm going to go to the University of Georgia early. I'm going to learn the playbook.

I'm going to see the facilities. I'm going to start working out. I'm going to start meeting the coaches. I'm going to start building this rapport so that they know that I mean business." And she said, okay. And I graduated high school. Two weeks later, I was in Athens, Georgia. It was a former teammate of mine in high school who was already there. And he showed me the ropes. He showed me around the building. He gives me a playbook. He shows me how to watch film. He shows me the training where he's showing me all these things that I intended for him to show me.

But here's the thing, this is where it gets really diving into rather this superhuman mindset. Because I'm doing all these things, knowing my goal, knowing my ambition. But school was an incession. This was the middle of May. And if school isn't in session, then I have nowhere to stay. I don't have a dorm. And so I made this decision to go there and learn all these things and become a collegiate athlete.

Felix Asare (07:54.062)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Tra Battle (08:14.904)
but I was homeless, but I knew what it was going to take. And so I bombed on couches, I slept in my car some nights, but that's what it meant. If that's what it meant for me to make this team and to earn a scholarship later, that's what I was going to do. And that's what I did. So when I started in May, at this time, the rest of the guys who were big enough, fast enough, strong enough, the scholarship athletes,

They came right at the end of July, beginning of August. And I had already had a two and a half month head start on them. And so when practices started, when training started, when all these team activities started, I was already above the guys who they said were better than me.

Felix Asare (08:57.922)
Wait, so you made a decision to leave the comfort of your home and go to a school to be homeless. So you decided to be homeless for your dream. Pro, what was this? Why was that dream one that meant so much to you?

Tra Battle (09:17.582)
Because people told me that I couldn't. When I hear those words, you can't, and I truly believe it. And it's not something that I'm, it's just like hubris or I'm trying to be rebellious or anything like that. I truly believe that I was good enough, but I was told that I wasn't. And then I had to prove people wrong.

Felix Asare (09:42.436)
So what I'm hearing you say right now is there are some times that we can believe that there's something that's greater in us and the world can't see. And everything around us might be showing that it is not going to work. Wow.

Tra Battle (09:58.478)
correct. And I think that's the premise of the human superhuman mindset. How do I get what's internally intrinsic to me, what I believe wholeheartedly? How do I transfer that to my body, to my habits, to just telling my body no, even when it says no, like telling my body you can give more. How do I transfer it from my mind

to my body and how does that translate to real world success? And that's the essence of the superhuman mindset.

Felix Asare (10:34.866)
Absolutely. I live by this. What you see sometimes what God has put in you is not for everybody. It's just for you. I share the story a lot. There was a guy in the Bible called Samuel not to get all biblical and spiritual about this, but this guy, you know, he was with the prophet man, big man of God, Eli. He knew everything at that time. God would not come out and come talk to nobody. He would talk to the

priest and then the priest will send a message over to his people. But then the kid went to bed and then he had a dream. And then he heard these voices. He had this sound. He's like, am I hearing? Then he came back, asked the man said, bruh, I heard this. What's up? Were you calling me? He's like, nah, first time, second time. Finally, he says, you know, go when you hear that voice again, say that father speak your voice, your servant is hearing. And that right there is a testament to kind of what you are talking about right now.

There are things that are deeply in us and places that we will be that nobody else can see. So you were the only one that could see yourself playing in the NFL, playing in college, getting this amazing scholarship. It was very clear to you, but not to anybody else. And I wonder how you were able to convince your mom to let you go that early, bruh.

Tra Battle (11:57.934)
Yeah, so I'm glad you took it to that point because when God gives you a vision, and the Bible is clear about it, He knows the plans. He knows the beginning and the end. That's why they call them Alpha Omega. And so when God speaks to us sometimes, He will give us the vision. But what we can't fathom is the plan. So even though we have the end goal,

the work that is going to take for us to get there in our humanness, in our flesh, we can't even fathom the amount of perseverance, the amount of sacrifice. He doesn't put that responsibility, the weight of that responsibility on us. And so when he gives us the vision, it's our plan, it's our goal rather to be obedient to his plan. We can't create the plan. If we created the plan and did it on our own, then it would have been in our strength.

But when he gives us this vision, we have to just be obedient to where he's leading us, take advantage of the doors that he's opening and stay away from the doors that he's closing. And if we proceed in that fashion, that's when you will see a dream or a vision revealed or a vision fulfilled rather. And so you asked the question, how could my mom do it? Because it was ordained. She, even if she said no,

because I had already received that vision, it was going to happen as long as I was obedient. Because my work, my journey, my path is mine in which he's given me. And no other person, even my mom, can stop a plan that God has in progress.

Felix Asare (13:43.822)
boy, I need to take a breather after that. So if I'm going through something and I'm feeling that I am stuck and I'm hearing all of these voices, what I'm hearing you say is even the people that are there to protect me, the people that are like my loved ones that try to protect me and shield me because your mom could have easily said, son, stay at home. Wait till school starts and then go. She could have protected you.

Your dream, your passion, your drive, that focus was so high that nothing could stop you.

Tra Battle (14:19.95)
Absolutely. Absolutely. So there are two things I want to respond to that. The first piece is addressing all parents. Parents, in all of your goodwill, in all of your protection,

You cannot.

Keep your child from experiencing the hardship. Because we hear in the word, patience increases perseverance. Perseverance increases faith and faith, I'm paraphrasing, but it takes that perseverance to actually be grown to where he's trying to lead us. And so if we keep our children as parents, if we keep our children from the hardships,

Felix Asare (15:09.784)
Yep.

Tra Battle (15:11.458)
from the things that grow perseverance. We will grow children, or we will raise children who have a minuscule threshold for resilience. And if we grow children that aren't resilient, we are not only doing them a disservice, we are doing the world a disservice because that pressure that's building and growing them, the fruit of that is what they will need in their adult lives to make the world a better place. That's the first piece.

as first piece to the parents. The second piece is you said that there are times when we are in dire situations and we can't see a way out of it. Those those experiences are natural. But what I've learned through those experiences through a former mentor of mine is it's trade when you're going through the toughest of times, you have to stop asking the question why.

and start asking the question, what? So why puts the focus on you? Why am I going through this? Why is this happening? And you're trying to unravel the plan. But if you ask the question, what? Say, Lord, what are you teaching me through this? What are you doing to lead me? Or what is it that you're showing me in this? You put the perspective back on him. So it comes from, it goes from me centered to God centered. Why is me centered?

What is God centered? And when you start asking the question, what, that's when he will reveal his plan. Why is in your plan? What is in his plan? So whenever you're going through something, begin to ask the question, what, what are you showing me? What is being revealed? What should I be learning? But what, what, what? And that's when the true growth happens.

Felix Asare (17:01.188)
So this is powerful. Shift the focus from yourself to him, to the power that's greater than you because you are just human. You're just mortal. Now, what if, man, I'm in college. I'm in high school. I don't know what this whole what, why, leave it to a greater being. It's what my parents practiced. How did that having that belief and faith in God shape

your trajectory up to who you are today, even at that time.

Tra Battle (17:35.63)
So let me make sure I understand the question.

Felix Asare (17:38.466)
If I'm a guy that's in college and I'm hearing you share all of this and I'm over there going, it's all the belief thing that you guys have been talking about. I do the art of manifestation and it will be fine. How did having a relationship with God during that time or did you have a relationship with God during that time? If you did, how did that shape your trajectory to become who you are?

Tra Battle (18:03.586)
Yeah, that's a very good question. So I've already given an example of shifting from why to what.

But once you get to that point, there's a transition. So in the beginning, you don't ask like in the beginning, like I was saying, shifting from why is this happening to me to what are you teaching me? Once you get to that space, you can then flip that question. You can then flip that question. Once you take the focus off of you and onto God, He then allows you to flip that question.

Felix Asare (18:17.078)
Mm. Transition.

Felix Asare (18:33.154)
Okay.

Tra Battle (18:41.826)
Because once you ask what, he then assigns you your why.

So here's what's key. Here's what's key. You ask him what, he assigns your why. Your why is always going to be greater than your what. That means whether you're a college student, whether you're a high school student, whether you're a working professional early in your career or late in your career. Why you're doing something outweighs what you're doing. You see that shift in perspective?

Here's why I say that. I was a football player.

I was, I wanted to prove to the world that I was enough. That's the, that's what I was fighting to, to, guess, push out to, to let everyone see I am enough to be a football player. Even though you don't believe in me, I believe in me. That was so pervasive that I lost focus. lost sight of my why because of what I was doing. What I was doing was playing football. Why I was doing it.

And what was shielded from me was I'm an encourager. I'm a great teammate. I'm great at being held accountable. I'm great at holding other people accountable. I'm an awesome cheerleader. So I work well in teams. That's who I am at my core. So if I'm doing things that fulfill me at my core, that fulfill my why, that fulfill my purpose, it doesn't matter what my hands are doing.

Felix Asare (20:12.345)
Yep.

Tra Battle (20:23.15)
It doesn't matter if I'm encouraged on the football field or off the football field. It doesn't matter if I'm a great teammate on the football field or in a corporate boardroom. So when you, when you at the beginning start asking, why am I here to what are you showing me? Once he reveals that to you, the what becomes your why and your why drives what you do.

Felix Asare (20:46.01)
Okay, so fast forward. This guy gets to go play NFL. He goes to play in the NFL, man. He is the guy. He's played for all of the top teams that you can think of.

And then you get to a place where that's no more. You get to a place where you talk about near-death experience. What was that like for you?

Tra Battle (21:14.424)
Yeah, so when that transition happened from, well, back up, from an 18 year old in high school up until the time I retired, I believe I was what, 27, 28 years old, so we're talking about a decade of my life. My goal was to prove to the world that I was a football player. A question that we frequently neglect to ask ourselves is now what?

I was focusing on the what? What's that?

Felix Asare (21:44.634)
Okay, you are going too fast. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold on, you're going too fast. So when I start, I go with the why. When I start with the why, why, No, no, don't do the why. Stop with the why questions. Why me, Lord? Why am I in this pain? Why am I in this position? Why am I not getting a job? Why am I not being in this perfect relationship? Stop with the why. Go to the what are you trying to show me? Once he shows you the what, once you start to ask the what,

It gets you back that what becomes your why. And then from there, how do you transition again?

Tra Battle (22:21.134)
Here we go.

Felix Asare (22:22.36)
Okay.

Tra Battle (22:23.928)
So once you have your why.

Felix Asare (22:25.689)
Mm-hmm.

Tra Battle (22:27.51)
You have, you can assign purpose to whatever you're doing. I didn't learn this. I didn't learn this until I retired. I didn't learn this until I retired and it was a, it was life altering, but it almost was life taking. So I, I was focused on my what for so long. What am I? I'm a football player. I'm this, this, this, this, this, and it was, it was wrong because

Felix Asare (22:30.681)
Okay.

Felix Asare (22:35.609)
Wow.

Tra Battle (22:57.418)
He hadn't, I hadn't, I hadn't fully understood my why and my why was all these things. You know, I'm an encourager. I'm a great teammate. So what it took for me to come to that revelation is this. I retired from the NFL and it was a season in the NFL or time rather in NFL where concussion studies became highly relevant. And it became relevant because people were former athletes were taking their lives.

Felix Asare (23:17.498)
Hmm.

Tra Battle (23:24.608)
And a few of these guys that took their lives were close friends of mine. One was my roommate, another, so Paul Oliver, he was my college roommate. And we played on the same team, the Chargers, when we came out. He took his life. Junior Sayow from San Diego, well, Northern San Diego, Oceanside area, had a foundation and he did a lot of work in San Diego where I played and I partnered with him to do a lot of work in the community.

Those two players took their lives.

Felix Asare (23:55.215)
well

Tra Battle (23:56.77)
And when this happened, because I was focused on the what so heavily,

Felix Asare (24:00.474)
Mm-hmm.

Tra Battle (24:02.186)
I posed myself this question. Well, I came to this rationalization. If the best of us couldn't do it, what makes me think that I can? And because I hadn't asked the question, now what? Because he hadn't really fully revealed to me my why, my core, purpose. I made the decision that since I couldn't see anything past me being a football player, since my why hadn't been revealed,

I was going to take my life as well because I didn't know what else to do with it. And so I found myself on a bridge.

Tra Battle (24:40.76)
find myself on a bridge, making a decision that I was gonna end my life. And thank God, he spoke to me in that moment and he told me to call Coach Rick, who was my, or who was rather my collegiate football coach. He was the head coach when I was at the University of Georgia. And I just started crying when he picked up the phone. I really couldn't get any words out besides, coach, I'm scared. And he said, come to me. Just, I don't care where you are.

get to me. So I come to his house and I fall into his arms and we're just, it's not a pretty sight. It's just two grown men crying. And he starts speaking life into me. He starts revealing that, Trey, you were more than a football player. He started reminding me of what he calls the, it was character development. When we were there, he made all the team go through these character development series.

Felix Asare (25:19.215)
Yep.

Tra Battle (25:38.848)
And he starts reminding me of all the things it meant, where he was teaching us what to be a man, how to be accountable to others, how to be respectful, how to be responsible, right? And he starts pouring on me the love of Christ. And when he poured on me the love of Christ, he began to pour on me the identity of Christ that was in me. And that's when my why was revealed. And through some therapy, I had to go through some therapy. He forced me, I didn't even choose it, he forced me.

Felix Asare (26:00.11)
Mm-hmm.

No view.

Tra Battle (26:08.198)
to go through counseling. But in that counseling, that's when the Lord started to peel back those layers of what I was doing, like your hands, you have to be this, you have to do that, to why he gifted me with those abilities, why he put me in those locker rooms. Because you are a guy who I made to be a teammate, who I made to be a cheerleader, who I made to be an encourager, who I made to be...

someone who can hold others accountable, also receive great accountability. So you pulled out the leadership and others around you. That's how we get back to that transition. When he finally revealed to me why he allowed me to be in those positions, he revealed my why to me.

Felix Asare (26:50.628)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Felix Asare (26:55.578)
So this is a guy that decided to go sleep on the couches, sleep in his car, be homeless to become a football player. You finally get to the NFL, you get drafted into the NFL. And then what? Five, six, how many years did you end up playing in the NFL? Six years later, six years later, that has to end.

Tra Battle (27:16.792)
Six years later, six years later.

Felix Asare (27:25.538)
And now your identity as a football player goes away. Can you tell us why you decided to retire?

Tra Battle (27:35.564)
I was old. I was old. seriously, seriously. My rookie year, I call him my big brother. was a, believe he was a seven year veteran at this point. Player by the name of Marlon McCree. I love him. I love him. love him. We were in the hot tub getting ready to go out and practice. And he was, you know, pouring water over his knees. And he looked at me. He said, little bro. He said, what's up big bro? He said, man, when it gets to the point that you're playing this game just to get paid.

Felix Asare (27:46.349)
Mm-mm.

Tra Battle (28:05.57)
just for the paycheck, he said, that's when it's time to go. Because only two things happen in that moment. One, either you get hurt and your career is ended on terms that you haven't dictated. Or two, they tell you that you're done, which is still ending your career on terms you haven't dictated. So when it gets to the point where you're not playing for the love of the game, when you're just playing for money, let it go.

Felix Asare (28:27.418)
Hmm.

Tra Battle (28:34.262)
And it was getting to that point. It was truly getting to that point. And you said something else that I want to bring up. want to bring up. it was you said, I've reached this milestone. I've gotten to the NFL.

Tra Battle (28:53.568)
It took all of that, even though I've reached this high achievement, it took me coming off of that to finally figure out my why. And here's the reason. If you look at any mountain peak, any mountain top across the world, the highest ones, we thinking Mount Everest.

Felix Asare (29:09.23)
Mm. Mm.

Felix Asare (29:15.119)
Yeah.

Tra Battle (29:17.406)
What life is at the top of Mount Everest? What life is at the peak of Mount Everest? The air is so thin, the weather so frigid, it's an inhabitable environment.

The same is true in life. When we start, we strive, strive, strive, strive to get to that mountaintop. But the question that I neglected to ask myself and the question that I brought up before is the now what? Once you get to that mountaintop, what's next? Did you have a plan to descend? Did you have a plan to share that knowledge with those around you? What was your plan to come off the mountaintop, off the peak?

Because life is not, life is inhabitable at the peak. And so that's where I was at that moment when I sat on the bridge. I had some at the top, I had some at the top. Now I had to ask myself the question, now what? How am I gonna come back down and share all of this knowledge, share all of this wisdom?

Felix Asare (30:10.394)
So what I'm hearing you talking about is...

Felix Asare (30:22.18)
What if you never want to come back down? Because I'm hearing you talk about the exit strategy. I mean, we have that in trade-in. We have that in so many. You walk into a room, security, you look out for your exit. We have that in life. Got it. But then flip side is I also see LeBron James. He's been playing for a long time. Why is it important for me to start thinking about it, especially when I can see LeBron doing it and his kids are playing with him too?

Tra Battle (30:52.568)
That's the point. The word that you're describing or what you're describing there, I put it in this word, legacy.

LeBron has summoned at the top. He's arguably, he's in the argument of being the goat. Like wherever you fall in that argument, you fall in that argument. Wherever you fall, you fall.

Felix Asare (31:09.456)
Come on man, he is not an agrurible, but okay, okay, we'll let that slide, but sure.

Tra Battle (31:15.48)
But it's been debated, him being the best, right? We can agree on that. But he's at a point now to where everything that he's achieved, he's now imparting into his son.

Felix Asare (31:18.752)
Okay. Sure.

Felix Asare (31:23.801)
Mm-hmm.

Felix Asare (31:29.123)
Mm.

Tra Battle (31:30.904)
This is the next step of the superhuman mindset.

Felix Asare (31:35.066)
Mm.

Tra Battle (31:37.206)
You live life to some of this peak, but what you've done is the limit of what you can do.

The limit of what you can do can be increased in your legacy. Meaning, if you bring someone along you on this journey and you've gotten as high as you can go, with your experience, you impart to someone else, what higher mountain can they now reach based off of your experience, your teachings, your wisdom that you've imparted to them? How can they take what you have and grow on that? That's the advancement.

That's the real superhuman mindset. Parents, again, I'll address you. Is it not the goal of every parent to have their children be more successful than they ever were? And how can that happen if we don't impart what we learned over life to our children? Like they don't have to start from the same place that we've started. How can we be launching pads for them to go further than we ever were? That's your exit strategy. Because whatever you built, whatever you grew,

whatever monument you reach, right? Whatever your mountain top was, that can be the launching pad or just the starting point for someone else to go even higher. That's the advancement. That's how the superhuman mindset becomes the superhuman culture.

Felix Asare (33:02.429)
Culture. So I guess what I am really getting from our conversation today is most of the time we spend our time on the let's figure out a plan. Let's figure out where we want to get to. Even as parents, we push our kids. We want them to get here. We want them to get here. But we never sit down to plan out the exit strategy.

because the exit strategy is what becomes your legacy.

Tra Battle (33:33.708)
It may be syntax, but I want to play on those words.

Felix Asare (33:36.708)
Tell me.

Tra Battle (33:38.616)
The word that we're using is plan.

I would argue that busy people have plans. You can have a checklist of all the things that you want to get done in a day and you can go through those things and check, check, check, check, check, check, check and work from sun up to sun down if you so choose and just make your life completely busy. Instead of being a busy person who plans, I would choose to be

a productive person who prioritizes. Here's the difference.

Felix Asare (34:13.306)
Mmm.

Tra Battle (34:16.406)
I went to the University of Georgia and there was a time when, well, my son, a couple of weeks ago, the week that we were playing Alabama, my son had a football game. For some reason, I don't know who thought about this, but they planned, they scheduled rather his football game at the same time of the Georgia Alabama game. Now,

Felix Asare (34:28.506)
Hmm.

Felix Asare (34:40.12)
Mm.

Tra Battle (34:42.004)
I could have made myself busy and gone to Tuscaloosa and spent time over there and shaking hands, kissing babies, all of these things, making myself busy, like packing up my schedule to do that. Because I could have planned that. However, I understand the importance of legacy. So I prioritize the time that I spend with my children. And that's how I become more productive. instead of in lieu of

Going and doing those things as a Georgia fan, I stayed home, spent time with my child as a father to be more productive, prioritizing him and his wellbeing over any goal, any plan that I could have set. So we can get to the point that we become so busy in planning every minute, every second of our lives, or we can choose to spend our time doing the things that only we can do.

Felix Asare (35:33.38)
Yeah.

Tra Battle (35:39.694)
prioritizing the things that are most important in our lives so that our lives then become more productive.

Felix Asare (35:52.004)
How many collegiate athletes do you know that ever go through something like this?

Tra Battle (36:00.16)
more than you imagine. More than you imagine. If you were to just go on LinkedIn or Instagram and follow former athletes, ones who weren't, you the Tom Brady's of-

Felix Asare (36:08.548)
Mm-hmm.

Tra Battle (36:19.214)
There's a reason why they call it NFL. They have this funny saying, it's called NFL stands for not for long. Meaning the average career is three and a half years. You take a kid who is 22, 23 years old and they play, let's say they play three and a half years, which is the minimum for retirement. If we look at it from a game perspective, they're still in the first quarter.

Felix Asare (36:26.298)
Bye.

Felix Asare (36:42.458)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Tra Battle (36:48.204)
games aren't won or lost just in the first quarter. You have three other quarters to play in. Sometimes you have overtime.

Tra Battle (36:58.574)
So to answer your question, the athletes that are in post-retirement and haven't figured out what to do with those other three quarters of their lives, they're thinking through the same things in which I just thought. How did I go from an NFL athlete to working at Home Depot? How did I go from an NFL athlete to working a nine to five? How did I go from an NFL athlete to being unemployed?

It's It's real for athletes and it's real for those people or individuals who achieve great heights in the professional world. So how do I grow a company, go public, and then have a board vote me out? Now what? If everything that was about you was fully, or just like you were just so ingrained with making your business work.

and did nothing else outside of that. You were just doing the what and you didn't have a why. When you're asked to leave, you're in a mentally unhealthy space. So no matter where you are, like as you're planning and you have this goal to reach this summit, if you're not prioritizing people along the way, when that time come that you reach that peak and it's time to descend or just

go to another mountain, that journey can be extremely difficult if you haven't prioritized what it looks like to come down.

Felix Asare (38:38.85)
I still gotta ask this though. How does an NFL athlete gets to work or goes to work at Chick-fil-A? Seriously.

Tra Battle (38:48.844)
Yeah, so when I retired and I went through that entire ordeal, even going through therapy, I found out my core, who I was at my core. I was an encourager, all of those things that I've already talked about. And I was still in this space of, well, I have to do great things. Like the what, the what mattered so much to me.

And what happened was when I retired, thought, all right, I'm going to take all these things that make up who I am and I'm going to go into a career field that's equally prestigious as an athlete. And so I was going to, I was going to be a doctor. So for the next eight years of my life, I went to work at a hospital in the operating room as an anesthesia tech. And I went to school during the day and I worked that night. It was a two to 10 30 shift.

I really went to school from like eight to one, worked from two to 1030.

Felix Asare (39:46.458)
Wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. You moved too fast. for, come on, man, for one second, just a few months ago, you were over here in the stadium with the crowd roaring, especially when you came out. Yay. Next moment, you were at tech doing anesthesia. What was that like? I still can't fathom it.

Tra Battle (40:11.758)
Man, the hospital, working in the OR, I would say it's pretty similar to working in an emergency room. You have the normal routine things, but there are times when the, man, the alertness is heightened and it's like, we have to save a life. We have to save a life. And there are a few things that have equaled me running onto a field, then,

Felix Asare (40:25.166)
Bye.

Felix Asare (40:32.698)
Mm.

Tra Battle (40:41.262)
trying to save someone's life in the operating room. It is just that goose bumps, fully locked in, it's like teamwork, because everyone's working together to save this individual's life. That's the closest thing that I found that mirrored, me playing professional sports. But that's how it happened. That's how it happened. I wanted to do something that was equally prestigious, like I said. And so I thought,

I was going to be a doctor. And what happened was how I ended up working in the OR was because I was in Athens. And I remember reading the article in the school newspaper that said for the first time in UGA history, that average entrance GPA for UGA freshmen is 4.0. And I thought, good Lord, that's not me. I have to compete against these weird kids.

Felix Asare (41:15.343)
Mm-hmm.

Tra Battle (41:39.246)
I knew I had to, I knew strategy, I knew how to strategize. So the strategy was get working experience, which they weren't gonna have as students. And so I worked in the OR and I went to school and I did all of these things. And about eight years into it, when I finished all of my prerequisites, because I had been in a school at that point in about 10 years, like those, it's really those freshmen sciences, those freshmen math courses.

Felix Asare (41:44.26)
Yeah.

Felix Asare (42:08.523)
Mm-hmm.

Tra Battle (42:09.43)
And so I started, I started school like 10 years prior to me going back to school.

Felix Asare (42:16.595)
So was there a time where you were walking around and then you were like, I don't want anybody to see me working here. They see me on the field. It's, know, top dog. Was there any moment like that?

Tra Battle (42:27.328)
No, not at all. Not at all because walking in with scrubs on, it gave you that same level of pride. That's what it was. It was pride.

Felix Asare (42:39.612)
Mm, mm, mm.

Tra Battle (42:43.264)
In order for me to live, Felix, I had to come to the realization that for Trey to live, Trey's pride has to die.

Felix Asare (42:52.13)
oof

Tra Battle (42:54.528)
And that's really the only reason that I'm here now. I had to make the conscientious decision to allow my pride to die so that I could live. And that's really how I ended up at Chick-fil-A because I was so proud of achieving this goal of becoming a doctor that over an eight year span, I was barely at home. I barely saw my wife. I wasn't the spiritual leader in my home. I wasn't even the leader in my home because when

I wasn't home, they were sleeping. When I was home, they weren't here, right? And so I was a complete stranger to my family. I was a complete stranger in my home. And I got to the matriculation process. I had applied to roughly like 17 medical schools and we were going through the interview process. And at this time it was the summer and the kids were getting, getting ready to go back to school. And I just told my wife, hey, you stay home. I'm going to take the kids' school shots.

Felix Asare (43:28.548)
Mm-mm.

Tra Battle (43:52.374)
I'm gonna get them ready for school.

Felix Asare (43:54.835)
How did that go?

Tra Battle (43:57.656)
This is exactly how it went. I went out, got them their stuff, and they're like, I'm hungry. Where do you want to eat? Chick-fil-A? All right, we'll go eat at Chick-fil-A. I get in Chick-fil-A, and if you've ever been in a Chick-fil-A, you know, the play area is, you know, this glass wall, and all the tables are outside, and I'm sitting at a table adjacent to the glass walls, and my children are in there playing, and I realize that it's almost been a decade since I've actually seen a smile on my children's faces.

Felix Asare (43:59.289)
Mm-hmm.

Tra Battle (44:27.82)
and them playing. It has been nearly a decade since I spent inequality time with my children.

And that's the moment that my pride died because I said in this moment, in that moment, I stopped making goals and I started making priorities. I said, I'm going to prioritize my family. And what that translated to was me pulling up my phone and I sat there at that table at Chick-fil-A thinking through the emotions that I was feeling in that moment and saying, this is what I want to give to other families. I want to give this emotion to as many families as possible.

Felix Asare (44:39.374)
Hmm. Hmm.

Felix Asare (44:45.719)
All right.

Tra Battle (45:05.274)
And since I'm feeling this emotion in Chick-fil-A, I'm going to run Chick-fil-A's and make sure that I create an environment that families feel this as whomever comes into my store. Told the med schools, redraw my applications, no longer, no longer want to be a doctor. And I started making biscuits at Chick-fil-A, started from the kitchen. I said, if I, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to know it. I'm going to know the ins and outs about it. So I started.

5 a.m., well actually it was 4.30 a.m. Chick-fil-A on the biscuit table, learning how to run that business about a month and a half after I made that decision.

Felix Asare (45:46.372)
So I have kids. I got a seven year old and a five year old. If my son who's five says Felix, daddy, I want to play football someday.

What would you tell him?

Tra Battle (46:05.186)
Let him play. Let him play.

Felix Asare (46:07.902)
knowing all the things that comes with that.

Tra Battle (46:12.34)
It just like the, just like your children's coach is going to train them for football. It's your job as a father to train them for life. So there are skills, there are things that they're going to learn from being on a team, from being in strenuous situations. Remember I say, don't protect your child. Don't, don't neglect to give your child the, the ability or the right to, you know, the chance to go through these adverse moments.

And they have to experience those things because once they get to adulthood and they experience something, a hardship for the first time, they don't have the resilience to overcome it. So if they want to play football, let them play, let them learn all the things that comes with being a good teammate that comes with being accountable, that comes with hard work and seeing the fruit of hard work. Let them learn all those things. But off the football field, let them know that it's a saying out there, ball is life.

Ball ain't life, Felix. There's so much life outside of ball. Life is life. So let them learn about ball and you teach them about life.

Felix Asare (47:22.67)
Wow. What would you tell the guy, girl who's trying to get on the WNBA team or the NFL? He's trying to get into the NFL and they're over there doubting themselves. What would you tell them?

Tra Battle (47:39.116)
If you don't believe in you, how can you expect someone else to believe in you?

Never doubt yourself. Never doubt yourself. Because if you don't believe in yourself enough to get to where you're going, there's no way you're going to convince anyone else. No way. So first believe in you before you try to make anyone else believe in you. So never doubt yourself.

Felix Asare (48:04.429)
What would you tell them to have a plan B?

Tra Battle (48:10.69)
I wouldn't say have a plan B. I don't think it is a plan B. I think it's all a part of plan A. And I think it's part of the journey. It's part of the process. Coach Don Staley said this. So many athletes these days have D1 aspirations with backyard work ethic.

And that's so true. Just because you put a couple of clips online on your huddle account or you going crazy on Instagram with some with a few clips. That's just a snapshot. Life isn't defined by the snapshots. Life is defined by the journey, everything it took to get there, everything that it took to get there. So don't don't think of life after sports as a plan B.

Felix Asare (48:53.112)
Yes,

Tra Battle (49:04.088)
Think of life at the sports as a continuation of your plan. Hey, yeah, I'm going to play sports. Yeah, I'm going to perform as an athlete, but know that you're so much more than any play, that you're so much more than any sport, then you're so much more than the label of athlete. Because at some point the game stops. No matter how good LeBron is, he's going to retire someday. Who, how?

How can you answer the question of who you are once you're no longer able to be defined as athlete or once you're now characterized as a former athlete? That's what's gonna make the difference.

Felix Asare (49:50.714)
Trey, Trey, Trey, Trey, Trey. Tell me what you working on now. How does Battle Solutions help people?

Tra Battle (50:02.296)
Yeah, in several different ways. I'm always a champion for achievement. I love it. So dream big and run hard, right? Achieve anything that you set your mind to achieve. But all of those things, all of those characteristics, all of those, that skill set that allows you to achieve success.

make sure you apply that same level of grit and determination to work on your mental health. And so what Battle Solutions does is it promotes the professional development, but it does it through the lens of mental health. And more specifically, I want to make sure that we lead successful lives, but never let successful lives come at the detriment of your health.

both physically and mentally.

Felix Asare (51:02.244)
So how do people get in touch with you?

Tra Battle (51:05.014)
Man, you can go to my website, Battlesolution.com. You can follow me on Facebook and Instagram. I think Facebook and Instagram is at Battle Solution. You can get me on LinkedIn at Trey Battle. So just follow, see all the stuff I put out. I'm even writing a book right now, a book series that is centered more towards our youth.

It's a children's book series and it's centered around what we call aces in the industry. And aces are adverse childhood experiences. And I've said several times that we shouldn't try to shelter our children from experiencing the hardships, but we can't allow the hardships to put out their fire. And so there are things that children experience, things like divorce, bullying.

Felix Asare (51:55.534)
Mm-hmm.

Tra Battle (52:02.83)
loss of loved ones that can have an adverse effect on their life if there isn't a healthy support system around them. To take that, help them navigate it, help them put words to the feelings that they're feeling and not go through it, but grow through it. It's a huge difference between going through something and growing through something. And so the heart behind this book series is to help them not go through it, but grow through those adverse childhood experiences so that we're creating healthy platforms.

Felix Asare (52:15.322)
Yep.

Tra Battle (52:31.19)
And we're not waiting until this event happened when I was eight years old. Now I'm 26 and I have this hole that I can't figure out. And I go through months, maybe years of therapy, just backtracking, unpacking something that happened at eight so that now I can be healthy again. And I've lost all this time just to try to build back up. What, if we address the issues at the onset, you know, at the point of impact and grew from there that way?

Felix Asare (52:55.77)
the answer to.

Tra Battle (53:00.694)
the life that they lead thereafter is focused on the why, like who they are and not backtracking to having to reach that later in life. So doing all of that and that's pretty much me in a nutshell.

Felix Asare (53:15.598)
Wow. has been phenomenal having you on Superhuman Mindset podcast. This has been great. And I learned a lot. I learned a lot. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your time.

Tra Battle (53:28.174)
appreciate it. appreciate it. It's been an honor.

Now that I know my why and I've descended from the peak, conversations like this help not only grow my legacy, because legacy can be miscontrued sometimes to be so internal, but it's helping me to impart wisdom to those around me. So anytime I have the opportunity to have these conversations, just to speak about my life, to share my testimony, I know that the process of me walking through how I've healed out loud,

Felix Asare (53:40.28)
Mm.

Tra Battle (54:04.97)
allows other people the ability not to suffer in silence.

So I'll take every opportunity and I appreciate it.

Felix Asare (54:13.752)
Yeah. Well, we don't want you to suffer in silence. Whoever you are, wherever you are, we want you to get to know you, get to know that what figure out your why. And then just like Trace said, whatever you are getting into, think as you are planning with your priorities. Honestly, think about your exit strategy and let it be a part of your priorities. That's pretty cool. And your legacy. Tray, thank you for coming on the podcast.

and salute.