Opportunities Come... Opportunities Go. // The Happiness Blueprint e016

Owen and Ashton, students at Salve Regina University, share how they’ve adjusted to life after football, memorable mantras from their coaches, and how seeing people win is their motivation!

0:00 Owen + Ashton from Salve Regina
0:46 Adjusting to Life After Football
4:25 Memorable Mantras
7:54 What Makes Ashton Happy
8:37 What Makes Owen Happy

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is the Happiness Blueprint, the podcast where we uncover how people build happier lives. Awesome. Welcome back to the Happiness Blueprint friends. I'm here with two new guests, so please introduce yourself and let you know let me know what you're involved with, Salvador Gina.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

My name is Ash McLean. I'm involved in uh sports. I also played on the football team and did manage for the basketball's team. So cool. That's pretty much Baby.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Cool. I love that. What's your name? My name is Owen Duffy. Uh, I'm a Salvador Gina student, senior business administration major. Was also on the football team. And then pretty much right now my life is just school and then work outside of school.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Cool. When y'all say was on the football team, is that then your seniors and football is done?

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Yeah, seniors, football is done.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

That's tough. Okay. What is that adjustment to life for like after football?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

I would say the adjustment at first was just like a shocker. Like, what am I gonna do? There's no sports and all that. But like once you really get into a routine of like what you want to do in your life, you just start to be like, okay, I'm gonna use what I learned from football and use it into what I'm trying to do for the future.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Yeah. Was it a similar kind of tricky score? Definitely a rough adjustment. Um, I would say, just realizing how much free time we actually have. Because now it's no more football, it was pretty much like a full-time job. You know, you got practice, you got workouts, you got meetings, film to watch. So it really takes up all your time. But now without that, you know, you're looking where did dissect your time from? And so shout out this guy who's been getting me locked in, you know. He's like up at the uh up at 7 a.m. every morning, hit the gym. So when you do that, you got more time in your day to accomplish more tests.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

It's tough when you had a structure formalized and set that you had no say in, right? Your coach said be at the weight room, and if you weren't there, there was gonna be a problem. And depending on your coach, it depends on the scope of that problem, but it wasn't gonna be a great day either way, if you missed that set session. Uh something it's tough to then like gain your own control over your own time. Uh, I'm also thinking here, like, it's a valuable like life skill where football taught you. I think we uh I grew up playing soccer, and like there was a point where I had to like, for me it was in high school, of like, oh, this isn't gonna be my life. Like when I was six, I was like, Oh, for sure, I'm gonna go pro. There's no way I don't go pro. And then through middle school, I was like, I think I can still pull it off. And like, I think I went to high school being like, the scouts aren't here for me, but they're gonna see me and know what they're missing out. And then at some point that has to end. I had to accept that like this ain't it. And I assume with college football, there's the same thing of like, we're not at Alabama, right? We didn't come here being like the league knows I'm here, but I'm sure it was also a moment of like these scouts are gonna see, I'm gonna do whatever, I'm gonna yeah, get so many yards this game, stop so many tackles, whatever the thing is. Um, has it been tough then to like or sorry, like question then like, what are the skills we learned for football that then can transition to life? Where at some point football does have to end, but it can't go on forever. But all these years of all the discipline that you went through, all the crack till the early morning lifting, like all these things would have transferred to life. What are some skills we take away from football and apply to life from here?

SPEAKER_01 2:48

I feel like some skills that I learned is like time because you gotta manage your time to do what you have to do. You can't just be scrambled to be like, oh, I'm not prepared for this interview, I'm not prepared for this meeting. You gotta show up prepared and ready to go at all times.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

So it's and when you're not prepared, pretend that you are.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yeah, at least at least pretend it, at least.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

The other key. Yeah, because you might not like, I don't know if you guys are offensive defense, whatever. It's like you don't know what play's coming at you, whichever is have the ball you're on. And at some point you just have to be like, all right, I'm ready. I gotta trust that me and my team know what we're doing to the best of our ability. And we don't know if they have the perfect counter to us, but all we can do is show up and deal with that when we get there. There has to be some bravery of just like we did our best, let's go, yeah, try our best against our best here.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Uh, what do we learn from football these days? Absolutely, the main thing I took away was discipline. You know, getting up at 6 a.m. every day, you know, practice was there, 7 a.m. every day, rain or shine, and you just had to get there. That's what coach would say, just get there. Doesn't matter how. Um, doesn't matter how you're feeling, you might be tired one day, you might be like dealing with some other stuff outside of football, but just still show up and put the work in. And at the end of the day, that compounds every day, and you keep stacking these wins, and then you'll grow so much from that.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Yeah, I think some of the best life advice I ever got was to be someone who shows up, which sounds so simple, right? It seems like showing up should be such a simple thing, but it sounds like both of you kind of said like just get to practice at 7 a.m. and everything else will fall into place from there. And it's such a a simple thing that I think it's so easy to just like, yeah, it's rainy. I don't want to go do the thing. And it's like, well, it turns out showing up is more than half the battle. And being someone who shows up has been like a simple identity. It's like, I can do that. I can't promise I'll be my best every day. I can't promise that the things going outside of this won't distract me, but I can draw, I can at least get that step, and everything else could fall into place from there. Um, are there like mantras from football that kind of stand out as like good ways to like live your life and find more happiness in it?

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Oh, let me think. I know we have like a lot of mottos that we got one.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Yeah, but our coach always said, Opportunities come, opportunities go.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Your face confirmed that coach.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

That was that big saying. So, pretty much like, I mean, guys get hurt, guys get injured, guys go down, and it's like next man up. So, like, that's your opportunity right there. You gotta be ready for it. So that's like even if you're not one of the starters, you still have to know the playbook um front and back. You gotta be well rehearsed on the plays. So when your opportunity does come, then you can take advantage of it. And then if it doesn't work out, then uh it's gone. Another one would be um the coach always said, it's not what you're capable of, it's what you're willing to do. So we're all capable of completing whatever's needed of us, um, just that's how we got here. But at the end of the day, it's like, what are you willing to do to help the team win? How far can you go? And I think that's really what separates the goods from the greats. Absolutely, yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

And to go based off of what he said too, like another model that we use is we get to. If you have that mindset of, oh, we get to wake up, we get to play football, like that's what's the motivation that motivated all of us to appreciate what we have.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

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SPEAKER_01 7:55

Well, what makes me happy? I like to inspire people on social media, you know, just motive them, be positive. And what also makes me happy, just being around my boys. Like, I'll with my boy, I'll be like motivated. I'm like, yo, let's get up again after in the morning, so then we'll have more time to do more things. So just like seeing people win. Because like people call me Ash wins, you know what I'm saying? Because we're always winning. So, like me seeing other people win and inspiring people just makes me happy.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

We all need an ash in our life. Yeah, it's a beautiful gift to have, and hopefully that like also fills your cup in the process. Like, I think the the balance there is always not like draining your cup because you're trying to fill some of the other cups up. Um, so I think if you could, yeah, balance motivating everyone else and keeping yourself up, that's a beautiful thing for the society, beautiful thing for society.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

What makes you happy? Uh what makes me happy, I'd say making other people laugh. You know, I've been blessed with a great sense of humor, a very unique sense of humor. Some people get it, some people don't, but if not, I'll still let no. You know what I'm saying? Um, another thing, just in general in life, is that each day is a new opportunity to be great and to be happy and have fun. You know, you could have had the worst day of all time yesterday, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter because it's in the past. So you can just wake up the next day and be anything. You can be a whole new person. And I just think that's great.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Yeah. And I think even in the context of like, it's okay to have a bad day and be sad about it, but like recognize that, feel that, and like, yeah, go from there, build from that place and recognize that it's a place that you can improve. Um, beautiful guys. I'd love to keep chatting here, but I know we got some yeah, points to get to here, so I'll let you all keep going. Thanks for joining the show today. Uh yeah, thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Let know make sure you guys let know.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Have a good one, guys.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Thanks for listening to the happiness blueprint, powered by GBM6.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

It's about making people happy.