Blueprint to a Better You w/ Brian Dawkins

“The majority of the success I’ve had has been on the back of pain” He’s an NFL Hall of Famer playing 16 seasons and one of the GREATEST safeties of all time! Now he spends his time teaching people how to improve their lives physically, mentally, and spiritually. It is my pleasure to have Brian Dawkins as my guest on The Ed Mylett Show. As we get closer and closer to 2021, it is time to leave the old version of yourself behind and step into the enhanced 2021 vision of yourself with confidence! This interview will show you the blueprint to turning your pain, failures, and doubts into victory. Brian shares how his most difficult circumstances helped shape his mind and spirit to realize his greatest achievements. See, the things we go through in life are seasonal unless we TRAIN our minds to live in pain or unhappiness. The things we have gone through and may still be going through now are just a season. Brian’s story will give you the motivation and action plan you need to get through the harsh winters of your life AND be prepared to handle the next one. The possibilities for your life are endless. All you have to do is put in the work to make it come true. “If nothing was preventing you from becoming the best version of yourself and you knew you couldn’t fail at anything, how big would your dreams be?” Brian and I both believe that we are all blessed with natural gifts and when you are able to stop taking them for granted and USE them to help and serve others, you WILL reach your true potential regardless of the circumstance you find yourself in. If you want a better life in 2021, the blueprint is here… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

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• 0:45Ed Mylett?

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• 1:01Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company, for me, of the explosion on our rig.

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  On October 2nd.

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  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

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  This is the Ed Miler Show.

• 1:46Ed Mylett?

  Welcome back to Max Out, everybody. Today's awesome. It's gonna be awesome. I got a nine-time Pro Bowler in the NFL, NFL Hall of Famer. In my lifetime as a 49-year-old man, the greatest safety I've ever seen play on a football field. But what's gonna be remarkable about today is there's so much more depth to this man than just football. We're gonna talk about faith, mental health, achievement, being in the present moment. And he's also just gifted with an incredible ability to articulate his thoughts. Before I introduce him, if you want to go watch one of the all-time great induction speeches into a Hall of Fame, go YouTube Brian Dawkins entry into the Hall of Fame speech. Absolutely mind-blowing. So I kinda gave it away. Brian Dawkins, welcome to Max Out.

• 2:28Brian Dawkins?

  It is a blessing to be on here with you. I am a fan. I'm a fan of yours and how you've used your message and who you are to be able to strengthen so many peoples thus far. And then you have so many more yet to come. So it's a pleasure for me to be on, on your show.

• 2:44Ed Mylett?

  My honor. So I don't know where to begin. I think where I want to start is, you know, when you have somebody on who's achieved the top, you know, I was talking to another NFL Hall of Famer, I said, who is the greatest safety? I mean, you talk about the long history of football, like who is the greatest, right? So all these people that played Pop Warner and high school, college, D2, D1, NFL, then there's All Pros, then there's the Hall of Fame, then there's the best. And this particular guy who we were talking about before we went live said, there's three for me, Ed Reed, Ronnie Lott, and Brian Dawkins. So, so you talk about somebody that walks in that sort of rarefied air, but then I looked at you, the measurables. All right, six feet, 209, you ran a 4640, those are all world-class

• 3:26Ed Mylett?

  stats, but they're not that much different than any other NFL guy who gets into the league. What separates someone who's average with great measurables to the, maybe the best of all time? What are some of those elements?

• 3:41Brian Dawkins?

  The element that you would probably hear people talk about me and is something that we want to talk about today is, is the passion. The passion that

• 3:52Brian Dawkins?

  The passion that I formed in the beginning around some negative stuff. And what I mean by that is I wasn't looked at as to be the dude out of my neighborhood to make it in the NFL, to make it to college, to be honest with you. I wasn't the biggest of guys.

• 4:06Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 4:07Brian Dawkins?

  In the growing up in the neighborhood. So it wasn't supposed to be me. I always tell this story. It wasn't supposed to be me. It was supposed to be so many other people. So I took that as a disrespect for me. And I used that. I used that as motivation. I used that as a chip on my shoulder. What it did is it created a passion in me to have success at something that people thought that I wouldn't be the one to have success in it. So with that beginning to do, it began to put me laser focused energy wise on specific things, on how I need to be better every day than anybody who came up against me. Certain things that I went through growing up that I had to do things that I didn't want to do in that time frame.

• 4:50Brian Dawkins?

  But it actually taught me some things about what I need to do going forward to be better versions of myself. Now, I didn't know this language back then.

• 4:58Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 4:58Brian Dawkins?

  I didn't know anything about yourself or being your better version of yourself. I didn't know any of that stuff. I just knew in that moment, I wanted to be better than that dude in front of me. I wanted to whoop that dude in front of me. And the specific things that I had to do in my mindsets, I to whoop that dude. So in my mind, I'm going, I've already whooped that dude because I'm going to work harder than him. He's never going to work harder than you.

• 5:19Ed Mylett?

  Here's what I think. Like take entrepreneurs or people that just want to get in a relationship or athletes, listen to this. The negatives are what actually knock them out. It's the rejections. It's ironically in your Hall of Fame speech. In a very early, he said, the majority of the success I've had, I'm quoting you, has come on the back of pain.

• 5:37Brian Dawkins?

  Yes.

• 5:38Ed Mylett?

  Right? And yet, most people, the pain, the negative is what actually eliminates them in their mind from becoming world class at something. But you did the reverse and I find that's a, that's a thread. Brady, to this day, you argue whether he's the goat or not, to this day, the dude still BS is about being such a late round draft pick after six freaking Super Bowls, still looking for that chip on his shoulder. Can you give us an example of some of those things that you would leverage? Maybe not making a team or a Pro Bowl team that you made most of them. So I don't know what they would be.

• 6:08Brian Dawkins?

  So I leverage, this is when I was around 13 years old, real quick story. 13 years old, I had played the year before. This is my first time playing football, organized football in the neighborhood. Twelve years old. The first year I played, I was able to play running back and play quarterback for that team. The next year, the coach moved me to center, right? Think about that now, I went from one year from being running back to quarterback to center. And it was also the a coach that I decided not to play for the first year. So I had a choice the first year of who to play for, a new coach or the older coach who had been there. I chose to play for the new coach, running back quarterback. The next year I had to play for the older coach, put me at center.

• 6:52Brian Dawkins?

  And so I was in a place that I, I, listen, I did not like playing. I hated it. I hated it. And so I told my dad, hey, could you tell this dude to, you know, move? I can't, I can't do this. But my dad taught me a lesson. This is one of the lessons I taught, I learned in my life. If you start something, you want to finish it. Whatever you start, you finish. And not only do you finish it, when you're going through it, you go it, you go in it and through it with the right attitude, with a good attitude, with a coachable attitude. So that is a life lesson that I live with to this day.

• 7:28Ed Mylett?

  And even at the highest levels, Brian, that separates somebody, huh? So you walk into an NFL locker room, everybody's being paid to play. They can change the legacy of their family, right? And even at that level, these things separate at the highest levels, true?

• 7:43Brian Dawkins?

  Yes, yes, because is that principle is not something that just was for that moment. Like you said, that principle has now governed me in the rest of my life of how I carry myself, how I conduct myself in a place that I'm not loving to be. My attitude is going to be on point. Matter of fact, I'm gonna, I've learned to now say it like this. I'm going to grow wherever I find myself, wherever I find myself, whatever situation I may be put in, I'm going to grow in that environment. I'm going to create an environment with my attitude, a fresh fertile ground for me to grow in that thing. Because I'm going to be better. I'm going to be a better person after I come out of that painful situation, right? It's a mindset adjustment. That if, if, if more people thought of things that way, if more people understood that

• 8:28Brian Dawkins?

  the things that we go through in life, life are seasonal. They're not there to stay unless mentally we create habits to stay there. If we do not create a habit to stay in that condition, we can grow where we are, knowing that this thing is going to pass, it's not going to stay, and I'm going to be better for going through it because I can handle things differently in the future. With the wisdom that I have now, okay.

• 8:52Ed Mylett?

  That's exactly what you just said is why I do this show. That right there, everybody go back about two minutes and listen to that again. The reason it's so profound for me is how you approach pain and how you approach negativity is something most people don't deal with on the front end. So we all know as we're listening to this or you're watching it. This is an inevitable part of the seasons that Brian's describing. Winter comes in everybody's life, so you already know it's coming. So if you don't have a predisposed plan or mindset of how you're going to approach pain and negativity, how are you going to get through life in a happy, blissful, productive way? And so this is how you do it. It's inevitable. I think we start getting to these delusions like, all right, now I'm past the pain part of my life. You know, like I've had my share. I'm past the negative part.

• 9:38Ed Mylett?

  I think people even look at a guy like you, millions of dollars, NFL Hall of Famer. I'm sure the negatives and the pains are gone out of your life now, right? No, you still have them, true.

• 9:46Brian Dawkins?

  No, and, and, and Ed, to be honest with you, that was one of the reasons that I was led to do it. It's to say my Hall of Fame speech the way that I said it. To give so much of myself, to be so transparent about some of the things that I've gone through. Because I had heard so many people up to that point like, oh, my goodness, you have it made. You've always had it made. I hear you, NFL, you've made the Hall of Fame, so you have every, no, no. I've had so many things that I've had to overcome or change my mindset about in order for me to reach the plateau that I have, I was blessed to reach. So the, the thing that I understand more than ever now is how important a vision is for you. Creating a vision of yourself or what you want to be, what you're going to be created in a, in a, in a now moment,

• 10:32Brian Dawkins?

  knowing that it's going to come to fruition later on, but you already seeing it come to fruition in your mind. Matter of fact, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm doing a better job of writing down my goals now. Writing them down in a present tense to make sure that those things come to fruition in my mental, in my vision first. Because once I get a vision of something, the, the Bible said it's like, like this, and I love this in Proverbs, that without a vision, the people perish. Without a vision, the people perish. Another version also says it like, like this, that, that without a, um, a vision, that all restraint is, is, is, is, is let go, something to that effect. I'm paraphrasing here, but.

• 11:18Brian Dawkins?

  If I have a vision on what I know can come true, because first of all, I have to believe first of all that I can do the thing that I'm envisioning, right? And once I have that vision, now I can begin to plan how I'm going to then accomplish it. I can then, and the other thing will happen for me, especially growing up in the neighborhood that I grew up. I knew what I couldn't do in order for that vision to come to fruition. It's certain people I couldn't be around. We always talk about having the right people around you. I knew that it was certain cats that I couldn't be around. Matter of fact, I lost two of my friends, my good friends, to the streets. Both of them, you know, lost their life to, to selling, selling drugs in the street. And they were, those are two of my best friends at one time.

• 12:01Brian Dawkins?

  But because of the vision that I had in my, my head of the success I was going to, the success I was going to be, I could no longer hang out with him.

• 12:10Ed Mylett?

  Wow. So. Yeah, I can tell you, I can tell you, Brian, one of the things, you know, that strikes me is people usually only see what's in front of them. You know, it takes work to see something that is not yet present, right? And I kind of have this theory too, that I think you do need to believe it when you have a vision, but I've had things in my life, probably like you with the NFL or whatever it was. I don't know that I believed it when I first envisioned it, but the more I became familiar with that vision over and over again, the more I prayed about it. The more I did begin to believe I could do it because I lived with it so often. You know what I'm saying? I think the more I saw it, the more I believed it. But I want to ask you, if we go back just for a minute, because I didn't know that you linked things so well to sort of personal development and faith until I really studied you.

• 12:55Ed Mylett?

  Because guys, just so you know, if you're not a football fan, this man was intimidating. He was a hitter, right? I mean, this is, there are NFL grown men, great players that I was afraid of this man, right? So you're talking about an intimidating presence. One of the things I've found with a lot of successful people, particularly the athletes that I know. It's a very interesting line. I don't know if you could describe this. I bet you weren't expecting me to ask you this, but I'd like to just have you unpack this. You, there's this unbelievable line with, I find people that are successful. I think confidence is so critical in being successful, just deep confidence that you can do something. However, the most successful people I know have this ability to combine that confidence with humility.

• 13:37Ed Mylett?

  It's a bizarre combination because typically you meet a really confident person. Oftentimes they lack humility and I think that's the se- if you don't have confidence, you're not going to do something.

• 13:46Brian Dawkins?

  Right.

• 13:46Ed Mylett?

  But if you don't also combine it with humility so that you are coachable, you do want to learn, you do want to grow. Is that just like how you are because of how you were raised? And have you seen that as a common thread with other great players or great people?

• 14:00Brian Dawkins?

  I would tell you this that because of the house that I was blessed to grow up in with my dad, especially being in the household. I saw humility. I saw my grandma. I call her Saint Dolphins. She showed me what a Christian really is. So it's my belief. It's my Christian values that teaches me that the way that I see it, where I've grasped it and I've owned it. The most powerful, the most powerful position that you can be in is a position of humility. The most pow- for us as believers, the most powerful individuals that have ever walked the face of this earth. And Jesus Christ was absolutely the most humble, watching his disciples feast. And he's also told us that the greatest of you will be, will serve.

• 14:45Ed Mylett?

  Yes, yes, amen.

• 14:47Brian Dawkins?

  So that's where this comes from. So I, this is, this is one of the habits that I had, that I created. When I began to have success in the National Football League. I would, I would come across articles and different write-ups about myself and before I read it, I would always say, thank you, Lord.

• 15:08Brian Dawkins?

  Because it then puts it in perspective. This is not all about me as I read all of these good things about myself. No, I know that I didn't, I didn't, I didn't originate these athletic abilities. I brought them out because of hard work and determination and listening to critiques from my coaching staff, being coachable. But I didn't create those abilities. So when I look at things from that lens, I recognize that I'm able to be. And people talk about humility. It's not a weak position.

• 15:43Brian Dawkins?

  It's not weak, humility is not weak, being humble is not weak, it's power under control is what it is.

• 15:49Ed Mylett?

  Oh, that's good.

• 15:50Brian Dawkins?

  Under control. And so when you know you have that, when I know that I have that, I don't have to go out and be voiceless about who I am and what I can do or what I'm gonna do to you, unless I'm trying to get in your head, that's you guys that are

• 16:03Ed Mylett?

  That's a tactic.

• 16:04Brian Dawkins?

  Good at the gift of gab, that wasn't me though.

• 16:07Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 16:07Brian Dawkins?

  I'm gonna let my play talk louder than my words will ever try to, right? So that put that that being humble was something that it was very purposeful for me, still is to this day. I always look at life through the eyes of my thirteen year old self, my teenage self.

• 16:26Ed Mylett?

  You really?

• 16:27Brian Dawkins?

  Yes, so when I see my, when you see this Hall of Fame Yeah. I walk in here and see that, I'm my Hall of, my sixteen year old self is like, man, oh, you, you did that coming from Jacksonville, Florida? Wow, look at, man, wow, how could you, wow, you see what I'm saying? So there's still an amazement when I come in here and see that though, I don't, I, I don't let those things become something that I just take as a, oh, yeah, that's, that's me, oh. I'm always in, I'm, I, I'm staying in a place of wonderment. Because the thing that I told myself, I will never ever let the challenge me die. I will never let my imagination die.

• 17:06Brian Dawkins?

  So on this side of, of, of, of football, I'm using that same visions, writing down my goals, envisioning things happening to be a success on this side.

• 17:17Ed Mylett?

  Hmm, it's so good, he walked out on the stage, guys, for his Hall of Fame speech, he's saying hallelujah many, many times over and over again. And so one of the keys, you know, for me too, whatever limited success I've had, is my faith. I, I, I know how, I know how, I'm, I know I'm a sinner, and I know my weaknesses, I know how crazy I am in the head. So for me to accomplish whatever I have, there has to be one powerful God that's got my back. I did a lot of work, just like you did.

• 17:43Brian Dawkins?

  Yes.

• 17:43Ed Mylett?

  But, but, but he, I, I planted the seeds and he provided the harvest, I just, I just absolutely believe that. Now, let me ask you a couple of things about this passion thing.

• 17:51Brian Dawkins?

  Yeah.

• 17:51Ed Mylett?

  So good, by the way, this is so good.

• 17:55Ed Mylett?

  One thing you did that was interesting, I think passion causes you to out prepare people. So, but one of the things you did, y'all should go look this up, but he creates this character, like Weapon X, right? He come out in this bear crawl, he walked out on his Hall of Fame speech in a bear crawl, right? But he created this character that he almost transformed, there's this transformation that took place. You say, "Well, that's great for an athlete, you know, I teach my fighters, go in there in this character." But I think everybody should have this character. I, when I go speak in public, I literally picture myself, I'll tell you what you guys do, I flood. I'm Superman, I flood myself as this character. I picture Jesus, I picture the two or three greatest speakers, I kind of flood myself with this energy that transforms me. I used to do it when I go on a sales call. If I'm gonna give a speech, like, you can, you know what's cool about picking a character too?

• 18:41Ed Mylett?

  In business, if you get rejected, it's kind of the character that got rejected.

• 18:44Brian Dawkins?

  His fault, yeah.

• 18:45Ed Mylett?

  It's his fault, right? But talk about Weapon X, this whole Wolverine thing, and it was legitimately real. I don't want to interrupt you, but this man had a locker, next to his damn locker, for Weapon X. No one does that crap in the NFL. So, talk about that for a minute, the power of that.

• 19:02Brian Dawkins?

  I've always been, even growing up, I was always an emotional kid. So, we lose a game, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be the one crying, not wanting to shake people's hand, you know, that, that was me. So, I was already someone who was emotional, some people call it, matter of fact, um, teammates would call me mean, like, we lose a game, so I'm, you know, you don't want to be around me because I'm mean. So, not being able to deal with some of the fluctuations of, of, of testosterone and the like, was some of the things that I dealt with. But I also had a, that, again, that passion, that, that, go back to that word, passion, right? So, when I flipped the switch for practice and games, I was a different dude.

• 19:44Brian Dawkins?

  Literally, I was a different dude, different cat, I don't want to, don't, it's, I'm not smiling with you, I'm not playing with you. Especially, we start doing competitive stuff, no, it's, it's go time. So, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to win in that situation.

• 20:01Ed Mylett?

  I read this thing that you said, preparation, energy, prayer. Like, is that part of this transformation?

• 20:06Brian Dawkins?

  Yes, yes. So in order for me to perform at the levels that I was blessed to perform at, I had to have everything in line. And prayer was very important in that. So specific things that I do, if you go to BrianGoffes.com, you'll see it. It's called a blueprint challenge. It's specific things that I do every day

• 20:25Brian Dawkins?

  to help me be the best version of myself. And throughout the week, if I'm prayed up, if I've been meditating, and I ask the Lord to take away any and all distractions and clear my heart of any and all burdens I may bear, so I may perform my very best, knowing you'll always be there. Please lift me up before this moment, so through your eyes I may see, and have a clear understanding as this game unfolds before me. With great courage, I will meet this challenge that you would have me to. But keep me humble, remind me that my strength comes from knowing you. That's called the athlete's prayer, right? And so, when you have that mindset, that first of all, I'm not doing this by myself, I'm going to need help to get some of these distractions out of my heart, so that I can pour everything that I have on game day.

• 21:10Brian Dawkins?

  I'm not just giving my teammates what I have left. I'm giving them everything that I have. And it's different, it's different. I had teammates that gave me what they had left, because they were doing stuff on Thursday night. They was out, they weren't, you know, getting the massages, they weren't taking the supplements, and you know, they were maybe even out drinking, doing things. So they were giving us what they had left. I was giving them everything that I had.

• 21:36Ed Mylett?

  Wow, wow.

• 21:37Brian Dawkins?

  And so I can, I can then as a leader, once I've earned the right to be a leader of someone, now I can then demand or ask that in return, because I know exactly what I'm getting, right? And so going back to Wolverine. That came into fruition because people saw that I had all those figurines, figures in my locker. I love Wolverine. And so that's how it became Wolverine. Before that, it was idiot man. I called him idiot man. He was, he was, I was idiot man. I turned into idiot man because it's, it's go time. It was idiot man, idiot man time. And then it became Wolverine because again, CBS, one of the news places that was doing the, uh, the playoffs that year, they saw that I had all those figurines up there.

• 22:21Brian Dawkins?

  But the thing that I tell people to this day, Brian Dawkins could not perform and do the things that he did on the field. Brian Dawkins could not do it. There's no way Brian Dawkins survives on the football field. If I go out with that, with my laid back, um, Brian Dawkins is an introvert for the most part. Brian Dawkins does not need to be the light in the room. I mean, the, the, the voice, the loudest voice in the room. Brian Dawkins would just sit back and just watch people act a fool to put them on and just laugh at them to be honest.

• 22:51Ed Mylett?

  I relate.

• 22:52Brian Dawkins?

  But when it comes to go time, when I flip that doggone switch, when I put that brief stride on that last little piece, I would literally say to myself, Brian Dawkins has become idiot man. And it's go time. It's time to go. And what I've found is that I know now that energy is transferable. That same individual so-called that I turned into on game day, to your point, I can use the same type of thought process to help me through whatever I may be going through, whether it's a meeting to your point. It's a certain, when I go and speak and give motivational speeches, I get in front of them and like, listen, put your hand and we gonna count to three because you are my teammates.

• 23:33Brian Dawkins?

  And you have now entered into my huddle and I'm gonna talk to you like I would talk to my teammates. And we're in the fourth quarter and we need this drive. So the rest of this meeting, the rest of this, uh, uh, conference or whatever it is, I'm gonna talk to you in those terms. So sometimes my wife hear me talking, they're like, why you yelling at them? Yeah, I'm yelling at them because it's go time. We need to, we need to get off the field. And I, and I, I need them to see life differently, see their lives differently. I need them to come up with plans in their own minds. I, if, if nothing ever prevented you from being the best version of yourself, nobody told you, you were limited, you, you had never failed at anything and you know you wouldn't fail going forward. What would you dream? How big would your dreams be?

• 24:15Ed Mylett?

  So good. I'm watching your face right now. I'm fired the F up, right? Like I'm watching you and. Couple of things I just want to unpack on there, you guys. Number one, energy is transferable. This is a big, big deal. But just ask yourself, would it serve you to create a damn character for you? In some way, I'm telling you, you start to embody, we all have these insecurities. Like people meet me, and they're like, I can't believe how quiet and introverted you are. And you know, I like to listen to people. I'm not, I don't like being in the center of attention, yet I have to, you know, I speak in front of lots of people or coach people. That's sort of, it's a part of my personality. It's just like, it's just like, you know, Wolverine was yours. But it's not the main part. Like, it's not that I'm not expressing myself, but the main means the introvert.

• 24:57Ed Mylett?

  The main means is that I enjoy being this other dude, but here's what people don't get. I want you to listen to what he talked about on energy. Cause you just watched him do it if you're watching YouTube. You felt it if you're driving in your car right now, right? Or you're, you know, on a treadmill somewhere. I think people underestimate the amount of energy required to dominate. Just energy it takes to vibrate at a high enough damn frequency when you're a dominator in business, life, relationships, money, your body. I'm tired after I do certain things, right? Like, because I've expended so much energy. True or false for you?

• 25:32Brian Dawkins?

  True. Matter of fact, after this interview, I'm going to be drained.

• 25:37Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 25:37Brian Dawkins?

  Because I know that I exerted, I poured out, like I gave of myself. When you give of yourself. First of all, we go back to the confidence thing that you talked about earlier.

• 25:47Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 25:48Brian Dawkins?

  You have to be confident that I can do this, that I can be that. When I see myself and I enter a room, I think about myself as being a thermostat. Like, I want to be a thermostat, not a thermometer, anytime that I enter into a room. Especially where I am now as a, as a life coach and a, you know, executive a little bit, a consultant. I want to be able to, in those moments, if the temperature is too low, I need to bring it up a little bit.

• 26:18Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 26:18Brian Dawkins?

  If it's flat and nobody really wants it, what can I do? As a matter of fact, before I enter into that doorway, I've already decided what the energy I'm going to bring. One of the things that I do in the morning, before I get out of the car to go into the office, when I was an executive, I would park and I would say a quick little prayer. Okay, this is, this is what I'm bringing. When I walk into the threshold of that door, this is what they're going to get. And then I, and I go in there purposefully. Once again, I flipped that switch. It's not full blown Wolverine.

• 26:48Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 26:49Brian Dawkins?

  It's, it's not all the way. I'm not bear crawling into the office.

• 26:52Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 26:54Brian Dawkins?

  But I'm coming in with a specific energy because what I want to be and what I'm going to be, because I'm choosing to be it, is someone that when you see me coming, a smile comes to your face. I wanna be that. I don't wanna be when someone calls me on the phone and you see my number and you're like, oh man.

• 27:13Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 27:14Brian Dawkins?

  I, I, no, no, that's not the energy that I'm going to exude. I'm going to exude the type of energy that actually like pushes you, fills you up.

• 27:23Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 27:24Brian Dawkins?

  I wanna give to you. I want, and that's one of the reasons that I've decided to, um, to answer the call of me stepping out and talking to people more about

• 27:36Brian Dawkins?

  how I was blessed to do what I did.

• 27:38Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 27:38Brian Dawkins?

  And it's not something that I own. It's something, yes, I own. Yes, it is mine, but I, it's not something that's just mine. Because I don't believe wisdom is something I'm supposed to take to the grave with me.

• 27:49Ed Mylett?

  That's right. One of the things that's unique about you is you actually really did it. What's rare in, in, you know, coaching today, social media today, someone actually has a track record of doing what they say you should be doing, that they're teaching you, and they go, hey, by the way, see this thing behind me right here? This is, uh, the Hall of Fame. Like, it kinda worked. See these nine Pro Bowls? See my family? See my faith? You know, it kinda works. And then they point to it. I'd like to think that's why my following grew is like, oh, he was already, he's teaching me what he knows. One thing on the energy thing too, that I just wanna share with you that was interesting for me. And I, everyone listening to it, how's this apply? One, sometimes people do take that too extreme, like, alright, I'm gonna walk in a room, and then you lose, you disconnect. You gotta kinda meet people where they are, but then leaders shift the energy.

• 28:34Brian Dawkins?

  Yes.

• 28:35Ed Mylett?

  They become that, that thermostat. But one of the things that was, it's just interesting for me. I had done this, and it's, uh, because it does drain you. Just wanna share this with you. I don't know if you had any of this happen when you played football. And for businessmen and women listening to this. For me, I was really good at that with my friends. I was good at that in the gym, in my sports. I was good, really good at it in business. But I, I wasn't conscious of doing that with my family. So in my home, I wasn't, I was the leader of my home. But I don't know that I, I kind of expended a lot of my energy, then I was just kind of me at home. And I became conscious maybe just a few years ago of like, hey, man, I gotta set the energy tone for our family. We're gonna do something great.

• 29:16Ed Mylett?

  Right? And that was where, if I'm being vulnerable to my audience, that was the area I had to step up and shifting the energy in my family. And you're nodding, I'm just curious with you.

• 29:25Brian Dawkins?

  Yes. Yes. I was, especially as a player, I was so spent from giving. Whether it be training, I would do specific things like I would create in my schedule. Per day, an opportunity to talk to teammates if they need something. You know, even some coaches, when I was in Denver, we were losing, we were losing quite a bit. And so I find myself counseling a lot of guys, a lot of, even some coaches spiritually and professionally. So I was, when I would get home, and I was older, so I was, it took me longer to recover. And so I was not always in the best of moves when I got home.

• 30:03Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 30:03Brian Dawkins?

  So when I retired, my daughters, the, the twins were like babies. And for the longest, they really responded to me like I was a stranger. They, they knew me, but they weren't. Um, as. I guess, close to me as the older two were, my older two. We have, we have four.

• 30:25Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 30:26Brian Dawkins?

  So it took me coming out of that, coming to that realization that you're talking about.

• 30:29Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 30:30Brian Dawkins?

  And I have to bring that same energy, that's a similar, um, understanding on giving and being open. And wow, thank you for this.

• 30:43Brian Dawkins?

  I got to the point where I understood that I needed to be more emotionally available to my family. That's all it came to me. You need to be more emotionally available. What does that mean for me? That means that I need to come to them with a blank space. Expression wise, body energy wise, for them to be able to paint on. So they wanna hug me, they wanna kiss me, they wanna watch TV, they wanna do something. I need to be available for them and my wife as well, Connie as well. I need to be emotionally available in that space. So you're right, yes, I had to come to that. That was not something that hit me when I was a player, to be honest.

• 31:27Brian Dawkins?

  Something that came after retirement.

• 31:29Ed Mylett?

  Beautiful. One thing I want to say that you said there that just made me reflect on myself, that I need to improve. But I'm a two grown man, be very vulnerable. A lot of testosterone just dropped here in the room. But you know, about that blank slate. I'll tell you something I need to improve. I'm just, I'm just talking now. It's like everyone's listening on our conversation. But that blank slate thing's powerful. Those of you that are really achievers and you're learning all these tactics and things that Brian and I teach about peak performance and mindset and all these things. One of the things I have to be is more of a blank slate at home because I find myself coaching people all the time. Sometimes your children don't want you to coach them. They just want you to be that blank slate and let them do their thing and love on them. I have this tendency like, hey, that's how you should say this. This is what you should, you need in this mindset.

• 32:13Ed Mylett?

  You know, you can actually push people away that are close to you if you do too much of that stuff without them wanting it. Like that's one thing I gotta work on myself.

• 32:21Brian Dawkins?

  Yes. And, and again, coming to that realization and then understanding of that is so important. Not everybody will do that. Not everybody will admit that. They will continue to do the same thing, the way that they've always done it, get the same results. Whether that be your kids not want to be around you or you know, they see you coming and you know, you get the. So I give them, again, I give them their space and allowing them, once again, to lead a discussion, to lead where we're going. During this time, during the pandemic, I've been very intentional of spending time doing some of the stuff that they like, especially watching cartoons. I love cartoons anyway.

• 33:03Brian Dawkins?

  So, you know, but watching cartoons with them, sitting down to see, you know, what they like, what their days have been like, being more emotionally, once again, available to have those conversations with them. And to your point, we as men especially, you don't need to fix everything. They don't, wives don't need to fix everything. Sometimes it's just to listen, to practice the art of listening.

• 33:25Ed Mylett?

  That's so hard to do. By the way, I really appreciate you sharing all this. And guys, when you're listening to this, you know, the reason I want you to get involved with Brian's work too is like, you forget, this is an NFL Hall of Famer. You know what I mean? This is someone who's, you know, got such a diverse experience and ability to teach on different topics. But I want to go to the

• 33:42Brian Dawkins?

  Purposefully.

• 33:43Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, and intentionally. I love that word intentional too. I want to go back to the dream thing for a minute because you had to do this. There's a lot of people listening to this right now who their first dream has ended. So it could have ended favorably, like in your career, you know, Hall of Fame and Pro Bowls, and it just ended. It could also be that my business is just shut down and it's gone because COVID is over. Or I'm going through a divorce, or, you know, I was chasing my master's degree, but I've got to go get a job now because I got debt. So my first dream has ended. It's very easy to have one first dream. It takes a champion to recreate an entire new vision and dream for their life. And as you know, especially with athletes, once that first dream is over, many of these men struggle the rest of their lives to never recreate a new vision or dream.

• 34:27Ed Mylett?

  But for everybody listening to this, what would be some of your, because you had to do it, your career ended. Part of your identity was football player for sure, right? So how did you, were you conscious about it? And is there anything you did specifically to create this new dream and vision?

• 34:40Brian Dawkins?

  So this, this went back to my faith. This went back to my faith.

• 34:45Brian Dawkins?

  I said it during my Hall of Fame speech as well. Football was what I did, it was not who I was.

• 34:52Brian Dawkins?

  So I didn't define myself, literally completely define myself by the game of football. If I couldn't do it anymore, it did not mean that I was not a person anymore. If I failed on a football field, it does not mean that I'm failing as a person. No, I failed on a football field. So to be able to separate the two, separate yourself from that, knowing that, yes, if I do have success in it, I will be, you know, have happiness, right? But if I do not, that does not prevent me from having joy in my life with other parts of me that are the primary parts of me. My job is not the primary part of me.

• 35:33Brian Dawkins?

  Because like, especially for those of us who have been employees for individuals, like if that individual, just like NFL for a lot of guys, you can no longer play it because, you know, we don't think you can run as fast, we can pay somebody. Yep, so right now, boom, they have closed you out of a dream that you've had for yourself.

• 35:53Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 35:54Brian Dawkins?

  So, but that's not who you are. And that's one of the things that a lot of guys get caught up in. They truly define themselves like this, the only thing that they can do is play football. And that is not the case. The Lord has put some marvelous things in all of us.

• 36:13Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 36:13Brian Dawkins?

  Every last one of us. And it is not my opinion, it is not just my opinion. We aren't supposed to just do like one thing for the rest of our lives as far as a job is concerned. I believe that if you're working for somebody, that's just for the time being until you own your own, if you have the vision to do that.

• 36:36Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 36:37Brian Dawkins?

  So we can grow, again, you also are growing, again, it goes back to growing where you are. If I'm growing where I am, I know that football is not the only thing that I can do. I'm now looking into my heart, praying about, okay, so what is it? What am I passionate about? What other things am I truly passionate about that I'm gifted at? I'm gifted as an athlete, but what else am I gifted? What else do I do with the least amount of effort that takes others a lot of effort to do? If I wasn't playing football, what else would I would actually do for free? So to handle those.

• 37:11Ed Mylett?

  My favorite advice of all time on the show, guys, what he just said.

• 37:14Brian Dawkins?

  Yeah.

• 37:14Ed Mylett?

  By the way, you just said a very profound there that I've never said before. I kind of almost do it effortlessly.

• 37:19Brian Dawkins?

  Yeah.

• 37:19Ed Mylett?

  People have a hard time going, what are some of my gifts? And they discount them too. Like, I can't run a four, six, forty. Or I don't have a hundred and forty IQ. Or I'm not particularly, God didn't make me model beautiful. Or I don't have a great sense of humor. And they discount all these beautiful gifts the Lord gave. And it could be your humility. It could be your nurturing ability, your kindness, your understanding. It could be all kinds of different things, your listening skills. But you said something that's never been said on the show before. These things probably come easy to you. And so that's actually why you don't think they're such a big deal.

• 37:56Brian Dawkins?

  You don't think it's a big deal. I tell my wife this all the time, the certain things she does. I say, everybody don't see things the way you just said it. You think it's no big deal, but I didn't think of it that way. And I'm pretty sure if you ask other people, they won't see the things the way that you just said it. So don't discount that.

• 38:14Ed Mylett?

  Beautiful. You, by the way, you want to be a leader of people? You want to be someone who people love and want to follow? Find their gifts, point them out, tell them, I see this in you. That's beautiful that you tell your wife that, right? Because maybe ninety-nine out of a hundred other people don't see those things. And that's the key to life, guys, is finding these gifts and then using them in the service of other people in some way. And to Brian's point, I also agree with you. It probably won't be the same way all your life.

• 38:40Brian Dawkins?

  No.

• 38:40Ed Mylett?

  I totally agree with you. One more thing, because this is so good, we're going to go a couple more minutes. I'm going to take more time with you because, like, I knew this would be good, but I didn't know it would be this good. So one of the things you've talked about before, about being the elite of the elite and performing, is being totally present. You kind of touched on it earlier where you said, I give all of me. Other guys, some of them gave all they had at that time. But there's something about, I don't know if you call it the zone or the whatever, but it's, and it's that energy threshold of being totally present as a father, as a mother, as an entrepreneur, on the sales call, at the gym, on the golf course, whatever it is you're doing.

• 39:20Ed Mylett?

  Total presence with phones and life and distractions and problems and TV is so damn difficult today. But you think it was like one of the keys to your whole damn career, right?

• 39:30Brian Dawkins?

  Absolutely, to be able to drown out anything else.

• 39:34Ed Mylett?

  How do you do that? How does someone do that?

• 39:37Brian Dawkins?

  To mentally drown it out. First of all, to acknowledge that they exist. So I'm not acknowledging that some of these things did not exist. I'm gonna give you one of my formulas now. Alright, so one of my formulas in, in life. You've all, you've heard, you know, to, to um, deal with the control, control the controllable. You, you've heard that. Yes. Before. My controllables of this. My controllables are my actions, my responses, my effort and my attitude. That's what I have control over. Very good. Those. Anything outside of that. I lean heavily on my prayer life. And I give it away. Very good. I give it away and I trust.

• 40:22Brian Dawkins?

  I trust the Lord to be able to handle those things that I can't. Cause if I can't, I can't handle how someone says something to me. I can only handle my response. I know how I'm going to respond. I'm gonna respond. Nobody has their hands on my buttons. Nobody controls me like a puppet. You can't say something to me and dictate how I'm gonna respond. No, I have control over that. Right? So I'm controlling the controllable. So to be a hundred percent present. I recognize that as this cat is saying what they're saying to me, I can go one of two ways. I can get into something with this individual. And I say it like this, I can actually um, uh, take offense.

• 41:05Brian Dawkins?

  Take offense, or I can leave offense right there. I can leave it right there. I don't have to take the offense. The offense has been offered. And it's up to me to take it. If I don't take it, you can have, you can keep that offense. And I'm gonna keep on moving with the rest of my day because what you said will not have hurt me unless I listen to it. I, I take it in, into my heart. And I agree with you in it. That's the only time it hurt, it hurts me. Matter of fact, the opinions of people don't matter. The only opinion that really matters is yours, what you feel about you. And so when I come, when I really came to understand that seriously, man, and I'm not saying this is always easy. I'm, I'm not saying.

• 41:48Brian Dawkins?

  But I'm saying that you have in you the capability of doing exactly what I just said. To leave a fence right there. It's not gonna help me grow to a- and be in a a happy place, a good place. The place that I said in the beginning of the day, as I meditated in the morning and prayed in the morning, that I'm gonna be this type of individual, I'm gonna have this type of energy. If it's not helping me in that, man, I'm gonna let that ride. I'm gonna let that go somewhere else and be all in right there, being a hundred percent present. It it it makes, it helps me to think. There you go. That's what, it helps me to think. Instead of just responding out of, out of my past paradise.

• 42:32Brian Dawkins?

  How, how, how I've seen my neighborhood respond, how I've seen some of my family members maybe respond. And I learned those bad habits. Now, I don't wanna just be on autopilot. I wanna be a hundred percent there in that moment, so I can think on those four things. And if it's in those four areas, I, I can, I got that. If it's not, I'm gonna pray about it and I'm gonna move on.

• 42:50Ed Mylett?

  So good. Don't take offense. Dang it, that's good. Our last thing, so good. Mental, mental, mental health. I got a little goosebumps on that right there, just so you know. Mental health, um, man, is this a topic that people want us to cover more on the show? Which means it affects so many people.

• 43:09Brian Dawkins?

  Yes.

• 43:09Ed Mylett?

  You've been pretty transparent about it in your life. Um, just discuss it a little bit. You can talk about it in your speech a little bit too. So, how's there, you've, you've battled this a little bit, I guess? And then what were some of the conclusions you've come to through dealing with mental health stuff in general? And that's a broad topic, right?

• 43:28Brian Dawkins?

  It is a true.

• 43:28Ed Mylett?

  It could be everything from a little bit of worry and anxiety all the way to like someone's bipolar. So this topic is huge.

• 43:33Brian Dawkins?

  It is tremendous and it's.

• 43:34Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, but let's hear about it from you.

• 43:35Brian Dawkins?

  And it's, it is, it's so stigmatized as well. So much, there's so much nonsense attached to it. And we don't talk about it. And I say this all the time, that men, especially, especially men, that our silence is literally killing us. Our silence is literally killing us, because we're not talking about our feelings. And one of the things that, that I've come to understand about it. And the way that I envision things, I try, I, I envision things in, in cartoon mode, in, in, in least common denominator type of things to, to help me understand it. I'm a lot better. But when you talk about.

• 44:17Brian Dawkins?

  Not speaking about what's going on in your life.

• 44:22Brian Dawkins?

  When you don't talk about things, what happens is, is those things begin to build. And build. And build. So I'm not talking about that. So boom, that's something else I'm trying to hold on to. Another thing that I'm trying to hold on to. And then it takes one thing from a loved one, usually a spouse, to say something that is not really a big deal. But in that moment, you just explode all over them. All of those other things that you should not, or had bound up inside that you weren't letting out. It explodes on them and you crush them.

• 44:58Brian Dawkins?

  And so that was not fair, first of all, for me to be doing that. Cause I did, I had anger issues. I had anger issues. I had things that I had been dealing with for long periods of time that I was not talking to anybody about because in my neighborhood, you just rubbed dirt on it. Suck it up. You're a man. But you better not cry. Suck it up. So that's the mentality that you take and that is not a healthy mentality. To understand against, your emotions are transient. They're going to come in, they're going to go if you allow them to just go on about their business. But there are certain things you have to deal with. You have to have someone to talk about them too. I have at least four people in my life now. I call them my blessed pack. My blessed pack.

• 45:39Brian Dawkins?

  People that I can go and talk to about any and all things that may be going on in my life if I need them. That's free. So I know, I know I'm not by myself anymore. So during that time of depression, I had depression. I was taking medication. I had psilocybin thoughts before that on a long going basis. I said at the Hall of Fame speech that I was actually planning on how to do it. To let my wife, my wife get the insurance money. And as I think back on that, none of my daughters would be born. Obviously I would have had a Hall of Fame career. And I would be here to talk, to give this message. So I, there was something big that I was supposed to do. And I'll say it, I'm gonna say this, the enemy knew it.

• 46:21Brian Dawkins?

  So he did everything in his power to get me. To end it.

• 46:27Brian Dawkins?

  To make a permanent decision over, over a temporary situation. And so what I then was blessed to do as I got on the medicine, what it did is it brought, brought my emotions down. So that I could hear in the spirit. I began to pray a lot more. I've been actually go to Bible study a lot more. Really connect my relationship with God, get got stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger, excuse me. And then I came up with the blueprint challenge. It's on that Brian Dawkins dot com. This is what I actually came up with. After that dark, during that dark period. To help me stay winning. To help me stay, because it's, it's a regimented thing that I do on a daily basis. How I start the day.

• 47:12Brian Dawkins?

  How I think about, what I think about, I basically, if you go and, and look at it, I, I'm, I give gratitude at least once an hour. An hour. I said it. I said it on my phone in the beginning to vibrate. A certain way. And then when it vibrated, I knew it's to give, give thanks in that moment. So whatever I'm thinking in that moment, if I've had an argument with a teammate or something has happened. Um, on the field or something like that, when that thing vibrated, I got to, okay, thank you, Father. Just thank you for life. Thank you for health. Thank you for strength. Thank you for my children. Thank you. Whatever it is comes to my mind, I, I thank. So now. I'm positioning myself once again in a different energy, the positive energy, the gratitude energy, right?

• 47:58Brian Dawkins?

  And then at night, before I go to bed, I then look back over the day. And I asked myself, did I give everything that I can? In the thing that I said that I was going to do today. If I didn't, obviously I have to adjust those things. If I did, pat myself on the back. Congratulations. Good job. Get better going forward. And so when I do that, and I do that now, another thing that I don't do. I don't pick up this phone. I don't look at emails. So I give myself, it's usually about anywhere from twenty minutes to two hours now that I spend during this, you know, in the mornings. And then at night, same thing, at least thirty minutes before bedtime.

• 48:43Brian Dawkins?

  No more of this, no more looking at anything other than either devotionals, scripture, or, or a book or some positive something as I drift off to sleep.

• 48:55Brian Dawkins?

  So by doing that, I mean, it's seriously, it has blessed me so much to be able to see things in a different light, to bring out something, a person in me that I didn't know exists. So if I, if I told you growing up that I stuttered.

• 49:10Ed Mylett?

  Really?

• 49:11Brian Dawkins?

  I, I didn't, I didn't see myself as a speaker. I did not. There's no way you could tell me I would get in front of a room full of people and, and motivate anybody, because I felt I had a stutter. And I did to a certain extent, but I didn't really have a stutter. I was, I was conscious of the fact that I did stutter just a little bit and stumbled over my words, and I thought people would laugh at me. So the embarrassment or the anticipation of the embarrassment caused me not to want to talk. And so I even became more quiet as an individual. People always, you so quiet, yeah, I'm just listening. In the beginning, it was because I didn't want to talk, I didn't feel comfortable talking, right?

• 49:51Brian Dawkins?

  And so when you really take a look back over your lives, especially, you know, those of us who are up there a little bit to be able to look back over our lives, you'll be, you'll begin to see things, if you really pay attention, things that have, paradigm, things, the, the way that you see yourself, that is not true.

• 50:10Brian Dawkins?

  Man, now this is, this is great, this is.

• 50:12Ed Mylett?

  What a remarkable conversation, brother. Like, when, when you were talking, I was reflecting on what you said in your Hall of Fame speech, which is like the, the most productive and great things you've done have come from pain. I'm not so sure that your work on mental health isn't even more important than what you did in your career. Because what you just said the last several minutes, I just pray that people stayed to the end, you know, that they stayed to the end to hear that message because one thing I want to unpack right there, I just want to say something. No one's ever said this on my show ever, to have a gratitude reminder go off in your phone every hour. Wow, like, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna do that. I do the end of the day, the reflection, I don't check my phone the first thirty to forty minutes. I don't do it before I go to bed, but that gratitude reminder throughout the day, talk about a pattern interrupt if you're stressed or have anxiety. So.

• 50:50Brian Dawkins?

  Yes.

• 50:51Ed Mylett?

  Brian, I gotta tell you, man, thank you for today.

• 50:55Brian Dawkins?

  Thank you. Thank you for coming. I'm serious. Thank you for having me coming on. This was a, I saw you for the first time last year. I was looking, I told you, I was looking at some things from Les and some, some other individuals that were talking about changing your mind, how you can change your, your brain, like actually reform your brain. I forget who, exactly who it was. And I was like, man, man, it would be awesome to get on his show.

• 51:18Ed Mylett?

  Well, brother, you blessed people today. And I want them to go to bryandawkins.com. I want them to check you out. This was remarkable. Like, guys, you forget, we just, we talked to a football player, right? And, and he's so much more. And you helped me. Like, I got a couple actionable things I'm going to do today. So everybody, best thing you could do is share this show today with people so that they get blessed by all of the wisdom that came out of Brian's mouth today. And, and then share all our shows too, because they're, it's the best show in the world. So God bless you all. Brian, thank you. Max out, everybody.