Michael Ledo | Your Financial Advisor Is Just a Position Coach

What does it actually take to build generational wealth as a professional athlete? In this episode of the Intangible Podcast, Chris Spencer sits down with Michael Ledo, CEO and founder of Rise Family Office, for the unfiltered conversation most athletes never get to have until it is already too late.

Michael is the nephew of Eugene Parker, the first major Black sports agent in America. He is a two-time Division II All-American running back whose ankle injury became the turning point that led him to build three athletic training facilities, develop over 100 Division I athletes and 15 NFL players, and eventually create one of the most distinctive wealth management platforms for professional athletes in the country.

In this conversation, Michael and Chris break down why a shockingly small percentage of athletes are prepared for life after the game, what it really means to learn the language of money, and the dangerous difference between a financial advisor who preserves your wealth and a family office that grows it. Michael shares real client success stories from Jalen Smith and Jesse Bates and reveals the mindset shifts that separated them from the 78 percent of athletes who go broke within five years of leaving the game, even while 56 percent of those same athletes had financial advisors the entire time.

This episode gets personal. Chris opens up about his own struggle with dyslexia and what it felt like to hide behind the helmet for years. Michael explains why most athletes are hiding too, why the helmet has to come off before real wealth can be built, and how vulnerability is the first step toward operating like a true entrepreneur. From the Five Whys method for finding your real motivation to the off-season calendar that Rise Family Office builds for every client, this is a masterclass in the intangibles of financial performance.

👉 Follow the Intangible Podcast for more stories of grit, resilience, and peak performance:

 Instagram: @Intangible_Podcast
YouTube: Intangible Pod

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Well, I'm excited to be back here at the Tangent Podcast. Um, get a chance to talk to another entrepreneur, another uh business owner, but also um another guy who actually really cares about what athletes' future looks like outside of football. And so um joining me today is Michaelito. Michael, welcome to the tangent podcast, my friend. I normally do this in a different way, but I want to start a different way today with you and kind of start with some things that you've you've the things that you're doing now. You know, when you look at when you look at the type of guys that you work with, guys like Jalen Smith, um, you know, Jesse Bates, people like that, what do you think, what do you think most people and fans miss when it comes to how athletes build real success off the field?

SPEAKER_01 0:55

I remember my let me say this. When I first started my business as an agent 10 years ago, and I remember when I had the vision for what I was doing and what I'm doing today. I remember I was in Indianapolis, I think I was at the combine talking to this guy, and he was like, Do athletes need all that? They don't need all that. Like it's just too much. They just need to focus on this, this, and that. And I remember being furioated because it was like, that's the problem. The problem is that you're trying to limit what the capacity of what they're capable of and what they can do. And so I think that's just a um it's a it's a misleading thing that and it's not factual of how people perceive athletes and look at them.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Right, right. And you know, in the in that same vein, you've you've been behind the curtain a long time now, you know, and you you you spoke about NBA uh is being ahead of the curve. When you think about football, how many athletes you really think is prepared for life after the game?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Well, a very small percentage. I mean, I think unfortunately, um, yeah. One, you don't know the expiration date, right? Especially when you play football, right? There's gonna be an expiration date. It's just one injury away. I think when you gotta, when you gotta think about it like this, when you have to be a gladiator and a competitor in the mentality and the mindset it takes to compete in the game of football at least, um, and the tenacity and the hyper focus it takes, um, it's hard to understand how to diversify, how to plan for the unseen, how to um, how to prepare and build other cash flow streams before that $10 million a year cash flow stream before taxes cuts off on you. And and um I think that guys are so used to tackling like what's right in front of you that thinking long term and planning for long term almost feels like a distraction from the present moment for them. And um, so yeah, I think that's that's a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Yeah. Well, and and and you talk about the that small percentage of athlete who's not prepared. Um, what do you think that switch is to to help young athletes uh really start thinking about how do they look at being able to do the job that they're doing while also you know having a capacity, using their capacity to really create and think about what their future looks like outside the game?

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Yeah, so well, God put me on earth to help create athlete entrepreneurs beyond my family office, beyond, you know, I'm the CEO, I'm the founder, but we do a lot of things that I'm not called to do, and it's not my expertise. I have smart, I have smart people around me to do those things. Absolutely. But what I'm but what I'm called to do is help transform athletes to entrepreneurs and help them be leaders in their families and their communities. And I primarily deal with young black uh athletes. I deal with we accept all, but that's primarily who I deal with. And when you deal with that demographic, you have to understand the psychological aspect of um what they possibly have been through, what their family's been through, what they've been programmed. Some of the programming's good, some of it's bad, uh, contingent upon what they're trying to achieve. And I look at them like a business. So when I look at it, any business you're gonna start, you're gonna think about the exit in the beginning. You're going to reverse engineer. You're gonna say, okay, hey, we want to sell this company in seven, 10. Is it a lifestyle business? Is it a business that I'm trying to exit? Am I trying to exit in 10 and 7? And so we try to identify, okay, what do you want to be worth? What kind of lifestyle do you want to live? What do you want to pass on to your children? And then we reverse engineer the plan all the way back, you know, five, six, seven years because we have a defined goal. Um, I think a lot of guys don't even know what that looks like. They're just living in the moment. Right. And when they think too far out, it creates anxiety for them.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Because they're so consumed by just enjoying the present. Right. What have you seen? One of the biggest financial mistakes that young athletes make early in their career.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Man, I, you know, I think uh unfortunately I've seen a handful, right? Um they don't they don't they don't invest the time to learn how money works. They don't invest the time to learn the language of money. I always tell guys, I'm a football guy, so I use football examples. And if you go from one team to the next team, you get traded, one of the biggest things you gotta learn is the language of that system. It can be the same system, it could be the same three, four, it could be the same, but that defensive coordinator might use totally different language. You gotta you gotta take the time. A guy gets traded, it's like, how quick can you learn that playbook?

unknown 6:14

Right?

SPEAKER_01 6:15

How quick can you learn it? How quick can you apply it? And how can you expect to play the money game and not know the money language? Not know the terminology, not know the definitions, you don't know the playbook. So you can't execute. So I think that is a I think that's a big mistake. I think the other thing is that guys, you work, you play a sport your whole life. You've been grinding, traveling, working out. And when you get to the NFL or the NBA, guys treat, I made it, I made it, I made it. And more or less, instead of looking at like it's the opportunity, it's the opportunity to build wealth that really, when you're my age, when you're your age, that you can really live a long-lasting uh free life and enjoy yourself. And what they do, I always say that a lot of guys treat the league like a long vacation. You get all the cars you ever wanted, you get the house, you get all the women you ever wanted, and you just use on long vacation. And when you're done, it's a slow bleach. Yes, it is. And and then they and then they get out and they live in like normal people. But they it's like people that say, man, college was my best years. You know, it's like an extended version of college. Um, and it's the more and more I get around retired brothers, it can kind of be depressing. Um, you get around them, you're running. It's just like, yo, you ain't gotta be Al Bundy. You know, you ain't gotta talk about the old days. You know, you can live a lavish and a good life now. And the thing about it is, you know, when we talk about first generational wealth, second generational wealth, third generational wealth. Um, I'm good friends with the Russell family, which is gonna be the first black family there in Atlanta. And they're gonna be the first black family in America to be three generations of wealth.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

You know, and you know, we don't have enough conversations about the wealth making it second gen, making it third gen. And so we gotta we gotta be a little bit more legacy conscious and less self and less self-conscious.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Man, that's good. That's good. I, you know, I think that biggest takeaway there is, you know, understanding and learning language, just like you learn your playbook, you know. I was in three different offenses uh pretty early. Mike Hongram, Jim Moore Jr., and Pete Carroll all at one place. And they all spoke completely different language. And again, like you said, it was a form of the same style, but completely different language. And so being able to take the the financial side and take that same approach and learning the money language is key. And that's a I think that's a huge takeaway from that from this conversation. Um now when you think about the the mindset, you think about your current mission, you know, uh going going back to you know how you grew up and what you grew up around, you know, uh you grew up around someone who was he was the first uh major he was the first major black sports agent, you know, in the US here, um, and your uncle there, Eugene Parker. You know, being around that type of uh when you talk about legacy, you think of, you talk about like uh productivity. Uh, what did you see early on that shape how you think about business?

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Yeah, it's funny you say that because when I grew up from a business perspective, I had a God blessed me with a lot of strong men in my life that taught me, you know, more than just business and money, but just good fundamental principles on how to live a life, be a good man, be a good leader. But when it came to business, I had two prominent people. One was my Uncle Eugene, who was the GOAT and the Birch Black Sports Agent, and I was, you know, he had a he had a mansion back in Fort Wynn, Indiana, and I would uh, you know, I'd go over his house, and Dion would be over there, and I see, you know, Rob Woodson and you know, Aeneas Williams, and I can keep going on and on. I was around all these guys in close proximity, you know, and I'd get on his elevator in the house and do whatever, and it just let me know that, and he was a very meek individual, very meek, very humble, but just the goat at what he did. And I was able to, you know, proximity is everything, environment's everything. I was able to see black excellence, I was able to see what was possible, what was, you know, capable. And I remember me and my uncle when we got real, real close because um I was a big reader at a young age. And so my uncle would give me books, I would read them, I'd come back, I'd ask questions. I'm like, yo, I just and I remember a lot of people as I got older, they used to be like, I thought y'all was close. Why he don't ever give you money? So he gave me something way more than money. Like, you know, he gave me the wisdom and the knowledge on how to build something myself. And so being around him, it was to learn how to move with integrity and character, right? He was a strong Christian man. Um, but he just kind of he kind of he kind of walked it, he lived it instead of talking about it. My other, my other mentor on the business side was a guy named Dr. Al McGee. I'm actually going to dinner with him tonight. He's in he's in Dallas uh visiting, and so we're connecting, and I haven't seen him in, man, I ain't seen Doc in 10 years, but he's one of the top black spine surgeons in the world. And and um I may need to see him now. So growing up, right, right. And so, and so being around brothers like that, man. Um, you know, one of the things I was talking to someone about this the other day, I can't think about where I said this, but I heard someone say this be mentally competitive. You know, when you're an athlete and you grow up just like wanting to compete with someone, knock somebody out, you know, we grow up fighting, we just, you know, physical specimens, we're intense. That's the but I got to a point in my life where I was like, yo, I want to be competitively, I want to be mentally competitive. I want to be able to outthink you, out-strategize you, out-debate you. And so I began to sharpen a different tool, which was my mind. And the biggest thing, if you ever ask Jalen Smith, he'll say, the best thing Mike ever taught me was to think for myself, to think independently, to exercise that mind. And so, I mean, really, man, there's nothing we can't accomplish. There's nothing that we can't do if we don't buy into the false narrative that we're limited, right? And that we can't learn certain things because we're extremely capable.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Right, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I, you know, the foundation around some of the things that we do uh outside of my podcast is is helping people become aware of what their intangibles are to help them in performance, like coachability, character, leadership, composure, your thinking style. Once you understand that foundational pieces about yourself, then getting all the knowledge that you're absorbing and soaking up, now you can be very tactical about how you go at how you move in life. And that's that takes you into sports and well beyond sports. And so uh so I I wholeheartedly believe in that that mental that mental aspect, that mental sharpness. But I think the first part of it is come it comes awareness of who am I and what are what are my skill sets within these pieces that I have about myself.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

It's a lot of brothers making a lot of bad decisions based on a lack of identity. You know, just not knowing who they are and you know, mishandling the gift, and now you haven't been a good steward of the gift. Now the gift is you know not around for very long. Um fundamentally, in my opinion, because you misguided on your identity, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah, yeah. A lot of conversations with a lot of young young athletes right now about that. And like, let's again think for yourself, you know, how not to burn bridges, how to build bridges, and then keep those bridges standing. And so uh so you you're you're speaking my language here. Now you you mentioned that you grew up around a lot of, you know, around your uncle, and you, you know, seen a lot of guys like Dion and people like that. Um you know, I'm sure you had aspirations to play at the next level. You played college ball. You know, when did you realize that that um football wasn't gonna uh sports in general wasn't gonna define who you are?

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Yeah, so I was a I was uh I was a division two running back, um, two-time all-American. I um my uncle, because my uncle at that time, when I was in college, he had all his pros. He wanted me to transfer out of that school and go to a bigger school. But I had my son when I was 18, and I didn't want to leave my son. Um, and so I could have gone to Ohio State out of high school, went to junior college, California, ended up finding myself at D2, and I was dominating. I had broke the school, school rushing record as a sophomore. And um and my uncle sent me to New Orleans. It was Kenner, New Orleans, right before Hurricane Katrina, and he sent me to go train with Tom Shaw. Tom Shaw. And and um I had went, I was down there with a lot of first round, second-round guys, and I was doing well, training, competing, doing whatever. And I had came back in spring ball and I tore my ligament, my ankle, and I was a scat back, you know. And so, you know, when you when you're 5'8, 205, and and you and you're trying to run like you a power back, it really don't work out too well. So, so I had you know recognized like, hey, I can't move like I used to move. Um it's gonna be, I always knew I had an opportunity because of my uncle and because of my ability, but it didn't work out. And so I started my first company when I was in college. And um, I started a company where I developed athletes physically, mentally, and spiritually, and I trained them. I ended up, I ended up having three facilities. Um, I had three facilities. I probably had a I had about 100 kids go D1, 200 went to college in general, and I had about 15 go to the NFL. And and then I ended up selling the company to a family office. I own a family. God, it works crazy. I sold it to a single family office, not even knowing it was a single family office, didn't even know what it was. And now, 10 years later, I own my own family office. So um, that was kind of my story.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Yeah, man. It's it's funny how how things work out. I mean, you know, and there's I don't I don't think there's no um um there's no such thing as coincidence. So um that's really cool. Uh when you think about, I mean, again, from uh you know, taking all the skill sets, the foundation that we're talking about that you learn in sports, you know, um, you know, these and different intangibles, what do you take, what did you take from being all-American from from the from football over into the business world that you use today?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Well, I mean, it's real, it's a lot simpler than what people make it, in my opinion. Like um, I have extreme work ethic. So my work ethic, I'm not the smartest person, but it's my work ethic. Um I I when I was a running back, you know, like it was like I had a lot of different good qualities, but my best thing was in my footwork. Like I had just my feet were crazy. Like on my ability to whether if it's whether if it was like Shady McCoy, if it was, you know, or Darren Sroll. Um Darren Spro. Man, Darren Sprose, exactly. Darren Spro's, like that was my kind of game. And there was bigger guys, faster guys, but my ability to get in and out of areas, cut, move was just unique. And so what I did was I mastered it. I was like, yo, I'm just gonna go deep into this and master this. And so it separates me. And it's the same thing in business. It's I have developed the skill to understand how to create businesses, how to start businesses, how to scale them, how to sell them. Um and I have a unique gift on how to uh mentor young men that look like me. And so I'm able to bridge a gap of connecting with them and educating them on something that can help them leverage the high income they've made on the field to really build real wealth for the family. And so I don't I don't try to be nobody I'm not because you know my sauce is my sauce. You know, and it's you know, I think a lot of people try to sell themselves. I'm more of a, I'm a I try to be an underpromiser and over-deliverer. My thing is if you give me the opportunity, you're gonna see the results. Um, and so I think that's just kind of it's kind of the same approach when we play. Just put me in the game, coach. You know, just put booby in the game.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

So that's just kind of my approach. Well, Michael, you're in the game now, man. You you're in the game. You you went on to build uh Rye Sports Advisory to really to solve a problem, um, to to close a gap on some things. When you start to look at sports in general, what did you see in the industry that was broken that you just it was something that you just could not ignore?

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Well, the yeah, I love that, bro. Um athletes were underestimating their ability. They had people just telling them just play, just do this, just do that. Um athletes would trust trust instead of trust and verify. Been there. Um because the people that they verify make them feel bad for verifying them when that's just what's standard in business. Um I would see that athletes end up having a cash flow problem um at the end of their career. I would see that athletes think that um athletes think that their financial advisor is the end-all be all. When really what I try to describe to athletes is as a family office, we're more of an offensive coordinator and a and a financial advisor is more of a position coach. Right? They focus on a one position. They don't look at the global offense, they don't look at the whole, they don't look at all three levels, they don't look at any of that. And so, but when you're a young black dude in your family, probably never had a financial advisor, and you think, and then you think that getting seven to ten percent in the market and equities is going to sustain you for the rest of your life, it's they don't, you know, athletes don't understand that financial advisors preserve your wealth, they don't grow your wealth. Um, wealthy people who start businesses put their money with a financial advisor to diversify and to protect what they're building through the business. Real wealth is built in businesses and it's built in private equity. In venture capital and real estate, alternative investments.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Man, I, you know, I want to pause right there. And for all the young athletes and young people who are and parents who are new to this game, new to the sports, new to especially with NIL transfer portal, there's a lot of um lot of revenue that's flowing right now that can be be housed and utilized through a uh again, a financial advisor, but also, like you said, an offensive coordinator as a family office. You know, if you had to explain a family office to someone who's just green and don't know anything about it, how would you explain it to them?

SPEAKER_01 22:39

I would say that a um a family office, well, you have a single family office and you have a multifamily office. The single family office is more like Jerry Jones or the Trump family or the Obama family, that it's one family that's usually worth, I mean, a billion dollars or whatever. Then you have multifamily offices like mine, where we primarily service athletes and entertainers, and you service multiple wealthy families. And these wealthy families can be, you know, we it's different because we serve, we serve athletes who are merging wealth builders. But typically in a in a normal family office, the families are worth 100 million plus, right? And they don't want to spend the money to develop their own single family office because it costs a lot of money. So they go to a group like us where it's discounted because we're serving multiple families. And what we do is we coordinate and we orchestrate um your whole financial picture. When you deal with a financial advisor who typically is a position coach, they just focus on the running backs. They're not worried about the offensive line, they're not worried about the receivers, they're they're narrow focused. We, from a coordinator standpoint, we're we're we're concerned about your whole global wealth picture. So that's your personal finances, that's your equities in the capital markets, that's your real estate, that's your businesses. Everything works together as one oil machine, right? It's like you you go to a running back meeting, but the whole offense is going to meet together at some point, right? And what athletes do is they fragment everything and say, hey, you got this over here, you got this over here, but they don't work together. And so what we do with a family office, it's the coordination. Uh, it's also the coordination, it's the organization, it's the integration. So it's about integrating everything, if everything integrates together instead of everything being separated. And so I think that's a big thing. And then really, it's about a private investment expertise. Um, most people that do equities and do stocks and bonds in the market, that's what their focus is. It's not private investments. So we really hang our hat on the private investments and the business development side of it.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Right. Perfect. Well said, well said. You know, I'm getting I'm getting excited here, getting chills about just thinking about some of the guys that you I'm sure there's an example of a guy that sticks out to you that you've that you've been working with and you've helped them, you know, in this transformation to understand the whole money aspect of things and how to really build that generational wealth. Uh, when you think about it, if you if you just think about your client list, is there one guy that stands out to you or one story? Again, it doesn't have to be a name, but one story that stands out to you uh uh that you've watched a guy that really transforms their mindset around how to really build this generational wealth outside of the game that sticks out to you.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Yeah, for sure. So, you know, when we have a long list of clients and we're growing um a lot right now, um, I'm starting to get a lot of older guys in the league reach out to me that you know want to build and develop things more on the coaching side of business and entrepreneurship. But when I think about guys from the beginning to the end, or I think about their mindset and their coachability, I think of three guys in particular. One's a young guy and two are older. My first and second client, which is Jalen Smith and Jesse Bates. Um, those two guys are very, very different, but gonna have very, very similar outcomes, but they just got there in a different way. Jalen Smith's a better entrepreneur than Jesse Bates. Um he has developed skills on how to start his own insurance agency with Globelife. He has his own eyewear company that's been on Good Morning America. Um he his eyewear company's in 350 Sam's clubs. He um he um his I say his insurance company, the eyewear company, his restaurant. He opened his first restaurant on Notre Dame's campus, and he owns the rights to the whole state of Indiana with the restaurant. And he's scaling that space. So that guy's already making more cash flow off the field from his businesses that he would make um on a on a contract right now on a team. Um Jesse Bates doesn't have as many operating entities, and he's not as entrepreneur, but he's an elite investor. So, like both of these guys, um you know, Jesse's gonna get about to see like a 10 to 15x return on SpaceX. Um that's gonna be seven, seven figures. Jalen Smith just had a seven-figure return uh off of Aura Ring. And so these guys made decisions at an early age that while they're hitting close to their 30s, they're getting million-dollar check returns on investments because they make good decisions and they know how to the the thing I the thing I always say about an entrepreneur, and this is why I try to teach my guys um this is why entrepreneurs move different. We move different, we move with a different level of confidence, a level of understanding is because of this. When you develop the skill of entrepreneurship, I can lose my company right now. I could I could lose everything. I'll re-recreate. You can't take what I know, right? You can take what I have, you can try to take my reputation, you can try to take my money, you can try to take whatever you want to take. But you can't take my ability and my know-how on how to create and how to execute, and that's how I develop and train my guys. They're not dependent upon, oh, football's going now. What? They've developed other skills on how to create wealth, and they're not dependent upon me. They can walk in the boardrooms without me, they can negotiate without me, you know, and so I think that's the thing where brothers gotta invest with people who are willing to invest in me. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Man, that's good, man. Good night. You over here preaching right now. Um you know, I would assume when it comes to family office, it's the same pro it's a similar process when it comes to evaluating people, you know, evaluating, you know, you're not just taking anyone, you're you're looking for that specific thing. So when you look at guys that sit across from you, uh athletes who are trying to really grow and who's intentional about what that looks like, what are you actually evaluating? You know, not again, not on field talent, but what are you evaluating within that in that person that make you that make you say, hey, this is the right client for me?

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Yeah, it's fundamental. Two fundamental things. Um a willingness and a desire to want to learn, to really, really want to learn. And um the willingness and discipline to be held accountable. Like if you're accountable and you want to learn, I can work with you.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

We think about guys and we think about them in the in the uh in the formation of what they can do on the field as being elite. You know, uh, what do we even as athletes who are in the same locker room miss about a guy who is elite and how and what you just explained of that willingness to to learn and grow and to use that that same mindset outside of the game?

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Man, I think the the the the word that comes to my mind is discipline. There is a there is an extreme amount of discipline that is required to be an elite. I mean I was a D2 player, but I'm surrounded by all pro bowl guys, and there's the the level of discipline, the level of routine, the level of consistency that's required to not just do it but do it over longevity, it's it's elite. It is elite. And I think that there's a great book I read a long time ago called Brainwashed, and um I think the brother's name was Tom Burrell. He owned the first black advertising agency um out of Chicago, Illinois, I believe. Um, but he wrote a book called Brainwashed, and it was talking about the BI complex, which is the black inferiority complex. And he said that it was the greatest marketing scheme of all time to market the people to think that black is inferior, um, including black people, um, that you believe what you've been taught. I remember when it hit me so hard because I was one of those people that unconsciously thought that black was inferior and I didn't recognize it. It was unconscious for me because I went to an all-white uh private school, and when I went there unconsciously, it was embedded in me that I was really good at football and I could play football, but when I went into other aspects, I was inferior to my peers, right? Right, and so it got programmed and even to the point of when I would get around a white teacher, a black teacher, or a black professor, I'm like a black doctor, you know, and that gets embedded deeply into us. I see why do I say that? I believe there are so many athletes that identify themselves solely, they won't vocalize it out loud, but internally they they see I'm just an athlete, and so when it comes to this other stuff, and you gotta learn something new, or just like learning a new playbook, it's intimidating at first, but you gotta get repetition, you gotta get at bats, right? And if you're not getting reps in business, if you don't want to get in there and get no reps, you ain't gonna get no better. And so I just think that's the I think that's the biggest thing.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Gotta be willing to get your hands dirty, you know. And when you think about guys like Tom Brady, LeBron James, you look at what they're doing off of the off of the field, you know, when you're going into your offseason when you have time, like what is that, what does that really look like to really start to to I call it a toolbox, to develop the toolbox that you need to actually succeed in a way that doesn't distract you from what your main thing is right in that in those moments?

SPEAKER_01 34:03

So we every one of our clients have a what we call off-seasons, off-season calendar. As soon as the season's over, we meet with our clients and we we do their calendar all the way through February through July. And we break it down each month and we color code it. And when we break it down, it's got three, it typically has three um uh three um three areas. It has an area for spiritual and business development, um, it has an area for physical development, and then it has an area for your family. You know, and so I believe that at Rise, we say at Rise Family Office, we say we do three things. We help guys take high income and build lasting wealth, we help them become business leaders, and we help them build strong families. You know, at the end of the day, I'm tired of seeing brothers make all this money, and at the end of the day, you don't have a strong family. Right, right. Like, we gotta care about these brothers to get them to a point where they can treat women right, that they kids get to experience some of that hard work that they put in, and after they just spent all the money on the vacation. Right. And then the kid, the kid growing up like a normal kid, and like, and then hearing all these stories and seeing all these helmets when his dad plays ball, you know, and so it's just um it's just something that we want to fix, and we committed to fixing it.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Absolutely. I love that, man. Man, I this is I'm thinking about all the um the things that the conversations, um, the real conversations when an athlete, and I wouldn't say an athlete, let's say Chris Spencer. I'm I come to you and I say, hey Michael, I want to be a billionaire. What is that real conversation like? Because do we think like that? Do we have aspirations and you have someone to come and have that conversation with you? What is the real conversation you have with? Have it with me. It's funny you it's funny you say that.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

So when Chris Spencer comes to me and says, Mike, I want to be a billionaire, I'm gonna ask Chris a question five times in a row. So I'm gonna ask him, he's gonna give me an answer, then I'm gonna ask him, he's gonna give me an answer. And that question is gonna be like, Chris, why do you want to be a billionaire? And then he's gonna give me an answer. And I'm gonna ask him again, why do you we call that go five wise deep. You want to go five wise deep to really challenge the why a billionaire. Why? Yeah, why is that significant? Why is it important? Why is it deeply rooted in you? And so when we when we when we get five wise deep and we found out the why that why can sustain us, then what we do is we we define what does what does it look like. So let's let's let's let's let's draw a picture out. What does being a billionaire look like? All right, bet. So you're talking about what what does it look like? All right, and then we talk about why you want that, and then we talk about how to get it. So now let's talk about how we're gonna do it and let's develop a strategy and a guideline and guardrails that help us get to that goal to get there. That's that's what we do. All right. Conversation to be had. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we we sit there and we sit there and we look at, okay, so what's your financial picture now? What kind of financial resources do you have? What kind of human capital resources do you have? What kind of social capital do you have? What do you miss? What are you lacking that we can help fill that void from our ecosystem? And how do we take both of those things to get you where you want to be? And that's that's essentially what we do. And a lot of a lot of guys are working with really average people. It's just like, it's just like when I had my training company, right? And we when and when you're when you're a guy that played in the league or you play college or you train people, the average kid don't know that that dude he training with his whole thing. Right, right. You look at it and he's like, Oh, I'm how much you paying. Oh, you paying them X. Okay, let me go see what you're doing, let me see the plan. You're like, what? But they don't, you don't, you don't know what you don't know. And then, but once you've been around elite trainers, elite people, you like, yo, I know what that looks like. That's me on the finance and business world. I meet a dude, I'm like, who do you work with? What are they doing? I'm like, okay, well, how well do you know your portfolio? Well, I don't know. He said, he said that it's doing good. Okay, do you know how to read the reports? No, I don't know that. I just, my homeboy is gonna run this, they gonna do this. Now, what do you know? What do you know? What do you understand? And it's just been it's in it, it's been an accepted culture.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

It's been an accepted culture that is is led to 78% of guys that go broke. And 78% of those guys that go broke, 56% of them have financial advice.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

It's crazy. So something ain't crazy. It's crazy, which is a problem that I wanted to solve when I re when I retired from football. And it's 75% of these guys are broke or divorced within five years. And why, you know, and that that was one of the questions that I could continue to ask myself is why. Um, but we get we can discuss that another time. But when I think about taking the helmet off, you know, you're taking the helmet off, and um you you said earlier about, you know, what I took, what you said earlier was around reprogramming ourselves. You know, we as athletes have to reprogram our mindset. Um a couple simple things for young athletes who are just started on this journey to start to think about of how to really program the right financial mindset.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Yeah, you know what I think, you know what I think, Chris. I think most brothers are hiding behind the helmet. Most brothers are insecure and hiding behind the helmet. They've been hiding behind the helmet. You know, you couldn't read, you you didn't understand certain things, you felt inferior. Going back to what I said, you felt inferior and you just hid behind that helmet, and I would get accepted or I would get acknowledged, you know, because of my performance when I had that helmet on. But when I take that helmet off, really, I feel no matter how big I am, how fast I am, I feel insecure.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Mike, I'm gonna pause you right there because I hate to cut you off, but um, you know, this podcast about vulnerabilities and things like that. And so you saying that, I can I can vulnerably share that I was one of those athletes early on that was hiding behind the helmet, you know, having dyslexia and all these different things that I was, you know, struggling with. Um, it took me a long time to really, you know, to really take that helmet off and and actually push it aside and not hide behind it. And that's why I do this podcast, and that's why I do what I do now, because um when you start to realize what your skill set is, you start to realize that um you're not the only one. And so if I'm not the only one, then um why not me? You know, and so uh and in that in in that vulnerability, you probably discovered a new thing. Completely new, completely new, man. And and the things that I'm able to accomplish, the the things that I've you know, you you you get to hide behind a lot of things. It's not just the helmet, it's you know you're early on successful money, you hide behind it. And so, um, and so how do you how do you how do you really start to peel back those onions and layers so that you can, you know, feel in the place, like you said, as an entrepreneur, we move different. Um, we are in this in this place where, hey, I'm I'm in a place now, no matter what happened, I can uh you can't take my knowledge away. I can recreate. Um, and so so it takes, it takes it takes uh courage, it takes humility to to really be be vulnerable to step out there and do something different and not let those things that we've been told year in and year out, um, shh, be quiet, please play football.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Yeah, it's it's crazy because if you think about it like this a little bit, Chris, it's like football players are very high paid laborers. They're high paid laborers. But when you think about people who are not laborers, right? That they got you know laborish jobs and they work for hours and they do so on and so forth, versus the what you just said a minute ago is the entrepreneur is a creator, you're creating opportunity, you're creating IP, right? You're creating systems, you're creating processes, you're creating brands. The the to identify that I've been operating as a laborer that is high paid. Well, I mean, do you carry off a retirement, you still gonna be a laborer, right? Right, you're just gonna get paid a lot of that.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

Unless you learn how to create. We, you know, as athletes, sometimes, again, like you said, hide behind that helmet, you know. Um, you know, what is the most underrated and tangible in business that athletes struggle with?

SPEAKER_01 43:41

I think that when you're an elite talent and you're an elite performer for half of your life as an athlete, um you can undervalue systems and processes that. That don't depend on your uh talent and ability. Everything's based on talent. Go get the five-star. Get the five-star. Get the first round pick. The talent, the talent, the talent, the talent. You know, I firmly believe that Tom Brady's the GOAT. I firmly believe that he had a lot to do with them seven Super Bowls. I think that those systems by Belichick and them processes are undervalued. Um, because people want to always just simplify it the talent. So I think that's a I think that's a limitation. I think the other thing is that athletes like to get caught up in what's a great idea or what's flashy and shiny. And great investors know that you invest in people. You invest in people. At the end of the day, you know, you can tell me all about your vision, your plan, and you can talk to me about how good your football team is gonna be, and we can sit here and debate all day. And I'm gonna ask you one fundamental question. And I'm gonna say, Well, who playing quarterback? Who playing quarterback? And then when you tell me who's playing quarterback, I say, You ain't going to the Super Bowl. Not with that quarterback, you're not going to the Super Bowl. It's the same thing. I want to know, well, who's who's the CEO? Who I understand that horse looks pretty, but who's riding that horse? Who's the jock? Who's on top of the horse riding the horse? Who's gonna figure out the problems to fix things when it goes bad? Athletes gotta understand you could have the best opportunity in the world, and then you try to put your cousin Jojo in the position to be the CEO, that opportunity that might have been great is not dead. Right. Because JoJo ain't never ran a horse before, he ain't never rode a horse. You know what I mean? So it's just, I think those are some of the challenges.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Yeah, man. I, you know, and again, and what you just said, when you think about that underrated piece, and and it's it's just it's simple, as simple as you've been told what to do your whole life. Uh, you've been shown here's your here's your workout, here's your schedule, and all that. And then all of a sudden, you know, all of that goes away. And then now you have to create your own process. Who how do you create this process? Man, how do I create my workout? What is my who who's gonna help? Who's gonna help me in this transition?

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Right. I'm going through a transition. You taking your son to college visits right now to Arkansas. Your son ain't ever played in college, your son ain't ever played in the league. It's a transition from high school to college. Guess what? Guess who? Guess who can help him with that transition? Chris Spencer. Could Chris Spencer help him if he didn't do it and he wasn't there? I'm not really I'm not really trying to invest into a first-time founder. Yeah, how many companies have you exited? How many have you started? How many things you how many it ain't even about success, it's about failure.

SPEAKER_00 47:23

Right, right, right. Man, this is good, man. This is good. And I and I hate to get to a place where we got to start thinking about closing this because I think it's just so it's so powerful for people to hear and understand that this is a process, it's about systems, it's about taking those those intangibles and making those intangibles work for you and in performance. And so performance doesn't just stop on the field, you know. You have to have a mind, a mindset and a creativity within your mind that I have my processes down, now I'm ready to go compete. And so when I think about that, when I think about you know, this this life that you've lived, your upbringing and where you, you know, and how you've gotten to where you are, you know, if you had to go back and talk to your younger self, you know, what would you what would you say? You know, what would you say to your younger self coming out of college?

SPEAKER_01 48:13

I would say I would go back and tell myself that when God gave me the vision and tells and tells me what I'm supposed to do and why I'm supposed to do it, never walk in a space that doesn't support that vision or believe in that vision. I gotta create my own ecosystem to support me. I think many people, and myself included, you try to, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta meet people where they are and accept people for who they are. And sometimes we want our mom, our dad, the hood we grew up in, the friends we grew up with. We want them to change because we want to do something with them or we want them to be something that there may not be. And I think when you are committed to the vision, then you have to find the ecosystem that can help develop Chris Spencer to be who he needs to be. Absolutely. But I I remember the times in my life when I was younger where I had ideas and I had visions, and I feel like the resources that I needed to get there were just like, where do I even find that? Right. Right. Where do I even get that? Like I don't have that. Go get it. Go find it. It's not, it's not as hard as we can. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

Man, that's good. That's good. Now, um we we've talked a lot about you know building generational wealth and and what you're doing for your athletes. When you think about yourself, um, you know, what does legacy mean to you now? Man, it's as I'm I keep I talk like I'm getting super old.

SPEAKER_01 49:47

I'm 44, but I feel like I'm hey man, I just hit that number a couple weeks ago. Okay, okay, yeah. So I I'm on that, I'm on that transition. Man, it's it's you know, I just lost my grandmother a couple weeks ago and she raised me, and I've been thinking about that. It's like just like she did for me, man, it's legacy is about what seeds did I plant? You know, what seeds, not necessarily the money I leave or the business, but what are the seeds? You know, how good did I sell some good seeds that um other people can can realize, can use, can grow, that that lasts forever. To me, it's about the seeds I plant.

SPEAKER_00 50:36

That's good. That's good. Well, Michael Man, I got one more question for you. This is this has been awesome. Um, when you think of back, you know, again, this is the intangible podcast. When you think back to your career and you know, playing sports and uh what you do today, what do you what would you say the the um several intangibles has that's made Michael who he is today?

SPEAKER_01 51:05

Uh yeah, confidence, strategy, and patience.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Those are the ones I think about the most. Well, well, Michael, man, I can hear it in your in your voice. The confidence in what you bring to the table, uh, the patience you have to have to work with, you know, some of us knuckleheads that is, you know, think we know it all or don't know anything at all. Uh and the strategy that you've you've built around building your uh your family office. Um, I it's it's been a pleasure to have a conversation with you. Love what you're doing. Gonna continue to support what you do and how you help develop young men into the entrepreneur side of things because I truly think that's where you you truly build um you know one, two, three generations of wealth uh for your for your family. You've been to start. And so again, man, I really appreciate you joining me on Intangible Podcast. Thanks, Chris. I appreciate you. Absolutely.