253: Chris Long Podcast

In today’s episode of the ‘Finding your Summit’ podcast, host Mark Pattison, former NFL Player, Mountaineer who has climbed the Seven Summits, has over 250 podcasts, and a proud Emmy Best Picture Award Winner talks with guest Chris Long, Founder of NFL Defensive End & WaterBoys.org. Chris shares about his transition and philanthropic work.

Listen to “EP 253 Chris Long: From the NFL to Life After Football. He's moving the ball forward by helping others.” on Spreaker.

Episode Highlights

• 00:24 – Mark mentions that last week he was in New York City for winning the Emmy for Best Picture ‘Searching for the Summit’—the epic film that the NFL did on his amazing journey of Mount Everest back last year.
• 02:28 – Mark saw Chris in Atlanta before the Super Bowl. He was kind of transitioning in his career.
• 03:47 – Mark asks Chris about his career transition, especially when he has done something for a long time and then he got into this whole new thing.
• 05:58 – Chris says, the sooner we can do that and own that transition, rather than letting that transition own us, the better off we are and that’s just what he tried to do.
• 07:47 – We have to be able to kind of ride the wave of change and that’s what retirement is, and if he said it was easy, he’d be lying, states Chris.
• 09:16 – We all should at least try to become the best version of ourselves, states Mark.
• 11:47 – Change can be good, and podcasts can be good. These other things can really expose us to the world to continue learning about new things.
• 12:46 – It’s one thing to be a leader or captain on the football field. But it’s another thing to test that leadership skill set in the real world or the more common world.
• 15:02 – What Chris learned fairly recently is that he has worked himself to the bone. He has been overworked, and he has been too busy.
• 17:31 – Chris wants to say yes to everything—not just because he feels guilty about whatever the request is, but because he also cares.
• 19:00 – If one is not happy because they’re overworked, then stop, states Chris.
• 21:06 – We get so caught up in that sense of urgency that we learn for our whole life. It just doesn’t apply the same outside of football, says Chris.
• 23:00 – Our biggest gift is that we’re really comfortable in those spaces, just cutting to the chase and telling people how we feel.
• 25:41 – Mark noticed that Chris transitioned over into the Chris Long Foundation—the foundation he has set up where he’s not focused only on WaterBoys, but also has the ability to take money in and distribute it.
• 28:38 – Chris has taken two years off because of the pandemic and some timing stuff, and he will be going back up the mountain this year.
• 31:21 – Chris thinks as people in America, we get caught up in a lot of little things. There are some big things they have to fix.
• 33:00 – Chris says, they are getting a chance to travel and getting a chance to meet different people from different cultures.
• 35:25 – Mark says, David is a guy like Chris, he’s made a great transition, life after football and really found a purpose in terms of helping others.

Three Key Points

1. When we’re mentally done, and we can’t pursue those goals that we had for most of our career anymore, we just don’t have the same hunger, or things are getting a little bit old or stale or we’re not having fun, then we need to move on.
2. Everybody learned something about themselves in retirement and what he has discovered recently is, that we didn’t know ourselves. We know ourselves like football players but we don’t know how to control ourselves outside of football, how to set our schedule, how to wake up every day and answer for ourselves. We were pushed by a singular goal all year for however long we played, it was there. So now we got to go out and find motivation, we have to go out and be organized, and communicate.
3. Chris shares that they know that during retirement, he wants to work a lot in the education space. That doesn’t mean we’re going away from WaterBoys, as they increased the resources and buildings, hired more people, were able to generate the same output in the water sector, and add the education piece so they’ve just tried to make the messaging concise. They believe that the right education and clean water should be human rights, and that’s kind of their calling card right now. They’ve got a shiny new website. They’re definitely launching some fun and exciting stuff in the education side of the RedZone, and the WaterBoys thing keeps plugging along.

Tweetable Quotes

“When you do things for the right reasons, good things can follow.” – Mark Pattison

“The hardest thing about retiring is just accepting—accepting your career and saying, that’s what it was and you can’t go back.” – Chris Long

“The only person that’s going to allow you to move on is you.” – Chris Long

“When you get tired, your comfort zone was really uncomfortable.” – Chris Long

“I’ve put myself through that because I was so used to being uncomfortable.” – Chris Long

“I’ve learned to tone it down and balance it much better than I ever have in my life.” – Mark Pattison

“I don’t want to scare my boys by being direct.” – Chris Long

“You have to learn to be a little less stressed out.” – Chris Long

“We looked at a little bump on the road as an opportunity rather than be like: oh man, the world is ending.” – Chris Long

“We know that in retirement, I want to work a lot in the education space. That doesn’t mean we’re going away from WaterBoys.” – Chris Long

 

Resources Mentioned

Chris Long: Website | Apple | Spotify | YouTube

Mark Pattison YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingYourSummitWithMarkPattison/featured