There are many ways to introduce yourself.
You can list accomplishments, degrees, awards, and titles. They have their place, and they help tell part of a story. But they rarely explain who a person becomes over the course of a life.
For much of my adolescence and early adulthood, I was deeply motivated by external achievement.
As a collegiate basketball player, I had the privilege of competing at a high level and finished my career as the all-time leading scorer at Skidmore College, with league and national accolades. Later, I built a successful career in business, serving as the CEO of a mortgage company. In time, I turned toward creative work as a writer and filmmaker, pursuits that allowed me to explore questions of identity, meaning, history, mythology, and the human experience.
Looking back, I am grateful for every one of those chapters.
I also know that none of them, by themselves, define who I am.
Like many former athletes, I eventually discovered that every chapter of life comes to an end. Athletic careers end. Businesses change. Ambitions evolve. Priorities shift. The challenge is not simply learning how to succeed in one chapter, but learning how to continue growing into the next.
Like most people, my own path has not unfolded in a straight line. It has been a series of unexpected turns, success and disappointment, certainty and doubt, beginnings and endings. Over time, I came to realize that the deepest lessons in life rarely come from achievement alone. More often, they emerge through learning how to let go, begin again, and discover that our worth has never depended solely on what we accomplish or what others think of us.
That realization now shapes both my life and the work I do today.
In recent years, I chose a different pace of life. Living in Peru has given me the opportunity to devote more of my life to creativity, study, my family, and work that feels aligned with who I am rather than strictly pursuing professional success. It has reminded me that a good life is often built on the most ordinary and simple things: honest relationships, meaningful work, curiosity, and the freedom to evolve as a human being.
The older I have become, the less interested I am in status, recognition, or proving myself to others. I have become much more interested in understanding people, asking better questions, and walking alongside others as they navigate seasons of change with perspective and hope.
That is why I created After the Game.
I believe that the transition out of competitive sport is one of the least recognized and least supported experiences many young men will ever face. It is a process that comes with all kinds of psychological and emotional challenges. For years, athletes are taught how to compete, improve, and measure self-worth in relation to others. Very few are taught how to let go, redefine themselves, and discover a foundation for an equally meaningful life after the game ends.
I do not claim to have all the answers, nor do I believe there is a precise formula for a successful or meaningful life.
What I do offer is experience, thoughtful conversation, careful listening, and a genuine belief that life's most important chapters are not always the ones that earn the most applause and recognition.
If our conversations help someone leave behind an identity that has become too small, make peace with the past, reconnect with the people they love, or begin building a life rooted in humility, purpose, and self-acceptance, then the work has been worthwhile.
Every athlete plays his last game, but the end of competition is by no means the end of the story.
The real privilege is discovering who you become afterward.
