From the NFL to Entrepreneurship with Justin Pugh

with Justin Pugh

Jul 16, 2026 · 00:52:44

Justin, welcome to the podcast. Really great to have you here, man.

It's been, it's been a long time. We did Biz Week the last 2 years, so I've known I needed to get on this podcast. So it's about time.

Yeah, absolutely, brother. Appreciate you being here. So I wanted to have you on just because you've had an amazing football career, and I know we've talked together at NFL Biz Week, and a lot of those conversations are about connecting elite performance on the field to business performance. So I wanted to get into the weeds with that a little bit if you're cool with that.

No, I absolutely love it. I know we might have to give a little background on what Biz Week even is, how we even got— yeah, go for it. I think, I think that's a really interesting story of like when we talk about the Total Entrepreneur and, and how that came about. So I started this program with the NFL, Syracuse University, and we've done it for 2 years And Syracuse is like, oh, I'm talking to everyone out there right now. I'm not even talking to John.

Oh yeah.

And Syracuse is like, oh, we have this amazing professor. He's a serial entrepreneur. He has this great background. He'd be a great person to get up and talk to all these 30 NFL players. Some of them are rookies, some of them are veterans. And you showed up and presented to the guys and this past year it was amazing. The guys loved your breakdown of what goes into a deal, the red flags to look out for. So now I'm jealous I didn't have you as a professor when I was at Cuse, but I fortunately have got to sit in on some of those classes. And I'm glad that we've sparked up this relationship because you're doing a lot of great things to help the students at Syracuse, but also a lot of these NFL players. So I think I'm a benefit of being a student and a friend now.

Yeah, man. Well, thanks for saying that. Yeah, it's been a pleasure. It's, you know, it's a world I've never been a part of, but yeah, working with the guys and talking them through different things was really fun. And I was just humbled by how, you know, how into it they were and how well they paid attention and the questions they asked. Uh, it was a pretty engaged group. You know, I guess they opted in, right? Nobody was forcing them to be there. So yeah, it was a cool organization. So, so talk a little bit more about, you know, before we get into athletic performance and business performance, why don't you break down a little bit more about Biz Week? What was the motivation for that? How did it come about? Because I think it's a really cool program.

I always tell people it was a little bit selfish in nature to start, which sounds— I, I always say I have to find a new adjective, but it's just, it really is. I played for 11 years. My degree was in finance. I knew my career was coming to an end and I'm just like, what's next for me? I don't want to be part of this statistic that everyone keeps talking about of athletes going broke and having not just financial issues, guys' family issues, career issues. And when I was playing, I kind of started to think about what was next while I was playing. I probably played a few years longer than I thought I would. because I realized the benefits of being a player and how it could help me in business. And I approached the NFL and I said, hey, I've kind of seen this strategy. I've seen really successful NFL players execute it. And when I say successful NFL players, I'm not talking successful on the field, I'm talking successful off the field in business. And I said, I've seen some really successful players do this. We should start teaching more players the playbook to how to leverage the NFL or leverage their time playing sport at their university or their high school level to find success off the field in business. Because I found that 2 players or 2 areas that players struggle with the most was purpose and cash flow. How do I pay my bills? But how do I wake up every day motivated to like, when that alarm clock goes off, you're not hitting snooze, you're like, I'm ready to go. You're jumping in the shower, you're ready to start your day. And the NFL said, you know what? We do this financial literacy program, we're overhauling it. Why don't you take a stab at it? And that was 2 and a half years ago, almost 3 years ago now. We started our first ever Biz Week and it was a culmination of my life really in a business summit, brought in all the folks I knew from New York, brought in my alma mater, Syracuse University, and then brought 30 players to Manhattan to go through this 3-day business summit. And we talked about anything but football really. We talked about wealth management, underwriting deals, real estate, private equity venture. Not that like we're going to underwrite deals tomorrow and become analysts, but we're going to be armed with the tools in our toolbox to go into the world. And if someone brings us an investment, We can at least ask the right questions or know who to bring that to, to ask the right questions to grow our network. I think networking is a huge, huge piece of this. So the NFL gave me the opportunity to grow it. We just finished our second year. Syracuse has still been involved, which makes me super proud. And we're looking forward to growing it bigger and better because we're realizing there's probably two subsets of NFL players, those that are currently playing and those that are not currently playing that are thinking about what's next. And they both have very different needs. So trying to solve for both of those needs has become a problem. It was my problem. So ultimately, I started this by saying it was a selfish endeavor. I was trying to solve this for myself, and in doing so, kind of found a little bit of a solution to a problem I knew existed, but I wasn't trying to solve. And I realized it was probably a good way for me to fill up that purpose bucket of being able to give back to the game and the league that I love so much.

So speaking of purpose, what, what was that like when you finally stepped off the field for the last time? Right? I mean, that, that had been your life, everything you've done from a young child leading up to that point. I mean, football was a big part of your life. So how do you, how does that feel, first of all? And then how do you prepare for that? And then what, what does the other side look like?

You can't prepare for it. Like, I, I play offensive line and like to put it in context, if you don't know, football at all. I'm basically, when the defensive line tries to showcase or mimic the offensive line, they put trash cans down to show who we are in the field. They don't give us any credit. It's not like I was— I dropped it. I might have disconnected for a second. I think we're still good. It said it was trying to reconnect.

Yeah.

Sorry for the technical difficulties, but I didn't play the most flashy position. So It's not like— I love the competition. I loved competing to see if I was better than someone at anything. It could be checkers, it could be seeing if you could jump higher into the pool or you could hold your breath for longer underwater. And football in the NFL was the ultimate competition for me. So when I started to transition away, I wanted to really find something else to compete in. And that's where business really stepped in for me. And I think it really changed the opportunity. And I looked for something else that I could compete in, and that's when I started to find business. And I got hooked on that just like I did playing in the NFL.

And that's kind of what struck me about a lot of the guys at Bizweek is you could tell that they've got that spirit, right? They want to maintain some sort of competitive edge. And I think business is a very natural transition for them from off the field. And I was struck by the fact that so many of these guys get pitched ideas. So, I went into it thinking, hey, we're going to help these guys start their own companies, right? That was my own bias just from the stuff I teach. But then I realized that just because of their, their background, their notoriety, their positions, they're getting pitched ideas all the time by people who want them as investors or be on their team. So that was really important, was to give them a way to discern the opportunities that are getting thrown at them because, you know, they— that's just another way to compete is, you know, competing for better deals and so on.

So yeah, that's a good point. It's learning how to say no. Everyone's like, oh, you want to have a no guy, someone to say no. I really think we need no systems. We need like a, you know, with AI now, I'm not sure if we can, you know, create something that just says no, but saying no to mom and dad, to your siblings, to your cousins, to people that you love, which is very hard to do. And you're like lottery winners. And my uncle, he always says money is like soap. My uncle is my financial advisor. I probably should preface that. He goes, money is like soap. The more you play with it, the less you have.

Uh-huh.

And that always stuck with me. It's like, we already did the hard part. We made it to the NFL, which no one thought we could do. You make life-changing money. Let's get really good at saving before we ever get good at investing. And that's what I want Bizweek to be. Let's get really, really good at networking. Let's get really, really good at saving our money. And then we can get good at investing. Once we're in a position of power, in a position of like, your school's covered for your kids, you are able to pay the mortgage that you For the expensive house you bought when you were playing in the NFL, because no one talks to you. And this is a big thing that I struggle with, is when you're done playing, you're not making any more money, but you're used to living this NFL lifestyle. So you have very expensive bills. And I'm not asking anyone to feel bad for me or feel bad for NFL players. You shouldn't. We made a lot of money. We won the lottery. But what I'm just saying is the reality of the situation. I think there's some, there's crazy stats out there that— 50-plus, I've seen 80-plus sometimes. There's an ESPN famous article talking 80-plus percent of NFL players have financial issues or go bankrupt. And I am going to always fight for my subset of guys. I'm always going to fight for the guys that not everyone is the star of your team, the Tom Brady. The average career doesn't even get pension or benefits, and you leave with being kind of pushed through a career because you were always good at sports, so you didn't have to worry about school as much. I mean, all those stereotypes are real. But when you walk away, how do you set yourself up for life? And that's something that I think takes programs like Biz Week, and there's many other ones out there like it, but it takes leagues like the NFL, the NFLPA, our union, schools like Syracuse University to really step up to the plate and give us tools to be more prepared for life outside of sport because it ends for all of us. It might end in high school for some of us, might end in college, might end in the pros. I mean, you're still surfing all the time, so your career in sports hasn't ended yet. But it's, it's definitely something that has become more of a topic people will talk about. It used to be very hush-hush. We never wanted to talk about that problem.

Right. And I think a lot of people don't get the full scope of what an NFL career looks like. It's like you said, it's not all Tom Bradys, right? So, I mean, what is the average tenure is 5 to 7 years or something and the average salary is relatively low. Yeah. But yeah. So what are those stats?

Yeah, 2.5 is the average career and you need to play. You basically need to play in, maybe it's a little, it could be 2.7 now, might've gone up a little bit.

Yeah.

But to get pension, you need to play for 3 years and 3 games. So that's 4 seasons that you need to be on an active roster for at least 3 games. And the average player does not get those benefits. That's a math problem right there, right? We have an issue where a lot of our players don't have jobs. They don't know what to do when they're done. They actually have a skillset that is transferable into the entrepreneurship lane. But even more so on the other side, you could go be a great employee for a great entrepreneur that has a great idea. You don't always have to go do it on your own. And that's something that I think a lot of players, they pride themselves. They've always been like the patriarch of their family. They're the one that made it to the NFL. So everyone looks up to them and they struggle with, and I've struggled with going back to the bottom of the totem pole. Being an employee at a company, I mean, it might not be the sexiest job in the world, but it's a good place to be because it helps you pay your bills. And that's something that a lot of players forget. Burn rate is something that we talk about all the time. How much does it cost to be Justin Pugh or whoever's listening right now? Most people at home probably can't even tell you that. The NFL player just had a bunch of money over a very short period of time. And they didn't know how much it costs to be them. So they're just throwing money at it. And then when they're done and they have nothing, that's how that, that those, those savings drained very, very quickly.

And I remember that conversation with a bunch of the guys, you know, that, you know, being a high earner doesn't really make you wealthy, right? It's, you know, it's sustained high earnings maybe, but like you said earlier, it's your ability to save and invest. Yeah. So you talked a little bit about that transferability, right? From the field to So, I want to talk a little bit about resilience and grit because all of the research that I read about entrepreneurship kind of points to that as one of the key competencies. So, as an NFL player or a football player at any elite level, grit and resilience has got to be a thing. So, how do you connect that? Or, when we even say those words, what does that mean to you?

I think coachability. I think that's one of the things. When you start in a place and you don't know something, when you start in football, you don't know how the New York Giants like to run their offense or defense or even their culture. Just like when I got drafted to the New York Giants, Tom Coughlin wanted everyone to wear the same colored socks. You had to wear the white socks that were team issued. You couldn't alter any of the things. You couldn't alter the t-shirts or wear something different. So buying into the culture, you're 5 minutes early to everything. There is no showing up on time. Hold on, sorry. I gotta be gritty right now and get these golden retrievers outta here.

Oh, good, man.

They broke into the office like they typically do. They break all the locks. But no, you have to be resilient in your resolve and showing up every day, being on time, wearing the right things, doing the right things off the field where you're sleeping right, eating right, preparing for practice. Showing up again and again and again is a muscle. I was just talking to a buddy of mine that I work out with now. And when you wake up at 5:45 in the morning and you don't feel like working out, it's almost not even important what you do with the workout. It's just showing up to the workout and being present and continuously showing up. And I said to him, we started talking about it, I'm like, man, I'm not feeling it today. And he said to me, look, you're here, so whatever you do is better than what you would've done otherwise.

Mm-hmm.

And it's the people that compound those little things over and over and over again that are the most resilient. And in football, you have no other opportunity. If you don't keep showing up, you're gonna get cut from the team. You're not going to be involved in it. And I think it taught me at a very young age, things won't always go your way. You might not always be the starter. You might not always be the star. You might have to play offensive line when you really wanted to be a quarterback your whole life and you thought you had more talent than the coach gave you credit for. And that's something that team sports has been teaching me in American football. I say American football because I've been working on a project in Europe and football is a different thing in Europe than it is in the US. So pardon me for saying American football at times, but football has taught me so many of those And it's not even about the game. And I think that's what's most transferable. It's not about, can you block a defensive lineman or catch a ball or run really fast? Can you show up again and again and do what's asked of you even if you don't feel like it, even if it's rainy, even if you're having a bad day and you might have a headache? You got to continue to show up. And that's something that I think just creates more successful people in life. And I realized when I started doing all the work in business, it's even more so in business. Like the stress of building businesses is as stressful as trying to block Aaron Donald on a Sunday. It's just different avenues.

Right. And I think it kind of speaks to the difference between motivation and discipline, right? Because you're not going to be motivated, like at your 5:30 workout, you weren't really motivated to get there. You had the discipline to get there, right? And I think that that's what you're talking about in football. And just like you said, in business, yeah, if you wait for motivation, You might be waiting forever. So it's all about the discipline and just kind of doing something and showing up. Absolutely.

And here's a question I have for you, John, and you've been through this and you've built businesses. I always hear this phrase, and this is what I try to— and I try to pull the cloak back maybe a little bit. So maybe depending on which way you go, I'm either going to look like an idiot or not. But everyone's like, oh, well, find something you love and you'll never work a day again in your life. But if you can't pay your bills, Maybe I'm like, maybe you find something that pays your bills first. It's that chicken and the egg. So how do you feel about that whole, you know, find something you're passionate about? And I'm like, find something that pays your bills. Where do you fall on that topic?

Yeah, I think whoever coined that phrase was just lucky enough to have something that they really liked that paid them a lot of money, right? Because you're right, the fact is, yeah, you have to pay your bills, right? So you've got to find something that's going to pay the bills. And while you're doing that, you also strive for more. So one of the things that I talk to our seniors a lot, they, a lot of them get very stressed, especially in today's job market, right? They're like, ah, the jobs that are available, I don't really want, I don't wanna do those forever. And I always say, you're not gonna do it forever. You might do it for a year or two until something better comes along or your network expands and you have another opportunity.

Yeah.

So I think the idea is you keep reaching for the passion and something that's gonna light you up. Or you learn, you institute that discipline, you keep showing up, and the better you get at something, the more you tend to like it, right?

Yeah.

So, I think it's a process or a journey. I think we do a lot of our young people a disservice by saying, oh, you got to find something you really love, because that's almost— it's not impossible, of course, but it's hard to do, especially when you're a youngster. I mean, a 21-year-old kid coming out of college, is gonna be hard pressed to find something they love to do for a high salary.

I totally agree. I mean, that's, I had to do a little bit of soul searching on that one, right? I was just, I got into real estate and I didn't think I was gonna love it. And then I realized the opportunities that existed in it. And ultimately, I'm not pursuing a real estate career right now, but I've taken a lot of those lessons I learned in real estate in the off seasons when I wasn't preparing for the football season. that are setting me up for what I'm working on now. And I think that's 100% kind of how I saw it. But I was wondering from a successful entrepreneur how you see it. And I'm glad we're— I must have been listening when you were talking at Bizweek those last few years.

Yeah. Well, thanks for that. No, I definitely agree with that. I mean, it would be nice. And I think ultimately you do find yourself there, but it takes some time, right? There's seasons in life. And when you're young, sometimes you just got to do what you got to do.

Right.

You got bills to pay and you got to advance your career. So I think that's, it's important just to embrace that.

Yeah, for sure.

So the other thing I heard from a lot of the guys is this idea of the, the short memory or just being able to move on. So in business, so, so I, I like to study and work with entrepreneurs with ADHD. And one of the things that comes along with ADHD is this thing called RSD or rejection sensitive dysphoria. So we, we try to avoid things where we feel like we might fail or get rejected, right? So there's a weird dynamic there. But the guys I was talking to, they're like, hey, you know, one of the best skills or attributes you could have is moving on from that flubbed play, right? You screw something up, you can't let it get in your head because you got the next play to worry about and you can't screw that one up because you're worried about the last one. So I don't know if that's— if you've ever thought of it that way or if that's something that you experience on a day-to-day basis, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

It's probably one of the things I don't do well. Like, I was— when you're an offensive lineman, it's easy to forget a play when you drop a ball, when you miss that one tackle. All right, whatever, I'll get them next time. My job was to protect another human being. I had to protect the quarterback. I had to protect the running back. And if I didn't do my job, I could get someone seriously injured.

Hmm.

So it's easy for a receiver sometimes to say, oh, forget it, move on to the next one. But it's hard to forget it when you get Eli Manning hit and the whole world hates you, or you get Eli Manning hit or Kyler Murray hit and he's not in the game anymore and you're losing the game because the left guard let up a sack. And I think maybe that's why in business sometimes, and I've gotten much better at this, getting to a quick no is I think kind of a little bit of what you're referring to. Like the rejection, don't be bad, don't be nervous about getting to a quick no. And it took It's taken me a lot of time to get there. Sometimes I like to play a little bit too much of the politic game and the niceties, and eventually rubber has to meet the road. And I think maybe it's similar to how I had to play football, right? It's just the offensive line, like it was a little bit more, we dwelled on the past a little bit too much and it was harder for us to get over those mess-ups. You still couldn't, because if you let up a sack, then you let up another one, you're not going to have a job for very long. So eventually you have to get over it. But I might be a little bit slower twitch to get over those things than others. And I think that's, I see it in my business life now that the last meeting I went to, and I've made it a goal of mine this year, is give me quick nos. Like, I want quick nos. I went in and pitched someone the other day and it was a very success— it was a very successful organization. And I said, hey, if you don't like this idea, just gimme a quick no. Like, I'm not, it's no skin off your back and no, like, I just, I need to know so I'm not hanging around the hoop waiting forever because it's going to slow me down. And that's something that I want to get better and better at. And I think I could take more of that from successful entrepreneurs, but also maybe from some of the skill position players. They're like, I'm going to score a touchdown eventually, just keep throwing me the ball. So I wish I was better, but I definitely see that correlation and I see why it's so successful and so needed to be successful in business.

And I think getting to a quick no is definitely important. I mean, if you're going to get there anyway, you may as well do it quickly, right? Yeah. But I'm wondering if there's a weird effect of you actually saying it, saying, hey, give me a quick no. Like, does that bias them one way or the other, right? Like, could you possibly bring them along to a yes at some point, or is that the thing you're trying to avoid in the first place?

And that's kind of my thought process, right? I like to slow play and get to know people and I learned early on, I made one bad investment in my NFL career and I knew there were some red flags and I did it anyways. And one of those, you've really got to get to know the investment. You really got to get to know the people because people can make numbers look like whatever they want. And that's not right or wrong, but they're always going to give you the rose-colored glasses. It's always, it's going to 10x and everything's going to go according to our plan. And it comes down to people. Are you willing to bet on that person? Over and over again. And that's something that I've learned throughout my career. You gotta make sure when things hit the fan and things might not go your way, that you bet on the right people. And that's something that I want to get to know the people. So if you get to a quick no, if you're so transactional, sometimes you may miss learning. And this person's a really good person, and it might not be this opportunity, but it could be the next.

Mm-hmm.

So Fortunately for me, I have a very good relationship and I always will have a relationship with the organization that I was talking to. So even though it was a quick no on this specific ask, I know we're going to have many more things that we'll work on because of the relationship we've built over time. So maybe that's just, maybe I am a little bit lucky. Be more like an offensive lineman in business and maybe things will go a little bit better for you.

Yeah. I mean, well, I think the key is authenticity, right? It's whatever works for you. You're not trying to emulate somebody else. You're just, you're being Justin. And I think that's what, that's what plays well, you know?

All right. Well, I'm learning. I'm learning. The quick know is good, but getting to know people too is, I think there's, there's a lot of benefits to that.

Yeah. What other characteristics that, you know, professional ballplayers develop or have do you think translate really well to business? So we talked about, you know, discipline, grit, resilience. What else do you guys have that translates?

I think teamwork is the number one thing. I mentioned coachability. That's part of that resiliency that I talked about, but teamwork. And the reason why is because I grew up in the suburbs of Pennsylvania, very kind of niche people that I saw every single day. I'm seeing mostly white Catholic or Jewish. Those are like, that's kind of— a couple of my buddies were Jewish growing up. Actually, a lot of my buddies were Jewish. I'm going to Catholic church. You're really not seeing much. Not much variety in religion, not much variety in ethnicity. So when I got to Syracuse for the first time, and I always tell this story and it's so true, my roommate, this kid Zach Chabane, his dad immigrated from Algeria, Northern Africa, and he was Muslim. And this was like 2009. So like, It's still like I'm coming out of high school, 2011 or 2001 was not that far away. And I remember we're walking by a mosque one day and he starts telling me about it and so naive in my head, I just didn't know anything about it. You have all these negative connotations and then you don't realize it's the biggest religion in the world. And became my best friend. I was in his wedding, he was in mine. We played next to each other for so many years and we didn't always see eye to eye. And it came to politics or it came to life. And Zach is one example of a guy that came from a background that I had nothing to do with or no clue how to even— I never ever had these kind of conversations when I was in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where I'm from. And then you get into the NFL and I'll give another example of a guy, his name is DJ Fluker. And I remember we're on a bus ride or we're on a train ride from New York to play the Washington Commanders. And he's telling me about how he lived in a car after Katrina hit when he was a little little boy. And when I tell you DJ Fluker is the biggest human being I've ever met in my life, and I'm growing up, my mom, stepdad, have both parents around, siblings, DJ's living out of a car. And it just struck me of like, you never know what someone's going through. You never know someone's story. You can never judge a book by its cover. And then when I got into business, I'm kind of bringing this all back to business. I was working for this real estate developer You're working with politicians, you're working with investors, you're working with neighbors of communities that you're living in, and you're trying to bring everyone together for a common goal. And that's what team sports taught me. Doesn't matter if you're Justin Pugh from the— you're from a farm town outside of Pennsylvania, you're Zach Chabane, you're a son of an immigrant, or DJ Fluker who had to live out of a car after Hurricane Katrina. We're all coming together for a common goal. And It almost is irrelevant what that common goal is. It just matters that you're doing it together and you're putting everything aside. And for those 60 minutes, nothing else matters. So I took that into business. When we're doing the real estate development, hey guys, we all want to get this done. How can we all row the boat in the same direction to make this happen? And that's the one key I think for athletes that we have this ability to Put everything aside to get a common goal done. We respect each other. We show up professionally with one another. Not always, right? People are going to have their issues, but we're able to say, hey, the world's a crazy different place, but we're going to come together and try to achieve something bigger than just one of us. And that's something that I've always, always have enjoyed. And I didn't realize that's what football was going to teach me. It took me so far outside of my comfort zone, this little small town in the suburbs of Pennsylvania, To now I'm doing stuff in Italy and Europe, and I'm international now with it. And that's even more so crazy for me. And football is the teamwork aspect has really come into play.

Yeah, I want to talk about your your Europe project in a minute. Yeah. But yeah, so yeah, everybody's kind of coming together to work toward a common goal, right? That definitely translates to business. Did you find in professional football that there was also a culture of accountability? Like, were guys willing and able to just like come out and say, "Hey man, you know." You fucked that up or you screwed up. Let's kind of get your head in the game here. Like, how— what was that like?

The NFL has a few types of people, but I'll break it down.

It's like a—

there's a cover-your-ass culture in the NFL because if you don't have security or you haven't won recently, you're on the line. That's coaches, that's general managers. No one wants to tell the owner bad news. So it always is someone else's fault. So the spotlight's off them and on somebody else. And it always drove me crazy. It still drives me crazy. The NFL and professional sports is riddled with COVID your ass. It's always someone else's fault. Couldn't have been me. And I always try to pride myself, and it may have been to a fault of that one was on me. I messed that up. And I had security, so it gave me a little bit more of a room to do this and always is kind of maybe how I was rooted. Fortunately, and I should have mentioned this in the beginning, I was a first-round draft pick. So I had a 4-year guaranteed contract. I knew they weren't going to cut me. So I had a lot more security than the average player that I'm talking about. I should not act like I'm this anomaly that made it 11 years. Yeah, it's great, but 88% of first-round draft pick offensive linemen get to a second contract. So I did what I kind of was supposed to do. And because I had security, I felt like it was an obligation of mine to stand up when it was my fault, when I did do something wrong. And Tom Coughlin taught us this, my head coach initially. He would make us watch the film together. And if you didn't take accountability for what you did wrong, he was going to make sure the team knew you didn't do something right. And he was calling out Eli Manning just like he was calling me out as a rookie. And that always stayed with me. I've been on good teams and bad teams and I've seen, and I've always prided myself because I've been on more bad teams than good teams. Is on the bad teams, when times got tough, I prided myself on showing up and still being truthful. And no, that was my fault. And if you have to cut somebody or replace somebody, look at me first. If I'm not doing my job, replace me. And that's what I always felt like was my duty. And there was a ton of guys like that. But pro sports in general, you either have people that stand up for it or they're going to say, oh no, it was somebody else. Someone else did that. I'm trying to get a contract done. I'm in a contract year. Couldn't be me. And that's something that's probably hard to— a tough pill to swallow. And that's something that I always hated. I still hate that about the NFL because I know good people are losing their jobs because they don't have the security to kind of stand up or they're not willing to throw someone else under the bus. And that's the good and bad of it. You never want to go to a billionaire owner and say, it was all me, because then you won't have a job. So incentives aren't really aligned sometimes.

And I think that translates to business too, right? There's a big CYA culture in a lot of big corporations, small businesses. You know, I've seen it in my own companies, you know, where I didn't think I had that kind of culture, but yeah, nobody wants to fess up and tell the boss that they were the ones who screwed up, right? I think the people who are maybe a little bit more emotionally mature and evolved, they're okay with it because they get it. And you know, that a culture of innovation requires that you take risks and fail sometimes, and you've got to be able to celebrate those failures, but just set up guardrails so those failures aren't going to be so catastrophic that it brings the whole company down.

You know, so true, true. There's a fine line between taking risk and, and ultimately, you know, losing your job for it or losing the company a significant amount of money, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it definitely transfers. So, so tell us about what you've got going on in Italy. I mean, when I read this online, I was like, that is pretty cool.

So my degree was in finance. I have worked with my uncle who I mentioned as my financial advisor for years, and I always thought I would go work for my uncle and become an advisor and manage athletes' capital. Instead of doing that, I became a client. I got drafted, won the lottery. It was amazing. When I say won the lottery, I'm saying I won the lottery as in I got drafted in the first round by the New York Giants. That was my winning of the lottery.

Yeah.

And so became a client of the firm. My last 4 years I worked for a family office, so I got to learn more about institutional-level investing. I didn't even know what a family office was. We did ground-up multifamily development. We built apartments, 3-story apartments, no elevator. You walked up, you parked on a surface-level parking spot over and over again, thousands of them. And I just got to learn about this, how you go about getting a loan, how you go about talking to investors, how you talk to politicians that you're trying to get approval from. And I remember thinking like, I need to treat myself more like this family office. It's boring. It's not the sexiest work in the world, but it's repeatable. You can do it over and over again. So I remember going to my uncle and saying, hey, we should be more like a family office, but with sports. We should invest in sports. You see this NBA team? Some private equity firm just bought them. We should do that. So we start looking at sports as an investment just because I was interested. And I went to the NFL. Very hard to invest in the NFL. I'm 35 years old. I don't have NFL owner money. Next topic. College sports. I don't even know what's going on in college sports right now. Stay far away from it. A friend of mine that I met on my honeymoon was telling me that he played American football in Italy, and they've had American football in Italy since the 1970s. Giorgio Armani and his business partners started one of the first teams in Milan, Italy back in the late 1970s. Some of the largest games were played in Italy, not in the world, but they had some of the largest games in Europe were in Italy. 20,000, 30,000 people would show up to these games. It was born out of the NATO bases. Post-World War, we had American bases over there. So the American soldiers taught the Italians, caught on fire. Joe Montana, Italian guy, was leading the Niners to Super Bowls. So this American football culture was born. You had NFL Europe from the '90s through the mid-2000s. And then when NFL Europe folded, it kind of has created a little bit of a dark ages in European American football until the NFL started to grow their international series. Then flag football became an Olympic sport, and it'll be an Olympic sport in the Olympics coming up. John Grisham, the famous author, wrote a book called Playing for Pizza about this American football league in Italy where you're not making professional money, but you're playing for the love of the game and a pizza and a beer with your friends after the game because you love to come together and do something bigger than yourselves. So what happened was they asked me after getting to know my buddy if I wanted to invest in a franchise, and then I started to kind of Due diligence the deal, started to meet owners, and they said, you know what, Justin, we'd love for you to become the commissioner of the Italian football league, our first division. I'm not like Roger Goodell. I'm not there every day. I'm not moving to Italy. I'm like a strategic advisor. I'm an ambassador. My goal is to help grow the brand, give them advice, potentially bring in investors to help our franchises and really structure and standardize the game. I have so many pieces of advice I can give or connections I have from the NFL. that I can bring to this league? And that's what I've been doing the last 6 months. I married into an Italian family. I'm not even Italian. Pugh's Welsh, I think, but I'm like 10% of everything. I'm like a mutt. So when I married into this Italian family, I started to learn the culture. Syracuse University has a campus in Florence. They've had it for over 60 years, like since the 1950s. I played for the New York Giants, one of the largest Italian-American kind of bases in the U.S. It's just kind of been an amazing project. I looked at it as an investment and now I'm this ambassador. And eventually, my goal is to get an NFL game played in Italy, in Rome. I think the game of American football, at least the idea of the game of American football, was born in Italy in the Colosseum.

Hmm.

And, I think there should be an NFL game played there. And, I think flag football is growing. Italy has the European champions right now. I don't know if you caught the World Baseball Classic, but 7 million Italians tuned in to watch the Italian team play in the World Baseball Classic. So if Italy can make the Olympics, I think there's going to be a tremendous— and then there may be a movie coming out based on the Jon Grisham book.

Wow.

So there could be like a blockbuster movie coming out. If all those things happen, I'm going to get to run a sport in a country, start a team in a country, in a city in Italy, And if anything, I'm just going to eat really good and drink some really good wine while I figure it all out.

That's a great story. I like how just one thing you were pursuing led to something else, which led to something else. And I think that's part of the magic and part of what's so cool about businesses because where you start is definitely not where you end up. And it's just all about your attitude and the connections and contacts. I mean, yeah, when you graduated from Cuse or when you got drafted or even when you left the NFL, could you imagine you were going to be the commissioner of Football in Italy. I mean, that's just wild.

And look, it's not like this is gonna be my day job forever, right? I still have— I'm a part owner of this RIA. I've always thought about getting involved with athletes, taking what I'm doing with Bizweek and maybe putting it in and starting my own firm one day. But right now, I'm just gathering intel. I'm learning and meeting a lot of people doing a lot of interesting things and seeing where my skillset fits. And that's something that I've really been enjoying doing. And now I get to do it with a little bit of espresso and a little bit of Brunello. It's a good deal.

That is a really good deal. I don't know if I told you, but I became an Italian citizen a few years ago because I realized I had a pathway through a great-grandparent before they changed Italy's law.

Yeah, they just changed it. You got in.

Yeah, I took advantage of it. So me and both my kids are citizens.

Well, Saracens University's over there. We might have to do some after-school programs with the kids because the one thing that I've learned in Italy, American football has had a lot of success in the US because it's subsidized by the schools, by government. In Italy, they don't combine school and sport. You either go to school and you pursue academics or you choose sport after school and you play in an academy. You don't play it through the school system. So playing sports is actually much harder in Europe. And there's so much talent that I think if they listen to this podcast on what I've learned through sport and took it into business, And took it into my education. I think more Italian schools, hopefully, is my hope, and hopefully we'll be able to push this, is combine education and sport and saying being a good sportsman or sportswoman makes you better in life. And that's what I'm hoping to accomplish with what we're doing in Italy. So I hopefully set up a— we're working on setting up an afterschool program where you come and you can do your homework, you can learn English as a second language in Italy because you need to know English to play American football. And then we play and train for American football competitions. And I'm hoping you can start to see this sport and education overlap that hopefully can transition back into the school system. But now we're getting into politics, and I'm definitely steering far clear of Italian politics.

I think that's wise for sure. Yeah. So as an entrepreneur, As a commissioner in Italy. I mean, you've got a lot of things going on. So, tell us a little bit about how you prioritize mental, physical, spiritual health. I mean, you've got a young family, you've got a lot going on. So, how do you keep yourself healthy? What's your stack look like?

Yeah. Well, working out daily. The position I played in American football is the only position in all of pro sports where you're paid to be unhealthy. Offensive linemen are paid to be over 300 pounds, paid to have visceral fat, And, I remember going one time and getting a DEXA scan and they put me on the DEXA scan. I saw this red and I'm like, well, they just told me I was big-boned because I was playing offensive line. They're like, yeah, sir, you're pre-diabetic here. You have to do something. I used to be 330 pounds. And, that started my journey as I was playing. I got down to 290 by the time I walked away. I'm 260 now. So, working out daily, I do these HIIT workouts. HYROX is the craze.

Yeah.

I'm not doing a full-blown HYROX, hats off, salute to everyone that does, but I train with my next-door neighbor. And, what I love training with my next-door neighbor, we have this social component. So, it isn't just us working out, we're socially engaging with one another, pushing each other, competing. Even though it's not the NFL, I'm still competing. And then, really it starts with the foundation for me, what I eat, what I drink, how I sleep.

Yeah.

And, I try to— I'm going to enjoy a nice glass of wine or have a drink if I go out with family, I'm not drinking. I grew up in a culture in the Northeast, Pennsylvania. You have a drink, a glass of wine or a beer with every meal. And I'm not like that. It's like maybe once a week, sometimes even once a month, have a drink. I get 8 hours. I get my 8 hours of sleep no matter what. It's like a non-negotiable. Even with my 2-and-a-half-year-old daughter, not always getting it this past few years. She now sleeps too. We got her trained.

Nice.

She's getting her 12 hours. So, And then, I drink more water than I— I'm like, how am I still thirsty? But, I just water, water, water. So, I try to eat really well. I try to eat good food, stay away from the crappy foods as much as I can, 80/20, I guess. Same with the way I drink or consume. And then, really good sleep. And then, find a good workout partner. And, my wife is pregnant with our second, but typically my wife and I work out together too, go on walks after our meals. So, Just trying to do the basics, just trying to get blood work, do all those things you're supposed to do. So that's kind of how I've pivoted. I'm not blocking D-linemen anymore. So now I'm enjoying the high rocks lifestyle, I guess.

Yeah. And that's actually interesting that you were paid to be somewhat unhealthy, right? You just needed to be a large person, right? It didn't matter what that body comp was. It just needed to take up space and be heavy. Right. Yeah. So, so what was that journey? I mean, so I mean, that had to have been quite a journey from going, you know, going from where you were down to where you are now. So anything different about what you were doing then, or is it just, just the consistency and keep doing the same stuff?

Well, I was a single guy when I first got into the NFL, so I wasn't cooking for myself. So I was eating out a lot. Met my wife, she can cook really well and she's healthy. My wife has been acrobatics and tumbling. She was has done some of the fitness instructing and she got me, her family even, just the portion sizes they eat and things like, I just, you would never think portion size is an issue because I never worried about portion size. Justin, it was always like, Justin, eat as much as you want of whatever you want because you can't keep the weight on, kid. So I just learning from healthy people around me about how to take care of myself. And then, when I got to Arizona, when you're on the back end of your career and you realize the more I play, I'm basically kind of trading if I'm healthier, I can play longer. So, I started investing in my health. I had a hyperbaric chamber, the sauna, the cold plunge, massage twice a week, acupuncture twice a week, stretching, got a chef in-house. I told you, I had the ability to kind of invest in my health to play longer and I did that. And once I started getting the testing, the blood work, the DEXA scans, I started seeing where my numbers were and I was like, wow, I have to make a big change here or else unfortunately, you're going to have issues at an early age. And I started to do that while I was playing to a point where teams are like, yeah, you can't play offensive line anymore, you're too skinny. And I was functionally stronger than I ever had been and I actually was able to stay. My last year, I played like 280 pounds. And that's something that like most, I started a game at left tackle in the NFL on Sunday Night Football. And I was like 278 pounds in that game and held my own. I, you know, I had some ups and downs. I'm not going to sit here and lie about that. But those are the moments towards the end where I put my health before anything.

Yeah. And because that's what you're going to have for the rest of your life, right? I mean, your career is going to end at some point. And then, you're going to have your health for the rest of it.

I did that intermittent fasting. Fasting became a big thing for me. I didn't eat till noon. So, those were just some of the things that I started listening to a lot of podcasts, sitting in a sauna, trying stuff out and saw what worked for me.

Yeah. You hit upon all the highlights that I've adopted too. I mean, because I wasn't a professional football player obviously, but when my business was growing really fast, I was getting hypertensive, I was pre-diabetic, I was getting And, similar, I just had to make a choice that I've got to prioritize my health. Otherwise, everything I'm building, I'm going to have a hard time enjoying when I'm older because I'm going to deal with chronic disease that I could have prevented.

100%. So, it's an ongoing journey. I said at one time in my life, I want to get a 6-pack. So, maybe after my second daughter is born and me and my wife go on that journey together, maybe that's when I'm going to make it happen. But, at one point in my life, I'll have a 6-pack.

All right. On your stomach, you mean? Not, not in your hand with it?

Yeah. Well, I didn't say that, so I had to give myself an out. Yeah.

Right. So I saw you wear an Oura Ring. What's your, what's your favorite sleep tip or what, like, or actually just tell me your sleep hygiene routine, right? Because anybody who wears an Oura Ring in my experience has made dramatic changes to their sleep routine and hygiene. So what does yours look like?

No, it's my wedding ring. So it's not, not Oura, but I wear a Whoop. I wear the Whoop band. So I think very similar. And I've been looking at the Oura as well. But, I track everything. My sleep routine is I don't drink coffee past noon. So, I don't get to eat until noon, but I get coffee. So, I become a coffee junkie. I love this brand. They're flash-free, single origin. It's called Cometeer, C-O-M-E-T-E-E-R. My sister got it for me for Christmas one year and I fell in love with it. You just put a little— it's a frozen cube, put in your coffee. So, I do No coffee in the afternoon. Always try to get up and give myself an hour before having coffee. So, I really only have kind of a finite time. I wish I had longer time to drink my coffee.

Yeah.

I get outside, go for a walk in the mornings. And then, at night, I try to off the phone, give myself an hour before bed. And, I have this chili pad that I love. It's a cooler on the bed. I live in Florida, so you can't always keep your house the coolest, but this, my bed is always ice cold. So, I sleep like a rock and I try to, I don't really eat. I try not to eat past 8:00. So, I'm like 12:00 to 8:00, stop the coffee. I'm not saying don't enjoy your life. There's like 2 nights ago, my wife and I had some ice cream and I actually didn't sleep as well, but that's, I know why, right? At least I know why I didn't sleep as well. And, really try to stick to those core principles most of the time.

Yeah, I know, I'm, I'm there with you. And I actually wear, like, when I, I try not to eat 3 to 4 hours before bed. Alcohol, like you, it's— I mean, I could count on one hand the number of drinks I might have in a month. But the other thing that I've noticed really well is once, once the sun goes down and I'm indoors with artificial light, I got my blue light blocking glasses on, and those I think have made a big difference for me.

I, I probably should do a better job with that. I'm— I am 100%— the one thing I wish I could do And I know they're like bringing plug— they're bringing landline phones back. And I think my daughters, like, I have 2 daughters, I'm going to give them a landline phone in their rooms. Like, they're making these cool, like, you know, 2026 landline phones. I probably could do better off having a landline phone. Like, I should leave my phone in my office and just like, hey, it's there tomorrow. I come back after 8:00 PM, the phone goes in the office for the night.

Yeah.

I wish I did a better job of that. Sometimes I'm on there scrolling sometimes. I did delete most of the social media apps, but I still have Instagram, which maybe I'll give up eventually.

Yeah. Well, it's hard, right? We live in 2026, modern society. So you can't go backwards really, right? You just gotta manage it as well as you can.

Yeah. And yeah, it's one of those things, you're not gonna do everything. You do have to have a social life. So, So, I always realized I went keto for a while and I cut out bread almost completely and some fruits and things of that nature. But eventually, I was like, I don't want to live my life never having pizza. So, I always just try to live within moderation. Whatever you're going to do, if you want to get healthy, it's whatever you can do for a long period of time consistently. It's just like the resilient thing we talked about.

Yeah.

And, if you want pizza, You're probably not gonna be keto for very long and you're gonna be really skinny, then you're gonna put it right back on once you go back to it. So I view myself, I'm better if I give myself limited windows to eat in and then I kind of can eat not whatever I want, but pick and choose.

Yeah, no, I'm kind of the same way. And even with alcohol, right? I found it was easier for me to not say, hey, I just don't drink anymore because I may want to, but I just don't that often. But by not declaring, hey, I'm alcohol-free and I don't drink anymore, it's just so much easier, right? And the same thing with, hey, I don't eat bread anymore. Well, I don't eat bread usually, but sometimes I do, right? It's just an easier way to enjoy life, I guess.

Yep. And now the last thing I gotta do is work on portion control. 'Cause sometimes when I go eat that ice cream, man, oh my God, I could eat a whole— I won't mention the place I got, but it was a big thing of ice cream and I ate the whole thing. And it's definitely not a healthy place to get ice cream from, I'll tell you that much. And I ate the whole thing. And slept awful. And I was like to my wife, I was like, I don't even know if that was worth it. But in the time, it was worth it. I'm watching the Knicks game. I'm having a great time with it. So, you got to enjoy life a little bit.

Yeah. Ice cream is probably my weakness, my biggest one. And so, we got an ice cream maker so we can control the ingredients. So, we make our own ice cream now. And that doesn't really mess with me too much. And I wear a continuous glucose monitor probably twice a year just to manage, just to see how I'm doing. And I can eat that homemade ice cream with near At least in terms of a glucose spike anyway.

That's really the key though, the glucose. I used to wear— it was called Levels, I think is the name of it, where it can monitor it on your phone. And that was the key. It's not about— and this is when I left, I stopped being keto because I was seeing like I could have bread and not spike my insulin levels. And insulin was really probably the biggest issue for me. You want to be flexible. You want to go from being able to burn fat to being able to burn glucose. So, that's when I started going back to the bread because I realized I could have some carbs without spiking like crazy.

Yeah. And, I think, yeah, like you said earlier, it's just about enjoying life. You can't just be a machine. And, even with the workouts, you work out with a buddy or a partner. It's that social aspect, which is part of the beauty of being a human and being alive, your social interactions, right? I mean, that's what it's all about.

Yeah. No, for sure. For sure. And that's, that was the offensive line mentality. Like, I loved having 5 guys going to work together and some other positions are very isolated. So maybe that's one of the, another really good thing. It's why I'm biased. Offensive line's the best position in all pro sports.

Cool. Well, of course, right? Yeah, of course. Well, Justin, what, what else, what else can you, and anything you wanna leave us with or any advice you wanna give young people starting out in business or anything like that?

No, I mean, I always say this when we were breaking down the huddle. It may be stressful, we may be a 2-minute drill and we got to go do this to win the game. I always say it kind of jokingly. I think most importantly, have fun, guys. Let's just have fun out there. You got to laugh, you got to enjoy life because what's the point? So hey, have fun. Go enjoy this thing. Eat your ice cream if you want to eat your ice cream.

Right on. Yeah. And just be consistent with whatever you're going to do, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Well, thanks for being on. And, you know, I appreciated our friendship since we first met. And thanks for inviting me to be part of NFL Biz Week. It's been a true joy, and I appreciate you spending some time with this conversation. Thanks so much.

Mark your calendars. March next year, see you in Manhattan for Biz Week again. John, thank you.