Leadership Lessons from the NFL with Rennie Curran, Former Tennessee Titans Linebacker

Intro: Helping community bankers grow themselves, their team and their profits. This is the Community Bank Podcast.

Erik Bagwell: Welcome to the Community Bank Podcast. I’m Eric Bagwell, Director of Sales and Marketing for the Correspondent Division of South State Bank and joining me as always, Caleb Stevens, Caleb is a Business Development Officer at the bank and helps out with the podcast. Caleb, how are you?

Caleb Stevens: I’m doing great and I’m really excited to have folks listen to our discussion today with Rennie Curran. He’s a former NFL Linebacker for the Tennessee Titans. Played for the University of Georgia and so that’s obviously a near and dear to our heart as a former Bulldog alumni. So, really good discussion on leadership, business personal branding, and a lot of the life lessons that football can carry over into the business world.

Erik Bagwell: Yeah, this was a neat discussion. We talk about football, kind of at the start and then get into some pretty neat things. How parallel or how football parallels the business world and leadership and it was a great conversation. As we sit here, Georgia plays Florida this weekend.

Caleb Stevens: Tomorrow.

Erik Bagwell: Yeah. This podcast obviously comes out a couple weeks after. Hopefully this is a good outcome in Jacksonville and if not, we may cut a whole new intro. If this is the intro, then Georgia won. If not, then we may have another intro.

Caleb Stevens: Exactly.

Erik Bagwell: But Caleb talk real quick. Tom Fitzgerald does a Bond Accounting Analysis for us and we want folks to get that. Talk about that and how they can get it.

Caleb Stevens: Yeah. So real quick, we do Bond Accounting for 130 banks all over the country and what we like to do is aggregate them all together and look at what are the common trends. The book yield, unrealized loss or gains and if you’re a CFO out there and you’re trying to think about what’s the average Community Bank doing in their bond portfolio. We’ve got the answer for you and to get it, all you got to do is go to southstatecorrespondent.com/bondreport. We would love to send that to you and we are here if you have any questions about it. So thank you guys for listening today, and we’re excited to play our interview with Rennie Curran.

Caleb Stevens: Well Rennie, thanks for helping on the podcast today. It’s great to be talking with you. How are you?

Rennie Curran: I’m doing great Caleb. Glad to be on.

Caleb Stevens: Well, the Georgia Bulldogs as we’re speaking, right now are the number one team in the country and so, not to get sidetracked with football here in the show early on. But real quick, what are you thinking about the Dogs and how are you feeling?

Rennie Curran: I’m loving what I’m seeing, man, and just, you know, I know a lot of this podcast is about culture and about things that help leaders take things to another level and when I look at the Georgia Bulldog, Kirby’s done an amazing job of that. He’s just really created a culture of excellence and he really urged them to focus on being elite and making that decision. Which is a lot of what it takes when you look at just improving performance and really improving your overall life. It’s a decision and that’s what these guys have decided to do and they have really, really turned things around in fitting out a product that is the best that I’ve seen in an extremely long time in every phase of the ball.

So defensively, offensively you know, and you look at even the fact that they don’t have their main starter in JT Daniels and what they’re still able to do to the teams that are good quality teams. Really, really awesome to see, and not just what they’re doing on the football field, but off the field as well. They’re doing a lot of great things. The facilities, the resources that they have access to. It’s just amazing to see how far they’ve come, even since I’ve left.

Caleb Stevens: I got a tour of the locker room football facility, probably a month or two ago and they’ve got like Lamborghini car seat leather for the chairs that are in your locker room. I was like, my goodness. That is a heck of a recruiting pitch, I would think.

Rennie Curran: Oh yeah and that’s exactly it, man. When you’re talking about getting the top of the top recruits year in and year out, those are things that you have to do. Like that’s what college football and college sports has turned into, an arms race.

Caleb Stevens: Yeah.

Rennie Curran: And Kirby knew that and one of the biggest things I think he did that nobody’s really talking about, is he got that donor base fired up to where they’re ready and willing to write those checks and to support any way that they could. And, you know, they do a lot of things to create that experience and really make them feel a part of the program, whether it’s practice or sideline passes, things like that. But, they’ve done an amazing job fundraising Josh Brooks. Sean Chap is one of my former teammates. They’ve just done an awesome job and it really shows in the level of support that they’re getting now and like I said, the facilities and the resources and everything that they’re able to have, man, that I could only dream about when I was playing there.

Erik Bagwell: Hey, Rennie, let’s talk, keep it on football just for a second. I heard a guy that played at Arkansas one time and then you played in the NFL as well. Rennie had a great career at Georgia and played in the NFL. This guy from Arkansas, they asked him to compare an SEC game to the NFL as far as like hits and how does that compare? I’d love to hear you answer that being a linebacker. I know the big hits, how many big hits in the NFL compared to SEC.

Rennie Curran: Oh man, it’s about the same. The level of intensity in everything that you face, being in the SEC and being in the NFL. I mean, everybody’s the top of the top. Of course, obviously in the NFL, especially when you get to the playoffs, that’s when it gets really, really real. Like there’s some grown men who are fighting to feed their families out there, so the hits are just different when you get to the playoff level and everybody’s body is kind of beat up. So you’re just out there all scrambling and it’s like war, you know, it’s really serious and the biggest drop off though is just the overall experience playing in the SEC. Like there is a drop off when you play in the NFL.

You know, on Sundays are just different, most people are in church during the time that you’re playing. Unless you go to like the Steelers or you know, Green Bay. Like there’s not that same feel in terms of tailgating and just the whole city being on fire and whatnot. So there is a drop off in terms of that game day experience and whatnot. You don’t have things like the Dog walk and all those things to really get you fired up. It really is a job. It’s like you show up nine to five, you go to work and you come home and you know that’s the biggest difference. But as far as the hits on the field, I mean, it’s just as live and I remember specific moments.

Like we all have that welcome to the NFL moment, if you’re fortunate to make it and mine was seeing James Harrison for the first time. I mean, he looked like, if you could take a human being or take a Mac truck and turn it into a human being, like, that’s what he looked like. And, I saw him body slam Vince Young once and I’m just like, my God, like, I don’t know if I’m ready for this.

Caleb Stevens: Yeah.

Rennie Curran: It was my rookie year, yeah.

Caleb Stevens: Well, our listeners in the south and any listener who loves come college football will certainly be familiar with you. For the non-football listeners or people outside the south. They’re probably thinking, what are you guys talking about? So give us a little bit of your background, in terms of football and what you’re doing now.

Rennie Curran: Yeah, and I’m glad you brought that up, because I do realize every time I go out and speak now, especially in the business world, that there are those who don’t really care much about sports and don’t care about football. But I love really just talking about the transferable skills and the experiences that relate to the business world and there’s so many of them and I really, really love talking about it now that I’m done playing. And for me, my career, as far as football started when I was ten years old, we moved from DeKalb County to Gwinnett in the Brookwood District and it just so happened that Brookwood was a powerhouse football school.

And I’d grown up playing backyard football, like we all do. Playing at the boys and girls club, but knew absolutely nothing about organized football. My parents were both Liberian immigrants. They’ve been here since the eighties. They came, my mom came on scholarship, so education was her ticket. She really wasn’t happy at it at all and yeah, they, really didn’t care for it. I just begged them and begged them and begged them until like they had no choice and I remember the first time I showed up to like picture day, and all that. I had church shoes on and I didn’t know what I was doing.

My first year, I played offensive line and then, you know, second year progressed and learned the fundamentals. But I had an amazing little league coach and he was a diehard Georgia fan and me and his son who at that time played quarterback, I ended up playing running back. We were best friends and so he took me up there, had tickets on the 50-yard line. So at ten years old and I’m sitting in the stadium in Athens, man, just looking down, just dreaming and hoping and praying that I could one day be a Georgia Bulldog. And at this time, this is when David Green, David Pollack, you know, guys from Snellville were out there. So it was just my dream to be that hometown kid and to be able to represent, you know, those around me.

Those people that poured into me, man and so fast forward, get to high school, go through the recruiting process. Start hearing the chimes that I’m undersized for my position. I got moved from running back to line backer and that was a whole episode, man. I was ready to quit and just decided to stick with it after a conversation with my little league coach and I really just developed this mentality man, that I was going to go hard, that I was going to either make the play or be around the ball in every single play. And I tell people I went into Adam Sandler, water boy mode and just started hitting everything. And that’s honestly, man, the effort, the intangibles and the things that you can’t really coach is what got me to that level of being at University of Georgia and then also my teammates.

I talk a great deal when I talk about teamwork, whenever I go and speak, but I could not, you know, make it as far as I did without my team mates and not just guys on the field, but also those off the field. You know, the teachers, the lunch ladies, the janitors. Like there’s so many people who poured into me, man, that allowed me to get to that next level. So yeah, I was able to get to University of Georgia. Become a three time all American and a Butkus award finalist, permanent team captain, and then was able to play in the NFL as well with the Tennessee Titans, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers up in Canada. So that’s just kind of a short snippet of my career and you know, I was able to also use everything to now transition into being a keynote speaker, author, and a leadership coach. So it’s been a journey

Erik Bagwell: Talk about, Rennie what are some of the biggest, and I know when coach Rick came to Georgia, he instilled, I hate to disparage the group that was there before, but it’s like he instilled this discipline and Matt Drills was a big thing that was in the news and man, the team’s going to be in better shape. They’re going to be bigger, and they were, and it showed up on the field and I think anything you do, and I’ve heard people talk about Warren Buffet and he’s obviously a very successful investor. One reason is because he put in a lot more work than a lot of the other investors did. You know, Tiger Woods hitting 10 zillion golf balls, anybody on the PGA tour, they put work in and obviously in football, it’s a great way to compare, you know, football compared to life and talk about the work that goes into for a football player in the SEC.

You’re a big time football, NFL, the off-season work and what you see. Compare that to what you see the successful leaders you talk with when you’re out speaking, what are the parallels there?

Rennie Curran: I love that question man and there’s a principle that I speak on, you know, whenever I’m talking to a, whether it’s a sales team or a group of kids. Like the principle I talk about is winning the game before the game and to me, that’s, you know, what are you doing before your season starts? What are you doing before you, if you’re in the business world, before you get to that opportunity, right, with a client before a big presentation. What is your level of preparation like? Even before your busy season, you know, how are you preparing in those down times? And that was something that really, really set us apart. Like we knew that we were going to have a successful season based on our off season when there were no cameras, when there was nobody around, when it was just us.

That was the time when things were calm, right. Before the war, before the lights, before the cameras, that was our time to build that comradery. That was our time to build the mental toughness. That was our time to build the leadership core, leadership peer to peer. That was our time to get our communication right. You know, that was our time to do so many things that when we got into the heat of the moment, it was like everything we had prepared became second nature. So all we had to do was just respond to whatever came our way and that has been something that has really, really helped me, man. Now that I’m an entrepreneur in the business world and you know, as I’m preparing for speeches, I’m thinking about those concepts, man.

Depending on my level of preparation and depending on my mindset long before, that’s going to allow me to perform at a high level and Matt Drills was definitely part of that. You know, waking up at four o’clock in the morning, having to be completely alert. Making sure that everybody’s in unison, everybody’s doing the drills the same way, one heartbeat, you know, one team, one heartbeat. Like they say, if one person messes up, you know, you got to start the whole thing over and you’re dog tired. I mean, they had us doing all types of drills out there and it was an ultimate form of accountability. You know, when you look at just peer to peer accountability, because after a couple times you get sent back and, and you are about to die.

It’s like you have to, eventually somebody has to speak up. You know, somebody has to say something and it would be cool just to see our transformation during those moments, because the first couple days we would kind of be off, some guys may complain, things like that. But about that fourth day, you know, second week comes and now we’re operating as one, like our mental toughness, just on a whole nother level. We’re able to withstand whatever comes our way. Doesn’t matter how early it is. It doesn’t matter circumstances. We’re just focused and we’re focused on excellence.

Erik Bagwell: Yeah. That’s a great point for anybody listening to this podcast. You know, accountability is a hard thing for people to do. To hold somebody accountable for different reasons. You’re good friends with them, you work with them for a long time. So it makes it tough and so talk about real quick in the NFL, because I’m curious, and how this relates to the business as well. It’s a 16, you talked about it as a job. It’s just 20 games, I guess if you throw in the pre-season. You got to hit a wall at some point. They talk about how teams, you can’t, a college team, they’re not going to be up every week. They play great one week and they don’t play the next week. Everybody’s going, what happened?

Talk about that. What do the coaches do to keep you guys focused and ready to go as much as possible every week? Because for a business leader, you know, economic conditions may not be good. It’s tough. You got answer to a Board of Directors. How do you motivate your folks? How do the coaches do that with you guys and what do you tell folks when you talk to them in the business world?

Rennie Curran: Yeah now that’s a great one and this one I believe completely relates to the business world. And number one is your routine. Everything we did when I look at being in the NFL and the things that we are able to do was all about having a routine. Knowing exactly what we’re supposed to do at a certain given time and then also evaluating that routine to make sure that if you’re going down the right track, if the morale is starting to get low, that you switch up that routine. You know, that you add in some time for guys to just have fun and just kind of take a break, hit that reset button and so that would for us be our bi-week. So in the business world, if you’re a business leader out there, do you have a bi-week right, for your team?

Do you have a time where you maybe instead of doing that meeting that you always do, you just use that for team building and maybe you bring in a speaker? Maybe you bring in a trainer that can help you guys improve your mindset or just like add some humor. You know, there’s so many different things that a lot of my different coaches did to really boost our morale and boost our mindset and just build that comradery that led to more production and so that’s the first thing I say. And then team is everything like, you know, making sure that you have the right staff in place, adding extra resources. I mean, we had coaches sometimes that would even like, the best teams I played on they would bring in nutritionist.

They would bring in therapist, they’ll bring in a massage therapist and folks like that before the game. So any little edge that we could have to set us apart, as a person and not just an athlete, it made all the difference. Especially when you’re talking about being at the highest level, trying to compete with the best of the best. Which I know there’s a lot of companies that would be listening who are trying to, you know, compete with the big dogs, right? With the bigger companies, like what type of competitive edge are you creating based off your routine and based off the resources that you provide for your staff. So those are two things that I would say really help set us apart.

Caleb Stevens: We had on Mark Miller, on this show not too long ago and mark is the VP of High Performance Leadership for Chick-fil-A. And he talked about leadership kind of being similar to an iceberg and he said, what I mean is, 90% of an iceberg is under water and you can’t see it. You just see the 10% above the water and you talk about preparation routines. It seems like it’s a similar parallel of, hey, 90% of the stuff you never see, it’s behind the scenes. You know, especially like in sports. The fans only see what happens on Sunday or on Saturday and you see the scoreboard and how they play, but you don’t see the other six days of the week and I think that’s a big, you know, principle for our leaders listening as well.

Is what are those things that are operating in your life beneath the surface that are preparing you to perform, you know, when you’re at work. Cause so much of it is behind the scenes. So I think that’s a great parallel.

Rennie Curran: Yeah, you’re exactly right. I mean the things I think about the things behind the scene is the mindset, it’s the culture, right? Like everybody has a culture. Whether it’s at home, in the workplace and you know, a lot of times, if you’re not intentional about it, it’s going to take on a life of its own. It just kind of become what it is. Right. And then you have your level of preparation before you show up at that job before you show up for your opportunities. That’s another big thing and then just your personal life and your personal development. You know, are you reading books when you’re away? Are you, you know, do you have a good, solid routine when you’re away from work so that you can operate at a high level?

Are you filling up your cup? Like all those things matter and they make such a difference when you look at the overall trajectory of your life and your career.

Erik Bagwell: Yeah. I heard, everybody knows I love golf and Ben Hogan’s one of my favorite golfers ever, and he’s long passed away, but he was notorious for practicing. I mean, while the other guys, back in the day, golf was not, they weren’t athletes like they are today. Lot of good times going on when you weren’t playing golf. But Hogan stayed at the golf course and like notoriously just practiced and practiced and he told some guys one day, standing on the first hole of the US Open, he looked to his partners and said, hey, if your swing’s not good, you’re not going to find it out here, pointing to the golf course. The preparation’s all before. You’re right.

Rennie Curran: Yeah.

Caleb Stevens: Yeah. So when we talk about preparation, any other carryovers that you’ve learned coming from the sports world operating at, you know, one of the highest levels to the business world. Any other big lessons.

Rennie Curran: Man, I got so many and you know, the biggest thing I would say is, I would say how you handle success is another major carryover. There are so many times where we were doing well in the season, but there were things that were slipping under the, that were, because we are in a position of success, things that we let slip under the rug. Like having that teammate that’s a cancer, right. We all know, right, that person that’s in our office. So that person that’s part of our team, that may not be there if things were going well, right and it’s like their impact isn’t felt that much when there is success. But when it gets bad, that’s when they really, really stick out, you know.

All those little inefficiencies really, really start to come to the surface and so that’s one thing I would say that is a major carryover is, you know, even when you’re experiencing success, are you still trying to improve? Are you still looking and being mindful of those areas that you need to work on? And so constant, you know, it goes back to that accountability as well. But even when we had, like, when I played on those great teams, even when we were really, really good, our coach would always remind us or our leader would always remind us, like, hey, look out for these things, you know. Don’t allow yourself to get comfortable and same thing when you look at Kirby, right now, that’s what he’s really, really preaching.

If you really pay attention to his words, like, yes, we’re good, but don’t eat the rat poison. Right. Don’t listen to the hype. Don’t listen to those who are saying you’re good. You know, you’re only one week from being humble.

Caleb Stevens: Right. Right.

Rennie Curran: Right. And so as a business leader, you got to know that how many companies do we know out here that were doing really, really well ten years ago and now don’t even exist.

Caleb Stevens: Yeah.

Rennie Curran: Because the same thing, they were so high up. The numbers were looking great, but they didn’t focus on innovation. They didn’t continue working on the things that got them there. They didn’t continue, you know, recruiting the right people and it’s like all of a sudden, you know, the numbers were looking good but when you look at those things behind the scenes, they were on a downward trajectory. And, yeah, that’s definitely something that I’ve taken away because success doesn’t happen overnight. Failure doesn’t happen overnight either. Failure you see as a result of like a series of like your failed ability to recognize certain things and stay on top of your game and, you know, make sure that you’re mindful of those things that can really bring you down ultimately.

Caleb Stevens: Yeah. I mean, as much as I’m not an Alabama football fan, I always have really admired what Nick Saban says, where he says, you know, success often leads to complacency and complacency creates a blatant disregard for doing what’s right. You know?

Rennie Curran: Right.

Caleb Stevens: Oh, I’d had a good week, so I’m just going to kind of slack off the next week because I’m feeling comfortable now and I had a lot of success. And so, I mean, that’s a great point of sometimes, you know, if you’re having a good year revenue wise, it can kind of cover up a multitude of problems beneath the surface that are operating and if you’re not mindful of those, the next year that may come to light. Let’s shift gears and talk about something you are really passionate about and you talk a lot about is the importance of having a personal brand and that’s kind of a buzzword we hear today. Especially like on LinkedIn or Instagram, you know, having a personal brand.

How do you kind of think about what it means to have a personal brand? Because a lot of people could hear that and say, well, that sounds kind of self-seeking or that just sounds like trying to booster your own self-image. But I love how you kind of take the approach of no, a personal brand can be a way that you connect with others, serve others. Help provide coaching and resources like you do for leaders. How do you sort of think about the importance of a personal brand and why may it be something our listeners should consider?

Rennie Curran: Yeah. I mean, I definitely think it’s something that’s extremely important right now and you’re right, man. There’s so many people who look at that word and look at that concept and automatically think negatively about it and I mean, it’s definitely been something that people have really abused. Because you have a lot of, especially on social media and in the online world, a lot of people who have created an idea or this perception of being perfect, right and of not operating a certain way, that they’re really not. Like when you look at them, how they operate offline and the things that they do on a daily basis. And that’s, you know, I’m totally not with that whole idea of creating this false persona and the whole fake it till you make it type thing and just really trying to pretend your way to the top. I’m totally against that.

Totally against those who are super salesy and things like that. When I talk about personal branding, I’m more so in talking about your identity. I’m talking about purpose. I’m talking about vision. You know, I’m talking about having an idea of where you want to eventually be and creating that, you know, as your brand, right? So if you want to be an amazing father, if you want to be, you know, a CEO one day, you want to be a leader. If you want to be somebody who’s an amazing teammate, making that as your brand and that being the thing that you are chasing every single day. When I talk about personal branding, I’m talking about becoming the best version of yourself. Right.

But you have to know what that looks like and so that being your brand and that being what you’re striving for every single day is what I talk about when I talk about personal branding. So it really starts with having a clear vision, clear mission and clear values. Like combining those things and then now, when you identify those things, cause a lot of people, when you ask them, they don’t even really know what their vision is. They don’t know what their personal values are. Right. They don’t know what their ultimate mission is. So they’re in a job and that job becomes who they are, their whole entire identity. And then those values that are aligned with that company or that job, it’s like, they may not even align with them.

Right, and that’s why you see those people who become cancers in an organization because their values aren’t aligned and so you have to identify that and really be clear on it and then now you can enhance that company’s mission, vision and values and it’s a win-win. Yeah, it’s a win-win and then also, you know, when you look at personal branding, another area that is crucial when it comes to personal branding is when you experience a major transition and that’s something that I went through, man, where I was no longer an athlete anymore and there’s a certain mindset, there’s a certain vision. There’s a certain mission values that come with wearing that Jersey. With being on a team and when you take that Jersey off, if you don’t know who you are, if you don’t know your personal mission, vision and values, you’re just lost and there’s so many of us in that position.

Whether it’s an athlete or whether it’s somebody who retires after a while, you have to redefine yourself. You have to know who you are moving forward and it’s a very, very tough thing if you’re just starting from ground zero and you have no clue where to start. So yeah, that’s my philosophy when it comes to personal branding. I think if approached the right way, can really, really, enhance your life and it enhances your business, whatever organization you’re a part of.

Erik Bagwell: Rennie talk real quick about goals. I know, I’ve been in the locker room at Georgia. There’s all kinds of statistics up on the walls of players and they’ve bench pressed this and they have vertical jumped this and obviously there’s goals that are set for the team and also individually. Talk about how important that is for like everybody. I mean, even your kids but especially for in the business world. What do you see? Because I know a lot of people don’t set goals, as crazy as it sounds. I think most people don’t and incredibly even probably more, a lot of businesses probably don’t. Talk about that and what you see and some advice there.

Rennie Curran: Yeah, and I mean the research shows, it’s clear as day that if you set goals alone, if you just set a goal, that you’ll be that much more successful than your counterparts. And then if you actually, you know, write them down, that’s a whole nother level of just, when you look at the statistics that it improves your ability to actually reach those goals. And then when you write the goals down, you have the goals, you write them down and then you have an accountability partner, that increases it even more. And then if you have an accountability partner that you meet with on a weekly basis concerning those goals, aka a coach, you know, or a counselor or just somebody who’s in your life that you really, really trust, then it goes even higher, you know, to almost being guaranteed that you’re going to reach that goal.

And so I believe that’s the first thing, that you have to have those goals set in place. If you can have an accountability partner or a coach or somebody that you hire to just meet with, even if it’s just once a month, you’re going to be more prone to reach those goals and then another part about it is how you write your goals as well, is super, super important. So making sure that they’re specific. So some people say, oh, I want to get a house one day or I want to become a CEO one day and it’s like, no, are you setting realistic goals? Are you creating smart goals that are specific, that are measurable, you know, that are attainable and whatnot and time based? So making sure that you’re setting smart goals and sometimes even if that goal is really, really big.

Breaking it down into something smaller that, you know, starting small. It doesn’t have to be something major. It doesn’t have to be something that’s overwhelming that when you wake up, you’re like, oh dang, I know I said this, but I can’t even achieve this, you know and so making it, so that even if you don’t want to do it. Cause we all have those days, right. Where we don’t feel motivated, we don’t feel like, doing certain things and certain activities. Even if it’s something, a day like that, you’re still able to accomplish that goal because it’s that small to where it’s not something that’s going to invoke fear. It’s actually something that’s going to build momentum and that’s what I think is super important about when you look at goals is like I said, having that system for writing it down.

Having the accountability, but also just, you know, starting small man. Starting small and building that momentum. Making sure that it’s a smart goal. Like I said, that has a specific date, you know, that’s time based and whatnot. That’s actually attainable and it really, really does help. I use something with my coaching clients, a progress sheet. So every time we meet I’m asking them okay, what are your goals? You know, three months, six months from now and then every week when we’re meeting, I’m asking what’s your wins as it relates to these goals and then we’ll set new, smaller goals that eventually will lead them to achieve that three to six months goal that they set.

Erik Bagwell: That’s great advice and I think a key points you said was having an accountability partner. A lot of CEOs that might be listening, a lot of times you would be the accountability partner for your employees. So, but who’s your accountability partner.

Caleb Stevens: Right? You’re on an island. Yeah.

Erik Bagwell: Yeah. You’re kind of on an island. So that’s awesome advice. Rennie, we appreciate you coming on with us today. It’s been a lot of great information and I got one more question after this, but tell people first, if they want to get in touch with you, how can they reach out and get in touch with you?

Rennie Curran: Yeah, the easiest way is through my website, renniecurran.com and on there, you know, all the time of course, I always respond to any messages that come across. So for speaking engagements, for workshops, professional development workshops, one-on-one coaching, I’m available for that and then also I’m very, very active on LinkedIn, on Instagram, Facebook as well. So yeah, love to connect man, love networking and all that good stuff.

Erik Bagwell: Awesome, we got in with a football question real quick. Tell me the best athlete you’ve ever seen on a football field?

Rennie Curran: Ooh, that’s a tough one. The first one that comes to mind. I mean, since it’s Georgia, Florida, you know. I’ll just say the best Florida athlete I played against was Percy Harvey.

Caleb Stevens: Oh yeah.

Rennie Curran: One of the best, I mean, this guy could just run like the wind and get cut in the drop of a dime and was just one of those people that was a special player that could score on anytime time he touched the ball. So yeah, he was definitely one of the top athletes I played against.

Caleb Stevens: And were you on that 07 team when the whole field, all the players ran out on the field and into the end zone when Knowshon scored that first touchdown.

Rennie Curran: Yeah, that was my first start. Imagine that.

Caleb Stevens: Wow, there you go.

Rennie Curran: That was my first game start. Yeah. And actually when I ran out, Coach Martinez, our Defense Coordinator at that time. He put in a package for a certain formation that Florida would come out in and, you know, if they went out into that formation, which is where they put the wide receiver in the backfield as a running back, I would have to go in and they came out in that formation. It’s called the trade or they came out in that formation and we came out in what’s called our trade package and that wide receiver was Percy Harvin. So I had to cut, I had him man to man and almost crap myself, man. I was 18 years old. So it, it was definitely a crazy experience.

Caleb Stevens: Well, that was a great game. Y’all sacked Tim Tebow, I think like six times and ran Florida out of the building. So definitely a great memory and I hope the Dogs can get a win on Saturday. We’re recording this a couple days before the Georgia Florida game. I guess the day before the Georgia Florida game. So, Rennie thanks for your time. It was great catching up, talking some football and really appreciate all the things you’re doing to help leaders and I hope the folks that are listening will reach out to you to get all your resources. So thanks again.

Rennie Curran: Thanks guys. I appreciate it.