Anthony Trucks: The Playbook for Turning Your Expertise Into a Profitable Speaking Career | E15

Anthony Trucks (0:00)

I was like, my degree is in kinesiology. I played sports. Business should be simple, right? And then you get in, and then you had nine months in, a guy rolls up in a Harley, serves me eviction letter from the landlord because I hadn't paid rent in three months.

Sammy Peterson (0:11)

My next guest earned a full ride to Oregon, led the Pac-10 in sacks and made the Pittsburgh Steelers. Then a shoulder injury ended it before he ever played a single regular season game. Four months later, he was broke.

Anthony Trucks (0:23)

That was the last straw for me. I'm like, there's no way I'm going to be this intelligent, this skilled, post NFL and be broke like this the rest of my life. There's no way it's happening.

Sammy Peterson (0:32)

He's now a best-selling author, international keynote speaker, and the creator of the identity shift methodology.

Anthony Trucks (0:38)

I think we have more information than we need to be successful. There's literally too much and a lot of it's free.

Sammy Peterson (0:43)

Yes. The separation is not what you know.

Anthony Trucks (0:46)

It's who you are with what you know. How do you wield the sword of knowledge you have? If you don't wield it and you're prepared to go through the gamut, you don't get to sit the tape with me.

Sammy Peterson (0:55)

How does a kid from foster care become the person teaching others how to find their identity? Anthony Trucks, welcome to Business MVP.

Anthony Trucks (1:05)

Thank you for having me.

Sammy Peterson (1:06)

Thanks for being here. You grew up without the foundation most kids take for granted. Now Fortune 500 executives pay you to help them figure out who they are.

How does a kid from foster care become the person teaching others how to find their identity?

Anthony Trucks (1:23)

Oh, what do they call it? The Limbidy Snake. It's a series of unfortunate events. It's just a bunch of things.

Here's what I will say. I have a story. We'll hear my story, I'm sure.

But the story is not my story. It's my experience. And I could not tell you the definitive daisy chain of events they got us to hear. What I do know is I had a lot of crazy happen. And I navigated the crazy past the moments where most would quit. I couldn't tell you exactly why I did, but I did. And in doing that, you get kind of access to different skill sets, different awareness, different knowledge. And then you find that what I navigated in certain segments of my life, tangibly, it's not something that would make sense to them, but the intangibles I've garnered are valuable. They can be applied in different kind of areas of life, different verticals of companies and businesses. It's more of like that life experience taught me some things that I've now brought to different walks of life to teach that benefit other people's walks of life.

Sammy Peterson (2:18)

Yeah, totally. So, kind of want to back up to the sports piece. You made the Steelers roster, which is an amazing accomplishment, right? And then a shoulder injury ended it before you ever played a regular season game.

Anthony Trucks (2:30)

So, that's heartbreaking.

Sammy Peterson (2:32)

Yeah. So, tell us about that. And then, I think the next thing you did was you opened a gym, right? That nearly failed. And so, that became kind of a rough period for you, which we'll talk about. So, walk me through that period, you know, shoulder injury and into the gym.

Anthony Trucks (2:48)

Well, NFL stands for not for long. Most of us don't know that. It's like you get in here, you get out.

Sammy Peterson (2:53)

I love that.

Anthony Trucks (2:53)

And it's not everybody, but it's like my shoulder to this day still doesn't move smooth in the left hand side. Like this is as high as my shoulder goes, whereas this one go up as high as I need it to. This one just stuck here. So, it's just part of the journey of the game and you sign up for that. So, you know, this could happen. But then from that, I did come home. And the thing is with me, I'd always had this itch for business. So, when I was a kid, I want to say like 10 or 11 years old, I started doing like door to door, washing cars and mowing lawns and doing different stuff. And then eventually doing yard work. Progressed up to having a paper route at the age of 12, from 12 to 14, solo. I think I did it every day for two years by myself. I maybe had one sub in the entire time. But I had this itch. It's like I like the idea of I could be free under my own volition. If I want to create something, I could do my own thing and have freedom. So, when I got done with the NFL, before I wanted to, I did not quite know who I was or what my value was, but I knew I didn't want another boss. Because while you're playing professional sports, you got bosses. People don't realize that. I am told where to be, when to be, what weight to weigh, all these things. I don't have freedom. In the off season, say it's the off season, great. You still have to, the NFL has to know where you're at 24-7. Because if they have to drug test you, which they do in the off season, you have 24 hours notice. And if you aren't in the place they expect you to be, you can get fined and get a lot of trouble. So it's like you don't have freedom. So when I got done, I'm like, I don't want to be confined again by just a random company. So I went on my own thing. So I started a business. Did have zero clue what I was doing. Like I didn't have skill set. I never owned a gym.