Chris Gronkowski

Mark and Christine interview Chris Gronkowski, former NFL player turned entrepreneur and CEO of Ice Shaker. They discuss Chris's journey from being a professional athlete to starting his own business, the experience of appearing on Shark Tank, and the growth and versatility of the Ice Shaker brand. Chris shares insights on the importance of customer feedback, the power of licensing and partnerships, and the future innovations he is working on for the company. 

Chris discusses his experience on Shark Tank and the lessons he learned as an entrepreneur and former professional athlete. He emphasizes the importance of preparation and being ready for any questions or challenges that may arise. Chris also shares his insights on the value of hard work, time management, and the need for athletes to start preparing for their future careers. He highlights the importance of learning multiple skills and being adaptable in the business world. Chris also discusses the lessons he learned from his parents about the value of a dollar and the importance of teaching children the value of hard work and earning their own money.

Transcript

The Forging Excellence Show (00:11.502)
How's it going? It's going great. I'm excited for today.

Is it because we have a lovely guest joining us today? Oh, Mr. Chris Gronkowski. I'm really excited, man. This guy, not only an athlete, not only one of the coolest guys you're going to meet, TikTok influencer, but entrepreneur, business owner, big time dude. And I'm excited to talk to him today. Yes. And just like Mark said, the former NFL player turned entrepreneur. Chris is now the CEO of Ice Shaker.

He's involved with youth sports and four kids ages one to seven. How on earth do you keep your sanity, Chris? It's a little crazy over here right now, but my parents had five boys. So that's what keeps me going. I just think like, how did they possibly do it? They could do it. I got to be able to do it too, because there's so much more technology now that my parents didn't have growing up. So phones, GPS, text, I mean everything.

They did all that back in the day by picking up a house phone and calling down to the neighbor and the head coach and swapping. I'll bring your kid to this practice. You bring mine to this one and they got it done. So I can't, what was that like growing up? So you got, you know, Chris, what's your size? You're, you're a big guy. You're what? Six two. Yes. I'm six to, um, well, I guess in my playing days, I was 245 pounds. Wow. Um, I'm five 10. I could be two 45. Yeah.

But so we all can. So it's funny when we talk to Dan, we talked to Rob, we always talk about, you know, kind of everybody likes to flex and do the things they're like, dude, Chris, biggest arms, biggest arms. Yeah, I like that. I like that. Yeah. I think Dan's bummed out for sure. I was. Yeah. I mean, I was the smallest. I would say there is an advantage to being shorter when you're lifting. But being the smallest, I had to be the strongest. So I was in that weight room just cranking weights.

The Forging Excellence Show (02:07.854)
And then post football, you know, I'm keeping it going. I got to live up to the family name You know, I do have a yes a health and wellness brand now as well So I got to get in the gym got to represent grunt fitness by dad's company for you know Over 30 years now selling fitness equipment and now I have a shaker bottle company. So I got to stay in shape You gotta yeah, and when you think about it like your dad owning Gronk fitness right for so long What has it been now 33 years?

Yep. So yeah, GNG fitness is what it started as, but, um, I guess Grog fitness is the branch off of it now at this point, but yeah, over, over 30 years now, they started it. We're just kids. They used to deliver the fitness quit and form in, uh, in high school and drive the trucks when I was, I think 16 years old, it was some good times growing up. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. We're just at the, uh, Amherst store, that location location.

OG, that was like the fourth OG though, because he had like the little tiny one right down the street from it that he upgraded and then he upgraded to this big one that he split with a spa company. And then he finally got his own nice larger store himself. So the OG, the fourth OG. The not so OG. I know with Ice Shaker, it first came on my radar when I saw it on Shark Tank. So what was that whole experience like? Why did you kind of go the Shark Tank route? What was?

What's that like? It's, it's interesting. Um, you know, a lot of people do think that it's just made for TV and that's not the case. You go on there, they know one thing about you. That's your first name. That's it. Don't know last name. Don't know company name. Uh, you walk out there and you know, you're actually pitching, um, for over an hour, most of the time, unless you're just horrible and they kick you off right away. But, uh, I was out there for over an hour and they were asking questions like, what'd you do in high school? I was breaking down. How was, how was delivering fitness equipment for my dad?

They don't show those parts, but they're really actually digging in because not only are they putting their money into it, they're actually the thing that's more valuable is their time. They don't want to just waste time looking into a company or investing into it and then just not moving forward with it and it never going anywhere. So the due diligence process takes months afterwards. It's the real deal. They really invest into it and all the questions on the show are real. They just cut it down to the best, you know, eight minutes instead of the full hour. So.

The Forging Excellence Show (04:29.518)
It is all about entertainment. They're going to show the flip cup and us having a good time and chest bumping. But at the same time, like it's the real deal, real money. And it's been a real business ever since then. And you know, Mark's input on what we do is real. His team has been built out to help us and the connections that he brings to us are invaluable. It's a really cool relationship. And another thing that he does that's awesome is, um,

It's just kind of this group power that he has. He has over a hundred companies in the Mark Cuban company's portfolio. So he's able to go to companies, you know, like an SMS company or email marketing company and say, Hey, I have 30 of my companies currently using your service. I could bring on another 70 if you give us a nice little group discount. So that's something that he's been able to offer to us that has saved us a lot of money month over month with companies that we're already using.

And then on top of that, just getting into doors, you know, you say Mark Cuban's on your team. People are like, all right, let's talk about it a little bit. Suddenly the door cracks open a little bit more. All of a sudden, no problem, right? But wow. So like when you're doing that, do you have like Barbara and the gang who are kind of putting in offers that we might not see or were you guys focused on like, you know what, we want Mark Cuban, right? If we can get a deal with him, I think that would be perfect for us.

I mean, I definitely wanted Mark, but there was all five sharks offered a deal. There's actually additional deals that weren't even shown on TV. At one point, it was with a guest shark, it was Alex Rodriguez. And he came in with this deal that was it was a little crazy, like it was a little more complicated. And I think it was just too much for TV. So they ended up just not even showing that part of it. But yeah, there's there's a bunch of offers. I knew I wanted Mark. He was close. He was in Dallas. I'm in the Dallas area.

Sports guy everyone I talked to loves mark. They loved working with him. It sounds like he He closes the most deals as well, which is which is good to see a lot of times you get on the show Afterwards they don't actually close the deal. So it's good to know that he is closing the deals He doesn't want to be a part of it when he shakes your hand on TV, you know, he really means it as well so definitely want to mark on board and

The Forging Excellence Show (06:45.485)
You know, at that time, Alex Rodriguez was kind of a wild card. Didn't know what he did. It was his first time on the show. Um, so with that, you know, Mark wanted him in the deal. So it was kind of like, all right, let's do this thing. Got three sports, three different athletes up here. Let's, uh, let's make a deal. Oh, that's good. And then, and then is a ride. So I take it a ride kind of. Went his own way in Mark. So a rod originally closed the deal as well. And then Rob, when he first retired.

decided he wanted to get more into the business world and he ended up buying Alex out of the company. So Rob is now a part owner with Mark Cuban and then I own the rest of the company. That's great. See now what you can do is you can just offer any kind of negotiations. We'll just have a bench off. Right? That's how you do it. Winner takes all. How many plates you throwing up? There we go. So I love it. That's it's written in the terms. Perhaps you didn't see that paragraph.

Yeah, that's awesome. And then, so, okay, walk us through. So you start doing this, my God, it seems like it's growing every day, right? What are you at now? Like when you look at this business compared to when you are in Shark Tank, what do you look at in terms of the future of it? Yeah, for sure. It's been a side hustle that started in the upstairs of my house and I had no idea the potential of it at that point or where it would get to, but...

It's been pretty cool to see our growth has come from all different types of markets We do sports licensing now. We just launched Dragon Ball Z, which is doing really well for us Never at me show I watched growing up never thought we'd be doing Dragon Ball Z bottles, but they're absolutely awesome and they're crushing it for us Finally got the NFL licensing, which is really cool. We have all teams all leagues now But the NFL was definitely the big dog that we were trying to close

Cool partnerships, US Army. We have US Army Camo bottles. Pretty cool. We have a partnership with a company called Bumpbox where we have a speaker bottle. So it's a speaker that twists onto the bottom of our bottle. They make bigger ones. The 49ers walked out to the Super Bowl with this big Bumpbox. So pretty cool to partner up with them as well. And then customization is big for us. We can customize any bottle. We're customizing thousands of bottles weekly at this point. But...

The Forging Excellence Show (09:04.237)
You don't realize how much swag is needed for events. I mean, you could go to the Cowboys golf course here in Dallas and there's a tournament almost every day and every day there's goodie bags with bottles in them and shirts and all other things. And when you're at the Cowboys golf course, you've got to buy something that's pretty nice. So a premium bottle is definitely a go -to. And, you know, you start getting accounts like that where they're buying 150, 200 bottles at a time. You know, the, the, the market's huge and

going into this thing, I thought I was making a shaker bottle for meat heads going to the gym. So at this point we have jugs, one gallon jugs, half gallon jugs. We have shaker bottles. We have just regular tumblers. We have a sports bottle as well. So it's really developed really into a full hydration line at this point. I was blown away with, as we talk about custom bottles, I have my lovely little SMITH arenas one, but not just the quality, but how quickly.

They got done. And, you know, I gave one to my mom, needless to say she's in her sixties, not really going to the gym every day. And even she absolutely loves it. It's easy for her to open. She was like, if I drop it, will it be okay? I said, I'm pretty sure they lit it on fire. So I think it can bounce and it'll survive. So it's been, I know we love them. Mark, you like yours too, right? Oh, I love it. I'll tell you what in Chris, if we can just plug it a little bit, we all have a bunch of.

things that are kind of, you know, not quite as nice as these, but you go, okay, you know, we grabbed the Yeti, we grabbed whatever. I'll tell you what, when you talked about this, it is impressive. When you get it, you're like, oh my God, Chris was downplaying this a little bit. You laser etch in everything. These are not stick ons. Laser etch, check that out. Oh, for sure. Yeah, that is just awesome. The bottom being rubber, right? So it doesn't sweat. There are so many little things in there. The double click, there's so much that you've done, so much thought. It is just incredible.

Yeah, I've been using it all day, every day for about seven years now. So anything that hit like about it was like, all right, we got to fix this because it's driving me crazy. So fourth variation of the bottle. So our before at this point where just took all the feedback and from personal experience, tried to fix everything possible on it. So still new innovations coming. We're pretty excited. We're currently working on.

The Forging Excellence Show (11:26.669)
because I am this ultimate sports dad and coach now, we're working on hooks for the dugout. So I found out really quickly, the kids, they go in there, they hang their bags up on the fence. They then take their bottles and they put them on the bench. And then the next kid sits down and knocks it off and it falls on the ground. And by the end of the game, the bottles are all banged up and they're all dirty. And like, all right, we got to do something about this. This is just getting out of control at this point. So.

We're in the process of making hooks for it. What's really cool too, and something that I personally wanted myself was a filtration system on it. So we've been going through different types of ideas. We were trying to do a filter straw. It was just way too hard to actually get water flow out of it. So instead, we came across a way to create a filter out of the area where the agitator twists into.

So almost kind of similar to our fruit infuser, but instead of it being a fruit infuser where you fill it with fruit, you're able to fill it with filtration media instead and create a water filter system for the bottle. So when you're on the go, you know, the airport stuff like that, where you're like, man, I don't know if I want to drink this water or not. Or, you know, even if you're stuck at an airport or hotel or something like that and you're like, there's no filtered water around here. I don't know if this is filtered. Fill your bottle up.

You know, if you put the filter in at last, you can make filters that last for 1500 liters, which is 1500 fills of the bottle, which is a long time. Probably take you a couple of years to get through it. So we're currently working on finalizing something like that as well. And really trying to make the best bottle possible. You know, right now you can make a shake with it. You know, you can use it just as a water bottle. You could make.

I'll call it drinks with it. It's got the measurement markings in it. Really. You can mix anything. Use the water bottle. Now you'd be able to use that as a filter bottle. Now you'd be able to use it as a sports bottle as well. So really trying to make it the most versatile bottle possible. I love that too. Like it's such a surprise when you open up, first of all, the packaging, everything is so nice. But the cool thing is when you open up that top and you see the measurement inside, you're like, well, that's brilliant. You wonder like, why has everybody else not done that? Like, how'd you come up with that?

The Forging Excellence Show (13:46.669)
Don't tell them man. I mean, it's just, it's really everything we've done is just spend customer feedback. It's hey, can you put measurement markings in it because I'm trying to mix my favorite powders. People use them for everything. Our audience actually isn't the hardcore gym goer. It's someone that's more casual into fitness. So they're going for walks. Yeah, they're, they're, they might be going to the gym. They're not hardcore lifting or anything like that. They might be doing yoga, but.

They might want their hydration supplement in there. So they want to know how much water they're putting in so that they can mix it correctly. A lot of people just just regular you know BCA stuff like that. Some of the people are making shakes. Some of our putting pre -workout in there. So some people even cook with it. I see people make pancakes and stuff and they're measuring out how much liquid to put in it. So it gets pretty interesting what people end up using the bottles for. Actually I just had a customer email me and say

He uses it for his baby formula. He makes the bottle, I guess he mixes it in our bottle so it will stay cold so he can bring it to the park or on the weekends with him as well. So my wife used to actually just take the bottle itself, the baby bottle and put it inside of the ice shaker and this twist the lid on it would keep it cold. So we didn't actually mix or blend with it, but this guy was actually mixing and blending the powders for his baby in the shaker as well. So that was pretty cool. Yeah, why not?

pretty interesting to hear. So if floats in the river, I have been told. So I guess when lake season comes around and people are heading to the lake, a lot of other bottles, I guess, sink to the bottom or bottle floats, something I didn't really realize, but had customers just stocking up on them and they're like, it's boat season. I'm like, you just like making drinks with it. They're like, well, yeah, but it floats in the water. So like, wow. Is that because of the double wall insulation?

Um, I am not 100 % sure why ours floats and some others that are the same type of bottle don't. Um, it is because I think it is because it seals, so it's 100 % sealed. Um, I think they're using cups where, uh, it's just a tumbler. So the water gets inside of it and kind of just sinks it. Um, not a hundred percent sure, but I like it. I know I've been one of those that accidentally, like my sister and I would go tubing down the river in the summer with our.

The Forging Excellence Show (16:03.725)
little floaties in the cup holder and you kind of move wrong and you're like, uh -oh there. Okay. I guess I can't get thirsty for the next hour. It's gone. Like stop the bottom of the river. Yeah, for sure. That's great. That's what I've been told. So what are some, some crazy things that you heard Chris where they're like, Hey, can you do this? Like the bump box on the bottom is so cool. And thank you. I have one. Um, that is like a golfing prerequisite. You have to bring that. I agree.

Very cool. I'll just a lot of times I'll twist it off and you can put it in your pocket too. You're walking around with the speaker in your pocket. So pretty cool. Other requests. I mean, a lot of times people just are reaching out about different patterns, logos, teams, stuff like that. It's hard to just do a lot of just one offs. Now that we launched Dragon Ball Z, a lot of anime requests. The anime world is massive.

I didn't realize how powerful it was, but we're getting a lot of requests for different shows. Some of the big stuff is as well as licensing with the Marvels like the Spider -Man's DC Comics stuff like that as well. So we haven't been able to tap into that yet, but it's been done by other companies. So the one that we thought was powerful and wasn't tapped yet was Dragon Ball Z. I also think Super Mario Brothers is a good one that hasn't really been used that much. So.

I just think you got the Luigi, you got the Mario, the Yoshi. I mean, you got it. So pretty cool there. That's another one that we're trying to go after as well. But definitely unlimited on what you can tap into. And when you do that, it really builds the company with a way to reach people that you wouldn't have reached otherwise. So we do love the licensing at Cloud opportunities that come our way. Oh, that's awesome. So let me switch gears a little bit for you from from kind of

ice shaker business, all that. Let me take you back a little bit in your, right. In your younger years, when you guys are growing up, was there any, any point where you kind of, you know, said we all do sports. That's what we do. We're all going to be professional. We're going to make our high school coaches look brilliant. Uh, man, uh, not really, I guess, um, that might've been Rob's attitude. Um,

The Forging Excellence Show (18:25.389)
And he definitely kind of let that known but you know, but you know, I was I was always told you know one in a million shot My mom did a great job with really making sure we did our work did our homework Before we even went outside to play before we even played sports and if we didn't do our homework We weren't going to practice or the games that day. So I would say that you know, you really I had no idea I mean it was cool to see my brother Dan get a scholarship and I

you know, to play D1 football and I thought that was really cool, but I didn't think that meant in any any sort of way that he would make it to the next level as well. And for me myself, I never I never thought I had a chance at all. So I was going to school thinking, hey, this is awesome. I got a full ride. I'm going to take advantage of it. I'm going to get the best degree I can. I went into the business school as one of two football players in the entire business school because you had to apply to get in. And I got an accounting degree because I figured.

I can be a CPA and probably make some decent money coming out of college. We had to be there for summer school. So you're leaving school with, I think I had about 136 credits or something like that and you need 150 to take the CPA exam. So I was like, well, I'm close enough. I can take 12 more credits. I'd be able to do this and at least leave with a pretty high paying job. And luckily for me, I didn't do that because I hate accounting now at this point. And, um,

I went on, I got one chance, really one opportunity to play at that next level and took advantage of it. But I mean, I truthfully didn't know at all, even up until the day I made the team that I would ever play in the NFL. That is all. And what were you thinking like as it's coming up and they're like, hey, we're going to we're going to have Chris come join the team. Like, what was the call like? Yeah, so I mean, it was you got draft day. You're sitting there, we didn't get drafted. Teams are calling you. Some teams are calling.

Around the fifth round, I'm sitting there like, this is amazing. I'm getting drafted in the fifth round and they're like, Hey, if you don't get drafted, we'll take you right after, uh, as an undrafted free agent. So, um, of course you're always hoping you're going to get drafted. Um, I didn't, and I found out afterwards that it was probably a better situation for me. Anyways, uh, my brother Dan got drafted late. He went into the seventh round. He was forced into a situation where, uh, there was other tight ends there that were really good players, but they took him because he was the last player on their draft board.

The Forging Excellence Show (20:49.421)
I guess he was the highest rated player that was left is really what it came down to. So they took them not because they needed a tight end, but because that was the most talented player left on their draft board. So they put them into a situation behind a lot of great players and they didn't really need them in that situation for the most part. So going on drafted instead of going in the seventh round, you get to pick what team you go to. So my agent was able to put me into a situation that was really good for me.

He knew that the fullback that had been there for three years Well first the first thing with that is that every year you get paid more so it makes it harder and harder for a fullback to make a team But they also he also knew that that kid got in trouble over the summer. He got in trouble with the law So he put me in a situation where I had a really good chance of excelling if I did well, and that's exactly what happened I was able to prove myself. They ended up getting rid of the starter that was in front of me and I

I started I was on this opening day roster and the next the next game they released the other guy and I was the guy to to play for the rest of the season as a starter. So pretty cool. But yeah, that's draft day. They call you right after the draft ends and they say, hey, we'd like to sign you and you say, all right, I would love to. And I think it's a week or two weeks later, you're you're going off to for me, it was Dallas and you're living in an extended stay hotel next to a roommate that's sleeping about

two feet away from you and you're staying there for about three months and you're just training all day, every day, as hard as you can to hopefully possibly make the team that camp that's coming up. Man, I'll tell you, it does not sound easy. Not at all. And then quickly going back to the Shark Tank day, or I guess that experience, was there any similarity between getting ready to walk in to go give that pitch versus getting ready to go on the field to play a game?

That kind of like getting mentally ready to, you know, really be your best, but just different business versus sports. For sure. So, I mean, you're preparing and I always people ask me all the time, like, how are you so confident? How'd you do so well on the show? And to me, it was always preparation. Um, no matter how much you prepare, you're going to be nervous. Uh, just like on the football field, I would go out there first play. I was always on kickoff or kickoff return.

The Forging Excellence Show (23:11.021)
And you're almost like you're shaking. No one could tell you're shaking, but you're pretty much shaking out there until you get going. You get that first play in that first hit in and then you're fine. But it was the same way with Shark Tank. If you prepared enough, you're going to walk out there. You're going to be nervous. You're definitely shaking a little bit, but no one could tell because you're confident. You've done this a billion times. You practice it over and over and over again. So when that moment came, it's almost like autopilot. I've done this so many times.

I know exactly what to do, even though I'm nervous, I'm going to do it the right way. And it's going to come off with competence. So just preparing over and over again on the football field, but you know, also afterwards in business is going to get the job done. That's how good did you feel too, when you're on the stage and all of a sudden your brothers come out? Did that kind of give you a little more confidence? For sure. That's like that opening kickoff. You know, it's over that your whole team runs out, gets the huddle with you and you're like, all right, let's do this. So.

Uh, yeah, very similar, very similar. Just on Shark Tank, it really lightened up the room, uh, to, to have your family come out there and, you know, flying chest bumps and flexing on camera. Like it was, I think that really helped the pitch. Uh, I didn't really get drilled with these really hard questions about, uh, it's, it's a Mr. Wonderful shaker. What's stopping me from making my own, uh, you know, type of bottle and -

You know, really just like hitting some of these hard questions that could have been easily thrown at me. I think I got kind of this pass because we were having so much fun and just the attitude in the room changed tremendously once my brothers came out. And you know what? I don't think you got a pass. I think you were prepared. I think the questions they asked were some people might, you know, collapse under that and you were like ready for it. Yeah, for the most part, I had nine seasons to study. So. Exactly.

When I walked out there, I felt like I knew every single person on that stage besides for Alex Rodriguez, because he'd never been on an episode before. But if you didn't do that, I mean, that's on you. It was season nine. I mean, you had eight seasons to really watch and digest and see what kind of questions were being asked. So if that question about the Mr. Wonderful Shaker ended up coming up, I was 100 % ready for that question. It didn't come up. The one question that did come up that kind of threw me off a little bit was,

The Forging Excellence Show (25:33.037)
The whole Gronk shaker question. They said to me, yeah, they were like, how many, how many bottles do you currently have that say ice shaker? And I was like, I don't know, like 10 ,000 or whatever. And they were like, what's it going to take to melt those all down? And, uh, to me, it was immediate mistake. Um, I'd seen it happen over and over where they would use my, my brother's name or, you know, call it the Gronk football or whatever it was. And.

It did really, really well in the Northeast and it never did well anywhere else. So I thought there was an easy solution to that. We did it immediately after the show. We made a limited edition Gronk Shaker. It did well in the Northeast, just like I thought. And we also had multiple questions and our customer service got lit up about, hey, what's the difference between the Gronk Shaker and the regular one? And what is the Gronk Shaker? And no one, there's a lot of people that have no clue where football is. And you find that out really quickly when you...

make this secondary product called the grog shaker that is basically the same exact thing, but it's just called the grog shaker. So we found out really quickly that I was definitely right and that the sharks are not the marketing masters that they in the end all be all like, like some people might think. So I think that was a great solution and the right solution for us. I think it's cool. And I love the fact too, that

You were, you know, when you talk about being prepared, you were prepared when that question came, it was not even a thought. You're like, well, you guys, this is what I'm doing. This is my business, right? We don't have to use the name on everything we do. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I already knew that was a mistake and the brand and the name and the product would all really, it would, it would all be determined on, you know, maybe one game where, uh, you know, he didn't score as many fantasy football points as he would like. And.

then my website would light up with 20 negative reviews for no reason. So I knew it would cause a lot of issues as well. And the legs only last so long as well. Like it's awesome when they're winning Super Bowls and he's playing, but once that all ends, it goes away quickly as well. So it just didn't make sense for me to change the entire brand name and name a brand around a person and a career.

The Forging Excellence Show (27:50.189)
But I'll tell you, you know what's impressive is to look at this, Chris, and you can see, you know, Rob's doing it, Dan, Gordy, right? Glenn is following professional sports, right? We've got a buddy who likes to say 100 % of athletes will be unemployed at some point, right? So following that, how do you, like, what would you tell other athletes right now that are kind of coming up to say, listen, you got to start preparing for your future, right? What kind of advice do you give to them? Yeah, it's tough.

I knew it wasn't going to last long, so I always had that Plan B. But at the same time, when you have a Plan B, you're not all in on Plan A. As an athlete at the highest level, you have to be all in. And the second you start thinking about something else is when you're getting cut. You're not doing everything you can to make that team if you're already thinking about something else. So that was a struggle. I watched guys that really started to prepare for a certain career.

They weren't on the team that year. I can tell you that. So you're all in on the moment and you kind of have to be. But if you are able to, and when you do have free time, instead of partying, I guess that's where our mistakes really came into play. Instead of going out and partying and I guess going on vacation for the whole off season, there are opportunities to really build what's next. I did take advantage of it a little bit. For example, I went to

The Harvard Business School is a program that the NFL offered. It's an entrepreneurship class that I could take. I could get a nice little plaque that says I graduated from Harvard, even though it was a three, three day course. But you were taught by the best professors in pretty much the whole world. We had students there that were mentoring us or I guess just helping us out and really kind of just guiding us. I think it was probably something that they were doing for community service, but.

With that, they were telling us, I've been applying to get in this guy's class for two years and I can't get in. And then you guys come in and he teaches your class. I'm like, yeah, the NFL is probably paying him a lot to do this. But yeah, this is pretty impressive. So taking that course was really cool. I still have the plaque. I hang it up like I graduated from Harvard, even though I did. And that's just an opportunity of one little thing that you can do in your off season for three days.

The Forging Excellence Show (30:17.197)
My brothers were all in South Padre Island party in that weekend. I could tell you that. Wait, wait, the Gronkowski's like the party? That's weird. Breaking news, breaking news. I definitely put a couple of holes in the wall that I got to hear about as well. But yeah, I mean, it's definitely there. If you're looking for that next opportunity and you really want to build something and get some steam going while you're still playing, it's the best opportunity. That's when people care. If you reach out, if you connect,

I think one of the best examples was Pat McAfee. I played with him my second year in Indianapolis. I watched him sit there on Twitter all the time. We were, we were both hurt. I tore my pet week seven. So, um, I was in, I was in, um, just the rehab process at that point. And he was in there a lot because he was hurt a lot that season as well, rehabbing. And, uh, he would actually connect with fans, like you legitimately write back to him. Uh, he would have arguments with them.

Yeah, he really just, I mean, he was truly engaging with the fans and I watched him on Twitter go from zero followers to hundreds of thousands of followers. And at that time I was like, man, this guy is crazy. What's he doing? But I think he saw a bigger vision at that point in the off season. He'd go out and he would do comedy shows. He would go out, he would do different shows and engage with the fans.

When he was ready at that point, you know, when he left, he had this massive following already, which there's no other punter that has a massive following out there. So he was able to do that because of everything that he did while he was still playing and people really appreciated that. So he left, people thought he was crazy when he left, he signed with Barstool almost immediately. And you know, now he has his own show and makes significantly more than he would have ever made as a punter. So.

Pretty cool to see, but he's a great example on what you could do as you're playing that won't really interfere with your career, that really engages you with your fans and sets you up to do whatever you really want to do afterwards. Because now you have a bunch of people that really value you and value your opinion, not just for being a football player, but because you gave your time and your respects to them while you were playing.

The Forging Excellence Show (32:29.645)
Do you feel like there are any skills that you developed through playing sports that have translated really well to being a business owner?

Yeah, for sure. It's kind of similar. It's the hard work. If you put in the work, if you get better every day, it's going to be long hours. It's going to be a grind, delayed gratification. All that comes into play. I think that's the biggest thing I've learned really was in college. I think time management. You have no time. I mean, as an entrepreneur, it's all day every day, especially at the beginning. So.

I say all the time, I can never go back to college and do what I did. You know, to be a student athlete is absurd. When I got to the NFL, I was like, this is way too easy. Like I don't have to go to four classes today. I don't have to study for this exam and do this huge project and then also play a game this weekend. Like this is crazy. And on top of that, mandatory study halls and mandatory lifts. And I mean, literally every minute in college is accounted for. And then you're also trying to actually be a college student and have fun. So.

Um, that taught me so much. If I can get A's in school still, and I can perform on the field, um, I was doing something right, you know, so that whole time management, um, multitasking, uh, throughout college really helped me be an entrepreneur. Cause you just get anything and everything thrown at you. Uh, you know, from changing light bulbs in a warehouse to, you know, just, it just absurd how many things I've learned and had to do from being an entrepreneur. And.

It just keeps on going every day. Is there anything where you are surprised at how much you know about a select subject? I man, I can like, I can go on Photoshop and I can Photoshop anything you want now. I mean, there's so many different things. I ran laser engravers for five years, but I can laser anything. There's just, it's unlimited. I have the amount of skills I have now.

The Forging Excellence Show (34:34.413)
just from everything that I had to learn through the years. I mean, as an entrepreneur, and once you get into it, I mean, you know nothing. I mean, I didn't get to like go shadow someone or, you know, get to do all these different things. I was an athlete, so I didn't see any of this world at all. And then I left this sports world and I went right into entrepreneurship. So wish I had someone to shadow or I guess I wish I had.

paid attention more to what my dad would tell me and used him more as a mentor because he knew exactly what he was talking about. But I had a lot of confidence, I guess, that I was going to do well. And instead of listening to my dad and his advice and using him as a mentor, I tried to figure everything out on my own, which probably took me about three years to actually do. And then at that point, I went back to my dad and said, can you please give me advice? And then I finally listened to him. And once I did, we shot up pretty quickly.

Yeah, your dad's a, he's a bright guy, brilliant business guy. So great to see, but how about, how about this? Like think about your mom and dad, right? Raising you guys, right? Did a great job. What do you say as a parent or to other parents who are like, you know, I think, I think I'd like my child to get into sports and let's see how far they can go. What kind of advice would you give to somebody like that? Yeah, I'm doing it now with my kids. So it's, it's pretty interesting to see. Um,

It takes time and patience as well, but you gotta work with your kids. I mean, my dad was always there. He was always coaching us. He was always helping us. We also there's five boys. They put five boys in a room like we're going to compete. We also had all of our friends over and neighbors were always over, so we were always at house where it wasn't just us. Five. It was us plus a couple friends and we didn't watch TV. We didn't play video games. We're outside in the backyard. We're in our basement playing so it's a lot of time. A lot of commitment that parents do like you have to be in. My mom was probably.

I would say more than a full -time job just feeding us, driving us to school. She packed each and every lunch for us. She cooked every dinner, every breakfast for us. We didn't go out to eat. It was literally impossible to bring us out to eat because we were just so out of control. But yeah, I mean, as a parent, I mean, if you want that, you got to be all in on it too. And I'm finding that out pretty quickly myself over here, coaching multiple teams and.

The Forging Excellence Show (36:54.317)
I'm on the field for multiple hours almost every day now at this point. Well, she's the real pro with time management then just figuring out how to. Oh, insane. And all of this without a cell phone and without GPS. And she had this big calendar and she still has some of the old calendars that she kept and every day had like six, seven, 10 things on it and it was all handwritten and it was absolute mayhem. That's incredible, man. That's so cool.

Anything like kind of parenting, right? Um, from the mental side, maybe psychologically, how to help your kids. Um, anything like that? Um, I mean, I guess the last thing that my parents, I think did a really good job with was just teaching the value of hard work and a dollar. So we had a paper route at five boys paper route. I think my older oldest brother was 12 at the time, but, um,

really teaching the value of a dollar, teaching how to work together to get this paper route done. And then our parents, they just didn't buy anything for us. It was all, if you want it, you have to earn it. So if we wanted a car, we had to buy our own car. If we wanted anything at the grocery store, you know, we had to actually buy it ourselves. I think it's been a great lesson for my own kids. They very quickly figured out how to order on Amazon.

And all of a sudden a bunch of gifts are showing up at the house and all kinds of stuff you get I'm like where are these packages coming from so Immediately we got them a wallet for their birthdays. It might have been Christmas. We got them all wallets Put in whatever money they got from Christmas or their birthdays and said hey if you want to buy something This is how you buy it. You you you've got to give us you got to pay for it

So if you want to go buy something on Amazon, it's $20. Give me that $20. You go buy whatever you want. If you want to go to the store, if you want to sit there and cry when we're going through the line because you want to buy that sucker, awesome. Bring your wallet next time. You can buy that sucker. So my kids went to the store. They bought a bunch of toys. They paid for them. We then went home. We went to the store the next time and they didn't ask for another thing. So I always thought that was a great tip because I see kids all the time just crying in the line.

The Forging Excellence Show (39:10.797)
begging their parents for everything and their parents are just giving it to them. So make them earn it. You know, make them value a dollar and hard work and realize that things don't just come from Amazon. They actually cost money. And you actually have to work for it. So that's my tip. I think my parents did a great job with it as well. Same with college. It was, hey, if you want to go to college, get a scholarship or you're paying for it. So just...

actually teaching someone, especially now, I mean, I'm in a situation where I can buy my kids whatever, whatever they want. And I just don't think that's the right thing to do. I just don't think it teaches them to be winners and really work hard and value what they have. So that's my tip as I guess, from my parents and then also as a parent myself now. I love that. You know, it's funny when you mentioned that Chris, growing up like, you know,

I had a similar thing with the kids where, you know, I had a paper route growing up, right? So you learn how to work hard and work at a pizzeria and do all this stuff. But when the kids were growing up, you could, there was a point where you go, yeah, I can get you that gift. Yeah, I can get you that bike. We can do whatever. But it's great when the kids realize like, here's the money that I earned and here's what I'm going to go do with it. So we used to have this little process where our kids worked on commission. So if I asked him to do something like, Hey, you know, Hey, can you guys big up the trash, take that out? It pays a dollar.

Great, they get it. If I ask them twice, they now have to do it and they don't get paid. If I ask them three times, they now have to pay me to do that, right? But on the other hand, if they said, hey, you know what? It's garbage night, I gotta put the garbage out. I'm gonna go do that right now. Without me asking, it pays double. They get double commission. And I'll tell you, that helped. These two are so smart, right? They're now 24, right? They're big kids now, but so smart financially. You know, even in terms of, if you think about kind of a wallet.

There's some they save, some they spend, some they donate. Right. And I was really impressed with my daughter when she was little and I didn't think they were quite at that stage yet. And she donated to St. Jude's, which I think now is just kind of an annual thing, but it was her knowing the value of that and what it brings. You know, it was so cool to see that. Very cool. I like that. That's cool. So yeah, it's good you do that with your kids because I'll tell you, it's not easy, right. To kind of do that, especially you're like, do I want the headache or should I just get it for him now? Exactly.

The Forging Excellence Show (41:33.229)
but you do it once, man, it doesn't stop. That's right, that's right. Little discipline. So cool. Well, Chris, this has been a lot of fun, man. For a giveaway we can do if you are following Ice Shaker, following Smith Arenas and leave a comment, we will go through and we will pick someone from YouTube, we'll pick someone from TikTok and we will pick someone from Instagram and they will get their own Smith Arenas Ice Shaker.

How about that? All right. I like it. All right, good. Well, that's great, Chris. We'll let you get back to it. All right. Thank you so much. We'll talk to you, buddy.