Life after Sports with Former MLB Pitcher and LSU Quarterback, Josh Booty

1Huddle Podcast Episode #3

On this Bring It In podcast episode, 1Huddle’s CEO and Founder Sam Caucci sat down with Josh Booty, former MLB pitcher for the Florida Marlins, LSU quarterback, entrepreneur, NFL Draft Guru, and business consultant.

On this episode of Bring It In season one, Josh sat down with Sam and discussed life after sports.

Audio available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. 

TOP 3 HIGHLIGHTS

Below are some of the insights Josh shared during our chat, edited for length and clarity. You can find more Bring It In podcast episodes here.

• “Take advantage of these situations when everything is kind of closed and shut down to watch film, prepare a little bit better, look at yourself from last year, a year ago, and say, what do I need to get better at?”
• “One play at a time mentality.”
• “Doing the right thing over and over and over is what can springboard you to success.”

FULL TRANSCRIPTION

Sam: Aside from all the crap on TV that might be overly negative right now, can you speak to a major challenge you kind of face, or you feel like the keys that got you through it?

Josh: That’s a great question. I think every athlete thinks that they’re going to play until the wheels fall off. They’re 40 and Tom Brady, for instance, just signed a two-year deal with Tampa and he’s 42 years old. I mean, those are the types of things that athletes dream about. Right. So I never had those thoughts of getting away from sports in my mid-thirties. And so I had to decide, I’m 44, and I had to decide what I was wanting to do.

And I know I wanted to stay connected. The real challenge when I got out of sports was, what was I going to do with all these great people that I know around the world, really, but around the U S to help me or benefit me and I could benefit them? 

Cause I think that’s it’s a give and take, we get into business. What can you do for businesses and what can they do for you? And you ride that path out. So, that was really the key, and the challenge was what am I going to spend my time doing? And I said, shoot, business development, consulting, connecting the dots, raising money, to get people together, doing events, doing fun things, because I love of course, social stuff. And so that’s what I decided to do.

Sam: With a lot of the businesses you consult with now, you’re also, every time I turn around, you’re on an interview right now, as you approach the NFL draft, because you’re this quarterback whisper, I don’t know what people want to maybe call you. But as you look around at the people you’re talking to right now, what makes you optimistic right now? 

Josh: Well, during these times, it’s very tough. I think, how do you spend your time? Like when we were growing up, we didn’t have cell phones, we didn’t have DirectTV and the Sunday ticket and the NBA league pass and all the things that we have now that we enjoy. I mean, you really only had several restaurants. I grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, and there just wasn’t much out there. So we were in the yard playing HORSE, I was throwing the tennis ball with a baseball mitt up against the concrete wall on the side of the house, the red brick wall.

And I’d be catching grounders and turning too and doing all stuff like that, we’re trying to bring people together to play wiffle ball. I mean, there were just so many things we had to try to get done because we didn’t have a lot of resources. Take advantage of these situations when everything is kind of closed and shut down, watch film, prepare a little bit better, look at yourself from last year, a year ago and say, what do I need to get better at?

And I think that’s what business leaders need to do as well. And developing kind of that culture of how can I get better in this downtime? You’re only as strong as your weakest link. And I think if, and you’re doing stuff like this for 1Huddle, but if companies can really adopt that game plan right now and really grow within, I think this is the best time to do it because you’ve got a lot of time on your hands for the first time ever. And you can really reflect, see where you need to get better and get after it.

Sam: I think that’s great advice, controlling what you can control and, it’s moments like this that, I think to say reveals character is cliche, but I had a coach growing up who always used to say to me, next play’s the thing.

When I played high school ball it was that mentality. And at one point I was a quarterback, that was a lot of pounds earlier. So you definitely need a next play mentality in that position. But you made a comment about a coach the other day that maybe gave a piece of advice to you. What is something that sticks out in your mind right now that’s a piece of advice that you’re tapping into?

Josh: The story was, and I think I’ve mentioned it to you off the air the other day, was Nick Saban and of course the privilege to play for Nick, it was an amazing year or so that I had with him. But more than the games, the wins, the losses, all that stuff, the SEC games that you get to play in when he was there at LSU with me, I was his first quarterback there, but we talked about every little situation. You’d take one play at a time. You said that that’s what I tell the kids, is understand the situation. 

If you understand the situation you’re already ahead of 99% of the guys on the field because they just don’t understand the situation. They might have been coached, but they weren’t listening, but they don’t watch enough ball, you know what I’m saying? They don’t understand the situation. So if you can understand the situation you’re in and play that one play at a time, like you mentioned, and you can have success now, you’re not worried about hitting four home runs and one at bat. You’re not trying to throw four touchdowns in one throw. Just execute, play after play, after play. And at the end of the day, they’d look up and their stats are amazing and they win. And when you win, that’s when you really get paid in life or people look up to you, you get opportunities and it’s a springboard, right?

So that one play at a time mentality doing the right thing over and over and over is what can springboard you to success.

Topics Discussed: Optimism, Sports, Coaching, Life After Sports, NFL, MLB