Athlete CEO: Family Matters | Zach Miller, Sam Acho, Jeff Locke, Riccardo Stewart | NFL Players’ Podcast #26
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Important to creating multigenerational wealth is choosing the right team. As an NFL player who helps you make decisions? What role should your parents and family play in making your decisions?
Sam, Zach, Jeff, and Riccardo speak directly to the athlete and the family in this episode, providing guidance and wisdom.
For questions, you can reach out to Riccardo Stewart at +1 (602) 989-5022.
+ Read the Transcript
Riccardo Stewart (00:10): Hey, I want to welcome you guys back to another episode of the AWM NFL podcast. As always, my name is Ricardo Stewart and I'm here with my friends and my coworkers, Jeff Locke, Zach Miller, and Sam Acho. And so we've been talking about for the past couple of episodes as athlete CEO. So I mean, when we step back and we look at our NFL clients and NFL clients there is that you make a lot of money playing a sport.
And what that inevitably means is you are the business of yourself. And so that means you got to surround yourself with the right team. And we talked about what does it look like to choose an agent? What does it look like to choose an advisor? We also came back and said, as you build your wealth, before you can talk about the things you want to buy and do, like you got to step forth, like what are your priorities and how difficult it is to be able to establish those priorities. And what we want to be able to do in this particular episode is talking about who helps you choose your team.
And mainly we think about those individuals that are coming out of college into the draft, and even the individuals that are currently in the NFL that are building out their team as they get to their second contract and it's going, what part does family play as you begin to make these decisions? And so I'm gonna start first with the mayor himself, the smile himself, the personality himself, the man who has a pool table behind him, Sam Acho. So how involved was your family and choosing your agent and choosing your advisor and helping you build out your team.
Sam Acho (01:38): Yeah, my family was super involved when helping specifically choosing my agent. The reason why is that I didn't really know how that process went. There were many people coming at me and I didn't really know what they wanted. So mom and dad were there pretty much every step of the way.
When it came to financial advisor, they weren't as involved and partly because there weren't as many advisors coming around, at least at that time. I kind of decided to go with an advisor who my other teammate went with, a guy who I felt like, okay, well, you went with him, I'll go with him. And I realized I wasn't the right decision. So I wish I would have had more involvement from them early on, but it was new for a lot of us.
Riccardo Stewart (02:11): Good, that's good. Well, my next is Zach, okay? And I actually wrote this down because I wanted to say it away to make sure you got the answer, truth. So oftentimes the younger guys, and we say younger, we're talking about the guys who are coming out of the draft. These guys are 20, 21, I mean with all these COVID years now, 30. And so they're coming out of college into the draft and like they rely heavily on their family and their parents. What are the pros and maybe what are some of the potential pitfalls and hiding that involvement of your family?
Zach Miller "The Truth" (2:35.713) Yeah, let's start with the pros first. So they're going to be able to help you ask the right questions. I know I was 21 years old when I was doing the whole agent selection and all these agents were coming out and you know, the woodwork to try to represent me as a junior at ASU. So having my parents, they had that more experience, not necessarily the expertise, but the experience to ask better questions than I would as a 21 year old. And they wanted what was best for me. So having them in the in your corner and then bonus points if they have street smarts because there's going to be so many people and athletes.
They attracted it then bad apples, people that were trying to take advantage of you as an NFL player or future NFL player. It attracts a lot of people. It's probably even worse now that the money has gotten better. So you having someone that has their BS meter up, um, kind of figure out who's actually legit and who's not having someone on your team to be able to ask the questions to figure that out.
That's one of the biggest pros. the cons of course is, like, unless they played professional sports, they just don't have the, they don't necessarily know who's good or who's bad because a lot of people can fake it. so having, having someone, um, with that experience actually to help vet an agent, vet a financial advisor, someone that's not on the payroll that actually could be a trusted source. Maybe that's - Maybe that's at the college. Maybe that's a family friend. Maybe that's someone else can also be super beneficial to kind of kind of address what, what, with the lack of expertise.
Riccardo Stewart (04:22): Yeah, we've seen it in the most positive ways. We've seen dads, we've seen moms absolutely do an incredible job at guiding their children in this process and like doing it in such a way that educates them and also an opportunity for them to grow as men in their leadership. So with that, Jeff, if you were as a professor, if you're writing a manual, somewhat of a how to to the parents on what are the things I need to know to be able to help my child be successful and being this athlete CEO? What sort of things would you include in that manual?
Jeff Locke (04:59): Yeah, I'd really have two main chapters, right? The first one is exactly what Sam and Zach just touched on. your kid has no life experience of filtering out people and their incentives and what they actually want from you, how they actually get paid, you know, all the little things that go into just dealing with people in your life. Right?
As an adult, as a parent, you've had to do that for decades now and your kid just hasn't had to do it yet. So you got to be there to help them filter people and understand that. Second is, this one's difficult because you gotta trust your kid a little more than you might want to at that point in their life, but you have to let them try to make decisions on their own and then support them and help them on the backend.
If you just step in and make the decisions for them, right, they don't gain the autonomy and they don't really get to grow into being the person that makes the decisions on their own later in life when they have their own family and maybe you're not around to be able to help them. So we see that a lot of the parents we work with do a great job of that, right? Their son makes the choice, they advise in the backend, mistakes might be made, but they can all be corrected. And that's how you learn as a new athlete.
Riccardo Stewart (06:22): So Zach, I'm going to ask you, somewhat of the flip, if Jeff is writing to the parent, okay, here's what you can expect when working with your child and allowing your child to grow and make really good decisions, what's the flip side? As a player, what should the player expect when it comes to working with, listening to, getting guidance from their mom or dad or auntie or grandma or uncle, whoever it is that they allow in their family to give that guidance?
Zach Miller (06:51):Yeah, I think the younger you are, the more you can rely on that. And then as you develop, as you become that athlete CEO, you take more ownership. You can start taking more of the decision -making because your knowledge, you're just going to, especially once you see how much taxes come out of your account, you're going to feel it. You're going to, that money's going to hit your account. Now you have that responsibility or you should take on that responsibility to, let me take over some of the decision-making. have more experience. Yes. I'll make some mistakes here and there maybe I want the agent I want.
And like in my case, I fired my first agent and I felt so much better having the agent that I got to pick versus the agent that my dad pretty much was like, yeah, let's go with him. having that ownership actually, I mean, it really just matures you into the next stage of your career. And whether that's a second contract, post NFL, it helps a ton to take over that ownership.
Early on, definitely rely on family. They're going to do what's best for you. And they're going to be in your corner and they're going to have more experience than you do. But over time, yeah, you definitely become that athlete CEO. I've seen so many guys just grow throughout their 20s as a player to be savvy business people, business minded people at 30.
Jeff Locke (08:09): Zach, when did it happen for you, When in your rookie deal or after your rookie deal, did you feel like you were really the athlete CEO and not needing to hit up dad for stuff and decisions?
Zach Miller (08:22): It really wasn't until I got to Seattle after my second contract. The experience, what I gained along the way certainly helped me mature. then just doing all the things that come in life, getting married, having my own family, having bought a second, know, gone through the home buying process once and then into the second time, then seeing my kind of wealth, my net worth grow and then saying, all right, like I got a chance at some serious money here.
And so all that, plus I've always been into the money side of things, plus the responsibility side that like I didn't I never wanted to rely on my parents, but I mean, at early stage, of course I was going to, but as soon as I could, having all those decisions, like I want it to be on me. Like I want my success to be determined by what I do, what I can control, not relying on someone else.
Riccardo Stewart (09:14): think that's good insight from you, Jeff, and think that's good insight from you, Zach. Both of you guys have played in the NFL, and I think that wisdom is helpful. Sam, you've also had a nine -year career. You've also relied on your family, and what would you be able to add to some of the things that Jeff and Zach says as we begin to wrap this up?
Sam Acho (09:33): The first thing I think about is this idea of it being a team, especially early on. As a parent, you have an opportunity and some may even say an obligation to help guide, lead, and help direct your child. But on the flip side, you've been raising your child, you know your child, and you actually know that they have the ability and the capacity to make good decisions. And so your guidance, you being a shepherd is so helpful and so critical especially when it comes to them making decisions, but also as you are on the ancillary and spending time with people who may be agents who may be having conversations with you, or maybe as you were doing recruiting visits and you know that the recruiters or the coaches would have these different conversations.
So it's actually a benefit to be a team in that regard and say, you know what, I know my son, I know what he cares about, but at the same time, I know who he is and. If I believe that I raised him in the way that I raised him, then he's going to make the right decision. I'll be able to step in at times, but also let him grow as he makes different decisions. And so it's almost like this idea of being a resource based off of your life experience to help the people who are around your family or your son, help them get to know him even more.
Riccardo Stewart (10:43): So we would say to you as the athlete, you were always standing on somebody's shoulders. And so if it's your family, they'd be able to get an opportunity to see further, stand on their shoulders and lean on them. All right. There's going to be a moment where those shoulders, you you become the shoulders that your kids are standing on, as Zach said. To the parents, if you want more resources, if you want to know, OK, what are the questions should I be asking agents? What are the questions that I should be asking advisors? What are the questions I should be asking my son? We would love to provide those resources for you. Feel free to shoot us a text at 602-989-5022. As the athlete, if you have questions and you want resources, please reach out to us. 602-989-5022.