In this episode of Success Unleash’d, hosts Zack Ellison and Shawne Merriman sit down with NFL legend Roy Williams who shares the mindset, lessons, and hustle that defined his career success. From manifesting a childhood dream into a reality to rebounding from financial setbacks, he unpacks raw truths and game-changing takeaways that made him president of his very own corporation.

Success Unleash’d Principles From This Episode

1. Speak Your Dreams into Reality

Roy manifested his dream to play for the Dallas Cowboys. He achieved what he wanted just by declaring his goal and chasing it relentlessly.

2. Practice Like It’s Game Day

In his NFL career, Roy was trained to perform at training as if they were playing the real thing. Even after his athletic days, he continues to give importance to preparation and how it breeds confidence.

3. Learning from the Greats

Roy attributes his discipline and conduct to the many lessons he learned on and off the field while playing alongside football legends.

4. Adapt Or Get Left Behind

Roy refused to remain stagnant after leaving football. Instead, he carved his own path and turned setbacks into comebacks.

5. Pick The Right People, Not Just the Right Plays

Roy emphasizes the importance of vetting the people you want to work with, from your financial team to your trusted business advisors.

6. Reputation Opens Doors – Integrity Keeps Them Open

Roy managed to find great opportunities after the NFL by keeping his name clean, his legacy promising, and his integrity intact.

7. Grind in Silence, Deliver in Action

Roy embraced the essence of “under-promise and over-deliver” to prove his excellence in hard work at all times.

8. Build Your Personal Brand Early

Building your personal brand is a necessity these days. Roy recommends that you start building your very own as soon as you can.

9. Pain Fuels Purpose

Roy highlights how to turn loss, rejection, and loneliness into raw determination and strength in his book Unmovable.

10. Play The Game Even Beyond the Field

Roy advises athletes who are eyeing a future in business or entrepreneurship to never let go of their discipline in the field. Instead, let it transcend to their chosen career paths.

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Watch the Episode Here

Listen to the Podcast Here

The Right Mindset For Your Career Success With Roy Williams

We have Roy Williams with us, an NFL great, five-time Pro Bowler with the Dallas Cowboys, a proud Oklahoma Sooner, and also quite a hunter, from what we were talking about offline.

Roy, thanks for coming on. It’s great to have you.

Thank you guys for having me on. I appreciate it.

We might as well finish the conversation we were having. Roy, you’re a big hunter.

I like to pull the trigger. I’ll say that.

Zack, a couple of years ago, we were exchanging texts or DMs on social media. I have never been hunting. A lot of my friends go hunting a lot. I was talking to Derek Wolfe, who played defensive end for the Denver Broncos, a Super Bowl champion. He was trying to get me out there. I said, “Roy and I talked about it for years.” We got a lot of fishing and hunting on Lights Out Sports TV. We’ve got to get out there. I won’t know what the hell to do, but I’m coachable sometimes. Unless I have to go get a sack, then I’m not going by the playbook. Other than that, I’m pretty coachable.

Roy, we’ve got to get you on an episode on Lights Out Sports TV and get your own hunting and fishing show, maybe.

I’m not that gung-ho about hunting. I like doing it, but as far as knowing how to be able to talk about it and do all that stuff, I can’t do that. Set me up somewhere, put a big pile out, and hopefully, something comes out and I get it. That’s my extent of hunting.

Introducing 5-Time Pro Bowler Roy Williams

Roy, let’s start from the beginning. You’re one of the best football players in the country and college.  You’re the eighth pick in the NFL draft, if I’m not mistaken.

I was.

You beat Shawne by four picks, not the same year.

There’s no competition. By that time, what I probably signed for being six picks later was probably the same thing I had signed for because it went up every year. It’s still going up, so it doesn’t even matter.

Talk a little bit about your NFL career, and then I want to dig into what you learned from that and what you’ve been doing since.

To know me, you have to know my story. That’s why I sent you the link to my book, because it was prophetic on how I’ve spoken into existence where I was going to land and where I was going to be. I’ll rewind. I’m from the inner city in California. The Bay Area, Union City, California, to be exact. My dad used to have a Tony Dorsett jersey. I don’t know why we had a life preserver in the house, but we had a life preserver. I used to put it on. I used to run around the house, run into things, and then I would dive into my mom and dad’s bed as if I was scoring a touchdown for the Dallas Cowboys in a Tony Dorsett jersey.

Fast forward to high school, my eleventh grade year, I was asked, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Without hesitation, I said, “Playing for the Dallas Cowboys.” That was ‘97. I kid you not, five years from that point, I got drafted. That was in 2002, but the 2001 draft class. Five years later, I was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys.

When I talk to people, I’m like, “Put it out there. Speak what you want. Go out there and go get it because I did.” I was fortunate enough that the Cowboys weren’t good that previous year because they had a high pick. I was able to get picked up. That was awesome. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, being drafted by the team that I wanted to play for, the team that I grew up to love, in the game that I grew to love, which is football, and to be able to have an impact with the Dallas Cowboys and leave my mark in the NFL permanently. I have a rule. It’s ridiculous.

What’s the rule?

The horse collar tackle. It’s cool. It’s surreal. Being an inner city kid, you never think that you’ll make it to that level, but when you do, then you’ll make an impact that significant. It’s the NFL, college, high school, and Little League. You can’t do that tackle at all. It’s a pretty nice little stamp on football history.

I don’t know if you know the full story. I grew up in Prince George’s County, Maryland, which is close to the DC area. Half of my family was divided up into Redskins fans. The other half were Cowboys fans. In that area, the DMV area, it’s all Cowboys then Redskins fans. During the draft time, half of my family wanted me to go to the Redskins. The other half wanted me to be a Cowboy.

You guys probably heard this a couple of times about how the draft went. I took the visit down to Dallas. The team flew out the top twenty guys whom they were looking at drafting. I’m down there with everybody, Pacman Jones, Travis Johnson, Cadillac Williams, and Ronnie Brown. We were all in the locker room downstairs.

Some kid with a clipboard came up and said, “Jerry Jones and Bill Parcells want to see you.” The first thing that came to my head was, “What in the hell did I do?” I’m still trying to backtrack on anything I might’ve done that I got in trouble for. I was like, “No, I didn’t do anything.” I got up there and sat in the office.

No man or person puts a lot of fear in me. I don’t have a whole lot of fears in life in general, but it was very intimidating. In this small office, you had Jerry Jones on my left sitting on the desk, and you had Bill Parcells sitting at the desk across from me. This room felt as small as a closet because you got two of the most prominent figures in football about 5 or 6 feet away from me.

They told me, “Shawne, we don’t know if you’ll be around the eleventh pick.” They had an eleventh pick in the 2005 draft. They were like, “We don’t know if you’ll be around. We think you’ll go from the top 5 or top 8. If you are, we’re going to draft you.” Immediately, I’m thinking in my head, “Half of my family is going to be happy as hell and the other half is going to be pissed off.”

Bill Parcells, who you know because you’ve been around him, his word to me was, “When we draft you, we’re going to work the crap out of you when you get here.” That was Bill Parcells. In my head, I’m thinking, “I don’t want to come here and play for Big Tuna.” I go downstairs after this 30 to 40-minute meeting, and I’m texting my family. I’m like, “I’m probably going to the Cowboys.” People went out and got custom-made 56 Cowboys jerseys. The other half went to the custom made 56 jerseys for the Redskins. The Redskins that year had the ninth pick, I believe. They ended up going with Carlos Rogers.

The eleventh pick came, and everybody started to whip out their custom-made jerseys for the Cowboys. The ninth pick came first. Everybody wore their custom-made 56 Redskins jerseys. They went with Carlos Rogers, and all I heard was jerseys slamming behind me, throwing them down. The eleventh pick came up, and it was the same thing. They wore their 56 custom-made jerseys. The announcer said, “With the eleventh pick of the 2005 draft, the Dallas Cowboys select DeMarcus Ware.” You hear everything thrown behind me. I thought I was going to be a Cowboy. They didn’t make a mistake because they got a Hall of Famer, DeMarcus Ware.

Culture Of Discipline In The NFL

I forgot what year it was, maybe 2006 or 2007. You might’ve had 10 or 11 Pro Bowlers. Talk about that time. Around that time, we had a good team with the Chargers in 2006 with LT. We had a squad out there, too. Talk about the culture and what you guys were building out there. I was in Dallas at Michael Irvin’s place down there a few months ago. When I go through the airports in Dallas, I hear this story so much. Did you guys know at that time that my name didn’t even come up in a draft or? Also, the second question is, what was the culture you guys were building around there that time?

Honestly, no, I didn’t. I knew exactly who you were, but I didn’t know. I never rubbed elbows with the upper management as far as their decisions. Whatever they decided is what they decided. Keep the F out of it. They would never ask me anyway. My two cents didn’t matter. The culture that we were building when we had Coach Parcell was amazing because he was building hard-nosed football players, people who knew their assignments, people who were going to bring it each and every practice and game. He built hard-nosed players, smart players, and situational players. We practiced situational football.

I want to say that in Parcell’s first year, we practiced a two-minute drill. We were down by 5 points and we needed a touchdown, or we were down by 2 points and we needed to field the goal. We rehearsed all of that. When we came into those situations, we were ready for it because we practiced it back in the summer camp and all that. Coach Parcell was building a phenomenal program. Coach left, and then we brought Coach Phillips in and started spiraling out of control after that.

Lessons From Emmitt Smith And Other Football Legends

I got to ask you guys because I’m curious. You guys were two of the best defensive players of your era, for sure. Who were the best offensive players that you ever played against? Did any of them ever scare you? Not scare you, but to the point where you had a game plan against him and you were like, “We’re going against this guy today. We have to be prepared.”

Who are the best guys offensively? Shawne, I know like LT was a beast, but he was on your team. You were lucky in that regard. Lorenzo Neal is probably one of the best fullbacks ever. You guys had a stacked team, and so did the Cowboys. Who did you guys fear? Was there anybody that was underrated that maybe wasn’t that well-known in the media, but you’re like, “That guy can play.”

For each and every team, we have a game plan to get ready for. I knew that when we played Ricky Williams, it was going to be a long day because I’m working around the ball. I have so much respect for Ricky Williams. I knew that. When you play TL, you know you are going to get that voice of attention. Outside of being scared of somebody, no. As a defensive player, you can’t have any doubt in your head about your ability and when you step on the football field of being scared or showing any chink in the armor. They have to know it’s going to be a long day, too. We’re putting helmet to helmet. It is what it is. I never shied away from contact.

When you step on that field for those 60 minutes, you know exactly what it is. For us, we would use terms like, “You got to pack a lunch.” We knew that with certain guys, you had to pack lunch because you’re going to have a long day. For us, it was Adrian Peterson. We knew that he was going to touch the ball 20 or 25-plus times a game. We knew that every single run from the first time he touched the ball until the last time he touched the ball, it was going to be the exact same tempo. He was going to run as hard as he could. If I had to see Bryant McKinnie in that offensive line of the Vikings, nobody was scared, but we knew we had to pack a lunch.

I’m going to get in more of what you’re doing. My question is, all these guys that you played with, and some of them are Hall of Famers and ones that go down in history, did you see something that was the same that made them take all of them, whether it was a work ethic, how they prepared, or how they studied? You played at the top of the level. If you want to say you had some people fear, they were coming across that middle. They had alligator arms. There was fear then. Did you see something between all the top guys you played with and their mentality?

The late Larry Allen, his work ethic in the weight room, I’m like, “Oh my gosh.” His warmup was 3-15. His warmup was throwing three plates on there quickly on each side and knocking them out. I’m like, “Oh my gosh.” Seeing Larry go to work in the weight room was amazing. To see Darren Woodson’s mindset of watching how he was breaking down film. When he would come back the following morning, he would be like, “These three sets when they’re like this and this guy motions, look for this.”

The way he broke it down, explained it, and made it so simple for himself and for me. My first two and a half years when I had Darren, I was getting down because I had a great tutor. To be able to see Emmitt Smith and being able to sit back, my first starstruck moment was walking in the Dallas facility and training camp, and you got Emmitt and whoever else he was playing. They were playing dominoes. I was like, “That’s Emmitt Smith. I used to watch you.”

We got to talk a little bit about Emmitt because I got the Gators cap on. I’m in Gainesville, so it’s fitting.

I want to throw in on that. That visit that I took pre-draft, mind you, I was twenty years old. I don’t turn 21 until May. The draft is in April. I’m walking around in the locker room and they’re showing us the building downstairs. They show us the locker room and then take us to the weight room. Zack, when I tell you that Larry Allen walked in and he had his shirt and gold chains on.

This is when I can back up what Roy said. He came in with no warmup. He did 3-15 about 15 to 20 times and walked out. I didn’t see him warm up. I didn’t see him stretch. Nothing. In my head, we’re not scared of anybody, but I’m twenty years old. I’m leaving the University of Maryland as a junior. Walking in and seeing this, you are thinking in your head, “I got a pack lunch.” Larry Allen is one of a kind and hell to deal with or play against.

Shawne, was he the toughest guy for you to go against as an offensive lineman?

The stunts and things that we ran, I had to go in and see him moving around. They had an offensive line with Flozell Adams and another one. He ended up going to the Cardinals after.

Leonard Davis.

He is the biggest human being I have ever seen in my entire life. I don’t know what his official weight is. He is at least 6’7” or 6’8” and 350 or 360-plus pounds. I hate using the word fear, but those times when you go into pregame and you start seeing things like that, you know that you’re going to have an extremely long day. It was great to, first of all, play against them, but also to be able to tell the stories, too. When you step away from the game, that’s what you take with you. You take the guys in the locker room that you are around, and some of the stories even after you lose. You remember those days and cherish them more so when you walk away from the game.

That’s true.

Roy, now that I’ve gotten my Gators cap on, I’ve got to finish the discussion on Emmitt Smith. He is one of the best NFL players ever. He has an incredible work ethic and is a winner. What are some of the things that you learned by playing with him? Not just Emmitt. You’ve played with some of the best, both of you guys have. I feel like there’s a lot of consistency in how the best people do things. It’s not necessarily like a secret, but there’s a certain formula to success. I’m curious. Starting with Emmitt and some other guys you played with, what did they do that made them so good for so long?

Honestly, it’s tough to say what other guys did because I wasn’t around them all the time, if that makes sense. Emmitt is in offense. I get to see him in team meetings, on the practice field, and in the locker room periodically. It’s tough to say what I got to witness Emmitt do as far as his preparation, but the way he conducted himself and the way he moved, you can tell that he was on a different level. They’re the kind of people that when you look at them, you’re like, “He’s not doing the foolish things that I’m doing.” Being a rookie, a 2nd or 3rd year player, they’re moving differently.

That’s what I got to see in Darren Woodson. I’ve seen them moving differently. It’s not a mistake why they’re successful in the business world because they’re conducting their business while they’re playing. I’m super excited that I was able to be around that for the time that I had them. I’m super excited to see what they’re doing. Emmitt is in real estate and restaurants. He has a cigar lounge and barber shop. Darren is doing real estate as well. It’s cool to be able to see them shine in life after football.

You guys have a long list, all the way to Roger Staubach who was very business-minded. Did you get a chance to pick anybody’s brain around them? You named a couple already, but I personally know Roger Staubach. He has multibillion-dollar companies. Were you able to get any of this information from these guys around the building? Did you ask these guys any questions?

I had resistance. Let’s say that. Some of the OGs are like, “I don’t know if this is going to work out. You probably shouldn’t do it.” I never had anybody take me under their wing and show me the game as far as preparing for life after football and all that. It was more, “Focus on football. Don’t worry about doing any other stuff.” I didn’t have any of my teammates trying to put me on game and give me knowledge as far as all that, which is unfortunate, but it is what it is.

Building Your Own Personal Brand

Roy, this is good to dig into because most people don’t have help. You were able to be successful off the field despite not having anybody give you a big leg up in that regard. What are some of the things that you’re doing? How did you build those after leaving the playing field?

It’s crazy because I’ve come a long way. My present spot of where I’m at in life is so much better than what it was two years after I retired. People don’t know my story. I am a business owner. I own three companies, but that was by chance. This is the most authentic I can be. Two years after I retired, I could have easily filmed a 30 for 30 on how I lost my money.

You’ll always be like, “How did that person get in that predicament?” It’s trusting the wrong person. It’s not because I was foolish with my money. It was because I trusted the wrong people that got introduced to me. It wasn’t even an instant gratification and get-rich-quick scheme type of deal. It was real estate stuff. I was a guarantor on all the paperwork. In 2008, when everything crashed, I was left on the hook to cover everything, such as the land, the materials, and all the loans, and it wiped me out.

It’s crazy because I only wanted to play in Dallas. I played for nine years. I did two more years in Cincinnati. I had to do those two years in Cincinnati because I needed that money. All the liquidity that I had to my name was gone to real estate. It’s crazy because after I retired, I went back to Dallas after Cincinnati. I felt like it was a dark cloud because I was deemed a dirty player. Everything was weighing on me.

When I was playing in the league, I always wondered why guys went back to their college towns. I had an opportunity to go to Columbus, Ohio. I’ve seen that Eddie George had restaurants. He had real estate stuff going on. I was like, “When it’s all said and done, I’m going to move back to Oklahoma. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m going to move back to Oklahoma.”

When I was in Dallas, I was like, “I got to get out of here.” I moved back to Oklahoma, and doors started cracking open. I kept my name clean. I did everything right when I was here at the University of Oklahoma. People wanted to be associated with me and try to help me get opportunities. I started off doing satellite reporting for the University of Oklahoma. I didn’t like it, so that didn’t last long.

I was filming a TV show in Texas called Texas Storage Wars. It was a spinoff from Storage Wars in LA. One day, I was talking to my cousin. He’s a plumber. I was like, “If you know anybody that’s in real estate or whatnot.” I was talking about doing real estate. I didn’t even have the money to put 20% down on a house. I wanted to get some type of rental property. It didn’t have to be bad. That’s what I was thinking. He was like, “I have a client that you should meet.”

I called up this client a couple of days later, and we met and talked. He was like, “What are you trying to do with real estate?” I said, “I don’t know. I’m trying to get into real estate, or I want to own a business. What are you doing?” He was like, “I owned this security company before, and I’m thinking about getting back in the business.”

The Most High put in my heart to ask him whether he wants a partner, so I asked him. I was like, “Do you want another partner?” He was hesitant, and then I told him my story as far as me getting taken advantage of and losing my shirt. We met about 7 to 8 different times, and every time, he tasked me to do something. By the time he got to his car, what he asked me to do was already done. What he tells our clients or people that we’re meeting, potential clients, is that he ran out of reasons why we couldn’t be business partners. We founded Global Security in 2011, and we’ve been in business ever since.

Roy, I want to ask something about that. This attitude that they were telling you, like, “Play football and go home,” I’ve always been against that. Even back then, when I had Lights Out and I was doing a dance, and I had the trademarks, it was frowned upon a bit that I was branding myself and that I was an individual. They wanted you to go play football, work out, watch film, and go home.

With that attitude, it doesn’t set you up for the second part of your life. It puts you in a dark cloud. It’s not like we are not smart enough to do it, but you have these other people out here who are smarter than us who know how to get over because they keep telling you to work out, watch film, practice, and go home. That mindset has changed a lot with athletes, where it’s all about building your own personal brand. Social media is about building you, the individual, as a brand. You play on the team still, but you are still building your own personal brand.

Thank God I didn’t listen to anybody because I’ve always kept building and did my own thing. I was selling clothes in Walmart and different sports shops. I had plenty of things going on. Even then, it was frowned upon. I remember our general manager, AJ Smith, at the time, they released an article in the Union-Tribune in San Diego about me building my own personal brand with Lights Out. It was a problem. I was the first active player in 2008 to sign a deal with FOX Sports that had my own show. It was all frowned upon.

When I talk to people from the outside looking like, “How did this happen to this athlete?” It’s not that we’re not smart. It’s that those doors were closed on us from the start. They didn’t want us to have our own personal brand. They didn’t want you to know about business. They wanted you to play football, work out, watch, film, and go home.

I remember my first agent that I had. The agent did his job as far as working the contract. He had his runner or person who’s supposed to be finding endorsement deals. I remember in the middle of the season, I was like, “We went 5 and 13,” or whatever our record was. We only won five games. In the middle of the season, we were out of it.

I was calling him, like, “Are you working on endorsement deals? What are you guys working on?” He was like, “Don’t worry about it. Focus on football.” I was like, “I am focused on football, but what are we getting lined up so I can get ready for this off-season as far as maxing my income type of deals?” That’s what he said. He said, “Worry about football. Don’t worry about that. We’ll take care of it.” It’s like, “No.” I understand. I get it.

Valuable Financial And Career Advice

What kind of advice would you give to players so that they don’t fall into the same kind of traps?

My financial advisor firm that I had was amazing. I went against what they told me to do. The first person I hired was my financial firm. I didn’t even hire my agent first. I hired my financial firm, and they were rock solid. I had people in my ear who were like, “They work for you.” The young, immature part got in. I would tell young kids, “Choose the right financial firm, and make sure you’re protecting your assets. Make sure whatever money you put away, don’t touch that. Don’t put it up for collateral. Don’t do anything. Let that money compound, making you more money.

Take care of your loved ones. If it’s ever put on your heart to try to help somebody, help them. As long as you take care of your main principle that you have stacked away and keep on stacking onto that, take care of that. Honestly, enjoy the ride of being an NFL player because it does not last for long. It flies by so fast.” I remember Michael Strahan told me, “As long as you get them NFL checks, you get them as long as you can because you won’t be making NFL checks out there having a regular 9:00 to 5:00. You better milk it until you can’t milk it anymore.” I respect that.

One of the things that’s great about being an influential person who’s famous is that you do build this brand. When you guys were playing, it was more frowned upon to build your individual brands, but now, it’s very much the thing to do. Have you found that it makes your life easier in business because at least you can get in the room with people and they’ll give you a shot because they know who you are?

No, that’s not true.

Are you telling me that America’s team, Roy Williams, walked into anybody’s office, they weren’t saying, “We want to work with Roy.” If I were going to play for the Cowboys, I’d be like, “I go to the Pro Bowl. I can get Defensive Rookie of the Year at the Cowboys,” and the doors open. It wasn’t that way, is what you’re saying.

Back when I played, yes. Now that I’m retired and I’m out of sight, out of mind, no. Trying to reach out to people via LinkedIn, it is tough to get somebody to respond to me. When I have them respond back to me, we’re fine. They swish me to the side. It’s the real supporters that I had when I played that were invested, like a football fan or whatever they’re invested in. They might come up as far as OU to the Cowboys. Those were the ones that I’m more receptive to opening the door and at least hearing me out.

That’s me being who I am. I don’t ever assume that because I play football, people are going to be all seeing rainbows and butterflies. Like in football, you have to earn it. Common courtesy goes such a long way. The way I treat people is how I want to be treated, so I always treat people with utmost respect. Trying to get in those doors is hard. I tried to go back to Dallas and meet with some of those companies that are around the star, and crickets. It’s tough.

You’ve got to keep trying to grind it out, but at some point, it’s like, “I got the hint. I’m going to move on, go somewhere else, and try to get some business somewhere else.” Back when I played, I could get any door open. They rolled off the record carpet. Now, it’s not as if I were playing. I get mad love in Oklahoma. Oklahoma is great. I love Oklahoma. That’s why I live here, and I’m never moving. Not Dallas.

Unmovable: Lessons from a Broken Superman

We’re running out of time, but I wanted to talk about your book because it tells your story. You’ve got a great story. I bought the book.

Thank you.

I haven’t had a chance to read it all yet, unfortunately, but I will. I promise. The book’s called Unmoveable: Lessons from a Broken Superman. I wanted to ask you about that title, and then also a few lessons you’d want to share from your life that the audience could learn from.

I came up with the design of the cover. When I first got to Dallas, I had this huge spotlight over me. As the years went on and I started getting negative press about stuff, and there was this dark cloud that was hovering over me, my light started dimming. I felt like everybody that was around me, all the leeches, started detaching and going on to the next hot thing. That’s why it’s the silhouette of me in the dark, because I was by myself. This is the loneliest feeling when you get released, and you don’t have a locker room that you belong to and go into. The door is locked.

The title, Unmoveable, is because you’ve got to be an unmovable force. Regardless of whatever situation you’re going through, be unmovable. The life lessons that I’ve learned throughout my life and my story, I was always unmovable. It’s like a tree planted in the ground, and it’s been growing for year after year. No windstorm is blowing it down. It’s an unmovable force.

With my learning disabilities, I had to buckle down and apply myself to get the best for me. This is probably one of the hardest things that I have had to do, but I had to get it done because I had an end goal. Remember, I said I was going to see myself playing for the Dallas Cowboys in five years. I can’t do that if I have bad grades. I can’t do that if I have a bad attitude. I can’t do that if I can’t pass, pass the ACT. I didn’t have the proper work ethic. I didn’t have all these things, so I had to program myself to become a better me.

If I can say anything to anybody that’s reading, it is that if you have kids, it doesn’t have to be football, but get your kids involved in sports. It’s not even about sports. It’s bigger than sports. It is the lessons you learn as far as accountability, communication skills, working together, and teamwork. There are so many life skills sports can teach at a young age. You can become a chameleon, adapt, and be able to work with any and everybody. Sports does that.

All the life lessons that I’ve learned in life, I’ve learned on a 100-yard football field. No lie. That’s what my book is. It’s telling my story of how I had to grow up and be self-taught in tackling. I’m not going to ruin it. You’ll see. It’s my life story and the things that I had to overcome to get to my end result of playing in the league.

Episode Wrap-Up And Closing Words

I’m looking forward to it. I appreciate it personally as somebody who played the game the way it should be played. I try to stay away from being the old head to sit back and call guys soft nails. Things are different, so I have to refrain. I’m the tweener. I’m not TikTok dancing, but I’m close to it. Also, at the same time, it is being a fan and loving the game. I’ve always appreciated your game from a distance and how you played it. You’re one of the guys that I looked up to and said, “This is how you do it.” I appreciate you for coming on. It means a lot.

No problem. Anytime. I appreciate the kind words. I respected the hell out of your game as well. I did the Lights Out. It’s crazy because I remember when there was an article about you wanting to trademark Lights Out, and there was an issue. If I remember correctly, there was somebody with a similar name, but you ended up getting it. It was cool because I remember that happening back then. It was successful in your favor, which was awesome.

From afar, I’ll always respect any and everybody who played this game because, one, people don’t understand how hard it is to be able to play at a high level. Two, it was such a privilege to be able to suit up in the NFL uniform, to get respected by folks like yourself and other players, and to be able to come around one another on the Pro Bowl and all the functions that happen around any and everywhere. To be able to see people like, “There’s Shawne,” is cool because we have something in common that no one can take away from us. You played in the league. I played in the league. We know what it is.

I don’t want to be the same way as far as an old head, but call a spade a spade. It is soft. Let’s be real. It’s tough when a defensive player makes a semi-hard hit. He’s looking behind him to see if he got a penalty. That’s not right. I’m going to get off that soapbox because that can go left and sideways. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you both so much.

I appreciate you.

Thank you, Roy.

Important Links

• Zack Ellison on LinkedIn
• Zack Ellison on Instagram
• The 7 in 7 Show with Zack Ellison (podcast)
• Applied Real Intelligence (A.R.I.) website
• Shawne Merriman on LinkedIn
• Shawne Merriman on Instagram
• Lights Out Sports TV website
• Lights Out Xtreme Fighting website
• Roy Williams on LinkedIn
• Global Security Corporation
• Roy Williams website
• Unmoveable: Lessons from a Broken Superman

About Roy Williams

Experienced President with a demonstrated history of working in the security and investigations industry. Skilled in NFL, Sales, Management, Business Development, and Marketing Strategy. Protective services professional graduated from University of Oklahoma. Just trying to build a company and serve Our clients and future clients with the best service possible.