Welcome to In Search of Excellence! My guest today is my good friend Arik Armstead. Arik is a star defensive lineman NFL football player for the San Francisco 49ers and a dedicated philanthropist. He has been nominated for the NFL's Walter Payton Man of the Year Award for four consecutive seasons, recognizing his on-field excellence and impactful community work.

In this episode, we are talking about Arik’s remarkable transition from little league rejection to NFL Man of the Year nominee, his crazy spring break in Vegas and unexpected meeting with Floyd Mayweather, and the importance of humility, faith, and unwavering hard work in his path to excellence.

Time stamps:

01:36 Family background

• Mother wrote a book about being the illegitimate daughter of a priest
• Born and raised in LA and was shot in a gang shooting
• Father is a respected basketball trainer
• Trained over 500 NBA players
• Arik was always with him
• Grew up as a gym rat and that shaped his mindset

07:28 Arik’s childhood

• Being around famous athletes was cool
• The influence of NBA player Mike Wilkes
• Being humble and having compassion for other people
• Your hunger to be successful must exceed your thirst to shine

15:39 Entrepreneurial spirit

• His brother started a snack bar
• When he went to college, Arik continued
• Didn’t have entrepreneurial drive as a kid
• At college, his creativity and problem-solving kicked in

19:03 A chubby kid in the gym

• Was always in the gym with his dad
• Played basketball and football
• Matt’s advice about giving an effort

23:12 Playing football

• Playing football and basketball at 11 years old
• Offered a scholarship to USC his Freshman year
• Started dunking in freshman year

26:44 Achieving goals

• Army All-American and a McDonald's All-American
• To play football and basketball in college
• Wanted to be the first person to play in the NBA and NFL
• The importance of dreaming big and setting your goals
• The importance of internal motivation

32:21 The importance of education

• Education was not super important to him
• He would do some things differently today

35:57 Being available for the highest bidder

• Oregon recruited him
• Coach Kelly’s promise
• The offers he got
• Kids should not only take the highest bid
• But what else they will get – reputation, coach, skills

44:38 The humbleness of million-dollar athletes

• Randall’s story about a million-dollar player who wanted to be his intern
• Arik was aware he needed to learn and educate himself
• The wedding

48:13 Arik’s drafting

• Drafts are spectacles
• His was in Cleveland and he didn’t go
• Didn’t want to embarrass himself
• Had a watch party with his loved ones at home

52:28 Crazy agent stories and meeting Floyd Mayweather

• How sports agents work

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