Intangible Podcast

Tori Penso was the first American woman to referee a men's World Cup match and the first American woman to take charge of a World Cup final. She is also the first woman to work as a full-time MLS referee. In this conversation, she breaks down what it really takes to stay composed when millions of people are watching and everyone is waiting for you to make a mistake.

We talk about growing up with a single mom who taught her that every no gets you closer to a yes, the day an angry parent chased her out of a parking lot and almost ended her career, and the mentor advice that kept her in the game. Tori explains why she hired a mental strength coach, how she controls her own emotions before she tries to control a match, and the difference between authority and presence. We also get into belonging, why being the first only matters if you are not the last, and what she wants her legacy to be.

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Mack Brown had 65 scholarship offers coming out of Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Lithonia, Georgia. He was Mr. Georgia Football. Every program in the country wanted him. Five years later at the University of Florida he finished with 805 career rushing yards, two starts, and no draft pick.

In this episode of the Intangible Podcast, Mack sits down with Chris Spencer to walk through what actually happened in between. He talks about the broken leg in spring ball that took two years to come back from, the resentment toward his father that quietly cost him his sophomore and junior seasons, and the stretch of his senior year when he did not believe he deserved to be on a college roster at all. He explains how he trained alone in a sand pit on Saturday nights while his team played without him, and what he said in front of the entire team before the Florida State game that made grown men cry.

Then comes the part almost nobody survives. A two-day tryout with the Houston Texans that was his only opportunity in football. Leading the NFL in preseason rushing in 2016 and getting released anyway. A 61-yard touchdown in Week 16 against the Bears on his first real carries in the league. The biggest contract of his career in 2018, and a torn tendon two weeks later that took it away.

Today he goes by Doctor Brown. He has a dual MBA, a certification from Cornell, a PhD finishing in 2026, and a career as a financial advisor with Northwestern Mutual. His words: the PhD is his draft day.

If you are an athlete grinding without the results yet, a parent trying to help your kid navigate recruiting and NIL, or someone who has had to rebuild an identity after the thing you were best at ended, this conversation is for you.

Subscribe for new conversations with athletes and coaches about the intangibles that actually separate people. If this one hit you, drop a comment with the moment that got you. I read every one.

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Shay Hodge became the first 1,000-yard receiver in Ole Miss history, finished with
173 catches, 2,646 yards and 22 touchdowns, made First Team All-SEC, and caught the
86-yard touchdown that beat Tim Tebow's Florida Gators in 2008. Then he went
undrafted.

In this conversation Shay tells the story he's rarely told in full: the acne
medication that quietly deteriorated the cartilage in his knee, playing his
record-breaking senior season unable to bend down, failing the physical with the
49ers, and the depression that followed when football walked away from him. He talks
openly about the suicidal thoughts, what his son meant in that stretch, and the years
he spent trying to fix a knee just to prove he was who he always said he was.

We also get into how a kid from Morton who didn't even like getting hit ended up in
the SEC, and why he asked the defensive back who was beating him every day in
practice to explain exactly how. Shay is now the wide receivers coach at Jones
College after running the offense for an 11-1 state championship team at Jackson
Academy, and he gets real about recruiting: why chasing the logo is the mistake he
sees most, why production beats potential in the portal era, and the biggest lie kids
and parents believe about how offers get handed out.

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James Townsend ran a 4.3 forty, benched 455, and had a 45 inch vertical. He started as a freshman at Iowa, transferred to Rutgers, and made it to the Chicago Bears. Then he walked away.

In this conversation he tells me why. About a year and a half before he left the league, James attempted to take his own life under the weight of custody battles, court dates, racism, and a version of success that had stopped meaning anything. He made the decision that he could not be great on the field until he was great in his own head. So he stepped away to heal.

Today he is a father of four, a former CrossFit and masters weightlifting record holder, the owner of The Brave One Gym, and a voice that hundreds of thousands of people turn to for fatherhood, fitness, and mindset.

We get into growing up in the South Bronx with three ways out. Having a daughter at 17 and the moment he decided being present mattered more than the money. Learning what it meant to be a Black man in sports with nobody there to teach him. Forgiving the father who was never there, and what holding that anger was actually costing him. And the day his ten month old daughter walked over to a dumbbell in his gym and started snatching it, which became the beginning of everything he shares publicly today.

If you have ever wondered whether the mental side really matters as much as the physical, James says it is 80 percent mental and 20 percent physical. This episode is the proof.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you can call or text 988 in the US to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, 24 hours a day.

Follow James Townsend
Instagram at thejamestownsend
TikTok at kinghumbleddaily
Training at tbotraining

The Intangible Podcast is where elite athletes and coaches break down the traits that actually got them there. The things that never show up in a stat line. Hosted by Chris Spencer, retired NFL center.

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This episode is brought to you by Team IQ. The recruiting process is one of the biggest decisions you will ever face for your child, and talent alone is not enough. Coaches are looking for composure, coachability, communication, and leadership. Team IQ measures those intangibles so your athlete stands out when it matters most.

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Jayson DiManche entered the NFL in 2013 as an undrafted free agent out of Southern Illinois and walked into one of the most stacked linebacker rooms in football, on camera, during a season of Hard Knocks. He was the eighth or ninth man on the depth chart. He was supposed to be a camp body. He played seven years across the Bengals, Chiefs, Browns, Lions and 49ers.

In this conversation he breaks down exactly how he did it, and none of it sounds like what you expect. He calls himself lazy. He says the undrafted label was a gift. He explains why a linebacker who got manhandled on national television decided that was the best thing that could have happened to him in Week 1.

We also get into the part of his story most people never hear. Growing up in Trenton, New Jersey, going back to Haiti as a kid and seeing what he actually had. Being bullied, then becoming a bully, and the exact moment he realized he was aiming his energy in the wrong direction. His parents divorcing while he was fifteen hours from home at Southern Illinois. The film session after his first NFL start where the entire defensive staff took him apart for forty five minutes, and why he now says that was the first time he was ever truly coached.

And then there is the John Muir Trail. Fourteen days on the trail in 2020 with two former college teammates, a group of men over sixty who would not stop passing them, and three words from a stranger that Jayson says he would tattoo on his forehead if he could.

Jayson now works as a private football and mental performance coach in Dallas, training athletes on the mental side of the game that most people leave to chance. If you are an athlete trying to make a roster, a parent trying to help your kid handle pressure, or anyone who has ever been told you were not the guy, this one is for you.

Subscribe for new episodes with elite athletes and coaches breaking down the intangibles that actually got them there.

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Kyle Arrington went undrafted out of Hofstra, got cut by two teams, and still became a Super Bowl champion and the NFL's co-leader in interceptions in 2011. In this episode of the Intangible Podcast, Kyle sits down with Chris Spencer to break down the mindset that took him from practice squad to starting cornerback for Bill Belichick's Patriots, including the story of intercepting Tom Brady in his very first practice with Randy Moss lined up across from him. Kyle gets real about growing up with almost no self-confidence, the imposter syndrome he felt sitting in a room full of Hall of Famers as a rookie, and why going to therapy every week has been one of the biggest factors in his success on and off the field. He also talks about building his nonprofit the Ball Foundation, writing his children's book Piece It Together, and the intangibles that carried him through eight seasons in the league. If you are an athlete chasing a dream that feels far away, a parent trying to help your kid build real confidence, or someone who wants to understand what actually separates the players who make it from the ones who do not, this conversation is for you. Subscribe to the Intangible Podcast for more conversations with elite athletes and coaches about the mental side of competing at the highest level.

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Jeff Byers was the best high school football player in America. Then he had hip surgery at 19, back surgery at 20, and a doctor told him he'd never play again. He came back, became a two-time captain at USC under Pete Carroll, played in the NFL with the Seahawks, Broncos and Panthers, and today he's the co-founder and CEO of Momentous, the performance nutrition company that supplies every NFL team.

In this episode of the Intangible Podcast, former NFL center Chris Spencer sits down with his former teammate to break down the intangibles that carried Jeff from the locker room to the boardroom. They get into why discipline creates momentum and momentum creates motivation, not the other way around. Why the most consistent person in the building becomes the leader, not the most talented. What Pete Carroll did every single day that made him impossible to misread. Why the single most underrated performance tool for a young athlete isn't a supplement or a training program, it's sleep. And why the day football gets taken from you is the day you find out whether the game defined you or you defined the game.

If you're an athlete trying to figure out what separates good from great, a parent trying to give your kid an edge that isn't another travel team, or someone building something outside of sport with the intangibles you earned inside of it, this conversation is for you.

Jeff's line on the habit that separates good from great: the ball always gets snapped. Time waits for no one. You have to be ready, you have to have a short memory, and it's coming again whether you're ready or not.

Subscribe for new conversations with elite athletes and coaches on the intangible traits that got them there, and drop a comment telling us which intangible you're working on right now.

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Maurice Hampton Jr. walked away from one of the greatest runs in Tennessee prep history — Mr. Football, Mr. Baseball, drafted by the San Diego Padres, and an LSU national championship ring — and still had to figure out who he was when it all stopped. In this episode, Chris Spencer sits down with J. Maurice Hampton, one of the rarest multi-sport athletes in SEC history, to pull back the curtain on what it really takes to compete at the highest level, what nobody tells you about the transfer portal, and why the intangibles nobody talks about are the ones that determine how far you go.

Maurice gets real about losing his identity after COVID and injuries derailed what was shaping up to be a legendary career, the moment he entered the portal with no safety net and no offers, and why he is now building Momentum Sports to protect young athletes from the predatory contracts and bad advice that almost nobody warned him about. He breaks down why the best baseball players in the world fail seven out of ten times and why that is the most important mental model any competitor can carry, what the 2019 LSU national championship team was really like in practice, and the one promise he made to his grandmother that he refused to break no matter what.

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Javon Patterson was a 7th round pick out of Ole Miss who started over 40 consecutive games in the SEC, tore his ACL two weeks into his NFL career, and still squeezed out four years in the league before walking away on his own terms. Now he is back at Ole Miss pouring into the next generation through financial literacy, life skills, and the kind of mentorship that nobody talks about on SportsCenter.

In this episode we get into the foundation his single mother built, what it really takes to earn trust as the center in the middle of an offensive line, how Devin Funchess three words mind like water helped him survive his darkest moment in the league, what young athletes in the transfer portal era are getting wrong about competition and development, and why his definition of success now is watching a young man set up his first LLC.

This one hits different. Real talk from a guy who played the game the right way and then figured out what comes next.

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Marc Trachtenberg is the founder, chairman, president and CEO of Silk Title Co, leading organizations of over 1,000 employees across real estate and financial services. On this episode of Intangible he sits down to talk about the intangibles that actually built his career, and none of it is the version people assume when they see the success from the outside.

Marc opens up about going bankrupt in his first business, the exact moment he realized the failure was his own fault, and how he rebuilt his mindset from the ground up. He breaks down what he calls the Degree of Suck, why hiring people smarter than you is the smartest move a leader can make, and why most entrepreneurs underestimate how many mistakes it actually takes to scale a company. He also gets personal about dropping from 345 pounds to 167 pounds while running his business, what pressure really feels like as a founder, and why he shows up for the athlete community trying to figure out life after the game.

This conversation connects directly to what every competitor and every athlete in transition needs to hear: your second act does not care about your first act's resume, discipline is not one size fits all, and the hardest work happens when nobody is watching.

If you are an athlete, a coach, or anyone trying to build the mental game behind the physical one, this episode is for you.

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