Aldon Smith passed away this weekend. Most people are talking about his incredible ability, potential, and performance as a football player. Even though that is all true. He was so much more than that. He was a great friend and his kindness changed my life forever. I met Aldon our freshman year at Mizzou. He was redshirted and relatively unknown as an athlete. His giveaway was the biggest hands you'll ever see and his ability to dunk at 250lbs, but his size in many ways didn't match his personality. He was relatively quiet and in most scenarios would try to shrink into the room vs stand out in it. Over the course of the next year, we became close. We were very different people, from different places, but we both connected on the feeling of being a bit lost in the beginnings of adulthood. That year, I never really thought about him as a football player. He was just this gentle giant who loved to play video games and talk about life. His sophmore year he broke the single season sack record at Mizzou, became an All American, and his life changed forever. He became a celebrity on campus. He became a household name in Missouri. He became a top NFL draft prospect. I remember how crazy his life became, and how quickly. ESPN doing interviews. Fancy cars being "loaned" to him. And people everywhere inserting themselves into his life. Despite the craziness, my friend was always a text away. My junior of college, I decided to take my first stab at entrepreneurship. I wanted to launch a chapter of Camp Kesem. Kesem is a summer camp for children whose parents have been affected by cancer. The camp would be totally free and be a chance for a kid to experience the magic of being a kid again. As a son of a breast cancer survivor the idea of being able to create this camp in Missouri meant the world to me. The Livestrong Foundation was hosting a nation wide contest to win $10,000 as seed capital to get started. To win, you had to have the most votes. I tried really freaking hard to win that competition. I was going up against some really influential people at huge schools. As a somewhat awkward kid in Columbia, MO I had no chance. So I asked my friend Aldon for a favor. I asked him if he would help me out and promote the link to vote. He did more than just posting about Kesem on Facebook, skyrocketing us into the top place in the country. He kept supporting me the next 3 years while I was working on building Kesem. He showed up to have fun with the kids. He helped me fundraise. He helped me get Kesem to become an official organization sponsored by the NFLPA so he could publicly endorse us as as a player. Since then Torry Holt, Larry Fitzegerald, and many others have supported Kesem. But Aldon was the first. Kesem led me to move to Austin to work for the Livestrong Foundation. Kesem is how I met my wife. Kesem gave me the confidence to start Workweek and continue the path of building something from scratch. But in reality, Aldon enabled all those things. Throughout the years we had many amazing memories together. Having my wife and I vacation to his house in San Jose. Going to New Orleans for the Super Bowl and seeing his entire family make the trip. Meeting his son and watching him be a dad. The hilarious night we met Derek Jeter. Having the most intellectual conversations about life while playing Call of Duty. I also saw him struggle. There's no doubt he was a complicated person. Truthfully, I don't know if he ever really figured out who he wanted to be. I know just because your'e 6'4, 250lbs, and get 5.5 sacks in a single NFL game doesn't necessarily mean you want to be a football player. No matter the reasons, he made many bad decisions in his life. Some of those mistakes made it hard for me to stay as close as we'd once been. One day, not too long ago, I just decided to text him. It had been years since we really chatted. I just wanted to say thank you for all that he had done for me and that I was sorry I wasn't there for him more through his struggles. We FaceTimed after that, and it was like the old days all over again. Aldon was more than the headlines, the mistakes. He was a generous, gentle soul, a kid at heart, someone who was endlessly curious about life... all in the body of a world class NFL player, bearing the weight of professional pressure and personal circumstances that most of us can't even imagine. People are complex. People who make bad decisions can also do great things. A person can be hated by almost everyone and, yet, there are people in that person's life who still love them deeply. I learned many of these lesson due to Aldon, and I'll carry them with me forever. Rest in peace, Aldon. You won't be forgotten.

Be delusional. The first time I heard that phrase was from Coach Fleck, and I loved it then, but it grabbed me in a new way this spring. I heard @athielen19 say it on KFAN and then again at the Woodbury Area Prayer Breakfast. He talked about being delusional enough to believe he was good enough and to not let the odds stacked against him write his story. That is where this hits home for me. Too often I let doubt talk me out of instant obedience. I know what God is asking me to do, but I start counting the odds, my weaknesses, and all the what-ifs. Meanwhile, God is simply asking for my attention and my yes. Your attention sets the direction of your life. If your eyes stay locked on your limitations, you drift toward fear and regret. But when God calls you to something and you fix your focus on Him, you can be “delusional” enough to believe His promise over every doubt, every statistic, and every opinion. Wherever God is nudging you in ministry, business, family, or calling, be delusional. Believe He can do more in and through you than the odds say is possible, as long as your attention stays on Him.

Mike Brown shares a simple but powerful definition of winning in life. "Even if you don't have the quote unquote ultimate success that you think you deserve - if you get knocked down in life and you're able to get back up and keep fighting - that's a fricking win." "Most of our guys have probably had to go through that. But I think most people in the world have to go through it." Success isn't always the result - sometimes it's just refusing to stay down. It's choosing to endure, get back up, and keep fighting. Successful people are relentless. (🎥SNY )

The process of self improvement.

The trade is the trade. Nobody forced you into it. If you chose football, you chose early mornings, sore legs, long lifts, hard coaching, hot summer workouts, and the expectation that you’ll show up ready to work whether you feel like it or not. Too many people want the rewards of the trade without accepting the cost of the trade. The truth is simple: the price was listed before you signed. So stop complaining about what comes with the job. Embrace it. Own it. Attack it. The trade is the trade.

This play will be replayed for years.