Colt McCoy (91:50)
On the whiteboard. And things were very different, but also some things were very similar. And we started just, you know, kind of doing that and then praying together and then praying on our own and then coming back and like, hey, like, where are you at on this? Like, like. And, dude, like, not easy. Not easy, hard. Really hard. Because it's like, I've done one thing my whole life. I've told you that. Like, so to think about doing something else is like, it's a foreign planet. And so, like, all these things just over and over through a ton of prayer and, like, I mean, ultimately getting on my knees and being like, all right, like, what? Where, When? And. And I. I went back to when I was my. In my third year in the NFL. You know, this is a quick story, but, like, I watched two of my closest teammates get cut. The GM comes in and says, hey, man, you know, you guys pack your stuff up, come see me in the office. Over. And I realized, like, hey, at some point, football's coming to an end for me. I hope it's not today. This is my third year in the NFL, but, like, it's going to come to an end. And so I would go home in the off seasons to Austin. We had a place in Austin, and I would. I would. I would sit with, like, big CEOs of different companies, private equity, real estate, you know, some family office guys, some oil and gas. Like, and I learned a bunch, you know, really, I was looking at, like, different leadership styles. How does he operate here? You know, and you're. You're learning bits and pieces of what they do along the way, and you might invest a little bit in some of their companies and deals if they allowed you to. And, like, it was awesome. I did it for, like, six to eight weeks every year. Then I'd go back because I wasn't good enough to not go back and start practicing football to. And I would leave. But I made all these awesome relationships. And so I. During that year, I would, you know, I would fly back to Texas and I'd go sit with each one of those guys, like, what. What do you think I should do? And to a man, every one of them was like, you know, I think you should go. If that's how you feel about football and you've got this, you know, you and your wife are aligned in this. You need to go start. Start your own deal. You can do it. Doesn't matter what you do. You should. But you're wired to go do that. Which was foreign to me. So then it became like, well, what. What did I enjoy most? And that was real estate. I love I loved being in the. In the real estate environment. I thought there's just. There's so many. So many different parts of it. People and characters, people and relationships. And. And I. I enjoyed it. And so I said to Rachel, like, we got to figure out where we. Where we want. Where do we want to raise our. If I'm leaving the game, like, it's the first time in our life we get to pick wherever we want to go. Like, anywhere. We can move to Alaska, you know, I'm not going to. But not a good real estate market, so. But. But you gotta think, like, before, I didn't know I was. I knew I liked real estate, but I didn't know that's what I was gonna do. Yeah, I wanted to get settled in a place because I could do that. Like, I didn't have to go get a job right away. And so we. We prayed through it and. And started visiting different places. We, you know, thought about staying in Phoenix. We visited, you know, San Antonio and back to Austin, and we always thought we'd move back to Austin. We had built a house in Austin, but that didn't feel right. We came to Fort Worth. My brother lived here. We had. You know, I wanted to be closer to family, and, you know, we kind of fell in love with Fort Worth, but it was also like, is this the right thing? Like, we've never lived there before. You know, I think both of our hearts were probably geared towards moving back to Austin. And then it was like, well, let's just. Let's just. Let's sit on it for a little bit. And we start. And then. And like. And just literally, like, kept climbing. Like, it hit all the things geographically amongst our family, you know, good schools, good people. Like. Like, kind of how I grew up. Like, it was the biggest town for me in West Texas, where I, like, if you needed to go, you know, to a Rangers game or you. You got a new pair of shoes for school, like, you came up. You came to Fort Worth, right? And. And so, like, that it started being that. And, you know, I remember sitting on my knees and praying with my wife and, like, what? And it just became clear to both of us, like, that there's no doubt that's where this is headed. And we just got to trust that that's the case. So we. We. We planted our flag in Fort Worth and moved here. And I didn't know what I was going to do, so I broadcasted some games and was kind of doing that deal for a little bit. And that was a really Cool experience. You know, I learned that, that I loved it, but it was a big chunk of my time and, you know, kind of it was almost like I was a coach again. It was kind of defeated the purpose of. And I started leaning into the real estate world and, and jumped in and, and after a lot of interviews and job opportunities and different things, I kind of trusted a lot of my mentors. Like, why don't you just go do it? Like. And so I did. I. I hired a bunch of guys who are a lot smarter than me, that are, you know, high character, best in class, have been great executors at their job for a long time that are, that are all around my age that have good families and they saw the vision of what I, what I wanted to do and what, what I wanted to build and why I think we can do it. And, I mean, it's been amazing. You know, I tell you, I count my blessings from 14 years of playing NFL well, like, to be able to go do what I'm doing now with the guys that I get to do it with. And I, like, it's. It's incredible. And Fort Worth has been an awesome place and, and, you know, my wife has been with me every step of the way. She said, go be a coach if you want to be a coach. Like, we're, We're. We can do it. You know, this is where you think God's calling you. We're all in. Go do it. And it's just been a. It's just been a really, you know, nothing's been easy. Goes back to what Coach Brown said. Like, nothing's going to be given to you, boy. Like, you have to earn everything. And I feel that way now, but at the same time, I know that through tons of prayer and through, like, this sacred pace of decision making that regardless of what happens for me, like, I know that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be and doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I have a whole lot of confidence in that, and I have a whole lot of faith and trust in that, because when you look at my priorities, you know, God is first, you know, my faith is the most important thing to me. And then it's my wife and my kids and my family and, like, you know, taking care of them and being a good dad and being present and giving back some time that I hadn't really done for a long time. And then it comes to work and, you know, I want to be a picture to my kids of, hey, like, it was awesome. You got to watch me play football. And you saw the ups and downs. You saw the injuries, you saw the broken legs and the broken thumbs and, and the big games that we won and what I had to go through. And now it's over. But now you get to go see me. Like, life doesn't stop you. I want to be a picture to them of, of, you know, it's a, it's a restart and I'm learning something new and I'm going to go build a team and I'm going to, I'm gonna, I'm gonna challenge myself and I'm gonna work hard and I'm gonna surround myself with good people and, and, and I, I want to, I want to be that for them. And so I, that's, that's where I'm at now. But it wouldn't have happened without just deep, deep, intentional. Like, I don't know what this next phase of my life looks like. I'm giving it, I'm open handed and, and I'm asking you to like. And that doesn't, you know, that doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen without tears, without, like, like struggles, without like, you know, sacrifice, without, you know, again, that's. That, that whole process I just laid out is, I mean, it's, it's like a nightmare. But it's, but it's in a way that I think is, is the only way that I got where I'm at right now. And I, yeah, if you talk to my friends in the NFL or my old coaches, like, they don't understand. That's crazy because it's like, dude, you were ready. You got your PhD here, you're walking away from it, and that's okay. They also know my heart and they know what I believe and they know my priorities are and they're proud of me and I want to go do this to the best of my ability and go create something that's going to last and it's going to help Fort Worth, it's going to help all of our families, and it's going to like, we're going to leave it better than what we found it as.
