YNS Live with NFL Thread Camille Jenkins

Listen to a new episode of YNS Live with NFL Thread recorded live on Fireside with hosts Juliet Hahn and Cynthia Zordich, featuring Special Guest Camille Jenkins.

Camille Jenkins is a results-oriented, customer experience consultant, keynote speaker, realtor, and servant leader. During the pandemic of 2020, she repeatedly received requests from organizations for her help in ensuring that their customer service and sales teams all demonstrated the proper messaging needed to manage these unprecedented events. While she wanted to help, she was tied to her employer and could not risk a conflict of interest. However, the demand for her services continued to surge, and she realized it was time to take a leap of faith. In 2021, Camille exited the corporate world and founded her own consulting business, Camille’s Keys LLC.

With decade’s worth of industry experience including sales, corporate communications, construction, contract negotiations, warranty and operations knowledge, Camille brings a real-world approach to setting and delivering on expectations. She was honored in 2020 by national nonprofit Operation Homefront with the Cornerstone Award for her tireless work to provide mortgage free homes to military families transitioning from service. Camille assists organizations to both identify keys to a successful service experience and coach leaders through change management, positively influencing  brand reputation., operations and employee performance. Camilles Keys services translate across industries as every organization is in one form or another in the customer service business.

Formerly, Camille served as Vice President, National Customer Relations with Meritage Homes Corporation, a publicly traded national homebuilder for over twenty years. During her tenure, the organization delivered upwards of nine-ten thousand new homes on an annual basis across 11 states.  Camille was responsible for several national key performance areas including the organization's customer satisfaction rating, escalations policies, advocacy initiatives, and companywide customer service training programs. Under her leadership, their customer satisfaction rating improved from 70% to well above 90% and was the recipient of multiple Avid Ratings Customer Satisfaction awards including the prestigious Diamond Award. Camille has shared the stage with top keynote speakers as well as fellow members of the National Home Building Association. In 2023 she presented at IBS, the International Builder Show on remodeling and the customer experience. 

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You can find Camille on her Website.

Remarkable Quotes

“If you are the person that can walk into the room and in the middle of the chaos, you can find your peace and help others get through it, you're powerful.”

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Transcription:

00:00:00 Created live on fireside. So welcome to wide as live with NFL thread. We are waiting for Camille, but Cynthia and I wanted to jump on first to talk about what we have upcoming. So. Hello, Cynthia.

00:00:17 I had to switch to my phone. I had to oh, I had to get off my computer because it was again, I don't know what's going on, but welcome, welcome, Christy. How are you and everyone that's listening on different platforms? We are here live on Fireside. If you guys have been following Cynthia and I, you know that we've had a very busy last couple of months.

00:00:36 And so we just got back from the Super Bowl luncheon where we had I mean, Cynthia, how amazing was that? And then I know we're going to jump into the draft, right? It feels like it was just yesterday because we just finished up with all of the amazing interviews and clips that you got during the event. And that's my favorite thing. It's like when we say, come to the luncheon so we can find out what you're about what you do, promote what you're doing through thread.

00:01:05 We're not kidding. It's like you really get out there, you sit down, you share, and then we share and we put it out everywhere. And it's also a great opportunity to share our sponsors and thank our sponsors by continuing to tag them for like eight weeks after the event. And now we're rolling right into the draft event, which I'm really looking forward to in Kansas City. And just the same thing will hold true at the Kansas City event.

00:01:31 However, it's going to be more of a workshop for if you're starting a business, if you're starting a new career, if you're anticipating having a career or business, it's going to be similar to what we've done in the past with UBS, with our breakout sessions and our workshops. Angela Brown is going to be leading it and it's going to be a pretty incredible day, as well as this pop up shopping and swag bags and cocktails and just so much fun. Yeah, it's really fun. I do love these. Between the most important events, the Super Bowl, the draft, and the hall of Fame.

00:02:07 So excited for all three of them. For us this year. Yes. I mean, they're excited. So if you guys are listening and you're like, okay, we want to get involved, how do we want to get involved?

00:02:15 If you've watched all the stuff, if you've seen here on Fireside, if you've gone to the podcast players and watch the episodes, or if you've seen the YouTube, you know that we've had some really great sponsors. We have some really great sponsors and we highlight them, as Cynthia said, throughout the event. So it is a really exciting time for someone's brand to get in front of this really dynamic group of NFL community. So if you guys do want information on how to get involved, please reach out to either Cynthia and I myself. Cynthia, where would you want people to reach out to?

00:02:48 You the best. I think probably going on to Nfltread.com to see everything that I do and we do. And then also, [email protected], you can just email me directly, but taking a look at what we do from the and even on Instagram at Nfltread, it takes you to the Beacons page that has everything and of course your Instagram as well. It shares all of our podcasts and everything that we've done at events and during the weeks. Yeah, so if you're definitely like, oh, I definitely want to be a part of that reach out because we have some really great opportunities.

00:03:27 And as Cynthia said, we have breakout. I mean, it's like such a cool thing for someone to get involved in the breakouts and then have their brands behind the podcast be able to put something in the Swag bag. I mean, how many of the women and men were like, oh my gosh, this is so amazing. Everything that we got in the Swag was just so freaking cool. And also, so many times the items in the Swag are from the NFL community, which I love most.

00:03:54 So if you are planning to go to the draft as an NFL spouse or an NFL player and you want to promote either your product or your platform or your book or your business, definitely reach out. We will be putting out our Save the Date very soon, working with a really great group of people in Kansas City. Definitely register and plan to promote what you do. Plan to come, plan to jump on the podcast with Juliet, and that's on Thursday, April the 27th that we'll be doing. It starting at 11:00 a.m..

00:04:32 Yes. And again, it's going to be streamed from Fireside. So we will have you guys kind of behind the scenes. These are the things that you don't get to see. These are the kind of events that you wouldn't be there because especially if you're not a part of the NFL community, which is really cool.

00:04:45 And that's where sponsors have the opportunity to be there. So if you think about some of the events that we've done in the past, it's a really great time for a sponsor to be there and get in the community, make relationships, share what they're doing, and it's a safe space. So again, please reach out to Cynthia or myself and we can get you more information there. So I know we're waiting for Camille to come on and we just wanted to take you through also some of the really cool things from The Playbook. I mean, Cynthia, take them through that beautiful episode edition of The Playbook and some of the people that we are going to be talking with throughout this year.

00:05:26 Right. It's such an emotional issue, this particular one. It's almost like a full circle moment for me. In revisiting transition from starting with when the Clock Runs out and doing that book when Michael was leaving the league and we were just new to transition to 20 years later, revisiting the idea of transition with the playbook. It's just having Franco Harris on the COVID having been blessed because of Dana to interview Franco in December to talk about just the fact that he was being celebrated for the immaculate Reception, celebrating 50 years, the fact that he's getting his jersey retired.

00:06:13 And then he also just wanted to talk about what it was like for him when he was leaving, when he left the game and went to work. And I just feel really blessed to share his words to current players. And then I was also able to get my husband in the playbook, which meant so much to me to talk about his transition and his journey. And then Rodney Pete is in there and Randall Cunningham and Ricky Waters. We have so many awesome players from the Eagles that I was really excited to get in there that I love so much.

00:06:46 But I'm going to start profiling each and every feature now that we're done with the Super Bowl and now that we're done sharing. So I'll be starting to share once a week a Pivot feature and then, of course, share that article separate from the playbook so that everybody can really enjoy these amazing stories that I'm so blessed to have gotten. And we have such a great writing team. Awesome. I'm so excited about it.

00:07:17 And guess what? Camille is here. So let's bring her up as this is perfect timing. So. Hello, Camille.

00:07:23 I'm going to invite you to video mode and you'll see that kind of pop up. And we're so excited to have people learn a little bit more about you. I know if you guys have been watching us, you saw that Camille, we had her at the luncheon and I said to Cynthia after we spoke, I said, oh, my gosh, we have to have Camille on after for a longer episode because of what she is doing. Let's see.

00:07:52 Hi, Camille. How are you? Hi, ladies. I'm well. Hi, Camille.

00:07:57 So good. I want to introduce really quickly Camille Jenkins of Camille's Keys. And Camille, we're going to go into just the consulting and coaching that you're doing and how you got involved in that. All right, first, we would love for you to just give us a little background about you, tell the listeners that are listening to YNS live with NFL thread here, live on Fireside a little bit about you and then we'll tell people kind of where they can go and follow you and see what you're doing. Awesome.

00:08:26 Okay, well, I am a wife and a mother and I am a grandmother. I had my fifth grandchild well, I didn't have her, but my fifth grandchild was blessed to enter this world just a few days ago. So that's my primary work in life. I'm also a customer experience consultant. I branched out on my own a few years ago after a 30 plus year career in the home building industry.

00:08:54 And in my former career, I held positions of VP of National Customer Relations, which oversaw construction and warranty initiatives for home builders. I was a customer service manager. I've been a superintendent. I've actually been out in the field helping to build. I often joke and say that my daddy thought I was a boy because even though I had brothers, I was the one that had to go outside and help him build the fence or work on the house or put the wall in.

00:09:24 I am a Los Angeles native, but I live and reside in Goodyear, Arizona. I've been in Goodyear since 1991, or in Arizona. I'm jokingly called a native, but I'm still an La girl at heart. Go Lakers.

00:09:41 And I have a lot of hobbies and none of them are ever completely completed because I always just get back to work. That seems to be me. So currently in my consulting career, I help organizations homebuilders, the hospitality, education and medical area to just improve their customers experience. And that could be anywhere from helping them with improving processes and procedures, maybe dialing into, maybe there's some policies that they have that they think working for their organization, but not so much for their employees. So it's difficult for their employees to deliver because of them helping them to identify areas maybe they hadn't considered before to streamline their processes.

00:10:29 And I'm also a speaker, and I really enjoy motivational speaking. I speak on change management. I have a class called Good Cop, Bad Cop. I e good boss Bad boss. And it's just really helping leaders to understand that you can lead with your heart, you can lead with empathy.

00:10:48 You don't have to lead with an iron thumb and lots of other speaking categories. But yes, I'm loving what I'm doing. It's a big change from my career, but I've found that it suits me. I love that. And when Camille is talking, we have right down here in the Fortune cookie where you can find her.

00:11:08 Camille lives on LinkedIn, and that's her most place. But you can also find her on her website, Camilleskeys.com, and you can find out more what she's doing. So I have so many questions. I love that you have doing so many different things. And Cynthia, if you want me to stop and take it back, I can also do that.

00:11:26 But I know when we at the luncheon, you really talked about that. It took you three years to kind of pivot what you were doing. You needed to wait until your husband was kind of leaving the league before you jumped in. But as you explained, you had a career before. So if you can take us through a little bit about what that looked like, because there's going to be other women in the league, women that are not even in the league, but listening, that maybe are going through times that they're going to be pivoting out.

00:11:53 And so if you can take us through a little bit what that looked like from behind the scenes, that would be great. Sure, absolutely. So my relationship with my husband, as I explained to you, we dated for a very short period during the tail end of his career. So although I've developed great relationships with many of the women that are NFL wives, if you would, we don't have a TV show, by the way, but my experience was a little different because I experienced kind of the tell end of his career. So without realizing it, I was a part of his pivot.

00:12:32 And by being a part of his pivot and being supportive and on occasionally, occasionally maybe shaking him and going, get out of it, you're going to make it through. I had to be very stable. I had always been stable anyway. I was a single mom with three kids, and so I had to make sure that my ends were met and that my kids had what they needed. So when I had this new husband who was pivoting through his situation, I had to become even more stable.

00:13:03 And during that time, I realized that although I had wanted to make some changes, it was not in my best interest at that time to do it. But what I could do was I could start preparing in the event that the opportunity presented itself. Now, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I just knew that I wanted to be able to make a change. And so I really just started taking a better look at our finances, not like, oh, couponing it up because I suck at that.

00:13:32 It was more like, hey, maybe I can take this much money from each paycheck and just put it into this account that's really challenging to get to and really difficult and start saving. I can start studying. I can start asking people who are smarter than me to teach me how to get into stocks, to teach me what are the best things to do. I found that while my husband and I in our earlier years of marriage, would try to approach any type of financial advisors or things of that nature, they would hear NFL, and then immediately it would be more like, yes, hand us your stuff, hand us your portfolio, and we'll manage it for you. Well, being that I was a single mom, I didn't really have the luxury of letting other people make financial decisions for me.

00:14:15 So I was very leery of that. So I took that time to just learn, and I just started to save, kind of change our mindset about money, because my husband's mindset about money. And I realized, speaking with a lot of NFL players, former NFL players, they just kind of always thought the next check was coming. And it was weird because they also expected someone to knock on the door and give them a job, whereas I was from, quote unquote, the real world, where you had to go out and get a job. So during that time, it was a lot of money matters conversations, making those changes.

00:14:52 And I really poured myself into my work, into my career, and I just started to really excel and get promotion after promotion. And so with those promotions, I love what I'm hearing Chad Ocho Cinco say now about that. He wore fake jewelry and put his money up. Yeah, we were never the flashy type, but that money, my raises were going straight into the bank. It was going into Apple stock.

00:15:22 It was going into investing in myself. It took a long time to understand, too, that the saying, you have to spend money to make money is true. So I started taking courses. I started investing in business coaches here and there to help me, because it was mental gymnastics to walk away from such a secure position that so many people would strive to get. I don't take for granted 1 minute the blessing that I had in the career that I had, but it wasn't what I was born to do.

00:15:57 I'm good at it, but it wasn't what I was born to do. And it was stressful, and it had me very confined eight to five. Eight to five. So I took the three years to really learn more about finances, not just save money, learn about how to kind of get through low times, which I went through with my husband and his pivot, and just really do what I needed to do to understand what life could look like without that stability. Because I was at my last organization for almost 21 years.

00:16:29 So for 21 years, I had I knew the first and the 15th this was showing up. So it was a big change. Yeah, I definitely have a question in that. What was the number one motivating factor for you to have your own business? What was the need?

00:16:48 What were you searching for? Well, I can't say that the motivating factor was having my own business. I knew I needed rest after 20 plus years, I didn't rush into anything right away. It's amazing how much laundry and dust and children's needs and things show up. I was extremely busy, even though I wasn't working.

00:17:12 And the truth is, I'm a licensed realtor as well. So I thought, well, I'll just go into real estate because I'm great at that, and I'll sell home. And my former CEO, if I'm being honest, is the one that said to me, you should consider consulting. You could help so many other companies. And that just really resonated with me first, that it was coming from him, who I had just had to tell that I was leaving his company, which I adore him, and I didn't want to really leave him.

00:17:40 I just knew that it was no longer a good fit. So I was blessed enough to have someone that cared enough to speak that into me, even though they were kind of losing me. And I thought, well, I don't know what consulting looks like. And so I did what I always do. I dove in, I studied, I figured it out.

00:18:01 And it seems like the minute that I kind of opened myself up to it, opportunities started coming my way. I love that. Cynthia, did you want to add something? No, go ahead. Juliet.

00:18:13 What I think is it's always such a theme, I feel like, on all our shows, and it's one thing that really lights me up and fires me up, is if you didn't take what your former boss said and you kind of just were like, oh, neat. And you didn't explore it, right? You didn't think about it, you just kind of moved on, your life would look very different. And so that's what I always challenge people that are listening, that are out there to really focus and think about. Like, if someone says something or you've heard it a couple of times, you need to explore it.

00:18:41 There's a reason, and Cynthia and I've talked about this many times, I believe in God, but whether you believe in the universe or God, whatever you believe in, there is signs that are brought to us all the time, and if we ignore a lot of them, you don't know where your path is. We all, I believe, have a path, but we all don't find it because we don't allow ourselves to let our brains go and explore. What will that look like? So kind of piggybacking off of Cynthia's question when he said that it obviously planted the seed and you started studying a little bit more, did you hear it a couple more times? Or was it like his word?

00:19:18 That kind of was what was the solid factor, or was there other signs that you were getting around you? Well, I would say it was probably I was getting some signs around me for some time. I had kind of a traumatic event. I've had a few traumatic events like everyone does in my life. One was with my child, and the other was the passing of my mom.

00:19:42 I was such a workaholic. I had a high stress job, and I did a lot of de escalating matters with customers. So I spoke with people who were very upset, very angry. They had already spoken with three or four people already, and now they've got me. And I kind of was the type of person that would own it.

00:20:03 I would go, okay, the buck stops here. I understand I'm going to work this through resolution, but I would be juggling maybe four to six of those at a time, plus supervising people et cetera. So I had a tendency when I was really dealing with a lot, to take on more. It's part of my personality. It would be like, I don't want to go to a shrink because I don't want them to tell me how jacked up I am.

00:20:28 I'm just going to go take a life coaching class. And so I became certified as a life coach, right. So during that process, I heard that a lot from my instructor, you're really good at this. Have you ever considered being a life coach? And I'm like, no, not really.

00:20:44 I'm taking this class because I don't want to go and sit in front of a psychologist because I have issues, because I'm an overachiever. And so I'll just add another certification to my belt, right? So I heard that from her and a lot of my former employees, they would come to me and I would help counsel them or help them figure out a process. Some other departments go, hey, Camille, I know this isn't your area of expertise, but you're good at this. So indirectly, I heard a lot about you're good at working with people.

00:21:14 You're good at helping people figure out their problems. You're good at making sure that in the end the customer is excited and even you're good at turning frowns upside down. I used to hear that a lot. So when he said that, I think it kind of helped me propel the challenge within me to go learn it. And if he hadn't said that, it's not that I wouldn't be consulting.

00:21:42 I just may have gone about it a different way. I probably would have dove right into real estate because I know that inside and out, I can sell a home. I can help you buy a home. I can freaking help you identify how she shouldn't buy. I know I'd be in that field.

00:22:00 But I think what it did was it gave me the confidence. It's interesting that you talked about, in a sense, chaos because I was listening to your interview and when you were talking about your time out on the field that you found comfort in the chaos of all the activities around you. And I was thinking about that and was wondering what makes a person like that, where when it's chaotic all around, they can zero in and do what they need to do and function at a better speed or a more focused point. And I wonder why that is that you're like that? I think I'm like that because of my mommy.

00:22:45 When we were growing up, my mom, she's a beautiful woman.

00:22:51 My mom was bored if she didn't have a lot going on. There's a line that Prince says in one of the songs, she's never satisfied. And I think that was my mom. We moved a lot, a lot. I went to a lot of schools.

00:23:07 I went to probably four junior high schools, six high schools, we moved around a lot. So I became very familiar with change and chaos. And being so young, I didn't see it as instability. It was just the way things were. And so in chaos and in a lot of change, I found a way to zero in on something about it.

00:23:33 Like, it was exciting that we were moving to a new place, so we got to get new things or I'm going to a new school, I'm going to meet new kids. I wasn't really thinking about the fact that I'm going to possibly be behind or I'm not going to understand what they're talking about. And so it became a survival instinct. And so if I walk into a job site, what most people see as just crazy, the music and there's noise, and people are swinging a hammer, and there's maybe 60 people on that job site, and there's garbage everywhere. There's baby pools.

00:24:11 I remember people going, what are the baby pools? I'm like, they mix concrete in it. And, you know, what it represents to me is progress. The smell of the wood. When I walk on a job site, it's like, this is a community being built.

00:24:27 There will be families here. There will be children playing in these streets. Eventually, people will have Thanksgiving dinners at these tables under these roofs that we're building. I see new home construction, completely different, and I love the chaos of that. Even the home that we're in now, my husband and I bought is 20 years old.

00:24:51 When we first started walking through it, he's like, well, it doesn't have this all I'm seeing is are bones. I'm like, I can knock that wall out. I can do this. We can replace this counter. He's like, the let me see it in the finished.

00:25:05 And I'm like, oh, I get to play. I get to get concrete under my nails. So it is different, and it's a little weird, I know, but I love the chaos of construction. Go ahead.

00:25:25 You guys both so excited that we're like, Go ahead, Juliet. No, because I want to read a quote afterwards. So you finished your thought there. Okay, well, when you say that to me, it's like you're on a job site, but I'm thinking about life, and I'm thinking about businesses, and I'm thinking about family, and then I'm thinking about in your head. So what you're pretty much saying is chaos is progress.

00:25:49 Because if it's chaos, then you're thinking and you're doing, and there's action, whereas if you're complacent, then that's not progress. That's just dead space. So it's almost like you're saying, embrace chaos in your life rather than letting it cripple you. Right, yes. Because we're all going to encounter some form of chaos.

00:26:13 But also, let me point out that consistent chaos will cause a lot of stress, which we know causes medical issues and things like that. So you have to know when to cut it off, too. But chaos. If you are the person that can walk into the room and in the middle of the chaos, you can find your peace enough to start eating the elephant one bite at a time. And you're powerful.

00:26:41 And that's me. And it took me quite a while to realize that the reason that I was being given all of the hard things to do, the reason people were being directed to me when they were that upset and that angry, is because I was really good in the midst of chaos, in finding the calm and helping them get through it. Now, it does burn you out over a long period of time. So if you are dealing in a lot of chaos, you do have to have your moments and your opportunities where you can just get away from everything and shut down and recoup. I so appreciate that.

00:27:19 So this is my favorite quote, and this is the quote that I like, live by, brave girl, you were made for far more beautiful things. Chaos is only understood when it is loved by the wild, not the weak. And I love that so much because it's so true. It's life. It is life.

00:27:36 And as you said and that's why I got so excited. I was like, oh, my God, we're talking about chaos. This is my absolute favorite quote. And people say to me, this is like the quote I live by because I sometimes create chaos. If I'm too like and we do staggering in my life, I'll be like, I need to think of another business.

00:27:52 I need to add something else to my life, where really it's like, no, just sit in it. You don't need stir chaos. You have enough going on. But I do live well in that chaotic moment. But then if it's too much or there's too much uncertainty in it is when I break.

00:28:07 So if there's certainty in that chaos, I can go and I can fix it and I can do it. But if there's like, oh, but we don't know the answer to this, and it's going to take three months, then I go a little crazy, right? I get in my own mind. So I think it's so beautiful that you said that. And I love Cynthia, the question, because you know that that was also what I was thinking of.

00:28:25 What kind of built you it's like, what gave you that grit? And I love that you kind of really formulated that with your mom. So I do want to ask you, so I know when we had your husband on, Marte on for it, he came on right after you, and he was so cute. He was like, no, I got pictures. I got you, I got you.

00:28:45 He's so cute. He's really cute. It's funny because he's like, no, I was over here. I was taking pictures. You guys just didn't see me.

00:28:53 And what he said, which I just thought. Was so beautiful was when he was leaving the league, he said he loved ball so much, and when he was leaving the league, he said, if I didn't have if he didn't have you, he said his life would have looked very different. He said, I had a strong woman that could help me. And so I do want to dive a little bit into that because I know that's going to help others kind of navigate when they're going through whether professional sports, whether life we have pivots all the time. How did you think your personality really and his personality, how did you really uplift him and get him out and really kind of work through that as a couple?

00:29:33 Well, I will say that it was challenging because we married in 2006, and I don't know exactly. I believe I think 2005, he played Canadian football. So I think like 2004 was kind of his last year in the NFL. And then so from my experience, it appears that they'll often look for another way to play, like go into Canadian football or arena football or something like that. And a lot of the focus is just around playing again.

00:30:10 And so I'm like, hey, dude, we just got married. And I had a career before him. I owned my home and everything and these kids of mine that I was responsible for. And he had blending families, and I'm like, hey, if you want to he brings up Canada. And I said, the very last thing I will ever do is keep you from your dream.

00:30:37 That is not my position. But if you should choose to go to Canada and play, then we need to discuss how this looks because I'm also not going to be a married single mom with another kid. That just doesn't make sense, right? Nobody signed up for that over here, right? So he goes on to Canada, and we worked through it, and I'm like, okay, so what is the game plan?

00:31:06 I realized there was no real five year plan. And this is not to knock him. It's just they go in so young, and if they don't have the support close to them to be in their ear while they're playing, saying, hey, what's your two year plan? What's your five year plan? What's your next career look like?

00:31:29 He unfortunately didn't have that. So that's what I was doing with him, like, hey, what does this look like when you're done? I married for love, so I didn't marry for this football thing, to be honest. I don't know very much about football. I'm a boxing girl.

00:31:47 So it was really just like dropping the seeds without doing it in a way that made him think I was trying to control his life, because I think so many people are trying to control their lives early on and just standing my ground no, that's not okay. With a gentle heart like, I'm coming to you with love. I am not okay with that. So he did the Canadian thing, and then when that was over, which they wanted him back, but again, I'm here, kids are here, laundry is here. I'm not doing that thing.

00:32:24 So he made the decision to stay, really just helping him explore his talents. Hey, you're really good at this. Maybe you should consider going that route. And then, of course, as a man, he did what he had to do to start working and providing for us, but really just, like, giving him the opportunity, some space to mourn, because it was kind of like a divorce. The same thing for me when I left my career.

00:32:53 That's what, you know, he lost Camaraderie. He lost that team. When he left football, he wasn't as engaged with the team players because they're still playing. So now they don't have as much in common, and they live all over the world, and they were together because they all had this common thing, which was football. He went through a time where he didn't even want to watch football.

00:33:19 He didn't have a jersey on the wall. I think it was maybe a three year period. So finally, I'm like, you need to be proud of your accomplishments. We're all proud of it. And I start digging out the jerseys and getting them framed and all of his awards and his footballs and start putting them up and, hey, made up snacks I'd never made before football games coming on.

00:33:40 Just encouraging him and helping him to just get back and embrace, get involved with the NFLPA, start to go to some of the meetings, call some of your guys you played with. So I felt like my position, if I do understand football enough, I would want to be the kicker, because it seems like they don't get tackled as much and the quarterback gets all the glory, right? So I was like, I'm going to be your quarterback. I don't know anything about football, but I got Holly Pete Robinson's book and read it and tried to get the lingo. I learned all the history, still don't understand the game.

00:34:23 But I'm like, did you know a 19 something like, how do you know that?

00:34:29 Get your own damn beer. I'm watching the game. Yeah. And I like beer. But I sat and tried to watch the game, and I'm like, when we went to the game, where's those lines?

00:34:41 He's like, the lines you're only on the TV can mail, they're not here. I just started getting him back engaged. And so I guess my recommendation to other ladies is keep them from losing the spark, keep them from losing the joy that they had in the game. And also for Marte, he's so good with kids. And I said, well, why don't you start working with some of the kids in the neighborhood that are out in the street throwing the ball?

00:35:14 So he started his own speed and Agility training business for some time. He's kind of set it aside for a while right now, while he's pursuing his current career, but he did that, too, and he worked with children that went on to get scholarships at college. We've traveled to college to watch kids play. He has contributed to creating some wonderful young men and women, and I think that really did it, too, because he saw the genuine respect from the kids being called coach, and it wasn't about money. I think he charged $50, whereas some of the other NFL players, or former NFL players with a more household name, they're charging hundreds and hundreds of dollars to get training.

00:36:02 So he was like, $50 a session. We have kids lined up. He's got them vomiting and getting right back up, and I'm like, Leave the kids alone. But they loved it. So I just encouraged him.

00:36:15 And similar to how my former CEO saw something in me, I saw something in him. I saw the ability for him to give back. And he's always loved real estate, so I said, well, why don't you work on getting your real estate license? And he did, and that's what he does now. He sells real estate.

00:36:34 So that pivot for him was painful, and it was painful for me, too, because I had to be careful. I'm watching him kind of suffer in silence, and so I couldn't speak on the suffrage or that might even become more heavy. I had to completely keep encouraging. So I was like this quarterback, cheerleader kicker, also going through my own stuff at the time. But I felt like I had to really just sacrifice what I was going through, and that's why I was talking about my staying stable to help him through his change.

00:37:08 Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Go ahead, Cynthia. I think you did everything right, every single thing right.

00:37:15 And that's the number one thing that drives me crazy, is how quickly these guys forget who they are and what they've done. So you surrounding him by it sounds to be crazy, but just reminding him of who he is and what he did and where he got you. Getting him involved with the NFLPA, the Trust, the Legends programs, all these things are so important because now he's with his peers more, and he's realizing that so many of the guys are experiencing the same things. And then I did want to tell you, though, that I love the agility camp, and are you aware of the NFL matching grants program for players that have any type of camps or any type of programs for kids? They do a matching grant.

00:38:03 So definitely reach out to me after to find out information to apply for that, because that's the idea of our players talking to kids, spending time with kids, promoting the importance of the game within their communities is just so important, I think, too.

00:38:23 I know you're consulting, but if you can ever get in front of any of these rooms are filled with NFL spouses, NFL players, to talk about how you helped Marte through transition. Because when I see the two of you walking down the runway at the fashion show and the pride, and you're just so dynamic, and you just have this magnet attraction to what you guys are and what you're doing, it makes me so excited to think that as a couple, you created that together, and you helped build him to that point. Thank you. I appreciate that so much. Like I said, I can't say but sometimes I feel like the fact that I wasn't there through all of his career, I don't know so much if I know it was a negative for me because I didn't get to go shopping.

00:39:17 But I think that in the time we've been married 17 years now, and in this time period, I've I've definitely met a lot of wonderful people, especially ladies who are NFL wives, if you want to say that. And they were with their husband sometimes through college, through their being drafted or later. Yeah. What a beautiful experience that is too. And for me, like, not really knowing anything about football, I think in some weird way, it was helpful to our relationship in the beginning, because I was like, you wear the hat, the helmet.

00:40:02 He's like, It's a helmet, okay? You wear the helmet, and you wear the little tight. He's like, they're not tights. I'm like, well, they look like tights. They're really cute on you.

00:40:12 I was so naive in the beginning about football, and I have learned so much about the business and just interacting with coaches and financial advisors and management that I had a different perspective because I had a business mindset. So I think it was very helpful. I'll tell you a funny story. He'll be embarrassed, but oh, well. So early on in our relationship, my husband had chose to go to another team.

00:40:47 He was here in Arizona with the Cardinals, and we were dating. And I said, well, why are you doing that? And he explained to me about this opportunity to get a Super Bowl ring. Me, I'm business. I'm like, well, how much does the ring worth?

00:41:02 And he's like, It's not about the worth of the ring. It's about the accomplishment of the ring. And I'm going, but I'm thinking about finances and stuff. And I said, well, it makes more sense for you to stay here. And he's like, you don't understand.

00:41:15 And I didn't. But I was right. I was right, because in the end, he says, I should have listened to you. And I'm like, yeah, but you thought I was just some girl trying to get you to stay here because I had the hots for you, which I did have the hots for you, but I was looking at the business of it, right? So I think if your partner is allowing or not allowing, but if you have a true partnership, I think all those decisions should be made together.

00:41:48 Of course, if you're traded, you're traded, you can't do anything about that. But if there's a choice where I'm going to go, here or there, when I decided to make my change, my husband wholeheartedly supported my change. He actually wanted me to make my Pivot years before. But I was steadfast that I have to make sure that I'm doing the right thing for our future and our children. Whereas back then I was just the girl he was dating, trying to tell him what to do.

00:42:14 Right. But I think that's very important. Any decision, especially if I were the wife that wasn't playing the game. I could see how maybe sometimes that might, if they don't have a strong enough partnership, feel like I don't have the right to make a lot of decisions or to really push my opinion forward. If that person is the one that's taking the toll physically and also playing the game.

00:42:41 I've heard that, too when I've talked to ladies. Well, this is his career. Yeah, but you had a career as wife and mother and whatever you chose to do at the same time, it wasn't all right. I remember saying to my husband, you're so blessed, you played so long. And it wasn't really my right to tell him that he should have felt blessed at a time when he was livid.

00:43:04 He was so angry, he wasn't ready. And so he was like, I don't feel blessed. I'm not blessed. I'm out. I'm not blessed.

00:43:13 This isn't a blessing for me. I had to really regroup because I'm thinking, damn, you should be happy. It's a long time. Time. Go on, do something the next thing.

00:43:24 So you're right. It isn't really our right, but it is also our responsibility to take the reins when we have to. That's, to me, was the most important thing. I wanted to make sure I was doing something while Michael was playing because I thought, when he loses his passion, if his passion is my passion, we're all going to be staring at each other and we're all going to lose. So I needed to keep things in order for what I was doing.

00:43:52 So when he did, I could focus on what I was doing so there would be normalcy in the family and also take the pressure off of me staring at him like, what are we going to do? What are we going to do next? It's like, no, what are you going to do next? I'm still going to do right. That to me, is the best thing is when even if it's you mentioned you have hobbies, if it's your family, if it's whatever it is, if it's anything that you do, as long as you have focus on what it is that you're doing during this transition.

00:44:20 Absolutely. Because I think one of the darkest periods was before we were married and we were dating, and I'm telling all his business. Oh, well. And I remember going over his house, and Blockbuster was out at the time, and he's like, you want to watch a movie? Well, I'm not a huge movie watcher.

00:44:38 I'll watch a movie, but you'll rarely ever catch me watch the same movie twice unless it's like Godfather, Gone With the Wind, the classics, right? And I'm like, okay. And he puts in a movie, takes it out, puts in the next movie, and I'm like, okay, to put in a third movie? I'm like, Dude, we just watched, like, three freaking movies back to back. And then we get up, and we go to Blockbuster, and he trades him and gets three more.

00:45:03 And I'm like, okay, what's going on? And he's like nothing. I'm watching over this is what you do. He says, I'm waiting for my agent to call me. You're waiting for your agent?

00:45:16 Because this is really foreign to me. I'm used to get out the paper back in the day, write out the job applications, show up, stock the place you want to work, you go and you get a job. And I'm like, oh, so you guys wait for your agent to call and give you a job? Yeah. I'm like, this is not normal.

00:45:39 So I'm like, in between, it's depression. I'm not depressed. Yeah, you are. You just watched six movies. I'm not depressed.

00:45:50 Yeah, dude, you are. So the pivot came with that, too. And I think it's really difficult for a man who's used to being, in my opinion, like a gladiator going out there and physically I'm looking at these guys like, jeez, if you did this to me, I'd have a bruise. You're out there, and you're physically bucking up against these guys, and this is the game, and it's what? It's just kind of chaotic, kind of cute out on the field, right?

00:46:20 But when it's not happening, you're still and you're sitting and you're waiting for a job to come. And that was difficult for me, and I think that I became his friend more than anything in that period. And so, obviously, we went on to develop our relationship, get married, et cetera. But I had to realize that Marte's career greatly influenced his overall well being, his mental well being, his spiritual well being, his identity. He was a football player.

00:46:58 Now who am I? Which is very understandable. And I know we have to cut this off soon because I have another meeting, and I know Camille, you're so lovely to have given us this time here today. Thank you, lady. I feel like we could talk to you for hours and hours, but I think one of the things that Marte said, and it's really true and thinking about it, is that everyone was on the same schedule.

00:47:22 Like, you're on the same schedule. You have the same workout schedule, you have the same everything, and all of a sudden that's taken away. And that's why Cynthia and I really why we do these shows, because of people like you, of the things that you've gone through and what you've built and how you've Pivoted in your life and how you knew, okay, this is the time I need to pull Marte up. We want others to be sitting out there. Whether they're an NFL, whether they're in another professional athlete, whether they're married to someone that's in a high powered position, it goes very deep.

00:47:51 We need to think, and we need to be better. We need to think about, he got pulled from something. It's like in our society, it's like, oh, you're a professional athlete. Oh, you're gone the next day. Okay, who else is going to put his jersey on?

00:48:02 Where's that number going? We need to think of this as people and humans. And when you love something that you're doing so much, it doesn't matter. And we talked about this a lot. It doesn't matter how strong your mind is.

00:48:14 It doesn't matter how stable you are, how if you don't have depression in your family, it doesn't matter. It is going to mess with you. It is going to mess with you. And if you don't have that support system, it's going to mess with you even more. So it's important for everyone to understand.

00:48:29 And people that are in wives, husbands, when a husband loses his job, don't sit there and be like, okay, now you got to do the dishes and go do all this. No, let them sit in that for a little while. Let them find thing is yeah. And so I so appreciate you sharing all of that here on YNS live with NFL thread, live on fireside again. We could talk forever.

00:48:51 I mean, I think the next point cynthia, I think we have Marte and Camille on to really talk about it. Absolutely. This is a beautiful ending with Pivot. I think we should pick up and do a nice Pivot show with you guys both together, because I think personally yeah. It will help so many people, so many players.

00:49:12 Yeah. In closing, I'll share in my former career, I was working with the family, helping them keep do something at their house. And the husband was a former NFL player, and I would arrive at the house at like, seven in the morning, and when I tell you he was fully dressed, he was up and fully dressed every day. At first I was like, oh, that's cute. And then after a while, I realized he didn't have anywhere to go.

00:49:34 He just was trying to create some form of structure. Nice. So he would get up and get dressed every day and go to Starbucks. And his wife at the time, she's like, and I'm going, well, at least he's up. He's not laying in the bed, and he's up and out, and I saw the structure.

00:49:50 Like, he would go out and talk to the neighbors, mow the lawn he had to have so I knew that Tay had to have structure, so he had a gym membership and you got to go over here. Yeah. But thank you, ladies so much. This has been awesome. Yeah.

00:50:05 Thank you so much for joining. Again, thank you, everyone, wherever you're listening. If you're on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, thank you again for joining. YNS live with NFL thread here on Fireside. And again, keep following all of us because you will find out when we have Marte and Camille back on to follow up with their story out.

00:50:25 Pivoting out of the league hearing from Martel and his side of the story as well. So thank you again for joining, and we'll talk to you guys soon. Thank you, ladies. Bye.