Build Your Team

Build Your Team

Shawn Harper

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey

Podcast for Entrepreneurs

10/26/2020

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

ai generated transcription

for entrepreneurs is you better build your team you know you cannot name a successful person a world changer without identifying his or her team you know hey everyone this is devon miller here with another uh episode of the inventive journey i'm your host evan miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several businesses to seven and eight figure businesses as well as um the founder and ceo of miller ip law where helps startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks and uh today we have another um great uh pot your epis now now i'm tongue tied and i have to run we have another great guest on the episode today and i think he'll make for a great story arn terry and uh arn and i always i always worry i'm gonna it's it's not crazy art so it's art right aaron harper aaron i have his arm so now i even did it worse so i completely slaughtered that so my apologies sean mayor i haven't is a shiner here there's sean harper that's right there we go sorry i i had the dave or name mixed up so then we we had all sorts of issues so sean harper i apologize um sean has a an interesting story to tell in the sense that he started out a lot of his career in the nfl or football league and then went to the nfl went to nfl europe and then as you saw that was starting to wind down during your career um you made that transition to that switch over to now what you're doing today and use some of the the things you learned during the nfl and some of that in order to now make that transition so that's as much of it now now that i've slaughtered your name that's as much of the intro i can give you so you'll do a much better job and i'm sure you'll at least get your name right so welcome not to the podcast hey thank you so much for having me uh thank you for what you do actually um i've always learned or i was always taught that you know there's a few things in life you don't go cheap on especially in business and one of those things is a very good competent and aggressive lawyer so you are such a blessing so thank you for helping out so many emerging businesses out there hey my pleasure is my my love and my passion and what i enjoy so but i appreciate the kind words so maybe with that um let's jump into a little bit of your experience of and you know as you as we already kind of talked about we take where you're at today and let's take a couple steps back that led to where you're at today so with that maybe give us a little bit of what your journey was you know what i had a very interesting journey of of evolving or evolution and it's so amazing because just about everything i've ever experienced has helped me it has equipped me to exist on this level in the prosper in this paradigm uh most people think you know playing in the nfl or playing even college you know you've you know you've had a great upbringing you know you had you know things were set near your honorable mention or all state or you know all whatever you know and uh you know and and and football was a part of your life and that's true but the challenges outweighed so many other positives in my life that i was documented with fortified learning disabilities kicked out of a couple of schools because of disciplinary issues i had to repeat the first grade single-parent setting i wasn't poor it was pope okay difference between being poor and po you know and and and it just so many different challenges i stuttered my entire life uh voted most likely to fail and athletically i wasn't even honorable mention all conference in high school i was the guy sitting in the back getting the participation trophy eating the cordon bleu that nasty cordon blew at the football banquet you know that was me right and uh and uh i go off to a junior college in mason city iowa you know it's amazing i'm in the corn field like 26 000 blonde hair blue eyes everyone's last name is schneider right i'm in the middle of the cornfield right and and uh sitting the bench the first year at junior college and uh about to go into the second year like april may and i had a conversation with myself and the conversation was is that i will never be successful you're right i don't have the grades i don't have the network um it's just just i have so much stacked against me i will never be successful but i will win in life there's a big difference between success and winning i will win and once i said those words it connected it was like you know one of those like sci-fi movies where they put a key in some old tomb and it lights up right it's like i will win and once that i made that click that that paradigm my whole body just it just turned on and i began to hear and see opportunities that most people didn't i started doing crazy things to win like it was may of that year and i was home for like two weeks i get on the greyhound bus go back to junior college talk to my coach we struck a deal i'm in the dorm room training twice a day on campus not one other athlete is on site i mean that that is that's on site on campus i'm training by myself two to three thousand skips a day because i told i was told i had horrible feet right and so i'm jumping rope getting my feet together getting my mind together getting my game together studying taking extra courses to be why because that is what winners do winners find the uncommon and they exploit it a winner could take a crack of like a centimeter and they can bore right through that crack and turn it into an opening into an opportunity i'm gonna win so i had to figure out what everyone else was doing and i had to do the opposite because very few people in life are winners and i begin to study winners i begin to look at winners i begin to study people like muhammad ali and i begin to you know and you know how is it that these guys could have like the super bowl shuffle in like 1983 and 1984 and they haven't even won the super bowl yet they ain't played not one game yet and yet they're speaking their destiny i begin to speak my destiny because that's what winners do and so once i made that switch it helped me it propelled me in sports and i took the tactics and the strategies and i brought them over to the business world as well so jumping in just a little bit so i mean you make that switch and you're saying hey kind of least likely since he voted at least likely to succeed you know had some you know had to move around with schools everything else and you jumped into just a little bit maybe dive in this little bit so how did you make that what was that was it an overnight switch or was it kind of a slow realization that hey i can be a winner but this is how i need to do it or kind of how did you make that mental shift was it a quick one over time or somewhere in between it was a quick shift but it was a slow process once i said the words i can win everything in my body and my being begin to fight against me because a large part of me believes all the lies spoken over me when you have people in authority when you have people in your own family speaking deaf over you sometimes a part of you believes the lie but if a seed if a seed size of you believes different you can take that seed and with your words you can grow it you can grow it so just a little bit said you can win sean because my mama said baby you're going to do something great in life so i hung on i dug through all the crap man i found mama's words little seed right and i began to speak to it i began to speak to it and sometimes that's all you have that's all you have all the stats say this everyone's saying this and everyone is and i need one person sometimes to believe in you just one person to speak it and you can take that and you can speak to that and it'll grow and it will manifest and so i wrote down three letters i wrote down the nfl and i put it up on the dorm wall and every day every day at the nfl that's where i'm going every night before i went to sleep i took one last look at the nfl that's where i'm going and uh with my words with my agreement i begin to manifest it and i begin to do things that were uncommon kind of like macgyver maybe that show called macgyver right i think they all have a new show that they based off of the old show so i've never actually watched to do one but i certainly yeah i would like macgyver life and put little stuff together here we go so as you're doing that so now you you made that mental switch and then you say it's more of a process so you made the mental switch and they say now i've got to figure out how to execute on it or how to actually get to where i want to go and so how did that work out because you know you were junior college and then how did that how did you get from junior college to the nfl to actually realize your dream yeah so here i am now going into the second year you know and i'm having a phenomenal season only because i because i'm already ready you know while you guys are getting in shape for camp i'm already in shape and so i'm just so so i have like four weeks i'm i am progressing at a phenomenal pace so when it comes to the football field guess what everyone else is doing the same thing they're all at home or hanging out you know may june july trying to get in shape i'm already in shape you know you're not you're not going to catch me it's impossible you know who else does that the new england patriots they're very good at that if you ever notice the new england patriots patriots win a lot of games in the second half you know why because they're in the best shape ever that's their secret they're in shape they're they're in a phenomenal shape okay and so here i am now i'm already in shape i'm already ready i didn't study the playbook all summer so i went from sitting on the bench to first teemo region junior college hall of fame one day the phone rings is bill mallory indiana university he flies me in i take no other visits i should look the man in the eye shook his hand i signed a full year scholarship and i go to indiana and i start the process all over again i'm sitting on the bench but i know the secret now i know i'm a working and from there draft damn third pick in the fourth round that's a great story so as you because there are a lot of i would assume and i i you would know a lot better and i would i assume there are a lot of football players that simply work harder they do go to the gym a lot or they do that so is it simply just i'm going to physically outwork you or is it studying your opponents is it studying the plays is that how do you make it so it's not you know how did you do it so you not only at work you know you outwork people what all does that entail so a lot of it has to do with your mind your mind shift remember i'm a winner so i can't really understand defeat i don't understand it i can't even comprehend it now comes to physical i didn't say i was a competitor an athlete i said i was you know there are a lot of athletes you know level that are great and they compete winner knows the difference see a winner know the guy or the young gonna take the shot with his two-point left in the game a competitor won't take the shot the competitor is going to throw it to the winner and the winner is going to take the shot the competitor will do very well in football and and he will get you to the playoffs but a winner is going to take you to the super bowl you ever knows how this great quarterbacks they can all they always they just can't get to that final level because they're competitors they're not winners well that's that's a good that's a good distinction one that i hadn't thought about before so now as we continue on your journey kind of we're doing it so now you get to junior college now you go to a full-on university and then how did then you get to the nfl so how did you make how did you get from university what i was fortunate and blessed to block for a you know really good heisman candidate his name was von dunbar he was phenomenal athlete i think he had close to 2000 yards in one season and that's good for the big ten he was phenomenal well guess what after a while they started looking like okay well who's the guy who's blocking for this you know heisman candidate who's the guy who's blocking for you know nfl quarterback trent green because trick green was my quarterback at indiana trent greene panda played to play 11 years in the nfl well hold on wait a second who who's the guy who's the left apple that's john harper that's how i got noticed they're looking at them so now they're looking at me and the rest is history unfortunately injuries kind of plagued my stint in the nfl but you know what i i learned from some of the most amazing winners i learned from people like jackie slater played 20 years in the nfl i learned from people like tom newberry i learned from people like henry ellard and roman fight then i went to houston it was bruce matthews you know it was just like it was just it was it was awesome it was an awesome experience in indianapolis marshall faulk ray wolford yeah yeah so you had that awesome experience and i think they said and then he transitioned so you did nfl for four years and i think nfl year for three years is that right so as you're then making that trend so now as you you know i would say most people live in the dream early you get to do what you really like you get to play at the top of the you know and i would say i think we talked a little bit before nfl is you know the highest one of if not the highest level of competitive sports right you have to be in top physical shape you have to be at the top of your game all the time it doesn't matter if you play every game or you warm the bench every game or anywhere in between you're still the best of the best to even make it that far right so as now as you say that you as you see that and you're saying okay starting to see that i'm winding down my nfl career and i'm going to have to transition back into something else how did you make that transition or how's that like for you you know what i try to make the transition and to be honest most athletes they don't make the transition if you if you really study athletes you know you know a lot of them you know go into coaching or other because it's like they they need to stay close to the field right and so what i've done is because i struggled when i when i went in the business i struggled and then i realized guess what at the c-suite level and up it's the same game it's the same rules they are you are judged off of your performance the higher you go up in any corporate environment the more you're judged by your performance you have to produce is your team producing the people around you are people who you're in charge of are they producing the ceo him or her guess what the people on your team the people in the c-suite the people from the c-suite to the upper management to the middle management are they producing and if they're not producing you eventually you're gonna go and so i said you know it's the same thing win or lose here we go you know when you have numbers when you run the quarterly estimates when you do like stocks it's win or lose you know did you make your numbers did you not make your numbers you know it's the same thing so guess what i took the tactics the methodology and the strategy i learned playing football and i moved on to corporate america and it's been working like a charm i mean it's not perfect but it works it really works one of the things i've done just to give you an example is that uh in the nfl we study our opponent we know every trust me trust we have a a a staff of scouts and these people are in a cave somewhere and they're down film college football they have grad assistants man they are breaking down film three four five o'clock in the morning they know the tendencies of every player on the field the quarterback and the coach they know exactly what he's going to run out of what formation and what pushes through the buttons and they here's the report in corporate america we don't do that we work hard you know and uh you know we try to get some market share i'm like are you kidding me you better know everything about your opponent what contract he or she won what contract here she lost what their pricing structure is what their manuals look like everything [Music] no i i that's a great point and it's interesting because you point that out and i would say that that's a lot of times it is a failure of now businesses that do very well they have that almost to your point the ones that you know kind of do mediocre are just kind of moving along you can do okay without doing that but you're not going to be at the top of your game you're not going to out compete people if you don't know what they are so i think that's a very valid point i think it's a good lesson to learn yeah so you so as you trend as you look and say okay my nfl career is coming to enter i'm gonna have to think about what i'm doing after i think he got into the security services and he kind of mentioned that that was kind of almost as where you're on the offensive lineman that it was kind of a natural transition of protecting people on the line and protecting your team to protecting other people but maybe give a little bit of an insight as to how you said okay from nfl to security services for those who watched the movie the blind side you know that that star was a left tackle and he has he has embodied uh the mindset in the temperament of a left tackle left tackles are different they're just different um they're very protective um and and and their number one goal is to make sure nothing happens to their quarterback they take it serious if something happens to my running back or my quarterback i take that to heart that is a left tackle and so i played left tackle and once i retired the protective services was just a no-brainer for me and so i'm the left tackle my officers are the left tackle and the client is the quarterback and we carry that mindset don't let your quarterback get sacked it's one of our models and uh and and and that's how i'm able to you know to function as a corporate individuals that i adopt lingos and status strategies and tactics i learned as i mentioned earlier from the nfl and i bring them in into corporate america so actually so diving into that just a bit deeper so you make that you decide okay i'm going to go from nfl security or security services certainly get the overlay you know and why that would line up with the same kind of what you've already learned personality skills characteristics and all those was it a smooth transition from the nfl and just hey i'm now going in security services it was a success right out of the bat was it coming up to speed on new things and different things was it an up and a down or how did that work out for you so smooth transition in one sense very tough and a lot of athletes don't talk about this but you know you really missed the game there's so much about the game that you miss that you'll never experience again to be in a locker room of you know maybe 35 i'm sorry 45 to 50 guys you know you know and we're all just like a a personality d on the disc you know we're like the best of the best to come to the club you know we're just like ah you know just you know laughing and one-upping each other and it's just man just the camaraderie of that or to run out into middle of a football stadium there's 80 000 people chanting and screaming that adrenaline you can't find anywhere else unless you become a rock star right and so you know that doesn't happen and so those those things you missed the competitiveness going up against another guy i'm the best you know you think you're the best we're going to go to war for four quarters you can't get that there's nowhere else you're going to get that and you missed that because we're bred for that we were created for that since the second grade we've been playing sports you know and one day it stops so you have to rechannel that energy you have to retool yourself to fit into that other paradigm so how did you do so how did you retool or what what was that process of retooling and saying okay as much as i want that i i've got to move on or i have to do something different i've still got a life ahead of me i still got a career ahead of me how did you kind of go through that refilling love love loving loving two senses first that i want to be motivated by love when i played football i wasn't motivated by love i was motivated by ego so now i want to be motivated by love i want to help i want to give back i want to pour in you know allow that to kind of switch over but then you find other things to love it's like i love my family i love you know you know praying in um church and i i love god i love life and then you allow that love to eclipse your old love and that's how you're able to get out of it no i think that makes that makes perfect sense and you know you because sometimes you get my op and you say the only way i can be happy is if i have x the only way i can you know have be successful is if i have why and those type of things and you get so focused on that that oftentimes you're not saying there are other things that i love other things that will bring me joy other things i can be successful and until you start to explore that if you just keep that so narrow focus you're never able you're going to once that thing that you were really good at or what you loved is gone you never expand out then you're never going to be able to make that transition so so make that transition now you're in the security services i think you also do some speaking engagements you've been some books um so you've been you've been doing a whole bunch of good things and one thing i thought was interesting that we talked a little bit before is you know and i thought was a good as you talked about kind of transitioning out what we talked about before the podcast was you were always the guy that was going to take the opportunities to raise your hand whether it's for pr whether it's for doing any public appearances or anything else you're saying hey i'm going to be the one that if they ever need that person i'm going to raise your hand so we know maybe expand a little about that or share a little about that why you did that and how it worked out or why that was helpful you know it was so the backstory that leads up to that in the nfl um you know every off season and during the season they ask players to do appearances you know you call the team and you know and then they get contact with the pr department and then you know they go out and you know you know we'll make a parents or sign autographs or speak and i just loved it i just loved you know getting out there motivating helping people encouraging people um and whenever that opportunity hit on the board i'm like that's me i'm gonna do it oh yeah i'm out there come on yeah done it's i'm there and uh i really i really appreciated it i loved it i did not know that i was laying the foundation in the groundwork for my speaking career and when uh i finished playing football i'm expecting the engagements to kind of tank a little bit he's an ex-nfl football player but you know what opposite happened they just kept rolling in kept coming in and i just kept running with it and uh i love it i love it no i mean that's and that even if you're i think that mentality and that type of thing of always being the person to raise your hand willing to take something on willing to put yourself out in front of others translates very well over in the business in the sense that if you're the person that's always in the back you're always kind of trying to avoid the opportunities and not everything taking advantage of them it's going to be hard to ever have that advantage or to get ahead and yet vice versa if you're always the one saying i'm going to try and do something new and push myself and go in new directions i think that's a great example yeah that's huge uh um being able you know not able being willing to be uncommon being willing to stand criticism and rejection a lot of people succumb to the fear of rejection the fear of abandonment the fear of failure and that fear of failure is taught in school actually um you know if you you know you get a you you get them all right good job charlie you get them all wrong bad charlie after a while that socialization process is like you know you don't want to fail but guess what life failure is your friend especially as an entrepreneur you know do you know the average uh the average millionaire has fell for bankruptcy 3.5 times according to google damn she asked a lot you know after the first bankruptcy no never again life gives the test then teaches the lesson but if you never want to take the test and play it safe your comfort zone will become your casket you gotta step out no like i do like that comfort zone becoming the casket so well there's a whole lot more things that i think would be very fun to type into and we never have enough time on the podcast unfortunately but i always have the two questions and that i asked towards the end of the podcast we'll probably jump to those now so the first question i always ask is so what was the worst business decision you ever made wow the worst business decision that i that i've ever made was not having a a not having an adequate non-disclosure non-compete clause in place and some individuals yeah uh seized that opportunity and i was probably one or two payrolls away from going out of business yeah that sounds like it's a good lesson and i think the lesson to learn is make sure and i you know now that's a plug for attorneys but i don't that do very they're end the aids as often so it does not necessarily plug for me but is you know if i think that sometimes the lesson is so backing up entrepreneurs always think that they're the best at everything they know everything and they can always figure something out and yet for at least for me the the lesson a lot of times this is you know stick with where you're airing what you're good at what your expertise is expand out there but if there's someone else that can do a considerably better job and they have the expertise leverage their expertise reach out to them and make sure that they know um you know that you rely on them for those scenes to avoid some of the issues that are that may otherwise pop up yeah is it it's it's it's advice for entrepreneurs is you better build your team you know you cannot name a successful person a world changer without identifying his or her team you know sure we like bill gates but who's paul allen do some research you know you look at warren buffett but who's his partner charlie you know you well i love mick jagger well who's who's that quiet guy named keith richards they're sitting next to him and no one no one talks about no doubt okay richard's right you know it's crazy there's always teams like yeah mark it's like a burger great mark do you know how many people found it have founded facebook it wasn't just him it's like i don't know eight nine other people you know teams you always have to have teams and one of the most important people on your team as an entrepreneur of course you gotta have an amazing like cpa but that lawyer you know hey if you ever want to save your money for a rainy day you you know you know yes you you get the baddest him or her lawyer in the town and put that bad boy on retainer okay because just the name alone can save you deposition cost okay yeah yeah all right you already stole my second question which was the perfect interest is what would be the one piece of advice you'd give to startup and i think that was a perfect answer so i think that that's something we can learn too and i like the idea of a team because i i think that too often you get focused on the one individual that's typically in the limelight that gets all the notoriety that's a celebrity so to speak and yet there's so much of a team that makes that happen that works behind the background that makes that person look good and a lot almost like the quarterback quarterback always gets you know the everybody sees the quarterback if he throws the game-winning touchdown he's the one that gets it up vice versa if he misses if he messes up the game when he touched out he gets all you know he gets uh everybody gets mad at him but there's a team that goes towards that win and it's a lot of times where you focus on one individual there's a team behind it not only that how about this when you watch a football game i challenge anybody in your audience to honestly name the five starting offensive linemen on their favorite football team yeah listen listen listen we are there in plain sight we're right there and you don't even see us but if we don't perform nothing happens no i think that's very fair and i think and i think it's a good challenge i know one person that might be able to do it but aside from that i don't think most people could all right well as we wrap up um people want to whether it's use your security services hire the speak engagement look out for your book any other thing and all the everything in between what's the best way to connect up with you and find out more about you okay good news and good news here you can go to any search engine type in sean harper s-a-j-w-n-a-j-r-p-e-r or my website is seanharper.org okay but for your listeners i have a free ebook you can go to sean harper dot co sean harper dot co and you and i'll give you a free download on the winning edge um that was an it is a phenomenal book it's free it's yours now selfishly i need you to like my instagram right so sean harper speaker go to in there just follow me on instagram you will not be disappointed all right i'll follow you even if i didn't read your book but i appreciate and i'll definitely check out the book and encourage everybody to check that out as well so i appreciate that offer and that's a great way to connect up with you and find out more about your story well sean thank you again for coming on it's been a pleasure it's been fun to hear your journey i wish we had another hour or two to talk even more about it sometimes we might have to do a follow-up and hear how your journey continues on but thank you again for coming on thank you be blessed take care okay and for those of you that are have your own journey to tell make sure if you i would like to apply to be a podcast on the podcast you can go to inventivejourneydeafguest.com inventivejourneyguest.com make sure to subscribe to get notifications of all the new podcasts and lastly if we can help you at all um with the patented trademarks you're always here to help start us in small business thanks again sean and we'll have a have a good one all right take care you English (auto-generated) All Related From Miller IP Law Recently uploaded