Grand Slam Journey

47. Christian Ponder: Unraveling the Athlete's Mind - on NFL, Transition, and Building The Post

• Klara Jagosova • Season 2

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What does it take to be an NFL quarterback, and how does the journey shape the psyche of an athlete? In a riveting conversation with former NFL quarterback and current CEO of The Post, Christian Ponder, we explore answers to these compelling questions and more. We journey with Christian from his high school football days through college and his tenure in the NFL, dissecting the mental resilience, leadership requisites, and the impact of injuries on an athlete's performance.

Christian doesn't just stop at his time in the NFL. He takes us through his transition from professional sports, detailing the identity issues, the absence of structure, and the community void he experienced. This discussion leads us to the inception of The Post, an athlete community designed to address these very challenges. We delve into the ethos of the 'Athlete Operating System' and how a champion's mindset can significantly enhance success, not just in sports but in all walks of life.

We wrap up our enlightening chat by examining the core components of The Post: the community, coaching, teams, and clubhouses. Christian sheds light on his vision to replicate the locker room environment fostering vulnerability, ambition, and accountability. He underlines the significance of introspection and self-scouting as tools for success. If you are a former athlete seeking a community that understands your journey, this conversation promises to be an enlightening exploration. Join us to unravel the layers of an athlete's mind, the challenges athletes face, and the community that supports them through it all.

To learn more, visit: https://www.thepost.co/

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Klara:

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Grand Slam Journey podcast, where I, together with my guests, discuss various topics related to finding our passion and purpose, maximizing our potential sports, life after sports, and transitioning from one chapter of our lives to the next, growing our skills and leadership in whatever we decide to put our minds into. For my guest today area of entrepreneurship, by building community for athletes, by athletes. If you're someone following the NFL, my guest today needs little to no introduction. I bring you Christian Ponder. Christian Ponder is a former American football quarterback. He played for the Minnesota Vikings, Oakland Raiders, Denver Broncos, and San Francisco 49ers. He played college football at Florida State and was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings with the 12th overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. He started all 16 games and helped lead the team to a playoff in 2012, but also suffered several injuries.

Klara:

Christian and I talk about his journey to the NFL, including his early dreams of playing college football at Florida State and the importance of preparation, work ethic and take advantage of opportunities. Christian explains the demands of being a quarterback, including the mental preparation and leadership required. He discusses the pressure that comes with the position and how it requires a steady mindset. He also talks about the journey of becoming an NFL quarterback and the competitiveness of the position. We talk about the impact of injuries on our athletic performance and the frustration of not being able to control them, but highlighted the resilience and mindset that athletes develop through dealing with adversities. Christian talks about the importance of mental preparation in sports. He shares his insights on the mental side of sports and how it can make a difference in our athletic careers. He advises parents and young athletes to avoid specializing in one sport too early and to focus on self-improvement with a smart plan and choosing the right coaches. We didn't talk about his decision to retire from the NFL and his transition into finance. He shares the story of how we went from working in finance to developing an app for football players and eventually identifying the need for a community to help athletes transition out of sports, which led him to start the post.

Klara:

The post is a community created by former elite athletes Christian Ponder himself and made for elite former athletes. Christian shares his personal experience of transitioning out of professional sports and the challenges he faced and what prompted him to become the builder and creator of this community. He emphasizes the importance of community for athletes and how the post was created to provide a space for athletes to belong and support each other. He also highlights the unique skill sets that athletes possess and how they can be effective leaders in business. Christian describes the four pillars of athlete network and how they design the product around those pillars, and offers insights into the program curriculum, with focus on introspection and goal setting. And, last but not least, we dive into the motivation behind the post itself, emphasizing the need for a supportive network and a safe space to be vulnerable.

Klara:

Christian does a great job describing all it means to be an athlete. It is probably one of the best descriptions I have heard, and so I hope you enjoyed the listen. If you do enjoy it, please share it with someone you believe may enjoy it as well. Consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and don't forget to subscribe to not miss the next episode. And last but not least, I had some Zoom issues during the recording, and so I apologize for the lack of mic quality in the middle of the recording.

Klara:

And now I bring you Christian Ponder. Thank you for accepting my invitation to be a guest on Grain's Lamp Journey podcast. The podcast was started with a mindset of having exactly guests like you, who play professional or highly competitive sports and now transitioning to the next chapter of their lives and taking the lessons we have learned through the sports to our next, what I call the civilian second part of the life, and you're actually doing fantastic things now with the post. And so, before we dive to many things athletics and your new passion I want to give you the opportunity to please introduce yourself.

Christian:

My name is Christian Ponder. I am co-founder and CEO of the post, which we can talk about in a little bit, but before that I grew up outside of Dallas, texas, where football is pretty much a religion, and so growing up playing all sports, but football included, became my strength when I was in high school, which led me to go play quarterback at Florida State University, which is where both my parents went to school and my dad played football there as well and played for the great Bobby Bowden, which was a tremendous experience there and was drafted first round by the Minnesota Vikings. And so growing up in Texas, going to school in Florida and then going to live in Minnesota was a pretty eye-opening experience that first winter, but had a great time there. It's been six years in NFL, bounced around first four years in Minnesota, then to Oakland and Denver Broncos, in the Finch in San Francisco 49ers in 2016 and moved to New York City in August of 2017 to start the next chapter of my life, which was in finance. I was excited for the next chapter.

Christian:

I got my undergrad in finance, got my MBA and actually started a second master's while I was still playing at Florida State and my dad's in finance. So for me, that organic transition was to start there, and if I was going to be in finance, why not move to the financial cap of the world? So that's where we are today. I'm no longer in finance Again, I'm now at the post, building this from the ground up. I have three kids my wife, samantha, who works for ESPN, covers NFL and the Sunday NFL countdown show Sunday mornings, and my three kids. They've got two girls and one boy not your girl named Scout, a six year old boy named True and a five year old girl named Price. And so every day is an adventure. It's a lot of fun, especially raising the kids in Manhattan. So a lot of them on plate, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Klara:

Wow, fantastic, and I look forward to diving and do so many things with you. I was so excited and obviously reading about your background and I've never talked to a personal NFL player, so I'm so curious about football. Coming from the Czech Republic, soccer is the football. There we don't really have football and so it took a whole awakening of my American journey and I so love this sport now that if I ever was born a guy and I had athletic skills, there would be the sport I would love to play. So I'm curious about learning about your own journey and the sport.

Christian:

Especially for you to go from the Czech Republic to the Dallas Cowboy, like the world of Dallas Cowboys in Texas, where football is king. And so, yeah, it's funny because my sports journey really started early on, where I just was obsessed. I'm one of three brothers. I have two brothers, and older who's 18 months older than me and a younger brother who's actually about seven and a half years younger than me, and so my older brother and I were always just super competitive and so sports was our outlet, and especially with my dad, who played football, and my mom, who was an athlete her whole life, and so we were always watching sports on TV and then and that became our outlet. So, as a tall toddler having a baseball bat in my hand and played a lot of baseball, basketball, at one point I did a kids triathlon where we did all the race stuff, which I wasn't that excited for, or an anaerobic athlete, so to do long distance running and swimming and biking was not on my alley, but tried that, did soccer, did lacrosse, tried whatever my parents allowed me to do, did some hockey for a couple of seasons and obviously football became where really I excelled.

Christian:

It didn't happen early on, actually, the first year I played football. I hated it because I wanted to be the quarterback and now this was Pee Wee. Football is probably maybe seven or eight years old and you know, at that time the quarterback is usually the coach's son, which was the case for this team, and, and because I was probably a taller kid, they put me as a tight end, and at that age no one's throwing the football. So the tight end really was the sixth stop in the lineman and I hated it and so I quit halfway through the season and then didn't pick it up again until middle school and and really started off. I mean it was like the B string quarterback, then the backup A string quarterback and then the starting freshman quarterback for the freshman team and just kept climbing ladder and some things worked out my favor.

Christian:

But football was a great game. I mean it's talking about just the amount of work ethic that has to go in with the hard work, the preparation. But it's such a team sport. I mean having 11 guys that have to be on the same page for a play to be successful and really as a quarterback you learn the need to depend on and trust on your teammates, because if one other guy of the 11 on the team don't do their job, then, especially as a quarterback like you, could potentially pay for it, and so just really love the sport.

Christian:

Now it's been really cool to spend so much time as a player but now to be a fan and be on the other side of it, and it's funny. I hated fantasy football as a player because it created a weird dynamic between player and fan, like there was some sense of ownership. But now, as a fan, I love fantasy football because it keeps me engaged, and especially engaged in games that I would never watch casually, but still a big fan and yeah, it's the greatest sport. It was a great time to grow up and have the opportunity to play at a high level.

Klara:

Yeah, thank you for that. I'm actually a little bit more curious if you can go into the dynamic of quarterback because secretly, I was just such a high stakes position Like from my view. Obviously, I've never played football. It's where you help create the game and you talked about the teamwork and collaboration. But how do you get to that position? Because I'm guessing, as you a little bit mentioned, many people want to be quarterbacks, right? So it's definitely highly competitive. What does that journey look like to gain that role?

Christian:

Look, it's a lot of hard work, it's a lot of preparation, it's a lot of being able to handle high amounts of pressure. I think what initially drew me to being in that position was the amount of control that quarterbacks have in the game, and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but for me it was a good thing. I wanted the ball in my hand, I wanted to be a part of every play on offense, and it requires a certain level of intelligence and understanding of the game, because you have to know your plays but you have to know what the defense is doing, which that probably applies to every position. But for the quarterback, it probably requires the most amount of mental preparation and work. And, yeah, I just want to be in the mix, I wanted to have a say or element to every play, and so that's what initially drew me to it. And then, yeah, it's just so much work because it's working on the mental side of the game.

Christian:

The understanding of defense is in offensive schematics, but also the right throwing, motion and footwork, like tennis, obviously requires a lot of mechanics and being really on top of your fundamentals mechanically, and same thing with quarterback. And it was a tremendous leadership position. I learned from so much of my teammates and from my coaches and I enjoyed that being on my shoulders. But again, at times the pressure was a lot and the pressure was hard because, for good or bad, if you have a good game you're kind of the hero, if you have a bad game you're the villain. And it was very much a roller coaster ride and being quarterback required that steady keel of like you had to be in it mentally. You couldn't ride the roller coaster in the up and downs of a season or even a game, and so it's definitely a demanding and hard position, but I really loved being in that position and having an impact on the game, on every play.

Klara:

I'm curious also about your journey to NFL, because is it like 1% of people maybe at best make it? What are the steps through, obviously starting very early, to then high school, college and being drafted. What does it mean and what are some of the key aspects that, as you look back, that really helped you get to the NFL quality of the game.

Christian:

I was having a conversation earlier with a national lacrosse league player who's on our team at the post this idea that preparation builds confidence. And so, regardless of what level of football I was in I mean especially the quarterback preparation mattered, work ethic mattered, the effort that you put in mattered. And so as a kid, actually I never had dreams of playing in the NFL. My dreams were to play college football at Florida State, and so that's what I wanted to work towards. And it probably wasn't until my freshman, probably my sophomore year of high school, where I thought, ok, there were some signs that I was good enough to actually go do that and then got the full scholarship offer to go play at Florida State after my junior season, the summer between my junior year, my senior year in high school. But every journey it starts anew, right when I stepped on campus at Florida State as first being kind of the big man on campus at high school to being like the fifth string quarterback in college and really having a not so good first year even as a fifth string guy, not practicing well and just being really down on myself. And then it was really about luck. I mean, our offensive coaching staff was let go after my freshman year and a new coaching staff came in and my offense coordinator and quarterback coach. His name's Jimbo Fisher, who's now the head coach at Texas A&M and became the head coach at Florida State after I had left, or actually my senior year, and then won a national championship at Florida State after I left and just really built a good relationship with him and learned a ton. I think his coaching style fit me really well as a player, and so some of it was luck, but it was taking advantage of the opportunity that I was given and making sure that I worked my butt off and at least put in every effort I could to fulfill the dream of now being at Florida State, but now potentially being able to be a starter, and then, once you become a starter, right. So now you have to prove yourself to stay in that position. You have to prove yourself to be an NFL quality player, and I remember some good games or like OK, maybe I can play in the NFL my first year and then my second year having an extraordinary year where I thought, ok, I can go be a first round draft pick, which I probably would have left early to go to the draft. I had a shoulder injury that ended my season after the ninth game and couldn't finish that season. So I actually came back for my senior and had an OK season and then was drafted first round as the 12th overall pick with the Vikings and again it was like OK, now the journey starts anew. It's like now you have to go prove yourself at this level, and it was an interesting year for me.

Christian:

We had a lockout season, so traditionally when someone's drafted in the NFL you really go with that team. You start offseason training workouts with the team for two months April, may, part of June and then you kind of take a break and then you come back in July to start training camp to get ready for the season. Well, for us, because there was a lockout, we had none of that, and so my first experiences with the team didn't start until training camp, and so the learning curve was a lot steeper. But got to start. However many games 20-something games in the NFL, which was such a tremendous opportunity. I wish I would have played better than I did. I think my confidence level was always negatively impacted after my injury. I just never felt like I was the same player after I hurt my shoulder in college but just had a tremendous experience and I had a lot of fond memories of playing in the NFL.

Klara:

Are there any specific moments, christian, that really stands out to you, that you want to highlight your personal career, and it could be actually even college or some of the games that you really still remember?

Christian:

Well, it's funny. I don't know how you are as an athlete the ones that I tend to remember are usually the bad games. I think about the mistakes that I made or the ones that gosh, if I would have not thrown that interceptor and made that mistake, we would have won that game, which would have got us to the championship game or whatever. So those are the memories that stick out to me, but definitely a lot of memories that I'm proud of. I mean, when I was in college we had the first 10-win season in about a decade.

Christian:

My senior year we beat the University of Florida for the first time in like seven years or something, which was a big deal for us. I mean that's our big in-state rival In Minnesota. We made the playoffs my second year and we beat Green Bay Packers, which was our big rival in Minnesota for the first time in a while, and I went head to head with Aaron Rodgers and was able to win the last year of the year to make the playoffs, which I was tremendously proud of. But definitely a lot of great memories back even high school and obviously college in NFL, and a lot to be proud of.

Klara:

One other thing I wanted to ask, given looking at your past and you mentioned injuries I feel like that's such a big part of sport. I've gone through many injuries myself and it is so hard to deal with when you're playing the game and really the whole future depends on your physical ability to perform. You mentioned you had a shoulder issue already in college. What has the journey been like? Even in NFL, it seems like you've suffered through a number of injuries and I was like in football, is it just another thing? If I saw some of the big guys chasing me, I would turn around and run the other way, because it's just amazing the power and speed and obviously mass volume they're able to generate. So how do you deal with that mindset of knowing that you need to stay healthy but playing 100% and then dealing with injuries overall?

Christian:

When you're in the moment, when you're in the game is that like you're ever thinking about? I'm sure you were the same way in tennis, like you just wanted to win, you did everything you could to win. There wasn't anything about self-preservation in the moment and the heat of battle. So everything took place before and after and I think there was a lot to the maintenance and the rehab and everything. And I think what was always frustrating I think back to my career and you probably the same with double injuries is like it's really challenging and frustrating to have injuries that hold you back, where you can never be 100% and you're only playing at 70%, 75%, and so the good thing is it is an equalizer. Every athlete deals with that and that's a part of sport, and I think there's a resilience and a mindset that needs to develop through dealing with those adversities and that's just a part of the game.

Christian:

But it can be very difficult and you just try your best that if you are injured like you get as much rehab and treatment as you can, and then you try to do all the things in between, when you're not heard, to better prepare your body. And it's funny because we make so much of those investments as athletes and like we should be doing the same thing as business people, right? Whether it's taking care of our minds and less our bodies, but even our bodies, because so much of our nutrition and how we work out and take care of our bodies has an impact on our performance when it comes to time and in the workspace. But as an athlete, for sure, it was obviously such a tangible thing to make sure that we were taken care of. But it was definitely. It was frustrating at times. I mean, it brought your performance level down and you just had to find creative ways to try to navigate not playing to your best, but it was definitely frustrating.

Klara:

I wanted to tie up a little bit on the interviews as well, because I feel specifically in the past it was so hard for me to stay positive through that, so it was the safest for everyone to be far away. I was like I'm injured, don't even talk to me. Once. I recover, I'll be a way better person. So true have you found any trick how to be patient with that process of recovery.

Christian:

I don't, because you know, what's so frustrating from an athlete's standpoint is we're always talking like control, you can control and you couldn't control the injuries right, it was so frustrating and because it also had a clear negative impact on your performance. It was hard and so that's you know. I think some of the best athletes look it's the part of sport and they conquer the mental side of it. I mean, as you know, like especially tennis, was it the mental game of tennis or whatever that book is that everyone talks about? Tom Brady was the one that said like helped him in his career.

Christian:

I think people always, especially from football, always focus on the physical side of the game. But I think you know, across the board, talent only gets you so far. It's really the mental side of the game that makes the best. I mean I think about Tiger Woods, I think about Derek Jeter, I think about Peyton Manning and Tom Brady to the world, serena Williams. Like they conquer the mental side of it and whether that's dealing with injuries or any sort of adversity throughout game or a season, like they get the better of it or at least they're better than their opponent at making sure that they're sharp in the mental side, and so every athlete. And again, even this goes well. It goes well beyond sport conquering or mastering that mental side. It goes a lot farther, I think, than the physical side, at least at a certain level, when you get to certain tier.

Klara:

Yeah, 100%. Maybe before we go to your new adventure, the post, one more question because many people listening perhaps have kids who aspire to be football players. Any tips to parents or anybody who may be young and listening, wanting to be quality at level a football player or perhaps aspiring to make it to NFL?

Christian:

Yeah.

Klara:

What would you share with them?

Christian:

Speaking to parents, or even like young kids first of all, don't specialize in the sport. The environment of youth sports is so different than when I grew up. People are specializing in a very early age of picking one sport and sticking to it, and I think there's a lot of data around mental fatigue and hitting walls when you focus on one sport, and there's also a lot of data around the deterioration of certain ligaments and muscles because they're so focused on one sport. And there's a lot of data on the importance for our bodies and our mental the mental side of the game of playing a lot of different sports and the long term development is a lot better for you. And then, obviously, as things get clear as you get to older age, ok, maybe picking one or two sports in high school makes more sense, any sport, whether it's football or tennis or baseball or whatever.

Christian:

Again, I think it goes back to this idea of preparation right Work ethic helps a lot. And so if you can work hard and you can work hard with a plan, right, I think being smart in how you work, so I identifying the things that you need to improve upon, I think you're the best. Athletes always were so good at self scouting. What am I doing well? But, more importantly, what am I not doing well and how do I make a specific intentional plan to pour more investment of my time and effort to improve in the skill set that I'm not good at, and how do I identify the right coaches that will help me in those areas that I need to improve? It's not that hard right. It just takes effort, and that'll get you a lot farther than other people.

Klara:

Love it. Speaking about effort, you've put a lot of effort into your NFL career and then you decided to retire in 2016. I'm always curious what that process, or decision process, even is, and that transition you mentioned. You wanted to move into finance and move towards New York, which didn't actually end up being the plan fully, it seems like. So Tell me a little bit about that and your path to starting the post.

Christian:

Yeah, my last year, so finished in San Francisco in 2016. I think I probably would have kept playing with the 49ers. There was a coaching change and didn't have the opportunity to keep playing. But I did have offers from two other teams in different cities, and at that point my oldest child was one over one at the time, my second was on the way and I just decided I didn't want to uproot my family every year and kind of be that consummate journeyman football player, and so for me it was a clear sign that it was time to move on to the next thing and, as I mentioned earlier, I was actually excited about the next chapter of my life. You know, on paper it seemingly added together, but that still didn't make that transition easier. I mean, it was great to move to New York City and be a part of this environment where there's so much energy in the city and there's so much going on, but it still didn't make that transition less difficult.

Christian:

I think there are a lot of things that athletes deal with as they transition out that are really rooted in kind of identity issues, right, like we've been an athlete for so long. It's who we are and we get a sense of purpose around that and suddenly that sense of purpose is gone. But there's also a lot around routines, right, like our whole days were structured around our sport and where we needed to be and what we need to do, and often we were told by someone else where we needed to be and the things that we needed to do, and so not having that structure around our lives was difficult. But what I realized more important than anything, the biggest impact I had was the lack of community. Right, I've been on teams and in locker rooms surrounded by athletes since I was little, and athletes are my tribe, like that's my community. Those are people I get along with best, who I have most in common with, and for the first time in my life, I was now removed from that community and I was trying to navigate all these other issues by myself. And so, as I started to fill that void of not being on a team or in a locker room or part of something anymore, I started to look for things that would fill that void, and so I joined other communities in New York City, something like SoHo House and I looked at some other clubs. There's a place called Core Club. I looked at more professional networks like EO or YPO and some of these things on the business side, and all are tremendous organizations that provide a lot of value to their members. They just didn't fill that void for me. They weren't filled with athletes, and what's unique to athletes is the skill sets that define athletes.

Christian:

We at the post we call it the AOS, the athlete operating system, right Like iOS and Apple. And the AOS is really about that mindset that athletes have. It's dealing with that adversity, right. That perseverance, that grit, that competitiveness, the work ethic, the grittiness, the ambition. It's not unique to athlete, but it defines athlete and that AOS doesn't. That mindset doesn't disappear just because we're done playing. It's with us for the rest of our lives.

Christian:

And when we were on teams and in those environments, we were positively impacted by being around people that shared that same mindset, and so I missed being a part of that group and then making me better because being in those groups may be better.

Christian:

And so when I realized that being a part of these other groups weren't scratching that same itch that being a part of the athlete community did, we decided to go build it and so we started studying a lot of these community-based businesses, whether it was chief or YPO or so House and took a lot of what worked well at these other places but tailored it to athletes.

Christian:

And what started originally off as a space just to give athletes a place to blog now has evolved into this idea that athletes make tremendous leaders.

Christian:

I mean, the skill sets that made you a great athlete are the exact same skill sets that make you a really effective leader in business. And if you look at the data, I mean people who've played NCAA sport only make up 1.5% of the US population, but they account for 52% of women in a C-suite today they account for 15 of the last 21 US presidents. They account for an outsized number of Fortune 500 CEOs, and so there's a pretty massive disparity between athletes and non-athletes. And it's because of that mindset and because of the things that we went through as athletes that transitioned so well to business. So the post was once started as just a community for athletes. Now has evolved to because of its exclusivity to athletes, to building this really powerful and effective and dynamic and diverse leadership network exclusive to there's so many athletes doing tremendous things across all industries and leadership positions and how we bring them together around that athlete identity to build this space of athletes, helping athletes, just like we did when we were playing.

Klara:

I love that and that definitely something that attracted me to have a conversation with you, Cause when you started the post I was like, oh my gosh, that's such a great idea and personally I resonate even any corporate drop that I've had if I meet another athlete. I don't know why, but there was some sort of natural connection, Like it's really hard to explain, but it's just this feeling like oh, you get it, Like you know what.

Klara:

The amount of time and effort and perseverance that goes into it and it's really hard to explain it In words. Maybe you Christian, since you're doing the post. How would you explain to people what it's about and the post community that you're creating?

Christian:

I think that connection that you talk about, I think, look, athletes are unique, athletes are different, and I think it's the things that we put our bodies through and I think there's a mutual respect. But I also, you know, it goes back to like behavioral science, right, we feel more connected to people that remind us of ourselves and if we look at athletes that have played at really high levels, I mean there's so much in common, that shared life experience, the shared interest system, the shared value system that creates so much opportunity to connect because of that commonality. And for us, communities are built on commonality with boundaries, and so building boundaries of this community around that identity and that mindset and that experience of athletes who've played NCAA or Olympic or professional sports, and so how do we bring them in one community? That's like the baseline of where we start. But then, on top of that, how do we?

Christian:

The solid idea is, how do we recreate that team sport environment ecosystem we had when we were on teams, where you had your teammates, right, you had your peers that were there to push you to be your best but also pick you up when things weren't going so well. But you also had your coaches and you had trainings and resources that were all built around unlocking more of your athletic potential. So how do we recreate that same type of environment with the same type of people with all of that business potential because of what sport developed in them? Giving them teammates, other members at the post who are there to push you and support you when things aren't going well. Give you coaches, give you resources, whatever you need to unlock more of that potential right, the continued learning, the investment in skill sets that continue to improve as professionals.

Christian:

That's really what it's about. It's a tremendously fun group, just like when you were competing with other athletes, like it was such a fun group to be a part of. And so we compete a little bit. We did an event at Penel House not too long ago where we got out to compete. We've done pickleball. We're gonna do a big summit in October where we're gonna introduce a summit cup where we're gonna compete, in which you're gonna have a leg up of people who are competing in a tennis tournament, a pickleball tournament, a golf tournament. Because we're athletes, we still love to compete and that's fun for us and it's a tremendously fun group to be a part of, but also getting that support, that same support that we had when we played is a really important part of being a member at the post.

Klara:

I wanna go a little bit back to still your initial, I guess, ignition of this idea. And how did it come about? Because it cannot be that easy. You were on a path to working finance. There must have been some point in time where you realized this is what I need to do now, and why. So can you walk me through that a little bit? Was there an instance or something that really triggered this passion of starting the post?

Christian:

Yeah, there was. So when I kind of bounced around finance, I got introduced to venture capital and entrepreneurship and started kind of putting my entrepreneurial hat on, and originally I was building this app. It was like an interactive learning app for football players to study their playbooks, and so I was kind of designing and building this app. If you know of Duolingo, the language app, it was kind of like how do we gamify that learning for studying playbooks? And so I was building this kind of hit a crossroads where I was either gonna have to raise money or keep putting my own money into the development app and decided it's such a niche product it's gonna be really hard to raise money, and I just didn't wanna continue to put my own money into it. But got introduced to this entrepreneurship group called Praxis and they Praxis really talks about this idea of creating purposeful businesses, so businesses that go beyond just the bottom line. How do we just make a profit? But no, how do we have a positive impact in the world? And so I started thinking about, well, if I was still building this app, what would be a positive impact that I could make that goes beyond just helping guys study their playbook? And I started thinking about the feelings that I had around, obviously, the transition for athletes, and so I started thinking about, okay, how do we better prepare athletes to transition out of sports? And so I started studying this problem more with my own feelings, but also looking at other resources that were out there, and really identify those four pillars right the identity issues, the purpose issues, the routine and structure issues and the community issues and started designing this product around that and really felt like the community issue was a good starting point. So, going back to how I was trying to fill this void, I was sitting in Soho house one day, feeling super out of place there, and that's where it dawned on me like what if we built a space similar to Soho house but it was full of athletes? Right, like it was all the people that I was longing to be with again. And so that's where it started. Okay, there's these examples of communities like Soho house or like YPO or chief that are out there and let's start doing some due diligence on them. And what could this look like for being brought into life for athletes?

Christian:

Had a great thought partner and friend named Ryan Darnell, who runs an early stage venture fund called Max Ventures in the city who I started telling him about this idea and I didn't know at the time, but he was a collegiate baseball player, a baseball male, tennessee state and so he started telling me like man, I really love this idea, I would love to be a thought partner and help you validate this idea. Got a lot of validation with him as a thought partner and so then he helped me bring the business to life and brought on my co-founders. His name is Jason the Rose. Jason was the president of Under Armour for handful of years and then went to Equinox gyms and launched their digital fitness product called Equinox Plus and then came on board to help me and now we're a team of eight. We launched in April over 200 members across the US. We're opening our first physical club house like that Soho house element in New York city next month actually in September. But yeah, that's how it all started.

Klara:

Yeah, thank you, and it seems like you're doing fantastic. You mentioned over 200 members and I'm kind of tracking the application. I actually have to admit I did apply, so hopefully to have a chance to join at some point, but it seems like we have more people applying than you have a space for currently as you're creating this community and structuring all the programs.

Christian:

Yeah. So we've had almost 1500 people apply. So, as we think about who's in the post, someone on one you had to be at least an NCAA athlete and we really care about three things, two of them being the qualifiers. The first qualification is you had to be an NCAA athlete and we weigh your athletic resume with your business resume. So if you've been a 10-year professional athlete and you see, in the business side of sport, you're bringing, through your experience, something to the table, to the network, to provide out of your experience and your expertise. If you were a lesser accomplished athlete, if you were a division three third string water polo goalie, then you better have a tremendous business resume because you need to bring your experience and your expertise to the network, to, because being a part of networks is a two-way street, right, our members need to contribute something to the network so that every member can extract value out of the network. So that's everything about it. And then the third thing is character. Right, we just want really high quality people in the space. So we've had a ton of applicants. We launched in April with 100 members. We've been intentional about the types of people that we want in early on and creating the right culture within the post.

Christian:

If you look at our demographics of the post, so we're 74% of our members at the VP level above in business. 30% of our members played professional Olympic sports. We have a bunch of C-level people, including the chief e-commerce officer at Dick's Sport and Goods. We just had the global CEO of a global ad agency join. We have people who are managing directors of private equity businesses and venture capital businesses or commercial real estate. So a lot of again. There's so many athletes former athletes that are doing tremendously well in business across all types of industries. And again, how do we bring them into one roof to get this idea of athletes helping athletes? And they're all across the country. Only 40% of them are in New York City, 60% of them are outside of New York City. So how do we bring them together as much as we can, whether it's in the clubhouse or at an event or our summit, our conference down in Florida in October, or try to do more regional events.

Christian:

But one core thing that we do is we put everyone on teams. So this was as we studied YPO and as we studied chief, which is a really tremendously successful women's network. They put people in cohorts and those cohorts are based off of eight to 10 individuals, based off of work experience and job title and life experience and really surrounding people with this idea of having a personal board of advisors that you lean into from a professional standpoint or even a personal standpoint. And YPO calls them forums, chief calls them core groups, we call them teams. So everyone gets assigned to a team where they meet on a monthly basis and we've already seen the power and value of those teams, provide so many examples to talk about, even from just launching in April. So it's again how do you surround yourself with people who will push you and support you at the same time?

Klara:

Yeah, I love that and it's definitely a concept that I've taken on from athletics and now as I interviewing former athletes of all different kinds. The support system is so important to thrive. We can't achieve things alone and I would say you only as good and people say right. Studies say that you're only as good as the people you surround yourself with, because they help lift you up. And so the better people you have around you, the more inspiration you have to elevate your game, whether it's actually in the field or in the field of corporate world or entrepreneurship.

Christian:

I love that so true.

Klara:

Anything you want to talk about. I know it has four components as I was studying your website the community we talked about a lot, coaching team and the clubhouses the four pillars that you're looking at. Anything you want to add to it? Christian or that people should know?

Christian:

about those four pillars are again how do we recreate that environment that we have when we play? When it comes down to having the network, your team, those resources and coaching, having that space, that clubhouse, the physical space to belong to, and having experiences and access to the right experiences that build connections between members. And it's about having that space right. That locker room, I think, was so valuable to athletes because it was this safe space where I can be who I am and I can open up and be vulnerable and ask for help when I needed help, but also tap into that competitiveness and that ambition that other athletes have. It's about supporting when things aren't going well, but it's also, more often than not, it's about trying to keep up with those people who are super competitive, who are pulling you along and you're all trying to pursue being the best at whatever it is, whether it was sports or now it's business and, I think, just being a part of that palpable energy, that contagious energy that we once had as athletes. And, like you said, we're so influenced by the people we surround ourselves with and I think, specifically, the number is like five, the five people you surround yourself with. And why not surround yourself with five people who are defined by their work ethic and their ambition and their competitiveness and their humility.

Christian:

I think that's something that athletes have right. And the other thing is introspection. I talked about it earlier, about self-scouting. One of the least talked about things that athletes are really good at is introspection Identifying things that are going well but, more importantly, things that aren't going well, and how do we continue to do that throughout the rest of our lives and different verticals other than just performance on the field, but performance in work or performance as home, as a spouse or a parent. And we should always be running a self-scout and having a lot of introspection and self-awareness, because that is, I think, the key to growth and performance in any part of your life.

Klara:

Question. This is somewhat personal, that I think it's on point here Because I've gone through this journey. I think, especially as you mentioned, when you quit your sport, you're going through a big identity crisis and you actually it hasn't been that long since you've gone through that change. How much of this is actually feeling, given your own personal passion for having that locker room and recreating that locker room at From NFL in the real life?

Christian:

It's 100% what I mean. I always say this as we talk to members, whatever Like, I am building this for myself because I want it to be around athletes and thank goodness it's other people feel the same right that it's resonated with other people and they're joining as members. But that was all motivation to all of us. If you would have built this years ago, I would have been a member a long time ago and I wouldn't have had to build it because it would have already existed. It's a fun opportunity for me to be on the side of building it, but I fully participate as a member.

Christian:

I've put myself going back to the teams, right, the cohorts that we have. I've put myself on a team. I fully participate in events and compete and so I kind of play both sides of the coin as being a part of the post in two different ways, but it's 100%. I mean it's 100% the motivation of why this exists. It definitely fills that void for me to be a part of of the athlete community again that I was so desperately missing after leaving football.

Klara:

And one more question. Maybe it could be a tip for your curriculum that you have coaching, or maybe it already is, but from my own experience being in a corporate world for about 15 years as athletes you mentioned it beautifully we have this introspection and ability to look at the reality with clarity and we're not afraid to voice that reality, no matter how harsh it can be sometimes.

Klara:

But there's one thing to see, that to communicate that to other athletes, versus how you communicate that to the other people in the corporate world or even in your business that are in the athletes. I wonder if you have any lessons around that or mentorship as part of your program.

Christian:

It's a good question, and you're not the first person to ask that question. I think a lot of athletes have a hard time around. I think, exactly, we have an inherent self accountability right, hold ourselves accountable at a very high level, and a lot of other people don't have that same high level self accountability, and a lot of people have a hard time navigating the disparity between ourselves and others, and so I don't I don't have good advice. I think that's something we'll continue to talk about and solve together as a community on how do we get better there. A big part of our curriculum.

Christian:

We teamed up with a group out of UVA called Motivate Labs, a group of professors that study the science of motivation and specifically in sports, and so, with the help of their research, we've designed our own experience around that introspection. And how do I run a self scout and identify the things that I can improve, and then how do I come up with a clear mapping of my goals that'll help me achieve the things that I know I need to improve on, and then how do I verbalize those to my teammates, who then can hold me to that level of accountability to make sure that I'm achieving those things and to rely on them as they try to help me. We call them wins and we call them assists. Right, how do I assist my teammate to help them get a win? And so we've already seen so many people coming together around that idea.

Christian:

But, yeah, it's, it's some things that we need to solve, and I think that's why we've heard a lot of our members like, hey, we want to hire more athletes because of those things that you talk about, that they bring to the table, that accountability and that work ethic and those things. But yeah, there are some things that we still have to navigate and we'll talk about it. Those will be fun conversations to have within the community on how do we get better in those areas, as we talk to our peers at work who may not have that same level of accountability that we have. That's inherent to us as athletes.

Klara:

Yes, it's definitely has been a learning journey for me, especially early on. So you really have to sometimes put a break on and let others figure their own things out. But yes, it's always fun conversation.

Christian:

For sure.

Klara:

Last few questions call to action. Christian, it seems like you actually do not have problems recruiting people. There is more demand that you can satisfy for, but any message regarding the posts you want to get out or supports that you may be looking for as the next step.

Christian:

We always want people to apply to join. So if you're a former NCAA or collegiate professional Olympic athlete, apply at wwwthepostco Is our website. Yes, we've had that many applied, but we're trying to sort through them as fast as possible and identify who's in early on or who we're going to wait a few months to let in. It's definitely not capacity limit. The good thing is, because there's so many people across the country, it's not necessarily a limited factor for us right now. So we're just trying to work through those applications as quick as we can. But for us, if you're a former athlete, apply, and that's how we continue to grow. We want great athletes, great people involved and people who obviously want to be a part of this community but also want to contribute to this community in a positive way and be a part of that that athletes helping athletes ecosystem that we had before.

Klara:

One more question. Given all that's going on in the world now, I think there's lots including. I don't have to name things right. From economies to power struggles worldwide. What would you want to inspire people to be doing more for life? Self.

Christian:

I think, especially in today's environment of social media, I think we have a tendency to talk more than we listen.

Christian:

I think it's really easy for us to separate and almost teach human either the people in the sense that the person on the other screen isn't like a human being with feelings and thoughts, and we have so much more in common than I think a lot of us have now been convinced of. And I just think, if we start there that this person is more like me than I think I've been convinced, it would help a long way. And I think, if we just listen, things are pretty harsh these days and can be so negative, and I think that's one of the great things about sports, right, it's one of the ultimate unifiers where, no matter your background, no matter what you look like, no matter what you believe in sport, regardless of whether it's in the locker room or it's the fans in the stands has brought in so many different types of people together, and it doesn't have to be sports that unites everyone. It can go far beyond that Because, again, we have so much more in common than people realize. And so, yeah, that's what I would say.

Klara:

I love that. It seems like actually what you're building and is exactly that. One thing that came into mind, as you were describing, was this inner excitement and enthusiasm and I was thinking about replicating my athletic room of all the different athletes in college that come from different backgrounds and have different skills, from sprinters to marathon runners to baseball, softball, tennis players, and you just get such an amazing mix of cultures and we all come from different backgrounds and have different opinions, but the focus to excel at whatever we do always united us and you were able to learn from each other, so it seems like that's exactly what you're creating and post.

Christian:

So yeah, that was really well said. It's 100% true. When you look at a team or a locker room, I mean, there's just so many different types of people and there's so much value there, so much value bringing different types of perspectives and life experiences together. In a world where we're trying to separate and segregate different types of people, like no, we should be doing the opposite. How we continue to bring people together, cause that's how we learn and we grow, and we do dance as a culture. So we're trying to do our small part in the sports community.

Klara:

Love it and cheering for you. Hopefully we'll have an opportunity to join at some future point.

Christian:

Definitely.

Klara:

So anyone who wants to reach out to you and learn more about the post, what's the best way?

Christian:

Probably LinkedIn is the easiest. You can find me on LinkedIn and we can connect there and that's how we got connected, so that's probably the easiest.

Klara:

Excellent, and I'll add the website and your LinkedIn profile to the episode notes so they can easily look you up. One more call out to Christian, and please feel free to reach out back to me if I'm wrong on this. I appreciate it. What stood out to me from this conversation is your ability to recreate the quarterback position in a real life. You're actually creating something that you can control and, at the same time, you're participating in. It seems to be the exact definition of quarterback that you describe. If you enjoyed this episode, I want to ask you to please do two things that would help me greatly. One, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, spotify or any other podcasting platform that you use to listen to this episode. Two, please share this podcast with a friend who you believe might enjoy it as well. It is a great way to remind someone you care about them by sharing a conversation they might be interested in. Thank you for listening.