Turned a Brain Injury Into a Business Helping Others - With Andrew Sendejo

Former Minnesota Vikings safety Andrew Sendejo has translated what he learned in the NFL into a successful brain health supplement business BrainTree Nutrition.  For anyone who follows football, you know the risks of head injuries faced by players, so this seems like the perfect transition.   We unpack how it all happened and what Andrew has learned as an investor, entrepreneur, and early-stage startup coach.

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Transcript

I was the reoccurring theme throughout my career was like, once I got a little bit and I realized oh, that wasn't enough. And I needed more. I needed more. Turned into this drug in a sense where I went to a tryout and then I was like, man, I'm better than these guys. Like tryout is not good.

Welcome to the entrepreneur podcast filled with marketing and leadership tips on launching and growing your business with your host, Deanne Mora.

Today on the podcast, I'm happy to welcome former Minnesota Viking safety, Andrew Sandejo. Andrew has translated what he learned in the NFL into a successful brain health supplement business, brain tree nutrition. But for anyone who follows football, the risks of head injuries to players. So this seems like the perfect transition.

We're about to unpack how it all happened and what Andrew has learned as an investor, entrepreneur, and an early stage startup coach, Andrew, welcome to the podcast. Hey, how are you? Thanks for having me. Great. Love your background, by the way. Very cool. For those of you who are listening, Andrew is has a beautiful living wall behind him with supplements.

So I'm sure we'll learn more about that, but let's start with your backstory. I know that your sports history didn't start with football. What brought you into sports? Always have been into exercise fitness. I think even from a young kid, my parents probably knew that, I was going to be an athlete of some sort.

Or just always. Asking for training equipment or asking my parents to, Hey, like I need you to mark off a mile in the neighborhood so I can time myself in the mile or I asked my dad to build me a pull up bar. I needed a soccer goal or, I was always just demanding all these different kind of ridiculous items I needed to train.

And I was a soccer player growing up. I try to play every sport, but soccer and football overlapped. In Texas so I wasn't able to actually play football until I got to middle school where I could play for the school and then I could go play club soccer after that. And growing up in South Texas, you naturally don't have a choice but to at least try out for football or go out to a practice at least at one point.

And I'd always been eager. I was always an aggressive soccer player, aggressive basketball player. I was in competitive martial arts, was also aggressive there. And so it intrigued me. So got roped into football and probably since seventh grade on football just took over my entire life.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where I grew up, I went to your typical Friday Night Lights type high school, where you know, out in Texas, big 5A football. The whole city's there, big crowds. When you're growing up watching these guys play, they're like rock stars and you idolize these guys.

And I just, I think at that point, once I got into high school, I realized That was my way out, to get to having a full scholarship to pay for college, to get to a, prestigious university like Rice University and to, change my life and, the future for myself.

And so football, yeah, just took over from early age and that's how, I got to where I'm at now, if you like, I can keep going on. I can talk about football all day. I can go all the way to college, the NFL, to everything. Let's talk about like key transition. So when you went from like from high school to playing college ball, what was, obviously you were at a, it sounds like you were at a big high school, but what was that like that transition of football becoming now it's, you've got a little taste of it potentially being a future career.

So I think, for me, it was. I was really focused more on the academics. I was like, okay, if I can get a full scholarship, I can pay for school, like I really, I want to go to a good school. And in Texas, they, I don't know if they still have this rule, but if you're in the top 10 percent of your class, you could automatically get admitted into any public school in Texas.

So that was my first, checkbox was, Hey, I need to be in the top 10 percent of my class so that I can at least get into these schools. I definitely can't afford them. So that was like the next step after that was like, okay, now let's get a scholarship. And so that was my whole focus all throughout high school was like, make the grades, play good ball, get a scholarship.

That was literally all I cared about, and I was just thankful that. Yeah. My, my mom was very adamant about that and making sure she spoke with the counselor and didn't let me do, the senior slide where you take a bunch of easy classes. So I still had some AP classes and in my senior year, but, going into college, I was.

I think I wasn't even sure that I was, yeah, I was only two star recruit. So I wasn't even sure that going to a division one, a school was within my reach. I figured I would probably go to a division two, one double a type school, I'll bring that back later as far as being confident, but the transition, going to a smaller private school, although it was division one, a.

The crowds at our rice games were not very large. They were like just barely larger than my high school games. And so I think I was already used to playing several games, most high school seasons are 10 games. I was used to playing. 14, 15, 16 games. Cause we would go pretty far in the playoffs as a high school team.

So going to college and, playing later into the year and playing in bowl games, I was used to playing all the way through December so I was I was ready for that, but obviously you go in as a true freshman. I ended up starting as a true freshman and I'm playing against, grown men.

And so it was a very terrifying right away. And then you start to realize that you are, even though you're younger, that you still, you can still play with all the upperclassmen and all the seniors and the guys that are about to go to the NFL. And that kind of just gives you more confidence, the more that you're out there.

So what, I know when we were talking earlier, the idea of mental focus and how you have to put yourself in the right mindset. So you're out there and some of the difference in the size of, sometimes it's between. Teams. There's, a lot of guys out there in the field that are like refrigerators.

And then you're coming in as a true freshman. What sort of preparation do you have to do for a game at that stage in your career? Gosh, just hope and pray. And just please don't kill me today. Basically, I think I compare NFL and it's just night and day different because. your first year of college, especially your first semester, not only is football season in the fall, but it's your first full semester as a college student.

So you're taking in all that all at once. And I know for sure I was overwhelmed and I, Even at a point where I was like, I cannot wait to just graduate and get a good job and start making money. Like it just didn't really care about all the stressors and everything. It was just a lot.

I think once I got in the routine, figured out school in a sense of my time management and just like how to manage class and how to, utilize the resources we had as far as tutors and relying on upperclassmen and things like that. First semester was really rough.

But was able to adjust after that and get used to it. But it was just, it was a lot all at once for sure. I can see that. Cause it's a lot, I don't know that everyone really appreciates like, when kids go off to college, my, my daughter's got just she's got a couple of years in.

So I went through that experience recently, when kids go off to college, it's a big, Change because they're for a lot of them. They're moving away from home for the first time. They're, living in a completely different environment that like forget football that in and of itself is a massive life change.

And then I can imagine just the demands of college football and you know the time demands and then you're still trying to do well in school. There's a that's a lot to have on. On the plate of a young man at that point, I'll tell you, I did not do well in my first semester in school. And so that in the whole rest of my, academic career was just trying to, play catch up.

And once it got figured out, I didn't fail, obviously, you have to pass a play, but I wasn't doing as well as what I'd hoped. And it was just there was just a lot on the plate. And I think to, not only being a freshman adjusting to the schedule of football, the schedule of class, but then also being a starter.

So it wasn't like I was just on the team and having to do all those, like I also was having to play and the pressure of performing as a true freshman. So all that all wrapped into once was. I don't even, I don't think, I think I was too young to even realize man, this is a lot to manage.

I was just like, back and you were like, how the heck did I survive all that? I didn't even know what stress was. I was just out there, hoping okay, like I have to, I just kept it really in these kind of short stints of focus okay. Like just get through what we have today.

Like I have to get through this, earth science one on one class, and then we'll work on, the next, You do that with quarters and games, Hey, let's just focus on this play this series, this quarter, and then you can go from there as opposed to man, I have this class and then I got to get to this workout and then I have practice.

And then I have that paper tonight. You start to overwhelm yourself. It's just keeping it in these short little sprints of okay, like I'm just going to crush this. And then repeat it and repeat it. And, it's funny because later in my career in the NFL, we had one of these ultra marathon type guys.

That's ran like a hundred marathons in a hundred days or just something insane. Shouldn't even be done. And that was like kind of his mindset of, of accomplishing that. He's I didn't really think about man, I have a hundred miles. He's I'm just going to handle like this quarter of the mile.

And then this next, or however he divvied it up, but like just in these little strides. And I still use that today as far as not letting all these things that you have to do, get on your plate. It's like, all right, let's just handle this hour of the day.

What do we have to do here? And then just live in these little moments. Yeah, no, that's great advice. That's great skills. I think it's so easy to get overwhelmed with, I think the amount of information that we have on our plates today is just exponentially larger than what it was even a few years ago.

But so you've got the stress of college ball, you're managing to keep it all together. I assume things start turning around in school. And then did you know all the way through college that you wanted to play in the NFL? Or was that a conscious decision at some point? I grew up wanting to be a pro soccer player.

So the fact that I was in college playing football, I, like I said, my whole thought process was like, Hey, I have free school. That's all I cared about. I think coming out as a two star recruit, I didn't really think of myself as this like potential future NFL player. And even as I was playing, I didn't, it's always hard to compare yourself to other players in your position around the NCAA.

You're obviously able to compare yourself against your peers on your team. And, okay, like I'm the best in my position on my team, but how does that compare to all the bigger schools? So that was hard to know do I actually, am I actually good enough to play in the NFL?

And so I think towards the end of my college career, I was When I started to have one or two scouts come out to my practice, and I knew they were coming to watch me, I was like, oh, shoot there's people, it's real, you start to talk to a couple scouts that come in and hey this is what you think scouts will tell you this is what how this process goes, this is what you need to do, because you can't hire an agent at that point.

And I didn't know anybody and Rice really hadn't had that many guys go to the NFL that were close within age of me to like really, reach out to you for advice. The scouts run you through it, they tell you like, Hey y'all need to have a good season.

Obviously you'd have to play well. They so then you start to get this confidence of okay, like I'm, there's people taking interest in me. Then your focus shifts a little bit, especially going into your senior year, seeing that you're projected as an all conference player and things like that.

And just the stats that, that I had and starting to, just use common sense a lot. Okay. Like these are my stats. These are this guy's stats. He got drafted. You start to do all that on the back end and think okay, this is actual, actually a real goal that could be accomplished here.

Like my senior year, that was a lot of my process. My thought process was like, this is all about, the NFL. And even though I, that was my whole priority. I still did two job interviews, like in my. spring semester, just in case, you never know. You never know. What were the jobs?

Just curious. One was with Accenture and one was with Deloitte for consulting. Okay. That would have been a very different lifestyle. It's really different. I I don't even know how I ended up at these interviews, but I think we had another Rice alum there. And I think he, I don't know. I applied to a bunch of places, but they took an interview.

So I figured I would go check it out. But yeah, I think, going into my spring semester, my senior year, I went full like football, obviously I took those job interviews, but it was like, okay, I'm doing the football thing. I had a season ending injury my senior year. So I like that really set me back as well.

Trying to, I'm not sure if I would have ever got drafted anyways, had I played my whole senior year, but definitely would have had a lot better chance than if I got hurt. And so it was fight that, that battle of not only am I Lower tier player, like coming into the draft, like now I'm an injured player.

So there's a lot of things going against me when I went into it. And, was your like mental state at that point? If it happens to be great, but I'm afraid to wish for it. Or are you like visualizing it happening? My, my thought process was if I just get a workout with the team, like I would be happy.

Like I was like, if the fact that someone was like, Hey we want to bring you in for a workout. I would have been like, shoot, that's that's a lot. I gotta go get a workout with these guys, that was the reoccurring theme throughout my career was like, once I got a little bit and I realized oh, that wasn't enough and I needed more and I needed more and it almost turned into this like drug in a sense where I went to a tryout and then I was like, man, like I'm better than these guys.

Like this trial is not good enough. Like I need I can see the guys that are out there on the field. And then, once I. Made the practice squad, the same thing. I'm like, Hey, these guys that are on the active roster that are actually playing I know I'm better than these guys. And then once I was on the team, then I was just a special teams player.

Same thing. I was like, man, I know I can be a starter. Like I'm watching these guys that start around the league at safety. And I know I can play better than them. And then until I, became a starter in the NFL and that's about where I tapped out my, God given ability, and there was not much else I could do after that, where obviously like you still are like trying to achieve these goals, but.

There's just some things that you can only maximize what you're like naturally born given ability allow you to do, and so I feel like that's where I had the satisfaction of man, like I went way further than I thought and I also I felt like I tapped out. All the ability that was in my body that I was born with, I'm not going to be able to jump higher, run faster, get smarter.

Like I gave it all that I had. So that was gave me satisfaction. That must be a good feeling knowing that, you left it all out there. It's not Oh, if only I'd done this, you, you gave it what you had and you got what you could out of it. And then you moved on, but you were knocked out during the last play of your NFL career.

What do you remember? About waking up after that, like how much of a shock was it to learn that you might not play again? It was, so that was my 12th season and that was my second concussion of that year. And it was just a pretty violent, the way it occurred contacted the other guy, I got hit in the side of the head.

So I got knocked out as I was running full speed. And then I did a nosedive, which. A lot of times guys get concussions too, just from hitting their head on the ground, cause the earth does not move very well. And so I did this double whammy concussion. And I don't remember much until I was like in the locker room doing the concussion tests with the independent neurologist.

I remember that and I just I had really bad vertigo. So I was just scared. Cause I didn't know I'd never had vertigo before. So I went home and I. And I just started spinning really fast. And for a second, I thought I was dying. Like I thought maybe like some blood in the brain or something had, I don't know, maybe there's some hemorrhaging or just something, one of those crazy accidents or something.

And I was like, Oh my gosh, am I dying? And then and then it stopped and I was like, okay, I didn't die. And then I like texted trainer and I was like, Hey I just got the spins really bad. I don't know what that is. If and he was like, oh, that's where to go, blah, blah, blah. But, had a lot of memory focus, brain fog issues.

It was one of those things where you just you saw the writing on the wall of okay, like I'm in my 12th year. I'm old. I'm the oldest guy on the team. I've had two concussions. I just had a really bad concussion. After that, you're you're thinking about is it worth it to even try to go back and play?

Do people even want you? There's always this kind of mix of like, When you're done playing, it's you're calling it quits. While also like your desire people desiring you to to sign you as a free agent also fades out at the same time. I feel like those kind of worked at the exact same time, as far as like me maxing out my career and also, team's interest in me as well.

Kind of fading out all at the same time to where. It's not worth it to continue to work out and try and different things. And even going into my 13th season, I had, I did have a couple of coaches that were like, Hey if we need a veteran, like we're going to reach out to you and you're okay, sure.

You're not really like bank on it. And I think it's. As far as when I came out of that play, I don't think I thought about this being my last play. It sounds backwards, obviously I don't want to get knocked out. But the fact that my last play of my career was me, like going as hard as I could to like win the game, it was like during a fourth quarter drive or two minute drive in the fourth quarter.

And it was a very like crucial game at the end of the season. And so I also get comfort of that and doing like my last play wasn't me. Getting burned or giving up a touchdown. It was like me, like making a play. Am I going as hard going for it? Yeah. Yeah. And like literally like almost killing myself.

So I have satisfaction in that. So it seems like leaving it all out there as a bit of a pattern for you. Yeah yes, it is. So what was the process like for you to go from football to being, which really was your full time job to becoming an entrepreneur? I took, I did take a little time after football to just enjoy myself, do some things.

And doing, brain treat, I, my co founder, he was running all the operations and doing a lot of the back house work while I was, finishing up playing. And it really was, almost like a investment that turned into a hobby that turned into like full time passion, like this is what I'm doing now.

And so I think when I was done, I would pop in and help out and. Ideas and things like that to where, I wanted to be more involved. I wanted to take the company in a different direction. And I'm like, and like I said, it went from being a hobby that I was invested into this is my, I'm the face of this company now.

And I'm going to take this thing and make it a brand that's recognizable and respected and a household name. And so that's what my, what my day to day has been like as of recently. But I think the transition is, the fact that you're used to being so busy all the time and you're just constantly working towards this goal.

And there's a lot of. Stress and pressure and different things. And I think there's a lot of that goes into the kind of what I'm doing now, as far as there's always work to be done. There's always something that you could, can be improving on just like in sports, there's always something you can be improving on, and I think being very critical of yourself, like in football, where you're always watching yourself and you're always trying to improve is the same and business.

And I think you just realize. After football, there's a part of you that, you have to swallow your pride and stop worrying about what people think, because there is that transition of where when you're playing football and you get introduced or you're introducing yourself and you're talking to people and they ask what you do and you say, play football.

You always get these big, Oh, that's awesome. Blah, blah. And so I think what happens a lot of times is when guys transition into this next phase of their life, they don't have this eye opening job that just wows people. They feel, they don't get the same reaction, feelings, adrenaline in that.

And I think part of the transition too, is like realizing like. You, I was lucky to have a job that gave me those really hot, those really high highs, and to be able to even experience that versus never being able to experience it at all. And that I've already accomplish something that was really special that I set out to do that most people don't get to do and so I think not caring about what maybe people think also has helped the transition of oftentimes I don't even bring up that I played football to someone because they say Oh, what do you do?

And, I think most people would be like, Oh, I retired from football but it's like they didn't ask you what you used to do they ask you what you do now. Like that'd be like asking somebody like, Oh, what do you do? And they like had maybe sold their company before they're like, Oh I sold a company and now I do this.

So I'm like, I didn't ask you what you used to do. I asked you what you do now. So I, I typically, I'm just like, Oh, I have a, brain health supplement company. And some people are really interested. Some people are like, Oh, cool. And they don't really care. So it's if you say you played in the NFL, everyone's Oh, that's awesome.

Blah, blah. Actually half the time, people didn't believe me when I say it. Cause I was like, just this like average looking white guy. So they didn't they didn't, they're like, what are you like on the practice squad? Or are you like, I'm like, no, I'm like in my 12th season. I'm a starter like for a long time.

I think the transition is it's always something that's, discussed because it is a difficult transition because it's just like anything, like if you were in one job industry. That took over your whole life from seventh grade until you were 34 years old, like to transition even if it's not football, it could be anything.

If you were just doing that for almost your, it was your whole life. Anybody would have a hard time transitioning into your next deal. So I think it's about finding something that you, that's going to challenge you, that you're going to learn. It's going to put you in your place and humble you and something that you're passionate about and you like, and you're in and I think that's where.

For me, I can sit here and read studies about, different ingredients and different studies about the brain and just about the body and everything. I can read those all night. I have a hard time reading other books with my like, ADHD kind of kicks in a little bit, but if you give me something about the brain or a study about something, I can read that for hours.

I think it's personal for you, obviously, because of what happened and what happened to your business partner. When you knowing that the point that you decided that starting a brain health supplements company was your direction, what had to happen in order to launch your brand?

Cause launching a brand is, it's hard regardless. And, you weren't coming at it from a business background. So what did you do to launch? A lot of the launch was I always say grip it and rip it or you like ready fire aim type, we just, we really made the products while we were playing for ourselves and for our teammates.

We actually didn't really even think about, we knew obviously it was a business and we were. Eventually sell these products, but initially it was like, man, we don't have anything that we can take that doesn't have any band substances is transparent and has efficacious ingredients that are backed by human clinical studies to help improve these areas of brain health for us and our teammates.

And so we took all these separate ingredients that we knew. And using our neurologist to formulate different products and really made it for ourselves. And then, eventually got to the point of okay let's get the website dialed in. Let's get all the other areas of e commerce dialed in.

So the launch was, a a, just throw it together, like launch. There was not really even it sounds yeah, it was not really even a, take like really taking it to market was not even in the thought process initially. It was like, we just need to sell these to our teammates and to and for us.

At that point in time, I think the awareness, I'm just thinking back of when you were doing that, the awareness of brain, Injuries in football was becoming more open. There was more discussion about it. So it was, it was something that obviously was a concern for you, was a concern for your fellow players.

And here you were coming in with a solution to a known problem. Yeah. And I think that's what we banked it on. That's where our legs were in the company of knowing that there weren't really products using these ingredients these like really. expensive ingredients that have these human clinical studies on them.

And if they weren't using the correct dosages. Being able to make, making products that were ultra concentrated, that were these therapeutic dosages that we could use as players and then our kind of, snowball effect was like if it's good enough for our brains that are getting hit in the head all the time, it's definitely good enough for.

For, the general consumer brain. And so I think my, my first year being done basically like all of 2023 was me redoing a lot of of the company, like getting the labels better for, so that we could actually be in retail. Getting the website cleaned up, getting all the, all the different ads and all the other things that you have to spend money on in this space, getting all those different vendors is a process as far as going through somebody for a couple of months, finding a new person or constantly interviewing new people that want to run your your email marketing, your social media marketing, want to run your social media page, you have all these people all the time that want to run your and obviously get paid by you to to do work for you.

There's no shortage of vendors out there. It's just finding the right ones. And learning that, learning and navigating all that. Just in a crash course and an e commerce and, business and redoing the company all like within one year. And really like 2024 was the the start of the first year.

We've had all those pieces in place. And it all, and doing everything finally the correct way. And now that allows me to, be able to go on shows like this and to be able to do. More of the CEO type activities. A lot of what I was doing in the past, a year and a half or so was just like working, working on the business.

You're building a business. There's not really a lot of time to do much else. So it was like, and so it's been a fun, interesting grind of learning and navigating this whole business world. Like it sounds like it. And one thing I found it, find interesting is that you have built a company of vendors, as you mentioned.

And. What are some of the key success factors in making that model work? It was a struggle for me because coming from the football background, we're so used to your work was on display every day for, and it was getting critiqued by everybody. So like the GMs, the coaches, your peers, and if you messed up, you got exposed in front of everybody.

And you often would get MF'd and yelled at and all these different things. You can't do that in the business world. Not everyone operates like that. Was used to this kind of very strict Hey, like you didn't do this, like the way you said you were, the way it was supposed to be done.

And realizing man, not everyone is a football player and they don't, they're not used to that kind of like strict criticism quite as well. I don't take it quite as well. And just learning learning just being able to you use your awareness and knowing what kind of person is this do they, are they like the, can they take the tough love or are they kind of someone that needs more of like positive reinforcement?

So I would say a lot of it early on was. I was very like hard nose, like how I, I'm used to getting coached in football and then learning to soften up and just really like get to know the person first and see how they operate. And then you get to I feel like I can work with them better, but it's still, it's being successful there is just it's just having your benchmarks and having the goals you got to hit.

And giving them the tools to succeed, just a coach giving you the playbook and the place to succeed. Even the best marketer in the world are the best. Social media ad or social, like all those people, even the best person in the world, if you gave them, crumbs it's going to be hard for them to make it work.

So it's partly on, on you as well, to give them the pieces. And we're still always improving. Like I'll never be satisfied with anything. It's just the way that it has to be. Always looking to improve, always like evaluating and and always critiquing, but at least, as of now, have those People in place that are consistent enough on a regular basis to hit the goals that we need to hit right now.

Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. And when I was so you run an e commerce business and it's a successful one, and when I was speaking to you earlier, you mentioned that you don't like selling on Amazon. Clearly they take a lot of fees, but it just seems like a lot of people just To be an e commerce, you have to be on Amazon, but you're arguing that's not the case.

It is, I guess it would be, it makes it easy. It's easier to buy on Amazon. It's not easy to sell on Amazon unless you've been doing it for 10 years and you're grandfathered in. We do have these like shell listings on Amazon. They help with your SEO. And it could, and just because it could be something later down the road where if Amazon tightens up their regulations on.

Supplementation and that there's actually like legitimate supplements on there it'd be something that we would be willing to go back in. But I think for us, we like to we have eyes on the entire process of our product from sourcing the ingredients to manufacturing it, to distributing it from like labeling, like everything, we get to see it all in house and get distributed in house.

And so that just ensures. The quality of the product the accuracy of the dosing like where it's been versus there's a lot of companies that's. They have everything made in China. It gets drop shipped straight to an Amazon warehouse and the people who own the product that never even saw, they don't even know what's in it versus us.

We're there every step of the way. And we're also manufactured in an NSF C GMP and FDA registered laboratory. So that's just like the gold standard, the highest standards for manufacturing practices. And that just also ensures that all the batches are third party tested. There's no bad substances anywhere in the entire lab.

And so that's by any professional sports league. It just, for us wanting to make, a tier one, a higher end product that's why we operate that way and just, I think once you send it off to Amazon, you don't know what's going on and then you're, you're in the same listing as a lot of these other products that are lower tier, lower grade.

They might look flashy and whatnot, but you don't actually know the quality of the product. And, from what I understand, Amazon is starting to get a little more strict on that. And so once they put in that regulation, that might be something that we gotta do. But for now, we're not extremely focused on Amazon, but I will say it.

It's definitely hard to get people to come. It's much harder to get people to come directly to your website. Then it is on Amazon because there's obviously billions of people maybe even trillions at this point on Amazon. So yeah. Now I've interviewed former NFL players on the podcast before.

And one thing that always impresses me is the strength of your network, which is wonderful way, obviously, especially because you all are very. are influencers. So great way to gain visibility for a brand. So how did you engage the guys in launching your business? I just texted him. I said, Hey buddy, I'm sending you some products.

I said, this is for, and not every guy. And so that was, that's also part of the Braintree story is me, my co founder, we were both NFL. We were like the locker room nutritionist. So especially when it came to supplementation. So all the guys would ask us about different ingredients and, what was been, what was not.

And so we established ourselves as those roles within the locker room. And so whenever I reached out to these, different players that I've played with, and I was like, Hey this is my product. They're like, Oh shoot. This is must be legit because you've always been that guy.

And it's safe, but you have to just break it down for me. Hey man, this is going to help you with focus. This is going to help you with your memory for memorizing playbook. And it's going to help with, just all the hits to the head. And if you get concussions, take, you should take this every day, but if you get any kind of get your bell wrong or your concussion, you should probably double the dose on this.

And so that was a lot of it too. Just, I have a list of just all the guys I've played with. No context. Message, whatever and just reached out to them. I send them little care packages, little goodie packages every year. And if they ever do get, some type of concussion or something like that some of them will reach out to me and I'll, we'll just send it to them for free.

We don't really we're not really trying to utilize the fact that they have money you should buy our stuff. We're like, no, like this is for us. This is why we made this. And so just try to do our part to help. But yeah, a lot of. A lot of that was like, Hey like you said, using your network Hey, I'm going to send this to you.

We're sending you a care package. Feel free to give us a shout on socials and different things. And just support your support, your brother. Cause guys that are playing, they know that they'll eventually be where I'm at. And they're going to want to lean on guys that are still playing right now.

And so it's just part of that NFL brotherhood where you just try to help everybody out however you can, if there's a guy that's retired that needs help with something or vice versa, like we always just end up helping each other out because we know we're all on the same Kind of category.

Save both. Yeah. No, that's why, and for those of our listeners who may not have access to an NFL network still, you have your own network and you can still build your own network. And that's really a great way to, to launch and grow a business. And I think a lot of people are afraid to ask and they're trying to do it all on their own, but it's, takes a village when you're building a business as well as raising kids.

Definitely does. I, I've had another like teammate and he was like, man, like I have this. Kind of business opportunity. I didn't want to reach out. Cause I don't like to bug you guys. And I was like, man, that's the exact opposite. It, you should, we should be the first people you bug.

Like your boys if there's anyone that's gonna. Whether it's invest or listen, hear you out on this pitch or whatever it is, like it's us, I always think those are the, you have, you do have to overcome that, like that feeling of man, should I like text this guy or should I reach out?

You eventually become numb to that. And you're like, I don't care. I'm sending it. What's the worst that can happen? Worst they can say is no, just that's it. You're not going to embarrass yourself. Just reach out and ask. I think that's it. I don't always say the answer. Is it? No, it's just not right now.

Not right now. Yeah. Cause it may be the need wasn't there, but so you've. You've gone through a lot. You've learned a lot. You've had a lot of interesting life transitions and, you've really kept that mental fortitude along the way, if you had the opportunity to look back and talk to high school, you or like what advice would you have loved to have received in high school based on what you've learned?

Yeah. The, I would say what I would tell my younger self is to play with confidence. And I say that because when I was in high school, I was a two star recruit. But had I known that I had the ability to Go to a division one college and be a four year starter. I would have played with much more confidence in high school.

Like I belong there Hey, like I know I'm only a two star, but I'm actually like division one, four year starter material and same with the NFL. While I was playing college, I was just out there just, trying, I could compare myself to my peers. But again, like if I would have known, man, like I'm going to go on to play, obviously you don't, but.

I have the ability to go play 12 years in the NFL. I would have walked out on the college field with so much more confidence. Like I belong there. None of you other guys are even going to do what I'm going to do. And then again, in the NFL, being at the highest level of professional sports, you're out there thinking, am I good enough to be out here?

Do I belong here? And if I would have just known Hey, like you have the ability. To play 12 years to be a starter to do all those things. I would have played with much more confidence. And so sometimes it's just, like the ability is there. It's you just need something or somebody or to bring it out and expose it and show you like, It's been in there the whole time.

You just didn't know you had it. And I think that transitions to business, or at least I try to transition that same thought process to business now of playing with confidence of Hey even if this business is young or, maybe there's times where you doubt it or you're questioning it, or is this going to work out is, playing the business game, like this is a company that's going to exit for a ton of money one day, or that's going to be, have a high valuation or whatever your goal is, and playing the business game day to day the same way.

And, I still have to remind myself that even though I, I haven't been playing business my whole life like I'd played football, but again, I just, I would say play with confidence. I love that. I think that's a t shirt. So completely tangential question, but I'm a big Michigan Wolverines fan, so you could probably anticipate my next question.

I was excited that our quarterback j. McCarthy did really well in the draft and got drafted by your former team, the Vikings. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. I think it was a smart move. Amongst the other, the kind of the Vikings in this community, so to speak. Now I'm just like, I'm with like the fans and I, so I just, I talked to, my soon to be mother in law is actually from Minnesota.

So she is she's a Vikings fan. So we chat all the time. She's what are we gonna do a quarterback? What are we gonna do a quarterback? And I said, I have no idea because like they didn't sign anyone in the off season. Like it's they don't have one of the highest draft picks. And so I think, yeah.

When they made that draft pick it, I think that was their plan all along. It's Hey, we're going to find a way to move up in the draft and go get one of these like top tier guys. And I, getting a guy that's, I think he lost one college game or something. And we were undefeated this last season, his whole career.

He's he like, yeah it's crazy. He is. Yeah. So to me, that's what I look at as a winner. Who is. found a way to win games, and so I think they, made it, made a good move there. And so that kind of, I think that brought, the Vikings community a little, got them a little bit more excited for the season coming up.

That's good. Yeah, I think we're I think we're all excited to watch and see what our guys are going to do in the NFL. And speaking of focus, he's someone who sits on the field and meditates before every game and is, very tries to calm himself and really just focus when you said, one play at a time.

That's, that's what you have to do. And I think that's really good advice for business as well. So yeah. So if our listeners are interested in either buying brain tree products or in contacting you directly, how can they reach out? Yeah, you can find us at brain tree nutrition. com.

You can find us on socials at take brain tree. You can find, I don't really use many of the socials except Instagram, but you can find me on the socials at Andrew dot Sundejo. If you could go to our website at brain street nutrition. com, we have. All the studies as well. If you want to read through the studies that support the ingredients of why we put them in.

Into our products. There's a little, video on the story of like how it became, a little bit what we spoke about today of just a lot of repetitive TBIs and concussions and things like that, but yeah, you can find us all there. Go to brainstreetnutrition.

com. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Andrew. It's been a pleasure. And for all of our listeners, play with confidence no matter what you do.