This episode I interview Sean Conley, author of the book “The Point After - How One Resilient Kicker Learned There Was More To Life Than The NFL”.

“The Point After” is about Conley’s drive from childhood to become a NFL kicker despite his high school not having a football team. He somehow finds his way onto a small college team, then finds his way to Pitt and becomes a starter. Next, he tries the NFL.

Conley’s book is interesting; it’s rare we get a story about a guy playing sports that isn’t a “glory story”, i.e., them or others talking about how great they are, what obstacles they had to overcome while nothing bad happens along the way unless it’s glossed over so as to not make you feel too bad. Conley is pretty honest about his goals, dreams, his failures and what they do to him.

It’s even more rare we get a story from a kicker. Nobody cares about kickers until they miss or they don’t have one, but rarely do we get an idea of what they go through.

Sean and I discuss:

• His book (duh)
• The injury that ended his career, how it came from overuse, and why this is important for young athletes to understand.
• What it’s like to try to make a NFL team.
• Why I should feel sorry for a guy who’s been dumped from or is retiring from the NFL.
• Yoga. And men.
• Resilience.

I have a book out!

On August 21st, 2015, I unexpectedly dropped dead of a widowmaker heart attack. I was shocked five times on the way to the hospital with no response. I was shocked two more times in the ER. I was dead for over 20 minutes. A stent was placed, and I was induced into a coma. In January 2016 I received a second stent and in June I was diagnosed with an anoxic brain injury.

I wrote a book about my death and recovery. The title, “Been Dead, Never Been To Europe” reflects the ironic nature of life, what happens versus what we want to happen. It’s available at Amazon.

Consider signing up for my newsletter, which is about everything BUT sports.

About The Transcript

Keep in mind that the following is a transcript. I use a service that automates the first draft. As much as “artificial intelligence” is included in the description of every bit of technology these days, it’s clear that computers understanding human speech is more artificial than intelligent. The transcript has been edited to take out human speech bites, you know, um, okay, uh, but it’s not been edited to be an “article”.

Transcript

Jon Johnston Welcome to Jon’s Postlife Crisis. This is Jon Johnston, founder of CornNation.com, your site in Nebraska Cornhuskers sports news and trying desperately to stay interesting during this bloody pandemic that we’re still in. That’s not a very uplifting. I’m joined by Sean Conley, author of the book, “The Point After, H ow one resilient kicker learned there was more to life than the NFL”. Which is there more to life than the NFL. You spent a good majority of this book, trying to get into the NFL, you played very little football in high school, and then you barely kind of played in college, and yet you still got into the NFL. Tell us about your book, but not so much you give it away. And people still have to buy it.

Sean Conley

Thanks for having me, Jon. Yeah, that’s a that’s a great question. There’s a few reasons why I wrote the book. One of them was, there a lot of the sports books out there are typically about like your Tom Brady’s and your Michael Jordan’s have very successful careers. But there’s very few books about what most professional athletes go through, like the average length of NFL careers is 2.3 years, I believe, is the latest statistic I’ve seen. So most of the players, when we look on the sidelines, there’s 45 NFL players, or whatever the number is today, 80% of those guys are going to be gone in a couple years. And so I just want to share the story about what it’s like about being the player who’s always thinking that my next play or my next kick, or the next time I will walk into the locker room like that set.

And it was also just to share a story of Where, where, for a big part of my life almost 20 years where I thought the only thing that would make me happy would be being a professional football player, and then dealing with what it’s like when my career ends, not on my own terms, which we see all the time, like you especially right now, like even like the Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger and all these players and you know, people try to these players, we have no idea what’s going on in their head. And for me that would that would that was what I suffered from thinking like I was I was scared. I was I was very fearful about what’s next because I never planned for it or really even gave it much thought other than playing football.

Jon Johnston Is that is that pretty common? When you look at the dedication that goes into just playing in college at the division one level, there’s an amazing amount of work. And I’d have to say the honestly, most people really don’t care, but they don’t have a lot of insight into it either. And then to get to the next level, the NFL, there’s an insane amount of work that goes into that. So do most people even have time to structure a plan? If what if this doesn’t work? Plan B is... there’s normally is there a plan B for most of these guys

Sean Conley

No, there really isn’t. And, you know, when the little time that it’s been in the NFL, it wasn’t like there was any sort of programs or, you know, where there’ll be a meeting, like about play a future planning. It’s just not what it’s about. And even if there was, most players, I can’t imagine would even pay attention to that. Because for them, they just they couldn’t see beyond, what was next what was in front of them what they’d worked so hard many years to accomplish.

Jon Johnston I have another podcast where I interview one of our former Nebraska linemen, and one of the things that strikes me is that when you go from high school to college, you’re like, I’m the guy, shouldn’t I should start because I am the guy and then you I can imagine when you go from college to the NFL, you’re still thinking, I was really good enough in college, because if you’re, if you’re drafted or an even an undrafted, free agent to go into the NFL, you’re probably one of the premier players in college. And so there’s still that attitude of, I’m the guy and I should be the starter and there’s no reason this shouldn’t work. But then when you get there,, it’s again, it’s another level above College and the pressure and the stress and the image and honestly, let’s face it, nobody likes to be in the position where I’m the guy for a long time and then suddenly find out with a cold slap in the face that you’re not the guy and, you know, tough shit, get out of here. Go do something else. That’s got to be Blow to your ego and your lifestyle everything.

Sean Conley

Yeah, absolutely. I remember when I was my first training camp at the Detroit Lions and I was, as a kicker, you had a lot of time to be a, like a fan and just just watching. But I just remember watching the players and and you can’t, from my view, I couldn’t even tell the difference what was going on? Like, how would I decide like, this guy makes a team and this doesn’t but like I know the play that that the position coaches do, but it’s just the difference between making the team and not was was so slim. And you know, what I saw these guys that were signed, like these were all Americans are all conference. But like, as you mentioned, like now, like they go from being the guy, but now they’re surrounded by everyone else who was all the guy wherever they came from day one or day two.

Jon Johnston I want to stick with this a little bit. I’ve watched more NFL football than I have, probably in my life this year, just because the pandemic and it was a reason for my family to get together. But when they come out with these stories about “Jim Smith”, he’s been with the NFL for 10 years, now he has to figure out life after football. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for him. And maybe that’s, I don’t know, maybe let’s be a little blunt and a little mean, they the NFL really kind of looks at their players. Like it’s a meat market. And it’s really kind of a next man up Gladiator type sport? And is that a good impression?

Why should I feel sorry them?

Sean Conley

Yeah, it’s a very valid question. I used to feel the same way. Like, you know, like, when I was in college and watching the NFL athletes, and, you know, they retire and like, oh, like, he has all the money, he should be happy. And, and, you know, I still think about this a lot when I, when I see the news come by about players, and I’ll see like some of the Twitter comments whether there’s support for the player, and then there’s not. And I think what it comes down to is more of a mental health issue where these players, they they believe that their identity is a football player, and then when that’s taken away from them, I think it just becomes so overwhelming for them. Like, there’s the fear of the unknown. And so for them, it’s not the money, they they’re not so concerned about how much money they have, and how that’ll, you know, make them happy. It’s just they are just, they’re like, wow, I’m 27 years old, and I don’t know what that I’m going to do with the rest of my life. I think that’s why they you see these players hang on and hang on, it’s not to make more money or, to be able to retire and to do something new, but they just don’t know what that new thing is. And I think very few players are have that maturity. Or that foresight.

When I was in Detroit Lions. Barry Sanders was was was there. And one night I was I was out partying, and in London, we were playing the Dallas Cowboys in an exhibition game. And I strolled back into the lobby like to 3am. And there’s barry sanders reading a book and it was clear he hadn’t gone out and we had a little conversation I was telling him, I was worried about like him and get cut then what and he was very blunt with me. And he said, this is kind of how I came up with the title of the book. He said, Don’t forget that there’s more to life than the NFL, which I thought was, it didn’t really impact me at the time because I was still gung ho on making catching on with the team. But what I thought was really interesting was, was years later, not too many years later that he retired, he actually retired super early, and not only retire super early, he could have easily been the all time NFL rushing leader, but he could care less for some somewhere along the road he’d already decided, you know, this is, you know, I’m not here to accomplish these big numbers and make all this money. When it’s time for me to leave. I’m gonna leave.

Jon Johnston Well, did Detroit do that to him?

Sean Conley

Well, that’s another possibility as well.

Jon Johnston He was probably the most fun football player to watch in history.

Sean Conley

He would lose two yards on one play in the next next play. He run for 42.

Jon Johnston Yeah. So have you talked to other NFL players that have a hard time letting go of things or what is like the end of their careers, and I guess what I’m asking this do you provide free counseling?

Sean Conley

My access these days in terms of like pro athletes, I don’t keep in too much communication with them. It’s more college athletes. I’m pretty close to the Pitt football program. And so I see I see them through different different different modes, actually, some of them come to our yoga studio. And so I have conversations with them with them about about that. And luckily, there seems like there’s there’s there’s more of a shift. I know University of Pittsburgh, they give a lot more life skills. But I think where the breakdown is, is in the professional where like you said it’s it’s more of like a meat market and their concern is not afterwards you know of college, it’s different. They want this to you know that their program to be a place where, you know, you can succeed or whatever beyond the sports, but yeah, unfortunately yet not not too much communication with other pros.

Jon Johnston At one point in the book we find out or you find out that your hip flexor muscle is like shot or in destroyed. Tell us a little bit about that. Because my impression is, well, your muscle is gone from overuse is what you’re told.

Sean Conley

Exactly.

Jon Johnston I always thought, you know, you exercise muscles, they get stronger. They don’t just go away. But what happened there?

Sean Conley

Yeah, and I probably thought the same thing too, when I would train what basically happened is like when I would train, I always train quantity over quality. Not always, but for the big bulk of my career. So sometimes I would just take like a like a notepad, and I wouldn’t stop kicking that day till I hit like 100 or 50, or whatever the my goal for the day was, and what was happening, I was doing the same thing over and over again. And unfortunately, kicking. This is like, I guess you could think similar to like a golfer like we’re golfers get back issues. Kicking is an unnatural motion so that the stress that I put in my body with like the quick whip of the hips, it puts a lot of strain on the low back and the hips that over time if I keep doing that, it’s gonna wear out and if I would have paced myself because now like every once in a while I’ll do some kicking camps with kids. Sometimes I’ll get texts from friends who are high school coaches, and they want some consultation on their kickers. I always tell them the first thing I tell them is like what is your training regimen, it’s usually, they’re kicking 50 balls a day. And that’s the first thing I go with is just just 20 balls. But I understand as Kickers, it’s really hard because it doesn’t take very long to kick 20 field goals when you’re practicing, you can be done in like a half an hour. And that seems like such a short workout. But that’s really all the body can take. If you add up all your repetitions, you know that it’s like a car your venture you like how hard you drive, it’s eventually going to run out. And that’s that’s essentially what would happen to me and you know, a lot of letter athletes, but they do repetitive use, because I gave no breaks. It was just go go go go.

Jon Johnston Yeah, that seems I mean, you see a lot of stories about kids playing year round sports in sport, and they’re worn out by 20, or other common story or it’s too common, I guess, is like young women who have played so much soccer by the time they’ll get into college soccer, and they get depression because they’re just sick of it. If you had to tell them something, what would you say? You have this pressure at the same time to to succeed, to get a scholarship to stay on a team at a high level. But at the same time, it’s Do you know coach out there to go, yeah, you take a break. You should rest? Maybe you should do some yoga. We’ll get into that. What do you tell people like that? Or do you ever run into them?

Sean Conley

Tthere’s not that many coaches like that. Yeah, well, one thing that’s fascinating about like, like, like, I never knew who the book would, would appeal to, but a lot of the the interest in that book has come from, like, people my age, like in their 40s 50s, who read the book, and then giving it to their kids who’s like an aspiring high school or college athlete who, who is in that world now. When I grew up, you played multiple sports, that’s just that’s just that’s just how it was. If it wasn’t for my kicking, kicking, kicking, I would have had a longer career. But nowadays, as you know, it’s year round. And not only are players, their bodies wearing out by the time they go to college, but also their minds are like my daughter who played field hockey. He played like, there’s in three school in Ohio, there was kids that she went to high school with, that were amazing players that could have got division one scholarships, and they actually turn them down because they were done. You know, they’re done driving all over the East Coast, all these tournaments since age eight, and their spirit it was done, their heart wasn’t in it anymore.There’s the, like you said, like the depression, like the word they’re just done with a sport, and which is crazy, they’d be done with a sport like an 18. I just have a hard time but you know, believe in that, but unless it’s been pushed by the parents, and it’s too much and then and with with the, you know, the not multi sport thing. I know here at the University of Pittsburgh, Coach narduzzi, Pat Narduzzi he just he tweeted out after the signing class this year, and he seems to do this every year, and he said, every single player that they sign was at least a two sport athlete, and he’s been trying to he’s been pushing that as well. And there’s a lot of coaches trying to push, like, don’t just play football, like that’s that that’s not going to get you that far in the long run, play basketball, baseball, whatever it is. So you’re Not only becoming a better athlete, but you’re resting those football muscles that you’re using over and over again, and becoming a more well rounded athlete and also not getting burned out as well mentally.

Jon Johnston When I finished the book, I, I looked at it and I thought, what what really is my hardest impression about this book? My initial impression is - you married the most forgiving patient person on this planet because the book details you going from here to there, they’re there, they’re there for kick workouts or jobs. They were really honestly, and I don’t mean to be insulting, but really kind of crappy jobs. I don’t want you to talk wholesale about your wife. But how did you manage this? You’re not that good looking dude.

Sean Conley

No, absolutely. No, I asked myself that every day. She is someone who’s just very adventurous. And at the time, she was just just just wanted to go along for the ride because she’s just, you know, someone who is like that, who just thinks big and I got very lucky with her. Because my whole idea of walking on division one school was with didn’t seem to make any sense. I didn’t tell very many people. But when we were friends way back in high school, she was the one of the few people that I was at that I told actually was college. I told her, because that’s just how she thinks she just she just thinks big about just like taking chances. Not living with regrets. So, but yeah, she was super patient with the whole thing, where eventually she gave up on the patience is when my body was was done. And then she was just like, like, you got to stop this because not only like, are you hurting your body, but like, you’re just like, your she didn’t like to see myself like, like, sit down and depressed about this. But then that was also a wake up call for me to when she said that because I realized that now I’m at the point where I’m becoming if I keep pushing this NFL dream up now I’m now becoming it’s selfish. You know, it’s just where I’m gonna start affecting my family. So that was at the point where I just said, I got I gotta move on. So yeah, very, very lucky in that regard.

Jon Johnston Okay, the second thing that impressed me is this. You had a plan. You were going to be an NFL kicker. A lot of people when they plan things, it’s kind of like, let’s say we’re going on a trip. We all know, kind of the dad that has to go, we’re gonna go here, and then three hours to his, and then four hours to that, and then one day we’re there. Right, is that you?

Sean Conley

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Jon Johnston It seems like a lot of your life was just you fell into things.

Sean Conley

Yeah, yeah.

Jon Johnston There’s a difference between people who have a plan, and it has to go accordingly. Otherwise, they freak out. They get depressed, they get broken. They give up. You know, maybe it’s more than going on a trip. But you know what I mean, life plans and things. I expect this to happen. And it doesn’t and suddenly, oh, what the hell with this. Now, I don’t want to do this anymore. And maybe that goes back to resilience, which is an important word. And maybe part of it is what I’m asking is this. I talk a lot and sometimes never get to questions. Were you willing to just let things happen? Do you do direct them? Did you feel like sometimes things were just breaking? Are you one of those people that goes, I’ll pray and something will come to me?

Sean Conley

Yeah, I think it was more where I wanted to like to, like push the action and to have some, some sense of control over what I could what I could do next. And I think because I was always trying to control the situation, there was times when it didn’t go my way where I just I went completely down, I would hit bottom. Like so for example, when I first went to the division three school Grove City College, where I’d called the coach in the summer. And he said, Yeah, come on, down. You can join the team, and I got there and like the second or third day classes, he says, You know, I don’t need a kicker, you know, and that’s it. So now my whole plan is completely blown up. And so I spent maybe four or five months having a pity party, I bombed in school, I dropped out, started drinking a lot, move back home. And it took me a few months to get out of that cycle, where the only thing that really got me out of it was where I was in Erie pa and this is in January, and I just started kicking, I started kicking even though it was a few more months before I could really go outside and kick bats are kicking on the snow and ice and the kicking was really that got me out of the head to think like you know, just you just got to keep going. And this was like the first This was the first of many setbacks I think that’s where maybe the resilience started to actually be something like that I can almost build like a muscle because then I would have more setbacks as I went. But the more I realize like if you can just just keep going, that that that that the setbacks would bother you bother me less than last because you When I first got cut with Detroit I was I was pretty down in the dumps, but then the Colts less the Jets would have been less but that because that was over, and I knew was over that one was the worst. But, you know, eventually, like any sort of negativity or that I got along my football career would would bother me less and less.

Jon Johnston At the end of your, let’s say your NFL journey, your wife starts doing yoga. And you she does kind of a class, I’m always kind of at odds at how much of the book I should give away. But what the hell? She starts a class on a whim, basically, right?

Sean Conley

Pretty much she was just gonna do it. You do it for fun. And this was like her, you know, her passion. And it was just like, hey, let’s see what happens here. Yeah.

Jon Johnston And then people start joining the class, and then she starts decides to start a yoga studio. And then she gets pregnant. And then you take over?

Sean Conley

Yeah, we were this was like the really early days of yoga. So this is around 2000, where yoga was really considered weird. And out there still in the US, other than maybe like New York and California. And it was just her. And she needed a teacher. What happened was when the teachers moved out of town, and so she was like a one man show one woman show. So she needed someone and she told me I had no choice but to but to start teaching. So I very reluctantly, just just like, same thing with yoga took her years to get me involved with yoga, which would have made a difference, I think, in my football career, because she wanted me to start doing it when I was like a rookie, but I was just like, no way. What Why would I do that? Because that was completely unheard of. So but she was right then and she was she was she was right later.

Jon Johnston Okay, I want to focus on this little for a little bit because I you mentioned Rodney Yee at one point in the book. Yeah. I have a DVD with Rodney Yee, and Mariel Hemingway made up basic stuff, 15 minutes long. And I used to do that and have no problems with it. And it felt great. like three weeks ago, I I pulled this DVD out, and 15 minutes of that. I made it about 10 minutes, and it almost killed me. So clearly, I need to go to work on something with strength and core and things like that. Right? Yoga and men. We do not mix well? Do we? Because whenever I look at other guys, and I say well, you have back issues, you should do yoga. They look at me, like I said you should eat salad. You know what even it’s the same reaction. It’s kind of like what the hell, you me? Anybody could do downward dog, anybody could do those exercises. But when you really get into them, it’s horrible. It’s nasty.

Sean Conley

Yeah, it’s really hard. Well, I that the first yoga class I did when I took Karen’s class was myself in the back corner, and like 20 women, and I remember, you know, that my biggest challenge, I certainly had, like physical challenges. But my biggest challenge was ego, like, you know, like, I should be able to do this, you know, like, I’m a guy like, I play professional football, all that other stuff was going through my head, like pretty much like the whole class. And it was just, I look back now is like such a waste of time. But I think that’s the reason why most men want to yoga is because, you know, they’re afraid of like not being good at it, or how they’ll look or, you know, they all the all the excuses come up, they’re not flexible, which doesn’t make any sense because you’re not flexible, maybe you should do yoga, I’m not strong or like so. So you know, and that still happens today, like at our yoga yoga studios, it’s probably, you know, it’s gone from like, maybe 1% men to maybe 20% which, which I think is pretty good. And I think it’s becoming, because more and more men are doing it. It’s more accepted. They don’t they don’t but it’s still though, usually that the first time I’ll see a man and yoga class he’s usually brought there by by his girlfriend or so he’s still there’s still a lot of dragging happening into the studio with men. But at least it’s growing. But yeah, I think it comes down to just, you know, that whole fear of like, looking looking bad, looking goofy.

Jon Johnston Is it because they can’t do it? Or is because other men see them and go, you should be like throwing logs.

Sean Conley

Yeah, exactly.

Jon Johnston You should be chasing down deer with your bare hands.

Sean Conley

Yeah, exactly that that says I know I remember when I was in that one class and all these women were moving through all the poses really easy. They’re holding them longer than I could and it was me like wow, this is this is so ridiculous that I can’t do this. So yeah, I think it’s it’s the whole macho thing but like, you know what, once I was able to set that aside, which took took quite a while now. Now, when I do yoga, I really don’t do it for physical I know I’ll get some physical benefits out of it. But for me, it’s more just to like, you know, I got a pretty you know, like busy mind like a lot of people do like I do the yoga just like move and like have like a like a like a mental break. And the physical benefits are like an extra.

Jon Johnston You run a yoga, like shop a yoga studio.

Sean Conley

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, under normal times, we have 50 classes a week at the studio. And it’s mostly power yoga, which is like hot and sweaty. So we’re, my wife and I are both, you know, like, my football bright background, she had a dancer background. So we’re more on the, on the intense side. So we teach intense yoga, which, that’s another thing about yoga, like getting into it. Like there’s so many different styles like so sometimes men will, you know, come back to that, like if, like, if you go to your first yoga class, and it’s hot, like ours, maybe that’s not what you need. Maybe you need one, it’s more like more chill or the opposite, too. Because a lot of men like that. They, they they like this kind. So it’s always good to like, try it out before you before you mix it.

Jon Johnston Right now, we’re a year pretty much into this pandemic. At the beginning. We said, two weeks a lockdown. Everything be fine. Here we are a year later. Your yoga studio is closed? Correct?

Sean Conley

Yeah. closed on the inside. We just we just do online stuff. But yeah.

Jon Johnston And how are people reacting to that? I mean, are they staying with it? Or is it is getting difficult?

Sean Conley

Yeah, it’s like, first, this whole thing went down in March, it did did exceptional. But now we’re noticing that it’s slowly going down. I think as people are becoming more and more just kind of, I don’t know what the word is. But just kind of kind of raising the white flag on this thing. Yeah, just checked out. And then in with, I think a lot of us are now waiting for the calendar to turn to march and spring and....

Jon Johnston I’ve asked you about free counseling. I’d asked you about your yoga studio. Now I’m going to ask you, how are we going to be, and this is for me personally, so be my counselor, I need to get off my butt and start doing that yoga DVD. Because at some point, I hope to still go back out and do sports photography, which means I’m going to be carrying camera gear for hours at a time. And if I did that, like if they called and said tomorrow, Jon come and shoot baseball or shoot women’s volleyball, it would probably kill me to do that. I mean, like, kill dead. But you know what I mean? I ache for weeks. Because it is a strain carrying all that stuff and moving around and getting in positions you’re not used to. What do you say to people who are checked out or like me? I mean, what what’s the pep talk?

Sean Conley

I think it’s just even if you just do like, like, five minutes, I know for me personally, if I do nothing, that’s not good the whole day, I’m just feeling depressed, but like, just to like, commit, you know, like, like, the day before, I’m gonna do you know, 10 minutes of yoga tomorrow, then. And then the next day, I’m going to do 15 The next day, I’m gonna, like go for a walk. I think it’s just, it’s scheduling it to make sure that you do it and also to not really have any sort of hardcore. So I think sometimes we get we make it, like, too much too much expectations. Like if I didn’t do I said I was gonna 15 and I ended up only doing 10 Oh, man were like what, like, what’s, what’s wrong with me, and not worrying about that, but just like, do it like doing something and then and then building from there, where it becomes becomes more more of a habit. But I think even like with yoga, like, you know, a lot of times people think that you have to do like an hour, an hour and a half of yoga, but even just 20 minutes is enough just to move your body and to have some benefits,

Jon Johnston flexibility. as well. I’ve been setting a lot. I know that it’s easy for me to get up and move into the other room and play video games for an hour. And for some reason, I can’t motivate myself to do that. DVD, but let’s go back to the book for one more question. Have you had much reaction to the book? I mean, yeah, you mentioned earlier that people are giving it to their kids or coaches or giving it to kids about burnout. But have you had what other reaction in the end?

Sean Conley

Yeah, you know, thebiggest reaction I think has been just from where I’ve been shocked is younger people who really liked it. But also, I’ve also received a lot of interest from like, like, like people who are like former dancers, people who were like former volleyball players. So when I wrote this book, my hope was is that it wasn’t just a book about football, or even my football career, which really wasn’t, it wasn’t much of a professional football career. My hope was just to make it more universal, where anyone, not just like an athlete could relate to the ups and the downs and the insecurities and so forth. But even somebody who, you know, for their whole life, they they they they they wanted to be like like an attorney and they like they thought like being a lawyer than they had made it and now They’re not happy with that they’re moving on to something else or, you know, to make it more universal, how we, you know, like, I think, you know, come back to the whole idea of control. Like I think, you know, we think we have like this beginning, middle and end. But I was hoping in the story that it’s just, it just doesn’t go that way. We have many opportunities to, like, reinvent ourselves beyond what we think how our life is supposed to go.

Jon Johnston Yeah, you know, and honestly, that’s kind of what I’m trying to do with these podcasts is figure out what’s gonna happen. Is there anything else you want to share with people that I haven’t asked you or anything? Anything that yoga, football, life lessons? Your wife having to deal with the name Karen all over the place?

Sean Conley

Oh, man. Yeah, that’s been such a Yeah, that comes up a lot. I have four kids. And so they’re all plugged in to all this stuff. And they reminder about that all the time. But she she has such a strong personality to overcome. Not strong in a Karen way like you said, but a character that that kind of Karen but like just she’s her own character, and a good way.

Jon Johnston Resilient.

Sean Conley

Resilient, absolutely. Very, very determined and very adventurous to what’s next she does. She that she was always really good. Like, she’s very good. Being in being in the present moment. I think that’s why I always would struggle, like when things didn’t go my way in football, I would spend all this time Oh, I should have done this. Well, you know, with this team, or I should have called this team and got a trial with them. And she’s just like, like, that’s, she would always like redirect me to like, that doesn’t matter that’s over. It’s now it’s like, even 20 years later, that’s still how she, how she how she lives her life. She does not spend time at all with the pity parties. So I’m trying to get better at that.

Jon Johnston That’s something that everybody could use, pretty much overall. Okay, we’ve been talking with Sean Conley wrote a book, actually is a hardcover book that I have. It’s very, it’s rare anymore. Most of my books are Kindle books. So I can carry 430,000 of them on my Kindle that I keep buying, and I never read most of them. I did read yours. For people who got this far. It’s a very good book. It’s it’s very honest. I it’s not I think you were mentioned earlier that most you know, football player books and stuff like that. Most of them are glory stories. And this really isn’t a glory story. It’s it’s an open honest look in on one of the things I thought that was unique about it was the perspective of a kicker, because nobody likes kickers. Nobody cares about, kickers, if unless they miss, at this specific time in the game, or in Nebraska’s case. You know, two years ago, we didn’t have any kickers and certainly we cared a lot about kickers. But thank you, Sean, for joining me.

Sean Conley

Thank you, Jon.

Jon Johnston

And good luck with your book. And this has been Jon’s post life crisis. Thanks for listening and Go Big Red.