By Chris Kidd, Special for USDR
Radio Host Kevin Price, and Chris Kidd, Financial Coach and Contributor on the Price of Business on Business Talk 1110 AM KTEK (on Bloomberg’s home in Houston), interviewed Corey Jackson, a former NFL player turned entrepreneur. Jackson is the founder of Corey Jackson Inc.
(Click here to listen to the interview)
The segment begins with Corey Jackson sharing some of his story of growing up and working his way to the NFL. “I always made the correlation of how difficult it is to make it to professional sports, and get there, and how much work you have to put in, and how that translates to business,” Jackson says. Growing up he was a great basketball player, but after high school he was not recruited by any colleges, so he found himself working at Walmart. Corey said, “I got to a point where I just felt like I had to take charge; I had to make a decision. And that decision was to buy this one-way bus ticket to this town in Texas, to this junior college that they didn’t know who I was, didn’t know I existed, I just showed up.”
Corey called the coach of Ranger Junior College from the bus station, but the coach told him “We don’t need you, we’ve got what we need. We got 18 players on our team, school has already started, we don’t even know if we can get you into school.” But Corey persuaded the coach to come pick him up and let him run through a practice with the team. After being on the court for just a short amount of time Corey dunked over three guys and the coach found a spot for him. Jackson said, “I kinda draw that comparison between sports and business, because it takes that type of mentality to be an entrepreneur, to be a business person, and it takes that type of mentality to be successful in sports as well. You really have to be OK with putting it on the line.”
That was just the beginning of Corey Jackson’s story though. After college basketball he had the option to play professional basketball overseas, but ended up passing on that opportunity and then played college football, eventually making it to the NFL. Chris Kidd asked Corey to talk about the importance of having the right team whether it be in business or sports. Jackson said, “Being on the right team is everything. In football it’s the difference between having a great career and having a terrible career or a short career.” Corey Jackson started his NFL career with Cleveland saw this when the Browns went through some major coaching changes and the new coaches and system were not a good fit for him, so he went to the general manager and head coach and said, “Hey listen, you guys keep the half a million, let me go.” He then was able to move on and find a good fit with the Denver Broncos.
Restating the importance of having the right people on your team, Corey said, “Being on the right team is everything. And when it comes to business, its the same exact thing. You have to have a team that can help you thrive. It’s cool to have friends, but you’ve gotta have to people on your team that know exactly what’s going on, what you should be doing, because we don’t know everything. And we want to put people around us that have a very strong sense of what they do. And that’s so important in business, because if you don’t have that, you’re on a sinking ship.”
(Click here to listen to the interview)