>> My name is Thomas Williams.
I am CEO and President of Thomas R. Williams, Incorporated.
And since my transition away from professional sports I've become a motivational speaker,
published author as well as a director of player development programs,
which is to help student athletes understand the importance of life
after sports before their transition.
In most of the people who I see, and have an experience with is I resonate with them so much.
I see a little piece of me in them.
And really being able to relate to them is something that I truly enjoy,
whether it is a single parent who is trying to figure out how do I get my son or my daughter
on the quote, unquote right track.
How do I get them to do it better than I did it, giving them more than what I had as a child.
And so I see that.
Find out other passions that you have.
Find out if you love playing football, but what about football makes you excited.
What do you like?
Lifting weights?
Do you like competing with others?
Do you like competing with yourself?
Any other sport, what inside your sport specifically really gets you excited.
And then you can just take that same attitude and that same mind set.
You can transfer it into anything else that you want in your life.
I played with the New England Patriots and then after that I went
on to play with the Carolina Panthers.
And in 2011 I experienced a neck injury that ended up putting me on injured reserve.
Injured reserve is code for your season is up.
And so I went on injured reserve that year in 2011.
2012 I tried to come back and play, but I wasn't able to play because the injury hadn't healed.
So, I remember leaving the football facility that day in 2012 for the last time.
And then the question comes about.
What do you do next?
Where do you go from here?
Find out what you love to do.
And by that I mean, find out what makes your soul smile, your soul happy.
And understand your own personal definition of success.
And my personal definition of success is getting paid for what you would do for free.
And if you can find that, and you can be passionate enough and excited enough,
you can find enough people to pay you to do it.