Joseph David Reitz (born August 24, 1985) is a former American football offensive tackle who played seven seasons for the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League (NFL). He was signed by the Baltimore Ravens as an undrafted free agent in 2008. He attended Western Michigan University where he played college basketball and not football.

For Joseph Reitz, football is not the most important thing in life. The former offensive lineman for the Indianapolis Colts says it’s not what he lives for. “First, it’s my faith,” says Joe. “That’s always number one. Next, is my family. Then, it’s football.”

Show Notes:

1:28 – Joe Reitz intro

6:04 – What is a Joe Reitz attitude?

11:51 – What did a young Joe Reitz get disciplined for? Sibling rivalry.

16:41 – Protecting Andrew Luck and learning from Peyton Manning.

18:00 – Who were your mentors as a player in the NFL? Matt Birk of the Minnesota Vikings and then Baltimore Ravens

21:17 – The three levels of mentorship.

24:27 – Some of Joe’s best mentors were coaches Jim Caldwell, Jim Harbaugh, and Tony Dungy because they were all true to themselves.

27:30 – Why the transition from the NFL to financial planning?

31:31 – Schedule time for “intentional thinking”

36:04 – Knowledge through the decades. The lesson as a newborn baby.

38:26 – The attitude lesson at the age of 10

39:28 – If you like the message from Joe Reitz and want him as a keynote speaker at your next event or company, visit https://glennbill.com/university-of-attitude/bureau-of-speakers/

44:01 – The attitude lesson at the age of 30. Advice on time management.

48:13 – The Bill of Reitz

49:50 – Show close

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Joe Reitz – Building Your Foundation Through Mentorship

I want to welcome everybody. Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. We ask that you share this show with somebody you know that needs to get attitude. In this episode, we are with the one and only former offensive tackle for the Indianapolis Colts, Joe Reitz.

“We can beat this fall Indiana afternoon. Got to go now. Let’s go. Everything we’ve tried to do is help Indianapolis and the great state of Indiana. That’s how our whole locker room is. That’s a credit to Mr. Irsay and Coach Pagano for the culture that they’ve built.”

Do you remember those days, Joe?

I do. I remember that game well. The Saints came in and took it to us in Lucas Oil. We were down about 28 nothing, had 2 bombs to TUI and rallied back but that was pretty cool. I was miked up for the game and gave my wife. My kids who are now a little bit older and weren’t born yet get the chance to watch that and see Daddy in action. You remember the losses more so than the wins, unfortunately. That’s how it goes.

That beautiful day did not turn into a beautiful day.

It was a beautiful day. You got the chance to go out, play the game you love, got out of there healthy, and play in front of 70,000 fans in Lucas Oil and millions more Colts nation watching on TV but unfortunately, we lost to the Saints on that one.

Joe is here to talk to us about our attitude booster number five, have a mentor and copy him or her. I’m sure you have more than just men in your life that are mentors to you. Talk to me quickly about some of the favorite women mentors in your life.

The first is my lovely wife, Jill. We’ve been married for several years and have five beautiful children. I thought playing football was hard. You’re in training camp two-a-days. It’s 90 degrees outside. You got to put on 20 pounds of equipment. I retired. For about a year, I was getting my NBA online but was home most of the day. I saw what life is like with three kids and the craziness. As I say, we have five now.

My wife is running around doing everything. It gave me such an appreciation for her, what she does on a daily basis, and the sacrifice she makes. I know my mom was a stay-at-home mom. She was the same way. My mother-in-law raised two children and worked full-time. My mom would always say, “A man’s work is sun to sun but a woman’s work is never done.” Amen to that because that’s the truth. There’s been a lot of very impactful women in my life and the one that speaks to me the most on a day-to-day basis and makes me the man that I want to be is my lovely wife, Jill.

Jill, here’s to you. I hope that you’re tuning into this. Jill doesn’t get to call time out.

If she’s tuning into this, there are three kids crying in the background. That’s how life goes.

She doesn’t get to leave the field when the defense is on.

No question. It’s nonstop. When it’s 3:00 in the morning and a kid throws up in bed, guess what they want? They want mom, not dad. It is good for me. I can go back to sleep but my wife does a whole lot so I’m very thankful for her and all the other women that continue to serve their families day after day and maybe don’t get the credit that we do all the time.

Was that a love-at-first-sight thing with her?

It took a little bit for me to realize how good she was. I was in college and 21 when we met. I was full of myself and slowly but surely realized, “If I don’t ask her out on a date, she’s not going to like me anymore and I’m going to lose this great opportunity.” We met in college at Western Michigan. She ran track there. I played basketball. We continued a two-year long-distance relationship when I was in Baltimore. I started my NFL career with the Ravens and then got married here in Indianapolis on July 10th, 2010.

That’s easy to remember. You’ll never forget 7/10/10. She’s awesome. She’s the love of my life. Many times, as NFL players, we get praised by the community and all like, “Look at this guy. He’s doing this. He’s going out and serving the community.” I got a wife at home with four kids that’s doing all the work and I’m getting the praise. It’s not right. She should get that. We view it that we’re in this together and that whatever adulation I’m getting, it’s half hers and whatever work I’m doing, we’re in this thing. We are one body living together.

Not to mention the paycheck. It doesn’t say your wife’s name on it. You’re getting all the money.

Joe Reitz and this and that. It’s Joe and Jill. I’ve tried to positively remind that to people in the community throughout my time playing with the Colts.

Joe, we talked a little bit offline about what this show is about. We call our audience GAPers who follow us. They’re people that are at different stages of their life and have different emotional components. Some days when they’re reading this, they’re up and striving. Some days when they’re reading this, they’re down and not thriving.

Sometimes they’re insecure. Sometimes they’re full of confidence. Attitude is the way you dedicate yourself to the way you think. What I’d love to hear from you is, what’s your definition of attitude? What does attitude mean to you? When people talk about Joe Reitz’s attitude, what does that look like and sound like? It’s for the audience so they’ll know what’s going on.

For me, attitude is who you want to be at your core day in and day out. It’s a level of consistency. Similar to playing football, it’s easy to have a great game. It’s hard to have sixteen great games in a row. To have 16 games in a row, you have to have 6 months of great preparation. You have to have years of honing your craft. To have a great attitude, be at your very best, and be the type of person you want to be, personally and professionally, you have to do it day in and day out.

Some days are easy. It’s Friday afternoon. The sun is shining. It’s 3:00. It’s easy to have a great attitude. Monday morning, you got four hours of sleep and your kids were up all night. You got a crisis going on at work. It’s snowing outside. It takes you longer to get to work. Those are the hard days. That’s when you make your money. You make your money on days that are hard when you push through and grind. You still have that positive attitude.

Everybody can do it when the sun is shining and the birds are singing. When it’s hard, that’s what separates people that have great attitudes and people whose attitudes fluctuate day to day. One day, they’re up. One day, they’re down. Push through when the time gets hard. More importantly, recognize, “When I’m going through some struggle and crisis in my life, that’s when I got to focus some extra mental energy to make sure that I’m still going to push through and have that good attitude.”

It’s a lesson that if you’re walking on the beach or sitting in the car, as I always say, that never stops. It’s in the hard times and in the fourth quarter, which is in the ABCs of Attitude. You got to be your strongest when the times are tough. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Joe, our topic is to have a mentor and copy them. I’d love to hear about where you came from, what growing up was like, and the first mentor of your life, which I believe was your father. We’d love to know that story, what he meant to you, and the lessons that he taught you that stick with you.

The first mentor of my life was both mom and dad but from being a young boy, figuring out how to grow into a man, it’s my dad, Dave. He’d been married to my mom, Jane, for many years and have four kids. He worked at Eli Lilly for 37 years. Every day, from 8:00 to 5:00, he’s doing it but he always was home with us. He would get home from work.

Being in the working world, I get it. You have long days, 10 or 12 hours. You want to get home, be tired, sit in a La-Z-Boy, and put on SportsCenter. He was always outside playing with us. He always was coaching us and around us. He always was good to my mom. He showed us, a lot of times without words, the way to be a good husband and a loving father. For that, I’m grateful because that’s helped me in my personal life being married with kids.

He showed me that your work is your work. We used to say in football, “Football is what I do. It’s not who I am.” Jeff Saturday was a great mentor of mine. I want to be a man of God, first. I want to be a husband, second. I want to be a father, third. I want to be a great football player, fourth. My dad did that in a different way and always showed us that there are more important things than work, how much money you’re making and your success at work. It’s about the real big picture things in life and how you’re living your life to impact people in a positive way.

My dad, Dave, was the first mentor in my life. A lot of the stuff I’m doing wasn’t necessarily something that he said, some big speech he gave us, or some CliffNotes version of, “Here’s how to be a good parent.” He just lived it out day after day. It’s like what we’re talking about with your attitude. You stack days of great attitude. 1 becomes 10, 10 becomes 100 and 100 becomes 1,000. Eventually, that’s you. You’re having a great attitude every day because you put in the work those days before.

We always love to ask the question, “Whose love did you crave more? Your mothers or your fathers?” I’m not going to ask you that. I had a great father who was a coach too. Sometimes, it’s not all rosy. Sometimes your father had to teach you some lessons. Sometimes that wasn’t necessarily verbal.

That’s very true. There are some hard lessons and times when I deserved it. It’s one of those things that when things get hard and somebody yells at you and disciplines you, it’s not because they’re trying to be mean or they don’t like you. It’s because they love you. They’re trying to form you into the best person you can do. It’s that tough love but it all comes out of love. I know that’s how it was for Dad. Like everybody, I had my struggles in life and adversity but we grow in times of adversity. You grow when times are tough. If you never stress yourself and you never change, you can’t get any better.

You’ve already hit number one, be nice. Number eight is love adversity. Well done. This happens with all of our attitude episodes. When you were a kid and your dad did discipline you, what was going on? What did you do? Did you start crying in the middle of things? Did you yell at a coach? We all think we’re perfect. Is there a memory where you did something and you went, “I shouldn’t have done that?”

I was not the best big brother. I have two younger sisters, Betsy and Katie. I love them dearly but I was always stirring the pot. I was always teasing and bothering them because it was fun. You get bored at home and you want to mess with your sisters.

It’s fun for you.

Yeah, but not for them. I’ve apologized year after year to them. We were on a family vacation at Yellowstone National Park. We took two weeks and drove out West. It was awesome. We stopped by the Rocky Mountains and visit Mount Rushmore but we’re in Yellowstone. We’re at some park. I’m in eighth grade. My sister Betsy is in sixth and I’m messing with them doing that thing where you fake punch somebody. You fake punch her and you hit your chest. It makes noise.

Sure enough, I’m doing it with her and she’s off looking around. She turns around and her lip turned right into my fist or vice versa. I popped her and her lip bleeds. This is right when we were getting her ready to do another four-hour stretch in the car. My dad had some choice words with me. I’ll sum it up in layman’s terms. “You better not make a peep for the next four hours.” I sat there like a church mouse for four hours in the van and it was high stress. A lot of tense moments then but it’s a great family memory and we laugh about it. I still think that my sister Betsy knew what she was doing. She leaned into my fist a little bit on the fake so that I’d have four hours of misery in the car.

Do you ever do that to her now?

It’s a good family joke now that we mess with it.

The bottom line is we never get to choose our teammates and our family. Sometimes those people who test your attitude are antagonizers in your life. You were one. My guess is those two sisters were mentors to you in a little bit of a way too. What do you think the best lesson your sisters taught you was?

The best is that eventually, they got smart enough that they knew that if they ignored me, I’d go away. I would try to bother them. They slowly but surely realize that if they ignore me, I’m going to tire out of my antics after 5 to 10 minutes. That’s a good one in terms of avoiding negativity. The stuff that’s bad and feeding you that’s going to impact you in a negative way, block it out. Block out the trash and focus on what you want to do, whom you want to become, and the type of person that eventually you’re trying to build towards.

That works in life and business. Oftentimes, your biggest antagonizer is very lonely and has poor self-esteem. The only way they can get attention is to antagonize you or everybody around you. Misery loves company. That’s a great lesson for our GAPers. If you have somebody in your life that is antagonizing you and pisses you off, disassociate.

There are three solutions to the power of influence. We always talk about the power of influence. There are subtle influences and major influences. The subtle influence is the antagonizer. The great Jim Rohn always said, “Ask yourself three questions. 1) Who am I hanging around? 2) What do they have me being? What do they have me doing? What do they have me reading? What do they have me listening to? Whom do they have me becoming? 3) Is that okay?” We’re not here to judge or say but sometimes you got to question who you’re hanging around.

I had a teammate, Matt Hasselbeck, who played in the NFL for twenty years. He’s on ESPN now. He would always say and I love this quote, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” That’s so true. If you’re around five great people and high achievers, you’re naturally going to be lifted to that level. If you’re around five people that aren’t doing much to positively impact society, they’re going to naturally lower you to that level.

The answer to that is once you answer that question, “Is it okay,” then your three solutions are either to decrease the association, limit the association, maybe not hang around them so much or eliminate it when it’s all set, but increasing the association with those five people is something to do. I hope that’s something that our GAPers think about, “Whom am I hanging around? Whom do I need to increase association with? Whom do I need to limit it with?” There are probably people we need to disassociate from. Great lesson from your sisters. That was a good one. We got into a riff on the sisters. That’s always good. When we talk about having a mentor, you were Peyton Manning’s right tackle. You protected him.

I didn’t play with Peyton though.

I thought you did.

I was on the team but I wasn’t playing at that time. Andrew Luck would be more accurate.

You were protecting Andrew. That’s good but you knew Peyton Manning.

Yeah. I played with Peyton for two years and it was great to learn by osmosis from him, who is one of the best of all time.

Have you had any communication with Andrew since the big news?

We’ve texted back and forth a little bit. It’s a decision that’s best for him. We’re super happy for him. As a Colts fan, you’re still a little sad. You wish he was out there playing because he’s a top-five NFL quarterback. We had five great years playing together and he was a great mentor for me. He taught me a lot about life, how to be a better person and how to be the ultimate competitor on the field, which he was. He was a joy to play with and I feel blessed that I had that opportunity.

The stats speak for themselves and the guy was ultra-productive. To get to know a game changer and a person of that talent had to be great. When you looked at the mentor as a player, give us a story. Tell us whom you credit with being some of your top mentors when you became a Pro Bowl player.

The biggest one was a guy named Matt Burke when I was with the Baltimore Ravens. Matt is a 15-year NFL vet, 6-time Pro Bowler, won the Super Bowl with the Ravens in 2012, walked off and retired. Matt, at that time in Baltimore, had played his first twelve years with the Vikings. He comes to Baltimore and moves his family. He had five kids at that time.

He shared with me, he goes, “It would have been easy to stay in Minnesota but we needed a new challenge and we needed to grow.” He then came to Baltimore. At that time, I’m 23. I’m on the practice squad barely hanging on. If there are 53 guys on the roster and then 8 on the practice squad like the JV team so 61 in total, I’m 61 of 61. I’m worried every Tuesday afternoon that I’m going to get a phone call saying I’m cut.

Do you have a wife and a kid at this point?

We were engaged at that time but I would wait until 4:00 on Tuesday. If you’re on the roster, you’re good for another week. By 4:00, I would breathe another sigh of relief and say, “The good Lord’s blessed me with another week.” I’m struggling in a lot of aspects professionally with football opposing defense. When you’re on the practice squad on the offensive line, you run the scout team and play against the defense. Look across and close your eyes. There’s Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Haloti Ngata, Terrell Suggs, Trevor Pryce and Hall of Famer, Bart Scott. It’s Hall of Famer after Hall of Famer.

Also, Super Bowl champs. Were you going to the Super Bowl?

They won the Super Bowl in 2012. I was in India at that point. I have an offensive line coach who was an old-school tough-love guy. I was beaten down by him. Also, by Ray Lewis and the Ravens’ defense every single day. I don’t know what Matt saw in me but he had five kids. He took time out of his busy schedule to say, “Joe, let’s go grab a slice of pizza.” He takes me out. He talked to me and encouraged me.

It’s not necessarily giving me any great advice but just being there, being a resource and a sounding board. I can’t tell you how valuable he was at that moment in my career as somebody who was struggling with football and needed somebody. It was him and it was my wife, Jill. I’d call my wife Jill every night and we’d have long talks. She’d build me back up and encourage me. We’d pray together. That’s when our relationship got strong with God. I knew 100% that she was the wife that was for me.

Those two people helped me through some of those tough times in Baltimore. I’m so indebted to Matt and grateful for him, the type of man he was. He showed me more than anybody else that, “You can be a good person, a good husband, a good father and a great football player. They’re not mutually exclusive. You don’t have to dedicate your entire life 24/7 to football. You can be a great, well-rounded person and still go kick butt on the field.”

He was that for me in my career. I always felt like it. Every year, I tried to seek out when I became a veteran. In the NFL, you go from a young guy to an old guy quickly. At 28, you’re considered an old guy. At 30, you’re really old but I would always seek out those younger guys who I knew had great attitudes and worked hard. I try to sew back into them and give them maybe a little bit of the advice and life lessons that Matt gave to me.

You talked about the three levels of mentorship. Run that down. You had mentioned that to me. That’s so valuable.

To put it in football or coaching terms, everybody needs three people in their life. You need a coach and a mentor that’s a little bit older and more seasoned and that’s been there and done that. You need a teammate. You need that peer mentorship. If we’re sitting here talking, you know me and I know you, I’m not afraid to hold you accountable when you’re not doing the things you should do. I’m also not afraid and I know you well enough to know when you need some love and compassion. Also, when you need me to come over, hang with you at your house, give you a hug and that’s it.

The third is everybody needs to be coaching somebody. We need to be sewn into younger people and that idea of reverse mentorship. I tell you what, we can learn so much more from people that are younger because they’re living life at a different stage. How life is in 2019 is a lot different than when I grew up in 1999. I’m having some reverse mentorships where I’m mentoring some kids in high school and they’re helping me out. My daughter is young and I know she’s going to go down this road of high school, social media, Snapchat, and all that stuff I have no idea. They might think they’re learning from me but I’m learning from them.

I want to give our GAPers some time to think about that. Who is your mentor? Many people don’t think about, “Who’s my peer mentor?”

Who’s your teammate? Who’s there that you’re walking through life with? My wife is my teammate. She’s my best teammate but I have some other good teammates. Some other men that might be in similar stages in life know the challenges we’re all facing and walking through life together. I know that if I need something, I text one of them and they’re calling me back.

More importantly, I’m constantly checking on them, “I haven’t talked to you in a couple of weeks. How are you doing? How’s life? How’s business? Are you doing okay? Are your kids doing okay?” It’s those little small check-ins or that little text message that you send at 9:30 on a Friday night, “I wanted to let you know that I’m thinking about you. I love you. I hope to see you soon.” Sometimes, that is so much more needed in life than we even think.

My guess is Andrew Luck probably appreciated that. That’s cool. I want our readers to be thinking about, “Whom am I mentoring? Who am I picking up? Am I associating with people younger than me? Am I getting into their life? Am I learning from the youth of the people in my life?” It’s so important. The call to action of this show is let’s go identify, GAPers. If you have one, great. If you have two, great. If you don’t have all three, what a great accomplishment would it be for everybody that’s reading this.

You talk about being an instantaneous change of life from a show if people said, “I’m going to dedicate the next 24 hours to finding those three people.” That’s pretty awesome. Let me ask you this. You were a college basketball player. Who was the toughest coach you ever had? Who was the most memorable coach you ever had? Who was the best coach you ever had? What did they all teach you?

I played for so many great coaches, high school, college, and pro. Two things stuck out. The best coaches were truly authentic to themself. In the NFL, I played for John Harbaugh, Jim Caldwell, Chuck Pagano, and Bruce Arians. All vastly different people who have different message and approach about it. Some are yellers, screamers, and fiery. Some like Jim Caldwell, rarely raised their voice, similar to Tony Dungy but they all were true to themself.

1) You have to be authentic to yourself in life because other people see right through it. 2) The coaches that held me to the highest level of accountability are the ones that I love the most. It might not be easy every day to practice. It might be tough. They might give you some truth that you don’t want to sit there, look at, and stare down at the face but it’s the truth and you need to hear it. That level of accountability is a coach’s job. A coach’s job is to take you to a level you can’t get on your own. All my favorite coaches are the ones that were the toughest on me.

Without mentioning names, did you ever have any bad coaches?

I had a few.

There are lessons to be learned from a bad coach.

It’s that idea that some coaches are transactional and some are transformational. The transactional coach is, “How can you help me win games? It’s all about me, my record, and what I want to do.” The transformational coach is, “How can I make you into a better overall person and you can help me as well? That’s going to help you win at a higher level in the long-term.”

When we talked about Matt, your mentor, what was the best lesson you learned from him?

Consistency on the football field and in life. He taught me how to be a pro. You show up every day and get to the weight room early. You work out before the team meeting, even if you don’t have to until later. You get yourself on a good schedule and you’re that way consistently with your craft but also in your life. He was that way as a husband and a father.

With five kids of my own, I have to have that consistency. I can’t go and stay up until 1:00 in the morning watching TV and Monday Night Football, even if I want to. My kids are going to get up at 6:00 AM and they’re counting on me to make breakfast, take them to school, and do all those other things. It’s the consistency with the way he lived his life.

It’s easy to do when it’s Friday afternoon with sunshine and rainbows. It’s hard to do when it’s Monday morning and it’s raining. You’re tired, beat up, and sore. He did it at a high-level day in and day out for fifteen years in the NFL. I played nine years in the NFL and I was done. I could not go anymore. He had six more years. It’s amazing.

How long have you been out?

I’ve been retired in 2016.

Any challenges to your attitude? That’s a big change. Some days are different. Life changes. You’re in the financial planning business helping families grow their net worth. What is it about the financial planning business that you like so much? Why did you gravitate to that?

It’s the value you get in helping people. It’s the intrinsic value you get in meeting somebody, sitting down, and helping them make hopefully some positive changes in their life that you know are going to reflect for them 10, 20, or 30 years down the road. Life, at the end of the day, is about people. We’re relationship-driven creatures. We need to be around other people, going out and helping people in a positive way whatever we can do. Whether it’s your work, going to the grocery store and smiling at somebody when you’re checking out, or somebody cuts you off on the road and instead of honking the horn like it’s our reaction and yelling some bad word that we shouldn’t say, maybe I’ll pause.

I don’t know what’s going on in their life. Maybe they had something crazy happen with their family and they didn’t mean to cut me off. Why don’t I just pause and pump the brakes? I’m getting on a tangent here but it’s the whole adage, “Don’t judge a man until you walk a mile in his shoes.” That’s what I’ve tried to remind people positively about Andrew Luck. There’s been a lot of criticism from different people about Andrew in this decision. Who are you to say and judge him having not known him and walked a mile in his shoes?

They have no idea. People come to this show because they’re at a transition in their life. I’m sure it can be scary. There’s a lot of self-doubt. I’d like to know your story. Did it feel different when you had to get out of the NFL? What were the challenges you had? You’ve done very well for yourself. What are some of the biggest issues of players you’ve seen around the league? You’ve been around. There are some people that transition from the NFL great. There are some people that transition from the NFL not so great. What are the lessons there, the successes and the failures of those people, including yourself?

It was tough to transition out as it is for everybody but I will say that I had a relatively smooth transition overall for a couple of reasons. I shared with you that quote that a mentor of mine, Jeff Saturday, said. “Football is what I do. It’s not who I am.” When I retired, my identity wasn’t in football. Football was a part of it but my identity was in my relationship with God, being a husband to Jill, and being a father to my five kids.

When I got out, I knew that at the end of the day, I’m serving them first. Football is work and whatever I do professionally after that, that will be work but that priority is not going to supersede those other ones. The first one is knowing what’s your purpose in life. Who do you want to be about? The second one is knowing who or what is your rock. When times get tough and there’s a challenge, struggle and adversity, who is your rock?

For me, it’s two people. It’s my relationship with Christ and my wife, Jill. Those have always been my rock going back to when it was forged in those tough times in Baltimore. When something is happening and I’m struggling, I need to take time and I either need to reflect and pray or I need to have a conversation with my wife. Those people will bring me back to the level that I want to be at.

If you haven’t identified what or who your rock is before the storms come, then you’re scrambling and swimming like crazy to try to get to shore versus saying, “I know that it’s life. There are going to be challenges, adversity, and suffering but I know, 1) What my identity is and who I want to be, and 2) Who’s my rock that I’m going to go to when things get tough.”

How do you coach? What do you do? There are people that are going, “Joe, I have no identity or no rock.” What can we tell them? What action can they take that could help them find an identity or search for a rock?

A couple of things that may be positive to think about. One is to stop and think. In our society in 2019, it is so busy. There is so much noise from getting in your car and the radio to music. Everybody’s got a smartphone and is on social media. How easy it is to get there and get on Twitter, Facebook and scroll through. You’ve wasted 30 to 45 minutes. How many times do we intentionally sit and think with a pen and paper? It’s like, “I’m going to write whatever’s going on in my mind. I’m going to write things down. This is what I want to do. This is what’s going on at work.” Sit back and look.

Some people would call it journaling. I would call it intentional thinking, reflection, meditation, or prayer. Whatever that time when you’re in silence and however you use that time in silence. Rarely do we put ourselves in a position where we’re quiet and we can think. I get it. Life, work, and family are busy but if you’re not mindful and have mindfulness, your life is going to control you, not the other way around. One big thing is taking time to stop and think and also write things down.

We do so much stuff electronically and there are no studies out there that are going to say, “Joe, this is accurate.” I do think we type emails all the time. How often do we sit down and write things pen to paper? There’s no substitute for visualizing yourself writing something down from pen to paper. To me, that’s got a lot higher impact than typing something on a keyboard. That’s not been scientifically studied so don’t take that to the bank and say, “Joe Reitz told me this,” but I will say that’s given me value in my life.

You’ve seen my 50 yellow pads.

There are a lot of them. Writing on a yellow pad versus a white sheet of paper, you’re 30% more likely to remember it. Somebody told me that. I don’t know if that’s true or not but that’s why they’re yellow because the different color is something in your brain. I don’t know. Eighty-two percent of all statistics are made up. That’s a disclaimer.

That’s important for our GAPers to think about. I had a guy and his last name was Cunningham. He spoke to us once and he said, “How many of you schedule thinking time in your Day-Timer? Nobody schedules time to just sit and think.” I started scheduling for 30-minute and I’ve made it 60-minute thinking time where I literally just think for 60 minutes.

I started doing that. I put an hour on my calendar a week where it’s think. There’s no distraction and you’re just thinking. I can’t tell you how much that’s helped me with my work and my life overall.

Joe, you have your stories of mentorship of the people that have come into your life and who have taught you some lessons. You’ve given our GAPers some great tools on what they can do to find mentors and become a mentor. I love the idea of saying, “Who is my friend? Who am I hanging around? Who is my peer mentor?” When we talk about identity and your rocks, these are all things that can make our lives better that can help our attitude. The people you hang around affect your attitude. You’ve said it. This was an incredible intro to the episode.

The thing I love about mentorship and coaching is I heard this quote and I stole it. You’ll hear why I say it’s stolen. It goes something like this. “All wisdom is stolen. Only foolishness is original.” It’s so true. All these other people and mentors of ours have been through it. They’ve made all the mistakes. Why wouldn’t I seek this out? I can talk to you, build a relationship with you and you’re going to help me avoid potholes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10. Yeah, sure. Gladly do that.

If you’re a fool, you don’t listen or seek. I always love, “Seek and you will find.” The secret to success is there is no secret. The answers are there. Joe, we always like to finish our episode with this fun little thing we called Knowledge Through the Decades. It’s a little bit on the spot. We believe that sometimes the truth is best off the top of the head. We want you to walk through your life and talk about the best attitude lesson you got in each decade of your life. That is going to start with childbirth.

A lot of people go, “Glenn, how in the hell am I supposed to remember what the lesson was at childbirth?” I realize you may not have a recollection. We’re going to go ahead and start Knowledge Through the Decades with Joe Reitz. Joe, let’s talk about the newborn Joe Reitz or his offspring. What’s the attitude lesson about being born?

I’ll ever get three things, have a clean diaper, have a full tummy, and get enough sleep. If you do that, your baby is going to be happy. There’s probably a good lesson for us in terms of the basic needs in life, self-care, giving yourself time to take care of yourself in the proper way, getting enough sleep, hydrating, eating right, and all that stuff. There’s a reason why babies cry when they have a wet diaper, when they’re tired, and when they’re hungry. If you fill in those three things, life is good.

Attitude booster number nine, eat right and exercise. You didn’t miss an exercise.

Babies give us lessons in that.

I have some friends after a long night of drinking or whatever it might be, their diapers may not be clean and their bellies may not be full. They needed some sleep. That’s good advice, even for our parents who are 80. My folks died and when they stop eating, that’s when you know you’re in trouble. Project yourself 50 years from 2019 and go, “I remember that show.” What are people going to be doing 50 years from 2019 instead of a show? This going to be crazy. We thank you. Joe, do you have a brother too?

Older brother and two younger sisters.

You four guys are hanging out. You’re number what out of the four?

I’m second. I’m a middle child. It explains a lot probably.

We call it second-kid syndrome.

Whatever it is, I got it.

That’s what my Anthony was. I can’t imagine. You’re ten years old. Think about the best attitude lesson you learned. What would the ten-year-old Joe Reitz public speaker be talking about?

Don’t tease your sisters. I’d spend a lot of time teasing my sisters and being mean to them. Now I wish that I hadn’t done it. I could have been a lot more productive in doing good things at that time like studying for a test and practicing sports but it was fun for me to tease my sisters. I don’t know. I got some enjoyment out of it. I was bored but I would say, don’t tease your sisters.

That’s attitude booster number one, be nice. There we are on that. If you like what Joe has had to say, you should know that Joe is one of our speakers at the University of Attitude Bureau of Speakers. Go to UniversityOfAttitude.com. There’s a bio of him and his one sheet. If you feel like his message is something that your company, corporation, association or group could use, all you got to do is head to the UniversityOfAttitude.com and contact us.

We can bring Joe in as your keynote speaker. We’ve seen him speak. There’s a video of him and I know he would be good. Ten-year-old Joe, nice job. You’re at Western Michigan all on your own, not around your family anymore. What does twenty-year-old Joe Reitz have to say? What was the attitude lesson from Western Michigan?

I would say probably two things. The first one is when I was twenty, I realized how much my parents loved me, how good they were, how much they cared about me and all the silly things, the discipline that they gave me and the times that they were tough to me. I realized why they did it and how awesome it was and important that I had two loving parents who loved me and were sewing into me.

The other one at twenty is it’s the things you learn after it you know all that matters. I was a hard charge as an 18 and 19-year-old kid. I knew everything. I was self-righteous and all this stuff. You get to college and realize that there are a lot of people from a lot of different places around the country that think about life and view life through a different prism than you. They helped me change my outlook on life and the empathy I have towards people. I thought I knew it all at 20 and realized at 20 that I didn’t know anything so I started learning more and more.

That ongoing learning is a major theme from everybody we interview. It’s that quest and thirst to learn. It’s that reality. “Do I have what I call purposeful learning going on in my life?” If you’re reading this, you’re one of those learners. You’re out there saying, “There is more information for me to get.” We hope we are the number one provider of attitude advice, attitude information, attitude discovery and attitude awareness. If you are working on your attitude, this is the place to be. There’s no better place than the University of Attitude to learn about your attitude, why you do what you do and why you think the way you think. We got all kinds of tools. You hit Western Michigan. Did you get drafted in the NFL?

Undrafted free agent.

Did you expect to get drafted?

No. I’m not coming from college basketball. I never thought there was a low percentage chance but I was an undrafted free agent.

You played no college football.

Not a down. A Raven scout saw me play. Long story short, he saw that I was big, moved my feet well, had a big backside and could probably put on 50 or 60 pounds and become a lineman. It took me a few years to do it and a lot of struggles along the way but fast forward, I started my first game in Houston on September 11th, 2011. I’ll never forget it.

On the 10-year anniversary, they had this beautiful 10-minute tribute on the screen. Tears are streaming down my face. It’s one of those things where the last three and a half years of struggle and adversity flooded back through my mind. I was so grateful that I finally had the chance to play and start in an NFL game. I was fortunate to last six more years after that. The NFL had a live tribute in every stadium that streamed. They were cameras flashing from different stadiums. It was pretty amazing.

Like many of our other attitude interviewees, he hits number eight, love adversity. What a lesson. You never know what God’s going to do with you. You had to be going, “How am I standing in an NFL stadium when I never played football?”

I’m a big believer that the good Lord has got a plan for all of us. A lot of times, it’s better than our own plan. I can remember day after day when I was in Baltimore praying, “God, give me a shot. I put in all this work. I want a chance to play the show that I can do.” Instead of giving me that shot in Baltimore, my road went through Miami and came back to Indianapolis, my hometown, where I could play in front of friends and family. I was so blessed to play in Indianapolis for seven years.

He then brings you to this show. Amen. You are an old 30. What’s your lesson? Were you retired at 30 or did you play at 30?

I was still playing at 30.

You retired at 31 or 32.

At 30, I would say, “What’s your treasure?” Look at your time. Where do you spend your time? That will lead you to what your treasure is. You might be saying, “My treasure is one thing but if your time’s spent doing something else or focused on something else, it’s not. Everybody is busy at 30. A lot of people are married or have young children. There’s never enough time in the day, is there? Everybody’s got the same 168 hours every week. You have 168 hours.

How do I choose to focus my time? If it’s all on work, then I’m not serving my family. If it’s all in my family, I’m not serving work. Be intentional about our time because time is the most valuable commodity we have. If you follow your time and track, “What have I been doing for the last month,” that’s going to tell you what your treasure is. Understand, “What do I want my treasure to be? What are my non-negotiables? What are the highest things of priority in my life?” You rework your schedule to fit into those.

I’ve had similar advice when you look at all the areas of your life, physical or spiritual. What’s the biggest time management lesson there is? People go, “Glenn, how do you do so much? What do you do?” We know for a fact that there are fundamentals in life. There are usually 5 or 6 key things that make all the difference in the world in every area of your life. The question and the focus that you were talking about is, are you doing those five fundamentals?

Are you doing twenty things in your personal life? You only need to be doing five, spiritual, exercise, family, and business. It’s the fundamentals and the best time management lesson I ever got. You’ve said it but is there anything about time management that you try to live by or you didn’t just say? Everybody is like, “You’re so right. Where do you find the time?”

I can share one. The biggest change for me transitioning out of the NFL is I sleep about an average of seven hours a night. It’s probably a national average close to that. For a while, I was going to bed at midnight and woke up at 7:00 AM, which is fine. That’s seven hours of sleep. That’s good but what was I doing from 10:00 PM to midnight? I was sitting on the couch drinking a Pepsi, eating a bag of chips and watching football on TV.

It’s not productive for the type of things I want to do and be about in life. Now, I go to bed at 10:00 PM. I’m up at 5:00 AM and I’m incredibly productive. I work out, get things done, send emails, write things down and plan my day. 5:00 to 7:00, the kids are still asleep. That’s the time that I have. I’m still sleeping the same. I’m awake for seventeen hours. I’m asleep for seven on average every single day. I’m so much more productive because of my two bonus hours, 5:00 to 7:00 AM versus 10:00 PM to midnight, it’s amazing that change.

When you think about attitude development and reality, feeling and emotion, sitting on your ass from 10:00 to 12:00 drinking pop and eating, probably doesn’t make your attitude great.

You go to bed and feel bad. You don’t sleep well. It’s like, “What am I doing? It’s 11:30. I made another frozen nacho in the fridge. Go to sleep, Joe,” versus when I wake up at 5:00. You’re probably a little tired and groggy rolling on a bed but you go for a 3-mile run workout, have taken a shower and is dressed for the day. It’s 6:00 AM and you’ve already worked out. Your mind and body are sharp. You’re filled up. I believe in the four pillars, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Having those four pillars all firing is going to allow you to be the best you.

My favorite keynote that Joe does is the Bill of Reitz. Do you want to give us a one-minute summation of the Bill of Reitz, what it means and what people might expect to hear if you are hired as a speaker?

The Bill of Reitz is my last name. It’s a nice play on words but I believe that everybody has the right to reinvent themself. There’s going to be change in life, whether it’s at work or you move across the country. There’s a change in your family and the situation is different. Maybe it’s kids or divorce. Whatever it is, you have the right to reinvent yourself. How do you do that? Three things. You build on rocks, not sand. You make sure that you have a strong foundation so that when the storms come, you’re ready. The storms are going to come. It’s not a matter of if. It’s a matter of when. Who or what is your rock? That’s number one.

Number two is to be ready when life calls audibles. When I was in the huddle and we had a run play called but Andrew checks out of it, we got to pass. I’m mad because I wanted to run the ball and I didn’t want to have to pass and block Von Miller. He’s snapping the ball in three seconds whether I like it or not so be ready when life calls audibles. Be ready to move and pivot as quickly and efficiently as you can.

You can’t be reactive to negative thinking. It’s all about, “An audible has been called. I got to move forward and go produce at the highest level I can in whatever area of life.” The third one is to take ownership of your life. It’s your life. It’s not your boss’s life telling you what to do. It’s not a friend or a family member. To be the best you, you got to take ownership of your life. Those are three key principles from the Bill of Reitz.

I can tell you, Joe, you crushed it here on our show. Mentorship is incredible. We thank you for your mentorship of our GAPers. Everybody that is reading this comes here to get attitude but the message that Joe gave us, that everybody has the right to reinvent themselves, is huge. If you’re sitting there and looking for attitude and passion, if you’re lethargic and you need a new spark, find a mentor. Understand that you do have the right to reinvent yourself. One great way to reinvent yourself is to get attitude, which we talk about.

Getting attitude is not having an attitude. It’s getting an attitude and being proactive about the places in your life that you wish to be. We believe that you don’t have to be stuck. We are providing information with unbelievable guests on this show that will bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be and from who you are to whom you want to become. Joe, we thank you for being our mentor and for the message of being able and having the right to change your life. It all starts with you and your mentor but it all starts right here at the show. Joe, thank you so much for being with us.

I appreciate it, Glenn. To all the readers out there, thank you very much for reading.

See you in the next episode.

Important Links

• Joe Reitz – Twitter
• UniversityOfAttitude.com
• ABCs of Attitude
• Megaphone.fm/AdChoices