Life After Sports
17 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 4 years ago - ★★★★★ - 29 ratingsParallel founder, Tyler Baker, sits down with former top athletes and thought leaders to uncover what it takes to build successful post-playing careers.
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Episodes
Harris Fanaroff: The Most Difficult Conversations are also the Most Important
February 09, 2020 20:07 - 34 minutes - 32 MBOn today's show, I welcome Harris Fanaroff. He is a former Lehigh University baseball player who now helps businesses, leaders, and athletes have difficult conversations. As a leadership and business development coach, Harris has a gift for helping people uncover the deep issues that hold them back from excellence in business and in life. But he's had to fight for that skill. He's had to wrestle his own demons, to confront the pain of his own transition from baseball. He's had to learn how t...
Blair Berry: Staying memorable in a crowded field
December 18, 2019 12:28 - 36 minutes - 33.4 MBMy guest today is Blair Berry, the Social Media Manager for the Washington Wizards. Blair graduated from East Carolina in 2018, and since then, she's been racking up credentials in the sports media world. Hard to believe that, at one point, she thought she was getting a late start compared to her peers. Needless to say... she's caught up. Blair is honest about the challenges of getting into the crowded, super-competitive sports media world. But she also shows us a winning formula for ma...
West Covington: The strength of the team
December 05, 2019 19:37 - 24 minutes - 22.7 MBMy guest this week is former East Carolina baseball pitcher West Covington, who reminds us that, just because you leave college athletics, doesn't mean you can't be part of a high-performing, satisfying team. West is a financial adviser with Plancentric Financial Group, a financial services provider within Northwestern Mutual. West took his business degree and pursued a path that a lot of athletes try: sales. But life as a solo financial rep was lonely, and West missed the camaraderie, acco...
Brett Bartles: Quick Pivots and Goal Chasing
November 18, 2019 14:29 - 34 minutes - 32.2 MBMy guest this week is former Duke Baseball player Brett Bartles, who's now the Commercial VP and GM at Kavo Kerr, a Danaher company. In my conversation with Brett, I've found him to be one of the most self aware individuals I've met. You'll see what I mean when you listen to our conversation. We discuss his many transitions from baseball to teaching to business school. Along the way, you'll learn how Brett made decisive decisions to pursue what made sense. In hindsight, his decisions...
Kelsey Brinson - Being the Best
September 16, 2019 12:02 - 29 minutes - 27.8 MBFormer Florida Gator and the nation's best softball player in 2011, Kelsey Brinson talks athlete transition, a winner's mentality and building again. Watch this episode at: https://blog.parallelplatform.com/kelsey-brinson-being-the-best/
Life After Sports Highlight Reel - Our First 12 Guests
August 28, 2019 11:32 - 40 minutes - 37.6 MB🎉 We're 12 episodes old! Party time! 🎉 In honor of 12 successful episodes, we decided to do something special for #13: a highlight reel of our guests' answers to one question: "What is the one skill that you learned as an athlete that has been most valuable to you in life after sports?" If you've missed an episode, this is a great chance to preview our early shows. If you're new to Life After Sports, this is a great place to start! Here are a few of the high points of this Greatest Hits ep...
Devan Kline: Answering the Most Important Questions after Sports
August 13, 2019 11:43 - 55 minutes - 51 MBMy guest is Devan Kline, former CMU and SF Giants baseball, and current CEO and founder of a fitness community sweeping the nation, Burn Boot Camp. Devan is all about helping the members of his gyms discover the values, passions, and causes that will motivate them to health, wealth, and peak performance. But like Devan says, in order to inspire people, you've gotta be inspired. So I grilled Devan on how to find that inspiration and how to connect the dots between a career as an athlete and w...
Court Whitman: Becoming a Peak Performer in Life After Sports
July 30, 2019 12:24 - 59 minutes - 54.8 MBCourt Whitman has spent most of his professional life leading– in his career in the Army's elite Special Forces, in companies, and now in his own leadership coaching company. And in today's episode, Court shares how playing football in many ways prepared him for a career in leadership. Court and I have an in-depth, no-holds-barred conversation about goals and what makes elite performers elite. Truly inspiring. In today's episode: Ever question the value of setting goals when you don't k...
Kovi Konowiecki: Unleashing Your Creativity
July 16, 2019 11:17 - 50 minutes - 46.6 MBMy guest is Kovi Konowiecki, a professional photographer who is also a former Wake Forest University and professional soccer player. At one point in this episode, we joke about starting a club for former athletes that are now artists... and how small that club might be. It's true! But in today's episode, Kovi presents a truly compelling argument for athletes in the arts. Essentially, intentionally challenging ourselves to be creative and to explore hobbies can help us unlock our deepest prof...
Jack McNamara: Authenticity in Entrepreneurship
July 01, 2019 23:52 - 55 minutes - 51.3 MBMy guest is Jack McNamara, a former Colgate University and professional hockey player who is the founder of a growing energy drink company, DrinkTru. It is rare you can get an entrepreneur to speak so honestly about the struggles of building a business...as they're going through it. But as you'll see: honesty is not just central to Jack's success and drive, it's essential to the DrinkTru brand. A rare, behind the scenes look at the day-to-day life of a company on the brink of being the next ...
Bill Mayew: Why Athletes Often Make the Best Teachers and Coaches
June 19, 2019 01:04 - 49 minutes - 45.2 MBMy guest is Bill Mayew, a former UNC-Wilmington basketball standout who is now Professor of Accounting at Duke's Fuqua School of Business. Bill's story is especially powerful for two reasons: (1) He did something that most athletes don't do - he pursued an advanced degree and works in the most rigorous academic research; and (2) He says that sports prepared him for that path. In Today's Episode: See a day in the life of a university professor - see what it's like to get paid to research...
Sebastian Little: Finding Your Perfect Career Match In Months, Not Years
June 04, 2019 00:34 - 54 minutes - 50.1 MBMy guest is Sebastian Little, a former Yale football player who is now an associate with the McChrystal Group, a world-renowned leadership and performance consulting company. Seb found his career niche FAST after college. It can take college athletes years to find careers that they enjoy. Within just a few months of leaving Yale, he had secured an entry-level role in a field he was passionate about. How'd he do it? By focusing on everything but that thing in college. Through intentionally d...
Chris Spatola: Transitioning Well When It's All On The Line
May 21, 2019 01:23 - 45 minutes - 42.5 MBMy guest is Chris Spatola, sports writer, commentator, and host of the SiriusXM show, "ACC Today." And that's just the most recent of Chris's transitions to fast-paced, high-pressure environments. Since he graduated from the US Military Academy in 2002, each of his career stops have been more intense than the last-- from serving in Iraq, to serving as an assistant coach on the Duke Men's basketball team... Chris Spatola knows how to transition well when it counts. In Today's Episode: One ...
Karlie Smith: Working to Success in Sports Media
May 06, 2019 20:52 - 36 minutes - 33.7 MBIn this episode, we talk with Karlie Smith, a former East Carolina softball player who has hit the ground running since graduating in May 2018. In less than a year, she's become a rising star in sports media broadcasting. She's an SEC Digital Network color commentator, and she works in digital production at the University of Georgia. In today's episode: 1. What it is like to talk sports in front of a live tv audience 2. The formula Karlie used to land internships with local TV, radio and sp...
Zach Maurides: Perseverance Pays Off
April 22, 2019 19:19 - 45 minutes - 42.6 MBMy guest is Zach Maurides, who is the founder and CEO of Teamworks, the leading software provider of operations software to athletic organizations world wide. The phrase "a glutton for punishment" comes to mind when listening to Zach explain his football career. When Zach talks about his 9 orthopedic surgeries during his college football career at Duke, there isn't the slightest invitation for sympathy. Instead, he tells the story with a sense of genuine accomplishment. After all, not quit...
Thomas Sanders: Building a Photo Booth Company
April 08, 2019 11:35 - 44 minutes - 41.3 MBThere is a lot of talk about the transferable skills athletes develop while playing sports. Society praises the work ethic, teamwork, and perseverance it takes to compete at the highest levels in sports. However, the talk is often nothing more than general platitudes lacking specificity on how these transferable skills play out in the real world. In this episode, former Atlantic Sun Player of the Year, Thomas Sanders, takes us step by step through the ups and downs of his pro basketball care...
Johnny Stephene: Handling Life with 1.5M Followers
March 25, 2019 17:45 - 50 minutes - 47.9 MBTo some degree, we are all a product of our environment. But it's the choices we make that ultimately determine where we end up. Fortunately for Johnny, he was able to escape the troubling environment of his youth and choose basketball as a path towards a much brighter future. Today, Johnny is widely known by his Instagram handle @dribble2much and is the founder of HandleLife, a lifestyle brand with over 1.5 million followers across platforms. Creativity, skill and perhaps perfect timing p...
Tim Layer: Poker to Code to Exit
March 11, 2019 17:32 - 51 minutes - 47.7 MBTim is the lead developer and co-founder at Parallel, a software company that helps athletic departments build community for career. He played basketball at Colorado State before transferring to finish his playing career at Liberty University. Like many classic technology stories, Tim's ventures outside of basketball started in a college dorm room. However, it's probably not what you're thinking. In 2008, Tim started playing online poker and quickly worked his way to earning over $100,0...