Episode# 037: Turn Your Pain into Your Power with Trent Shelton

You ever have one of those full-circle moments where you’re doing something that you either dreamed about before or something that brings you right back to where it all began?

That’s this interview for me.

In this episode, we’re having Trent Shelton on the show. You might know him as a former NFL wide receiver or the motivational speaker that’s taking the internet literally by storm, but Trent’s story and the impact that he’s making on the world is so far beyond what each of us perceives…

After seeing Trent take the stage at Brendon Burchard’s High-Performance Academy, I was absolutely blown away by how he has triumphed over adversity in his life, not just in a grit your teeth and deal kind of way, but in a vulnerable, raw and strategic way.

I asked Trent to come on the show to share everything from the heartbreaks of his football career to the realness of facing depression.

He delivered.

As a father of two, a devoted husband, a faithful man and man on a mission to teach us all how to extract the purpose from our pain.

I'm sitting in the audience, you're a big presence, a big guy, former NFL player, tattoos. Never in my wildest dreams could I have predicted the vulnerability that would own it from you on that stage that day and you were more real than I think anyone I've ever seen speak live. It was incredible.

Well thank you. I appreciate it. You know, it's my freedom. I haven't always just spend an NFL and just younger and as a man and being a athlete, you know, you're taught to, you know, kind of a suppressor emotions. And so being able to fast forward now, like being able to be transparent and open, no. One quote that I always say:

Your transparency will lead to your transformation (and to other people's transformation).

It's freedom when you can just open up about whatever it's on your heart. And that's where people connect to and relate to because we all have struggles. You know, whether if you're talking to $1 billion company or you're talking to a church, it doesn't matter. Everybody has struggles and I just try to let people know that I feel you, I understand you, I care about you and I know that you will receive me better if I open up about my struggles first.

I know your journey to get here to this place where you had a book published and you're speaking on these big stages. It wasn't exactly a clear cut path, was it?

Oh, not at all. You know, even the thought of being a speaker, I never wanted to be one. I wasn't the guy who was in personal development. Even though my dad was a pastor, I never saw myself being a speaker. I like to call myself now a social introvert because when I say introverted, people think that I'm shy. I'm not shy. I was always the kid that stuck to himself. I was always in my room. I was always a thinker, observer. And even to this day, I'm like that.  When I walked into a room, people expect me to talk and I'm usually the one that listens the most. And so being a speaker was never in my wildest dreams. But you know, not to go into too in depth of my story, of course, I was a football player my whole life, played sports my whole life, different sports, basketball track.

And that was my identity. And in my story you'll see that if listeners get the book, you'll see that playing in the NFL, which was my wildest dream, my pinnacle of success when I got there is where I lost myself. It was the foundation really from my failure as I like to say it. And in that moment I realized, to have Tristan unplanned and my college roommate commit suicide. It brought me to up to rock bottom and rock bottom really changed my life.  It was a promise that I made to my friend who committed suicide that I would literally be that voice for people. I consider myself a self-worth coach. To preach self-worth and let people know just because you lose something or someone or whatever job relationship, you don't have to lose yourself.  There's more to your life. That's the testament of my life. I lost my everything and I gained something far greater in my life.

Can we go into your story a little bit more? You're achieving that dream of becoming an NFL player and then what happens?

I'm in Texas as you know, California, Texas, Florida, all those football states. It's like religion and so I'm a  stand out high school athlete- I’m blessed. And I get a scholarship to Bailey University, I do well there five years (I red shirted the first year) and ended up getting my bachelor's degree in speech communications and I'm thinking I'm going to be a drafted.  I’m going to get my name called. I knew it would be mid to late round, four all the way to seventh round to make a long story short, my name never got called and that was the first moment, even though I was suppressing it, when I look back, that was the first moment of me teaching myself to run from my reality, teaching myself to suppress my emotions because everybody was asking, especially my mom, she's like, Trent you good?

Are you good? I'm just saying I'm good. I'm okay. When I was worried, I was like, man, I'm supposed to get drafted in my name was supposted to get called. Am I not good enough? I'm not fast enough. And after the draft when you’re a hot priority free agent is when they call you when teams probably would have drafted you but they didn't, your phone rings off the hook. All of these teams are calling. I ended up signing with Indianapolis Colts. The previous year they won the Super Bowl and I end up having an outstanding rookie preseason there. I was the best rookie receiver among NFL.  I was crushing it and so I just knew I would make the team.

I didn't, they ended up cutting me and they signed me to their practice squad. And what I did was, I bought a car. It was always a promise to myself, but then I started realizing that, oh, I have to look successful. So I get all these things that are beyond my means at the time because I want to make sure people know when I go back to full work that I've made it, I get the watches, the chains and all these things and three weeks into being in Indianapolis, I get cut. And so basically, I get fired for y'all that don't know what cut means.  I get fired and I drive back home 14 hours with my new car and I just start keeping myself in my room because it's September. And if I'm out in Fort Worth, everybody knows me and they’re going to be like, why are you here?

Don’t you have a game tomorrow? And so I didn't want to deal with that. So I kept myself in my, in my room at my mom's house and I was teaching myself to suppress things and not deal with things. And I was building myself up with other things, substance abuse, alcohol, all of these things to just numb my pain and run from my reality. I ended up getting called back maybe three, two weeks after that back to Indianapolis and not to drag this whole thing out, but that was my whole career in NFL. Literally I played with the Colts, Seahawks, and Redskins and it was probably nine to 10 times moving from city to city.

So it was pressure. When I dropped the ball at practice, I was like, I'm going to go home. And it was tough and it led me to a dark place. And in that I got to know Maria.  She's now my wife, but at the time she was not my wife. I got Maria pregnant, which Tristan pregnancy wasn't planned. And I'm like, oh my gosh, what do I do with my life?  I'm a pastor's son and all these things are flooding my mind and I wasn't a man at that moment, just to being vulnerable. I didn't treat Maria good. I mean it wasn't bad, but I wasn't the man I should've been doing her pregnancy.  I even kind of blamed her for certain things and none of it was her fault.

You see in the book, I was actually in an off and on-again relationship. So I was still trying to run from our reality.  Fast forward Tristan obviously was my greatest rescue and my life because Tristan made me start my journey of becoming a man made me self-reflect because when you have kids it's like okay, they're going to follow your path regardless. So he made me self-reflect and I started that process of Rehab time and then, you know, my college roommate was the main catalyst that made me get super serious for rehab time.

Hear the rest of Trent’s incredible story by listening to the episode!