From the Field to DOOH

My journey in business started a bit differently than most. At university (Western), many of my friends were taking business courses and focused on getting MBAs and law degrees. I, on the other hand, pursued a science degree with a focus on physiology, as I was very interested in human performance at the time. My course load aligned well with my main pursuits of playing football and running track.

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At 21, my science career took a backseat when I was drafted to play in the Canadian Football League. I was the 10th overall pick that year, joining the Ottawa Rough Riders and was named the Riders’ starting Safety coming out of training camp. At 21, I was the youngest player in the CFL. As fate would have it, I had a locker next to an “old” linebacker (he was probably 35 at the time) who also worked as a stockbroker in the offseason. In one of our many one-sided conversations (him telling me how the world worked), he told me to enjoy football while it lasted because I would never find anything as fulfilling and exciting as stepping onto that field.

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Never one to back away from a challenge, his words got me thinking early on about life after football. I had this little voice in the back of my head telling me, "You don’t want to be 30 years old with 'played football' on your resume." So, in the offseason, while I trained to get faster and stronger for the next season, I started exploring business ideas. It turns out I was pretty good at business, just like football, and contrary to the linebacker’s opinion, I found business exhilarating. There was a game to win every day.

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In football, controlled aggression is rewarded. You need to be smart with your aggression, but if you channel it well, you’ll be successful. The worst days I had on the football field were the ones when I didn’t take the initiative or let the play come to me. As I started in business, I approached it the same way—aggressive, going after it, with a "damn the torpedoes" mentality. It sometimes got me into difficult situations, but it also led to significant success.

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I’ve become much smarter in business over the years. You can’t train for the wealth of experience you gain by making decisions—right and wrong—over 30-plus years. My science background has always come in handy, and I’ve thanked myself many times for pursuing that route instead of taking the traditional business path. Being able to pose hypotheses, test strategies, and then execute plans based on good data is crucial to being a successful businessperson.

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I’m now a bit more tempered and thoughtful than I used to be. If I were to compare it to football, I wouldn’t be running as hard to get into position to make a play. Instead, I’d have a clearer vision of how the play was developing in front of me. The countless hours spent running a public technology company over the last 20-plus years are equivalent to hours spent studying game film. I feel that I would be a good football coach now if I had pursued that vocation. My leadership style and ability to extract performance from my team have lifted my success higher than I thought possible. I’m certainly a good business coach for my own team, and I’m now ready to use that experience for other teams too.

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