Overcoming Addictions, Battling Depression, and Winning the Super Bowl I Steve Weatherford DSH #458

And people are saying, okay, well, how did you go to the NFL and do all these different things if you got chased off the field?

Well, the very next day, Sean, I came back to practice and I had five cans of Copenhagen.

And I offered that to Mike Candida as a peace offering.

I said, hey, would you accept this as my apology?

I really want to be on the team.

Mike accepted that and for the rest of the year, I was his guy.

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And here's the episode.

Ladies and gentlemen, the most jacked NFL kicker of all time.

Steve Weatherford in the building.

Man, it's good to be in here with you

to be introduced that way.

It's like, man, dude, you're the sharpest.

You're the sharpest guy on the short bus.

Typically, kickers and punters don't spend any time in the weight room, but man, it's good to be with you.

I'm so impressed by the studios and got to meet some of your team in the back, man.

So it's great that we're finally getting to connect.

And I thought it was really funny.

I'll share this with everybody that's watching.

Right before we came on, he goes, oh, man, I'm so glad that you're in here.

He's like, man, you were on my fantasy team when I was in high school.

I won that season, too.

Thank you.

I know.

You know, if somebody takes time to even...

pick a punter, man.

I sure appreciate you guys for picking me.

It's good to be on your show, man.

Dude, were you this jacked while you were punting too um you know i got really obsessed with fitness i think probably around like eight or nine years old when i saw rocky four for the first time so i was definitely in better shape than than the other punters when when i was in the nfl but in high school i played four sports damn in college i did two um so i was really an athlete that wanted to play a professional sport because it was like my childhood dream.

And the older that I got and the more you don't get to pick your gifts, right?

And so definitely I feel like God blessed me to be athletic, but you don't necessarily get to pick the skill that you're going to get to go pro in.

And so many different things need to happen.

But the more that I pursued becoming a better athlete and playing just as many sports as I could, there was one day where the varsity coach walked onto the soccer field, and this is in Terre Haude, Indiana, and he asked the coach if they had anybody with a strong leg because he needed a field goal kicker and at the time sean i was like 108 pounds as a freshman in high school but i had really strong leg so long story short the coach asked me to kick a football and and if i can kick it and he said just kick it through that h and i thought to myself sean

i'm like the ball's not moving there's no goalie this is pretty easy so i go and i smash the ball through the very next day

I show up at 108 pounds and we had white helmets.

So I was so skinny.

And then you put a helmet on top of my head.

I looked like a golf ball with a T for a body.

And my very first ever NF or my very first ever varsity kick, and this is everybody's dream to be, to be on a varsity team, you know, to be able to wear your jersey to the game on Friday.

And we had a guy, the toughest, biggest guy in our school.

His name was Mike Canada.

He's 275 pounds, just big, round belly.

chewed tobacco.

I mean, he was just a bad dude.

And he was my long snapper.

And then our quarterback was the holder.

And I remember being so nervous because the whole team was in front of me.

And the coach said, Here's our new kicker.

And so I'm like, man, this is my shot, Sean.

So Mike Canada snaps the ball.

Chris Farr puts the ball down.

And I remember charging at the ball with everything that I have.

And I remember kicking it.

And I don't know if anybody's a golfer or a baseball player, but when you make perfect contact, it just feels so good.

So I just remember, man, I crushed it.

And about a half a second later, I hear Mike Canada scream and stand up, grab his right butt cheek, turn around and start running after me because I did kick that ball really well, Sean, but because I'm a soccer player, it never got more than two feet off of the ground.

And I tattooed Mike Canada on his right butt cheek in the first time that I ever had an organized team field goal, which is the thing that like, it's part of the reason that you know who I am is because my career went up from then.

I got chased off of the field the first time that I tried it.

And so I say that really as an encouragement for everybody that's listening to this podcast.

You may have tried a lot of things and maybe you got shut down or maybe you haven't tried the thing that God has gifted you for.

The first time I felt like God, that I did the thing that I was gifted for, looking back on it now, I got chased off of the field.

I got ridiculed.

I got persecuted.

And people are saying, okay, well, how did you?

go to the NFL and do all these different things if you got chased off the field.

Well, the very next day, Sean, I came back to practice and I had five cans of Copenhagen and I offered that to Mike Canada as a peace offering.

I said, hey, would you accept this as my apology?

I really want to be on the team.

Mike accepted that and for the rest of the year, I was his guy.

Wow.

So I say those things to say.

Be persistent.

You never know what you're gifting.

And it is, it's kind of like for you, Sean.

I was talking to Bobby afterwards and he was kind of telling me a little bit more about you and kind of like why you've been successful.

And he's like, man, he's just a great networker.

like he's a good friend to people he connects the dots and he's like he's like a visionary but that also a guy that that can be a strategist and and as a strategist it's a strategy that includes other people

and so i'll say this and then i'm sure that you have uh some questions and things but i i recently saw this painting that really spoke to me about a month ago and as Bobby was telling me about what kind of person you are I kind of connected the dots and similarity for a lot of my life, Bobby, or a lot of my life, Sean,

if you look at my Wikipedia page, I've been doing my best to like build my own world, right?

Taking the gifts that God has given me and

to get the house, to get the car, to build my body, to become popular, to become famous.

I mean, part of like how you know me was because of a pursuit of something that I thought would like give me worth and identity.

And so for 36 years, I was feeding myself with my gifts.

And in this painting that I saw six weeks ago, it's called The Allegory of Long Spoons.

And it's a picture of heaven, and it's a picture of hell.

And the picture of heaven is a table for 12, and everybody's sitting around it.

And they've got long spoons, and there's a giant table, like a Thanksgiving feast.

And everybody's like fat and happy and joyful.

And the picture is really bright.

And then you look at a picture of hell.

And it's the same scenario.

It's a table for 12.

All of the food is right there, but everybody that's sitting at the table, they're like emaciated.

they're depressed and everything is gray.

And that was like, it was an epiphany for me.

Five years ago, I had like a radical encounter with God and it was in that moment that I realized that I had been using this long spoon to feed myself and I was like, I was wasting weight because everything was about me.

Wow.

And when I had this moment, I realized that the point of life is to identify your gift.

and then to give it away.

And so for the last five years, I've been having conversations with people and I've been shifting the way that I use the gifts that I feel like God has given me.

And my marriage has shifted and turned around.

Some of the areas of my own development that I was stuck, man, those things began to

shake and loosen.

And now I look at...

I look at life not 90 days at a time, not quarter to quarter, not even year to year.

It's like I feel like I've got an ultimate picture of like what I want my life to look like at the very end and I feel like from that moment five years ago up until now it's just me filling in the dots incredible so thanks for letting me share that oh that's that's incredible do you think the fame of being a pro athlete kind of got to you for a bit I'll answer that question but I

want to make sure that the allegory of long spoons

I relate that back to you and what I'm hearing Bobby say about you is man he's just taking all of these different things that he has in his network and he's connecting things together, and things are happening, right?

Um, and you're you're using one of your giftings of either building relationship or providing value to relationship that is actually helping other people to win.

Um, so I don't know where you were a few years ago, but I know these last couple years, it's like a lot of successes come your way.

Um, I'm actually curious to ask you,

what are the two or three things for you that maybe you've identified as a gift and how do you use those to bless other people?

Wow, that is sick.

I'd say providing value.

So, all my relationships, I'm providing value.

Yeah.

Okay.

And it doesn't have to be on a money level.

It could just be like, oh, if you need a certain thing and you're in an absolute divide.

Yeah, just connecting.

I'm a master connector.

So because of the podcast, because of me going to conferences, I've established hundreds of connections.

So now in my head, it's my job to connect the dots almost.

If someone needs something, I'm one degree away from someone and I'm just like a master connector.

Also, my ability to learn, I think I spend hours a day learning and I think some people neglect that.

After school, they stop learning, right?

Yeah.

But I love learning.

So that's kind of been able to separate me from everyone else as well.

And I think communication, which I used to suck at.

So I was a huge introvert growing up, massive.

My parents got divorced, grew up without a dad pretty much, and I was super shy.

And I honestly couldn't even talk to a girl.

Like it was that bad but just forcing myself to go to events and learning how to talk you know that was a skill that took a while to develop how did you I'm sure people are wondering then sure you can ask me a question but I'm curious about you and I'm sure other people are

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What was it that happened or what was it like a decision that you made that you're like,

I know that like by default, I'm this way, but I don't want to be this way anymore.

What was the thing that like got you to your first conference or like helped you to make a decision?

I would say it was the, I had a panic attack where I collapsed to my floor in my college dorm room.

And I was like, I didn't even know what that was.

And I was like, wow.

So from there, I got prescribed Xanax.

I was on that for two months straight, and it was awful.

I ended up having a seizure because when you stop taking it cold turkey, your body's not used to that.

So that moment for me, cut out every single drug from there, drinking everything, and just focused.

Like, cut out all the distractions.

So what I'm hearing you say,

there was...

A defining moment and an experience that happened in my life, and I made a decision that I don't want that anymore.

A near-death experience.

Yeah, it really shapes you up.

Wow.

Crazy, right?

What kind of thoughts, you say a near-death experience.

What kind of thoughts were you thinking?

I wanted to call my parents and tell them goodbye and that's what I was thinking.

And I was 20, 21 or 22 years old.

Right.

Crazy, right?

Right.

So it sucks that it has to get to that because you hear the story with near-death experiences and it takes that point to get to people.

And I think we should be able to get to that point earlier, you know?

Yeah.

Those were questions that I had like so much in my life.

Like, what happens after we die?

Because I grew up in church, Sean, but I grew up in a like a really like, it's hard to describe, but just like a really strict church.

And they talked about like hell a lot.

They talked about the commandments.

They talked about like, don't have sex before you get married.

And like, I knew those things really well.

And, but I looking back on it now, I had such a skewed perception and

I guess I would say like opinion of God

because I feel like we all draw kind of like our view of God from the experience that we have with our earthly father, right?

I had a really great dad.

My parents were still married.

I've never heard, I've never seen my dad drink or smoke and he hasn't.

They didn't have sex till they got married.

Like they're, they're just like great, great people.

And

I feel like I've, I'm just by default, I'm not like them.

Right.

And I felt like from like a really young age that I didn't fit in in my family.

And my dad is a wonderful dad.

I have a great relationship with him, but he was old school.

And when I say old school, I mean if you made a mistake, you paid the consequence.

And there was a punishment.

It was very firm and it was very fair, never got abusive or anything like that.

But I always knew like if I made a mistake and my dad knows about it, I'm going to pay a price.

And so I began to hide my mistakes from my dad.

And I believe like walking into like

becoming a teenager, then becoming a man and a father and starting to achieve some things,

all of the mistakes that I was making, I was hiding from God because I thought like,

man, like if I reveal this to God, like he's, he's going to punish me.

And so I really grew up in like a religion with God.

And God never created any of us to be in a religion with God.

And so I'm kind of sharing those things with you to give you a little bit of context from like kind of like how I grew up.

You revealed and shared, like I didn't grow up with a dad.

And I did grow up with a dad, right?

But I still, even like you probably, when you were younger, you're like, man, I wish this divorce.

I don't want to speak for you.

But I've just, I get to be a part of men's lives.

And we talk about this a lot because the things, the defining moments that have happened earlier in our life.

They affect how we think now and also what we think is possible in the future.

I feel like God gives us three types of vision or three types of sight, hindsight, insight, and foresight, right?

Like how we view what happened in the past, how we view right now, and how we view what the future could be.

And I believe that a lot of our experiences as children really mold and

solidify what we think is possible as adults.

And like I, I put God in this box that God was a punisher and there were like consequences to my problems.

And I really didn't feel like I fit in in church.

I remember getting kicked out of Sunday school nearly every Sunday.

Who gets kicked out of Sunday school?

And also, it was confirmed when I went to kindergarten.

27 kids in my class, Sean, I get kicked out five days in a row.

I have to think to myself, I know I don't fit in my family.

I know I don't fit in in church, but maybe if I go to kindergarten with there's 26 other people, there's got to be at least one other weirdo in here, right?

But there wasn't.

And I got sent to the principal's office.

It was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where they could spank you without calling your parents, right?

Back in the 80s.

And plus, it's Louisiana, right?

It's like the Wild West.

So I associated how I was with bad, and that bad created pain.

Every time that I got set apart, pain was inflicted upon me.

And so I really began to like hate myself.

And so maybe your dad wasn't there.

My dad was there, but he was ill-equipped

because he grew up with like a Clint Eastwood type of dad that didn't like rub you and hug you and tell you, I love you.

I'm proud of you.

This is who you are.

Because that's what fathers do is they give us our identity.

And so when a defining moment for me, Sean, was when I was 11 years old, man.

I went to, it's called a power team concert.

And it's this huge strength concert where for like an hour and a half, they do some of the craziest things that you've ever seen, like stacks of brick that are seven feet tall and they crush them.

They'll take two inch steel bars of rebar and bend them over their head.

They'll take hot water balloons and blow them up.

And then the final act, there was this guy that came out and broke handcuffs in front of us.

And he said, these chains represent the bondage that the enemy, that the devil has on you and just like Jesus's blood I'm gonna break these chains and he counted down from 10 to one he broke the chains he put his hands up and I grew up loving wrestlers like macho man Randy Savage the ultimate warrior they just like I love that but my dad was like those men are all about themselves and he's right he's right but then I saw this guy that's talking about the same Jesus but he's six foot six and he's freaking jacked and I'm like wait a second I didn't even think these types of things were allowed in a church.

And here's this guy that's talking about the same Jesus from my church, but he's got a tank top on in a church.

And he looks like Hulk Hogan.

And so he said, if you want to belong to God, if you want to be forgiven of your sins and you want Jesus to.

come into your heart, I want you to raise your hand right now.

Sean, I raise both of my hands.

I'm like, I want that Jesus.

And I remember for the next six months, man, I just, everything felt right.

My mom didn't have to tell me to read the Bible.

She didn't have to tell me to say my prayers.

I belong to God, right?

And then about six months later, I had a teacher that was just the most encouraging guy that I ever had in my life.

And without going into great detail, man, he wasn't encouraging me or like giving me my identity.

He was grooming me.

Right.

About six months into that, I was sexually abused by a male teacher.

And it brought up so many,

so many questions about God.

Right.

Like I grew up in a church that didn't feel like I belong.

And then all of a sudden, like I have this radical defining moment and I make a decision for Jesus, just like you made a decision, like I don't want to live this way anymore.

And the root of the word decision actually means to cut off.

And so I cut off who I used to be and stepped into this new person because I'm believing that the God that they're talking about is real and that he's good.

And so when that same God let that man steal my innocence and bring questions up for me, is God real?

If he's real, is he really good?

Does this make me gay?

And so I was stuck with those questions.

And because I didn't have intimacy with my dad, my dad was there, but I have intimacy with him.

I didn't bring those questions to him.

And so, you know, six months after being abused, I'm introduced to.

And I've got like this little closet thing that like nobody knows about, but like watching sex is exciting.

Right.

So then I begin to have that coping mechanism of anytime I'm feeling lonely,

anytime I'm feeling broken, anytime I'm like frustrated or angry.

I have this thing that I go watch and it makes all these fireworks go off in my brain.

And like, I like it.

But I know that i'm not supposed to like it because i grew up in the church but i'm thinking to myself i grew up in the church but like since these things happen to me like is god real and does he really love me and so i really dove into shine achieving right so that's why i played four sports in high school i started high school at 108 pounds wow like you introduced me as like the most jacked dude but that was born out of massive secure insecurity dang right so then when god like really captured and arrested my heart five years ago now i use what was born out of insecurity as like an attention grabber because it's probably the first thing that you noticed about me was like my physical authority.

But like I'm hoping that no, that people notice when my abs or my arms grab their attention that like I'm here for one simple message.

Like you guys asked me before I came on here, hey, is there anything that you want to promote or that you want to like mention for to sell?

I'm like, no, man, like I came here to like create a friendship with Sean and to speak one simple message that is that I've tried every single thing that there is for fulfillment.

I've made millions of dollars.

I've won a Super Bowl.

I set a record in the Super Bowl, right?

The greatest night of my life was also the most empty night of my life.

Wow.

You're a Giants fan.

February 5th, 2012.

Remember that day?

Super Bowl XLVI, Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Dude, I'm from Terre Haute.

It's 47 miles from my high school.

Everybody I spent 14 grand in tickets, everybody that I could afford to bring to the game, I brought to the game until I couldn't buy any more tickets.

And anybody that wasn't at the game was watching on TV, 124 million people.

Wow.

And at the greatest game of my life.

Every time that Tom Brady went onto the field after a punt, it was like the eight-yard line, the six-yard line, the four-yard line, the two-yard line.

And I say that, giving glory to God.

But even that, even that night, I remember going back to my hotel room, Sean, by myself.

And it was the first moment that I had by myself.

And I hear a noise up at the window.

I walk up.

I look down.

It looks like Mardi Gras people are so happy.

And then I noticed they don't have Giants jerseys on.

They're just happy to be where a Super Bowl or something great happened.

I'm 17 flights up on a contract here, knowing a month later, I'm going to sign a massive deal for multi-millions of dollars.

And I won a Super Bowl, and I've had the greatest game.

Everything that I could ever wanted.

Man, when I was a kid, I wanted to make a million dollars.

Now they're about to give me 4 million for signing a piece of paper.

And I'm thinking about these things and a massive wave of depression comes over me.

Wow.

Because I've done what I thought that I could never do, but I don't feel different.

Right.

So I don't know what these last couple of years like have been like for you, but you're achieving some of the things i would assume sean that you never thought that you would achieve

and i'm i'm here i feel like to speak to you but also to speak to everybody else that like loves you and believes in you and just sees you blessing people and bringing things together and teaching is i've experienced so much of what the world has to offer in the women in drugs i mean since i was like 12 years old i've been addicted to and when i say addicted not like i'm watching it seven times a day it's like i continue to watch it and i know it's not good for me.

That's an addiction.

Right.

Right.

I've also been addicted to pills.

Right.

I've made some like

mistakes that I used to be so ashamed of.

I used to have so much regret about.

And I thought achieving and getting notoriety or popularity would like make something shift or change in me because maybe...

Maybe I just haven't achieved it yet.

But dude, I was the fittest man in the NFL, not once, but twice.

I was like, oh, man, I make my whole life about me after I win a Super Bowl.

And

let me be the the most philanthropic man in the NFL.

It's called the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award.

I got nominated for that too.

So I'm like, looking back on my life at 41, it was like I was checking boxes, but I was checking boxes because in my mind, I wasn't enough.

Because after the Super Bowl, people would be telling me how amazing I am.

But I made up in my mind because the enemy is whispering, these people knew what happened to me when I was 12.

They knew about like my dirty little secret.

If they knew about when I lied and when I cheated, they could never love me.

And I feel like that's what the enemy wants men to do.

And not just men, but

everybody is he wants you to convince you that you're so unique that nobody would understand.

And nobody's ever struggled with what it is that you're struggling with.

And I feel like the ultimate goal of so many men, and it's like it's biblical, is like we're all

desperate to be known, to be fully known, and to be fully loved.

And I feel like God is the only place

that I have ever turned to.

And I didn't mean to turn to him the way that I did, but he found me.

And

he changed my identity.

He changed my personality.

He became real to me that all of the questions that I had before this experience, is God real.

I knew that he was real, Sean.

Is God good?

I knew that he was good, overwhelmingly good.

And I also knew that he operated outside of time.

So that happened four years and 11 months ago.

And since that moment, I take every opportunity that I have to come on to a platform like this to help people

to see that maybe some of the boxes that you feel like you need to check off in life are going to make you worthy or going to make you lovable.

I just want to.

I want to cancel that expectation that you have because your life

can't be lived trying to feed your own self, kind of the allegory of the spoons and

in the Bible, it says there's, it's called the royal law.

And it's real simple to love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.

And for 36 years, I didn't love myself.

I was like dirty.

I was broken.

I was like all these things.

Wow.

So if I couldn't love myself, how am I really going to love my wife or my friends?

Right.

And I say these things to say like, I know that I'm not alone.

Like, I know that there are people that are in that in that process and that cycle right now of, man, just having like certain parts of themselves that they like package up and put into like the dark basement of their life.

And they just don't reveal those to anybody.

And the enemy loves that because

it's like mold.

Right.

And in scripture, it says if you confess your sins one to another, there's freedom in that.

So I'll pause there because I know that that was allowed.

But thanks for letting me share.

That was so amazing.

So many questions.

But you mentioned that.

I know we only have 30 minutes too, so I'm trying to like dump it on you, man.

We got six left.

So let me rapid fire some.

So you mentioned you struggled finding your identity.

Do you feel like a lot of men struggle finding their identities?

100%.

None of our dads are perfect, right?

So like even my dad, he never cheated on my wife.

He never drank.

He didn't smoke.

He coached my soccer team, right?

But because of his father that came before him, he was ill-equipped to love me how I needed to be loved.

He loved my other brothers and sisters how they needed to be loved because he's equipped that way.

But I was actually a little boy that needed that touchy, feely love.

Like that's one of my love languages is physical touch

and words of affirmation, right?

And my dad wasn't touchy and he wasn't a words of affirmation guy, but he was so consistent.

He was so faithful.

And in his mind, that's how he was loving me.

And he was doing a great job, but he was incomplete.

So to your story or to your question, absolutely.

Like

unless we shift off of the relationship that we have with our earthly father and begin to create not a religion, a relationship with our heavenly father that will give us unconditional love.

That's what Jesus is all about.

Like Jesus came to pay for our sins.

Right.

And I feel like when I made a decision for Jesus at 11, it was like, so I don't go to hell.

Right.

But then the next 25 years, I went on a journey to like experience the world and everything that it has to offer.

And

after experiencing so much of it in so many rooms with so many, like just like you, you're getting in the rooms with some of the like, some of your heroes.

And I'm not even talking about me.

I'm talking about like some of these other guys that you have on here.

And you're probably noticing like

they're kind of like me.

You know, they've got debt.

They've got father wounds as well.

And I believe that's my calling.

That's my mission is to be an interruption in men's lives, an interruption in families' lives to tell them that there's only one way to permanent change.

I've spent thousands of dollars in psychotherapy, acupuncture,

everything that you can think, hypnotherapy, pills, you know, like prescribed pills for

nothing, man.

And then I went to a men's conference in the desert in San Diego four years and 11 months ago.

A church called Awakened puts this event on.

And

you've heard of church people talking about, oh, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Right.

Well, it's God the Father.

It's Jesus the Son, but then it's the Holy Spirit.

I have never experienced the Spirit of God.

That's what the Holy Spirit is on the earth the way that I did when I was at this event.

And when the Holy Spirit hit me, I knew that God was real.

I knew that he was good because of the overwhelming joy and peace that I was experiencing.

And it was in that moment that I decided to not just repent of my sins and ask Jesus to come into my heart so I could not go to hell.

I did that because I had experienced God's power and his glory, and I wanted to do that.

And so for the last four years and 11 months, I feel like I have finally gotten off of mission.

of achieving things and onto purpose.

And my purpose is to take what God has given me and to feed those across the table for me.

So I know that I wish I had more time to share with you, but

I pray that this serves you and I pray that this serves everybody that's here.

Would it be okay if I ended this in prayer?

Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah, okay, good, man.

Thanks for having me on here.

Absolutely.

Are we going to end right on time?

Yeah, do a prayer.

That'd be great.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.

God, we just thank you for this platform.

God, we thank you for Sean.

And God, we just ask that you would extend the territory that you've given him.

God, that you would activate the anointing on his life.

And God, we just ask that this message today wouldn't be something that people would hear from a man.

God, that your Holy Spirit would speak to people.

God, that you would plant a seed of wisdom inside of them.

And God, that that seed would have laborers to come alongside of it, God, to help accelerate the healing, to accelerate the growth.

God, that you would get all of the glory.

And it's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Wow.

Powerful.

Thanks so much for putting on, Steve.

Thanks for having me, man.

We're going to spend some more time together.

Absolutely.

Dude, I love it.

Hey, Jersey's strong.

Jersey's strong, baby.

Thanks for watching, guys.

As always, we'll see you next time.