When his dream of being a star quarter back came crashing down, he had to tackle the adversity of completely reinventing himself. Listen as former professional football player Zac Hoffman discusses his realization that leaving a legacy and making an impact were much more important to him than chasing the spotlight of stardom.
Highlights -
- Played sports as a kid, always wanted to be a star quarterback, but my body didn’t line up with my mind
- That’s where my journey started - realizing that I wasn’t meant to be a pro football player - forced me to step back and rethink the direction of my life - that reality forced me to grow as a person.
- When you want something so bad and it doesn’t work out, it’s normal to be devastated at first.
- Ever since I was young I feared that I would grow up and have a life of no impact, no influence on others and just kinda get lost in the shuffle.
- I said, “I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know what I’m supposed to, but I know it’s not here.”
- There’s a lot of people who kinda know they’re not living the life they want to, but they’re afraid to feel uncomfortable.
- We all have a desire to be in the limelight, the spotlight, but I realized what was more important is that I wanted to make a difference, an impact.
- I see how short-sighted I was. I only saw myself as a football player. I didn’t see any other potential in myself. Now it’s a blessing. After all the places I’ve seen and the kids I’ve impacted - I would’ve missed all that had I only focused on being a football player.
- We all have the ability to be who we want, but we have to step out of our comfort zones to get there.
- Those who have the courage to step out of their comfort zones - on the other side of that is your true potential.
- Don’t wait for something to come along to force you into your dream. Own it now.
- So many people with potential get left behind because they need time to develop, but they don’t get it because we live in such a fast-paced world. Maybe they just needed the right person to come into their lives and see their potential - and when they see it they can then overcome the obstacles they’ve had in their lives and then leave their legacy. We all have that. Legacy is the same as impact. What impact did you have that can be carried on to future generations?
- At the end of the day, life is very short. How do you want to be remembered? I want to be remembered as someone who gave other people inspiration to become the best versions of themselves.
- We don’t always know exactly what’s going to happen or what to expect. We see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we can’t always see what’s right in front of us or everything in between.
- You don’t have to have absolute clarity in order to start taking action.
- I’ve always have enjoyed writing, but often would wake up and think - oh, I don’t want to do this today, I don’t even know if people will like this, what am I doing?
- If you want to be in a leadership position in our global environment, you have to be able to accept and adapt - accept each other’s differences and adapt to people’s motives.
- There are reasons we’re given the dreams we’re given, and it’s so important to pursue them, even if your dream is temporary. You may have been given that dream to get you on a certain path that you otherwise wouldn’t be on had you not pursued your original dream.
- Don’t silence the voice or the curiosity that’s saying, “man, I’d really love to do this thing over here.”
- In every situation where I’ve thought, “It’s about to collapse, the roof’s about to fall in on me” - God has never let me fall to the point where I couldn’t get back up.