Dhani Jones on Exploring with Curiosity

Dhani Jones is someone who I did not grow up with, I think he’s about 6 years older than me, but we went to the same high school and his name was a name that we heard over and over again growing up. He helped our high school get to the state championship, he went on to play football at the University of Michigan where he earned All-Big Ten Honors. You’re going to hear him mention the University of Michigan experience quite a bit in today’s conversation; he is quite proud of his time at the University of Michigan and being an alum is something that he likes to talk quite a bit about. He was selected in the 6th round of the NFL draft and he ended up playing 11 seasons, playing for the Philadelphia Eagles, the New York Giants, and finally for the Cincinnati Bengals where he really had a transformative experience in his own career and he really took off in some of his later years and performed some of his best ball at the end of his career, which is not necessarily typically the case in professional football. But I think what makes Dhani so unique and why I was so excited to have him on the podcast is that he has range. He’s not just a football player, he’s actually more of an artist; he’s an explorer, he has been a tv host with VH1 and with The Travel Channel and with CNBC, he is a venture capitalist and loves to make investments, he’s an entrepreneur, he loves to tinker and try new things. He is a unique guy, he is an N of 1, and I hope that comes across in today’s conversation. So certainly we talk about mindset, we talk about his experience playing football, leadership, we talk about strategy and exploration, and really this conversation is about philosophy and about life as much as it is about performance.

Dhani had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“You’re taught that if you’re a jack of all trades you’re a master of none” (6:00).

“It’s okay to have a range of beliefs, it’s okay to have a range of curiosity, as a matter of fact it’s even been proven that it’s better; it creates a better level of elasticity and it creates a better level of understanding where you are in this world” (7:30).

“It’s always important to ask more people more questions, to ask them what they see in you” (8:55).

“In the end, I loved the game (football) that gave me the tools necessary to move into the real world” (10:20).

“I see how things align through the chaos” (11:40).

“A lot of times what might look like confusion is just a misunderstanding” (12:20).

“Conviction is sometimes more of an easy route [than curiosity]” (16:45).

“On Sunday I would turn it all off because I had reached my conviction, and I would go play” (21:35).

“What I needed to survive was actually how to better control some of the curiosity and the questions that I had” (26:30).

“My real passion is art. I always wanted to be an artist… The waves of creativity have always struck me in so many different ways” (28:45).

“The last 4 years of my career, I came to love and appreciate the game because those that were around me appreciated me” (38:20).

“[Golf] is the ultimate lesson” (42:00).

“You want to learn about yourself, you want to learn about other people, you want to learn about life, you go to the golf course” (42:25).

“I go into a different frame of mind when I’m cycling” (45:30).

“No one should be given permission to learn. Everybody should be given an opportunity to learn as much as possible” (51:35).

“The world of curiosity gets narrower and narrower as you get older” (52:25).

“How do you arrive at your greatest gift if you didn’t even know that it existed?” (52:50).

“I’m curious about what people really care about” (54:00).

“I would go to outer space tomorrow” (56:20).

“We should never limit our curiosity. We should never limit our brain’s opportunity to see and to experience more light” (57:50).

“The game of football has provided me the opportunity to be creative and to learn this world of discipline” (58:50).

Thank you so much to Dhani for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.