Terry Crews spent most of the 1990s shuffling around several NFL teams, but once that was over, he was back to square one. He had enough savings for six months, then it was "gone and done," and Crews had to decide what he was truly willing to do to support his family.
"I was arrogant. I had a sense of entitlement," he told HuffPost Live's Nancy Redd on Wednesday. "I was like, 'I'm an NFL football player, this is beneath me.' And my wife was like, 'Okay, honey, but we're not eating. We need some food.'"
So he finally took the job he thought was beneath him, and it changed everything.
"The first job I ever got after the NFL, I picked up a broom and I was sweeping factories. Let me tell you what happened while I was sweeping. I was like, 'This is horrible, I can't do this.' But all of a sudden as I kept sweeping, something happened in my brain. I said, 'Wow, I'm actually willing to do everything to succeed,'" Crews said. "I said, 'Wait a minute. This is the flip side. You have to be willing to be here to get there."
And that mindset has stuck with him ever since.
"I never feel like I made it. It's always like I am an ordinary guy from Flint, Michigan, who hit it big. And that's just the thing. I am no different than anybody else out there," he said. "The thing about America is if you live in America, you can start over. You can do it."
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