I learned the most about leadership the day I got cut from the NFL.

The one thing I was sure of, that I could play offensive line better than almost anyone, was taken from me in a sentence in an NFL locker room. The door was not even shut before I was let go. That is where this talk starts, because that is where I learned the most.

What kept me out of the tailspin was a conversation with my father. I told him I was starting my business life at a disadvantage, no internships, eighty-hour weeks between studying and training. He told me I had it backwards. The discipline, the grit, the way I answered for a loss, those were the exact skills the business world was starving for.

This talk is about the moment the floor drops out, and what you do with it. Everyone in the room has had a version of getting cut, or they will. The question is not whether it happens. It is what you are made of when it does, and whether you let the people around you help you back up.

I land it on the harder half I was slow to learn. You cannot serve from empty, and a leader who will not be served is not strong. He is alone. Getting cut taught me to hold the rope for others. A season much later taught me to grab it when it was my turn to fall.