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In 2012, NFL Center Jason Brown was on top of the football world.
He was the highest-paid center in the league, with a five-year, $37.5 million contract from the St. Louis Rams. Even in the NFL, that’s a serious contract paying serious money.
The average career of an NFL player is around 3 years, so having this type of security is something many NFL newbies strive for.
Two years later, he walked away.
But unlike many that have to leave the game because of injury or worse, Jason left on his own terms.
A Better “Offer”
Jason Brown walked away from the NFL to become a farmer.
The wildest part, at least to me, is that he knew nothing of farming! He became self-taught by watching YouTube videos of farming.
Today, his First Fruits Farm in North Carolina has donated more than a million pounds of fresh produce to food banks. Instead of hiking a football from the ground, he’s pulling sweet potatoes from them.
When his agent told him he’s making the biggest mistake of his life, Jason stood defiant. His story is not in any way the typical high-paid athlete’s story.
But his story has everything to do with what retirement is actually for.
His journey from the NFL to the farm offers three lessons that apply to anyone facing the transition from career to whatever comes next regardless of your current profession.
Lesson 1: Finding Purpose Outside Your Profession
For so many pre-retirees, the profession becomes part of their identity.
We define ourselves as such. Rather than say “I’m a person who teaches” we call ourselves a “teacher.”
This is especially true for those who’ve reached the top of their field. The higher you climb, the more your professional identity defines who you are.
As retirement comes, that identity gets pulled out from under you.
Jason Brown faced this in an extreme form. He was at the absolute peak of his profession, highest-paid center in the league.
But he came to view his athletic career as “meaningless” compared to what he felt was a higher calling.
He decided his legacy needed to be defined by something beyond what happened “between the white lines.”
For Brown, that meant pursuing what he felt was success “in God’s eyes” rather than “by man’s standards.” He wanted a life of service rather than a life of status.
This is the question every retiree eventually faces: when your profession is no longer your identity, who are you?
Some people answer this well. They find that they are always more than their job. Retirement becomes an opportunity to expand into all the other dimensions of who they are.
Others struggle. They retire and don’t know what to do with themselves. They lose their sense of purpose, and become depressed, anxious, or aimless. When a job becomes who you are, not just what you do, leaving said job can cause this.
The lesson from Jason Brown (at least my takeaway) is that leaving a job doesn’t change who you are. But what you do must change.
Retirees who struggle are often the ones who never thought to ask the question until the day they cleaned out their office.
Lesson 2: Retiring “To” Something Rather Than Just “From” Something
This might be the most important lesson from Jason Brown’s story.
Retiring from the NFL, many people would be identified as “former NFL Player, Jason Brown.” But Brown instead ditched that moniker and he retired to farming. I personally think Farmer Brown has a nice ring to it, but I have no idea if he calls himself that.
Going beyond that, he retired to feeding the hungry. His First Fruits Farm donates its first harvest to the local food bank.
Brown, from North Carolina, is working to solve a problem for the people in his community struggling the most.
I’ve heard so many talk about what they’re retiring from:
- “I’m done with the daily grind.”
- “I’m escaping the 9-to-5.”
- “I won’t have to deal with my boss anymore.”
- “I’m getting out of the rat race.”
These are all about what you’re retiring from.
But what are you retiring to?
If you can’t answer that question, retirement often becomes a long, slow drift. The first few months feel like a vacation.
Then the structure that work provided is gone, and many retirees realize they didn’t have other structures ready to take its place. The days start to blur together. The purpose that work provided isn’t there anymore, and nothing has filled the gap.
Brown’s transition worked because he had a destination.
What made his transition even more powerful was that he embraced the challenge of the new path. He knew “absolutely nothing” about farming when he started. He learned through YouTube videos and gained an incredible new skill. .
While I’ve not seen him directly state this, I’m assuming his life and career in athletics built a persistence in him the average person may not have. But the point remains he likely failed a good bit before succeeding.
Drawing The Right Inspiration
There’s another piece of his story worth noting: his new career was heavily influenced by the death of his brother, Lunsford, who was killed while serving in the Army in Iraq at age 27.
Comparing his own life of entertainment to his brother’s life of service at the same age caused him to re-examine everything. His brother had given his life in service to others.
That moment of reflection led to his transition into what he calls the “service industry.”
Most retirees won’t have a moment that dramatic. But the question is the same: when you look at the years you have left, what do you want them to be in service of?
Forty or fifty hours a week that used to belong to your employer now belong to you.
What are you going to do with them?
Lesson 3: Redefining Wealth – Needing the Least vs. Having the Most
To fund his mission, Brown made financial choices that would horrify most traditional financial advisors and certainly his agent:
- He walked away from a $37.5 million contract.
- He sold his house.
- He used the proceeds to purchase a 1,000-acre farm.
He runs the operation as what he calls a “donation-first” business – they give away the first yield of every harvest.
Brown’s perspective on wealth is fundamentally different from what we’re taught: “Love is the most wonderful currency that you can give anyone.”
It’s inspiring to read about someone who states that wealth is not about one who has the most but one who needs the least.
To be clear, this isn’t a financial planning recommendation.
It’s probably still in your best interest to plan financially for your retirement and be a responsible steward of your savings.
But Brown’s story raises a question that has long had my attention: what is wealth actually for?
Most folks we meet and work with have been diligent savers their whole working careers. Delaying today’s enjoyment for future need (and enjoyment).
But we’ve also seen for so many that retirement comes and many of those same people struggle psychologically to spend the money they saved.
So if on the one hand we don’t want to run out of money, on the other we should be willing to spend it purposefully.
What was the wealth for, if not that?
Brown’s answer to that question is unusual, yes. But he has an answer for that.
Can you confidently answer that question for your own wealth?
The Application for Your Retirement
The point is what Jason Brown’s story reveals about retirement at any level:
Purpose has to exist beyond your profession. If your identity is entirely wrapped up in what you do, retirement will be brutal. Build a broader sense of who you are while you’re still working.
Retire to something, not just from something. The retirees who thrive have answered the question “what’s next?” before they leave their careers.
Define wealth in terms of impact. Retirement is when those resources are supposed to do something. Be intentional about what.
At Hyperion Financial, we help our clients think about retirement as more than just a financial calculation. The numbers matter – but so does what those numbers are for. If you’re approaching retirement and want help building a plan that’s not just financially sound but also aligned with what actually matters to you, we’d love to talk.