It’s Super Bowl week here in Detroit and StartupNation is heading to a special NFL players sanctioned event this afternoon. The Sloan brothers are giving a presentation to current and former NFL players and other professional athletes on the value of networking to enhance their career after their playing days are over.
Many players take their skills & public name recognition and become entrepreneurs, starting a small business. Jeff & Rich Sloan will be talking with those players about the importance of life planning as the very first step in starting up a business.
This event is being held at former Detroit Lion Robert Porcher’s restaurant Seldom Blues in the prestigious Renaissance Center on the Detroit River. Robert can certainly talk about how to start a restaurant and other players will be sharing how they plan to create their dream life as an extension to the already charmed life of being a professional athlete.
But let’s be frank. Any transition from one career to another, especially becoming a young entrepreneur, can be challenging and it’s important to develop the specific skills necessary to succeed in this new playing field. The specifics of how to effectively network and build a business by creating a superstar list is a key message in the Sloan brothers’ book StartupNation: Open for business, and you can bet they will be sharing the game plan for employing those tactics and some real-life stories behind how powerful those superstar relationships can be.
This is a great reminder for all of us that it’s never too early to plan for our future, even when we are on top of the world like a pro athlete is in the midst of their playing career. The game on Sunday will come and go. Let’s start planning the rest of our lives.
