The Outworker
Stories of healing, personal development, and inner work. Founded on the idea that the relationship with oneself is the most important to develop, but the easiest to neglect, The Outworker shares conversations aimed at helping you develop that relationship.
The Outworker
#046 - Caleb Campbell - Army Pressure, NFL Expectations, & The Journey To Inner Peace
Caleb Campbell shares his journey from the pressures of being an Army officer and NFL draft pick to confronting a deep internal struggle that shaped his life. We explore the battle between external achievements and inner peace, uncovering how societal expectations and childhood experiences influenced his identity. Caleb’s powerful story of breaking free from a performance-driven life offers profound insights on healing, authenticity, and self-compassion. If you’ve ever felt trapped by expectations, this conversation is a must-listen.
Timestamps:
00:00 Inner War & Speaking To Yourself
07:33 Purpose From Higher Power
12:35 Disconnected From Social Environment
16:24 Entering New Environment At Army
17:44 College Football Success & More Internal Struggle
23:43 Impact Of Rage On Performance
28:14 Drafted By The Detroit Lions & Becoming A Symbol
32:12 Feelings About Military Compared To Football
33:00 Caleb Gets Told He Can't Play In The NFL
38:51 Straying Away From Performance & Values Based Life
42:14 Pulling The Bungee Jump Cord
46:10 How Twitter Changed Caleb's Life
48:29 Becoming A Janitor For Free Therapy
49:56 Caleb's Therapy
53:00 Shifting From State Of Becoming To Being
58:24 Living Past Life More Purposefully
1:00:24 Connect With Caleb
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What’s up outworkers. Caleb Campbell shares his journey from the pressures of being an Army officer and NFL draft pick to confronting a deep internal struggle that shaped his life. We explore the battle between external achievements and inner peace, uncovering how societal expectations and childhood experiences influenced his identity. Caleb’s powerful story of breaking free from a performance-driven life offers profound insights on healing, authenticity, and self-compassion. If you’ve ever felt trapped by expectations, this conversation is a must-listen.
Tim Doyle (00:05.775)
I want to start with the MPIF Combine Banquet in Amarillo, Texas. I think the year here is 2011. You're giving a talk and there's two sections that stood out to me in particular that I just want to read off here. So the first section is, we were born into a world at war.
And when I say a world at war, I'm not talking about the war that my classmates are so diligently and courageously fighting for our freedom every single day. I'm talking about the inner war. The fact is we were given free will. We were given the opportunity to make our own decisions in life. And the second section I want to read here is never allow football to define who you are men because you had a life before you entered football and you will have a life after you leave football.
Caleb (00:38.989)
Hmm.
Tim Doyle (00:56.441)
If you put your identity in football, you will be shattered one day. And the reason why these two sections stood out to me so much is because from my understanding and my perception of hearing you, what you're really doing here is just describing yourself and talking to yourself and allowing that internal voice to be on display externally. And you were living a double life.
Caleb (01:16.856)
Yeah.
Caleb (01:22.751)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tim Doyle (01:26.083)
in a sense from, you know, instead of, instead of deceiving others though, and hurting others, you were the one who you were really hurting. Why do you think you had such success at keeping up this division between what the world saw externally, but who you really were internally?
Caleb (01:48.078)
First off, I don't know if I've ever started a podcast where somebody goes and find something that I said in 2011, but I appreciate the effort you put in to make that happen. And for your second question, can you ask that question one more time just so that I make sure I hear it correctly?
Tim Doyle (02:07.065)
Yeah, I just wanted to understand like how you were able to have such success at keeping this strong division between what the world externally saw of you, but also like who you knew you were internally.
Caleb (02:11.991)
Yeah.
Caleb (02:23.424)
Yeah, so I don't know if I would call that success, but I understand what you're asking. And I think that when you find your way of survival, like, you know, I was seven years old when I scored a game winning touchdown in a community wide All-Star Championship game. Now you're moving to Texas. I'm from Texas. So what people have to understand is this was a big deal, right?
And I remember after I square that touch and I looked at the skyline or the sidelines and I was looking for my biggest fan. You can probably guess who that was. It was my mom. And I remember when my eyes caught my mom's eyes just running as fast as I could. And I reached my mom and she had this really big smile on her face. I can remember this like it was yesterday. And she's looking down at me. I'm looking up at her. And my mom says something to me in this moment that I can like remember like it was yesterday that would go on and heavily influence the next two and a half decades of my life.
And she just said, son, I'm so proud of you. I love you so much. You scored the game winning touchdown. And the reason why that was such a pivotal moment in my life is because it was in this moment, even though I didn't have to intellectually understand what was happening, I felt everything I needed to feel right here. And I say that and I bring it up because it was when I was seven years old, scoring this touchdown, hearing those words, I was taught to believe that my performance in life, determines my level of acceptance in this world.
So in this moment, my stats are now, even though I can't consciously understand this, I can feel it, the seeds had been planted. My stats are more than just numbers on a piece of paper, they're a definition of my worth. So my performance now became my lifeline. It was my way of surviving, it was my way of finding acceptance and belonging in this very cold-hearted world. And so...
As that, you know, began to be reinforced time and time again throughout my young adult life and all through college and into the NFL, I was able to portray this outward success. Meanwhile, hiding, right, this internal war or this internal void that left me feeling so intrinsically broken. I was externally successful, but internally bankrupt. And I think I could
Caleb (04:37.128)
live that way because it was a means of survival, right? This wasn't just something that I did. This was in my way, life or death proven and reproven time and time and time again. And so the end for the longest time, there really wasn't an alternative. There was no other way to show up, right? Because if you did, the story that I told myself is if you did see the real me, if you actually saw, you know, when I was
getting drafted on draft day, Trey Wingo on national television, ESPN host, he looks at me and he says, Caleb, you need to know you're not just another athlete. He said, you're America's athlete. You're a West Point graduate. You're an army officer and now you're an NFL draft pick. He's like, how does that feel? And in my head, I'm like, that feels fucking terrible. Right? Because like in my head, there's no room for mistakes now. I can't be weak. I better have it together all the time. The expectations are now suddenly much higher than I anticipated.
And there was such a part of me that was so afraid that if you actually saw the shame, the pain, the brokenness, the insecurity within me, like you would quickly see that I'm not who you think that I am. And if you see that, if you see the real me, that will compromise my acceptance. That will undermine my sense of belonging in this world, which literally feels like death. And so I think to sum it all up, we will go
great lengths to ensure our survival, even at the cost of our well-being. And that's exactly what I did.
Tim Doyle (06:13.529)
This performance based lifestyle obviously gets deeply ingrained in you at a young age. And I've heard you talk a lot about that experience with your mom and scoring that touchdown. Another experience though, from your childhood, which I find really fascinating is that, you're at a church service in junior high and a traveling evangelist comes to town and calls you out of the crowd and tells you,
Caleb (06:17.774)
Mm-hmm.
Caleb (06:40.909)
Yeah.
Tim Doyle (06:43.237)
God's plan for you is to play in stadiums in front of thousands of people. And I know you grew up in a very religious household. Being a good athlete is one thing, but now being told that this is kind of your purpose in life from God, what was it like experiencing that?
Caleb (07:01.016)
Keep adding the pressure.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, again, I appreciate you doing your homework.
You know, at the time, something I'm writing my first book right now, and there's a chapter in there that's all about like this addiction to specialness and how like this need to be special really keeps us from experiencing the beauty in our ordinary lives. We always need our lives to look something different than what it is for it to actually be enough because we're so addicted to the specialness. Well, I was anyways.
And that addiction to specialness really is derived from these early childhood experiences of equating my performance and athleticism to God's purpose and plan for my life. And there was something that was so deeply enjoyable about that because I'm an Enneagram for if you're familiar with Enneagrams, I'm an individualist. I love to be unique. I love specialness. I love this idea of purpose like
Caleb (08:09.794)
That's what really motivates me. That's what drives me in this world. This deeper meaning of what is this all about? And so from an early age, that really was kind of like a drug for me, knowing that God's plan for my life is so big and so special, that it's going to result in me playing in stadiums and using my platform.
as a chance to make a difference and all the things and all the shit that we say to ourselves. And so early on there was a natural love for it. But what people didn't see is obviously now there was this unsaid expectation also set. And that expectation is if this is God's plan for my life, walking away means abandoning God's plan. And that alone would go on and wreak
havoc in my life later on, right? This idea that I need to hold on, I need to squeeze tighter, I can't give up in calling it faith, when it was really just fucking survival. Right? And so that experience, I would say, you know, Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, he wrote the book Falling Upward, and he talks about how we all have a first half of life and the second half of life. And essentially, the first half of life is basically building the life.
and, you know, creating the structure and, you know, discovering the ego. And then the second half of life is basically removing all that doesn't matter. And while everyone has a first tech first half of life, and everybody has a second half of life, not everybody experiences that second half of life, which is the life of deeper fulfillment, ease and purpose and meaning a deeper understanding of who you are and why you're here truly what makes you feel alive.
And when I look back, like that experience, really the religious setting that I was born into and the experience that was derived from it was the container that was necessary because it created eventually the deep disconnection in my life. For me to go on a journey to rediscover connection for myself, to remember my birthright, to remember what was before.
Caleb (10:32.298)
it was infused with all this rhetoric around God's purpose, plan and performance. Right. And so I'm I can look back at this journey now and just be so wildly grateful for my experience because it all belongs. Was it painful? Was it misleading? Was it downright just irresponsible with the adults in my life? I would say yes, but
You can't change it. I can't change it. I can just continue to follow the thread, which I continue to follow the thread and I can look back at my life and say that was very much needed. I needed to create such a disconnection from the divine within me so that I could go on a journey and rediscover it. And that's been my path.
Tim Doyle (11:16.717)
I really liked that idea of disconnection and connection where if you want to be connected, don't just ask to be connected. Have the opposite beyond the opposite end of the spectrum of that and do the work to get to the connected parts of yourself and diving deeper into that relationship between connection and disconnection. So when you were in high school, you were the star football player, but you weren't the star of the school from the standpoint of
Caleb (11:26.633)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (11:31.767)
Yeah.
Caleb (11:45.538)
Yeah.
Tim Doyle (11:46.617)
You weren't heavily focused in the social scene. You weren't conforming to the crowd. How do you think that divide between you and your school impacted the disconnection or being isolated when you were that young?
Caleb (12:03.04)
Yeah, the divide was just, it was challenging because the reason why there was such a divide there is because of my deep commitment to my faith, right, trying to be this, this man of faith that upholds the standards and the morals and the values of Christianity that in the way that it was taught to me, which I grew up in the Bible Belt of Texas, and kind of what is known as the word of faith movement. And so there were a really
large sect of lofty standards and expectations that came around with it. And as a performance driven person, I wanted to be the best at it, right? Let me prove to you and show you how good I can be in my faith. And so that resulted in me drawing hard boundaries, as you have mentioned in my life, which, you know, when everybody else was doing what high school kids do, I just drew, you know, hard boundaries. And I said no, and it created a lot of chaos in my life.
And I think we're seeing this play out right now on a larger level. But what that kind of did is it reinforced in my life in that time that, and I'm going to say this word loosely, but like I'm being persecuted for being because I'm being right. Like the devil is out to get me. I haven't talked about this shit in so long. And so it kind of like reinforce that belief systems that, you know, the greater the devil, the greater the purpose.
And so it just like, oh, let me say so true to myself so that I can stay committed to the faith and be the person that I really think I can be and who God is calling me to be. And there is an element of truth in that. And there is some good in that for sure. And then on the other side of it though,
when I was performing really well in high school is when I was the most accepted. Everybody loved me after scoring a game winning touchdown and leading us to another state playoff run. Everybody loved me when I'm getting inducted into the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame. But outside of performance, outside of the game, there wasn't a day that went by was I not experiencing some really, really deep pain. And again, with that.
Caleb (14:23.202)
did is it reinforced that I'm the most loved, I'm the most accepted only when I am performing well. So there's just so many things happening at this young stage of my life where I don't have the awareness to process it all. And so really what's happening is in the name of faith, I am repressing it and calling it faith. I am ignoring it and calling it faith.
And really what's happening is underneath of my life and the underbelly of my life, all of this stress, all of this pain, all of this pressure that I am supposedly praying away is just building stronger by the day. And the dark night would be coming soon.
Tim Doyle (15:06.479)
funny to say because it's obviously such a rigorous lifestyle. But when you first get to army, did it all feel like you could start over in a fresh environment and reinvent yourself? Or was it kind of just accentuating what you had already been struggling?
Caleb (15:13.326)
Mm-hmm.
Caleb (15:17.078)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Caleb (15:24.162)
No, it's a great question. I remember when I'm going to West Point, I can remember the day that I left high school and everybody was like saying their goodbyes, like kind of the day when I was leaving for college for West Point. And I was just like weeping in my bedroom and because some stuff had gone down and you know, just like kids shit. But it was just so deeply painful. And I remember telling myself that I will do whatever it takes to belong. I don't care.
what that requires of me. I'll do whatever it takes to belong. Essentially, I will abandon myself at whatever cost to make sure that I am accepted, approved of, and I belong. And that was kind of the mindset that I went into college with, and I learned how to belong in a different way. But the same narrative around performance and acceptance, it held true.
and it would continue to hold true all throughout my collegiate career.
Tim Doyle (16:25.861)
your sophomore year at army is when your college football career really starts to take off more success, bigger stage. That's obviously going to garner more recognition and more praise, but also in your case, the other thing that it garners more of it can garner more internal struggle in your case. What was that like when the success gets accentuated now, but then that means that you're in
Caleb (16:29.506)
Yeah.
Caleb (16:38.476)
Mm-hmm.
Caleb (16:45.706)
Yeah
Yeah.
Caleb (16:53.187)
Yeah.
Tim Doyle (16:54.619)
internal struggle is also getting accentuated.
Caleb (16:56.79)
Yeah, I think people fell to recognize that. Like the success that you so deeply want, it's heavy. Like there's a weight that comes with that success, right? And you said it, there's more visibility, there's more attention, therefore there's more vulnerability, there's more to lose. So there's a heaviness that comes with success. And oftentimes like the work that I do in organizations now and within my keynotes and consulting is oftentimes with high performing individuals or high performing teams who
have experienced such great levels of success, but now the success that they work so hard to create becomes a burden for them to carry. And the very thing that they accomplish now becomes the very thing that threatens their existence, that threatens their wellbeing, right? And so at some point in life, we have to be able to create the internal capacity, strengthen the inner foundation to be able to hold and to sustain the levels of success that we work so hard to create.
And the reason why I know that is because I experienced the other side of it. And that really did start in my sophomore year in college when I did, you know, gain national attention as one of the top collegiate safeties in college football. And the pressure, the visibility, the attention, the awards, all of that only intensified this feeling of imposter syndrome.
Like you're celebrating the external success, but this whole time I'm still hiding behind my performance and using it as a facade. Because if you see the real me, once again, you're going to see just as deeply, deeply, you know, abandoned broken little boy who never belonged from day one. That's just hoping one day that he is enough, but no matter how much he accomplishes is still not enough. And so
That my sophomore year grew into some moments that really almost ruined me. I definitely probably should have been kicked out of the academy. I just had a couple of moments of deep, deep rage move through me in a public setting.
Caleb (19:14.676)
And I'm grateful that the leaders in my life at the Academy could see that it wasn't a flaw of character, but it was just deep pain that had not yet been processed. And so that was like probably the first time that I felt like it was all coming undone and I was losing control. Right. But I would be able to again, I told you, I talked about it earlier. Our survival tactics, man, they're fucking resilient.
They are resilient and I could continue to survive in this way. You know, I call it surviving successfully, but it's still surviving for years to come. But it was definitely my sophomore year where I started to see the unraveling beginning to take shape, even though I had no idea what it was, what was coming and more importantly, why it was important, but the unraveling began to take shape.
Tim Doyle (20:12.419)
Another big component of your sophomore year, something that happens, the alternative service obligation policy gets put into place, which means that any kid who had a professional sports contract could play and not serve at the same time. How did that shift your thought process when that got instated?
Caleb (20:18.463)
Mm-hmm.
Caleb (20:33.185)
Yeah, so that happened my sophomore year. It was a policy implemented by the Department of Defense, allowing service academy graduates who could get a professional contract to serve and play simultaneously.
And I, because of the attention that I was receiving, I kind of became the, I don't want to say the poster child of that policy, but I, my name was closely attached to that policy. And there was a couple of other baseball players at West Point. But at this time, we're also a nation at war. And so there's a lot of kind of pushback against this policy. And West Point and all of the
the officers and people in command at West Point were very much for this. I'm like a 19, 20 year old boy sitting at a table with three star generals, two star generals, one star generals in the United States Army. And they're telling me how it's all gonna go down. They're telling me what to expect and here's why we think you should do it. And we're with you and we're behind you. And so there was an element of, this is so funny. like I'm recounting the story that I haven't recounted in so long.
Because what that kind of did once again is it reinforced this deep need for specialness. Like there's something so special about me, but also therefore it intensified the sense of fraudulence, That since that imposter syndrome, that all intensified. And so this was just like a perfect storm over time where the ingredients were being intricately placed and it was brewing into
a chaos that would just roar across the landscape of my life and leave it absolutely unrecognizable in the days to come.
Tim Doyle (22:24.975)
Something that you talked about previously there as well as how rage started to become a bigger part of your life. Talk to me about how the emotions you were feeling alchemized into rage and then using that rage and transferring it onto the field.
Caleb (22:29.922)
Mm-hmm.
Caleb (22:40.012)
Yeah, so I can't remember who said this, but there's a poet who talks about how like, you know, I've seen so many men who just want to cry, but instead they beat their chest until it bleeds. And that was definitely me, right? Because in my head, any emotion is really a reflection of my inadequacy, right? Because again, there's still like this early childhood faith.
or warped views of faith that are still misguiding my life in terms of like, if I'm a man of faith, if this is still God's plan for my life, fear is a reflection of the lack of faith, right? Because we hear it even in scripture, like, I don't, you know, perfect love cast out all fear, right? This idea of, if I'm operating in great faith, I shouldn't be experiencing fear. If I am experiencing fear, my faith is weak, I need to deepen my faith.
or expand my faith. And so all of this pressure, all of this fear, and then the one component that I never really verbalized, but as I look back, it was obviously so present was like this self-hatred, this deep hatred for self. Like, why are you so broken? when you think about it, like every day that I wasn't living truthfully, I was living
betraying myself. You betray yourself enough, like you're going to end up disliking yourself deeply. And so there was such, such deep self hatred that I had for myself. And there were also no proper environments, no safe environments for me to work through these things. And even if I, I wanted to, there was no safe environments for me to work through these things at this time. I didn't know of them anyways. But again, in my head,
there's no place for these to be seen because again, it's a reflection of my inadequacy and people are gonna see me weak. You probably have read the post or the time that I went to go see my first shrink, my psychologist therapist in West Point and that was the first time that I've ever been introduced to the concept of depression. And he basically asked like, do you know what like high achieving depression is? And I was like, no. And he was like, well, let me explain.
Caleb (25:05.624)
because I think it'll help make sense in your life. And he ended up prescribing me some meds for the depression. And the only thing that I wanted to know when he handed me that script is will these meds take away my anger? And he said, why do you ask? And I was like, because my anger is my lifeline. Like my anger is the way that fuels me in my performance. And so,
As I'm living this life with all this deep pain and self-hatred, it's all being internalized and really sourced as anger, as rage. And that rage was my fuel. It was my fuel. Let me prove you wrong. Let me show you, fuck you. You did this to me when I was a kid, now watch and see. I'm gonna get the last laugh of this. And I loved that rage because when I really think about it, what it did for me is,
even though it's in this most toxic form, it made me feel alive. I was so deeply numbed that I was looking for anything that would make me feel alive. And that would ring true in my life for the years to come. It went from rage to drugs or to alcohol to drugs to sex, like all of these different components, like anything and everything to make me feel alive.
And that rage is what did it for me for the longest time. And so the last thing I wanted to do was to lose it.
Tim Doyle (26:32.899)
I find the rage component so fascinating because it creates this visual vicious cycle for you where you're living out of alignment and that causes that rage within you. And then that rage allows you to perform very well on the football field. And then that keeps you in this performance based lifestyle. And then staying in that performance based lifestyle just further exacerbates the feelings of living out in alignment and
Caleb (26:44.654)
Mm.
Stay out of alignment.
Yeah.
Caleb (26:55.501)
Yeah.
Caleb (27:00.152)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tim Doyle (27:02.435)
around and around you go. And that cycle takes you to a higher level. Externally speaking, you get drafted by the Detroit Lions in the 2008 NFL draft. And on top of that, you also become the second person ever in the history of the U S military to be drafted. So adding another layer onto this as well, and you've spoken about this, so you don't just become
Caleb (27:23.352)
Mm-hmm.
Caleb (27:28.429)
Mm-hmm.
Tim Doyle (27:31.641)
You're not just this star athlete anymore. Now you're this American symbol and this icon at the intersection between sports and the military. And you've said that it felt like you were playing a part in this larger storyline rather than just simply living your life. And you were at the NFL draft in person. What was it like experiencing that and the crowd chanting your name and getting all this praise, but also
Caleb (27:34.296)
Yeah.
Caleb (28:00.738)
Yeah. Yeah, that was a surreal experience. know, 10,000 screaming fans, 36 million people tuning in from their homes. The entire draft on the featured story. I'm there on site doing, you know, interviews frequently throughout first day and all throughout second day of the draft. And then to hear my name called, it was just like, wow, this just happened. Like my childhood dream did just come true.
Tim Doyle (28:00.899)
knowing how you really felt.
Caleb (28:31.062)
but that night getting home would be the first time that I ever had a panic attack. the night of getting drafted, you know, I woke up at like two in the morning and just couldn't go to sleep. I was reeling. I was going through like the entire day. And as I was realizing the magnitude of what just took place,
Because at this time, there's been a lot of pushback as well. Like we're a nation at war, my classmates are going to war, I'm going to the NFL, ESPN, E60 did a major feature story on me. I'm getting mailed daily from people who were supporting me and then people who were calling me a coward. It would not be uncommon for me to open up a letter and see a picture of a soldier who was killed in combat and say in the letter from some person saying, you'll never.
you know, I got one that said I saw you wore a C on your uniform. We thought that meant captain but in your case it means coward cut and run. And so there was just like all of this pressure and all of this tension and at the same time I'm having three star generals, know, supporting me in my decision telling me that this will be a great opportunity for the academy and the marketing of the academy and attracting top tier tenant to talent to the academy. And so I'm just feeling all of this pressure and it's my childhood dream.
And so it makes sense that I wake up at two in the morning and I feel the weight of it all. Like it was the first time in weeks that I had been left alone silent with my own thoughts. And as I'm realizing the magnitude of it, I'm also realizing that nothing in me is excited. Like I'm terrified for what's to come. And that's when I just could feel my heart pounding so viciously. started thudding in my ears. My hands began to shake. My vision began to blur. The ringing in my ear intensified by the moment, by the second. So disorient and so confused.
literally rolled out of my bed, crossed the hallway into the men's locker room, turned on the shower, laid under that water for the next three minutes. And it honestly felt like three hours and I thought I was dying. I thought I was having a heart attack. But what I know now is like I was just experiencing my first of many to come panic attacks. And that's when I started to see the the unraveling really beginning to take place in my physical body, that this way of doing life this
Caleb (30:48.27)
using all of my energy to protect the facade and to fortify the facade, to hide the truth about who I really am and what I'm going through was really, really beginning to cost me.
Tim Doyle (31:03.397)
Did you have the same feelings about the military, strictly speaking, as you did about football and that performance based aspect? Like, did you have the same type of mindset when it came to football as it did to serving in the military?
Caleb (31:16.672)
I think they helped me, but I found and I had been finding my sense of acceptance and belonging through football since I was a boy, not through the military. So there were like mindsets, my perseverance, my grit, determination. Those all allowed me to be a great cadet, a good cadet and also would set me up to be a great soldier. But the meaning and the...
belonging and the acceptance that I found in football I didn't necessarily find in the military.
Tim Doyle (31:51.503)
Another unexpected plot point to your storyline. We were talking about that alternative service obligation policy that gets revoked. What exactly happened with that process?
Caleb (31:57.774)
Mm-hmm.
Caleb (32:02.37)
Yeah. So the day of my contract signing, so this got happened my sophomore year, the policy comes into effect. so Detroit selects me, everybody thinks I can go and play. And about two weeks before my first contract signing and the start of training camp, they rescinded that policy, they reversed it. nobody told me and nobody told the Detroit Lions.
And they only told me two hours before I was scheduled to sign my first contract and start training camp. And so I got a phone call. I had to get to the stadium. I got to the stadium. They direct me up to a room. I walked into the room. You know, the head coach of the team to the president of the organization were all in there and they were listening to some guy on the other side of the phone. And when I sat down, that's when they notified me that the policy that they were going to.
implement that would allow me to play and serve it no longer exists and I had to return back to active duty immediately. No signing bonus, no contracts, nothing. I just had to return back to active duty immediately. And I played my cards really well in terms of
Caleb (33:14.602)
Here's what nobody knew. Was I disappointed? Yes. There was an element of disappointment there. But what nobody knew at the time is I was so ecstatic that they told me I couldn't play because in my head, I got to get out of Joe Freecard. In my head, it was just a matter of time before I would get cut and everybody would be seeing me for who I truly am, a fraud. Like I'm not who they think that I am. I'm a failure.
And so when they told me I couldn't play, it gave me a chance to kind of save face. Like I could continue to perpetuate this story of maintaining this image, maintaining this facade. And now it's like, well, I'm a soldier first. So tell me where to report and I'll go and report. And they were saying like, you know, there's a new policy that there might get implemented in two years after you serve for two years, you can apply for an early release and then you can make your way back into the NFL. That wasn't for sure. And
In my head, I was going to give it a shot again, but this time it was going to give me a chance over those next two years to get bigger, faster and stronger. So that when I did get back to the NFL, like I would be in a different place. Like I would actually be prepared. I know what's coming now and I can be prepared for it. And so yeah, two years, man. I serve 5 a.m. PT sessions, military training in the morning, classroom work in the afternoons. You know, everybody went home for the day. I went to the gym and I put in extra work to.
two years later, I was the biggest, was the fastest and I was the strongest I've ever been. Like I, by all external perspectives, was prepared to play the best football of my life. And I got a new NFL contract, I made my way back to Detroit, it became another big time story and a lot of people were pulling for me. And I'll never forget running out onto my first NFL field for my first practice and my first training camp and getting on the field and...
What I felt in that moment was so debilitating that it literally required me to run around the building away from all of the cameras, all of the fans there. And I just started to like lose my mind in terms of vomiting and crying like a sheer panic attack hit me because when I got on that field, all of the fear, all of the the just called the fear, the anxiety.
Caleb (35:32.194)
of around being exposed around being weak, being seen as somebody that doesn't have what it takes that I was so convinced I had outworked because I was bigger, I was faster and I was stronger. Like I had outworked it and it was going to be gone. It came back with a fucking vengeance. Like it didn't, it wasn't just still there but it was there bigger and meaner than ever before. And that's when I kind of realized like, shit, I'm fucked. Like.
How long can I play the game to save face before it all comes crashing down? Like that was really, that was really the mentality that I had. How much longer can I milk this and keep it all together before it all comes crashing down?
Tim Doyle (36:19.575)
You said you were really relieved when the policy got revoked and you didn't have to go into the NFL right away. Was there no part of you that felt like you could have used that as a sign or a way to be like, you know what, I'm not going to go back to the NFL at all. Or were you just still externally focused on getting back?
Caleb (36:22.104)
Mm-hmm.
Caleb (36:34.702)
Yeah, definitely. think there was still the element of God's plan for my life that was still really, really, had a strong grip on my life. And so there was something about like, man, this is really shaping up to be the best comeback story, which reinforces specialness, which reinforces
the ego component of all of this. Like this is really shit. God's hand is on this. And so I think there's just this outdated belief system that was still perpetuating this nonsense in my life that led me to continue down this path of continuing to go after this idea of a life that I had been chasing since I was just a young boy. And again, I can look back and be like,
that had to happen like that. Like I needed to reinforce this egoic pattern over and over and over until it would almost kill me so that I can be set on a different path. Yeah.
Tim Doyle (37:41.923)
You did start to stray away from that high performance lifestyle from the standpoint of you start partying more. You say you're not working as hard. You're not studying your playbook as much. You start using substances like we spoke about earlier. You grew up in a very religious disciplined household. What was it that finally made you separate from that straight line way of life?
Caleb (37:52.653)
Yeah.
Caleb (38:06.87)
Yeah, I think for me, it was it was less about separating from that like straight line of life. Because when I went to college, it definitely opened up to like partying. Wasn't doing drugs or anything. But like, definitely drinking my face off. And you know, like sex had become a thing. And just really just like, that was celebrated. Brene Brown talks about what a culture values, you know, we fear that we are not and
in this culture, you know, we value party and we value going hard, we value, you know, like being in the alpha. So I was going to make sure I was gonna put myself in the best position to be those things out of the fear of not being those things. And so I had started partying well before the NFL, but I would say in the NFL is the first time that I felt like I was actively trying to make myself disappear. Like, I was no longer trying to
party and have fun, I was trying to wreak as much destruction on myself as possible because I was so angry at myself that I'm in the middle of my childhood dream and I am actively self sabotaging it and there's nothing I can do about it. It's like I can't not do it any other way and so that is what created that deep deep self hatred and all of the pain was coming out sideways all of the fear all of the stress all of the insecurity.
all of the pressure, like I didn't have the awareness or the tools to manage that in a healthy way. And so it was just coming out sideways. And the only way that I could find to numb it was through the substances, right? Like it wasn't uncommon for me to be up for 24 hours straight and then go to an NFL practice. You know, because in my head, like get caught, like let me get caught so that somebody can put an end.
to this pain, because I can't walk away. Walking away is an abandonment of God's purpose for my life. Walking away is failure. Walking away is weakness. I can't walk away, right? And I didn't study my playbook because there's a part of me that wanted a reason why I couldn't make it. Like I wanted to be able to look back and be like, you know, if I would have just studied my playbook a little bit more, I was good enough. I could have did it, you know? That was like the excuse that I was holding on to.
Caleb (40:28.64)
And so it was about three years into the NFL bouncing around, you know, practice squads, a few active roster spots, a few games. and then it all coming, you know, crashing down when I left the Kansas city chiefs and, you know, a night of partying and seeing the mixtures of uppers and downers on the bedside of my table and knowing like, shit, if something doesn't change and change soon, my name is going to be well known, but for all of the wrong reasons.
And that's when I decided to hang up the cleats and go figure out what the hell just happened to my life.
Tim Doyle (41:05.253)
Think of cool symbolic moment of that when you are in Kansas City. Talk to me about the experience at Six Flags and pulling the bungee jump cord.
Caleb (41:13.358)
Yeah, I to give you more context, I hate roller coasters. I did hate roller coasters and saw sort of Bob sledding with Team USA. But some of the guys invited me to go just to the theme park. And I was obviously hungry for belonging. So I reluctantly said yes, and I was able to, you know, the entire day get out of any ride that, you know, scared me. I just got out of it. I went and bought beers, I
took a phone call. I just found myself getting out of the rides and you know, I did it because I was just scared and I didn't want anybody to know how scared I was. Excuse me. Long story short, we get through the entire day. We're making our way out of the back of the park and we're like, you know, 100 feet from the back exit and one of the guys was like, hey, dude, we got to do this. And I look over to my left and they're all like, yeah, they're cheering. And it's that just like a free fall like bungee jump, you know.
experience and you go in pairs. So there were six of us. And so everybody immediately was like, Hey, I'm with I'm with Zach, I'm with I'm with Shane, I'm with so and so. And my friend Zeke was like, Caleb, you're with me. I'm like, fuck, because I'm like, terrified. I don't want to do this. And I can't not say yes, because then Zeke either can't go and he was ecstatic about it, or he would have to go with a stranger. And that's just not cool. So I didn't want to hear the end of it.
And I eventually, you know, I get put in this harness and we, you know, are pulled up until, you know, however high we are and we're up there. And there was like a red light, yellow light, green light. And when it goes from red to yellow or to green, you pull the cord and you fall. I was the one that was supposed to pull the cord. It turns to a green light. I don't pull the cord. Long story short, I ended up having a fucking panic attack up there. Zeke realizes that, oh shit, this is, this is real. This is real. And thankfully he's a good man.
And, you know, he was able to calm me down just enough to allow me to find the courage to pull that cord. And so I pulled the cord and man, I can still remember it like it was yesterday. Those first few fractions of a second were terrifying or absolutely terrifying. And then I remember after that, what I had experienced in that fall was nothing short of miraculous. I started to laugh hysterically and then it's turned into just a hysterical
Caleb (43:38.35)
cry. But it wasn't a fearful cry. It was a cry of relief. It was a cry of like, I could finally exhale. And I had no idea what happened in that moment until years later, when I was you know, after years of therapy and going on this inner healing journey of being able to look back and being like, Wow, that was such a profound moment for me. Because in that moment, that was the first time in my life, after spending
the first, it's called 25 years of my life, using my willpower, my ability, my performance to hold my life together, which I was getting very close to losing. That was the first experience of me having a moment where I was able to experience the rest and the joy that comes when there is something outside of my ability, my willpower, and my performance.
holding my life together. And all it required me to do was to let go. And there was something in that moment that I feel like connect is so deeply in me that was already in me that already knew the truth. That what I was looking for wasn't going to be found on the other side of a greater performance. It was going to only be discovered on the bottom of a letting go. And so shortly after that, I is when I walked away from the NFL and I would start to to venture down a different path.
Tim Doyle (45:04.333)
Yeah, I think that's such a profound turning point and great symbolic moment for you. Everyone likes to talk about the negative impact of social media, but in your case, you could quite literally say that Twitter changed your life. What exactly did those tweets say from the church in Canada that connected with you so deeply?
Caleb (45:07.33)
Mm-hmm.
Caleb (45:18.506)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I was scrolling through Twitter. I was like two bottles of wine in. was, you know, just woe is me playing the pity game. And there was a series of tweets about how it was around, you know, like Jesus Easter resurrection, new life and this idea that we cannot experience new life while trying to resuscitate the old. Right. That just this idea that new life only comes the prerequisite to new life is first.
a death and it's not a physical death, but it's a metaphorical death, a death of letting go of the security, the safety, the identity, all of the ways that we self protect. If we want to experience the newness of life, we first have to put those parts and those aspects to bed. Like we have to allow them to die. And that was the first time that I was like,
This is what's being asked of me. Like I'm searching for new life and I'm searching for it in the only way that I know how to search for it and that is do more, be more, achieve more. And that old way of doing things actually needs to die. Like all of the ways that I self-protect need to die. All of the ways that I hide behind these different facades need to die. And so that was like the first time that I understood the next.
step like this is what's being asked of me. I'm playing a new game and I just got the first play out of the new playbook and that's when I like looked at that church didn't know anybody there and I was like I'm supposed to go so I packed up my bags through everything that couldn't fit in my car into storage or left it at my aunt's house. I drove to Canada. I walked into this church and I said listen, you don't know me. Here's my story for whatever reason. I feel like I'm supposed to be here. Can you help me?
Caleb (47:19.338)
And the pastor of the church was like, we can help you. And I moved into the basement of that church that night. And for the next five years of my life, I woke up and I cleaned bathrooms. I changed light bulbs. I vacuumed floors. I did basically anything and everything that was asked of me. And I did it essentially in exchange for free therapy. And it was such a beautiful moment and season of my life because it was for the first time that I found a ecosystem.
built on the foundation of psychological safety, emotional safety that allowed me to start peeling back the layers and the facades that I had been hiding behind and holding up the pain that had been buried in the depths of me and allowing it to become the light that would illuminate the path ahead of me. And so that was the first time that I experienced like true, started to experience true healing.
You know, I'm cleaning bathrooms, not necessarily Tim, what I had on my vision board to start the year. Right. I'm a West Point graduate. You know, I, what are you doing? And believe me, a lot of people thought that I had fallen off the deep end. A lot of people thought that I joined a cult, but, I didn't have the language for it. That was the hard part. I didn't know what I was doing. I just couldn't say no to it. And I had tons of job opportunities from West Point graduates. said no to everything. I moved to Canada, you know, and that
season of my life undoubtedly changed everything for me.
Tim Doyle (48:50.317)
What exactly was the type of therapy that you were doing?
Caleb (48:54.156)
Hmm. Yeah, so when I look back at it, it started with a lot of like CBT, like cognitive behavioral therapy. There was a lot of just like tools around self awareness and also emotional regulation that I was learning. And you know, being able to become aware of the stressors in my life, aware of the thought patterns in my life, to create some psychological gap between the two to be able to observe them and then also be able to meet the unmet needs of the little boy.
that is projecting them. So there was a lot of inner child healing that took place. And there was some even parts work where I could see the part of me that was a performer, producer, perfectionist that, you know, were once such loyal soldiers in my life, but they don't realize that the battle is over, the war is over, we're okay. And they don't need to come online as intensely as they once did. And so it was kind of like a lot of different modalities over the years. And I also was just hungry for growth. I,
I studied anything and everything. consumed everything just trying to better understand, you know, again, just what went on in my life. Like, why did that have to happen? And then better yet, how can I move forward doing it differently from this on out this this this moment on
Tim Doyle (50:09.285)
So for those five years that you're in Canada, are you going back to Texas at all to visit family? Are you visiting old friends or did you turn off that old life?
Caleb (50:18.08)
Yeah, you know, when I went right into Canada, I got super religious again, like, I kind of like, let me get back to my roots. Let me like start serving God really strong. God can heal this. And there was an element of truth in that. But I also became like very morally superior, like
I went from finding my identity and my performance on my football field to finding my identity and my ability to heal. Like my healing became a performance. And so I felt like morally superior than other people who weren't doing the healing work. And so let me tell you, I was a lot of fun to be around. But I would visit like family here and there, but it would just be such awkward experiences because...
you know, I still didn't know how to be authentic. I still didn't know how to show up and just be me. I was experiencing some inner peace and some joy. was experiencing some breakthrough moments, but I was very much so new in my journey. And so I really embedded myself in that community for years. And then that community though, that that experience, it eventually became too small for me. And I'm not saying that in a negative way, but there came a moment in my life where I knew that it was time to to move on like
The healing that was meant to take place in that season, it took place and now it was time for me to exit. And that would lead me to ultimately Los Angeles where I started to find my unique expression. I started to find my voice. I started to be able to integrate all of my healing work and turn it into a message that could start resonating with other people so that they can better understand the next step that they are asked to take in their own lives and their own journeys.
Tim Doyle (51:55.193)
Moving to LA is obviously a pivotal part of your journey. But you also said that you never felt like you were actually living in LA, but it was more so waiting for what you expected your life to look like. How do you think, you know, as you've evolved now more as a person, how do you think you've allowed yourself to shift from a state of becoming to now simply just a state of being and also now being in Nashville?
Caleb (52:02.584)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Caleb (52:20.332)
Yeah, it's a good question. Yeah, when you move to LA, you kind of all these ideas and expectations of what you think your life is gonna look like. Like LA is such a special place because it's full of dreamers and you feel that energetically, you feel it. Like you go there and honestly, if you can think it, you can make it happen because there's somebody there that will help you make it happen. And so it's just all this possibility. And so when I moved out there, I very much followed my heart. I didn't expect to move out there. I followed my heart out there so I couldn't help but to think like, this is it. Like it's all coming together.
Like I'm gonna build this big brand. I'm gonna have this profound message and it's gonna be amazing. And I went out there and I realized that I tried so hard to make my life happen out there. And what was being asked of me and would take years for me to better understand this and see this, but my work out there wasn't about making my life happen. It was about learning how to accept the life that I had.
And it was in that radical acceptance I started to discover that what I had been looking for my entire life had been buried in with me this entire time. And that radical acceptance had become the foundation that would then begin to help me better understand what it looks like to not make my life happen, but to participate in the life that is happening.
And I often kind of equate it with this idea of life is a river. And I spent years and including my time in LA in the river, trying to push the river of my life and make it happen. But the real work is recognizing the river's already flowing. Our job is to learn how to rest in the river and allow the natural current of the river to move our lives forward. And there's this more effortless, graceful, efficient way to move our lives forward.
And so that was like really this deep, deep healing because for me to accept my life as it was for me to let go of all the ways that I think it was supposed to look like. So I am now putting to bed, I am putting to rest, I am allowing that addiction to specialness. All of the ideas and the expectations, I'm allowing those to just fall away and I'm doing like ceremonies and rituals and honoring them, but also realizing that you have kept me out of my life.
Caleb (54:35.17)
that I have here and now. And the greatest display of faith, the greatest display of, I don't know, what's the word I wanna use here? Like what I was looking for this entire time has already been within me. I just had to learn how to reconnect and accept it. And that couldn't happen by trying to do more, be more, achieve more. That was only going to be discovered at the bottom of a letting go. And so there was just such deep.
grief. My time in LA was just riddled with grief, but I realized that the willing, the depth in which I was willing to feel my grief really created the height of a container that I could experience more joy, more connection and just feel more alive in my daily life. So LA was just such a special moment for me in terms of letting go. know, David White has that line. And he says in his poem, I think it's sweet darkness, he says to give up all other worlds, except the one which you call home here and now.
And it was the first time I gave up all of the worlds, all of the ideas and the expectations of what I thought it should look like, what I hoped it looked like, and learn how to accept the life that I have here and now. And it was in that acceptance that, again, I said earlier, like I discovered like the ground that I had been trying to attain by running as hard as I can, as fast as I can for as long as I can was the ground that I had been standing on the entire time. But I was never still enough to ever witness that, to see that.
that what I had been looking for, it was always within me. know, think it's Pete Holmes, the comedian. He says, you know, we are a beggar sitting on a treasure chest full of gold coins asking for spare change. And that's what it felt like my entire life. I am the fucking beggar sitting on a treasure chest full of gold coins asking for spare change, failing to recognize what's underneath me if I am just still enough to look to give up.
the need to be somebody to give up the need for it to look like a certain way to give up trying to get there and learn how to be here. That just completely completely transformed my life and that would become really the next season of evolution the next season of growth for me. So you can kind of see the pattern you know I had this divine ambush leaving the NFL going on this journey.
Caleb (56:54.624)
all of this inner work, all of this healing, it was just constant evolutions, evolutions of healing, evolutions of expression, evolutions of healing, evolutions of expression, expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction. And I'm very much in that dance now, that dance never ends, right? But the difference is, is I don't fight against it, I don't resist it, I participate with it. And that changes the overall experience, undoubtedly.
Tim Doyle (57:18.599)
Do you think you who you are today could go back and live that military NFL life, but do it in a much more fulfilled way and sort of succeed and go down that path fully?
Caleb (57:26.636)
Yeah.
Caleb (57:31.67)
Yeah, I think so. think about that. Yeah, I think there would be a, you know, I often say it's not about working less. It's not about, you know, not working as hard. It's about changing the energy behind how you work. And I think my energy would have been so much different, right? There wouldn't be the need to be special. There wouldn't be the need for all of the external validation that I was so
desperate and starving for in that time in my life. And so that undoubtedly, I think would have changed my performance, my ability to show up, connect myself, my teammates to take greater risks. Like when you think about this, that experience that I had when I was in the roller coaster, like what that did for me is it allowed me to experience like there is something outside of my ability that's holding me together, right? We can only have that experience and there's a name for it's called kinesthetic knowing. It's a knowing that's in our bodies before we are born.
is discovered, it's actually created in the womb. There's a part of us that remembers in our biological makeup that we were being held in the womb by something outside of our ability. Right? There was this original knowing, a kinesthetic knowing, original knowing that we were longing to reconnect to. But the only way that we can reconnect to the knowing is through the series of letting go. At some point we have to understand that the life that we're looking for is not found on the other side of doing more.
but learning how to resist less. The letting go. It's in the letting go that we reconnect to the original knowing that there is something outside of us that is holding this all together. Tim, what would you not do? What risk would you not take if you knew that you were being held?
And that's the opportunity that we're all being invited into.
Tim Doyle (01:00:39.397)
Caleb, it's been awesome talking with you. Where can people go to connect with you and see more of what you're doing?
Caleb (01:00:45.302)
Yeah, so my website, Caleb Campbell dot me. I spend most of my time speaking on stages at conferences and different organizations across the country. kind of my whole message is really, you know, in the in the chaos of today, the rapid change, the limited resources and really just the relentless noise of expectations and pressures and demands coming from every area of our lives. So many leaders are finding themselves feeling so outstretched, right with limited capacity and the world isn't slowing down.
And most people, think that, you know, the answer is to do more, to be more, to try harder. And it works, but eventually that's how burnout wins. And my work and my message that I share shows them that it's not about doing more. It's not even about doing less. It's about learning how to expand within. When we expand within, we strengthen the inner foundation, allowing us to move through the complexity of today and the uncertainty of tomorrow with deeper presence and greater ease. More importantly, when we expand within, we're able to reclaim some of the passion and the joy that's been buried underneath the daily grind.
and reclaim the life satisfaction that we're meant to have. And so you can find all of my work that I'm at CalebCampbell.me or you can find me at Instagram, Caleb underscore Campbell.
Tim Doyle (01:01:57.455)
find it cool how I think that traveling evangelist is still correct to a certain extent because you're still playing in stadiums in front of a lot of people. It's just instead of being football, it's you talking on stage. So it's been awesome talking with you today.
Caleb (01:02:01.455)
Yeah.
There was a lot of there was a lot of truth to it. You're right. Yeah. Thanks for having me, Tim. Bless you.
