Teaching My Playbook at Cal State Long Beach
The setup
Last week I was a guest speaker in Cal State Long Beach's Sports Management Program, talking to a room of upperclassmen and seniors about personal branding, networking, and how to actually find opportunities once you're out of eligibility and out of excuses.
Great group — mostly swimmers, water polo players, and cross country runners who are all extremely good at their sport and, like most college seniors, mildly terrified about what comes next. Relatable. I was that kid once too, except my sport was "aggressively walking on to a Division I swim team by promising the coaching staff I'd be a better recruiter than swimmer." (I was right, for the record.)
The question that got dead silence
I opened with a question I like to ask every room: if I pulled up your Instagram right now, would I actually learn anything real about you? Dead silence, which is the correct answer. Instagram is a highlight reel — your best six photos and the one with your cat buried at slide four. It's not where anyone finds the thing that makes them remember you.
The four-prompt framework
So we spent the hour doing an exercise I've run with our Pros, Olympic hopefuls, college athletes, and at least one Division I head basketball coach: building your own story, four prompts at a time, until you can tell it in under a minute.
If your Instagram, resume, or elevator pitch doesn't actually tell anyone who you are, you're not alone — almost nobody's does. Here's the fix, in four prompts:
How did you get into your sport? Two or three sentences, nothing fancy. "My mom was scared I'd drown, so she put me in swim lessons at three" is a complete answer.
Name one or two early obstacles you got through. They don't need to be dramatic — a long drive to practice, bad allergies, a tough choice between two sports. Small and specific beats big and vague.
What's the biggest challenge you've overcome? This is the one people remember. Not necessarily your saddest moment — the one that changed how you operate.
Why are you better because of it? The step almost everyone skips. What did it actually build in you? You already know the answer — you've just never said it out loud.
Put those four together and you've got your story: a beginning, a setback, a real challenge, and what it made you. That's the thing a sponsor, a recruiter, or a donor actually remembers — not your follower count or your stat line.
What happened when someone actually tried it
A water polo player named Emma shared hers on the spot — cold, no notes — and nailed it well enough that I'm pretty sure three recruiters in that room would've hired her by the end of the story. A few other students came up afterward with the kind of "wait, I've never actually said that out loud before" look that tells me the exercise landed.
Why this isn't just a college-senior problem
This is the exact same exercise we run for every athlete who signs with CG Sports, Olympian or not. Howard Schultz said it best: "If people believe they share your values, they will stay loyal to your brand." Give people a story, or they'll make one up for you — or just forget you entirely.
