Name, Image, and Likeness: Marshawn Leaves Tip #3

This week’s tip will end our series of tips Marshawn Lynch leaves behind that can help athletes and businesspeople alike build a name, image, and likeness (NIL) that lands them marketing deals, promotions, bonuses, and contract extensions.

So far, we’ve covered tips 1 and 2 which are performance and authenticity. Perform at a high level like Marshawn by taking actions that uplift our teammates or coworkers. Get to know that person that can’t do anything for us. Make them feel noticed and acknowledged. It may be a walk-on player or a serviceman at the office. Whoever it is, they are human and, therefore, significant.

Authenticity is being true to ourselves. What is it that we like? What makes us unique? We don’t have to try to stand out or blend in for that matter. The people that we need to reach or be in relationship with will find us based off of relating to and experiencing our authenticity.

Today, we will wrap things up with Marshawn’s final tip:

?1.????Performance

2.????Authenticity

3.????Share

?Share

We all have a pregame or pre-work routine that gets us locked in and ready to perform. Let’s share it. Perhaps we like to have our kid’s Cocoa Puffs and a glass of chocolate milk for breakfast in the morning. Maybe we’re like former Auburn defensive back and 2022 NFL prospect Roger McCreary, who likes a can of baked beans and 8 packs of sugar the night before games. We may like to go to a workout class to start our workday. Or maybe we aren’t morning people at all and we wake up as late as possible and rush out the door.

Whatever it is, we should ask others what their pregame or pre-work routine looks like. It opens up a door for conversation and sharing. This helps us get to know others on our team and in our office and it helps them to get to know us. ?

Marshawn has shared his love for Skittles. This has opened up marketing opportunities between him and the company. His love for Skittles was so well known that after scoring a touchdown on Sunday Night Football for the 2019 Seattle Seahawks, fans showered him with Skittles in the endzone.

His intense liking for Skittles goes back to his Pop Warner football days, where his mom would give him?a bag before each game. "I would give him a handful of Skittles and say, ‘Eat 'em up, baby,'" Delisa Lynch told Seahawks.com in 2012. "'They're going to make you run fast and they're going to make you play good.'" It’s authentic and real, which is true to Marshawn. He didn’t devise a strategy to get a marketing deal with Skittles. No, he’s always enjoyed Skittles, and this came across on camera one game when the media happened to catch him eating them after?scoring a touchdown in 2011.

This one action of eating Skittles – his childhood favorite candy – on the sideline, after scoring a touchdown and the media capturing it, encompasses all three clues that we’ve uncovered Marshawn leaving behind.

First, there’s the performance element of scoring a touchdown to help his team pursue winning the game. Then, there’s the authenticity by him eating Skittles, which he has been eating at football games since he started playing Pop Warner football. And lastly, sharing this information organically occurred as the media captured him in the act of eating Skittles on the sideline on game day.

It's fascinating how Marshawn receiving a marketing deal with Skittles was all rooted in a care and concern for the people around him. And it all started with his mom giving him Skittles before a Pop Warner football game so he could “run fast and play good” to help his team win.

It was about the team, and Marshawn has always been a team player, evidenced by his performance of giving his backpack to a rookie Doug Baldwin. He wants to elevate his teammates’ performances by encouraging them and making them feel as they belong. Additionally, he wants to “run fast and play good” because that kind of performance helps his team win.

When we take our eyes off of us and focus on how we can help others around us, we will perform at higher levels. People will want to know what’s the secret sauce or what’s our pregame or pre-work routine. And when they ask, it’s our opportunity to share what we do to step into everyday to help others and ourselves perform at higher levels.

This is how we develop a name, image, and likeness that organically brings, sponsorships, endorsements, promotions, bonuses, contract extensions, and more.

Battle well,

Derek