Intangible Podcast

Jayson DiManche entered the NFL in 2013 as an undrafted free agent out of Southern Illinois and walked into one of the most stacked linebacker rooms in football, on camera, during a season of Hard Knocks. He was the eighth or ninth man on the depth chart. He was supposed to be a camp body. He played seven years across the Bengals, Chiefs, Browns, Lions and 49ers.

In this conversation he breaks down exactly how he did it, and none of it sounds like what you expect. He calls himself lazy. He says the undrafted label was a gift. He explains why a linebacker who got manhandled on national television decided that was the best thing that could have happened to him in Week 1.

We also get into the part of his story most people never hear. Growing up in Trenton, New Jersey, going back to Haiti as a kid and seeing what he actually had. Being bullied, then becoming a bully, and the exact moment he realized he was aiming his energy in the wrong direction. His parents divorcing while he was fifteen hours from home at Southern Illinois. The film session after his first NFL start where the entire defensive staff took him apart for forty five minutes, and why he now says that was the first time he was ever truly coached.

And then there is the John Muir Trail. Fourteen days on the trail in 2020 with two former college teammates, a group of men over sixty who would not stop passing them, and three words from a stranger that Jayson says he would tattoo on his forehead if he could.

Jayson now works as a private football and mental performance coach in Dallas, training athletes on the mental side of the game that most people leave to chance. If you are an athlete trying to make a roster, a parent trying to help your kid handle pressure, or anyone who has ever been told you were not the guy, this one is for you.

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Kyle Arrington went undrafted out of Hofstra, got cut by two teams, and still became a Super Bowl champion and the NFL's co-leader in interceptions in 2011. In this episode of the Intangible Podcast, Kyle sits down with Chris Spencer to break down the mindset that took him from practice squad to starting cornerback for Bill Belichick's Patriots, including the story of intercepting Tom Brady in his very first practice with Randy Moss lined up across from him. Kyle gets real about growing up with almost no self-confidence, the imposter syndrome he felt sitting in a room full of Hall of Famers as a rookie, and why going to therapy every week has been one of the biggest factors in his success on and off the field. He also talks about building his nonprofit the Ball Foundation, writing his children's book Piece It Together, and the intangibles that carried him through eight seasons in the league. If you are an athlete chasing a dream that feels far away, a parent trying to help your kid build real confidence, or someone who wants to understand what actually separates the players who make it from the ones who do not, this conversation is for you. Subscribe to the Intangible Podcast for more conversations with elite athletes and coaches about the mental side of competing at the highest level.
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Jeff Byers was the best high school football player in America. Then he had hip surgery at 19, back surgery at 20, and a doctor told him he'd never play again. He came back, became a two-time captain at USC under Pete Carroll, played in the NFL with the Seahawks, Broncos and Panthers, and today he's the co-founder and CEO of Momentous, the performance nutrition company that supplies every NFL team.
In this episode of the Intangible Podcast, former NFL center Chris Spencer sits down with his former teammate to break down the intangibles that carried Jeff from the locker room to the boardroom. They get into why discipline creates momentum and momentum creates motivation, not the other way around. Why the most consistent person in the building becomes the leader, not the most talented. What Pete Carroll did every single day that made him impossible to misread. Why the single most underrated performance tool for a young athlete isn't a supplement or a training program, it's sleep. And why the day football gets taken from you is the day you find out whether the game defined you or you defined the game.
If you're an athlete trying to figure out what separates good from great, a parent trying to give your kid an edge that isn't another travel team, or someone building something outside of sport with the intangibles you earned inside of it, this conversation is for you.
Jeff's line on the habit that separates good from great: the ball always gets snapped. Time waits for no one. You have to be ready, you have to have a short memory, and it's coming again whether you're ready or not.
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Maurice Hampton Jr. walked away from one of the greatest runs in Tennessee prep history — Mr. Football, Mr. Baseball, drafted by the San Diego Padres, and an LSU national championship ring — and still had to figure out who he was when it all stopped. In this episode, Chris Spencer sits down with J. Maurice Hampton, one of the rarest multi-sport athletes in SEC history, to pull back the curtain on what it really takes to compete at the highest level, what nobody tells you about the transfer portal, and why the intangibles nobody talks about are the ones that determine how far you go.
Maurice gets real about losing his identity after COVID and injuries derailed what was shaping up to be a legendary career, the moment he entered the portal with no safety net and no offers, and why he is now building Momentum Sports to protect young athletes from the predatory contracts and bad advice that almost nobody warned him about. He breaks down why the best baseball players in the world fail seven out of ten times and why that is the most important mental model any competitor can carry, what the 2019 LSU national championship team was really like in practice, and the one promise he made to his grandmother that he refused to break no matter what.
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Javon Patterson was a 7th round pick out of Ole Miss who started over 40 consecutive games in the SEC, tore his ACL two weeks into his NFL career, and still squeezed out four years in the league before walking away on his own terms. Now he is back at Ole Miss pouring into the next generation through financial literacy, life skills, and the kind of mentorship that nobody talks about on SportsCenter.
In this episode we get into the foundation his single mother built, what it really takes to earn trust as the center in the middle of an offensive line, how Devin Funchess three words mind like water helped him survive his darkest moment in the league, what young athletes in the transfer portal era are getting wrong about competition and development, and why his definition of success now is watching a young man set up his first LLC.
This one hits different. Real talk from a guy who played the game the right way and then figured out what comes next.
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