Winning After the Game: How to Win in Your Life No Matter Who You Are or What You've Been Through

By Setema Gali

Some people feel that life’s a game. If happiness and fulfillment seem out of reach, many need to know something: their dreams are still attainable. Setema Gali went from Super Bowl champion to door-to-door salesman, and had to sell his Super Bowl ring just to put food on the table for his family. But he bounced back and overcame the obstacles that stood between him and the prosperous life he wanted for his family, and in Winning After the Game, he tells how he did it and how anyone else can do it too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781683504894

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Crossing the Ocean

Live. Love. Learn. Leave a legacy.

—Stephen Covey

Iwas in disbelief. We were packing up our home, the home we had lived in for nearly four years. I had lived in Utah for thirty-five years, and now I was moving my wife, our kids, and our few belongings to Orange County, California.

Those thirty-five years contained the highest and lowest points in my life. I had gone from winning the Super Bowl to selling my championship ring to put food on the table and gas in the car. My wife stood by me as I fought through extreme self-doubt and financial insecurity, and rejoiced with me when I surmounted those obstacles and reinvented myself again and again.

Now the dark days were distant, and I was ready to take another leap of faith.

A big part of me was excited to follow my dream of inspiring others to live powerfully, but another part of me was anxious. Sometimes doubt would creep in and I’d ask myself, Can I do this? Can I move two states away, a thousand-plus miles from home, and make it?

The answer was yes. I knew it would be OK.

How did I know? I knew because a great man had done the same thing sixty years earlier. He didn’t cross two states and a thousand miles, however; he crossed the Pacific Ocean and traveled over six thousand miles to the foreign land that would become his new home.

That man was my father.

As a young boy, my father had worked in the taro patches on the islands of Samoa. Every single week, he’d see a cargo plane in the sky and say, Mom, I want to be on that plane! His mom would glance up at him briefly before returning to her work. Many people had dreams of leaving the island. Few ever did. And yet, again and again he would say, Mom, I want to be on that plane!

After weeks and weeks of listening to him tell her that he wanted to be on that plane, his mother looked at him and said, If you want to be on that plane, you have to do well with a pencil and paper. She was talking about school.

My father had heard of a Mormon school in Samoa that taught English and allowed their students to wear pants instead of the traditional lavalava, which is a rectangular cloth worn as a wrap to cover one’s body. The name of that school was Pesega, and it became his way to cross the ocean.

My father found the Mormon missionaries, got baptized, and studied hard in order to score high enough on his exams to get into the school. Come what may, he would realize his dreams, no matter how distant they seemed—dreams that focused on a tiny, moving dot miles up in the sky.

Samoa was a third-world country, and that plane signified the promise of a faraway land where my father could live a good life. Even though he had never left the country, he knew there was a possibility of something better for his family. He didn’t speak English, but he knew he wanted to go to the States when a visiting interpreter told him that the streets of America were paved with gold and money grew on trees. That plane was his ticket to opportunity.

My father knew that education could take him to a new country where there was running water—a country filled with refrigerators, cars, planes—and most of all, possibility. He wanted a land of promise where he could thrive and grow as a man, as a husband, and as a father. He wanted to make his mother proud and to live that better life he had heard about.

Not only did he get into the Mormon school, he also went on to earn a scholarship to the Church College of Hawaii. He went from working in a taro patch to receiving a higher education in America. My father had achieved first big goal; he had arrived.

My father cried when he left his homeland, but he was determined, and unwilling to settle for the life Samoa offered him. He’d actualized a vision to create greater opportunity for himself and his future family. Even when we accomplish our goals in life and move up in the world, the pain of leaving what’s comfortable can bring tears … but it can also serve to remind us how far we have come.

When my father arrived in Hawaii, he slept in a bed for the first time in his life. Imagine having never seen a bed before and having no idea what to do with it! He took the few supplies he’d brought from Samoa, placed them on the bed, and slept on the floor. It would take some time for him to get used to this strange place.

While living in Hawaii, my father got a job and sent money back to his mother as often as he made it. He met a beautiful young lady and they got married. Shortly afterward, they had their first child, a baby girl. He dropped out of school because he realized he could make more money driving a taxi, performing in traditional dances at the hotels in Waikiki, and working whatever side-hustles he could find there.

After years of shifting from one job to another, struggling to make ends meet and support his growing family, my father decided to leave Hawaii to be closer to family members on the mainland. He had relatives in Missouri, and it was there that he had hopes of finding more opportunities. He gathered his family together and crossed the ocean. The rest of the story … well, that’s still to come.

My father had a goal of creating a better life for his family. Once in Missouri, he brought many of his siblings over from the Samoan islands, helping them to get started in the States. By doing this, he showed his family how to live life in the service of others and what’s possible when one is sincerely committed to the impossible. His vision and tenacity have always inspired me.

My mom and dad sacrificed so much to give us a better life, and they gave us much more than that. I watched them work job after job because they had a vision for their children’s future. My parents’ generation believed in hard work, persistence, and the will to do whatever is necessary. I now know what they knew—and perhaps you do too: The impact of a parent’s legacy is felt deep in the hearts and souls of their children.

I look at my three boys today and I know that if I do not honor my commitments, my boys may fall into a path of irresponsibility, mediocrity and carelessness. I do not want this. I don’t want my sons looking at me saying, I never want to be like him. Instead, I want my sons to look at me and say, I know all things are possible; just look at what my dad has done. He is my hero.

Create a Life of Significance

In ancient Christian Scriptures, men and women were told of the Promised Land, a place reserved for the chosen people. These people had visions of a greater opportunity, so they traveled to find it, just as my father and mother did. I teach my sons to do the same.

Every single day I ask my boys, Who’s in charge of your life?

They repeat back to me, I am.

Then I ask them, Who’s got it better than us?

They yell, Nobody!

I love and honor my parents deeply. They showed me what was possible. They showed me that when a man is dedicated to providing for himself, his wife, and his children, he can wake up every single day, put his shoulder to the wheel, and do the required work to get the desired results.

I have a duty not only to teach my sons, but also to live what I teach. I have a responsibility to show them what’s possible and how to turn the impossible into a reality—not merely by what I say, but by the way I live, what I do, and who I am. They have to be able to feel it through how I treat them and how I speak to them.

It takes courage to leave your comfort zone and journey somewhere you’ve never been before, doing things you’ve never done. It’s difficult leaving what is familiar, making the big leap to leave home, learning a new language, and going to a place where you could face serious discrimination—a place where there are no guarantees and no free lunches.

It takes courage to live your vision—write that book, start that business, make that phone call, try out for the team, or ask that person out on a date. It takes bravery to write and sing a song, to create art, or to ask for a promotion. It takes boldness to take your cell phone and shoot a video selfie for Facebook or upload your message to Snapchat.

If you’re going to create a life of real, radical results, a life that you love, a life of significance, you’ve got to choose courage over fear.

My mother did. My father did. They still do to this day. If you want to create a life that you can be proud of, you’ll have many opportunities to choose courage, and you must choose it.

My parents did for me what I’ve been doing for my sons. My mom and dad worked countless hours—graveyard shifts, swing shifts, and multiple jobs. They taught me that if you want something, you go get it. If you want something, you set a goal and you work your butt off to make it happen. They taught me … but more important, they showed me by their example. My parents are paragons of courage, faith, and hard work.

Millions of immigrants travel and sacrifice everything they have to get to a land that offers greater opportunity. If they can do it, certainly you can. There’s no reason that you can’t cross the ocean right now in your own