Akbar Gbajabiamila shares the best piece of advice he ever received

Akbar Gbajabiamila had to reinvent himself multiple times over. He played just a year of high school football and then after a college and brief NFL career, transitioned to broadcasting.

He described his change to broadcasting as more difficult than basketball-to-football when talking to Malcom Harris-Gowdie, a Special Olympics athlete and broadcaster who interviewed folks at Radio Row on behalf of FanSided during Super Bowl week.

If you needed to know anything about his charisma on the mic though, “heavy,” was Gbajabiamila’s humorous response when asked how it was to sack Daunte Culpepper (his first career sack) of the Minnesota Vikings.

Clearly, he’s pretty comfortable as a media personality, now.

Akbar Gbajabiamila shares advice that helped him pivot multiple times

When Harris-Gowdie asked Gbajabiamila what the best piece of advice he ever received was, here was his response:

"“‘To be good is not good enough if you dream of being great,’ that’s the best piece of advice I ever got, and it stuck with me because sometimes in life no matter what it is, we can settle for, ‘oh, that’s just good enough.’ But if you really dream of being great, then good shouldn’t just be the ceiling, right? It should be the floor.”"

It explains clearly why Gbajabiamila has been able to reinvent himself. A new sport? No problem. A career shift to broadcasting? That’ll be fine. Gbajabiamila is obsessed with being great, not just good, and that small mantra has clearly kept him on track.

It’s a mantra we can all strive to include in our daily mindset a little bit more.

Akbar Gbajabiamila joined FanSided representing Experian, which helps customers understand and increase their credit score.