I've retired twice. Once from football. Once from a company I built.

I played defensive end at the University of Nevada. When the game ended, I found out how hard it is to figure out who you are when the thing that defined you is gone. I wrote a book about it.

Then I built businesses and sold them. I grew an HVAC company to 30+ employees and sold it. I founded Barney Inc, the firm that became Merge (gomerge.com), which specializes in selling marketing agencies, and helped agency owners sell the companies they built. In total, I've worked on more than 50 transactions.

I know what the final number means, and what it doesn't cover.

— Jay Dixon, founder of SuccessCoach, author of After the Game