Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce just spent a sweaty month at the team’s training camp in St. Joseph Missouri. Grueling as it is, Kelce was clearly enjoying himself, and those who know him say he loves training camp. This week, he explained why, and his explanation tells you a lot about the nature of success. Every business leader, and every skilled professional can learn from it.
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After a month off, Jason and Travis Kelce’s uber-popular New Heights podcast returned this week for a third season, now with distribution on Amazon’s Wondery. Though Travis plays for three-time Super Bowl winnners the Kansas City Chiefs, he’s even more famous because he’s been dating Taylor Swift for over a year. Jason Kelce retired last season as center for the Philadelphia Eagles, and is now a commentator for ESPN.
The latest New Heights episode features an interview with Adam Sandler, Jason’s account of attending the Paris Olympics, and a debate about whether the rules of arm wrestling allow you to grab something with your free hand. But the brothers began the show by talking about Travis’s time at training camp. As he pointed out, since this was his twelfth time at camp, he’s now spent a year of his life there. And that’s just fine with him.
“It’s like a sanctuary.”
“I made it,” he said. “I feel like I kind of go to jail every time I do this, But it’s like a sanctuary at thie point for me. It gets me the headspace of, I get to work on my craft and not think about anything that’s going on.” Then he said what he loves most about it, and it’s something I believe many successful people can relate to: “I feel myself starting at a very low point and then working my way to being an NFL football player.”
Starting at a very low point and then working my way to being an NFL player. Kelce was describing the joy of mastery, and it’s a pleasure most of us have had when we learned a new skill or figured out how to solve a pressing business problem. I felt it while writing my book Career Self-Care, or delivering a keynote to a large and engaged audience.
It’s a pleasure that bestselling author Robert Greene describes in a 2023 YouTube short. “If you learn something well, if you learn a craft and you master it, it can bring you a far greater pleasure than any kind of drug,” he said “But you have to be patient, and you have to not be afraid of boredom, and you have to not be afraid of the effort.”
Getting back in NFL shape at 34.
I think that describes Kelce perfectly. At 34, he’s one of the two oldest players on the team and getting his body back in NFL shape is likely harder every year. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes noted in a press conference that Kelce would be well within his rights to skip some of the practice drills, but he doesn’t. And since he sees training camp the way some would see a retreat, a chance to escape the concerns of daily life, he doesn’t seem very afraid of the boredom, either.
On the other hand, he did mention that he spent quite a bit of time playing the video game College Football 25 during training camp. He may take his craft very seriously, but he still loves to have fun.
There’s a growing audience of Inc.com readers who receive a daily text from me with a self-care or motivational micro-challenge or tip. Often, they text me back and we wind up in a conversation. (Want to learn more? Here’s some information about the texts and a special invitation to a two-month free trial.) Many are successful entrepreneurs or business leaders and they’ve spent many years gaining mastery in their profession, and learning to master the challenges of running a business. And it definitely gives them a pleasure greater than any drug.
