We recently connected with Gregory Garza and have shared our conversation below.

Gregory, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Coming up with the idea for our business was something that we had always talked about when we played professional soccer for the longest time. We realized that throughout the longevity of our careers, the consistency within the success that we had was much more than just the God given talent that we had at our feet. It was much more based on the mindset that we had throughout each and every phase, journey, and environment that we were in at that given time. We unfortunately saw way too many players slip through the cracks who had an amazing talent, but just did NOT understand the mental side of the game, including CONFIDENCE, LEADERS, RESILIENCY, etc. When myself and Michael Parkhurst retired, this was an idea that we created and thought of being a way to keep us not only close to the game, but also giving back to the game that gave so much to us.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

After playing professional sports for quite some time and being successful within that area, we now serve as “big brothers” of the game that we all love so much. We Mentor young athletes who are looking to grow within their game on the mental side and also learn the “life hacks” that will ultimately help them be successful in whatever it is that they choose in their life after the sport that they are currently playing. The platform of what sport teaches is so unique in regards to giving young student athletes a taste of what the real world is. Being the next big leader, a great teammate, and someone who has to deal with particular challenges will all be things they will learn within just SPORT, but we are in need of having the right and correct role models to show them the right ways and also with the given experience that we had in the game it allows us to connect with so many people.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

At the peak of my soccer career, I suffered a major injury of wear and tear within my hips and had hip reconstruction. This inhibited me to play the game I love and put me out of the game for over a year. I had to essentially learn how to walk again within a pool and did not know if I would ever be able to play the game I loved again. After getting through this excruciating rehab of over a year, I had the chance to do what I loved again and moved to Atlanta with an amazing opportunity of an inaugural team (Atlanta United) coming into the MLS. This was my comeback year as that same year I made the MLS All Star Team and the next year we won the MLS Cup. I always tell my mentees and kids I work with that resiliency is always needed to persevere. We are not ever able to persevere until we build resilience with what is in front of us. This is my personal story, along with many others that not only serve as lessons for our mentees and young student athletes that we work with, but forever remembered of the up and down roller coaster moments and biggest life lessons I experienced about myself in my professional soccer career.

Have you ever had to pivot?

After retiring, it was a very difficult moment for me to decide what my next step in life was going to be. I always tell people it is a moment of life/death when hanging up your boots because it is all you have ever known to do for most of your lifetime. Having so many ideas, but not knowing where to start in the very beginning was very difficult. I had the chance to connect with Michael Parkhurst, who today is my cofounder and the one with the idea of our business, Beyond Goals Mentoring, to allow me to stay within a sport that I love and still do such good work within the community that we live in.

Contact Info:

• Website: beyondgoalsmentoring.com
• Instagram: @gmgarza , @beyondgoalsmentoring
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregory-garza-74212a205/