Transcript

- I never thought that I would have been high as projected in an NFL draft. College to the NFL game. It's a leap of faith. Whole new skillset. I'm going to need to adapt a lot, there are going to be a lot of failures- - Yep. - That hopefully lead to a lot of success. - Yep. Welcome to "The Path." I'm Ryan Roslansky, the CEO of LinkedIn. Today my guest is Fernando Mendoza. He's the Heisman winning quarterback who led the Indiana Hoosiers to their first ever national championship. But Fernando had a rough start to his career. He was an overlooked two-star recruit in Miami who pushed himself beyond expectations. Here's how Fernando Mendoza paved his path. (upbeat music) But I want to go way, way, way back to a very young Fernando, and when you can first remember at all what you wanted to be when you grew up. - Honestly, I don't really know what I wanted to do. I always had this passion for sports and for teamwork. You know, my first job was a little unconventional. My younger brother and I, we had a mango tree in our backyard. So we'd go around door-to-door knocking, saying, "Hey, do you want to buy our mangoes for a dollar?" So we have door-to-door delivery, no delivery fee. It was very scary. Like sometimes there's like a big house. And you like, there's a dog in the backyard barking. Alberto and I are like, "Who's going to go knock on that door?" It was a great experience 'cause it really helped ourselves communicate with customers. And you know, have that little bit of a sales pitch, although it was very uncomfortable. - How did you think about school? - Although I was always trying to focus on football, my number one was academics. I was like, if I go to the AP classes, It's going to help me in college applications, It's going to help me in the real world, and teach me larger and more important fundamental principles. - All right, so get through high school and you make a decision. And not everyone goes to college, but you decide to go to college. How did you decide, one, that you're going to college, and two, where to go to college? - I wanted to be an exemplary student athlete. - Yeah. - I chose business as a major 'cause I was like, this is so versatile. I can go to so many different things. - Yeah. - And going to my senior year and after my senior year, Yale, they're my only offer. I'm like, what a better place. 'Cause none of my own hometown teams were offering me scholarship. They're all, like, offering me either walk-ons or just no spot. And a month later, the University of California, Berkeley came knocking on the door and they had great academics as well, great business school up with Haas. And they also had Division I Power Five football. - Yeah. - Plus a full scholarship. Yale would've been, Yale's a- - Expensive. - Great. It's expensive to say the least. - Yeah, yeah. - And I was blessed enough for a coach to believe in me, two-star recruit, he was an old-school coach, he's now a coach in the NFL. He's like, "Fernan, I'm going to take a chance on you. I believe in you as a scholarship player." - Wow. - I'm like, scholarship? I'm like, let me sign up. But with his character, he made me take an official visit to Yale. - Yeah. - An official visit to Cal. - Yeah. - To really see the difference of what I liked better and I ended up choosing Cal. - I'm sure he looks back now and it's like, he looks like the GOAT for this. - Coach Bill Musgrave, I always try to shout him out. He has to feed his family and support his family. So to take a chance like that was huge and- - That's awesome. - Fundamental to my development. - Talk about the first few years there where, you know, Cal's a tough school, academically. - Very tough. - You're prioritizing academics and then football. You're playing football at the highest level. - It was tough. First year at Cal I had red shirts, so I didn't play. And I was like 90% academics, 10% football. In my second year, I actually started playing. Now I'm really balancing and juggling two full-time jobs. - Totally. - I'm here in Berkeley the entire summer. - [Ryan] Yeah. - And so let me front-load my classes in spring semester and do like these crazy 20-unit semesters. - Yeah. - And you know, load my summer and then still, you know, take my four classes in the fall, but maybe they're not business analytics. - Yeah, yeah. - It's like a leadership class that's a little bit more theoretical. - Fernando earned his degree from Berkeley's Business School in just three years. During that time, he also held two real estate internships, working his way towards a career outside of football. After one year on the sidelines, Fernando finally got his shot as starting quarterback. Two seasons later, the DI schools came calling. Georgia, Missouri, Miami, and the Indiana Hoosiers. It comes to the point where you make a decision to change schools. How did you go about that? - That was a very tough decision. I graduated from the Haas School of Business, so it was a little bit of a check mark off there. And I was also going through a coaching change or like some people in a job. It's like a management change. It's a whole new management comes in. So that, there's a lot of uncertainty. - Yeah. - And it really hurt me because I love Berkeley. I mean, that's my college experience. - Yeah. - However, you know, your dream is to play football in the NFL. Might as well swing for the fences, take a chance at yourself. If you strike out, so what? In 30 years, you will be able to sleep well at night knowing I did everything possible for this football dream. But if you don't take that chance, it's going to be tough. And you don't want to look back at 20 years saying, I didn't take that leap of faith. - You get to Indiana, lot of pressure. - Lot of pressure. - Starting a new job. Eyes of the world are on you. How do you handle the pressure of starting something new when there's so much expectation around you? - So in Berkeley, I essentially started off as an intern and worked my way into the company. And then I went to another company, Indiana, and was essentially hired as a CEO. - CEO, yeah. (laughs) - CEO, all the eyes are on you, you know, and there's very high expectations. So when I first got there, I made sure that I knew everyone's names. - Yep. - And it creates that connectivity. And it's easier to lead with them and to go towards a common goal with them. - Huh. - My failures at Berkeley helped me be a Swiss Army knife in Indiana, because at Berkeley, I was the team captain doing different off season events with the entire team where I was trying to be this big rah rah guy. If I talk the most, I'm going to be the leader of the team, I'm going to be the captain of the team. What I realized is people want leaders who are authentic to themselves. They can tell when you fake it. And in Indiana, they already had a great player leadership. - Got it. - I'm like, how can I complement this style of leadership? - [Ryan] Yeah. - Let me fit in and mold and learn from the different leaders and let me be adaptive in situations. So when I'm with Coach Cignetti and he's being more of a, you know, strict, and like I'm a feared leader, I could be more of the good cop love leader. Inspiring. - With Fernando at the helm, Indiana had a breakout year, and so did he. Indiana won its first Big Ten championship in nearly 60 years. Fernando became the first Indiana player named the Big Ten Quarterback of the Year. And he became the first Cuban American to ever win the Heisman, all while pursuing his MBA. And then he announced another pivot. Heisman Trophy, national championship. You get to another career decision, which is you could have stayed, but you decided to go pro. - Yeah. Well first of all, for the Heisman Trophy, I was glad I was able to add something under my Awards section. - On LinkedIn? - On LinkedIn. And it was a pinnacle. Everybody was very excited about the team and the success. However, I knew and my mentors- - Yeah. - And my parents. - Yeah. - Really getting advice from them, "Hey, although you can get paid in college, we believe it's best for you to go pro, to take another chance." I could have went to Indiana, been the man on campus, you know. It's time to grow love, it's time to change. And I never thought that I would have been high as projected in an NFL draft. And they said, "Hey, you got to strike when the iron's hot." - Yeah. - And it's a leap of faith. - That's right. - I'm not a college kid anymore, it's the real world. - Yeah. - I'm aspiring to play in an NFL team with grown men with families- - Yep. - That are going to be 30 years old. - [Ryan] Yep. - And so it's going to be a great change. It's college to the NFL game. Whole new skill set. I'm going to need to adapt a lot, there are going to be a lot of failures- - Yep. - That hopefully lead to a lot of success. So it's a scary thing to do, but looking forward to it. - It's great, and I love that you think 30 years old is old, so. Okay. There's been a phenomenal path to where you are today. For anyone out there who maybe feels like in their career, they're overlooked, they're unsure, what is your best career advice? - My best career advice, something that I learned from my mother, who is my inspiration and light, is to always maintain optimism. - Yep. - If you can see the light in a situation, that is how you get the best out of the situation, the best results, the best connections, just the best of all worlds. - Yeah. - It's been very stressful at times. However, my mother inspiring me to maintain that optimism through it all. I've always seen the best in situations, even when it's tough. - Yeah. - And it's really helped me elevate to the position I am today. (upbeat music) - [Ryan] So here's my takeaway. Fernando is the youngest guest I've ever had on "The Path," but he plays like a veteran when it comes to his career. Whether it was selling mangoes as a kid or choosing Cal over an Ivy League offer, Fernando never picked the easy route and leaned into the uncomfortable. When he pivoted to Indiana, he knew nothing was guaranteed. So he went on the offensive. He learned, he listened, he adapted, and he earned his spot from scratch. His story is a reminder that growth and success don't come from running the play that feels comfortable. It's about calling an audible or rewriting the playbook even if it scares you. (upbeat music)