Detroit Lions player has doubled his money in 8 years by investing 70% of his NFL salary

“I like to call it tunnel vision. It’s not good to have tunnel vision on the field, because you need to know what’s going on around you, but when you’re in life, especially in this field, you need to have tunnel vision, because you see so many guys around you buying cars, buying jewelry, doing this, spending money, talking about the money that they spend.

“And you’re sitting there like, ‘Man, I’m living off this much money every month, and this cat spending this much money every day.'”

For the first three years of his career, Quin lived on $6,000 a month, and invested the remaining money in well-known, publicly traded companies. His teammates called him cheap, but he stuck with his plan.

When he signed his contract with Detroit in 2013, he did not go out and spend wildly; he did not even buy a new car (he continues to drive his 2009 Yukon Denali). Instead, he diversified his portfolio and began taking more investment risks.

From ESPN:

“After signing a free-agent deal in Detroit in 2013, Quin decided to venture into a more risky investment world — private equity, using 10 to 20 percent of his wealth to fund private, up-and-coming businesses.

…

So far, the strategy has worked. Quin and [financial advisor Humble] Lukanga estimate a five-year projection where his private portfolio could match the money he has made in the NFL. When his contract expires after the 2017 season, Quin will have earned more than $21 million, before taxes, in his eight-year career.”

Quin insisted to ESPN that he was a football player first, but the time and research he puts into his investments certainly sound like a full-time job. He has a methodical four-step plan before investing, and he aspires to only give money to companies that he believes are trying to change the world.

He wouldn’t share with ESPN his full portfolio, but some investments listed were Health Warrior, which makes food out of chia; pawTree, a pet nutrition company; and PeerWell, an app that helps people do “pre-hab” prior to joint replacement surgery in order to help their recovery.

In some ways, Quin is using his football skills as an approach to his business. Said Manish Shaw, the co-founder of PeerWell:

“I think Glover is taking his on-the-field thinking and applying it to what he does off the field. Like anticipating how a market will develop, it’s very similar to how a play develops on the field. It may not happen as fast, but having the skill set to see it happening in real-time is valuable.”

And Quin has no plans of slowing down.

“It’s one of those things that’s very exciting,” he said. “Hopefully, everything continues to work out great and I can be one of those stories that they say, ‘You know what, I probably made more money investing than I made playing football.'”