Former Chiefs player speaks to Chamber crowd

By Ashley Luthans

A football player turned entrepreneur brought a message about the importance of positivity to the audience at the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce’s annual Chairman’s Breakfast on Thursday.

The keynote speaker, Jon McGraw, was a professional football player for 10 years and a safety with the Kansas City Chiefs from 2007 to 2011. He is now a speaker and entrepreneur.

McGraw spoke about the importance of positivity and how stress can be beneficial. He said having jobs, families and other life situations are supposed to be hard, and in difficult circumstances, stress will arise. However, McGraw explained that stress can be good when you choose not to resist it.

“So by understanding, normalizing the stress experience and then even taking it one step further and saying like ‘Bring it on, let’s go,’ stress can be an absolute superpower,” McGraw said. “That’s what it was designed to be for us, to motivate or just to keep moving forward.”

Ashley Albers, the chamber’s chairman of the board, hosted the event and shared some of the organization’s upcoming plans.

Albers, who works in human resources, said she wanted the focus of the event to be on people, not data or charts. Therefore, she asked McGraw to speak on emotional intelligence not only in business but in life.

“We’re really gonna focus on how we can harness the mental strength of our teams and how we can build them up to be their best and strongest selves,” Albers said.

McGraw said he’s thankful for the opportunity to present at the breakfast.

“It’s fun to get to come and mingle with a lot of different people that all have a similar connection through the Chiefs, through sports and then through business,” McGraw said. “And hopefully some of what I shared was insightful for them.”

The breakfast at the Stoney Creek Hotel and Conference Center was sponsored by John Joe Insurance Agency.