Michael Irvin says he left his first $1,000,000 NFL check sitting on his bedroom table because he wanted everyone who walked in to see it and understand just how far he’d come “And then let me tell you what I did with that first check. That million-dollar check, I left that right there on the table, right in my room. So as soon as they walked in, they said, ‘That’s your check?’ I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’” “I had my financial people calling me, ‘Man, send that check, Michael. We’re losing, we’re losing.’ I said, ‘Shoot, I’m winning. What you talking about? I’m winning like a mug, boy.’ But it’s real. It was real.” “Back then, that was a lot of money. A lot of money. Wait a minute now. Can you give somebody $2,500? You give somebody $2,500, $5,000.” “These kids now, they got NIL deals. I was getting $20 a weekend, and Mom took the first $15. Are you joking? Left me with five. Dude, coming from $5 a weekend to getting that? I left that check right there. I was going to get every bit of that check.” “Now, here’s the kicker to all of us that we have to get to, and people have to understand. Making money is one thing. How you let it go is as important, you know. Especially us, because we know there’s so many people holding on to the caboose that you got to bring along on this train.” “It’s never just us, right? It wasn’t just Mike. It’s never just Shannon. You know, I got Grandma, I got Mom, I got other people that’s counting on me. And it took me through that first contract to figure out and get the understanding of financial literacy enough to know how to best handle that.” “So, to get everything and put everything into a trust. My whole family into the trust. So now when I’m handing you money, I’m handing you money, and I’m going to send you tax papers. We’re handing you money now at your tax bracket instead of me handing you money at my tax bracket.” “If I give you a million dollars, I got to make a million seven at my bracket to give you a million. You know what I’m saying? So now we got to learn to do that. These are the things that we have to learn to make sure we stay up.”