Four-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Stefon Diggs is not only one of the most talented players in the NFL, he’s also one of the most stylish. The Houston Texans star launched his own fashion line LIEMhomme, which has been celebrated in the pages of Vogue and other high-fashion magazines, and sat down with Entrepreneur’s How Success Happens show to discuss its launch, his vision and the brand’s future.
Watch the full interview above and check out some of his most inspiring takeaways below, which have been edited for length and clarity:
Which came first: football or fashion?
“My mom would tell you that I had a pair of cowboy boots when I was four years old that I wouldn’t take off — that I used to wear in the summertime. I think that’s around the time I started having a love for clothing and shoes and wanting to wear what I wanted to wear. My mom never really dressed me for school. She kind of let me do my thing. Then I started playing football when I was five years old. So I guess those loves kind of happened simultaneously.”
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On chasing his dream of playing in the NFL
“I watched my older brother play football, and countless athletes that I kind of looked up to as a kid. I had a love for the game when I was young. And it grew and grew as I got older. But I always kind of had a distant mindset of, ‘I’m going in the NFL.’ It was like a thing in the back of my mind where I knew what I was going to do. I was destined to do what I always wanted to do.”
On deciding to go “pro” with fashion
“It was a long process for me. I’ve been a consumer for a long time, as we all have. I’ve been buying clothes for a long time. My shopping addiction or habit…I would like to refer to it as ‘research and development.’ I tell my financial advisor, ‘There’s a lot of R&D going on!’ But over the past couple of years, I really started taking it seriously. After buying the same white shirt multiple times and buying the same denim jacket at least eight times, I decided that I wanted to start my own brand. I started looking into fabrics. I learned to sew. I started to really dive in deep. And so the brand’s name is LIEMhomme. Liem means honest and homme means man. I kind of pride myself in being an honest man. I wanted to build a product that was honest. Be honest with the consumer about what they are getting.”
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His design process
“I’m a big note-taker. Anything that’s on my mind, I write it in my Notes on my phone. Those notes can become a slogan on one of my shirts, and they are reflections of moments I’ve had. Like I was in bed when I made the ‘I Need a Hug’ shirt design. It was a cloudy day in upstate New York and I wasn’t feeling too well. Something told me like, ‘Damn, I need a hug.’ So I wrote it down, then got it to my COO and said I want to make this a shirt. So she said, ‘Okay, let’s do it.’ Next thing you know, a month or two later, the shirt sold out. So I guess a lot of people need a hug. Those moments that I share with people are really things I hold near and dear to me. You don’t know how many people in the world feel how you feel.”
On dealing with adversity
“I’m a big manifester. I believe I can get the things that I really and truly want. But that just doesn’t come like a dream. It comes with hard work. I like to detach myself from my emotions at times just because I feel like you don’t get a lot done when you’re emotional. I feel like when you’re emotionally driven, you might make a bad decision here and there. There’s nothing wrong with mistakes, but I feel like I make the most sound decisions when I’m thinking rationally. And that detachment is part of how I play football. When I catch the ball, I know I’m gonna get hit. But did I accomplish the goal? Did I do my job? If you come up with the catch, it’s amazing. If you don’t, people are gonna have some things to say about it. So you’re better off just catching it. You’re going to get hit anyway.”
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On his role as mentor
“It means damn near everything to me at this point in my life. I lost my father very young. And being an older brother taught me a lot about sacrifice. You learn how to sacrifice for the greater good, for your family. I stayed home for college. I could have gone to schools all across the country, but I wanted to be closer to my mom, to my little brothers. I felt like it was pivotal for their success. And that experience taught me that you’re put here for a reason. My reason was bigger than myself at that point. I lost my father — he was my best friend at the time. It was hard and it made me look inward. That’s why I’m always accountable. That’s why I’m always pushing in the right direction. That’s why I’m always trying to be the best I can be — not only for me, but the people around me.”
His advice to dreamers
“Do something that you love because you won’t get tired of doing stuff that you love. And stop being scared. I feel like the majority of people are just scared — what if it doesn’t work out? You can build many reasons as to why something won’t work out, but you’ve got to get out of your head because like Wayne Gretzky said, you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take. I don’t know how many shots he took, but he was right.”
About How Success Happens
How Success Happens tells the inspiring, entertaining, and unexpected journeys that influential leaders in business, the arts and sports traveled on their way to becoming household names. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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