American football linebacker
Dhani Makalani Jones (born February 22, 1978) is a former American football linebacker who played for eleven seasons in the National Football League. He played college football for the Michigan Wolverines, earning All-Big Ten honors for three straight seasons. He was selected by the New York Giants in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft and played for the team for four seasons. Jones also played for the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cincinnati Bengals. In addition to his football career, Jones hosted the Travel Channel series Dhani Tackles the Globe and the VH1 show Ton of Cash. Jones is also a host on the CNBC series Adventure Capitalists.
MotivationLifeIf you're passionate about life, and you love what you do, you learn how to organize yourself and switch your various sides on and off.
New YorkI always have a positive reaction to Times Square - you've got so many people passing through here, so many cultures, and so many people merging into the central community of New York City. This is the hub of America.
Doing things out of the ordinary - out of the box - like jumping out of airplanes and landing in cities that you've never been to before, then finding your way through. That's the type of trip that excites me.
I like to do from racing my radio control cars to doing work at the zoo to poems to the TV show. There are a lot of things that I like to involve myself with, but I have a pretty packed schedule nine times out of ten. I have a good sense of working things in at the same time so that I can get all my hobbies in line.
I'm living my future as long as you're living in the present and realize how beautiful life is.
When I'm in the Switzerland backcountry and nobody around looks like me, people were like, 'Can I touch your hair?'
I started rockin' the BowTie when I was a rookie with the New York Giants.
Because CoEd's doing incredible work in Guatemala so how can I not #tieoneon?
Just because you wear a bow tie doesn't mean you're a nerd.
For my birthday, I would ask for a ticket from my mother. Just buy me a ticket to said country and I'll just find my way through. And that's what I always did. I never changed too much of that.
Turks and Caicos is one of my favorite places to go. I've been to some really cool places and it started out when I was young by wanting to go to different places.
Pretty much any place that I haven't been is the next place I definitely I want to go.
I watch reality TV , but unless you have been part of that crew, unless you've sort of been immersed in that culture in what's happening, unless you have been in that concentrated moment, you wont believe it unless you're there. And with 'Ton of Cash' we just hope that we captured all of the best moments.
What better way to get to know a culture than to go there and learn their sports?
I found out that changing the perception of myself and the NFL, and reestablishing the notion of being a gentleman was important to me.
People look at you differently if you wear a bow tie, as opposed to a necktie.
I mean at the world as a checklist. Once you got to a place, you check them off and if you love the spot, you might check it off twice. You'll always find your way to go back to those places.
I want everybody to travel, to travel and not be afraid.
Travel around the world is amazing. New people. New-found family, really.
Football is a sport of paradox. It requires reaction, not reflection. Yet you must use your mind to calculate, to anticipate - to think and not think at the same time.
Without creation, what are we but stalled in life?
Football is one side of me. Art is another. Travel is another.
The most important thing regardless of my stats or anybody else's stats is the win-loss record. In the locker room people are always telling me, you're doing this and that. I don't really pay that much attention so long as we have a 'W' in that column; that's the kind of thing that makes me really happy. It blows all stats out of the water.
Every country I go to, I learn a little bit more about myself.
I do like Peyton Manning. I mean, you can't lose with a guy like that - especially with the amount of touchdowns he's been able to produce.
Human survival is something that you can't see in another person; you can see if someone has that will to survive or that will to win; you can't see that, you can only watch that evolve over time.
Whether a plane to Singapore, a subway in Manhattan, or the streets of Cincinnati, I search for meaningful conversation wherever I may travel. Without it, I believe we lose the ability to not only understand others, but more importantly, ourselves.
When you wear a bow tie, doors open for you.
I will be the first black James Bond.
When it all boils down, its about embracing each others stories and maybe even finding that synergy to collaborate for the common good.
when I was younger I used to wrestle, and I feel that it contributed to my athletic ability because as a wrestler you have to be an all-encompassed athlete. You need stamina, strength, endurance and mental capacity. You also have to learn how to adapt in any situation. In the book, that's how all the sports helped me in my strategies for football and life.
Ideas and thoughts and creativity is more of who I am than football.
We all have personalities, but in football a lot of times you don't talk about that because you want to focus more on the grit and grind of the season, instead of people's personal styles or worldly habits.
Football is one side of me. Art is another. Travel is another. As I mature, I can organize it so that when I'm done with football, whether it be travel, or becoming a doctor, or going off on a farm and raising chickens, which I'd also like to do, or climbing ten of the most difficult peaks in the world, or spending time backpacking in a flannel shirt and big boots, I'll know how to take off into the world.
I like to keep things classic, not lavish or blinged out. I don't even say that word. The last thing I want to be is over the top.
I like a basic uniform for guys. Steve Jobs is my fashion icon, because he wears the same outfit every day. If you always wear the same thing, you make a statement. Then put a bow tie on and really stand out.
What better way to get to know a culture than to go there and learn their sports? And I say to people who tell me they can't travel, 'How much did you spend at the mall this year? How many times did you eat out? Take that money and go.'
Louis Armstrong's 'What a Wonderful World' is my ultimate karaoke song. It is a wonderful world. People forget we only have a certain amount of time, and it can all end at any moment. Armstrong and Frank Sinatra's 'My Way' are the ultimate one-two punch.
When you wear a bow tie, doors open for you. Your posture is a little more erect; your shoulders are a little further back; your style is a little more dynamic. It's about the reestablishment of the gentleman.
There's four main pillars to the bow tie - self-representation, service, collaboration and critical thought. You have to understand how to represent yourself and critically understand how to collaborate and serve others.
There's nothing better than live music. It's raw energy, and raw energy feeds the soul.