I’m not a football fan, but since we have nowhere to go during the global pandemic, I decided to watch the super bowl. Embarrassingly I had to start from the very basic, like which teams are playing, who are the quarterbacks and what are the odds placed in Vegas, just to get myself into the game. It was during this process that I discovered Tom Brady. To be fair, I knew about Tom Brady before the super bowl. He is so famous in the US you literally have to live under a rock to not have heard of him. But that’s the extent to which I knew about him, that he was a famous quarterback for the New England Patriots and won a few super bowls before. So I was surprised to find Vegas was actually betting against him and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, picking the Kansas City Chiefs as the favorite with a 3.5 point advantage.
“So why are people betting against Tom Brady?” I asked my son, who is a Brady fan.
“He just wins too much.” Michael answered.
“So he is a jerk? Like Michael Jordan?”
As ignorant as I am about sports, I have watched a few Lakers games and recently found myself fascinated by the documentary Last Dance. It confirmed what I have always believed -- in this super masculine field of sports, you have to be an asshole to win. As Michael Jordan said himself in the film: "Look, winning has a price. And leadership has a price. So I pulled people along when they didn't want to be pulled. I challenged people when they didn't want to be challenged…When people see this, they are going say, ‘Well, he wasn't really a nice guy. He may have been a tyrant.' No, well, that's you. Because you never wanted anything. I wanted to win... That's how I played the game. That was my mentality." Jordan was so moved by this confession he almost teared up.
And it’s not just the sports world. If you look around, all the rich and successful folks are jerks, or at least were jerks before they become rich enough to do philanthrope: Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk… the list goes on and on.
“No… Tom Brady is not like that. He is actually a really nice guy. He is a great leader for his team. And he’s a great family man.” My son corrected me.
It piqued my interest. Really? If it is true that Tom Brady is a nice guy, then the fact that he is so successful could debunk the myth only jerks can win – a myth that I have been led to believe in but desperately want someone to prove it wrong. Could Tom Brady be the guy?
So I watched the super bowl with intrigue and rooted for Tom Brady, barely knowing him or the game. And against all odds he won. Decisively. His 10th super bowl and 7th win. At the age of 43 which is considered retirement age for football players. G.O.A.T (Greatest of All Time) without a doubt. In fact, not only was the game played flawlessly, but the ceremony was also picture perfect with this gorgeous demi god of football embracing his enchanting super model wife and three perfect children. It was too perfect to be real.
So after the super bowl, I started researching Tom Brady, to see if I can dig up some dirt. I started by typing in google: “Is Tom Brady a jerk?” To my surprise, even though the search results show titles like “Why Tom Brady Is Such a Hated Man”, the actual contents of these articles either go on to argue people are simply jealous and Tom Brady is in fact a true champion or show other NFL players cursing at Tom Brady in hopes of provoking a negative response, only to find him completely unflappable. One controversy did emerge though: Deflategate, the allegation that Tom Brady ordered the deliberate deflation of footballs used in the Patriots' victory against the Indianapolis Colts in the 2014 American Football Conference (AFC) Championship Game. It was a huge scandal at the time, but Brady denied it and there is no way of really knowing whether he cheated or not. Being the amateur sports researcher, I’m certainly not going to solve the mystery here. So I turned my focus to other parts of Tom Brady’s life.
What caught my attention is Tom Brady did not become Tom Brady overnight. Far from it. Growing up in San Mateo, California as the youngest brother of three sisters, Brady played baseball in high school. When he first started playing football in the 9th grade, he was rather awkward. He was a backup quarterback at the University of Michigan for the 1st two years and he barely made it into the NFL – he was selected 199th overall by the Patriots in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft recalled: "I still have the image of Tom Brady coming down the old Foxboro Stadium steps with that pizza box under his arm, a skinny beanpole, and when he introduced himself to me and said 'Hi Mr. Kraft,' he was about to say who he was, but I said 'I know who you are, you're Tom Brady. You're our sixth round draft choice,'" recalled Kraft. "And he looked me in the eye and said 'I'm the best decision this organization has ever made.'
It would seem Brady really meant it. In the next twenty years with the Patriots, he led the team to 17 AFC East titles, the best ever in NFL history. But what led to this success? How did he go from the 199th pick to the G.O.A.T?
In one of the interviews, Brady said “I don’t like it.”, referring to G.O.A.T. “I don’t like when people say it. I don’t like it at all. I don’t feel that way. I’m not attached to that feeling. I don’t care whether people think that or not. I want to be the best I can be. I know when I go out there it’s not to compare myself to this guy or that guy. Everyone’s good. Everyone plays good.” Instead, he focuses on B.O.M (Best of Me) – he attributes his success to an insatiable drive, “not to be the best what anyone else thinks. Just to be the best I can be.”
He said he learned this mental shift while he was in college and lagging behind other athletes. He worked with a psychologist who told him to stop focusing on the number of plays and start focusing on making every play the best he could. Brady latched onto this mindset shift and made each play count. Before long, his two plays turned into three, which turned into five, ten and twenty. Eventually, he got the most plays because he adopted the mindset that every play counts – even in practice.
It is this mentality of B.O.M. that has allowed him to see winning is not a zero sum game. He does not have to be better than other players to win. Rather, winning is about winning with other players. “We couldn’t do it if we didn’t have each other. We couldn’t do it if we didn’t have the support of everyone else. So the winning for me comes in the joy of experiencing it with other people.”
It is also this mentality of B.O.M that has allowed him to focus on how to differentiate himself from other players. He is acutely aware that he is not the best player physically -- he is not the strongest, nor is he the fastest. “So I had to work to develop other traits — leadership, perseverance, determination, work ethic.” Brady said, “You can’t just rely anymore on being the most gifted, being the most talented, because, by the way, everyone was. So what other things have you been able to develop?”
Finally, it is this mentality of B.O.M that has led to a leadership style that is warm and loving as opposed to the domineering and abusive one that we are all too familiar with. He motivates his team by connecting with them and getting to know them. The new players could be 18 years younger than him, yet he manages to connect by listening to their music and being conversant on the things they enjoy. He invites his team mates to his Ranch in Montana so they can bond. Just spending time with his team allows him to relate better so they can all bring their best to the field.
I may not be a Tom Brady expert, but with the little I have seen I am sold – he seems like the real deal. There's no question he's an extraordinarily determined and disciplined guy who knows how to win. And sure, he is not perfect – he’s even friends with Trump. But what makes him different from the Michael Jordans of the world is the fact that he seems to be a genuinely thoughtful and caring person in spite of all of his success. I may not know much about football, but I do know a happy woman when I see one -- Gisele Bündchen absolutely radiates both inside and out, and that says something.
This gives me hope – the world does not have to be ruled by jerks. Yes, some jerks do win, but they win despite their nastiness not because of it. The true recipe for success is B.O.M, whatever that is. And if you are lucky enough, that B.O.M may even turn out to be the G.O.A.T…
