Tom Brady was speaking to about 200 general managers about how he became the greatest football quarterback of all time. It was recently luck Global Forum in New York City, but made only passing connections between his career and the work of CEOs. That was clearly fine with the CEOs. He is a football god with a great story to tell, and that was a thrill to hear.
However, let’s hope the CEOs listened carefully. Whether he knew it or not, the story of Brady’s football career was a definitive tutorial on how to excel in a general manager’s job. Decades of research have created a recipe for superior performance in any domain, and Brady’s lifetime of football experience fits that recipe. While everyone’s story is unique, the factors that built Brady’s skills over several years are not. Research has shown that these factors are generally the key to world-class performance. It’s not quick or easy; there is no magic. But what worked for Brady works for all of us in everything we do.
The gist of his story is that he was not a child prodigy quarterback, not a natural star, but quite the opposite. Revisit his journey to greatness and see if you notice any patterns:
· In high school “I was the quarterback of a freshman football team that didn’t win a game,” he said. “We fumbled so badly, and they still didn’t put me on the field.” The starter started as a sophomore because the previous starter decided he wanted to play basketball. Crucially, Brady “consulted a mentor of mine who taught me how to throw the football. I would go to his camp every summer. I would continue to work on my mechanics and technique.”
· He was good enough for the University of Michigan to recruit him, but as a freshman he was ranked seventh on the team. At the end of the year it rose to fourth. The following year it rose to third, then second. The backup continued throughout the following year. In the fourth year he had to compete with a new recruit for the starting position, and he won that competition. However, he had to compete with another quarterback again in the fifth year, and eventually became the starter in the second half of the season. In his final exciting college game, his team beat Alabama, coming back from a two-game deficit of 14 points.
· “Everybody needs to see now, at this point, that I’m going to be a great NFL quarterback,” he recalled. “No. Not at all.” He was 199 in the NFL draftth pick, he went to the New England Patriots, where he entered as a quarterback who was drafted fourth. In the first year it rose to third, the following year to second. Then the starting quarterback was seriously hurt and out for the season. Brady came in as the starter, “and I never got on the field after that.” At age 24, after ten years of intensive wrestling, he was the starting quarterback for 19 seasons with the Patriots and three seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, won a record seven Super Bowls and became the undisputed GOAT, the greatest of all. the time
Brady was doing what investigators call deliberate practice. It is uniquely defined and not practiced the way most of us think. Its main characteristic is that it constantly pushes you beyond your current limits, but not much beyond. You can’t improve if you only practice what you can already do, and you lose yourself if you go too far. As you get better, your practice has to change, so you’re always forcing yourself to do what you can’t do. That’s what Brady was doing, as he steadily climbed the multi-level ladder, from sophomore high school quarterback to starting NFL quarterback to greatest NFL quarterback.
Deliberate practice requires other elements as well. It takes a lot of repetition, which eventually changes your brain, and you need constant feedback. Brady met those requirements in high school with a mentor who taught him how to throw and then with top coaches at Michigan and the NFL.
One more thing about deliberate practice: it’s not fun. Hank Haney, Tiger Woods’ coach for several years, says Tiger was an example of deliberate practice, which Haney calls “the most difficult and highest level of practice” because it requires close attention to weaknesses…. Great improvers to get uncomfortable and make a mistake. they are ready to make a mental and physical effort to correct it.” Brady was given the perfect circumstances to practice purposefully, but he could not have become great without a powerful inner drive that he had to find deep within himself.
Deliberate practice can also create leadership, though not in the way people might imagine. Brady’s team leadership was as important to his career as his performance. Elected team captain by his Patriots teammates for 18 seasons, he served as captain for two seasons with the Buccaneers. The reason goes to the heart of deliberate practice, the necessity of making oneself uncomfortable. “I played with a lot of athletes, and part of my role as a leader was to make these guys uncomfortable,” he said. “As great as they were, I always thought they worked harder than they could work to make sure.”
That’s the message Brady wanted those 200 CEOs to remember. “We hope you find people you love to work with, that you push each other to succeed, that you push each other outside of your comfort zone,” he told them. “It’s okay to feel uncomfortable. Unless we stress the mind, it doesn’t grow.’
