By Jorge Manuel Zelaya
Fajardo
www.jorgemanuelzelaya.com
March 3rd, 2021
"I
think Tom is one of the most consistent players I've ever trained. He works
hard every week. There are no ups and downs with him."
—Bill Belichick
Tom Brady is considered by many the best
quarterback in the history of professional American football in the United
States; however, this writing will not be about football. It will be about self-leadership.
Throughout my personal and professional life
I have found that sports are not only an extraordinary opportunity to achieve
physical and mental health, but also represent an avenue to test our talents
and skills, attitudes and aptitudes as well as our ability to deal with
mistakes and successes, challenges and obstacles, sometimes in conditions
beyond our control. In Tom Brady's case, we have a lot to learn, even for those
of us who don't play football as a sport.
Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr. was born on
August 3rd, 1977 in San Mateo, California. A descendant of immigrants, he grew
up in a close family with three older sisters. During high school he played
baseball (with very good results), basketball, and American football (a
sport for which he developed a particular passion from a very young age).
He eventually was recruited by the University of Michigan, where he competed, since
the beginning, for a space to demonstrate his talent and ability.
In the year 2000, a different story starts to
be written in the life of Tom Brady. A story with a somewhat grim front page.
The New England Patriots team selected him as a quarterback (finally in the
199th pick of the recruiting process, in the sixth round and as the seventh
quarterback chosen among all teams). His choosing took so long and lacked
so much relevance that no one would have thought that day what would happen in
the future. Tom Brady did.
In honor of the purpose of these lines and to
maintain their pragmatism, we will subtly glide through the years (from 2000
to 2020) until we get to observe our star player today. During two decades
of professional sports career, the numbers of this athlete's performance speak
for themselves (from whatever perspective you want to measure). Tom
Brady has 230 games won in the regular season, plus 34 games won in the
postseason. Voted the most valuable player in the professional league three
times (2007,2010, 2017), he has seven (7) Superbowls won in ten (10)
appearances where he earned five (5) Best Player Awards. He is the only player
to lead the professional football league in completions, attempts and touchdown
passes. Extraordinary results from sports giants such as Joe Montana, Johnny
Unitas, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Dan Marino, John Elway and others fail to
match Tom Brady's numbers. At 43 years old, he just became the oldest player to
be named the SuperBowl MVP.
However, when studying his professional
career with careful attention, there are many characteristics that transcend
the sport of American football that this player possesses, from which we can
all learn. Although there are many, some particular and unique, we have tried
to summarize, consolidate and express them in only five of them.
1. HUNGER. This is, perhaps, the characteristic that has
taken it further. A suigéneris mix of grit and resilience, focus on goals and
results. It is a muscle that has developed in an impressively consistent
manner. Having been drafted #199 in the year 2000, Tom Brady did not have the ideal
physical aptitudes of a quarterback to make history. He entered the NFL as an
average player. His work ethic, leadership, and desire to win are unmatched. He
also has something that only winners possess: he is not afraid of losing what
has paradoxically led him to flourish in the most critical and adverse moments (such
as the epic victory against the Atlanta Falcons in Superbowl # 51). His
hunger has been evidenced, when looking for a new team at 43 years old, an age
at which many would be thinking of retiring. Tom Brady loves to compete and
loves to win.
2. HUMILITY.
The fame and fortune of a professional football player (particularly a
quarterback) are natural conditioning factors to feed arrogance and pride.
However, Tom Brady's humility is not weakness, but the product of a clarity of
thought that frees him from the burden of what has been achieved and feeds him
from the motivation of the next award that awaits him. He has his feet on the
ground; but his gaze on the stars.
3. KAIZEN.
I'm pretty sure Tom Brady never studied kaizen (philosophy of continuous
improvement in Japanese) at the University of Michigan; but he has become,
over the years, an expert teacher on the subject. His training in season and
outside of it, his diet, his performance, the study of the different plays, the
precision of a winning shot, the mistake of the unsuccessful play, are actions
meticulously studied by him to be improved. However, there is no better
expression of kaizen in his career than the risky decision not to sign a
contract renewal with his lifelong team (New England Patriots) and to start
with a new team (Tampa Bucaneers) at 43 years of age. The result of that
decision was simply extraordinary, being crowned as champion in 2021.
4. FOCUS. “When I'm playing football, I appreciate it. I am
there, I am nowhere else,” Tom Brady
asserted in an interview for North American television. His mindfulness in the
present moment is one of his competitive advantages. Grace under pressure and
competition with himself are uniquely blended in a player with Swiss-watch-like
precision and laser focus.
5.
TEAM PLAYER. The most successful quarterback-coach duo
in the history of the National Football League (NFL) is undoubtedly the
one that the New England Patriots had with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick (the
latter being considered the best coach in league history). During tireless
days, sometimes in the most adverse circumstances, Tom Brady always reaffirmed
his status as a team player. Empathy, genuine interest in his teammates and
effective communication from him are some of the elements that have always
united him to his teams.
Any football expert could
easily list half a dozen of Tom Brady's innate talents, sport techniques, and
athletic traits. These lines had no such goal. Any critic could claim
that even if we practiced the five (5) characteristics mentioned above, we
could never play football like Tom Brady. These lines had no such goal.
These lines had a single
objective: to identify certain skills, habits, routines or characteristics
that, worked tirelessly over several years, led (and continue to do so) an
athlete like Tom Brady to the best expression of himself in the search for his
maximum potential as a professional football player. Perhaps these
characteristics can lead each of us in our professional, and even personal,
activity to follow the same path. Nothing seems more attractive to me, than trying.
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