Four Lessons from Tom Brady

Google the term “GOAT” – Greatest of All Time – and Tom Brady shows up more than anyone else. More than Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Serena Williams or Wayne Gretzky – all GOATS in their own right.

Brady returns to the Super Bowl for the tenth time – nobody has ever come even close to that – and for a chance to win a seventh Super Bowl ring. Here are four lessons we can learn from the GOAT among GOATs.

Learn to adapt. After spending 20 years with the New England Patriots, for the first time in his career Brady is playing on a different team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Brady epitomizes the truth that if you are good at something and have the flexibility to adjust, it doesn’t make a difference what setting you are in.

Here is a man with a different team – a different front-line protecting him, different receivers, different running backs, and different playing conditions – the heat of Tampa versus the frigid cold of New England – and yet he still succeeds. Somehow all these changes have not stopped him from rising to the top once again.

How often do we attribute our lack of success to being in an environment that we’re not used to? Of blaming exterior factors to our inability to achieve?

Brady had every excuse in the world to fail to reach the Super Bowl, especially missing Coach Bill Belichik, but he didn’t take them. All he did was continue his leadership and skill in a completely new setting and team. He worked with a whole new collection of mates to produce the same result – winning.

Poise. When I was watching the NFC championship game between the Green Bay Packers and Tampa, I was amazed at how calm, cool and collected Brady was. He still stands in the pocket completely composed. His perfect passes that float through the air seem effortless in their delivery.

The Talmud says that, “Anyone who tries to force time, time forces him. But anyone who yields to time, time stands still for him.” Ever notice how this is true with all great sports figures? They seem to operate, not at a faster pace than everyone else, but actually at a slower one. Brady, Gretzky, Federer – they are always so unruffled and their movements so even, graceful and elegant.

We also experience this when we get into the “zone” and reach a state of flow where time seems to stand still. Everything slows down when we don’t force time but instead “be in the moment” as they say.

Family: Some very successful people achieve their huge accomplishments at the expense of having no personal or family life. Their family is often sacrificed on the altar of getting ahead in their field (or on the field). Not so with Brady.

After spending days with Tom Brady in the Bahamas, Ben Court wrote in Men’s Health magazine: "He would be the first to tell you that there is no more or less to his reality right now than the sport of football and his family. Whenever Brady talks about his family, which he does easily and without prompting, he comes to life, waving those long arms and breaking into laughter as he describes how each of his kids delights him."

Judaism has always recognized that the most important institution to society’s well being is the family. We have mechanisms not to fall into the trap of forgetting family for career. Shabbat, Jewish holidays, and lifecycle events ensure that we not lose sight of the supreme importance of our loved ones.

Brady may not make Kiddush every week, but maybe his old boss, Robert Kraft conveyed to him this basic Jewish tenet.

And finally…

Never stop believing in yourself – or in another. Cliché? Maybe, but it’s certainly true in Brady’s case. Brady was not born into greatness, he earned it. He was cut from the varsity team in high school, he had to fight for playing time in college, and 198 other players were picked ahead of him in the draft, six of whom were quarterbacks. (Those other six teams kick themselves till this day.) He had ample opportunity to mope or feel sorry for himself and pack it all in. But he didn’t.

And at the age when most people would just retire and hang up their jersey, Brady didn’t listen to the naysayers who said it was time to go. And look where that led him – playing in his tenth Super Bowl game.

Ethics of our Fathers states, “Do not look down upon anyone for everybody has their hour.” Everyone has their time, it’s just that for some it arrives later, and usually when no one else is noticing.

And so it goes, the underdog, the overlooked, the dark horse –so often they become the heroes and winners and take center stage. If quiet, composed, unobtrusive Tom Brady can become the GOAT at what he does, so can we. By embodying the same principles in life we too can hold our trophy high when the Almighty helps us succeed.