With seven Super Bowls to his name, NFL legend Tom Brady is universally regarded as one of the greatest — if not the greatest — football players of all time. Yet, as a quarterback for both the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Brady emphasizes that his success as a leader on the field depends on having the right motivation and motivation for his teammates. On the identity of the levers.
Brady credits his drive to an inner motivator. “You wake up and do something you love, and you don’t want to look at that person in the mirror and fail them,” he explained at the Fortune Global Forum. His relentless commitment to personal excellence fueled his performance and inspired those around him. However, he acknowledged that not everyone shared his self-styled mindset. “A lot of other people aren’t motivated that way,” he said, acknowledging that some need external motivation to unlock their full potential. To promote this, Brady tried to exemplify what a culture of 100% effort and accountability looks like.
At 6:30 a.m., he’ll arrive in the weight room. His teammates would leave around 6:45 a.m. thinking they were early because the first team meeting was at 8 a.m. “I’d be like, ‘Man, good afternoon,'” Brady laughed. said The next day, they’d arrive at 6:30 a.m. “But I’d get there at 6:15, and I’d be like, ‘Man, it still looks late,'” Brady said.
This discipline fostered a team culture of high performance and unwavering standards, which fostered a common transactional mindset and collected paychecks. “We were there to push each other to succeed, and when you’re successful, there’s a lot of credit to everybody,” Brady said.
The result was more than just a championship. It was a bond built on friendship, mutual respect, and collective commitment to a common mission. “I bled with them. We played in the heat. We played in the cold. We lost, cried, and celebrated together,” Brady said, reflecting on the deep bonds within the team. And despite their diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, races, levels of educational attainment and the like, he noted, their love of sports and their common cause united them. “It didn’t matter. We all loved each other. We all loved what we were trying to achieve,” Brady concluded.
Ruth Amoh
ruth.umoh@fortune.com
Today’s newsletter was produced by Natalie McCormick..
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