ESPN’s Seth Wickersham on the Patriots, Tom Brady and Greatness

Ryan talks to Seth Wickersham about his book It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness, the struggle and tension that exists in the pursuit of greatness, how Tom Brady has cultivated greatness and maintained it throughout his career, and more. Seth Wickersham is an American sports writer for ESPN and ESPN The Magazine. He has written for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine since graduating from the University of Missouri in 2000. His work primarily covers the National Football League (NFL) and has been featured on Outside the Lines, SportsCenter, NFL Live, The Ryen Russillo Show, and E:60. Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points from the most important nonfiction books out there, whether it’s Ryan’s own The Daily Stoic, Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, and more. Go to blinkist.com/stoic, try it free for 7 days, and save 25% off your new subscription, too. Ten Thousand makes the highest quality, best-fitting, and most comfortable training shorts I have ever worn. They are a direct-to-consumer company, no middleman so you get premium fabrics, trims, and techniques that other brands simply cannot afford. Ten Thousand is offering our listeners 15% off your purchase. go to Tenthousand.cc and enter code STOIC to receive 15% off your purchase. Trade Coffee will match you to coffees you’ll love from 400+ craft coffees, and will send you a freshly roasted bag as often as you’d like. Trade is offering your first bag free and $5 off your bundle at checkout. To get yours, go to drinktrade.com/DAILYSTOIC and use promo code DAILYSTOIC. Take the quiz to start your journey to the perfect cup. Competitive Cyclist is THE online specialty retailer of road and mountain bikes, components, apparel, and accessories. Go to competitivecyclist.com/DAILYSTOIC and enter promo code DAILYSTOIC to get fifteen percent off your first full-priced purchase plus FREE SHIPPING on orders of $50 or more. Some exclusions apply. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/signupCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Seth Wickersham: TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal,

• 0:46Ryan Holiday?

  and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. One of my favorite books of all time, and I've raved about it here. We carry it in my bookstore, The Painted Porch, is The Cost of These Dreams by Wright Thompson, one of the greatest sports writers of all time, certainly of our time, come a great dude who I've gotten to know a little bit. I had him on the Daily Stoic Podcast if you didn't listen. Anyway, it's got an email from him out of the blue a couple of months back and said, "Hey, you've got to read this new book by my friend Seth Wickersham about the New England Patriots.

• 1:31Ryan Holiday?

  I know that they'd read some of your books, and I think you guys would like each other." I said, "Are you fucking kidding me? Of course, that sounds like a book designed for me." So Seth sent me his new book, It's Better to Be Feared, The New England Patriots Dynasty: The Pursuit of Greatness, which I read actually while I was doing the launch for Courage is Calling. If you watch the vlog of me heading out to LA to do the promo tour, I believe you can see a shot of me reading it in the car as we were driving through central California, stuck behind a wildfire. It's a big book, but it covers a long period of time, the entirety of the Kraft, Belichick, Brady... Dynasty, New England Patriots, one of the great sports teams, great American success stories

• 2:15Ryan Holiday?

  of all time, epic for sure. Seth does an amazing job of doing the book. I've read a bunch of other books about the New England Patriots. I love, of course, my friend Mike Lombardi's book, Gridiron Genius. I love Ian O'Connor's book, Belichick. I love Hal Berstrom's book, Education of a Coach. All books I carry in the bookstore, by the way, you should pick up. But this one, while it's not a hatchet job, definitely there were people in the book who were not pleased, who disagreed with things. Seth is a real journalist, right? He's not writing some celebratory book, but he is, I think, more interested in what makes them great than trying to tear them down, which I certainly appreciated. You know, as we talk about in today's interview,

• 3:00Ryan Holiday?

  there's some parallels between him and Tom Brady, sure, both pursuing greatness in their respective fields. Certainly, I related to that storyline. I really enjoyed it in the book. But there's a thing we talk about that really hit me the most. You wouldn't think, certainly in a book about the New England Patriots and Belichick and Brady, there'd be much talk about work-life balance, but I actually found that to be one of the most salient messages in the book. Again, to go to Wright Thompson's books, there's also a strong sense of the cost of greatness, right? What the cost of these dreams are, what it takes out of a person, the struggle to be happy while chained to what the Greeks would call a daemon, or a sort of a genius and ambition,

• 3:45Ryan Holiday?

  and the tension and how difficult, extraordinarily difficult that is. So I'm very excited to bring you this interview about one of the great sports franchises of all time. We touch on a bunch of Stoic themes with Seth. He was kind enough, clearly, to familiarize himself with a little bit of my work and Stoicism as well, and was familiar, obviously, with the way that some of the Stoic writings had made their way to the Patriots. But overall, I really love this book. I was so looking forward to this conversation, and I think you are going to like it, too. Seth is a writer for ESPN, ESPN the Magazine. He's been on SportsCenter a million times.

• 4:27Ryan Holiday?

  He's profiled Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Bill Belichick, John Elway, among others. And he's written deep dives on the Browns, the Seahawks, the Patriots. He's won awards from the National Association of Black Journalists and the Pro Football Writers Association. You can follow him at Seth Wickersham on any platform. But if you don't read this book, if you don't read his writing, you are missing out on some amazing insights, which we preview here in today's episode. I don't know about you, but it's fun to put out a book because like you spent so much time and energy on it and you want the world to see it, but then it's also very disruptive to your life.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  But that's what we want, right? I mean, that's the, that's the headache that we all want to contend with.

• 5:17Ryan Holiday?

  I guess, but it's maybe I'm more like the Patriots. In that, in that like, I like the grind of doing the thing, like the press conference after the game, whether you won or lost, I'm much less interested in than I am like getting back to my office and, you know, going on to Cincinnati or whatever.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  I hear you, I hear you. Yeah, that makes sense.

• 5:38Ryan Holiday?

  Cause you have, I mean, you have a day job, right? Like you're all like, you know, you're, you did this book, but like day to day, you're also trying to work on and file stories. So I imagine it's a little disruptive.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  No, you know, it has been, and this is my first book. And so I don't have a, I don't have a template for any other process, but the reception to this has been cool. And, you know, I know so many authors who have put out books and, you know, they struggled to get, you know, one radio hit or one podcast or whatever. And, you know, the reception to mine's been awesome. And so. You know, even though I answer the same questions a lot, it's a good problem to have.

• 6:19Ryan Holiday?

  No, no, it's always better than obscurity or indifference. But it but it's, I think, like, on my first book, I was like, I want as much media as possible. And then you kind of, you know, like, you hear your whole life about, I don't know, like celebrities or movie stars who are like, they're complaining about the press tour. I'm sure, you know, nobody's complained more about the media obligations than Bill Belichick. But to, you don't quite understand it until you realize what, how much it takes out of you as far as like getting back to the the work of either the next book or the next story or whatever it is.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And, you know, you answer the same questions a lot and you don't want to be routine or flippant in that, you know, it does take energy to answer the same question for the thousandth time with the same energy as the first.

• 7:14Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. And I think people kind of gloss over the fact that especially like for a football coach or a writer, usually you became great at that thing because you're not an extroverted person who wants to, you know, like, you, you, I got good at writing because I'm better at writing than speaking, right? And then suddenly you're forced to explain this thing that you just slaved away at for a year. It's like, if I could have described this in two sentences, that's what I would have done.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  It is funny. And it's also, people always ask, for some reason, it's like, the questions I get a lot are about the feedback, which is funny. And then people ask me, well, what didn't make it in the book? And I'm like, um, you know, I wrote 160,000 words. Like, if I could have gotten it in there, I put it in, you know?

• 8:10Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  It's not really on my radar what didn't make it in. But it's okay.

• 8:16Ryan Holiday?

  What I thought was fascinating about the book, and I've read most of the books about the Patriots, and there's some good ones and some not so good ones. But what I thought was interesting is this way, and maybe this is a good place to start. You sort of are, you and Brady start in the NFL, you writing about it and him as this sort of third string quarterback at kind of the same time. And you're like vaguely aware of each other, your lives are intersecting in different ways. That, that, I thought that was an interesting device in the book.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  You know, I think it's one of the reasons why I decided to write it because, um, you know, as, as luck would have it. You know, I ended up graduating from college the same year that he did, and we both kind of got our career breaks at the same time. And, um, you know, I was hired at ESPN magazine shortly after I graduated from college. And, um, one of my very first, you know, I, I got a lot of like little stories to write. Um, and I got sent on the road to do, to do little things, but in terms of like doing big features, I didn't, um, you know, I didn't get many, I think my first one was the first, was a year to almost the day after I had started.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  And so when I would get one of those opportunities, I was like, I have to do the very best I possibly can with this. Otherwise I may not get another one. And, um, and I remember, uh, my editors sent me to Foxborough, Massachusetts. You know, midway through the 2001 season to write about this, you know, upstart who had, who's filling in well for Drew Bledsoe, admirably for Drew Bledsoe, and you know, would probably end up going back to the bench, whatever it was. And, um, I, I, I called the Patriots and I called Brady's agent to try to set up an interview and, um,

• 10:15Speaker 01

  I think I just got a note back from his agent saying, yeah, you'll be hearing from Tom. And I actually missed the call. It was a, it was a 508 area code, you know, which is a Massachusetts area code. And um, I think he said to be at the stadium at something like five o'clock. It was around that time. And um, so I drove up to Foxborough from New York City where I was living at the time. And um, I was waiting in the parking lot and it was very dark and this guy, you know, pulls up in a truck and I remember he waved, he kind of saw me um, as he was pulling up and he waved and um, yeah, that was the first time I met Tom Brady. We go into the, you know, the old stadium was like a high school stadium. It was ridicu-, it was embarrassing. And we go in and we found a little table that was sort of near a gift

• 11:00Speaker 01

  shop. Um, and you know, nobody stopped him. And he was wearing a gray sweatsuit and he carried a backpack that was full of beer, like a college student, because he had lost a Michigan, Michigan State bet. And, you know, we sat down and it was kind of interesting to look back on because we were both kind of the same species. We were young men who were getting going in our careers and kind of getting our break at the same time. Of course, the next time I really spent any time with him, you know, that was over. His life had changed forever. Um, and uh, you know, but even back at that time, it was just kind of interesting, um, you know, to look back on it.

• 11:40Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I just reread two of my favorite novels, which are What Makes Sammy Run and then The Great Gatsby. And they both have that similar device that we're talking about where you have the sort of two people that kind of start out on equal footings and then one of them just becomes the biggest thing in the world. And they're sort of this, they kind of have this unique understanding of each other, but one is, one is just very different, sort of one in a million type. And you're sort of both marveling slash horrified slash inspired slash cautionary tale of like what it takes to be, you know, to, to, to

• 12:21Ryan Holiday?

  follow that to its maximum conclusion as some characters and athletes and people do in life.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Absolutely, and this is not something I ever got into with with Brady. Um, I might have discussed it with his dad at some point, I can't remember, but you you know, I was obsessed with being a quarterback when I was in high school.

• 12:43Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, really?

• 12:44Speaker 01

  I I worked, you know, I went to various camps and, you know, I I would work, you know, every day by myself, throwing, throwing at stationary targets, throwing to any human being who would run routes for me. And, you know, I I wasn't as talented as as I needed to be. Um, and I never really like progressed as a quarterback in high school. Um, but I always, it just consumed me and I was obsessed with with it. And I always wondered, you know, out of my high school class, class of nineteen ninety five around the entire nation, you know, who would be the great player out of that class? And it ended up being him.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  And he's the only Hall of Famer, you know, future Hall of Famer who will be a quarterback who will be from that class. And so I think that that is something that, you know, even though at the at the time, remember, I didn't, you know, in November of two thousand one, I was just looking to do this assignment as best I could. I had no clue that Brady was even going to finish the season as a starter, much less, you know, become Super Bowl MVP, much less become a global force as he's become. But I do remember that, you know, he said at one point, he was like, you know, football's always come really easy to me. And I thought it was such a, an interesting thing to say.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Um, because first of all, it's like, what twenty four year old sixth round pick says something like that, right? And then, you know, I think that it always stuck with me in a weird way because he was fluent in a way in a game that I had tried to be and just, you know, couldn't be. And so I think that, you know, the mystery of As you said, what it takes and what it takes to be great, what some of the costs of that are. And finally, you know, what are these special kind of qualities that allowed him to not only be a great player, but a transcendent athlete are all themes that, that, you know, I tried to explore in the book as best I could.

• 14:47Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, his, his childhood, which you go into in the book was fascinating to me because it's not normal, but it's sort of like middle class normal. There doesn't seem to be any profound trauma. There doesn't seem to be that sort of tiger parent. And I mean that like, not just in this, the, the tiger parent phrase, but also like Tiger Woods parent, you know, that athletes have, there, there didn't seem to be any of that. And yet he is not just profoundly driven, but then sort of so dominant in his profession. And I think usually we assume that to be both that great and that driven,

• 15:29Ryan Holiday?

  it must come from a dark or dysfunctional place.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think that he probably felt slight a little bit more than, you know, you might assume from someone who came from such a loving, supportive, two-parent, you know, upper middle class, you know, type of family.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  You know, and I think there was probably always a disconnect between how he saw his, his talent and maybe how the world perceived it. Even though, you know, this is something that, that a lot of great athletes do. And even, you know, kind of politicians is they have their internal narrative, right? We all have our, our stories that we tell ourselves about how we got to where we are. That, um, you know, become kind of central to our own narrative, even if we leave out certain details or whatever. And I have this moment in the book, obviously Brady's entire narrative and he's returned to, he's beat this drum throughout his life is, you know, that he was overlooked and maybe people didn't want him.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  And, you know, he, he always kind of like I, like I, he said, the game always came easy to him, but people didn't notice it. But people did notice it, and I did write about his high school coach. At one point in high school, Brady was practicing with his receivers and it was a windy day in San Mateo, and the receivers were struggling to catch the ball. And so he's just throwing it harder and cranking up the heat, and they're still struggling to catch it, and he cannot handle it. He's losing his patience, he has a temper, which I write about often in the book, of which he's only, you know, controlled a little bit as an adult, slightly better than he did as a child. But his coach finally pulls him aside, his high school coach, and he says, you know, you gotta be more patient, and Brady just didn't want to hear it.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  And finally, the coach just says, look, you're one of a kind. You're gonna be playing in 10 years, none of these other kids are gonna be doing that. And, you know, it was really kind of the first time that people, someone spoke to Brady and saw him in a way that he saw himself. And, you know, while he wasn't Peyton Manning, who got 55, you know, scholarship offers, or whatever it was out of high school, he had some pretty elite schools circling him, including, you know, as it turned out, the University of Michigan. I mean, you're not overlooked if you get a scholarship as a quarterback to go to Michigan.

• 17:52Ryan Holiday?

  Right. Yeah, you know, what's, what's interesting is that it seems like both he and Belichick have that ability to cultivate a sort of constant underdog mentality that drives them, whether it's fully based in anything real or not, it's somewhat beside the point.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Absolutely, and I would put it a little bit differently, and it actually goes, you know, there's some of the themes that, that result in that, that are kind of some of the things you write about in Courage is Calling. I mean, they're not Abraham Lincoln, but, you know, they have their own ways of redefining what's possible and not settling for other people's idea of the inevitable. And I think that with them, the, the way to look at it is that they both came into each other's lives at a fascinating time. In 2000, both of them understood the inherent fragility in the profession that they were choosing, and they both needed the game in a way that was so central to their identity that I think that...

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Forget about being happy. I don't know what their self-image would look like without it. And, you know, Belichick had had his knife, his life, you know, annihilated in Cleveland. When the Browns moved to Baltimore and he had to wait five years for another chance and then went, you know, ended up going five and 11 that first year in New England. And then you had Brady who, you know, even though he was, you know, overcame a lot and you talk about, you know, what from his childhood, you know, hurt him in a deep way. Obviously, college, he was broken and he had to put himself back together again. But, you know, he almost went undrafted. And so both of these guys, without really even knowing each other, kind of possessed this same innate.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, it's a drive, I guess, but it's more like the, the, the knowledge that something that they hold so dear to them can be taken away at any time. And what would life look like without that? And I think it's one of the reasons why, frankly, they haven't been able to stop, you know, two decades later.

• 20:04Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, you know, in, in my book, Ego's Enemy, I was looking at Michael Jordan, uh, cause he also has that same drive. He manufactures slights, sort of is driven. Vindictiveness is the wrong word, but it is a kind of like, he manufactures the slight and then is driven by proving you wrong for, believing in the slight that he kind of made up. But, but there's, I don't know, there's a lot of stories, obviously, about Jordan and that sort of vindictiveness of like, you know, players that he hurt or cruel things that he said.

• 20:41Ryan Holiday?

  Brady seems to have that tendency, Belichick too, and I guess there's some horror stories about Belichick. But, but Brady seems to have danced off, or maybe it doesn't exist. I'd be curious to your thought. Brady doesn't seem to have that edge to it.

• 20:58Ryan Holiday?

  Did you, have you found that? Like when you talk to players, are they like, no, just in private, he does X? Or is it that he manages to sort of keep it within either a reasonable bounds or it's mostly directed at himself?

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. So later in the dynasty, Belichick.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Kind of, he always commissioned studies, right? And he sends his assistants to go do them. And, you know, often there are statistical ones about all free agent running backs and their fumble history, or whatever it is. But he commissioned one that was kind of interesting. And he wanted to know, to do a sort of a psychological breakdown about a couple of mortal athletes and try to get at, you know, these inherent kind of traits that they had to see if the Patriots might be able to use it as a predictor in the draft. And they actually interviewed Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant and Tom Brady. And you're right, they all kind of had that edge to them, you know, where you almost like have to, you know, they're, they're so hungry for slights and scars that even though manufacture

• 22:02Speaker 01

  them at times.

• 22:03Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. Like, did you read that Three Ring Circus?

• 22:06Speaker 01

  You Phil Jackson's book? Oh, no, no, I'm sorry. Jeff Perman's book.

• 22:09Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, you're like, you're like, wow, okay, Kobe, even worse than I thought.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Well, he kind of, and he, obviously, he just learned everything from the Jordan rules and from Michael Jordan and kind of put it on steroids, right?

• 22:23Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  But Brady was different. It's not that he didn't have that in him. He definitely had it. But I think that midway through his career, he, and it's still going. So who actually actually knows when midway might be. But he changed. And I think that, you know, when he was younger, I think that stuff would fire him up a little bit more. And then I think he started to realize that that manufactured conflict was kind of fundamentally unhealthy. And it's something that like, he talked about with me, he's talked about it with other people. And, you know, he needed to try to find ways to, he just became more interested in like, being a relentless positive thinker and all of his motivation being internal and not external. And maybe, I think that maybe it was around Deflategate, you know, that it

• 23:08Speaker 01

  definitely helped him get through it, even though he was furious about it. But I think that maybe when he saw the world kind of collapse on him, and so many people turned on him in Deflategate, he felt like that he couldn't rely on that outside world for anything. But he definitely became more looking inward with everything. And I think that when they did that study, Brady was different. Because again, it wasn't that he couldn't find motivation from. Any cliched scars or us against the world mentality, but he seemed to thrive better when he was in a little bit more of a loving and kind of almost supportive environment, which is interesting, given, you know, where he ended up in Tampa Bay, which is like, you

• 23:51Speaker 01

  know, Club Med in a lot of ways compared to the Patriots.

• 23:55Ryan Holiday?

  Well, no, there's this stoic idea that I love. It's hard to follow, but it's this idea that you are strict with yourself, but tolerant with others. Right? And I think Kobe was a great example of someone who's just constitutionally incapable of doing that. I think there's a Rick Fox quote where it's like, you know, not everyone is Kobe Bryant, dude. Like you can't treat people as if they're you because you're just wired different. And Michael Jordan struggles that with a little bit, but yeah, it does. There aren't a ton of horror stories about Tom Brady as a teammate, which I think is interesting because it is, it's so hard when you're driven and great. And when you have not just defied

• 24:35Ryan Holiday?

  expectations, but like shattered what is even conceivably possible for a human being to not expect everyone else to, to like, give their, to, to, to, to not just not be like you, but you just want them to like, do their fucking jobs. And not everyone does, right? And yet there, there doesn't seem to be horror stories about him in that way. Seems to find a way to play with just about anyone.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a perfectionist, but he's not an asshole. And it's kind of interesting because he, he, um, he doesn't get, he, he, he has no problem yelling or getting in a guy's face if they are not doing what they need to do, but he doesn't really make it personal in a way that Jordan did, and even kind of Kobe did. Um, there was a story in the book about Dante Stallworth, who was a receiver on that famous 2017 team that nearly went undefeated. And, you know, so this is the preseason and Stallworth was acquired along with Wes Welker and Randy Moss to be Brady's new hot shot receivers. And Stallworth is, even though he was a first round pick, is going like, you know, I don't know if I

• 25:48Speaker 01

  match up to these, to these guys. You're talking about Randy Moss here and Tom Brady, and I gotta really like, get myself together. So in a preseason game.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  Stallworth has assigned a certain route that's a decoy route and in the game Brady, Brady throws him the ball and Stallworth wasn't running full speed. The ball gets intercepted. And Brady comes back and Stallworth, they're on the sideline next to each other and Stallworth is like, this guy's gonna start screaming at me, I'm terrified. And instead Brady just sits next to him and he just stares at him. Just stares into his eyes, right there on the, on the bench, until it's like so uncomfortable that Stallworth is getting like leveled in a way that Brady could have never done verbally. He just stared at him and stared at him and stared at him until it was so impossibly uncomfortable and then finally Brady turned away and that

• 26:43Speaker 01

  was all he, all he ever did in reaction to that play.

• 26:46Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I think we often, it's hard to give people credit for stuff that they like could have gotten away with, but I think one of the reasons that people tolerate it from Jordan, from Kobe, from other athletes is that like when you're the, the guy on the team, uh, and, and we're seeing this now sort of a reckoning with this in all facets, like you can get away with being an asshole or, or worse, right? As long as you're delivering the results. I think, I, I do think it makes it impressive or somewhat more impressive that he could get away with, like, I'm sure whatever he, if he decided to say whatever he wanted, there wouldn't have been repercussions for it, right? Because he's Tom Brady. And so this idea of like, no,

• 27:31Ryan Holiday?

  I'm even gonna hold myself to a standard that I can probably get away with, uh, you know, violating is, you know, is another level of kind of self mastery that I, I think, again, contributes to the greatness. It's not like, hey, look, he has this many rings, but look at the carnage behind him. Uh, there doesn't seem to be any of that. I've always found that impressive.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  It, it really is. And he's, he's, again, he's interesting because he always looks inward first. And when he got to Michigan, he told me, you know, he was a whiner and everything was somebody else's fault. Why he wasn't playing, why when he practiced the one rep that he got, it wasn't going well. Whatever it was, he just. He, he, he thought he was the best quarterback on the team and felt like that, you know, it was like the world was conspiring to keep him off of the field and he was going to transfer to the University of California at Berkeley, closer to home, his parents could drive the games. And he meets with Lloyd Carr, the head coach at the time at Michigan and he says, you know, I'm going to leave, I'm going to go to Cal and Lloyd kind of wants him to

• 28:34Speaker 01

  sleep on it. And that night, he goes to meet with Greg Harden, who is his counselor, he had been assigned a counselor at Michigan. And, um, you know, he never really talked to Greg Harden much, but he had started to, but he tells Greg, you know, look, I can't get up on the depth chart here, I can't get on the field, I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave. And what does Greg Harden do? He starts laughing at him. He thought it was funny. He didn't like, give Brady a hug, he didn't even do tough luck, he just thought the entire situation was funny. And he goes, who gives a fuck if you leave? You want to leave, go ahead. You haven't done shit here anyway. Basically, you're saying, no one's going to care if

• 29:16Speaker 01

  you can't cut it. And end up taking the easier route. And it really kind of appealed to Brady's internal fire and also forced him to grow up a little bit. So, so that night, he decides he's going to stay at Michigan. He tells Lloyd Carr that he's going to stay at Michigan. And from then on, he really had to own his decision. He had been the one to stay there. And so whining about whatever it was, whether it was, you know, getting on the field or Drew Henson later on, whatever it was, he couldn't do it. And he had to figure out ways again to kind of master his sense of self and control everything internally that he could possibly control to be successful there. And I think it's a mentality that he

• 30:00Speaker 01

  never really, those are some deep scars. And I don't think that he ever really.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Kind of left that mindset, even though now, you know, he's the most accomplished quarterback ever, maybe the greatest football player in modern history.

• 30:16Ryan Holiday?

  The, the thing that struck me most about the book, and I have a bunch of other questions, but I, I, we might be able to do the next 30 minutes just on this. So that's why I want to talk about it. But, so I, I, I love dynasties. I love teams that stay together. I love, you know, people that don't move teams. So I, when, when Brady leaves New England to go to Tampa, I think that it's sort of a, you know, is it, um, is it a Kawhi Leonard situation? You know, is it a, is it a, um, uh, Kevin Durant situation where you're sort of like, look, I get it from a business standpoint, but I, I hope you lose, right? Like, I hope it doesn't work out, right? Because like, part of what makes football great is there does seem to

• 30:59Ryan Holiday?

  be continuity. Players aren't like swapping teams all the, every year. So I was blown away and I, so I sort of obviously didn't want them to win. They do win, but I'm sort of so impressed by the fact that he pulls it off that I'm begrudgingly respectful of it. But then when I read, read your book, I saw a totally different lens on this. Like, okay, here's a guy, uh, had been with this team his whole career, deciding to leave. Is it about money? Is it about, uh, winning? Is it about, you know, ego? What is it about? But my read, and maybe I'm making this up or projecting, but my read of your interpretation

• 31:37Ryan Holiday?

  was ultimately Tom Brady loves football and he loves playing football, but he also loves his family. And his wife was basically like, we'll support you playing football as long as you want. But football, like following your dreams should not make you a miserable human being. You should enjoy being great at what you do. And if you can't, maybe you're not as great as you think you are. And so the decision to leave New England was less about where he could win, or any of the other factors, or control, or, you know, Aaron Rodgers, you know, holding out because he wants control, or whatever. It was, I want to be able to

• 32:18Ryan Holiday?

  play football in a way that doesn't bring out my worst qualities as a human being, mostly off the field. And how can I do it in a sustainable way, in a way that makes me happy while still also getting elite performance out of myself?

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that, and this goes along those lines, and I think that it really, you know, did start at Michigan, but I think that football has always been about self-actualization for him. And I think it's one of the reasons why, you know, and I think it is for Belichick too, but in a different way, but I think that I didn't organize the book around Super Bowls. You know, that wasn't the culmination of each chapter or each moment. I wrote the book as characters who, you know, about Brady and Bill, as characters who evolve over time on purpose, because I think that the Super Bowls are almost like a weird accidental byproduct of a larger compulsion that has all kinds of factors that go into it.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  But with Brady, there's a reason why, after the Super Bowl that they just won against the Chiefs in February, his wife and his kids come running onto the field and the first thing she says is, what more do you have to prove? Because she's ready for Brady to retire. I mean, she left her own career to help, you know, raise their family and Brady, you know, his compulsions for, you know, to get better and to improve in microscopic ways or even invisible ways that the rest of us can't even notice, you know, those have gotten worse over time. They have not gotten better. And he keeps saying, you know, I'm gonna play till I'm 40 and then 45, and now who knows?

• 34:05Speaker 01

  And as soon as she asked him that, he figured out a way on the field right there to change the subject and not answer it. Because he knew that while like the Super Bowl is like what they want out of each year, he knew that, you know, it was about something else, like, you know, what more could he do after this? And he knew it within seconds of winning the Super Bowl last year. I thought it was pretty phenomenal that, and it was one of those moments that really revealed, you know, what he's chasing. And that's something that even he struggles to articulate. He just wants to keep going and keep going.

• 34:42Ryan Holiday?

  I've been a runner for a really long time, as you know, but one of the best changes in investments I made a couple of years ago was the decision to get into cycling. You know, bikes are not one size fits all. And when you want the ultimate personalized bike shop experience, talk to the experts at competitivecyclist.com. They're the online specialty retailer of road and mountain bikes, components, apparel, accessories, trailers, everything you could possibly need. Plus their gearheads, equal parts, customer service and cycling fanatics, they can answer your questions about anything. They're former pro athletes, Olympians, seasoned cyclists with years of experience. You go to competitivecyclist.com/dailystoic,

• 35:26Ryan Holiday?

  enter promo code DAILYSTOIC to get 15% off your first full price purchase, free shipping on orders of 50 bucks or more. Some exclusions apply. Go right now and get 15% off plus free shipping at competitivecyclist.com/dailystoic, promo code DAILYSTOIC. Some exclusions apply. Well, and I've talked to different athletes over the years and they all seem to have some moment of this where either they get almost there and they lose, or they get almost there and win, and they realize that chasing either the trophy or whatever is never, it's never going to make them feel the way that they want it, they wanted to feel, that they, that

• 36:09Ryan Holiday?

  they're living this sort of dream life, but depriving themselves of actually enjoying it while it happens because they're either so focused on the outcome, or they're such like a pile of stress and nerves and expectations that it just sucks all of the fun out of it.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, then you have the Belichick system, which, you know, is pretty emotionless to begin with. It's not that it, there's never fun, but it is not, it, I mean, it broke Rob Gronkowski. I mean, he, he retired from football, not only because his body was hurting him, because his psyche was. And

• 36:45Speaker 01

  You know, it is fascinating to look at people who are incredibly driven and in a lot of ways, they are happiest when they're unhappy. And there's a moment I write about in the book with Brady's second son, Benny, and he's not as into sports as Brady's oldest son is, but he's very competitive within himself and he has a lot of high expectations for self and he's, he expects a lot out of himself, very similar to his old man. And there's one moment where Brady notices how hard his son is being on himself after something and he tries to tell his son like, "Bro, this is not the road you want to go down." Because in a weird way, Brady knows that world better than, he knows his

• 37:28Speaker 01

  son's future better than his own son does. All of those like sleepless nights, I mean Brady used to not be able to sleep after a Super Bowl loss. As he got older, it became he couldn't sleep after he threw an interception, even if it was in a win of a game, like a regular season game. I mean-

• 37:44Ryan Holiday?

  So do you think the lesson there is that that's actually not what's required to win? Or is it that that's what's required to win and once you win, you can be a bit more privileged and choosy about it?

• 37:55Speaker 01

  I think it's so, I think that it's this thing that people have and it gets worse over time and it's spectacularly unhealthy. And Brady right then saw that his son had it and was basically like, "You don't want to go down this road because it will mean a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of misery and beating the shit out of yourself mentally." And I thought it was just an interesting moment because, you know, as we know, our children end up being reflective of ourselves and they, they pick up on things that we don't even realize that we're putting out into the world. And that was a moment where they did it with him and it was revealing of him in a way. And, you know, just the mental, it's like- There's this Bruce Springsteen quote, more than rich, more than happy, more, you know,

• 38:40Speaker 01

  more than famous, I wanted to be great. And I really think about that in respect to Brady and Belichick a lot because I think that inherent in there is an element of, of unhappiness that goes along with it.

• 38:56Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I mean, do you have kids?

• 38:58Speaker 01

  I do, too.

• 38:58Ryan Holiday?

  Would you, would you want them? Like, I think about this sometimes. It's like, obviously to be great at what you do, at writing, i- i- is a gift. And it's a, to be able to not just have a calling, but then be in a position to answer said calling and then to have success at some calling. Like, so many things have to go right for that to happen. I don't know, I don't know if I'd wish it on my kids. Do you know what I mean?

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. No matter what it is, though, but I think it's like, how it manifests itself, it's not just with writing. It could be whatever field that it is. And I can definitely, you know, see, I mean, my wife is, is, is a high achiever herself. And I definitely see some of those traits passed on. And I kind of laugh at it because I'm like, oh, my gosh, like, I don't know if I can do anything to change this now. Like, you know, when, one of the things I write about in the book is, is Brady's temper. And when he was a little kid, he would go golfing with his dad and throw fits. When he would miss a shot, he'd throw clubs, he'd bang clubs into the ground. His dad, you know, who's competitive himself,

• 40:05Speaker 01

  but, you know, isn't quite as bad as his son, would, you know, say, we're going home, this isn't how we act, whatever it is. But it's like, that instinct and, and those urges, I don't think have ever really gone away with Brady. I mean, you see them on the field sometimes. He obviously manages it better. But take, like, last year, they're playing the Bears and they end up in whatever it is, fourth and 27. He's so mad when they come to the sideline that he starts cussing at his offensive lineman. And I have it in the book where I write about it. And, you know, the, just the, the image of him doing that went viral. It's hard to articulate, you know, again, the level of like rage and these urges that these guys have to manage.

• 40:48Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's it's it's part of what fuels you, but it's also fundamentally unhealthy. And or or maybe it's that you tell yourself it what it's what fuels you like that. That's what to go back to the Jordan thing, which I found so interesting. You know, I wanted to dig into like this, like I got cut from the high school basketball team. And then my drive is what put me back. It's like, no, you you didn't make the varsity team as a freshman or a sophomore. And then you grew six inches and then you made the team the next year. So like, you may well have told yourself that it was the drive and it was the work and the talent. But it was almost certainly much more to do with the fact that you're much taller now.

• 41:31Ryan Holiday?

  Pick up this kind of script that, you know, it's the anger, it's the drive, it's the perfectionism that made you great. And that may actually be this sort of like parasite that's just attached to you that drains you, but actually is totally incidental to whether you're good or bad at what you do. And I think to me, maybe the inspiring part of this idea of going to the to the Bucks. And then you sort of see him lightening up as an athlete and and exploring other things. You're like, oh, actually, maybe it was never those things the whole time. And you can be great at what you do and not turn yourself into a machine.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean, I do think that Brady has become a machine himself. And I think that his his version of growing six inches, you know, was when he decided to stay at Michigan. Like we mentioned, I mean, poor Lloyd Carr. I mean, Lloyd Carr is a phenomenally successful coach and everybody looks at him like the idiot who was looking for reasons to to sit Tom Brady and to play Drew Henson. When I don't think that's quite fair because. People assume that Brady was always fully formed and he wasn't and like the real Tom Brady didn't quite exist yet because his version of growing those six inches was getting broken and rebuilding himself at Michigan and learning what it needed to take to grow up and to you

• 42:57Speaker 01

  know play every down and to succeed on every down and all of these things and it was interesting because when Brady first went to New England, he didn't even know where New England was, where the team was, but he sits in this first meeting as the sixth, you know, the sixth round pick, maybe the fourth quarterback on the roster as it turned out that he would be, but at the time, he wasn't even guaranteed a roster spot and Bill Belichick is hosting one of his first meetings after the draft and he says, you know, no one's job is, no one's entitled to their job, you know, everything's up for competition and Brady kind of sat back in that meeting and he's like, well, I can do this then. I've competed my entire life and already like people would be

• 43:38Speaker 01

  intimidated by the NFL stage and already he wasn't, I think in part because, you know, like I said, his version of growing six inches was kind of learning how to compete on that stage at Michigan.

• 43:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I, I think one of the things that I took from the book is, is you sort of go into depth of just how brilliant and methodical and relentless the sort of Belichick system is, but that maybe that it's, it's not sustainable. It's sustainable as a system, but it's not sustainable for the individuals inside of it. So everyone is sort of a cog in said machine and sort of Tom Brady as the individual trying to actualize himself cannot, it's almost remarkable that he existed in it for 20 years. That's almost a feat of human, a superhuman strength,

• 44:31Ryan Holiday?

  but that, that it's, it's not sustainable for the individual. It's probably not even sustainable for Belichick, but that it, you just can't do it over the long term. So I think about that. It's like, how do I, you're in my profession, you can do forever, right? And so if you're grinding yourself down into dust, you're not gonna, you're not gonna last. You have to figure out a way not to beat the shit out of yourself.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think that, you know, one of the reasons why he was able to, you know, thrive in it and, and survive in it as long as he was is because. The, you know, unyielding demands that Belichick would put on everybody, Brady put that and more in himself. And, you know, I think that around 2008 or so, there was a little bit of a philosophical split because Brady had hurt his knee and he was out in California and he was learning all these new training methods. And meanwhile, the Patriots kind of moved on and Brady's, you know, that's where the genesis of the TB12 method and some of those things kind of really began to take hold. But even so, he was so driven in his own world, you know, that it ended up matching up well with whatever it is that

• 45:39Speaker 01

  that Belichick was doing. And yeah, I mean, it's amazing. It's amazing that Belichick has been able to keep this up. It's one of the things that Robert Kraft marvels about is, you know, that Bill will often call Kraft, you know, on the way home from work at 11, 11:30 midnight to give him an update on what happened that day. And Kraft missed him and he calls him first thing in the morning, 5:45, 6 a.m. And Bill's already at his desk. And Bill, I mean, Belichick doesn't even drink coffee. He doesn't like the taste of it. He never has. It's just that he has this amazing energy. And again, that goes back to the theme that we were discussing before of like, the Super Bowls not being the endgame for these guys. I mean, it's not Ray Lewis and John Elway and Peyton Manning walking

• 46:24Speaker 01

  away on top. The Super Bowls are like this byproduct of this other thing that, as it turns out, is incredibly, you know, sustaining and durable. And, you know, has these guys continuing to do this at this age when they could have, you know, gotten off the highway many times?

• 46:43Ryan Holiday?

  Well, it's not that, it's almost like, it's not that they don't think about winning. It's that they measure on a small, like, winning is too big of a horizon. They think more of like, the immediate, like, much smaller metrics. So it's like, yeah, it's like, the interception is bothering him, not the loss. Or, you know, like, it's a smaller thing. So, Belichick, it's like obsessing over...

• 47:09Ryan Holiday?

  Or Saban, it's like winning a national championship, but like getting exciting, getting excited about a recruiting call he can make like as he leaves the field. Right? Like he, he's obsessed with the, the individual component parts that, that indirectly lead to the outcomes and, and often favorable outcomes, but is actually less interested in that and more of the day to day grind of it.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, these guys are obsessed with process. And I mean, the process is, is essential to their lives is like almost their families, maybe even more so if they admitted it, you know, maybe with a drink or two into them. But like, go back to the Super Bowl that the Patriots lost against the Giants that cost them the undefeated season. You think about all the memorable plays in that game. And the one play that that night Brady could not stop thinking about wasn't the helmet catch, you know, one of the greatest plays in NFL history. It was the very first offensive play for the Patriots where they had a screen pass set up and it should have gone for a touchdown and Brady was under pressure and he fired low and missed the pass. And because of that, it was an incomplete pass and the

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Patriots ended up scoring on that drive anyway. But he could not let that play go.

• 48:23Ryan Holiday?

  The whole game would have been different had he scored on that play. Yeah.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  If, if they had just like knocked out the, the Giants off the get go and showed them they had no business being on that field, who knows would have had, what would have happened. And that was like the play that he really couldn't let go of that night and maybe ever, as it turns out.

• 48:42Ryan Holiday?

  Well, that, so the blessing and the curse of like, I only focus on what I control is the, the, the blessing is it gets you through being a six round draft pick. It gets you through being second string at Michigan or that, you know, I'm going to focus on what I can do. The curse is that, yeah, you're obsessed about this minor variation on something that ultimately did go well because you see how had you done your job better, it would have gone better.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it doesn't, it it gets worse over time rather than waning. Um, you know, my my best friend i- is is a unbelievably talented and and great writer named Wright Thompson.

• 49:24Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  You know.

• 49:24Ryan Holiday?

  Who connected us. Yeah.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Exactly. And he, you know, wrote, one of his best stories was on Michael Jordan around the time that Michael Jordan turned 50, and it was just.

• 49:33Ryan Holiday?

  I love that story. It's incredible.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  It was incredible. And it was also incredible because here Michael Jordan was at age 50 with every tangible thing you could have in life, except the one thing that he wanted to do most, which was be able to play the game that brought him more joy than money and travel and fame and anything ever could. And it was kind of a sad portrait of someone. And I remember when I read it, I had just interviewed Brady. I'd spent a day at his house, um, working on a story. And, you know, he had casually said that, you know, he was gonna play 10 more years. And at that time, he was 36. And I almost missed it when he said that. I was like, you know, I wonder if he's just saying that, you know, like,

• 50:12Speaker 01

  you know, he can't really mean it. And I didn't see a lot of parallels between himself and Jordan. And then you realize that there are a ton of parallels, because he almost saw, I don't know if he read that story or not.

• 50:23Ryan Holiday?

  I did.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  But he, oh, no, I don't know if he did, if Brady did. But like, that was a glimpse into his future.

• 50:30Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  And he, he, whether he read that story or not, he kind of intrinsically knew it. And, you know, he had just decided that he was gonna micromanage and do every possible thing he could to avoid that fate, knowing that he's just one of those people who, like Bruce Springsteen or somebody, needs to do this. And there is no such real, there's no real type of, you know, idea of retirement. He just has to keep doing it.

• 50:57Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I remember reading, uh, so e- everyone who, almost any normal person who watches the Jordan Hall of Fame speech is sort of like, ugh, you know? Like, it's like, it's a, it's a discordant note, uh, in, you know, a a song that you you really like. You're just like, whoa, that's not, that's not who I want Jordan to be, right? And I remember reading something like Tiger Woods watched it and was like, yep, that's what it takes, you know? And so you're sort of watching two unhealthy people, um, you know, sort of confirm each other's unhealthiness, you know?

• 51:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:34Ryan Holiday?

  But to me, that's what's so interesting about the transition to Tampa and the continuing to win and play at the high level, or at least what you talk about in the book, that there was at least, you know, that we're not talking about Tom Brady post divorce, post public scandal, post whatever, having to reckon from rock bottom with, you know, trying to do it a different way. It struck me as inspiring and weirdly, again, a kind of a different kind of greatness to go, yes, I'm still me. I still want to be the best in the world. I still want to do this. But before it's too late, I'm going to take some

• 52:13Ryan Holiday?

  sort of positive steps towards self cares, towards balance, towards integration. Like, and that it didn't come at the expense of performance. It actually may have enhanced performance. I'm excited about that.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, you know, when he was 26 or 27, he was interviewed by 60 Minutes. And at one point, Steve Croft asked him, you know, what scares you? What do you fear the most? And I don't even think this made the story in 60 Minutes. I read it in the transcript. You know, at the moment, right then, he said, the end of my playing career. He was 27 years old. I mean, he, talk about knowing yourself.

• 52:58Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  We've talked about. I mean, he knew who he was at that time. And I think that one of the most interesting, the most interesting part of the book for me to write and to think about, and even to talk about, is the middle of the dynasty, when Brady and Belichick went almost 10 years without winning a championship. Because it's astounding that not only that the team, you know, their, their relationship, their working relationship survived it, but both of them did something that I think is really brave. And they went back and they essentially reevaluated their entire belief systems, belief systems that had worked better probably than any in modern NFL history, because they realized that they were coming

• 53:41Speaker 01

  up just short. And what, what do they do when they're better than 99.8% of people who do this, and they need to make it 99.9? You know, you think about that Super Bowl, the second one they lost to the Giants, when Brady had Wes Welker open. And missed him in the fourth quarter. And even though Welker got kind of hammered for not catching the pass, it was a bad throw. And Brady had to think about, how do I become two inches more accurate in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl as I'm aging, as you know, all of these factors are coming into play. And that's really where, you know, a lot of these, he rechanged, you know, he retooled his entire throwing motion. He throws the ball differently now than he did

• 54:24Speaker 01

  when he was 24, 25, 26 years old. And, you know, I think that that part of it was really interesting to me because you saw their striving in a level that's almost inconceivable. They were in a cultural and professional thin air, and yet they had plateaued. And they had to figure out a way to get over, it's not over the hump, it's over that last little couple inches of difference that was the difference between them winning Super Bowls and losing them.

• 54:54Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's, it's like, I don't know, it, it's almost easier to be great and fundamentally unbalanced than it is to be great and one, sustain it, but two, you know, sort of have other things in your life.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And, you know, nobody has ever accused Tom Brady and Bill Belichick of being, you know, well-rounded people. I mean, Brady has talked often about, you know, the, the strain that his drive and his profession and his internal competitiveness and expectations have had on his, on his marriage. I mean,

• 55:33Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, but it's still there. I mean, that, that is impressive, right? Like, you know,

• 55:37Speaker 01

  Well, it's impressive that he recognized it.

• 55:38Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, but, but also that it, that it didn't, that he was, you know, like, I think especially, you can imagine, especially that far into your career, you're that successful, you're Tom Brady, you could go, you could, you could make the wrong choice, right? Your wife, maybe talk about the letter that Gisele wrote him that you talk about in the book, but your, your verdict or your response to that letter, and I think it probably is for some of the champions we've talked about, is like, you knew who I was when you married me, I'm not changing.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I mean, I think that he's tried to change in ways, but you know, both Belichick and Brady are very stubborn people and um, you know, I don't, this is pure speculation on my part, but you know, I do wonder if there's a reason why like Bill Belichick, you know, never got remarried. I mean, clearly he's wearing a ring now as of this year, and so maybe something had changed and you know, they're he and his longtime girlfriend are committed to each other, but it always made me wonder whether, you know, when he got divorced in 2005, 2006, whenever it was, he started dating his, his, you know, current life partner, you know, pretty shortly after that, and yet they were never remarried. And I always wondered if it was because Bill knew himself so well

• 56:53Speaker 01

  to know that while he was trying to achieve what the things that he was trying to achieve, he could not, you know, commit so much of his life to someone else. Obviously, like maybe he's come to a point where, you know, that's different for him and, you know, he feels like he can do it. Um, again, this is all complete speculation on my part. I have no reporting or insight into this and I could be totally wrong, but it is something I've always been curious about because with Brady, on the other hand, he didn't even, you know, for the longest time, he didn't want to have children young, like he had, he had like looked at quarterbacks who were in their 30s, and he thought that like they had started to slide as players, not only because their bodies were breaking down,

• 57:37Speaker 01

  but because their attention was diverted and they weren't as resolutely focused on, on football like they were before because they had families. And he was always like, you know, that's not going to be me. And yet then he had, he had his son at age, whatever he was, age 29 or 30. He marries Gisele Bundchen and they have two more children, and he has to figure out a way to balance that. And the balancing, as we all know, is difficult, if not impossible. And yeah, there was a moment where it was in 2017 where Gisele Bundchen wrote him a letter because she was dissatisfied with the state of their marriage. Because I mean, you know, he's someone who, who seasons would end, the football season would end.

• 58:20Speaker 01

  And then, you know, he was immediately trying to explore new ways to train and new things he could change and evolve. And new business opportunities for TV 12 and, you know, there really wasn't an off season and, um, you know, clearly that was something that needed to change and did.

• 58:44Ryan Holiday?

  Can you hear me?

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, did I lose you?

• 58:45Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it was weird. It was weird, but I, I, I, it's all recording natively, so it should be fine.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 58:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I, I think I, to me, that's the, that's the journey that, that's, that's the, the ultimate journey, right? Is like, uh, how do you, how do you not just, uh, sustain greatness in the physical level as, uh, as I think he's, he's done, um, in, in, you know, trying to preserve the body, trying to, to sort of defy aging. How do you sort of stay hungry and want to do what you do and stay sharp? That's the sort of mental side, but then there's also this kind of sort of spiritual element of it, which is like, how does it not make you worse? How does it not destroy or infect all other parts of your life? And how do you, um, how do you create?

• 59:32Ryan Holiday?

  Like, it, it's like, you know, what good is two other rings if you're sort of lonely and miserable, you know? And I think to me that was, that, that, that seemed to maybe be the trade off. Although it actually ended up with an extra ring and perhaps one more, uh, or two more. It depends on how long he can play, but just the idea of like, I'm going to trot. My, my challenge is how do I be great at what I do? And be as close to a, a functioning human being when I'm not on the field as possible. And I just, I think about that as a writer. It's like, you want to be great at it. You want to write as many books as you can. You want them to sell as well as you can, but you don't want to fucking end up as Hemingway, you know? Uh, that's not winning.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Yeah. And Brady, you know, they once lost a playoff game, um, in New England and, you know, his kids are up and that, you know, they're young. They don't care at all about the pain that he is suffering that, you know, they're focused on their worlds as they should be. And he needed to be their audience and he talked to me about how hard that was. You know, he said it was impossible actually to try to. You know, be as present for his kids as he as he should have been at that moment, but he was trying. And, you know, as you know, as a parent, I mean, we're not perfect all the time. The trying is what matters. And I think that that's really interesting. Because, again, it goes back to what we said at the beginning of the conversation is that like,

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  you know, nobody, I think in modern football history, has been able to focus on what's in front of them and what they can control like Brady and Belichick. And that goes for, you know, family moments and football. I mean, but football especially. These guys are very different personalities, but they are both optimists in a way that I think that even like, it's even within the world of sports, it's easy to take for granted.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  They have never, not once conceded to anybody else's idea of the inevitable. You know, you think about Brady and, you know, what it took to come back from double-digit fourth-quarter deficits, twice in Super Bowls. You think about Bill Belichick and all of the great goal-line stands that his defenses had engineered over the years. Going back to, you know, 1986, when he was with the Giants and they played the Broncos in the Super Bowl and had a goal-line stand. Like, these two guys are able to forget about what happened in the past and focus on what's in front of them in a really special and unique way, even if it turns out, you know, especially after a playoff loss or something like that.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  It's, you know, it doesn't, it's not as clean as maybe we would have liked. There's a moment in the book where Brady loses a game to Washington and he had had a chance to rally the team in the fourth quarter on one of his famous drives and came up short, didn't get it done. And his dad just keeps calling him and calling him and calling him. And Brady will not pick up the phone, which is very rare, especially when his dad calls. Finally, his dad leaves a voicemail and he says, you know, there aren't any bridges in Boston high enough to jump off. And Brady calls him back within a minute and he says, you know exactly how I feel.

• 1:02:47Ryan Holiday?

  Right.

• 1:02:50Ryan Holiday?

  It's a, oh, man, it's a, it's a great book, a great story. I, I loved it and I'm so glad you sent it to me and it's been, it's been awesome to talk.

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you so, so much. I really appreciate your help. I appreciate you reading and I appreciate your work. I mean, it helped inform a lot. It helped inform a lot with this book and, you know, obviously your work has been, you know, digested and considered and practiced by the Patriots over the years. We didn't even get into that. We'll save that for the next one.

• 1:03:19Ryan Holiday?

  No, we didn't. That's, that was a weird, random fluke of, of, of certainly not what you expect when you write a book about an obscure school of ancient philosophy, but it's, it's opened up some cool doors.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  I bet. Thank you very, very much.

• 1:03:34Ryan Holiday?

  Awesome, man. Well, I appreciate it and everyone should read this and we'll, we'll talk soon.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  Thank you so much, Ryan. I really appreciate your help, man. Thank you.

• 1:03:44Ryan Holiday?

  My new book Courage is Calling is now officially a New York Times bestseller. Thank you so much to everyone who supported the book. It was literally and figuratively overwhelming. We signed almost 10,000 copies of the book, which just, you know, it, it hit me right here and I appreciate it so much. If you haven't picked up a copy or you want to pick up a signed copy as a gift, please do. You can get your copy at dailystoic.com/courageiscalling or you can just go to store.dailystoic.com.