Tom Brady may have retired from the NFL in February 2023 after winning seven Super Bowls (six with the New England Patriots, one with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers), but he hasn’t been resting on his laurels throughout his retirement.
Brady is entering the third year of his 10-year, $375 million contract with Fox, which sees him call games as a part of the network’s lead NFL broadcast booth, and he’s a minority owner for the Las Vegas Raiders, assisting the franchise with coaching and personnel decisions in a “strategic advisory role.”
The three-time NFL MVP even briefly pursued a return to the league as an owner-player before ultimately deciding that he was “very happily retired,” a decision that was reaffirmed after competing in the Fanatics Flag Football Classic.
In a recent post for his 199 Newsletter blog, Brady, who is a father of three, talked about how he manages and finds balance between all of his responsibilities.
“The ten days culminating with the Fanatics Flag Football Classic in Los Angeles were among the ten busiest days I’ve had in a very long time, back to back,” Brady started the post. “There were meetings, calls, press, flights, rides, meals, parties, practices, so much talking, and of course the games themselves. For a week and a half, if I wasn’t ‘on’ then I was either moving or sleeping.”
“When I commit to something, I go all in. That’s just how it is, and I suppose it’s the only way I know,” he added.
“But stretches like this have a cost.”
The second half of Brady’s playing career was defined by an almost maniacal approach and commitment to his profession, but now he’s interested in finding more balance, noting that it wasn’t always possible during his playing days, when he had “to put disproportionately more time, energy and focus” into his goals on the field.
He doesn’t think that balance is unattainable while he juggles so many responsibilities, only that it has to be redefined, arguing that for “a highly driven, excellence-focused, achievement-oriented person,” that means going all in on whichever part of your life requires the most attention, and shifting that attention to the other aspects of life when its their time to be priotitized.
“Achieving this kind of balance isn’t always easy,” Brady acknowledged. “I haven’t lived up to the standard I just articulated 100% of the time. In reality, few people can. It’s not for lack of desire or lack of trying. It’s not a product of having out-of-whack priorities, either. It’s a matter of focus and energy.”
“Some might argue that, at 48 years old and successful by most metrics, I should be less ambitious,” he continues. “I should dial down my professional priorities and give that energy and focus to all the other priorities in my life. That’s the conventional wisdom about how people should find balance.
“Except I’m not that kind of person. I tend to work on overdrive.
“…The answer to the question of balance for me isn’t to do less. It’s to do as much as possible around whichever priority has my attention, and then to do as much as possible to recharge my social battery so I can do it again with the next, most pressing priority.”
He isn’t sure if he’s doing everything he needs to to find the balance he’s looking for, especially coming off “an epic ten-day, sprint-marathon of a business trip,” but just like Tom Brady the quarterback, he’s committed to the process.
“Finding balance is a process, often more mental than anything else. You have to dream it, plan it, then execute. That’s where success comes.”
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.