04/10/2026
I’m reposting Tom Brady’s March 24 ‘199’ listserv post. I really like what he’s doing with that and his broadcasting. This post in particular resonates with me.
I’m apparently a pretty smart guy. Testing indicates that, people who have known me have always thought so. No Einstein, but I can figure some things out.
The problem with having the asset of intelligence is that it’s not always an asset. Like anything, I guess, you can come to over, rely on it. A lot of things in life ain’t thinkin’ things. Unfortunately, the last people that get that are off the people who ought to be smart enough to figure it out. [My hand is in the air.]
When you think you can figure out things you can’t because you’re rely on your strongest asset, sometimes you defeat yourself before you really get started. Small defeats causes you to conclude that you’re pursuing the wrong path.
It took me a lot of living to figure this out the hard way. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard it captured as lucidly as in this post.
The reason I’m posting it here is because it’s pretty simple to think that something like a felony conviction or far worse – lifetime offender registration - means you might as well give up because you’re probably not going find a path forward anyone would want other than ‘in the life.’
Yet, after 16 years of doing this, some of the most successful people I have known have been former clients. I am always proud to say, ‘Yeah, I used to work for them!’ and that’s the way I say it. Although at the time I would’ve said, I ‘represented them.’
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It’s very common to look back at things you’ve accomplished and wonder how you did it. If you’re honest with yourself, it’s hard to deny that if you knew exactly how hard it was going to be when you started, you might not have done it. Starting a business, moving to a new city, making a movie or writing a book—there are so many things in this life that can feel impossible until you’ve done them.
In many ways, this awareness is a product of maturity. Of being able to see things from other people’s perspectives and to learn from their experiences. When I was drafted 199 by the Patriots as a 22-year-old, I had no idea how hard it can be for a late round draft pick to make a team let alone start for one. But now, as a 48-year-old, with 25 years of experience in and around the game, I have a deep understanding of how unlikely, and seemingly daunting, my path was.
The truth in this mature point of view speaks indirectly to the freedom that comes with seeing the world only through our own eyes, which is the only way we can see things when we’re young. That isn’t to say that we do whatever we want. The part of the brain that controls decision-making and impulse control doesn’t fully mature until we’re 25 years old, so it’s a good thing we are taught from an early age to take orders and instruction from elders…we just don’t know why at that stage. We don’t know what we don’t know. While we may do what others tell us to do, we experience those moments through an unfiltered lens that allows us to build our own perspective and interpret the world around us as the context for our unique lives.
The beautiful part of this process is that the gap between our experience and our knowledge is filled by belief and faith. We believe in so many things when we’re young—not least of all, in ourselves. When your kid tells you they want to be an astronaut when they grow up, they believe it, in part because they don’t know any better. They don’t know all the different reasons why something like becoming an astronaut is insanely hard. Many of those difficulties don’t even appear on our radar screen when we’re young unless someone makes us aware of them (a nervous parent, a jealous hater, a rival, etc.). This blissful ignorance is what gives us the space to dream.
If you have a passion for something, if you have some ability, and if you have a defined goal, the power of naïveté is that it wipes out everything between the start line and the finish line. You see the beginning and you see the end. The twists and turns and pitfalls on the path to great achievement don’t appear on your mental map. Instead, what fills the gap is desire, effort, persistence and sacrifice, which are the qualities you need in order to be the kind of person who can figure things out.
‘Willful naivete’, let’s call it, is a mindset I think more people should actively embrace and try to cultivate. If you want to climb Mount Everest, for example, where is the value in knowing how many people have died on the mountain, or how long it can take? Is there usable information in the answers to those questions? Sure. If this is your first time going up the mountain, is it more valuable or encouraging than your desire to reach the top, your preparation, your resilience, your effort? I don’t think so.
Putting one foot in front of the other is much more important than trying to figure out everybody else’s footsteps.
— Tom Brady, 199, March 24, 2026
