All-time great American football quarterback Tom Brady and sportscaster Jim Gray recently invited Sadhguru on their weekly SiriusXM Radio Show, Let’s Go. Find out Tom’s recipe for success in sports and in life, what his fundamental goal beyond sport is, and which fresh perspectives Sadhguru brings to the table.
Tom Brady: It’s a great privilege for me to have a friend of mine, Sadhguru, come on and talk about the life-set that I’m going through. You know, I’ve gotten a little bit older and I’m still playing a really intense physical sport. I’m so attached to my physical body, how it feels, what I need to do in order to get it prepared every day for my particular career; the mental aspects of my job, knowing what I need to do, and how I need to accomplish those things. But what I enjoy about you, Sadhguru, is the emotional balance in your life, and how you have so many amazing perspectives. I think you’re an incredible communicator of some really difficult subjects.
Sadhguru: I’m talking only one subject – life – nothing else. [Laughs]
Tom Brady: Absolutely right. I think ninety-nine percent of people go in one direction, and you always seem to have an amazing perspective on the other direction. So much has happened all over this world in the last year and a half, and you seem to find the right perspective in dealing with those situations. And I think there’s an incredible humanity to you, and an amazing resolve.
Sadhguru: Thank you for having me, Jim and Tom.
Jim Gray: Sadhguru, so much is attached to outcomes in life and in sports, and not being able to achieve your goals. So, when you physically have exhausted yourself, and there’s mental disappointment, how do you deal with it?
Sadhguru: You’re essentially asking, “When to quit?” I think usually the situations themselves clearly speak to you, when to quit. Today, we are too committed to the goals. What is most important is the process. Being devoted to the process of what you’re doing right now is most important.
If you’re absolutely devoted to the process, you will do it to the best of your ability. You cannot determine how the opposition will play; you cannot determine whether someone is better or less than us. The only thing you can make sure is you are at your best. For this to happen, you have to be devoted to the process, not to the goal.
Tom Brady: I think, Sadhguru, an amazing part about that is, when I look at my career of 22 years, the winning is a byproduct of the journey and the process of trying to accomplish the goal.
Refining the process is ultimately what’s important and getting a good process not only for a football team but for what makes a family or a company or successful business. And I think the curiosity, learning, humility, discipline, and commitment to each other, and caring about one another allows for expansion and synergy between groups of people.
I think in teams that don’t go well, people are concerned about themselves. I feel that in sports, in families, or in business, if you care about the people, and you care about what our mission is, you make for a great teammate. If you don’t, you’re a lousy teammate because all you really do is care about yourself. And I don’t know too many aspects of life where when you care about yourself things go well over a period of time.
I’ve realized my dreams in this sport and career; I have other dreams beyond football. I feel if you want to maximize your potential, you got to know how to take care of your physical body. And emotionally, you have to get yourself to a very great place, and great is different for everybody. For myself, I know what that means.
Quarterback Tom Brady attempting a pass for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Sadhguru: We may have great competence, great capabilities, may be super intelligent, but all these things will work against us if we do not have the necessary equanimity or balance – above all balance. Once you have balance and equanimity within you, your physical, mental, emotional, whatever capabilities find full expression. Without balance, so much of human creativity, capability, and competence is going to waste, creating trouble for ourselves and everyone around us.
Jim Gray: What does inner balance mean to you, Sadhguru?
Sadhguru: Inner balance will only happen when you determine what your thoughts and emotions will be. Someone could say pretty things to you or abuse you, but will that decide what happens within you? You can never determine 100% what happens around you, even when you’re with your family.
Tom Brady: I don’t. It’s okay because the one who has 51% is pretty good, so I allow her to make all the decisions.
Sadhguru: What is around us never happens 100% our way, but what is within us – our thought, our emotion, our body, and our energies – must happen the way we want it. People are always thinking external situations will create the inner situations. No, all human experiences are generated from within us. To be peaceful, joyful, loving, and blissful are all experiences within the human being. If we take charge of the seat of our experience, then what we want is happening within us.
Tom Brady: If I look at my career, there’s not anyone that’s played my position at my age, and I think the only way that I’ve been able to do that is to do things very differently. When I looked at all my idols when I was younger and I saw how they were in the later parts of their life, their bodies were in tough shape because what we do is very physical.
It’s my belief that people really want to work on being healthy and allowing their body to maximize its potential, except they’re not doing the right things, and a lot of the techniques about how to take care of my physical body that were given to me when I was younger were wrong. All the authority figures, the doctors and physicians, were giving the wrong advice. Had I listened to that, it would never have allowed me to be 44 and continue to play.
Sadhguru: When people give advice, you must always look at them, has it worked for them?
Sadhguru outside the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida
Tom Brady: I know, and I think sometimes we’re just repeating behaviors. When I see someone like you, you don’t repeat behaviors – you have a consciousness about you. Whether it’s planting trees or making people aware of soil regeneration, you’re tasked with a big goal, and nothing keeps you from trying to achieve it.
I have my own personal goal of trying to teach and educate people on how to treat their physical bodies in the best possible way, in order to allow it to reach the best potential in whatever they want to do in their life. Because I feel like if I don’t do it, it’ll go away.
And I think that’s why I gain so much inspiration from you. You do such a great job of communicating, whether you’re speaking at big conventions or to people that you probably talk to on a daily basis. You’re just an amazing person.
Tom Brady: Well, Sadhguru, I have one last question, and this is really important to me. As a mystic and a visionary, do you see my team winning the Super Bowl this year?
Sadhguru: [Laughs] Look at this guy.
Tom Brady: Just kidding.
Sadhguru: I’m many things in life, but I’m not a match fixer. [Laughter] I’m going to be there to watch your game. My best is with you, but I won’t fix the match. That wouldn’t be nice.
Tom Brady: Well, thank you so much. We really look forward to seeing you there.
Sadhguru: On that day, you have to play your best because I’m going to be there.
Tom Brady: I will do it. I won’t let you down.
