“Let’s say I buy into what you’re saying. You’ve run one of the largest and most profitable companies for many years. How did you manage it all? I find that I have to pull back because it all becomes too much. That was the main reason I sold you my company,” I admitted.
“I didn’t manage it.”
She saw my confusion and smiled.
“David, there’s a difference between being a manager and being a leader. You hire or enlist people to act as managers. Your job is to find them, see that they’re trained, and then to oversee and guide them—without managing them.
“A leader’s job is to look out at the horizon and set the tone and direction of those he or she leads, based on what they see. You turn over the management to others,” Grace said.
My solution had been to wash my hands of it after I turned my business over to others. The part I was missing was the overseeing.
There was an adage out there that fit: trust but verify. I hadn’t been verifying because it seemed like it took up too much time. The reality was that I had people whose judgment I trusted. I needed to at least touch base occasionally to check whether we were on a course to achieve our goals. And I was all about goals.
I shared my thoughts with Grace and told her about my life goals.
“What I can’t figure out is why more people don’t have them,” I said.
“Life goals?” Grace asked, and I nodded. “Most people have learned to manage their own lives and cope with mediocrity. They can’t be bothered with taking the time to plan ahead in more than a haphazard way.”
I raised my eyebrows at that.
“That wasn’t meant in a bad or negative sense. It simply is what it is. Most people have developed ways to accept and cope with the minor insults and failures life has presented them. But very few people can plan for or handle success well.
“You need to accept that you are already successful and embrace that fact. The worst thing you could do is consciously or unconsciously bury your success. You should welcome it,” Grace said.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
She smiled.
“Phyllis actually found this example for me. She said you would relate to Tom Brady.”
“The NFL quarterback?” I asked.
“That’s the one. There are two excellent lessons you can learn from his life,” she said and paused. “If Tom Brady decided to run for office, do you expect he would win?”
“Yeah, no problem,” I said.
People loved him, and he came across as a great guy. I wasn’t sure about his politics, but on name recognition and likeability for his fans, he would be a shoo-in. Now, if he left the state, all bets were off. Around the country, people loved to hate whoever beat their team, and that hate extended to their opponent’s on-the-field leader.
“What if I told you he had three children with two different women?”
“I still think he would win.”
“What if I said he had four with three different women?”
I blinked a few times. She was talking about me.
“Let me come back to that. I want to talk about the first lesson we can learn from Mr. Brady.
“I didn’t know this, but when he was at Michigan, he had stiff competition at quarterback. Phyllis found me an interview he gave about his college days. Mr. Brady was quoted as saying that if he wasn’t good in practice any given week, he didn’t know if he would play on Saturday. He learned early to be prepared.
“When he joined the Patriots in 2000, he was the fourth quarterback on their roster. The next year, he’d worked his way up to being the primary backup. There were six quarterbacks selected before him in the draft the year he came out. Several of them weren’t ready when they finally got their shot to be on the field on Sundays.
“Tom learned from his experience at Michigan and vowed that if he ever got his shot, he would be ready. I expect you would agree that he took his opportunity and ran with it,” Grace said.
“He did all right,” I admitted, if you considered a hall-of-fame-caliber career to be just ‘all right.’
“I’m sure you’re aware of this little lesson because I have it on good authority that no one works harder than you do; that it’s not only your talent and smarts that carry you through. You prepare, and the results show on the field, in a classroom, or in a movie.
“I want to reinforce that you need to continue to do that and not assume you can stop working hard,” Grace said. “Your greatest enemy, other than self-doubt, very likely will be complacency.”
“I got it.”
“Now, to the second lesson you can learn from Mr. Brady. He has worked hard to normalize, for the lack of a better word, how people perceive him. He makes a conscious effort not to make controversial statements or get whacked with a golf club in his driveway. Mr. Brady is the perfect example of what advertisers are looking for if they want a football hero. That’s part of why the Patriots and his fans love him.
