Summary

What are the mindsets, habits and lifestyles of winners? Success leaves clues, and on this episode of The Authentic Dentist, Shawn and Dr. Allison talk about the one and only, the G.O.A.T. Tom Brady!
From starting off as a nobody to winning his 7th Superbowl, Tom focused on key fundamentals which launched him to being one of the greatest players in football history – and he’s still going!
Learn how you can apply the same principles as Tom Brady in order to take your practice to a whole new level!

Full Transcript Below

Shawn: (00:58)
Hey guys, this is Shawn and Allison with the authentic dentist podcast. And I’m excited. I think I’m always excited, but today’s something special because for those of you that don’t know, and I, I imagine nobody knows, I am basically obsessed with Tom Brady and there’s a lot of people that are fans of Tom Brady, and then there’s a lot of haters out there. And if you’re one of those haters, that’s totally fine. But when it comes to a competitor, when it comes to someone that has dialed in the mindset, the habits and the lifestyle to be a winner, I am just an admiration of this man. So right now this is a few weeks after Tom Brady has led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a super bowl which is Tom Brady, seven super bowl win his 10 super bowl appearance. And we’re excited to share from the life of Tom Brady some tidbits and some things that can help dentists just be better, not just, not just win more, but to be better leaders in their practice. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

Allison : (02:14)
So I am not the Tom Brady fan that Shawn is, but of course I watched the super bowl and I was incredibly impressed with this man who is 43, right? He is 43, 43 years old playing in the super bowl. I’m 47. There’s no possibility that I could get hit at all, even when I was 40. So I’m super impressed with this man, but I’m also impressed that how did he just walk onto this team and make it happen? I mean, didn’t you tell me? He was, this team was not anything particularly special before Tom Brady arrived.

Shawn: (02:49)
So that’s, what’s fascinating about this for anyone that knows Tom Brady. He was with the Patriots for either 20 or 21 years. And that was historic. It was a dynasty, you know, went to nine Superbowls one six of them. And then all of a sudden, you know, had some issues where he didn’t feel like they put talent around him. And you know, everyone’s like, well, Tom’s just going to take the hometown discount, not get paid that much and stick with the Patriots because he’s loyal and everything like that. But in the off season, you hear that he is officially going to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And when you think of the Buccaneers, they are literally the losing his franchise in sports history, like baseball, basketball, hockey, football, like the Tampa Bay. You could, some people call them the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Like they were just the worst.

Shawn: (03:40)
Now the interesting thing is they had a lot of talent on their team, a great roster, but they didn’t know how to win. So for example, Mike Evans, he’s one of their best receivers. He was the first receiver to, for seven seasons in a row log, a thousand plus yards every year. He’d never made it to the playoffs. Like he’d never played in a playoff game. So this year when they go to the NFC championship game, they actually have a clip of him. Cause he was miked up walking off the field after the game and someone comes over to him. Mike, there’s actually a celebration. So like, don’t go anywhere. There’s a celebration. Oh really? I didn’t know that. Like I haven’t been here before. He didn’t know there’s a celebration after the game. Cause he’d never even been in the playoffs. So yes, Tom Brady came to a team that was talented. They were really good, but they didn’t know how to win.

Allison : (04:35)
And I’m going to circle that back to dentistry just a little bit. So he left a team that he wasn’t, he’d been with for a long time. But Tom Brady, there’s something special about that when he got recruited, right? He wasn’t that picture of him when he’s, when he’s first recruited, he looks, he doesn’t look like much. He certainly doesn’t look like my guy, creed from, you know, creed to how on earth did he ever become a professional football player? Why, why did they even choose him?

Shawn: (05:08)
So, yeah. So Allison’s referencing the combine picture. If you want to see something crazy type in Tom bright Tom Brady combine, and this is a picture he wished wasn’t on the internet. He would have done anything to make sure no one could ever have seen this again. But thanks to the internet, everyone everyone has seen this and you’re going to see this skinny non-athletic looking individual that doesn’t look like he’s a pro athlete. And yet when you look at the picture, all it was, there was potential. Like he, he wasn’t anything at that time. This was for him to get recruited, to go to the ER, to go to the pros. Like he hadn’t done anything that was significant at that time. And now in hindsight, 22 years later, he’s the greatest quarterback of all time. And you look at that picture and you’re like, yeah. How, how did he do that? So when he got drafted by the Patriots really quick,

Allison : (06:03)
Terrible. When I remember it took him forever to get drafted

Shawn: (06:06)
Next round draft pick, pick one 99, six other quarterbacks get drafted ahead of him.

Allison : (06:11)
So nobody’s betting on this guy. No,

Shawn: (06:12)
One’s betting on him. And yet there he is fourth round or he’s the fourth string at that time. So many of you may not know this. He didn’t actually make the team at that time. He was just drafted, but he still has to make the roster because they go from 70 something to a 53 man roster. So he’s talking to his agent and he’s like, yeah, just get me a place, you know, near the stadium or, you know in the area like, you know, book me a place and this agent’s like, but Tom, you haven’t even made the team yet. And he’s like, Oh, like, don’t worry about it. I’m gonna make the team. So the very first time he sees the owner, Robert Craft, this is Robert Craft story. He’s like, I see this scrawny kid walk up to me and he’s like, Hey, do you know who I am? And he’s like, yeah, you’re a sixth round draft pick. And Tom Brady looked him square in the eye and said, and I’m the best decision this organization’s ever made. And he just remembered being like, who is this kid? Like, it wasn’t an arrogance. It wasn’t a cocky. It was just, he was confident. And he bet on himself and he was going to do anything to prove it, that he was that best. This, that he was that best investment.

Allison : (07:14)
Yeah. I mean, that just blows my mind. And when you tell that story, when I hear it all, I think about it as, Oh, this cocky. Kid’s never gonna make it, you know, because we see these kids all the time, everywhere, dentistry business, they come in and they say, I’m all this and I’m fabulous. And then, you know, they just Peter out, they don’t do anything. So why is it that this guy keeps going? Why is it that he becomes a champion? And then I want to know how did he walk into a brand new team and make them champions? Because I think that’s really the parallel with dentistry. How do you walk in? Cause you can never do this by yourself. I mean, he built himself and then he built another team. How do I do that?

Shawn: (07:55)
So yeah, from the start of it, if you think about like why, what he did in the beginning that is encouraging to dentists is that like, he wasn’t, he didn’t have the best arm strength. He didn’t have the best mobility. Actually. He was like the slowest quarterback in the combine, like history. So here he doesn’t, he wasn’t wowing any Scouts. He didn’t have these tangibles. That just impressed everybody. But it was the intangibles. And, and one of the Scouts even said, like, we couldn’t cut, open his chest and see what was inside. We couldn’t look at his heart and realize, Oh my gosh, this guy has this heart, this drive where he is going to be unrelenting. He is not going to give up. He’s going to bet on himself. And I think that’s, that’s the encouragement straight off like right from the get-go is that he wasn’t waiting on other people to tell him that he was great.

Shawn: (08:50)
He wasn’t waiting on other people to give him permission to be great. And I think a lot of us, I know this is how I feel in business. A lot of times I don’t feel like I’m like, I’m enough. Like, I’m just this amazing talent. I’m just this genius. I have it all figured out. I’m the one that’s supposed to just be great. Like there’s a lot of quarterbacks that go into the league and they’re the first round draft pick. So they think they’re great. And everyone is hailed them. You are like, like Peyton Manning. You’re like the chosen one. Like you are going to be the one that’s just franchise quarterback. You’re a great, and there’s Tom Brady, the six round draft pick like that doesn’t happen. Like no one thought that that he was going to be great. So no one was going to tell him, Hey Tom, you’re great. Like you’re, you’re, you’re amazing. You’re wonderful. He had to insight when he looked in the mirror and when he was alone with himself and when he was practicing and practicing and logging all those hours in those extra hours, he had to inside know like, I’m enough, I’m strong enough. And I’m going to keep going. Like he, he just, he believed. And so I think it started with this self-belief of yeah. Like, no, one’s gonna bet on me. I’m betting on myself.

Allison : (10:00)
And I think that’s a problem in our culture. You know, we kind of tear people down that are that confident because we see them as arrogant. And especially in dentistry, you know, you make a mistake and you just fall into this hole where you’re just worthless, but that’s not the reality of the situation. You have to believe that you are a great, you have to start there with this positive. You can’t let the negatives just keep beating you down and in dentistry, of course, no one’s ever until you’re great. It just doesn’t happen. Your professors will never tell you, your patients might tell you, but they don’t know. So it doesn’t mean anything, but Peyton, Peyton, Tom, Tom Brady. Yeah. Nobody was telling him he was great. And yet he decided he was great. And then you keep talking about the fundamentals. Talk about that.

Shawn: (10:45)
Well, that’s the great thing is that like, he actually wasn’t like, he wasn’t that great. It’s not like he could read a defense that great. It’s not like he could throw a ball and knew every right route and knew the timing like, but he was going to, because of his mindset, he was going to be as great as he could in every single moment he was going to be as prepared as he could. But he was committed to year after year. Just getting better, figuring it out, continuing to go. But just because he wasn’t world-class and the best starting out doesn’t mean he wasn’t going to believe in himself. And I think that’s, what’s fascinating. It’s like anyone that looked at him was like, well, but you’re not that great yet. But he still led them to a super bowl his very first year, because still when the moments counted, he was ready and he was going to bet on himself. So even as dentists, step out into new things, things that they’re a little bit uncomfortable with something that they’re not certain of. It’s like, they can still bet on themselves.

Allison : (11:45)
But that fundamental piece I think is, is truly important. And you know, I’m this huge Rocky fan. I love that, that video of him in Rocky four, where he goes to Russia and he’s training. And I like it because it’s back to the fundamentals. When you talk about Tom Brady, it’s always this fundamental. I mean, the guy is still working on his throw. I don’t know how long he’s been playing football, but really you’re still working on your throat. It seems like you should be doing more, but that fundamental, I’m never going to give up on this. This is so important this piece. And I think sometimes in dentistry, we forget like our bread and butter. Ha why is that crown prep not always fitting? What is it that I can be better? You know, go back to those fundamentals. We all want to place implants and do all this fancy stuff. But being really good at that fundamental makes you good at other things.

Shawn: (12:35)
And, and that’s the thing like with quarterbacks, everyone wants to have those I can throw when I’m out of the pocket and do those really one-armed, you know, everything’s one-armed but like when you’re losing balance and just these like the stuff that makes a highlight reel, and a lot of times when you look at Tom Brady, even if you look at that super bowl, the most of those pros he made weren’t highlight reel throws, but it’s what he’s doing. Pre-Snap reading stuff. His foot work just in the dropping back. People are like, his footwork is so beautiful. Why? Because he’s mastered it. His art, his throwing technique is so perfect that that’s why he’s 43 years old. And he still has a cannon for an arm because most of the time people never lose their arm strength it’s in their legs. So if their legs and their core start giving out, they can’t actually.

Shawn: (13:24)
So when you look at Tom Brady’s mechanism, he’s not throwing it just all arm, he’s using his entire body and his abs and everything to get like torque so that he can effortlessly heave the ball down the field. And this year at the age of 43, he had more airy ARDS than any other quarterback, which means like yards over or attempted throws over 20, 30 yards. And he completed the most of them over any quarterback, like not the young guns that have this, all this arm strength at 43, he completed longer passes than any other quarterback. And it just shows because he has been meticulous about not just caring for himself. Like you said, he has mastered the fundamentals and he doesn’t, he doesn’t just move beyond that. He still stays with footwork technique, you know, reading. Yeah. Just, just the basics. And he’s a master

Allison : (14:13)
The tape. I mean, looking at it and continuing to improve on things that other people are like, Oh yeah, you’ve got that moving on, moving on. No, he keeps focusing on those fundamentals. That’s so important, but you skipped over the, the taking care of yourself. I do think that’s a big piece of us in business and in life. I mean, you can’t be at your best if you don’t take care of yourself. I don’t know how this man is still working at 43 like this, but I know that I have to take care of myself in order to keep working in business. How, how is he doing that? I mean, he’s an extreme, right?

Shawn: (14:44)
So this is you know, so on our, on our next podcast, we’re actually going to talk about like the winning culture and the team aspect. But I think to kind of finish a honing in, on what is it that he has done on his own? Like, how has he take care of himself, man? Not only is everything in his life aligned. So he knows it’s all about like, his vision is so clear with, with legacy, with what he wants in life. So that like, it’s not like it’s weird for him to eat avocado ice cream like that. That’s all part of, it’s all part of it. And what he did is he identified, what is it that normally leads to fatigue or burnout in this sport? It’s the people, all of a sudden, don’t like doing the OTAs. They don’t like doing the it’s off season workouts.

Shawn: (15:34)
They don’t like a man having to watch film and sit in those long double session meetings. They get burned out. So he found a way to look at everything that normally burns people out and actually find joy, like enjoyment in those areas, like talk about, you want to go to the next level in dentistry, everything that normally is a drain that zaps you of energy. Find a way to see how, because it’s aligned with your end goal of being great in dentistry of making a difference of getting that practice of your dreams. When you realize everything that’s in alignment with that, it’s not, it’s no longer a sacrifice. You can actually bring joy into those areas and it can empower you. It can encourage you and you can stay inspired. And that’s what Tom Brady has done. And that’s why his work ethic. I mean, he was the first one in the building last one to leave. He was there in the off season, just doing, going through, doing reps, being in the work being in the weight room. This is when he, you know, he was single of course. And it’s like, he just put in the time he embraced work as a means to getting where he wanted to go. Not trying to find the shortcut. He’s never had a shortcut mentality. He’s literally counted the cost and said, I am going to be all in on this because I will pay the price for greatness.

Allison : (16:59)
So what I hear from Tom Brady, the lesson is you have to build yourself. You have to believe in yourself. You have to have the mindset that you are great. And then you have to put in the work, work on the fundamentals, figure out the joy of life and continue working. Even when you feel like you’ve mastered something, you keep working. And that sounds like the key to being the Tom Brady.

Speaker 1: (17:25)
Thank you for listening to the authentic dentist podcast to join Alison and John on this journey hit the subscribe button to never miss an episode here’s to your success. Express yourself fully live authentic.