Tom Brady was speaking to some 200 CEOs, telling them how he became football’s greatest quarterback of all time. He was at the recent Fortune Global Forum in New York City, but he made only fleeting connections between his career and the CEOs’ jobs. That was clearly fine with the CEOs. He’s a football god with a great story to tell, and just hearing it was a thrill.
Still, let’s hope the CEOs listened carefully. Whether they knew it or not, Brady’s story of a football career was a detailed tutorial on great performance at a CEO’s job. Decades of research have produced a prescription for excellent performance in any domain, and Brady’s life-long football experience matched that prescription exactly. While everyone’s story is unique, the factors that built Brady’s skills over several years are not. Research has shown that those same factors are the key to world-class performance broadly. It isn’t quick or easy; there is no magic. But what worked for Brady really does work for all of us in all we do.
