The man that has left little doubt that he is the greatest of all time (GOAT) at playing NFL quarterback has literally zero influence in my life.
Why Tom Brady Is Just Another Guy To Me
I’m gonna lead with the long answer and then summarize it with the point of all this reflection at the end.
Deflate Gate
I’m not sure if this controversy came first or later, and it doesn’t matter. If you’re familiar with the story, you know there was controversy about Brady and the New England Patriots playing with deflated balls (footballs that is) which is against the rules.
Whether or not it made a difference in all the winning isn’t up for debate. It is against the rules and he knew it. The claims that he didn’t know it was happening or anything else that excuses this violation are just ignorant positions to take.
It was a bad decision. We all make em. There are consequences.
Strike one.
Spy Gate
I believe this one came later. The Patriots were accused of spying on their opponents sidelines in order to learn their play calling signals. If memory serves me right there was even evidence proving it to be true.
Again, cheating. Breaking the rules. Whatever you want to call it. I don’t believe for a second that Brady and Belichick didn’t know this was going on. I believe they were fully aware and let it happen.
It was a bad decision. We all make em. There are consequences.
Strike two.
Gisele
I don’t know much about the lady. I don’t know much about her marriage to Tom. I know half what we hear in the news can’t be trusted.
I do know a lot about marriage, though. I do know they are now divorced. And I do believe he holds the lion share of the selfishness and blame in this situation.
Don’t get me started on the claims of his current girlfriend status – another beautiful supermodel except this time almost 20yrs younger than us (Tom and I are the same age).
Who knows who this guy will end up with or what he’ll end up doing other than throw a football (b/c he sure as hell can’t run it). But I really no longer care.
Divorcing Gisele was a bad decision. We all make em. There are consequences.
Strike three.
He’s out in my book.
The Thing About Influence
The point of all this is we have to be careful who we allow to have influence in our lives.
I do not care how much ‘success’ someone has.
I do not care how much someone has ‘won’.
I do not care how much money someone has.
I do not care how much fame someone has.
I do not care how much ‘power’ someone thinks they have.
If someone does not have strong character, they are too weak to influence me.
The greatest weakness any of us has is flawed character.
I’ve failed many times. I’ve been knocked down many times. I’ve tried to learn from every experience, and I will never be perfect.
What about redemption? Yes, we all can overcome our failures and strengthen our character. In Brady’s case, we’ll see. But chances are I’ll never know.
Where this really should apply to all our lives is in the more everyday relationships we have.
Who Do We Allow To Influence Us?
Look around you. What do you want for your life? Who has it? I bet no matter what you come up with there’s a deeper root of being loved and respected. Both of which are built on character.
I’m not talking about just any character, though, Godly character – a much bigger subject than what this post is about.
As far as being influenced by people goes, we have to learn to identify the people who not only have what we want for our life, but people who are stronger where we need to be stronger, who know where they are weak, and who are always working on getting better.
Right now, that just is not Tom Brady. His life seems to be hot in the news right now, but I hope people are wise enough to know it is more sad than it is anything else.
Please choose who and what influences your life very wisely.
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