At some point you don’t have the experience

This was a statement that Tom Brady, the quarterback for the New England Patriots, made last week in an interview. If you follow football, you know that the New England Patriots are playing in the big game in a few weeks.

What you may not know is that Tom Brady is 37 years old and has played NFL football for 15 years. In football years, a 37 year old playing in the NFL is clearly in the outside realm of age.

When I read the statement in the news it gave me pause because it is a very profound statement. It means there is a time when you are effective at what you are doing, and there is a time when your ability to continue being effective changes. I was reminded of this last week in Miami at a presentation. I was presenting Hotel AG to a group of 15 bankers in a conference room. I was doing what I have always done and about halfway through the presentation, I realized that I was 20-25 years older than everyone else in that room.

I may have thought I was still effective, but that presentation would have been much more effective had I sent one of the young bucks to handle it. I call it the magic years. What I mean is there is a period of time in your life when you are most effective; the real challenge is knowing when that period is still ongoing or that period has passed. I have had clients in the hotel business that were very successful for a period in their life. Some of those same people tried to do it again, thinking they would be as successful as the first time only to find out that the magic has passed.

So, the comment from Tom Brady was really spoken out of wisdom that he was at the end of one career and probably at the beginning of another. I believe the real wisdom is to know and accept changes in our lives and embrace the fact that there is a time to be effective in certain areas of our lives and a time to begin to be effective in others. I think of fatherhood and obviously my role as a father has changed to be more of an encourager, counselor, and helper to my children as compared to the role I played when my daughters were young.

You ask what my point is. The point is to know where you are so you can be as effective as possible without continuing to try and live in the past and on past accomplishments. KT

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