When I look at stories of people who have done well and made a difference in the world, many times when you look at their beginnings, the experts didn’t believe they had what it takes.

Many people that made it in business, art, inventions, pastors, sales or sports did not have people that believed in them and in most cases, even the experts in their field gave them a low probability of succeeding.

While there are many stories to choose from, I want to talk about Tom Brady, the quarterback for the New England Patriots. In the 2000 NFL draft, Tom Brady’s draft number was 199. He was the 33^rd pick in the 6th round. Just to put this in perspective, let’s say you are in school again and out on the playground where two captains are picking the teams and you stand waiting and then stand waiting some more until all the good players are picked ahead of you. When we were in school, we all have probably been in that school yard or playground situation where we were not picked first and the more names that were called ahead of yours, the more degraded and worst you felt.

So, Tom Brady listened as 198 players were called ahead of him. The following is the true draft report on Tom Brady written by the NFL experts.

Poor Build, Skinny, lacks great physical stature and strength, lacks mobility and ability to avoid the rush, lacks a strong arm, can’t drive the ball downfield, does not throw a tight spiral, system-type player who can get exposed if forced to ad-lib and finally – gets knocked down easily. That is verbatim what the experts wrote about Tom Brady.

Fast forward to today. He has won five super bowls which is more than any other quarterback in history and he is also one of the oldest (40 years old) quarterbacks to still play the game and is recognized today as the best football player of all time.

So, the experts get it wrong many times. The thing about Tom Brady that none of the experts noticed was the strength of his mind and his will to win. I guess it could be said that the way we look on the outside and our lack of talent really doesn’t matter. It’s what’s on the inside that determines our life and what we can accomplish.

Let me say that one last time. It could be said that the way we look on the outside and our lack of talent really doesn’t matter. It’s what’s on the inside that determines our life and what we can accomplish. KT