Tom Brady was at a professional crossroads at the end of the 2017 season. Following a fall full of drama and excruciating Super Bowl loss, the greatest of all-time questioned whether he would return to the Patriots for another run.
Then he heard about the Chinese farmer.
In this week’s episode of the ESPN+ series, “Man in the Arena,” Brady takes viewers through his sixth and final Super Bowl win with the Patriots. It begins with Brady talking about how the Chinese farmer taught him to place the previous year’s difficulties into perspective, and ultimately move forward.
The parable goes like this: there was an ancient Chinese farmer who had one of his horses run away. But one day later, the horse returned with 10 others. What started as an agricultural tragedy turned into a positive. The farmer now enjoyed an abundance of riches, thanks to his runaway horse.
Later, the farmer’s son falls off one of the horses and breaks his leg. The community originally treats the boy’s injury as catastrophic, but then, Chinese rulers start drafting young boys to go off into war. The boy was unable to serve, because his leg was broken. The farmer’s neighbors change their outlook, and begin to view the boy’s injury as a blessing. But the farmer, who always kept a level outlook, wouldn’t go there. He just said, “maybe.”
The point is, the future will tell us whether our experiences of the past are good or bad. There’s no way of knowing, so you might as well enjoy the moment.
That’s the mindset Brady took into the 2018 season. Though he spent the offseason taking some subtle jabs at Bill Belichick (“I plead the fifth”) and skipped minicamp, he says he started the season with a full tank.
TB12 was ready for another run.
“When I reflect back on things that had happened in previous years, maybe I wouldn’t have appreciated where we’re at had I not been through what I had been through the previous year,” Brady said. “As difficult as it was, to go to the Super Bowl, have a challenging year and lose, that experience gave me a perspective on the moment I was in. I enjoyed that year, I enjoyed those relationships. And I enjoyed the opportunity to compete again in the Super Bowl.”
Despite an uneven regular season — at least by Brady’s standards — the Patriots captured the division and wound up back in the Super Bowl, defeating the high-powered Chiefs in an AFC Championship thriller. Though Brady relied on the serene wisdom of the Chinese farmer, he still enjoyed proving people wrong along the way.
On the way to the Super Bowl, Brady remarked in an interview how "everyone" thinks the Patriots "suck." But there they were.
“That’s all I ever hear: ‘you guys suck, you guys are done. Another year, another failure. Blah, blah, blah,’” Brady said. “It’s nice for me every once in a while to get a subtle shot. Just to make sure people know that I may hear, but in the end it’s not going to affect me, and in the end, you’re wrong again.”
Imagined or not, it’s apparent Brady found his lost motivation. Again, he turned to the Chinese farmer.
“We’re such emotional beings,” he said. “We live in the moment. We’re attached to outcomes, and they don’t go great. We often think, ‘What happened? Who’s to blame?’ Even when good things happen, I think ‘maybe. maybe.’ Because you just don’t know.”
We do know the Patriots defeated the Rams in Super Bowl LIII, capping off the most dominant three-year stretch of their incredible dynasty. Maybe it was over, but Brady sure was going to enjoy the moment.
