Welcome, welcome, welcome terror expert DAX Shepard, I'm joined by Monster Mouse. This feels like deja vu. How so? Because we've already put out this episode once before.

This is our first time ever rereleasing an episode.

Yeah, but we had the idea to do it without ads just because the Eastern Conference final game was just so impressive.

It's so impressive what Tom Brady did this season, the fact that he left the Patriots and he went to a team that had not been to the Super Bowl in a long, long time and threw his will man who's taken them there?

Oh, my God. The guy is going again.

It's and it's really I keep telling people, even if you're not into sports, this is one of the sports stories that you'll be watching, a 30 for 30 about in 10 years. Like, it's just miraculous. I want to add a couple of things to this one. This will be his twenty first year in. Well, he was the oldest player out there, which is exciting, too. This is twenty first season.

This will be his tenth trip to the Super Bowl, which means his percentage is like a high forty eight or so. That's why I saw Mehmet said his odds of making it to the Super Bowl are greater than Steph Curry making a three pointer, which is the greatest three point shooter of all time.

Another thing to think about, there's only been fifty four Super Bowls, I think, and the fact that Brady's been in ten of them now, he's he's almost been in twenty five percent of the Super Bowls.

It's an upsurge.

So I just let that set in and he looks like how we look. Oh my God.

He posted a little video of him and Gronk getting on the airplane after the game. If you watched it now. Oh, my. I'm going to show it to you right now.

Q This is a stupid smile and it's a repeat from last year they did it to.

Oh that's fun to call them getting on the bus. Yeah, it's always him and Grong smiling.

Q Who's Grof? Gronkowski is his tight end, who has been on all the Patriot teams with them and he came down.

Oh we did him. Yeah. He was retired and Tom said, you're not retiring. We're going. Really. Yeah. And now they're both going to the Super Bowl again.

Do you think Grong is part of his Gronk. Oh, do you think Gronk is part of his magic? Yeah. We got to give him a little credit. Right.

People love Gronkowski. He's a beast and he is one a bunch of Super Bowl rings. He's very young.

I think he retired at thirty one or something. Oh, and then again, Brady said, no, no, we're going to do that little walk again on to the airplane next year.

Oh well we cut out the ads but we put in twelve minutes of preamble.

But please enjoy uninterrupted conversation with the goat. The greatest of all time. Tom Brady. He's no chance.

Yeah, what's up, man, there is so Fisher, you got a studio I just have like a microphone. I don't know whether it's working or not.

There is nothing more fun than watching people like you or Bill Gates try to operate their computer. It's one of the funnest parts of this job I've had.

Were you guys that we are in an attic that's above a garage at a house we're building that I don't think will ever be done. I think we're at year three of it. So it's really just a very expensive garage at this point.

So typical. That's a good typical construction process.

Yes, yes. Yes. And it doesn't matter how many times you go through it, you still are shocked with how long and how much it goes over budget each time.

I know. I know over budget the duration. We had a house in Boston. I swear to God, it cost twice as we were one hundred percent over budget. One hundred percent.

Oh yeah. That's that seems to be the standard.

No, I know I came out of football season and they showed me the budget and I was like, what the fuck is this?

It was pretty rough.

Did you have real jobs as a kid? Like, were you forced to do some manual labor?

I had a couple of really great jobs my first year where I was actually talk about this. My first job was a paper route.

Did you ever have paper out?

I did not. I did not. I was in Michigan, so I shoveled driveways. I was kind of the equivalent. That's a good job.

That's manual labor. But in elementary school and then started high school, I had a paper route and I made, I think twenty five bucks a month.

And I was actually talking about that with one of my coaches yesterday because we were talking about our first jobs and I think it was my job and my mom's job too, because she would drive me around and I would throw the papers out of the side of the car. Maybe it helped me a little bit. I didn't realize it was maybe a career training, but it ended up being, you know, pretty. Yeah, yeah. I've work on that arm.

So my big barriers were yeah. My mom was single mom raising three kids and full time jobs. She was not going to fucking drive me around. So I was like, oh, this is going to work. Everyone I know with a paper route, really it's their moms paper route, as you say.

Yeah. We had like a like one of those van against where the side door slid open so she can I could literally like ride like sidecar and then like fire them on it and over the top of the car to like get to the other side of the street. In high school, I didn't do as much because I was playing a lot of sports in college. I worked it like cleaning industrial manufacturing plants in Michigan, Bloomfield Hills, literally ten.

Oh, I was scrubbing the ceilings of this. I paint. Oh, my God. And I kept thinking that they like my shoulders were done, my elbows. And I was like, this is the worst job I've ever had ever imagine.

Yeah. I'm really delighted that you spent some time in Michigan. That's where I'm from. So I was delighted to learn that you set up camp there in Ann Arbor. Yeah. Did you enjoy that? And you can be honest, I'll cut it out. If it's if it's totally derogatory, I'll cut it out.

So it looks like we switched places. I was in California then went to Ann Arbor and I think it was a long way from home. I think I needed to go away from home. I needed to grow up because I was kind of a California kid. I had three sisters. I was a baby. So you could imagine I was probably a little bit soft.

Yeah. And then go on to Michigan, go to the Midwest, you know, go to school. You feel like you're totally outsider cause I didn't even own a winter coat. My roommate Packrat is he like gave me my first jacket, you know, and I was like, what do I need this for?

A man who it's ten degrees in the middle of January and I'm like, fuck this. Yeah.

You must have looked around and thought, why on earth would anyone live here? Right. When I return home, I think, oh, they must just have not ever gone to California. They just don't know that you don't have to be miserable eight months of the year.

You know what, that's exactly what you think, because in California, you grew up and you're like every day is great. Like every day's the weather's great. It doesn't rain much where it's not humid outdoor activities.

You go hiking, you bike, you go view of the beach, we go to three hours to Tahoe, we go skiing, you know, and it was like your whole world existed in California.

And then going away to school, you know, you have like four months of good weather. And then to you, that's OK. Sucking it up in college. It's not that big a deal.

But when you think about kids, right, you have kids. And I always think about, oh, my God, if I was in my house for eight months of the year, gray skies, you know, it's a beating. Yeah.

It has its challenges, I think, for the kids. But you know what? Kids are so resilient. Like my kids they've been in Boston for. So my daughter's seven, my middle son's ten, and my oldest is 13. But my ten and seven and being in Boston, born there. And then we came to Florida for the last five months and my daughter's like, daddy, like, what are we going to do for Christmas?

There's no one to do for Halloween. Is there Halloween in Tampa?

You know, and then she keeps saying, yeah, every time we eat, we eat out right out here outside and it's like eighty five degrees.

She won't eat outside with us. She goes out to the house. So she's like, Daddy, I not like this hot all the time, but.

I like yeah, I like it hot every day now, I'm never going back to a cold weather. I've had twenty five years of it.

When you were playing for the Patriots when your off season, would you guys return to California or where would you go? Would you stay there?

Yeah, a little bit before I met my wife, I traveled quite a bit.

She lived in New York so I'd say from about two thousand when I went to Boston, twenty twenty six, I would travel kind of around the country. You know, I was my mid twenties. So there's kind of always something to do. Two days here, three days here. And then 2007, my son was born and we spent the off seasons then in California because that's where he was living at the time. So. Oh, right. That makes sense to reconnect that I was in Brentwood.

That was pretty, pretty beautiful.

Well, because what I was wondering is I have a couple of different friends who are either they're English and then now they have children here and their kids are American, which I think would be so weird or vice versa. Right there. They moved to England and they have these English speaking kids or with the accent. And I think, well, it must be such a bizarre feeling to have your offspring that really mirror how you are. And is it wild to think that your kids are Californians in some weird way?

Because I'm wrestling with the idea that my girls are growing up in California and I'm thinking, where will they even aspire to move to? Like in Michigan? I was like, well, that's obvious. I got to get to California, but I don't know where the fuck they're supposed to go.

They should go.

They're here nowhere, whether they should stay a very high tax rate and the traffic and a few other inconveniences. But for the most part, it's pretty good. I think the trickier thing for my wife is, you know, think about she's Brazilian. So kids that were Americans that speak, you know, my daughter's, you know, speaks both languages pretty well. My son, I think, hears it from his mom. But that doesn't necessarily always want to communicate it back.

But he's, you know, getting it. So it's probably low stranger for her. For me, I think I've been so removed from California and our kids have had a lot of different experiences, you know, just being in the northeast now we're in the southeast. You know, they travel to South America. You know, we've home in Costa Rica for a long time. They're there. So I took my son to China two or three years ago, so.

Oh, no kidding. What do you think of that?

You know what? It was a great trip for a dad and a son at about ten years old. I mean, it's it's pretty, pretty amazing just to be together. Like, I had a couple of those trips when I was young with my dad. You know, it's probably more special for me than him, but hopefully he'll remember if I was pretty sweet. I try to do that once every year.

I try to take one of the two somewhere just with one of them. And yeah, man, it is so special to just be a little team and you're in a hotel room together and you're making your decisions together. It's so fun, isn't it?

Yeah. You know, the one on one time is like from my standpoint, you know, I meet so many people, it's, you know, and they see me as someone different than probably who I feel like I am. My kids see me as dad. So then when you're one on one, are you just doing dad things? And, you know, when you have one on one and I say these things and it's just, you know, kind of makes your week or year or month or, you know, there's some really great moments, I'll even feel guilty because at the end, like day five of those trips, we get along so well.

And I think, oh, shit, if I dedicated this much one on one connection, this would be how they'd act like when they're acting shitty. It's probably just a response to wanting more of my time that I don't have.

Yeah, I know. What kind of parents did you have? You're from San Mateo.

Yeah, but just in Northern California, just about twenty miles south of San Francisco and San Mateo, my parents were, you know, just so supportive of me growing up. Everything I did, like I said, I had three sisters. So we had a very sports centric family. My sisters were all into playing softball and basketball, soccer. So a lot of my childhood was like it. Sports fields, you know, just at that go to their softball games at six o'clock at night and then going to roundtable pizza and having dinner with the whole team and then going home and then just thinking it was a great life growing up.

But life is so different for us because we existed just in the community that we lived in. You know, we didn't travel the way that my kids would travel. Now we just our life existed in San Mateo. And if we wanted to go on vacation, we'd go to Santa Cruz or we drive in the car to Pine Mountain Lake, which was two hours away, or we'd go to Tahoe once. You know, once you're in a winter for as a three hour drive for our car made it up that hill, you know, to to get a beating.

Yeah, yeah. That ninety or eighty or whatever the hell that is.

Thirty years ago there wasn't the same kind of four wheel drive. So yeah. Yeah. It's just you know, it was a great, just a great nurturing environment for me.

It was mom or dad an athlete or both. Yeah.

They were both very good athletes. My dad was drafted to be a professional baseball player. No, she ended up going to want to be a priest. He went to the to the seminary in Chicago.

Yeah. What that's left here. He became a priest. He didn't.

So he was in school. And then the story he always tells me was his friend. His bunkmate was listening. To a transistor radio of a baseball game, World Series game and got caught by one of the priests.

Gotten a lot of trouble and at one point he was kind of like and then he realized he wanted to, you know, have a wife and have kids and have sex.

Yeah. Yeah. Are you going to say he was at seminary and he got horny? No, no. But I'm sure he did, actually. But he didn't actually tell me that. I don't know about thought. Right.

Do you remember meeting me and I don't say this to trap you. This is not a test. But do you remember meeting me because it was very memorable for me to say to you.

No, no. I need you to help me out.

OK, I'm going to paint the picture for you. I was at the Met gala, which I had turned down, going to like 10 times. My wife always wanted me to go. It's not my scene. I go and you're in front of me. Were in line like entering the facility. And I don't know it's you yet. I just know that there's a guy in front of me that's considerably larger than me. And I put my hand on your shoulder again and I didn't know it was you.

And I whispered in your ear, Sir, I'm generally the tallest at these events, so I'm going to have to ask you to leave. And then you turned around and it was fucking you. And then you laughed, which made my night. And yeah, that's the one time we met. That's awesome. I remember.

Yeah, I actually got there. I thought it was I thought it was a really memorable line, that's all.

Are you. He's a fucking beast. Monica. What how how many. Six, five, six, five. You're close though when you see this next.

I'm like six, two and a half. Almost six. Three, almost six to some days.

Six, four. You must get that when people meet you in real life I think because you're surrounded by enormous phenomics physically. Yeah. I assume you're my height and then I see you in person and you're a Goliath. You're like, have you ever met Vince Vaughn? No, I don't think I have. Is he Goliath?

He's a fucking John. Yeah. And I think when people see him, they're like, oh, my goodness, I can't tell in movies, but this guy is a giant.

You're right. I'm around these big guys all the time. So, you know, for me, like when I see, like, Rob Gronkowski, I'm like, damn, that guy's a beast.

Yeah. Yeah. So anything less than that, I'm always like, oh yeah.

It just kind of, you know, normal height, you know. But, you know, when you're tall, you never think about being tall until you're looking up at someone, which is a very rare experience. Right for you.

It's not often that I have to like crane my neck to lock eyes with somebody, but with you I was really at about forty percent craned. Yeah.

To hold your gaze. That's about right. I know I have that experience at my work. Yeah. I think we were saying that other day. Being tall is very good when you're standing. Not very good when you're sitting you know. Oh yeah. My posture.

Cars, airplanes, you know seats all day so it has its advantages. OK, so you grew up in San Mateo and I guess I didn't know this until today until I was learning about you. But you also played baseball in you were you were drafted. You actually were drafted for Major League Baseball.

Yeah, I was pretty good baseball player in high school and football where I grew up wasn't, you know, in northern California outside of, I'd say like De la Soul, who had a great football program, or we're not a great football programs in North Cal. So it's probably more known for baseball. And I went to a school that was just right down the street from my house and high school, and I was always pretty good. One of the trips that I took with my dad when I was younger, when I was twelve for baseball, I went to Japan with him for a goodwill baseball exchange.

So which was really cool. And it was the first time I'd ever seen my dad drunk. He wasn't drunk and horny. He was just drunk. Well, we don't know.

I'm sure he was quite horny. He probably just kept that under wraps. So we so we were there together and at twelve. But baseball was kind of what I did. And then I got to in high school, I still played both sports, but really just fell in love with playing football. And the 49ers were great. When I was growing up in the 90s, they had a great football team. So that's kind of my most influential years, I would say, as an athlete was around football and then still play a lot of baseball.

And when I got a chance to kind of play team sports and play football, it wasn't till my freshman year in high school and then I just kind of fell in love with football and then really wanted to focus my time and energy on that. Oh, so hold on.

I guess this is news to me. You had not played football till ninth grade.

Yeah, nothing organized. Just, you know, flag football in the street and stuff, but nothing but no.

Like Pop Warner or any of that stuff, which was a trip. Because when you get your first day of practice and everyone starts like putting all their pads on and puts their pads, our pads, I'm like, I'm looking over at them, like, how do I put these in my pants?

Like, I don't know. And, you know, it was it was pretty unique, you know, not to have any experience at night. Other kids who were on my team that had played, you know, Pop Warner and so forth, and they were just so far advanced. And, yeah, I was so far behind them physically. You know, I probably was a late bloomer anyway. But in terms of playing for. I definitely didn't know the game other than what I watched and then I was had a pretty good arm, but everyone was always certainly my first year was a lot better than me.

I didn't play my first year. So I was a backup quarterback my freshman year and we had a freshman team. There were three teams. We were on eight.

So we lost every game we played and they still didn't think I was good enough to play a game that I was looking up at everybody, you know, thinking, oh, I still love playing because it was a great team sport and got a shot my second year to play.

Were you a pitcher when you played baseball? I played pitcher.

I was. I really like being a catcher because you're kind of in control as a catcher. Pitcher is great. But, you know, it actually was very taxing on my arm, my arm when I would play pitcher and I wasn't a great pitcher. And, you know, like just the baseball and how you throw a baseball. I was a really good hitter and a decent fielder, but not a great pitcher.

I would be nervous for you playing catcher at your height. I mean, your knees. I would worry about your knees.

That hurt a lot. So that was a thing. Ironically, baseball, I always thought, took more of a toll on me than football has, you know, I mean, plenty of football. But I think back to my high school days and like, I would ice my knees after every game. I would ice my elbow after every game was constantly aching, you know, and again, I don't know a ton about sports, but they do say, right.

Throwing a baseball is a very unnatural it's not like your your arms not really designed to move in the manner by which you must use it in baseball.

Yeah, I think we were meant to be over handed athletes for sure, throwing baseballs, throwing a football star in Java and things like that. There's definitely, I would say, more stress on your arm just because the velocities at which you throw a baseball, you can throw baseball harder. So if you throw it harder, there's more force and talk on the different ligaments, tendons in your elbow and shoulder, your muscles probably a little easier, get strained because you're moving much faster speeds.

We still throw really hard in football, but if I throw a really hard football, it's probably sixty two miles an hour. They're throwing in two miles an hour.

Yeah, that's bonkers. It doesn't even seem like you're going to even make your arm move at one hundred miles an hour, much less something leaving your arm.

Yeah, there's just ends up being a lot of force on your arm and I felt that when I was playing baseball and I just as I played football is still a little bit, you know, just kind of maturing and growing. But it was less taxing on my body to play football than it was to play baseball. Now, back to your size.

When did you become this enormous human being? What age range? Ginormous is like six, eight. I'm six foot. No, listen, you're again, you're talking you're totally misled because of your peers and your colleagues and your coworkers, but you're a phenomenally large human being. So when did you come into this?

I probably had a growth spurt my freshman year and then again, probably my later and my sophomore year. And then by my junior year, I was about the same height, about six, four, maybe a little more skinny as shit. You know, I was kind of like the typical American kid. I would say, like I would never give my kids what I ate when we were little.

I mean, I was I look at pictures and I just, you know, I was just chunky little kid that would like drink root beer floats and eat.

All I ever wanted to eat was bacon cheeseburgers as a kid. And, you know, it reflected in my shape of my body.

And and it finally I got to high school and like, I would eat terrible food, you know, a big muffin with butter in the morning with hot chocolate thing. And I was breakfast and get to school with two donuts.

Then at lunch at like this break, you'd have a hot dog like a fifty cent hot dog. And then at lunch you would be like a clam chowder and a bread bowl. I mean, you got food, you know, and then I would get home and I'd have like nachos with like tub of cheese.

And then and then my mom would like, you know, try to make some good for us at night.

But, you know, it's kind of how you grew up.

It was like cereal or you know, it's so funny you say that yesterday I was at 7-Eleven and this guy next to me ordered a slice of pizza from 7-Eleven. Right. And I said he had a mask on as we all had masks on. So I couldn't really tell. And then I said, hey, do you mind me asking how old you are?

And the guy goes, twenty. And I'm like, OK, that makes perfect sense. And he goes, What do you mean? And I go, Well, in my twenties, I ate probably 10 to 14 hot dogs a week from seven o'clock because they were two for a dollar. Yeah, I'm like, but if I won now I'm out for the day.

I feel horrendous the next day. I'm so sensitive now. I know. But in your twenties you can just shovel that garbage right in there and you don't even know, you don't even know it.

You don't even care. In college we would get these, we call them pizza cards. The football team had a deal with like Subway and we had a place in an arbor called the Cottaging. And then we go to Subway and how it eat like eighteen inches of sandwich of Meatball.

And if I went healthy, I was going only one slice of cheese all the way across instead of two slices.

Yes, it's right now. And I'm like, I don't know, I did it.

But you felt great, right? That's the thing that's so annoying is now like I'm 16 years sober. I eat pretty damn good. I eat the tiniest thing. And I like I literally feel it like I'm hungover. But back then, man, I was. I was. Drunk and smoking cigarettes and eating 7-Eleven hotdogs felt like a million dollars. Yeah, I think we did. I think there might be a little different because I didn't I didn't always feel great.

You know, I was a kid. So I was obviously, you know, bouncing off walls because, you know, the responsibilities, that thing that gets you, it's like, you know, and see your responsibilities starts the mental fatigue of responsibility weighs on your life, which probably makes you feel worse than the food you eat.

So, yeah, a lot of it is probably placebo, like I feel naughties. So then I feel Nordea afterwards.

Yeah, I'm curious. So let me just start with a couple of things. I don't follow sports all that much, but I follow the Patriots. Yeah, I fucking love you. I talk about you so frequently. You would scare you how often you come up. Thank you. It's not just the skill level on the field, which is unbelievable. But again, seeing you in real life, I find it absolutely perplexing that had you not chosen football, you could have probably been a supermodel, right, Monica?

Sure. It's it's it's it's unfair. You're so good looking. And I just find that to be so curious in the same way that I think it's interesting that, like Kobe and Michael Jordan are also gorgeous.

Like, that's a lot of good fortune.

Yeah, definitely a lot of good fortune. Thank you. I do the same thing. You got me speechless. Yeah. Huh. Yeah. I'm going to get you on the run today. You are. But there's a real question behind that is confident.

Have you. Oh yes. Yeah. But I was going to say is is is you look at some of these like really Joe Montana. That was your guy. You love Joe Montana. Yeah.

It's suspicious that some of these greats were also like, really good looking. And I feel like it has to play some role.

Does it play a role in the confidence? I I think even in that movie Moneyball, those guys sitting around the room, they're talking well, he's a beautiful kid. Let's get him. He's confident. Like that's been a part of the rationale, hasn't it?

Yeah, a little bit. I mean, I think that over time for me, I've tried to improve my habits, you know, and I think that's helped with maintaining a healthy body physique, you know, skin, you know, Oregon, everything, you know.

And I think if you just want to I always say, like, you know, it's one body we have.

You know, you either have a fundamental belief that you believe what you put into your body matters or it doesn't matter. And if it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. So, you know, that's a choice people make. If you believe that it does matter, then you've got to believe that the more good things you do, the better you know. And I think for me, when I think about when I was a kid, you know, I would never have developed into the athlete that I am.

Let's say at forty three years old today, had I not made substantial changes and differences in how I approached my life, eating, sleeping, I would drink when I was in college three nights a week and then go via sports and then, you know, wonder why you didn't have great gains in the weight room or didn't have great gains on the field. And then all of a sudden I said, try and sound a little bit to maybe drink less.

OK, great. And then it was like, drink a little less, sleep a little more. And then it was like, OK, do that and work out a little bit. Oh, let me just change my diet a little bit. OK, great. Let's start adding electrolytes to what I'm doing.

Oh let me try some supplements, some vitamin D, some vitamin C and then it wasn't like everything at one time. It's just but if I look at my body, I actually posted a picture on my Instagram, two thousand one with me and I look at myself and I look like a different person, you know, and it's it's a twenty years time has changed.

A lot has changed. But I look from this kid that I was, which was underdeveloped, you know, poor diet, you know, poor hydration. And then now it's like I think about those things. Are there really a purposeful part of my day? I prioritize my health because, you know, my health has been important to my career, you know, and that's important. Your career, it's not like, hey, I have a job, but also I train.

It's like this. This is my job. Yeah. I'm very fortunate to be able to dedicate the time and energy to it, but I've seen the transformation it's made.

And then now my hope is like I wish everyone would be able to experience what it feels like to not, you know, be in pain every day to not be overcoming something at all time.

Yeah, for sure. And it's just. Yeah, because it's quality of life. You know, we have all these lives and we have one life. And, you know, I have guys have started playing with me when they were the same age.

I had coaches that are younger than me, you know, that are on the field. And I look at them and they don't move well, you know, and it's like I'm sitting here playing a really demanding sport and there's a lot of discipline that goes into making those decisions that allow that to happen. But what I want to represent as I move forward is like, hey, guys, I was the typical kid. Actually, I wasn't like, yeah, born like Michael Jordan.

I wasn't born with, like, LeBron, like LeBron. I admire Jordan. I mean, I love LeBron. But like, you know, he's also a phenom.

Yeah. You know, Tiger Woods and, you know, some of these phenoms are you know, they're incredible talents. Let's say Michael Jackson. You know, you think of some of these that you saw when they were kids. And then I see myself as a kid. I didn't. I was. Nothing like those people, you know, I was shocked this if you saw me, you would never say, oh, yes, you know, Tom is going to be playing twenty one years in the NFL.

So I'm actually feel like, you know, I can teach people, guys, if you're willing to commit and have some discipline, you know, make a commitment to your health, you can achieve some really great things.

That's a really great point, because I even had it in my own life, right where I had an idea of what I was genetically right. And then I'm looking at my lineage right in most Shepperd's are, I don't know, 70 to 80 pounds overweight. You know, I come by it honestly and and then in my mind, I was someone who well, I'll never have a six pack. I'm not one of those guys. I saw those guys in the locker rooms, blah, blah.

And then I did one movie where I decided I'm going to hire a trainer, I'm going to do the diet.

And then all of a sudden I was like, oh, I was just telling myself that stuff, you know? And that's not to say everyone has the potential to do anything. But I'll just say from my own experience, I had a potential much greater than I ever was assuming I did. And there's some weird confidence builder in that, where you go, oh, well, maybe I should question every limit I've put on myself. Right, that all these things I think I wasn't, you know, predisposed to be.

I should challenge. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think, you know, being naive allowed me to accomplish a lot of things, like when people said, oh, you're going to go to college and play football and recruit. I was like, fuck, of course I am like, what do you.

And yeah, I had my counselor in high school that was like, are you crazy? Like, you know, we're applying for schools. I was like, applying. I don't need to apply.

I'm going to play college football. Yeah. Backup plan. What are you talking about. OK, you mean backup team? If I don't get to play the team, I know exactly.

And then when I was drafted by the Patriots, it was the same thing that was like I'm going to play pro football, like, what are these people talking about? And then when I got to the Patriots, it was like, of course I'm going to be the starting quarterback, you know, point like, what are you guys you're trippin like, of course I see it. And then I look back and I'm like, I mean, the odds to overcome all those things.

You're so right. Naïveté is is a gift. Yeah. I'm curious, though, a couple of things were surprising to me today. As someone who's just been in love with you physically, I wouldn't have guessed. I wouldn't have known that you got selected one ninety ninth in the draft. Would you have thought Del Monaco now like sixth round.

One ninety ninth pick. Yeah.

Ends up being the greatest quarterback of all time. Yeah. It's so fucking cool. I'm almost prefer that that's your story. Right.

Yeah. You know I've done it for so long so like I'm playing with like one of my teammates said the other day to me is like bro when you won the Super Bowl the first time I was fourteen, you know, I said I was in fourth grade.

Oh, jeez. Oh, yeah. And I sit here and think, wow, because, you know, so many of these people that see me now and think, oh, man, that's like Tom Brady's like I'm eighteen.

He was already a Super Bowl champ when I was born, you know, and I'm sitting here thinking, God damn, it's been a long, hard road.

That hard road is part of my you know, whether it's a chip on my shoulder, whether it's the think about the things that have motivated you to say, fuck it, I'm going to keep going another day. I'm not going to stop and I'm going to build on this and I'm going to be better than next time. And, you know, people would look at me and be like, what do you what are you talking about? Like, you're you're there.

You're there.

But they never saw the pre twenty two years of my life where that wasn't the case. And then those twenty two year shaped me into who I was at twenty three.

And then, OK, how can I build on being a little bit better every day. A little bit better. A little bit better. Because you know when you make the changes in your life for you, they don't happen necessarily cold turkey overnight. You know, it's like yeah. Making things better or worse is sometimes momentarily, you know.

Yeah, yeah. Baby steps, incremental change all that. We've had a bunch of different experts on here to talk about the process of change and how. Yeah, it's like it's just really tiny stuff and it's tying it to stuff maybe that you already do. And there's all these hacks. Right. It seems intimidating on the surface just to go like, fuck, I'm never going to be Tom Brady. It's like, well, guess what? Tom Brady didn't become Tom Brady in an afternoon either.

Yeah, you know for sure.

And I think all Tom Brady, as I speak about the third verse, I'll do it with you.

I think when I think about that, it's been like just steady progress. Progress. So, yeah, perfection. You know, it's like we weren't born like that, you know. Yeah. Let's make it a little better every day, whether that's whatever it is. It's, you know, if you're aware of it and you can focus on it now, if you're aware of and you can focus, you can prioritize. And if you can prioritize and be disciplined, you can achieve really great results.

Now, if you don't care and you just, you know, fuck it, I'll wake up, do it or I do it, be impulsive, say, oh, this or that. I want to do this or that, you know, and a lot of us, you know, I live like that at one point and then found something that worked better. And then I just try to repeat that and it's worked out well.

What I like about you a lot is you're not standing anywhere with a megaphone saying, be like me. I think what you've done with your book and every time. I've seen you interviewed, it's like, hey, I can just tell you what I'm about. That may inspire you or not. I'm not. I have no program that humans should be on. I'm not saying. Yeah, and I've dug that about your kind of messaging.

I think it's just maximizing your potential.

Some people are interested in that and some people are. And that's totally fine as well.

Yeah, for sure. And we all have choices and it's our life. And, you know, your potential could be whatever it is. And everyone gets that choice. And, you know, I think you've got to be able to have people help you. You know, no one can do it alone. It's great to have supportive family, friends, mentors to help you say, hey, man, your struggle a bit. Let me help you out.

Know, let me give you a short cut and then how great in the world of technology that we can listen to shows like yours to say, man, you got this really cool person, what can I take? What can I learn? And we're such in a world of information, hopefully, you know, we can hack some of these things, you know, that before we couldn't 15 years ago, we couldn't because we couldn't share this type information.

So you must have watched Last Dance. Did you watch The Last Dance? Yeah, I loved it. It was amazing.

I mean, what a ride, huh? Yeah. He's so fucking impressive in so many ways. We got to talk to Bill Gates the other day and I asked him if he watched it and he did and he loved it. And I was like, could you relate? I mean, there's there's only a handful of people currently alive that can kind of relate to him. Bill Gates being one of them, you being one of them. Did you feel a kinship with his kind of drive and his dedication?

Yeah, you know, I think it's there's a lot of similar feelings, emotions that he went through that I've gone through at one point or another, you know, and I think there's so many, you know, being in locker rooms and road trips and wins and losses. I think the thing about sports, you know, is like we're not acting, you know, this is our real life. This is a real Tom Brady on the field. My real emotion.

I'm not playing a role. I'm playing myself.

Well, you can't even hide it. There's a thousand cameras pointed at you. We're going to see whatever that experience is for you.

Yeah. And I think that, like, I think that's a little different. You know, like if you look at, you know, someone like Michael Jordan, it was the same thing for Michael. And I think what you saw in that documentary was, wow, that's really him. Like, that's what we saw. That's really Michael. You know, I don't know how anyone can't be a Michael Jordan fan. I'm a huge Michael Jordan fan just because how he approached his life and he was someone I always looked up to.

I'd always posters in my room.

And you could make him feel you could tell him you had a poster when you were eight.

Sure, you could return the famous Spike Lee one where he was holding Spike Lee. Oh, Spike Lee said I was pretty sweet. So, yeah.

So there's a moment there's a moment in Last Dance where we kind of learn it. Maybe it was conveniently constructed for the sake of storytelling, but I don't think so. I think the dynamic of him having the older brother that was better than him and then having a father whose affection he wanted tremendously and rightly or wrongly identifying that if he could beat that brother, he could win that dad's attention. Yeah, that seems to be the chip on his shoulder that drove him so successfully.

What's the chip on your shoulder? Do you know? Have you thought much about it?

Um, I think there's always been doubt around what I could achieve, and I think that's what it was. There's always there was always heard. The people say he'll never do that. He'll never be the starting quarterback in high school my senior year, you know, and he'll never go to a real good Division One school and play football. He should just stick around and play, you know, at a local school and then he'll never be a pro quarterback, you know, certainly never be a starting quarterback.

I'd say I'm very into I'm motivated. I'm I have a real strong fire that burns based on me never wanting to let myself down. You know, giving less than my best effort is probably a real hard thing for me. I but, you know, my ten year old son is very hard on himself. And I'm trying to tell my bro, this is not the path you want to go down like that.

Let's just breathe a little bit. And like, you know, I remember like crying about being stressed out about something in fifth grade and that is born. That's not.

Yeah, just you genetically. You're kind of wired. They're just wired to have like this part of me that was like I didn't want to be less than my best. If I thought I should have won, I was going to win, if I thought I was going to. Now, there's some things that I didn't have a lot of interest in. I was not very good student. I tried just hard enough, but no interest. You know, I just didn't feel like, you know, school was the highest good use of your time.

It certainly wasn't to be of. So I went to college and people like what you major in on my fucking football man. I was there to play it.

I got it. He's got a three, you know, three, two or three, three GPA.

But I didn't, you know, like, I wasn't going there to like, what is my career going to be? My career was what degree did you even pick up?

So that's a it's it was called General Studies. Oh, yes, it was based on pick the classes I wanted to go to.

So and it didn't require a degree in general study from studies.

So I remember in my college I took one. Class, it was like dance 101 and it wasn't dancing, you just sat in a class and they taught you about dance and all of the football players in that class because it was so clearly just like this is where you'll get your passing grade and you go ahead and take that.

They got to keep as eligible. You know that. Yeah, exactly. I know.

I know you went to UCLA. I love UCLA. That was a great oh, beautiful place to my nieces there. Now my niece is a is a softball player.

Oh, no kidding. She's she was the freshman of the year last year in the PAC 10. No shit stud. So I love UCLA man.

Before everything shut down, I was out there for a game and it's so sweet.

But back to when the people were saying he's not going to or you're fooling yourself. What were they hanging that argument on? Were they saying was that it was a size thing? Was it? It was a natural talent thing. What did they what were the critiques?

I think it was probably just natural talent. Like, you know, there were other kids that were always bigger, always faster, always stronger. You know, I was always kind of right there. But they were always more potential, more potential, more potential. And even I really faced that every step of the way. Like even when I got to college, it was like there were other kids with more potential, you know? And then I got to the pros and those other kids.

It's more potential and it's just you think, OK, well, why didn't they make it? You know, why didn't why was I the one that made it?

Other than I would say people probably miss value things. They put value on things that probably don't matter. And there's other things that they should value more that probably they don't. You know, there's a lot of those stories. Yeah.

We just had an expert on Angela Duckworth. Her work is all on grit. She's a professor at Penn. And yeah, if you want to measure something in in the students that's going to predict their achievement, it is not intelligence. It's not all these things we would think it is. It is grit more than any other thing. And I find that to be so true and acting in any damn thing. It's like, yeah, grit, man, that's that's 80 percent of it half the time.

Because think about it too. It's the smartest kid. This, you know, it's like what are they learning through whatever the beginning of the competitive part of life to a working career. And you think kids are really smart, OK, or people who could process really quickly or who were great athletes. And in the end, what did they what skills that they develop over time that were sustainable?

You know, and I think for me, what did I learn?

I learned that if I was going to achieve anything, I was going to be through a really hard work that I was always behind everybody. So I always felt like I had to work twice as hard. I was always looking at people that are better me. So I do observe what made them better than me. Yeah.

And I think when all of the other things are stripped away, like I would say, a natural talent, you know, whatever it is, something that God really blessed you with, then what's left, you know, and if you haven't developed those other traits, then when you do face adversities, they become adversities. They don't become another opportunity for you to overcome something like you did basically your whole life. So when I got to professional sports, I had really worked hard and competed every day.

So by the time I got to professional level, I was like, you want to compete?

Let's let's go. You want to come? That's roll.

I know how to compete, you know. Yeah. The guys who never had to compete because they were always the best in high school and they're always the best of pros now. They're like sitting here going, what do you mean compete? I never I just was the best.

I was thinking about that when I was trying to imagine, like your life and particularly the way you've approached it. And and I want to talk about it, but, you know, your commitment to diet, all these things, I mean, you are working this job of yours, you know, 24/7. And it's very admirable. And I imagine exactly that. I was thinking over your twenty one years, you must have seen so many people arrive in that locker room who were just phenoms right there.

There Bo Jackson, they have some physical prowess. That's just crazy. And you must have observed so many people that could have just been absolutely legendary. That just didn't do it. Yeah, it must be kind of heartbreaking.

There's parts that I see and I try to tell them and I'll say more recently, like I'll say, hey, how how great do you want to be?

How great do you want to be and be like, what do you mean? Like, I know you're great. I know you're great, but like, how great do you really want to be? Because I think, yeah, you could be better than anybody and they're like, huh, you know, yeah.

Most people probably. Right. They set their sights on something that has existed. So it's like if there are a wide receiver, if they end up as good as whatever wide receiver that's in their mind and they've accomplished it. But someone like you, I mean, just on paper, it's inarguable. You know, you've won more Super Bowls than anyone. You've been there more times. You've won more games. You just all these things stop, please.

Yeah. Oh, I got a whole list I wrote down. If you want to hear it. It's it out, by the way. You're welcome. I got your Wikipedia page is way too long. You need to get somebody to. I know. Was thirty five pages long.

That's right. This. Checks it out, but yeah, for Super Bowl MVP, if your goal was only to have been as good as Joe Montana or someone else, then we wouldn't have learned the limits of what someone could be.

You know, if your war seems to have been with yourself, which I think is the best war you can have, as long as you're better than the guy from last year, you're on the right path. So, yeah, you don't even know what's possible.

And I didn't learn these things over time because you don't have a lot of these thoughts, you know, when you're 20 or 25 or 30. But, you know, you have kids and you start thinking more. You have a little more perspective and you're a little wiser and you've told a lot of stories over the years and you think what's really going to stick? And I said to my kids, I said, is it most important to do your best or is it more important to do the best?

What's going to be more fulfilling for you and your life to do your best or do that best? That's an interesting question.

And we're so, you know, we're so conditioned to do the best, to do the best. And the reality is, is doing your best and not being attached to the best is going to allow you to, you know, have probably more, whatever it could be, emotional stability or, you know, you become attached to being better than your brother or being better than this other person. And it's there's inherent letdowns in all those things, which maybe they're OK, because you're going to hope you grow and toughen up a little bit, too.

But you're right, there's built-In limits. It's a finite goal. If the goal is to be as good as someone else or marginally better, then that's it's finite as opposed to if I'm bettering myself, who knows where this goes. Yeah.

And if we focused on achieving, you know, a little more each day, you know, and again, it's just I encourage a lot of people to like, set some goals, man, like set some real goals.

They'll write them on fucking paper, pick up up and give them to your friend or give them to your wife and say, look, just check me on this.

Yeah. Inviting people to make you accountable, I think is really powerful. And that's part of every aspect of, you know, self-improvement is being have a self awareness. Hey, what do I need to do a better job in a in my career, be my personal life. Hey, how do I need to do to help my friends, help my kids, help my wife? And then just every day it's just I do a little bit better.

If you ever need help helping your wife, you have my number now. Just I'm at your disposal to help your wife any time she needs help. So sweet.

You know, I am very benevolent.

You know, this wasn't a question I had thought of earlier, but now that I'm talking to you, I was watching a documentary about either Tiger Woods or John Daly. I imagine you know both those guys. And there's this really, really profound conversation they had where they had just finished a tournament. And John Daly said to Tiger Woods, hey, come have a drink with us. And Tiger Woods said, If I had your skill, I would go have a drink with you, but I don't.

So I got to go back out and practice now that I remember it was John Daly telling the story. And you could tell he took pride in that, as you should. Tiger Woods is telling you that you're naturally better. But it's a very heartbreaking story at the same time because you look at the difference in their career. So I was wondering in that same vein, was there anybody that you were actually envious of with your job, that you were like, fuck, if I had what they had, coupled with what I'm willing to bring to it, this could be something.

Can you remember a player that you were envious of?

Professional football? I mean, there's been so many over the years. I mean, if I have if I look at like some guys who physically obviously have a lot more ability, you know, they're faster, they're bigger. They can run. They can you know, I think there's some things that I've learned to do probably better over time, you know, because I've been working hard at it for a long time. But, you know, my fifth year in the league, I was no, you know, freak of nature.

Right. But I look at some guys who maybe were great physically, you know, run a four six forty. I like I'll joke all the time. I see. I run like a forty seven forty, which is pretty fast. I would say, like the average NFL quarterback probably runs, you know, a four eight four nine. The fast guy's run like four seven to slow guys run like five flat and over a period of five three, I was slow.

There we go. I was the slowest person on the field. I couldn't know 350 pound defensive lineman. So I got the ball in my hands like a potato. I'm like, where does I want I got to throw this thing, you know, I'm holding this thing. So, you know, the ref was going to outrun me. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I'm sitting here thinking, God, if I could run a four seven football, I would be so easy.

I mean, how he asked me if I could run away from people, but then again, that could be a limit you could have given yourself.

Well, I just won't be that because I don't have that. This is such a side note. But one of the refs, again, I don't watch a ton of football. One of the refs appears to be about 65 in his fucking jacket. Do you know what I'm talking about?

He's retired. What's up, guys? His age? Oh, he is Ed Hochuli. Yeah, I knew you would know. Yeah, he was jacked.

Monaca this guy really. Lou Ferrigno. I live for one. He would get on that mike and talk because his biceps will be bouncing around like they're going to. And I'm like, what's this guy doing? And it took a lot of it, very healthy guys and a great and a great riff, that was his thing. Another thing I just thought of that was related to last. Oh, yes. Last chance. So there's a moment in last chance.

I wonder if you had this thought. Monica and I were watching the last dance. I do want to talk about last chance Monica also that had a girl.

OK, so last dance. There is a moment where Michael makes a shot while playing for the Tar Heels, and it's a buzzer beater to win the whole shebang. Yeah. And you watch that shot and maybe I'm making too much of it. But I, I said to myself, man, he makes that shot and for the rest of his life, he can make that shot. He doesn't make that shot and he probably can never make that shot.

Yeah. And you're such a clutch player.

I mean, there's nothing more thrilling than watching you guys be down. And I'm watching the clock and I'm like, I would be in a full fledged panic attack. And you seem to shine the brightest in those moments. And I wonder, was there a moment that defined you as a clutch player? Did something happen early on that told you you have that gear?

I would say some of it was confidence, you know, like at a younger age in sports. And I was a pretty good baseball player and we played in big games in baseball. I would do a pretty good job and I was really prepared. Then football came and in college I had some real great comebacks. I had my college was really challenging. You know, I was a long ways from home. I was you know, there was less support for me than there were for a lot of other competitors.

And I really was felt at different times. I was kind of there on an island and I had to learn to dig deep or would or would have broken me. And because I really found a way to dig deep and I had a few great mentors there. Greg Harden was our team psychologist. So I think the world of and then another good friend of mine who's a head coach at Bowling Green, Scott Leffler, who is, you know, kind of a friend, quarterback, coach.

But those two in particular were like, I see it in you. I see it in you know what? I didn't necessarily see it in myself. And they gave me some tools. Try this. Look at things this way. Not that way. Look at it. This is an opportunity. This isn't this not a name. This is an opportunity to take advantage of it, you know? And I was just again, it worked out. So when it worked out, I was like, fuck more that.

Yeah, I would see Greg as our psychologist twice a week, you know. And how do I get by in more of a frame of mind, you know? And then it was, how do I work a little more, why I tried that different technique, throwing the ball. All right, what else can I tinker with? And I think the ability to learn through high school, college then get to the professional level. I went to the Patriots the first year Coach Belichick was there and like, there's no better person to help teach you quarterbacking the Bill Belichick, you know, and yeah, just all these things.

At one time I'm sitting and I look at my life and I go, there is so many things that broke my way, you know, that how lucky am I to have these people come into my life at these moments where I was ready and open to accept?

And then they appeared and then it was like, it's still that way. You know, it's like when I think something's going to happen, it happens. And I don't know what what the collective forces of, you know, coming together.

I don't think I even thought of that. You just said it. It is so goddamn obvious. But I'm sorry. I just said God damn so damn obvious.

Well, I like to think this is your show. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. But you're religious. I think so. I just I don't I didn't mean to take God's name in vain in front of you. I'll do it. Not when you're not around but and yeah.

Belichick the fact that you two get to be a team like that is pretty incredible.

Yeah. At the same time, you know, like he's young, motivated at already a coaching stint, learn from his previous stint as a coach where he got fired. And then we just came in and he was ready and he wanted to prove to everybody he was going to work as hard as possible. I was ready I was ready to prove to everybody, you know, there was a lot of other guys in our team that were ready.

And, you know, it's just like, you know, everything lined up.

Perfect storm of a lot of different events over long periods of time. That all broke a certain way. And, yeah, I if I would have missed out on one of those opportunities, you know, that would have been really hard for me because that's kind of person that is inside of me. You know, if I screw it up, then I don't feel like I may ever deserve another one.

Well, you're going to kick your own ass. We learn that about you. You love to give yourself a nice lashing, I'm sure. Yeah, good. That's a good motivator.

We have a real quick question, because you just talked about religion and just reminded me you grew up religious, Catholic, Catholic. Yeah. So I wonder if those principles are folded into who you are and this being hard on yourself, having high values, perfection. It probably all ties together, right, in some way.

Yeah, it could be from that. And certainly, you know, again, I think for me, growing up, the support at home, like, I think my motivator was never to let anybody down, you know, looking at my career like, you know, I've been in the same place for a long time, you know, and let's say in Boston, like, you know, people in. And fired every year there, you know, because I was doing my job and I didn't ever want to be the reason why we lost games, I didn't ever want to be a reason why something caused other people pain.

And that's probably a lot like my mom. Truthfully, my mom takes on everybody. Sure. Like a lot of moms out there, takes on everybody's pain, everybody strife.

Everybody's hard. She's just always the one taking it, you know, and some people could take it and, like, gone, you know, she takes it and lives it. And I said, there's a part of my mom that I'm probably more like her where I take that on and I just want peace.

I was just going to add that among these weird variables as you were talking, I'm thinking you're uniquely coachable, right? You're uniquely open to seeing the the team psychologist and listening to the one coach. And I was thinking, I have to imagine you benefited from having three older sisters is like generic is that is to say, like women, there's nothing. But I teach my daughter how to ride a motorcycle. She can get in five seconds because she listens to me.

She's not like me. Who's got a fucking so much to prove. I know everything. You can't teach me anything. I think maybe you just growing up with older sisters to made you more available to to that kind of instruction.

Yeah.

And, you know, I think you're you're growing up with with three sisters. You're receptive to, you know, what's going on in the house. And you're probably a bit more intuitive emotionally, you know, because I'd say my sisters like to talk about a lot of things and I didn't have a lot of brose in the house. You know, I had my friends. But, you know, really, I was like my sisters would dress me up in their dress.

You know, there I was like, I was just a toy, you know, I was just a tagalong kid.

So was not my dad like he would try to get me, hey, you know, let's go play golf. Let's go. And I love sports, so there's a great connection there. But I think I had the benefit of both those things. Right. Three sisters at all. I had definitely have athletic genes in my body, but being around these fields in competition sports and wanting to win. And I would I mean, I'd say another intangible that let's say wasn't speed or size or strength was very competitive.

Like I was a kid. I mean, I had a remote control and Nintendo and if I lost that remote, got slammed on the floor fifty times, you know, and I would be blowing up and I'd be like my sisters were like, what is wrong with you?

I just be a rage of freaky chemical testosterone that's so foreign to them. Yeah.

And you just it's exploded. You know, that still is the case. I mean, that's all good. Good.

And all sudden I just get so fucking mad, you know, and it's just, you know, it's part of my personality.

You know, I read a lot of biographies of ex titans of industry. I'm kind of obsessed with, like Cornelius Vanderbilt and Rockefeller and all these people. Yeah. And what they all shared in common was they construct this life that they really end up loving and then quickly transitions to longevity. They all became obsessed with, like how to live really long because they, you know, they had done what they wanted and they created a world they loved being in.

Yeah. And I'm wondering, what is it like for you? What you must have an interesting relationship with time, knowing that this thing you've dedicated your whole life to has a shelf life and that'll and and that you're already technically kind of in borrowed time. Are you the oldest player in the league?

I think so. I think I am. That's so wild. Yeah, I think I am. I'd like to refer to as most experienced.

Yeah, I like that. But yes, I know what you know. OK, so I think you might be the most experienced player in the league. That's way better. Were you always aware of it?

Did you lose sight of it. Like how conscious of you been of the time clock that's on your life?

Yeah, I felt that naturally in sports you're reminded of it all the time, you know, because it's every year it's the new crop of kids and the draft and this and, you know, and you're like, when's this guy going to be finished? You know? And I think, yeah, you know, emotionally, it's a different thing because I would say football was my first love. And I started when I played, you know, on the street, my neighborhood with my friends on Portola Drive and Sam Teo.

And that's where my happiest moments are, you know, outside of, I'd say, my kids, both my family being on the football field. There's pure joy in the moment, living my very highest and best calling, you know, just literally like in the zone.

You're born to do it. This is what I do.

I'm on the field the other day and I'm like, I just fucking love football. I don't know what it is. I just love it. And, you know, unfortunately for a lot of guys, they love it, too. Some are physically not gifted enough to play. Some are physically gifted. And something tragic happens personally. You know, it could be with them, could be some better fed they'll get the opportunity at. Some have great potential.

And then two years in injured, you know, and I think I got to a point at about as I started to improve all those different things I talked about through college takes some more different supplements, little more hydrated, you know, start to take care of my body. Then I started thinking about, wow, I'm feeling better now, let's say at age. 27, 28 than I did when I was twenty three. Like, wow, that's really good.

And by the way, I'd know a lot more now than I was thirty one. And I'm like, this is getting easier physically, not harder. My brain is learning more just like everyone in their career. What you do, you're going to get better at. Right, what you put your mind at your time energy and you're going to improve in good or bad. And I started to think at that point, well, how am I going to stop playing?

Why, you know, why would I stop? Because everyone would stop and they definitely don't enjoy playing sports and football. If you're hurting and if you're in pain, you're not going to play. It's it's too hard. It's too much to overcome. So most guys, they just get to the point where their body hurts too much every day, impacts practice, are like, I can't do it for me. You know, I did something different.

I took a different path. And that path of learning brought me to guide who's my best friend. I still work with them every day, my business partner, Alex Guerrero. And it's like we created this thing that I said I really want to share. We talk about maximizing potential and everyone's going to have that. He taught me so much. And the way that we've worked together has you know, I have perspective. I look at what everyone else is doing.

I'm in a locker room with every guy for twenty years. I look at everything and doing everything. They're taking the way they eat, the way they talk about their body. And I'm just constantly going, OK, that doesn't work. That does that he's on to something that doesn't work. And then you incorporate him in your routine and then you get to go prove it. So what am I doing at forty three? I'm still doing what I love to do.

So I have a bunch of sports endeavors. They're all motor sports related and I just recently had a bad accident at the motorcycle track a week and a half ago. I'm supposed to be wearing a sling. I just had surgery.

I'm always I'm trying to figure out and it's hard. I'm like, you know, when do I not have the skill set anymore? When is my age going to when am I going to have to confront that? This is no longer for me. And by the way, it scares the shit out of me to imagine. Yeah. Not doing it. It's like one of the greatest sources of joy in my life. So have you felt any decline or how do you monitor that in yourself?

Yeah, I think yes and no. I think I definitely feel like I have to work really hard at the recovery part of the sport. So it's not just like the physical training to prepare for it, it's the preparation for the performance, the performance, the recovery of the performance.

And a lot of people have not traditionally prioritized that part. Right. That's that's kind of a new movement to really be aware of the recovery aspect of all this.

Yeah, because, you know, inherently we're taught that hard work is going to get you that everywhere you want to go. So if I can workout once a day, if I workout twice a day, I'll be better. And my view of that is if you're working hard at the wrong things, you're getting better at getting worse, you know, so if you're working hard at the right things, you know what to do. You have the right routine, the right process.

You work hard at those things. You're going to see significant improvement. You know, I could go out there and practice football plays. If they're all shitty football plays, I could run them five times. You know, I could run straight through a script and do it again and again and then go out and play a game. And you know what? There's still bad plays. So, yeah, if you run a good routine, you have a good process, then I think you see the benefit.

And if you see the benefit, then you're going to experience like again, that's closer to your goal setting or what your priorities are, what you want to be on to be a better dad. I want my kids. I want to play golf on the weekends. I want to ride my motorbike. I still want to have good instincts on the motorbike. I still want to be able to have, you know, great instincts on the bike and then absorb taking a different fall or hit or I want to go skiing and not have my knees hurt.

I want to go skiing, ski like I did. And I think all those things, because being active is, you know, for me, that's a very important part of my life.

You know, it's like, yeah, every day I just got to, like, kind of like a kid, like I just got to burn some energy. Yeah. If I don't, then, you know, I just feel like agitated all day and then that's kind of my heritable. Yeah. There's a there's a high in about training and working out and then the fulfillment of OK, something that I want to go train hard. I did. How do I recover for the next day and then do it again.

Yeah. And do it again and do it again. In practice. I didn't get good at it.

I keep waiting for you to compliment me on how good I look in this shirt. You do look good because it is. It is your shirt. I'm wearing your shirt.

You like it is your shirt. Yes. I love it. It's so comfy. Yeah. And I'm a tall, lean guy with broad shoulders.

Not like yours but not unlike you. Yeah. And I got to say it fits me like a glove like pretty good man. I love it to be twelve. That's a line you have now.

Alex and I basically have been working together since 2005 when I couldn't really throw the football. You know, I love to be like you. You know, your voice doesn't work. You know, for me to be a quarterback, my arm doesn't work. I'm not going to have a job very long. And I was basically wanted to be a great player. And I knew that working hard was going to get me there. And I would work out and I would train and I would lift weights because everyone says lift weights and condition.

And, you know, that's where you're going to get you know, that's where you're going to be a better athlete. And then it got to a point where I couldn't throw the football because my elbow would hurt all the time. And really what happened was. There was these muscles in my forearm got really tight, you know, you do curls and you curl your wrists, you can feel how tight your forearm gets and then you do bicep curls because everyone's like, man, if you want to look good, you've got a bicep curls.

So you do curls for the girls.

Exactly. The girls, which is amazing. And I'm sure they love it. But you won't be able to throw, you know. No, no. So, you know, you do your curls and do your triceps.

And then at the end, all those things after a period of time, all the muscles get so tight and dense, they just pull in opposite directions and they pull. And when they pull in, that little tendon is in there trying to hold on for dear life because you're putting all these forces on it from throwing, but you got muscles that are pulling in opposite directions. So when I met Alex to a friend of mine, a teammate of mine, he was like, so we're into we're going to make these really short muscles long by a lot of manual tissue work all these muscles in your bicep that you are going to make these long and we're going make your tricep muscles long.

And there's the muscle went from being really tight to now. It's really long so that when I would put forces on it, it would just it would likely contract as opposed to just pull the tenant apart. I was like, that makes so much sense. Like there's a first time in my life that I didn't have elbow tendonitis playing football.

Well, don't you think so much of the previous science even watch it like I even see, like, the progression in coaching. Right? Like we interviewed Pete Carroll. I love that dude. I love that he is like the way he communicates, the way he makes an effort to understand where the person's coming from. And the yelling at people and calling them assholes isn't really like I just I love that.

And I think so much of sports is still mired in this kind of machismo bullshit. Right. So it's like, yeah, fucking Curl's tries for the guys, you know, this whole thing. There's been no scientific study to support any of this. It's just kind of like this old fashioned, I think even the diet. Right. The diet used to be like you eat a goddamn T bone in three baked potatoes before games on. Yeah. You really seemed open to different approaches.

Yeah. Tell me about your diet. So I have arthritis, I have an autoimmune thing, psoriatic arthritis, and I've had to eat a certain way to not have inflammation. And then I'm a friend of mine showed me your diet and I was like, that's pretty close to my diet. Tell me how you got introduced to that and what change it's made for you. And is it fucking hard for you like it is for me? I find it hard.

Yeah, it's it's it's not like you can't go to the 7-Eleven and think you're going to find all the things you're looking for. I know that.

But, you know, I think, again, it's for me, it was about, you know, a little progress over time. And it started with, hey, let's cutting out some, you know, hot dogs. And then it was like subway. And then it was like, why don't we work toward, like, more proteins and veggies? And then it was like, OK, well, let's work more toward, you know, higher performance things and let me try some more vegan meals.

And when I met my wife in New York in 2007, there was a raw food restaurant which I tried out for the first time. And then and then it was like, OK, a little less steak in it. And now it's like, OK, more vegetables. And then over time, what's notices? Like, my taste buds change. And I went, Yeah, like, all right. I loved Subway, I love Subway and Burger King and all the all those types of things to now it's like the thought of that is like, no way.

No way. I would just if I wanted a good meal, I'm thinking lentil soup. I'm thinking, you know, oh wow. You know, hummus and and guacamole in this case, the dream.

I can barely even stand it. I tell you the way it is.

Unfortunately, we do not know tomatoes. Right. You don't you don't fuck with tomatoes.

Is that true? I don't I don't like them that much. So it's easy for me to pass them up.

So but in general, you do have an anti inflammation approach. Yeah, true. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I just looked at it again. It for me, it all relates back to football. I mean, in a way, you know, it was all because I felt like this is going to help me be a better football player. And if I could be a better football player, I don't want to you know, I'm making all these improvements.

How do I get a little bit better? A little bit better. And I think those things led me to being a little more disciplined, which I was. I was definitely born with that. But then also. All right, like I can cut back on. I don't even fucking like it anyway. I don't I don't like it. Why do I have to eat it? So why don't I adapt a little bit over time? And, you know, I would say anti inflammation because if you go workout for an hour and a half, inflammation, inflammation, you know, it's not healthy to go run, you know, ten miles.

There's a lot of inflammation. I would say running is good for your heart and for your head. Other than that, there's a lot of downsides.

I wish you hadn't said this. I bought Monica treadmill for her birthday yesterday. And, you know, you're kind of ruining that president. Sorry, is it refundable? Monica, I'll look into it.

Buy you a great excuse for me to not go running.

So now I think I just think some of the really extreme things we know, they just they take a toll on your body and they're a little bit taxing. So why am I going to go finish practice? So workout before practice, go practice and come in and eat bacon. Double cheeseburger.

So, yeah, salt. Inflammation, inflammation. So where did you put your body going to do your body is going to go like, OK, I'm done like fight or flight.

I had enough tight muscles, slow movements and then poor performance and then look for a new job and then talk about how great you could have been because, you know, that's that's it.

Did your wife ever hate your guts? Because I kind of think, you know who his wife is. I do. But but if I lived with you, I think I would be like, God. He seems to just be so disciplined.

I could see annoying sometimes. She's the same way. She's the same way.

She's very disciplined. Don't give me that shit. You're very disciplined to get that shit out of you. Oh, ok. OK, let's talk. But I sometimes eat Domino's.

I saw your wife walk across the field at the Olympics. Right. Was the opening ceremony in Brazil. Yeah. That's the first time I ever realized like that's violent on the body, like the model walk and that was a long way to walk in those heels. I was like, I don't think I've been giving these gals enough credit like that. Is that's hard on your body. Yeah, yeah.

She's had a fair share of, like, pretty tough injuries just because in order to make a pitcher look good, you got to create all these, you know, crazy angles and then you've got to hold them. So you put your body in a funny position and then hold it for a minute. And then once your brain's like, oh, you want me to be like this? OK, no problemo, but just hang upside down and then you get down like, oh, this thing's killing me.

So I think all those things over time took a toll. You know, she's had really bad shoulders. She had like ten dislocations on one side and twelve this so-called on the other. You know, she's wiry. She doesn't have very big joints. You know, she's, I would say more dainty. She's tall, but dainty. So, you know, she just has these joints that are very hyper mobile.

Is your is your boyin on course to become seven feet tall? I would imagine with you two as parents, there's likelihood that will break six, eight. I don't know.

We don't want six, eight. I'm cool with like six three six four. But that's that's too tall. OK, I have a couple of really just rapid fire questions for you. I'm going to ask a single Howard Stern ask question, and that is, do you make love to your wife on a game day or is that off the table?

Oh, man. That's that's probably beyond is probably off the table. That's off the table.

I'd say it's probably never happened, but I don't think that would be the moment. OK, good. I expected that that wouldn't be my pregame warm up.

Do you have other quarterback friends? You know, the more famous you get, the more successful you get in. I don't expect anyone to shed a tear for any of us, but it can be very isolating in that very few people really end up being able to relate to what your day to day problems are. And you'd probably feel like a shithead telling some, you know, guy who's scraping pain off a wall, your issues. But do you have some friendships with some some quarterbacks that you can relate to one another?

Yeah, for sure. I think there's a lot of guys over the years, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, even Joe Montana, Steve Young, those guys, Dan Marino, Phil Simms, Boomer Esiason, the newer guys, Russell Wilson. Obviously, Aaron Rodgers has been a friend.

Oh, he's a sweetheart homeport. That was him once or twice.

But a nice guy, my alma mater, Cal. Oh, he's from Georgia.

Georgia. Not many good quarterbacks out of Georgia. Oh, well, I'm not surprised about essaying Stafford plays. Well, OK.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I was there.

I can't say anything bad about him. He's he plays in Detroit and that's where I'm front.

I think you're also friends with my boyfriends. Are you friends with Ben and Matt. Ben Roethlisberger. No. Ben Affleck and Matt. Oh yeah. Them actors.

Yes I am. Yeah. I like both those those silly boys. Yeah. Yes.

OK, now another two questions really quick. Is it isolating being the leader of the team? Is it is it hard to be? Because I find myself sometimes when I direct things, I'm the boss, which is a weird position for me to have in depth. And I just want to be cool with everyone. Yeah. And then and then I hate when I have to be like, come on man, you can work harder than that. Is it isolating?

You can't have any down days. You know, I think if there's moments that have changed in my life, it's hard to just let your guard down, as you know. I mean, everyone knows that, you know, we're in a very hypersensitive age to everything, you know, and you're judged by one interaction. And, you know, in that case, you don't want to be judged by one interaction. So you don't go out because you don't want to be put in a situation where and I had a really shitty day, you know.

Well, I was you know, I don't know, not no one wants to hear that a really shitty day, but I had a shitty day. It's like, you know, I'm a parent. I'm a I'm a brother. I'm a son. You know, things happen in life and you get bad calls and you've got to deal with situations and, you know, then you got to go out public and be like, hey, you know, this is this is great, you know?

And I think that, yeah, battle fatigue, you know, over time is like, I will be happy one day when I retire. I'm going to be like, I done it. Like, that's it.

Someone else be in charge? Yeah. Like, man, I did my time. I did it. I worked hard at it. But you know what? The time is over and I'm not looking to recreate anything that was going to be one of my other rapid fire questions.

They were in the rapid fire round right now, and I have followed again, I know I've said this 20 times. I don't watch a ton of sports, but I'm so interested in athletes and I love watching documentaries about athletes. In a common thing I seem to have observed is that post career. And I think from the outside, people think it has to do with money and fame. And it's not at all but the camaraderie that you've experienced over the last twenty one years, that's a that's a big fucking hole to fill.

Yeah. And I think I think it was Brett Favre who's very open and honest in some documentary I watched where he was like there was just a fucking hole. Right. And he ended up, I think Cotchin like maybe as high school, like a high school team just to get back in the mix. I worry about you. I wonder, do you have a game plan for when you retired so that you don't become super sad now.

I think, I think I definitely will need some help when I'm done playing to find some space to occupy the adrenalin ups, the downs, the highs, the lows of this. And I'm a big believer in psychology and, you know, getting help. I've already obviously thought, OK, when it does happen, I'm filling a huge void and I don't know where that huge void is going to go. And it's not going to be like, hey, I'm going to be someone who doesn't want to put the energy that I have into something positive.

And, you know, I'm still want to want to do things. But at the same time, I'm missing something that I really did love. It would be like a really, you know, like a tough break. Yeah, I'm nervous.

I'm nervous for you. Yeah. Look, if you want to be brose, I'm at your disposal. Mean, I thought we already started Van.

We so what do you mean if I know there were there were there.

I'm looking into it too much. I have a question. What price have you paid for being so singularly focused on this endeavor?

Um, I think the thing that probably hurt that this most challenging for me is like when people say, like, I haven't been the brother that I could be, you know, couldn't be a friend to certain people at different times, you know, and yeah, my parents think I'm a pretty good son, like but at the same time, like, it's nice that people close. You get the short end of stick because you're always busy. You've always got one other thing.

You always got work. You always got one more obligation, one more call, one more this and everyone else who you think, oh, we're cool.

So you can stay kind of, you know, as a non priority.

And yeah, you can take it for granted. Right. Like, oh well that's there. We know we'd love each other and I'll have time someday.

I'll have time when, when football is done. I'll have time when football is tomorrow time. And you know I have more time. But that's probably the thing that's probably been the toughest because that's hard to hear. You know, like you think, oh, put that effort into things. But the reality is, other people in your life, you know, they're going to get better if you work at it and improve it. But if you don't, then, you know, it's it takes a different, you know, a different ride.

And now. OK, I think my last question I would love to keep you for ten hours, but what's the emotional experience of having left Boston after twenty one years and going to a new team? And I just want to add into this, because I want Monica to know, you know, Tom could have gotten a lot more money for many years and he didn't take more so that he could get better players like his commitment to winning. I know.

Did you read the Pat Tillman book By Chance Where Men Find Glory?

No, I didn't. He said, oh, do I encourage that really similar story to you? I mean, he last draft to the Cardinals and he was so loyal to that franchise, he turned down way more money to play for St. Louis because they took the chance on him. Just so much integrity. That guy really, really inspirational. Yeah. What was what's the emotional feeling about leaving there and going to Tampa Bay?

It was tough. I mean, it was tough for, you know, a tough decision to make when you're been two decades in one place. And, you know, it's a lot of emotions, a lot of memories. There's a lot of things, you know, twenty years, long time. So you basically experience every emotion and every high and low and every, you know, experience you could have. So when you leave, it's yeah, it's kind of the chapter's closed, but you're taking all the relationships and all the memories.

And for one reason or another, it didn't work that I was going to continue there. But, you know, it doesn't take away from what I had and what I had was actually maybe more prepared for what I'm experiencing now. So for me to look at that experience and be grateful for what I've learned, the relationships I have, because they'll still be very important to me. You know, football players, we're all in a locker room. You know, it's like we're all going to space.

You know, it's like there's four or five months at that locker room is tight, tight.

And then you have that with friends. And it's like it's you know, it's amazing. So I got to plug this in or else my computer is going to hold on.

I got one percent left. This is great watching him have to figure this out, right? Look how human he looks all of a sudden he was look like a superhero this whole time and now he looks like the same bumbling idiot we all are.

No, it was it one person just like Tom Brady does, pulled it out last minute. Oh, yeah. This is like a down to the wire. Yeah. One person you got to finish the interview with one percent. Yeah. Well, I'm sure you've done the math. I mean, half of your life was playing for that team. It's incredible.

Twenty years of, you know, one place, one way, one process. Oh, I've had a few different homes over there. I moved a few times, but it was incredible. It was perfect. I wouldn't change it. It wasn't, you know, not every day was perfect, but it was everything that it was supposed to be.

So one thing, too, that I think is really special about your job and your life is that I'd compare it to acting a little bit like you get on a set, man. There is someone from every walk of life there. And I have to imagine half of the fun of your job is what a diverse group of dudes, every socioeconomic group, every kind of background like.

Has it been wonderful to be immersed in so much diversity and different points of view?

Yeah, I mean, I think sports affords all those things. And I've been doing that for twenty five years, including college and 30 years, including high school. And you come together, you just see a guy, you see where he's from, you see who he is and you see him as a brother and you go, all right, we're in this together. I see what you got. You know, you look in the huddle and I played with teammates that broke bones and broke ribs and internal bleeding and blood coming out of their nose, their warriors, you know, their gladiators.

And I think, yeah, I would say I know the guys would want if I was ever in a foxhole. I know the guys that I'd want in there with me, you know. Yeah. There's others that I know that I wouldn't. Sports brings that out of us. And it's like you you see everyone. They're good, they're bad, ugly, they're indifferent. They're pissed off. They're happy mood, the achievement of things. And, you know, it's been a blessing for me.

I don't want it to end, which I'm still playing, you know.

Yeah, well, I hope you don't stop. I think it'd be so awesome if you were out there in a wheelchair and you rolled back and still fucking trying to get a world out there.

I know. I got it in there.

Well, Tom Brady, you're as nice as you are. Gorgeous. And we feel so flattered that you took time to talk to us. We were really, really excited. You were in the Bill Gates category of, like, thrill that you were willing to talk to us. So thanks so much for your time. Really look forward to seeing you play in Tampa Bay. And, you know, any time you want to chill with me, just let me know.

I'll be there.

I'll call you up. Let's do it. All right. All right. All right, man. Thanks a bunch.

Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.