Tom Brady says his career turned around when a sports psychologist told him to stop complaining about what he wasn’t getting and start stewarding what he had the right way “Greg said to me, ‘Why don’t you quit bitching about all the things you’re not getting, and how about you do the best with whatever opportunities you get?’, ‘Stop worrying about what the other quarterback’s getting. Stop worrying about what the coach is saying to you.’” “‘Every time you get in there, you bring the juice. You bring the energy. You bring the enthusiasm. You treat practice like a game.’ Because if you just decide to go out there and you’re blaming everybody else, where does that get you? So I started to change my attitude.” “I didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself. And when you don’t have a lot of confidence in yourself, you blame other people. When you gain confidence in yourself, you start pointing the finger at yourself.” “I would encourage every athlete to look in the mirror after every day of practice or a game and say, ‘What can I do better to help the team? What can I do better?’” “Not, ‘What does the coach need to do better?’ Not, ‘What do my teammates need to do better?’, ‘What do I need to do better?’ If every player does that, you’re going to have an incredible team.” “You can’t have a false confidence. You don’t only gain your confidence because of your physical ability. You gain your confidence because you’re prepared, because you’re competitive. I couldn’t just show up and be better than everybody.” “I had to show up prepared. I had to show up with energy. I had to show up with my body feeling right. I had to show up like I was on a mission.”

Tyrese Maxey says he went from not even having a practice jersey at the start of his NBA career to deciding he’d never give the starting job back “Opportunity is the biggest thing.” nd I think the second biggest thing is being ready for opportunity. My rookie year, I got drafted into a team that was trying to win a championship.” “I work extremely hard, so I feel like I deserve to be on the court. But I had to go out there and earn that. Training camp, I remember I started at the bottom. Lowest of the low. I didn’t have a jersey on. I had a penny on. That put a chip on my shoulder day one.” “I went out there and performed the first two or three days of training camp. Then Sam threw me out there with the second group. Then he threw me out there with the starters for a little bit. Eventually Shake got hurt, so I ended up having to start.” “My thing was, listen… If I get a chance to start, I get a chance to take over this, I’m not looking back. I feel like I’m good enough. I work extremely hard to be here. I deserve to be here.” “My only advice to younger people is be ready for the opportunity. You know what you’re working for every single day. Sometimes it feels like you’re not working for anything.” “But when that opportunity presents itself, you’ve got to be ready for it. You can’t go out there and stink it up. You’ve got to elevate your game.”