The X’s and O’s of Your Career are in Your Control

In honor of the football season just ending, I thought I’d give a run at drawing some parallels to sports and working professionals that we can resonate to. I believe a great deal of us get lost in sports to get away from our day-to-day jobs, commonly forgetting that professional athletes are working professionals themselves.? Granted, their window of being professional athletes is on average shorter than our careers that we don’t think of their stints in the NFL, NBA, MLB, La Liga, Formula1, and others are work. They are still working professionals looking to perfect their crafts for as long as they can in the same manner as we common folk look at perfecting our crafts as engineers, doctors, teachers, counselors, wait staff, delivery drivers, etc. There’s an albeit short yet fascinating 2-minute clip into the insights of Tom Brady’s approach to playing football which can be relatable to us. I urge you to watch it, but I will break it down for you.

The highlights from the video the purpose of this video are as follows:

1.??He knew defenses better than the defenses knew themselves based on body movements

2.?He had the answers to the test because he could predict what was going to happen

3.?His magic superpower was not how fast he could run but how fast he could diagnose what was going to happen

4.?He had the advantage of knowing where his offensive players were going to be

This video is pretty impactful if you stop and pay attention to what Tom Brady is really saying. Let’s take a look at each one of these as they relate to our day-to-day work.

He knew defenses better than defenses knew themselves based on body movements – I believe what Tom is saying is that he took time to study what he was going to be up against.? Any advantage he could gain by spending time look at the intricacies that gave him insight to what might happen provided him with insights to be prepared leading up to game.? Body language to him were data points that he could study to learn trends and project where his focus should be.? It’s the same way we need to look at data points that will affect the workplace.? An ascendix report shows that out of 333 million companies globally, 266 million organizations are either or beginning to use AI in the workplace. That’s 82% of companies worldwide meaning that you are likely at working with an organization that is using AI in some capacity.? Data like this is designed for you to read like body language, that you can see right in front of you. If you can see that companies are digging into AI the way Tom saw a defender's right foot open, but hip turned towards him indicating a blitz was coming, wouldn’t you use that your advantage and get out of it??

He had the answers to the test because he could predict what was going to happen – Now that you have data points, you have a leg up because you now have an idea of what’s in front of you.? Without getting into the intricacies of the things like a cover-2 defense is, Tom knew he had 11 players on the opposing team to contend with.? It’s fair to say that when a defense would line up against Tom, he sees it forming but then assessed based on body language what they would likely be doing.? This is the same thing with changes in the workplace due to AI.? We all have a good idea of what AI can possibly do, but what is it actually going to do? Good question, because if anyone would tell you with 100% certainty what AI is going to do, they’d be lying know every twist and turn that is yet to present itself in the workplace. Tom would walk up to the line to see what coverage he was facing, and then take what he picked up about the defenders body language, and start to deduce what he would need to focus on when executing the play.? That’s where we are with AI. AI is like the defense lining up against our careers, but with only 70,000 AI companies worldwide, of which 17,500 exist in the US, and we are here on the offense trying to figure out what its going to do. We have things like ChatGPT , IBM watsonx , Microsoft Copilot , Apple Intelligence , DeepSeek AI , and Gemini Google posturing and giving us an idea what AI can do.?

His magic super power was not how fast he could run but how fast he could diagnose what was going to happen – This is the important factor as it ties directly to mental wellness. As a professional athlete, Tom exuded endless amounts of confidence by mitigating the risks he was going to face because he put in the time and effort in being prepared.? Confidence is nothing more than a feeling of trust and belief in one’s abilities. It’s really important to make this parallel the fact Tom is saying that his ability of knowing was more important than doing.? I’m not taking away anything away from the Lamar Jackson’s, Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts (congratulations to the Eagles), Caleb Williams (Go Bears!), that QB in green and gold (whose team us Chicagoan's do not say as they are our Voldemort), and their abilities to diagnose plays after the ball is snapped with is an added bonus. Don’t get me wrong, we all need to develop a position to pivot to things as plans do not always play out the way we envision them, but they are still processing in real time because they were prepared and bless to be able to move and diagnose where Tom didn’t have that luxury.?The point I’m making here is there are current working AI models that you know companies are using, and that’s what you should be assessing.? If you understand the fundamentals of what each of the 7 types if AI is capable of, you too will at least have the working knowledge to adapt to AI, sometimes even in real-time as these other quarterback's can as these 70,000 other firms develop new AI use cases.? You can't see everything that's coming as not everything can be seen like a quarterback's blind side, but the majority of what’s going to be changing is still in your vision, down the field, with some applied pressure in the pocket surrounding you.?Tom believed most quarterbacks should play the game fast in their mind prior to snapping the ball, educating us as working professionals to be proactive rather reactive, which is in your control.

He had the advantage of knowing where his offensive players were going to be - So now that you know most companies have a vested position in AI, what are you going to do?? Tom’s insights were fascinating because he said walking up to the line of scrimmage, his biggest advantage is that he knew where his players were going to be, which is where this all comes together.? He knew there was a coverage (that’s AI).? He could read the tendencies of what the players in the coverage were going to do (70,000 companies that are developing AI). He could diagnose what was going to happen (you having working knowledge of what AI can be used for). Finally, he knew what his offensive players were going to do and where they were going to be and could execute or adjust based how the play designed lined up against the defense thrown at him (you know where your company is going, what it produces, whom it services, and what it wants to do, so how do you effectively look at AI and line up to where AI supports you going?).?

At the end, Tom ended up saying that he was paying attention to the right thing, his mind, alluding that Drew Brees and Peyton Manning were great at doing the same.? Learning new technologies, processes, or policies are not limited to the few or quarterbacks only.? Players outside the quarterback position Deion Sanders, Brian Urlacher, J.J. Watt, Von Miller, Aaron Donald, Walter Payton, Barry Sanders, Jerry Rice, Calvin Johnson, and countless others were all physically gifted in their own rights but used their minds to take advantage of those physical gifts.?

Whether you’re a CEO (head coach), executives (offense and defensive coordinator), directors (assistant coaches), managers (quarterbacks and line backers), players (subject matter experts), or working professionals (all other staff like trainers, facilities, and equipment personnel), every bit of effort you put into preparing for your opponents is the same as anticipating to changes in the workplace your likely going to encounter due to technologies like AI, Automation, regulations, compliance's, etc.? What Tom had on the line was millions of dollars and his legacy as a player. Well, why is that any more important than what you have going on in your life.?I urge you to consider what your potential could be if you prepared for what you know is coming.

Simple mindset change – ready? Next time you hear or read that this job or that job will be replaced by AI, disregard it. That’s like saying next time Tom ran he play he was more worried about getting sack than completing a pass.? No, I ask anyone who ends reading this that instead of doing a web search how many jobs will be lost to AI to instead put in how many jobs will be created by AI.? I’ll give you some optimism as you’re lining up to call your next play.? The World Economic Forum (January 2025) recently updated its projections on the impacts of job displacement and creation, citing that AI, Automation, and Robotics are projected to displace 92 million jobs in some capacity by 2030 but create over 170 million new roles in AI development, data science, and human AI collaboration.? Read that again – 170 million new roles – which is a surplus of 78 million new jobs. Focus in on human AI collaboration because AI is only as good as those it’s designed to produce good and services for, which is you.? AI doesn’t have to be a scary defensive lineman coming to throw you into the ground, but something that gives you the edge to anticipate and execute on your next and future plays.?

Hut, Hut, Hike.

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