ESPN Asked Me to Give Tom Brady Advice About Life After Football. Here’s What I Said.

4 Tips for Making Any Life Transition More Effective

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“There’s an old saying that pro athletes die twice. First, when their career ends. Second, of course, when they actually die. Think about that: The transition from sports to regular life is so extreme that it feels as terrifying as dying.”

Those words form the introduction of a just-released ESPN podcast about the retirement of Tom Brady. The podcast is a companion to the recent television series Man in the Arena, in which Brady reviews his storied career. The final episode of the podcast, called “Postgame,” was timed to his farewell announcement.

A few weeks ago, ESPN reached out and asked me to appear on this show, along with NFL Hall-of-Famer Tony Gonzalez and former Seattle Seahawk Nate Boyer, who opened an organization called MVP that brings together athletes and veterans to adapt to life after the uniform. Never mind that I’m an Atlanta Falcons fan and still feel stung by Brady’s stunning comeback in Super Bowl LI…

The reason ESPN asked me: I’ve spent the last four years interviewing hundreds of Americans in all 50 states about painful life transitions. These experiences include losing limbs, losing loved ones, changing careers, changing religions, getting sober, and getting out of bad marriages. As part of my research, I spoke to a number of professional athletes about the transition from life in the arena to life outside. These interviews formed the basis of my recent book, Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age.

Here was my advice for Brady:

1. You’re Not Alone

The podcast opens with Gonzalez talking about having a panic attack as he considers life after football. It’s easy for any of us when we go through an experience that destabilizes us to feel isolated and alone. I’m the only one who’s grieving right now. I’m the only one who’s lost a job. But you’re not alone.

My research shows that we go through three dozen disruptors in the course of our lives—that’s one every 12 to 18 months. These events can be as small as twisting an ankle or getting into a fender-bender, or as large as surviving a natural disaster or getting hit with a serious diagnosis. Most of these disruptors we get through with relative ease.

But 1 in 10 of these events becomes what I call a lifequake, a massive burst of change. The average person has three to five lifequakes in their lives, and their average length is five years.

Do the math, and that means we spend 25 years—or half of our adult lives—in transition. So, Tom, the first lesson is: you’re not alone. In fact, you’re not even the only multiple-Super Bowl-winning quarterback to be going through a transition now. Ben Roethlisberger is, too. Remembering that you're going through this experience alongside others reduces the pressure many of us feel to be perfect.

2. Transitions Are a Life Skill

TB12 is an entire brand built on a simple idea: With work, focus, and discipline, you can perform at your highest level. As you said of playing football in your retirement post, "If a 100% competitive commitment isn't there, you won't succeed." The same applies to life transitions. They are a skill. And yet, that’s not the way we normally talk about them.

One way to understand a lifequake is as a physical blow: The lifequake puts you on your heels; the life transition is what puts you back on your toes.

Yet when most people enter a lifequake, they feel overwhelmed and go to one of two extremes. They either make a 212-item to-do list and say, “I’ll get through it in a weekend,” or they lie in a fetal position and say, “I’ll never get through it.”

Both are wrong.

When you look at enough lifequakes, certain patterns become clear.

Life transitions, for starters, have three phases: (1) the long goodbye, when you mourn the old you; (2) the messy middle, when you shed your old habits and create new ones; and (3) the new beginning, when you unveil your fresh self.

But here’s the key: These phases do not happen in order. Just as life is nonlinear, life transitions are nonlinear. Instead, each person gravitates to the phase they’re best at—their transition superpower—but bogs down in the one they’re weakest at—their transition kryptonite.

Tom, your commitment to training—and the way that commitment has grown as you’ve gotten older—suggests you like the messy middle. You thrive at identifying your weaknesses and trying to overcome them. Great. Transitions are hard. Start with the messy middle, build confidence, and go from there.

3. Transitions Are Emotional

But just because you like the messy middle doesn’t mean you can skip the long goodbye.

In a recent interview, Tom, you said that facing retirement forced you to contemplate “the void on the other side.” I admire this quote because it’s honest and raw.

I looked hundreds of people in the eye and asked: “What’s the biggest emotion you struggled with in your time of change?”

• The #1 answer was fear. “How can I get through this?” “How can I pay my bills?”

• The #2 answer was sadness. “I miss my loved one.” “I’m sad I can’t walk anymore.”

• The #3 answer was shame. “I’m ashamed I need help.” “I’m ashamed of what I did when I was drunk.”

Some people cope with their feelings by writing them down; others, like you, by buckling down and going to work. But 8 in 10 turn to rituals—we sing, dance, hug.

After Maillard Howell left his job in big pharma to open a gym, he tattooed “breathe” on his right hand and “happy” on his left, saying, “I knew I couldn’t go back to my corporate job with that on my hands.”

Lisa Rae Rosenberg had a brutal year in which she lost her job, had a blowup with her mother, and went on 52 first dates. Her biggest fear was heights, so she jumped out of a plane. One year later, she was married with a child.

Rituals like these are especially effective during the long goodbye as they are statements—to ourselves and to others—that we’ve gone through a change and are ready for what comes next. I hope you don’t forget to mark this moment as one of change. It will help you be even stronger for what comes next.

4. Transitions Are Autobiographical Occasions

Finally, a life transition is fundamentally a meaning-making exercise. It is an autobiographical occasion in which we are called on to revise and retell our life stories, adding a new chapter in which we find meaning in our lifequake. The lifequake itself may have been positive or negative, but the story we tell about it has an ending that’s upbeat and forward-looking.

And that may be the greatest lesson of all: We control the stories we tell about our transitions. Instead of viewing them as periods, we have to grind our way through, we should see them for what they are: healing periods that take the frightened parts of our lives and begin to repair them.

Tom, you wrote the story of the greatest football player who ever competed. In your retirement, you have an even greater opportunity: To write a new story about how all of us can take the inevitable changes in our lives and see them not as failures, letdowns, or endings at all, but as opportunities for growth and renewal. If you do that, you won’t just be the man in the arena, but the man who taught us all about the glory of being in the stands.

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Thanks for reading The Nonlinear Life. Please help us grow the community by subscribing, sharing, and commenting below. Also, you can learn more about me, read my introductory post, or scroll through my other posts.

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Or these books: Life Is in the Transitions, The Secrets of Happy Families, and Council of Dads.

Or, you can contact me directly.