Bill Belichick Was Fired
Bill Belichick has won 5 Super Bowls as head coach of the New England Patriots and coached in two more. Not to mention all of the conference championship games he has been a part of. Yet, at one point in his career he was fired.
At one point, some person in authority didn’t think this genius had what it took to be an NFL coach. They didn’t believe he could identify or develop talent. He had mild success but fell below what the team was expecting. They didn’t want to wait around for his genius. The “they” I am referring to is the Cleveland Browns.
Belichick’s quarterback, Tom Brady, was the 199th pick in the NFL draft. 31 highly paid NFL General Managers, with robust scouting departments with nearly unlimited budgets, thought 198 players were better than Tom Brady. Even the Patriots passed on him 6 times. He didn’t have to prototypical quarterback body. He didn’t have a cannon arm. He wasn’t fast or athletic. What he did have was indefinable qualities. He was a winner. It is hard to gauge people on indefinable qualities that don’t fit nicely into a spreadsheet, matrix or algorithm.
There will always be people that don’t understand or appreciate your genius. You may not check the boxes on their checklist. Their models may say you’re all wrong. They either don’t want to, or don’t know how to incorporate indefinable qualities into their decision making process. Just because they are in a position of power, doesn’t mean that they’re right.
