This blog article was originally a post from Rafael Barbieri in our trading group on facebook. Thank you Rafael for such a great share!
This is not being posted because I am a Patriots fan. Tom Brady had a press conference where much of what he said seems to fit with successful trading. (I agree 100%).
TB: “Part of being mentally tough is to move forward and learn from your mistakes”
TB: ” Like I said, we strung together a bunch of good wins in a row and then had a pretty tough loss. We’ve just got to try to keep getting better and keep winning. That’s what we’re trying to do every week. You come in here every week with goals. This is what we need to do better this week. Certain areas maybe you go backwards a little bit, but then you put more emphasis on it and then hopefully it becomes a strength.”
TB: “No, nothing like a routine or anything like that. I think there just part of the process, whether you win or lose you come in and you watch the tape and you talk to your coach and then you move forward. When you lose, it sucks. There’s no question about it. It’s not fun for anybody. It makes for a long week. It makes for long seasons when you lose. But part of the mental toughness that we need to have is to be able to move on and understand why we lost the game and why we win games and what we need to do better the next week.”
Q: As a leader of this team, how do you like the mental toughness of this particular team?
TB: Well, we’ll see. This is when it matters most. There are important games like this that you see how tough you are to put things behind you and to move forward. We had a pretty good streak there going off wins and it feels pretty good when you’re on those winning streaks, and then when you lose, it feel like you haven’t won a game in three years. There’s evaluation and self evaluation and the coach gives you evaluation and you try to use it in practice this week to be better and to be as prepared as you can possibly be so you don’t go out and lose again.
Q: How much do you pay attention to playoff scenarios?
TB: Not really. We’re just trying to go out and win. I think that’s the most important thing for us to do: win a game. Whatever happens down the road, happens. In order to accomplish our goal, you have to win every week. We’re trying to win every week. That’s what we’re trying to do. We were trying to win last week. We’re trying to win this week. That’s the only thing that we’re really playing for.
Q: A few years ago you guys were upset pretty badly by Cleveland. Is that an example of a game that was maybe a wake up call or extra motivation for you guys? What do you remember about that game and how it affected the team?
TB: God, I’m not sure. I don’t remember what I was thinking at that time. I think the important part for us is to lose from our mistakes. Like I said, whether it’s a win or loss, obviously we don’t do everything right every week. I know when we win, sometimes we feel like we do a lot of things really well, and we do. And the other night we do some things really well and we do plenty of things that are the reasons why we lost. I think it comes back to, a lot of times, limiting turnovers. We had four turnovers. You lose the turnover battle and a lot of times, you lose the game. We’ve got to try to protect the ball this week. Certainly, that’s a big point of emphasis and hopefully we can do a better job.
Q: Is there something you can take from being beat to come back from such a large deficit, even if you didn’t end up winning?
TB: Well, the execution was better at that time. I think that’s what we talked about. It wasn’t all bad. I think there were times when the execution is good and that’s why you score points. You’ve got to be able to string plays together without shooting yourself in the foot. We’ve got to do a better job of stringing those plays together and that’s what we’re going to try to do this week.