Tom Brady's mental coach Greg Harden: Stay sane in an insane world

Between the kids being home and hosting, everything in our house gets used up in summer. With Instacart, I can save money by stocking up on all my favorite summer brands. I save time by getting everything delivered in as fast as an hour. And I save myself a sink full of dirty dishes by stocking up on paper plates for the annual summer cookout. Save more on summer essentials?

Spend more time enjoying summer. Add summer to cart. Download the app to get free delivery on your first three orders. Offer valid for a limited time, minimum $10 per order.

Additional terms apply. At FedEx Office, we know running a business is a marathon. But sometimes, every task feels like a sprint. Design the product catalog, pick up the new boxes, print the business cards, notarize the lease, put out 20 more yard signs. It's a lot. Luckily for you, FedEx Office is here to help turn your ideas into reality.

So you can stop running yourself in circles and start concentrating on the important things, like deciding what's for lunch. Visit your nearest location or office.fedex.com to get started. Following Greg Harden on any sporting day is to see how revered he is. You'll see players coming up and giving him the high five and the little shoulder bump, the bro hugs. Greg Harden is the secret weapon at the University of Michigan. Greg, welcome. Well, good morning, indeed, young man.

Well, I'm pumped up already. So, Greg, why is this the right time for you to write your books and unlock and let everyone know your secret to your success? Is it because Tom Brady called it a career?

Well, no, it's because people like Tom and Desmond Howard have been harassing me, bothering me, poking at me to get something done and put it out there so that people can see that it's not about sports. What I taught them is what I'm teaching anyone that will listen. And that is how to become the world's greatest expert on one subject, yourself. And who taught you? Man, that's a great question.

God has a sense of humor, that's for sure. And I had to learn the hard way how to get out of my own way. And that's what we're trying to do is get people to understand that usually their limitations are self-imposed. And so I learned from I had great mentors. I had amazing people in my life who who signed up and believed in me before I believed in myself. So is this about success or is this about happiness?

Oh, my man. That's a great question, because a lot of people, when you ask them to describe success, if they don't include happiness, they're confused because you and I know you and I know people who are extremely successful, who are not happy, who are depressed and miserable, who might even take their own life. So, yes, success comes when you are pursuing happiness.

But the pursuit of happiness has to include trying to have amazing relationships, trying to be somebody that can share with care, compassion and concern who they are and what they want. How did you start using some of the principles at the University of Michigan? How did that come to be? Well, I was invited to come in and talk about alcohol and drugs, and I told them 18 to 22 year olds don't need lectures about alcohol and drugs. They know more about it than we do.

Right. So then I suggested that perhaps we could do some programming to teach people how to identify self-defeating attitudes and behaviors, the ways that I act, the ways that I might behave that could sabotage my dream. Everyone in an institution like a university has big dreams. And so if we can teach people how to identify and eliminate self-defeating attitudes, we increase their chances of success. So we're talking about how to be the best possible version of yourself.

I teach people first become the world's greatest expert. And that's how it all started. And so if you can come in and talk to somebody about anything as minute as I'm dating a fool all the way till I hate myself, that's a wide, wide continuum of care.

So you've got to give people somebody to talk to about life and the pursuit of happiness, what's working, what's not working. And so that's what we did. We created this model, which was now going to be called behavioral health care.

And we started it like years, decades before anyone else was talking about it. And could you give us an idea of this curriculum, because it seems to be effectively the biggest name in sports for him. As I mentioned, Jim Harbaugh, when he was a player, now he's a coach. Tom, he probably needs it more now. Tom Brady, who was buried in the bench of the University of Michigan, thought he made the bad choice. A guy ahead of him was actually, I think, the coach's son. And next thing you know, he becomes a starter.

He's got to share the job with Drew Henson, becomes a sixth round draft pick and the greatest quarterback ever. He says this, Greg Cardin has and will always be one of the most influential people in my life. He has helped me with my own struggles, personal struggles in both athletics and in life.

What I learned from Greg is still a part of who I am today. When he writes that, what do you think? I immediately started thinking about how important it is to share with anyone that this book is not about Tom. It's not about me. It's about them. And it's about them learning the same things I taught and teach anyone that will listen.

The first thing I had to teach Tom Brady at 19 years old. Is to stop worrying about what everybody else thinks. I don't care what your coaches think. All I care about is what you think. I don't care if they don't believe in you.

All I care about is do you believe in you? And then you teach them how to talk about controlling what they can control. I can't control what they think or how they operate or how they make decisions. What I can control is how I respond. What I can control, what Tom Brady can control is how he walks out on the field.

And if he's in the sixth, seventh slot, he acts like he's the number one quarterback every chance he gets. I know he wrote about that in his book too. That's the way he approached it. His practices were his games if he wasn't going to get in the game.

The name of the book, you just mentioned your subtitle, How to Control the Uncontrollables and Thrive. I want everyone to hear a clip from you at 60 Minutes. It's Tom Brady and you talking about basically what you bring to the table.

Cut 48. You know, he's probably the first person in your life that says, well, you don't deserve to really be on the field. He said that to you? I don't remember if that's exactly what it says, but he said, look, there's a reason why the other guy's out there.

Tom Brady went to see him when Tom was in college at Michigan because he was feeling badly. He's just frustrated. He's tired. And he knows that he has to do something different and he can't figure out what. Don't go to Greg if you don't want to hear the truth. He will hit you between the eyes if he will.

And they told me this all the time, if you don't believe in yourself, then why is anyone else going to believe in you? What matters is his heart and his mind. You can't measure that boy's heart. You can't measure his mind.

In that sport, all they do is measure. How high can you, how big are your hands? How much, how tall are you? How much do you weigh?

They don't even want to get to know the person. All you have to do is watch the combines to see that. You're the opposite, right? Yes, sir. I'm the guy that has the audacity to believe that while you can measure how high jump and how much weight I can lift and how fast I am. You cannot measure my heart or my mind. They can look right. You know what you've done.

I don't have a clue what you've done, but you know, you don't look like what you've been through. You know that you have pushed yourself when and when everyone questioned and doubted you and you rose above it. That's all we're trying to teach people is to do with the most successful people that we've ever heard of have to do. They have to get outside of themselves. They've got to be so clear about who they are. And their self-love and self-acceptance has to overrule wanting everyone else's approval and acceptance. I don't want to put down, everybody talks about this next generation not being tough enough, but I do know one thing pretty consistent. In terms of clearing obstacles and scaling hurdles, that doesn't seem to be something they're thriving at. Where they might have the great intellect, they might be a bit smarter, whatever you want to say. I think we've lost the toughness. Well, I tell you what, I'm going to disagree with you politely.

You ready? I think that we are not taking any ownership for how we're training them. We pampered them. We spoiled them. We set them up to be privileged and I don't want to, why am I?

I had a person's mother call me and ask me why I didn't hire their son. Come on, man. But we have to begin to understand that these young people today are capable and qualified. And we've got to walk in and expect the best from them and push them more than we have. That's my opinion. Let them fail.

Come on, man. Let them fail because I've got to learn how to manage failure. I've got teaching people how to manage success. So, you know, we've got to teach them how to manage failure. And to understand that failure, loss, grief, disappointment, trials and tribulations are predictable and therefore manageable. Most importantly, how do you recover? When we talk about physical fitness, we understand recovery time.

When we talk about training for mental fitness, that's to balance out our quest to remain mentally healthy, to not just wait until we're in trouble and in chaos, but to practice, train and rehearse, being more successful than the average person at recovering as fast as I can from the crises and challenges I face. Greg Horton's my guest right now. He's the author of Stay Sane in an Insane World. By the way, what did you say to that mom that called up and said, why didn't you hire their son? I asked her to perhaps she should consider calling someone else because that's not what we're going to talk about. I don't know you. I didn't interview you.

Have your child call me and ask me why. Understood. So I don't know if this really is exactly what you're talking about, but it just reminds me of what Mike Rowe said to me. You know, he goes out there and does dirty jobs and he deals with a lot of blue collar workers who travel the country and find out what they're about. And he's amazed how much happier they are than the Hollywood news community that he also hangs out with. He says, here are people not making as much, but they had a certainty in occupation and a pride in which they did and which for the most part, broadly based and a pride in what they did and they had balance in their lives. He goes, it's amazing to me how much happier they were. How does that fit into your philosophy and policy? Kill me.

You know, you're knocking it out the park. Think about what you're saying. We're talking about regular folks whose self-worth and self-esteem is not based on someone else's measurement.

It's not based on how much money they make. It's not based on whether or not they get a got an award or it's based on self-love and self-acceptance. Remember the person in your neighborhood who didn't have everything but you couldn't wait to go to their house?

Yes. Because of that energy and the atmosphere and the attitudes in that house just drew you in. So belief in myself, belief in and having a life worth living, that's not doesn't come with money.

It comes from something inside you. So I imagine if it does do that, for example, the 48 year old cop that retires said identity was wrapped up in that uniform as a firefighter or a cop or somebody that retires or is no longer acting or performing. If their identity is wrapped up in their athleticism, like Tom Brady retires at 45 years old.

I mean, if his identity is wrapped up in his occupation, that adjustment is going to be huge, let alone the 26 year old who no longer feels as though any football team wants to sign him and was struggling to make a roster to begin with. Do you get a lot of those clients? Yes. Well, think about this, though. Earlier you posed the question and I set you up just right. What we're talking about is teaching anyone that will listen that how I feel about me must not be based on other people's opinion. Who I am. Imagine telling a 19 year old Tom Brady, a Charles Woodson, a Desmond Howard, a Michael Phelps, you've got to decide with or without football.

Your life is going to be amazing. And once you believe that football becomes what you do, not who you are, you just happen to do it better than most. So when you go up to a guy that's the 6th string quarterback at the University of Michigan, who's rail thin, who wonders if they made the right choice.

Maybe they could be, in Tom Brady's case, I think he could have played baseball, some people said. So when his answer is, well, it's what you think of yourself, if his answer is, I don't think much of myself. You know, I'm not that good, don't know many people on campus, kind of 1,500 miles away from my family.

I don't, I don't, if his answer is I don't have that self-esteem, then what do you say? You say, well, then that's what we're going to be doing. I can't tell you how to throw a ball. I can't tell you how to read defenses. What I can teach you is to believe in yourself without question or pause, to believe that your life has meaning and purpose. It may not be football, but we're going to find out who you are and who you want to become. And that takes work. You train to be physically fit. You have to train to be mentally fit. You don't just, you know, say, well, I came in and I saw Greg Harden and, you know, six months ago, and I can't remember what he said. You have to get coaching.

You have to have, it has to be a recurring theme that you're going to work out on your mind. Understood. Understood. And, you know, just because you're not going to win a Super Bowl, hold up the Lombardi Trophy, it doesn't mean you can't be a winner in life, nor should you judge yourself on that. Last thing. I also think, too, for younger people listening to us right now, a lot of them say, I don't know what I want to do.

I don't know what I want to major in. And my answer has been, go find out. What does your neighbor do?

Are they happy? Well, what does, you know, what does interest you? Why don't you find out what is it like to own a business, a deli, a dry cleaner? What does it enable you to do? Do you want to be a lifeguard?

Go find, go talk to a lifeguard. But you've got to aggressively attack it. And even if you decide, hey, that's not for me, that's still a victory. Don't kill me.

Your stock just went up with me. Are you ready for this? You said exactly what must be said. I remember I told God, if I live to see 25, there must be some purpose. I hit 25 and said, oops, I guess I made a promise. And so, okay, I've got to find my purpose. Well, guess what my first purpose was? To find my purpose. To pursue it. To find out what clicks.

To experiment, like you said. You nailed it. You nailed it. Well, I got news for you. You sold a lot of books. Greg Cardin, Motivating America. One radio show at a time and one quarterback at a time. Stay sane in an insane world. Greg, congratulations on it and great talking to you. Thank you so much, sir, I appreciate you.