April 21, 2026 | Issue Archive
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Tom Brady, Me, and Force Multipliers
Tom Brady published a newsletter this morning.
The headline: "Surround Yourself with Force Multipliers."
I noticed it because I use that phrase in every keynote: Community is the force multiplier. So I read it.
Brady's argument: the people you choose to surround yourself with will either multiply your energy or drain it. Choose wisely.
He's right. And I'd go further.
Last month I walked into a room with over 400 people. Among them, the kind of professionals who prefer their keynote speakers to have a PhD and a peer-reviewed citation for every claim they make.
The room was quiet when I started. Not hostile. Just reserved. Evaluating.
I let them be.
I kept my energy up. Kept my intention fixed on the people who needed what I was about to share. Held to something I've learned to trust: someone in this room needs to hear this. That belief is its own kind of fuel.
Over the next hour, I watched the room shift. More laughter at the right moments. Shoulders dropping. Pens moving. The room relaxed into itself.
Afterward, a man came up to me. He told me he has seen the power of breathwork and loved that part of the session. Then he told me something else.
He had stepped out briefly during the keynote. Another attendee caught him in the hallway and said, "Why do they book speakers like this? I'm not taking mental health advice from someone who's not a PhD."
The man looked at him and said: "I'm sorry you couldn't be present for the moment."
Then he turned to me: "I don't want mental health advice from a PhD. I want advice from someone who's lived it."
Brady's version of community is about selection. Find the force multipliers. Manage the energy vampires. Curate your orbit carefully.
That's a privilege most of us don't have. You don't get to choose your coworkers. Your family. The room you're walking into on a Tuesday in March.
Radical Adaptability flips it. You don't wait for the room to warm up. You don't wait for the right people to show up. You become the force multiplier first—and watch what follows.
That's not optimism. That's a choice.
This Ends Now
Stop waiting for the room to give you permission to show up fully.
The room that's cold. The team that's disengaged. The relationship that feels one-sided. You've been managing your energy to match theirs—and calling it realistic.
It isn't realistic. It's isolation wearing a sensible disguise.
That ends now.
This Moment Matters
Before your next meeting, conversation, or hard room, ask yourself one question:
What kind of energy is this space going to have because I walked in?
Not because you're performing. Not because you're forcing it. Because you've made a decision about who you are in this moment, before anyone else makes it for you.
That's community as a choice. That's the fifth override.
One question. One room. Today.
The man who said "I'm sorry you couldn't be present for the moment"—he wasn't defending me. He was choosing his own ending.
That's the whole thing, right there.
Up we go—
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