March 24, 2026

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Every week, I sit down to reflect on the events of the week before, extract their lessons, and gameplan how to apply those lessons toward greatness and growth. It’s a system that has always worked for me, it can work for you too. Welcome to The 199!

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The Secret Power of Naivete

Before we get into this week’s newsletter, I want to take a moment to once again apologize to the McCarver family and all of Tim’s friends and colleagues for the error in the last newsletter referencing his passing as if it had just occurred. I had been reflecting on the anniversary of Tim’s passing when I first began to write what became last week’s newsletter, and through the editing and proofreading process, that key phrasing got cut and changed, and then wasn’t caught in time. I feel badly about it, still.

All of that said, there are no excuses. I built my career on doing the work, being prepared, executing at the highest level, and when we fall short, taking responsibility, learning from the mistakes, and doing better next time. That was true on the field, it’s true in the booth, and it’s true for this newsletter. We’re not perfect, but we’ll always do our best.

Now, onto this week’s newsletter.

REFLECTION

One of the reasons I believe I succeeded as a football player was that I was naive. I never truly understood how difficult the path to success actually is. When I look back at my journey, the path seems next to impossible. I find myself thinking about all the different reasons it was hard or why it should have failed. The way I did it doesn’t look like something that should have worked. And it might not have if I knew any better at the time.

Like filling out college applications my junior year of high school, which I didn’t do because I knew I was going to get a scholarship. The college guidance counselor said, “No, you’re going to fill out these applications,” and he was beside himself when my response was basically, “why would I do that? Someone is literally going to ask me to come to their college and then pay for it.” The audacity. This is not how this process works! But I had no idea. I just knew I was going to get a scholarship.

Then at Michigan, when the head coach who recruited me got fired, and the recruiting coordinator left at the same time, and then the quarterback coach left the following year, I had no conception of the challenges that would pose for my playing time. I didn’t realize I’d just lost all the institutional support there was for my success and that I was basically on my own to find support and make something happen. These days, just one of those things sends recruits straight into the transfer portal (which is its own problem).

This kind of naïveté continued through getting drafted by the Patriots. As a sixth round pick coming in fourth on the depth chart, there was no guarantee that I’d make the final 53-man roster. But still, two weeks before final cuts I wanted to buy my teammate Ty Law’s old house. My agents were strongly against it. They advised me to wait until I made the team before I made any big financial commitments. And I was like, “dude, I’m going to make the team, don’t worry about it.”

Obviously, everything worked out, but at no point was it obvious that it would work out at the time. When people talk about ignorance being bliss, this is what they mean. This is the power of naïveté: all the space that’s eventually taken up by knowing, can be filled instead by believing and doing. Which are far more powerful when you’re trying to do something new.

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LESSON

It’s very common to look back at things you’ve accomplished and wonder how you did it. If you’re honest with yourself, it’s hard to deny that if you knew exactly how hard it was going to be when you started, you might not have done it. Starting a business, moving to a new city, making a movie or writing a book—there are so many things in this life that can feel impossible until you’ve done them.

In many ways, this awareness is a product of maturity. Of being able to see things from other people’s perspectives and to learn from their experiences. When I was drafted 199 by the Patriots as a 22-year-old, I had no idea how hard it can be for a late round draft pick to make a team let alone start for one. But now, as a 48-year-old, with 25 years of experience in and around the game, I have a deep understanding of how unlikely, and seemingly daunting, my path was.

The truth in this mature point of view speaks indirectly to the freedom that comes with seeing the world only through our own eyes, which is the only way we can see things when we’re young. That isn’t to say that we do whatever we want. The part of the brain that controls decision-making and impulse control doesn’t fully mature until we’re 25 years old, so it’s a good thing we are taught from an early age to take orders and instruction from elders…we just don’t know why at that stage. We don’t know what we don’t know. While we may do what others tell us to do, we experience those moments through an unfiltered lens that allows us to build our own perspective and interpret the world around us as the context for our unique lives.

The beautiful part of this process is that the gap between our experience and our knowledge is filled by belief and faith. We believe in so many things when we’re young—not least of all, in ourselves. When your kid tells you they want to be an astronaut when they grow up, they believe it, in part because they don’t know any better. They don’t know all the different reasons why something like becoming an astronaut is insanely hard. Many of those difficulties don’t even appear on our radar screen when we’re young unless someone makes us aware of them (a nervous parent, a jealous hater, a rival, etc.). This blissful ignorance is what gives us the space to dream.

If you have a passion for something, if you have some ability, and if you have a defined goal, the power of naïveté is that it wipes out everything between the start line and the finish line. You see the beginning and you see the end. The twists and turns and pitfalls on the path to great achievement don’t appear on your mental map. Instead, what fills the gap is desire, effort, persistence and sacrifice, which are the qualities you need in order to be the kind of person who can figure things out.​

‘Willful naivete’, let’s call it, is a mindset I think more people should actively embrace and try to cultivate. If you want to climb Mount Everest, for example, where is the value in knowing how many people have died on the mountain, or how long it can take? Is there usable information in the answers to those questions? Sure. If this is your first time going up the mountain, is it more valuable or encouraging than your desire to reach the top, your preparation, your resilience, your effort? I don’t think so.

Putting one foot in front of the other is much more important than trying to figure out everybody else’s footsteps.

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APPLICATION

So often these days, I meet people who have big dreams and want to make something happen, but then right when it gets hard, they start listening to all these other voices, seeking out all kinds of advice and reassurance, that ends up convincing them to pivot away from their dreams to the safety of a Plan B. And what they fail to realize is that they’ve made both their Plan A and their Plan B harder to achieve by splitting their attention and their resources. You thought it was hard before? Try making your dream come true with 50% of your time and energy. Good luck!

You can’t let the entire world of possible outcomes flood your field of vision and wash out your picture of the finish line. Obviously, bring to bear everything you’ve learned in your previous experiences in other areas of life, but don’t dull the sharpness of your hard-earned insights by bringing other people’s irrelevant experiences into the equation.

Don’t be dumb, of course. There will be people out there who have done what you’re trying to do, who have wisdom to share, that you should absolutely seek out. But not everybody who has been on a similar path is created equal, and neither are their perspectives. As the famous brain coach and learning specialist, Jim Kwik, has said: “don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from.” When you’re obsessed with something, don’t let anyone stand in your way of achieving it, and certainly don’t let their opinions distract you.

When I joined the booth for FOX, I brought all my football knowledge with me, and all my insights from being part of high performing teams for 32 years, but I didn’t spend my time thinking about all the players-turned-broadcasters who came before me. Rather, I watched the great ones to learn what they did well, without concerning myself too much with how they got to that place. That was their journey, this was mine.

Which brings me to an even more important moment: when you are in a position to help someone reach their own big goals. Whether you’re a parent, a mentor, a coach, a boss, an investor or an advisor, when you’ve been through the ringer or reached the mountaintop, the impulse to share everything you’ve learned is really strong. You want your child, your student, your player, your apprentice, to know everything. You want them to be the most prepared they could possibly be. The problem is, by doing that you’d be robbing them of the power of their own naïveté, of the freedom that comes with not knowing what they don’t know.

That’s not what they need. They need their nature to be nurtured. They need their natural abilities, enthusiasm and confidence to be supported and enhanced, so that their passion can turn into the kind of obsession that becomes focused, productive discipline. You need to empower their naïveté, so they spend less time worrying about what they don’t know and more time believing in themselves and doing the damn thing!

When anyone is allowed (or allows themselves) to live their obsession, with no plan B, set their goals and seek out wise, talented people whose experience is relevant to their obsession, then you know they’re on the path to success.

Your kid could be the next Tiger Woods, a chess prodigy, a champion speller, the next Elon Musk or Steve Jobs. It doesn’t matter where their interests or goals lay, it matters that you allow them to live with no fear, no regret, as they continue enthusiastically and relentlessly down their path, unwittingly pushing through incredible challenges that would scare off those of us who know from experience just how difficult what they’re trying to do actually is.

​Life is hard. To build a life of meaning and purpose, filled with amazing accomplishments that you’re proud of, you will inevitably have to dig deep within yourself to overcome challenges and harness your full potential. It’s a world you will have to build from the foundation, brick by brick. It’s a path you must walk, step by step.

Really, it’s a marathon. One you’re super excited to run at the start. You have a general sense that 26.2 miles is a long way and is probably going to be hard. But you have no idea that in the middle of it you’re going to question your sanity and swear that you’re never going to do this again. Only to reach the last two miles, with crowds cheering you all the way in, until you break the tape elated and exhausted, fully aware that you just had one of the most rewarding experiences of your life.

Had you known the middle was going to be hell before you started, you would never have felt the heaven on the other side of the finish. How do I know that will be the case for you? I don’t. But I believe. Call me naive. I have faith you can do it.

As they say, ignorance is bliss.

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