Tom Brady's life coach Greg Harden recalls first meeting with 18-year-old NFL icon - "Snot-nosed little brat"

Tom Brady is quite possibly the greatest player the NFL has ever seen. Throughout his 23 years with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he won seven Super Bowl titles, made multiple Pro Bowls, broke multiple records, received multiple awards, and became a cultural icon the likes of which the NFL had rarely seen.

But if his life coach Greg Harden is to be believed, he was initially something else entirely.

Harden has recently been thrust into the spotlight with his upcoming book Stay Sane in an Insane World: How to Control the Controllables and Thrive, whose foreword is written by Brady, whom Harden worked with at Michigan. And speaking to People, he recalled his first meeting with Brady, who had just turned eighteen at the time:

"[He] was a snot nose that just got off the boat. He was struggling and trying desperately to be a starting quarterback."

According to Harden, Brady had seen his work with Desmond Howard and thus also wanted in:

"I think he shared with me that he saw what Desmond Howard and I had done. Desmond ended up winning the Heisman Trophy and boom, boom, boom. Tom said, 'Hey, maybe you could support me. Help me a little bit.' So, we started working."

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Tom Brady did not want to be a star, says Greg Harden

In the same interview, Harden described how his client initially struggled to handle his sudden rise to nationwide fame:

"By the second and third Super Bowl, he has no life," Harden recalls. "He can't go outside. He can't go to the store. He can't go get a soda pop ...So for him, it was overwhelming in the beginning. It's difficult to manage all of that when that's not your dream... Stardom was not his mission."

That is why it feels refreshing for Harden to see Brady credit all those successes to him:

"For him to still, after all these years, be willing to give me any credit for what the foundation was, it's humbling. The foundation was him training himself to give 100%, 100% of the time, training himself to trust and believe. If no one else believes in you, to believe in yourself."

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Who is Greg Harden? A look at the life and career of Tom Brady's life coach

As it turns out, Tom Brady is not the only Super Bowl MVP and football legend Greg Harden has worked with.

Before he was a life coach, speaker, and consultant, his remarkable career began as a clinical therapist in his hometown of Detroit, where he excelled as a star runner in high school. Although initially recruited by the University of Michigan, Harden decided to take a break to focus on starting a family.

However, his passion for helping others led him back to Michigan, where he completed his bachelor's degree in general studies in 1981. He then pursued a career as a clinical therapist in Ypsilanti, while concurrently obtaining his master's degree in social work at Michigan.

In 1986, his expertise caught the attention of Michigan football head coach Bo Schembechler, who hired him as a counselor. It was during his tenure at Michigan that Harden began working with remarkable athletes, such as Desmond Howard, who went on to win the Heisman Trophy in 1991 and become the first special team player to be awarded Super Bowl MVP. Alongside Howard, Harden also had the privilege of working with other notable individuals, including Olympic swimming legend Michael Phelps and NBA players Jalen Rose and Nik Stauskas.