Keep it Simple - Softcover

Bradshaw, Terry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743417313 ISBN 13: 9780743417310

Publisher: Pocket Books, 2003

Synopsis

Sharing his own special, hard-won secrets of success, the former football star draws on his own life and career to describe how he transformed himself from a famous quarterback into an award-winning broadcaster and popular motivational speaker. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author

Terry Bradshaw is a Hall-of-Fame, four-time-Super-Bowl-champion quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers and is currently co-host of Fox NFL Sunday.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1: An Important Chapter in My Life

Welcome to my book, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you very much for coming to this page today. Let me ask you this question: How many of you reading here have heard my album of gospel songs? Now don't you be shy, speak right up, right out loud. Anybody looks at you funny, you just tell them you're talking to a book. I promise you, they won't bother you again.

Just be grateful that all I asked you to do was say a few words out loud. Usually when I address people I begin by asking them to smile. I love to see people smiling. Love it. A smile is the mirror to the soul. It's a reflection of the character that's inside you. It reflects exactly how you feel about yourself. It tells the world, I'm happy! So go ahead and smile. I mean, you paid for all that dental work, you might just as well show it. When you buy a big expensive car you don't keep it locked in the garage. With all the money you've spent at the dentists don't keep those teeth locked in your mouth! That's right, show off that big Buick grill of a mouth!

And then I usually ask people to turn to the side and look at the person right next to them directly in the eyes. And shake their hand. Get to know them. Then after you get to know them, if they're nice enough give them a hug. Just go ahead and hug on 'em. And then I ask them to kiss -- wait, don't you go doing that. You'd definitely have a tough time convincing a judge that you kissed a stranger because a book told you to.

Obviously there is a big difference between reading a book and listening to me speak in person, but some things are exactly the same. Let me tell you, when I ask an audience how many people have heard my gospel album those people usually give me exactly the same answer I get when I ask that question to people reading my book; total silence. My friends, if you really want to hear my album you just go on into your local record store and look for it; though you might want to look in the section labeled "landfill." When an album is successful it goes "gold," my album went "lead." That didn't bother me, I knew I wasn't really a singer. What I was, was the quarterback of the Super Bowl champions. That's a well-known rule; you win a Super Bowl you get to record an album.

Not really a singer is only one of the many things I am not. Besides married, I mean. I am definitely not married. I am also not a movie actor, a television show host, or a talk-radio host, although I've also tried to do those things. Unsuccessfully. And those aren't the only things I've failed at, those are just some of the highlights. I've failed at a great variety of jobs. If there is one subject at which I am very good, it's failure. If failing was considered a profession, I'd be a legend at it.

But I got to record several albums, host my own TV show, appear in movies, host a talk-radio show, and make numerous commercials because I was very good at handing off a football to another man or passing it to a receiver and letting him run with it. Let him get hit by the big guys. That was my primary experience, handing off a football or passing it. So when record producers heard my voice they probably said, "Maybe he don't sound that great, but he won a Super Bowl." Or when television producers saw me acting they might have decided, "That boy sure doesn't look that good, but he won a Super Bowl!"

Can I have an amen on winning the Super Bowl, please?

You win just one Super Bowl and people'll amen you to death.

Lemme have an amen on amening! Hallelujah to that, Brother Terry!

There was one other thing I could do. I could talk. I mean, I could definitely talk. I could fill a silence better than jelly filled a doughnut, better than a cow filled a milk pitcher, better than Pamela Anderson filled -- well, you get the concept. So I began making speeches. I spoke anyplace they would have me. I spoke in auditoriums, I spoke in gymnasiums, I spoke standing up in the back of a '52 pick-up truck. And I became very successful. In fact, by the time I realized I had nothing of true importance to say it was too late, I was already a big success at making speeches.

One reason I have been successful at it is because I begin almost every speech by making a promise that I know I can fulfill. And I hereby make that same promise to you right on this very page: By the time you finish this book you will feel better about yourself. Because after you read my words you will know for certain that you are more intelligent than at least one person in the world.

Here's a little hint; most times when somebody tells you they are not very smart they are trying to outsmart you: "Ah, shucks, ya'all, I'm too dang dumb to know that this here marshmallow roaster is worth a lot more than the $99 in three easy installments I'm selling it to you for."

I am not trying to outsmart you. Not me. Not with my family background. When I got my job at the Fox network, for example, my Momma was just thrilled. "Baby, that's wonderful," she said. When I asked her why, she told me, "'Cause it's much easier to spell than ESPN."

Throughout my entire professional football career I was known for being dumb. That was my professional image. Dick Butkus was ferocious. Walter Payton was as elusive as mercury. Terry Bradshaw was dumb. D-u-m. Dumb. Bradshaw was so dumb he couldn't pass a physical. In the off-season Bradshaw works as a test dummy. And truthfully it hurt me when people said that. It was said about me that I couldn't spell "cat" even if they spotted me the c and the t. Other people laughed. But it was not something I thought was funny or clever. It was not an image I embraced. I wasn't even smart enough to realize how beneficial that image might be to me later in my life. Being dumb became my character.

You ever see me doing a commercial? I'm the one fishing in the swimming pool. I'm the one driving two ways on a one-way street. I'm the one getting insulted by a puppet.

It is a character that has worked very well for me. For example, when I make speeches to large groups -- not like right now when I'm addressing you personally -- I explain that I'm not really as dumb as my image. I have a PE degree from Louisiana Tech, I say proudly. I have a PE degree! Some people laugh when I say that, but there's nothing at all funny about a PE degree. When I earned that degree my family was mighty proud of me. Not counting my older brother, I was the very first person in our family to graduate from college. Although admittedly my grandfather, my pawpaw, didn't quite understand my degree. "A Pee degree?" he kept asking. "Heck, when I was coming up they didn't have to teach it, they just sent you out back behind the house and told you not to do it upwind."

Truth is, though, all along I was smart enough to understand that I wasn't really that smart. That was an important piece of information. At times I've struggled with life the way an ant struggles with a suitcase. I have a perfect record in marriage, for example: three marriages, three divorces, a perfect record. I've made and lost and made and lost a considerable amount of money. I've done so many things in my life that even I don't understand -- buying two ostrich eggs for $7,000 would be a particularly fine example of that -- that I no longer worry about it.

But for a long time I did want to understand my life. Part of my problems, I discovered as an adult, came from the fact that I had ADD, attention deficit disorder. That made it hard for me to focus on things I didn't really like. School, for instance. It also made it difficult for me to retain information. I'd read a question on a test, I'd know the answer, but before I could write it down I'd not only forget the answer, I'd forget the question. I didn't do well on tests. The problem with that is when you're young and people tell you that you're not ve

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0743417313
• ISBN 13: 9780743417310
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320