Just recently (in August 2022), Tebow sat down with Life.Church’s senior pastor Craig Groeschel for a time of Q&A regarding the topic of earning respect as a leader.
Tebow shared how his parents prepared him to be a great leader. Doctors encouraged Tebow’s mother to abort him because of medical complications during her pregnancy. Instead, his parents chose to trust God for a miracle despite the possibility of being told she could lose her own life. At a young age, Tebow said his father would say, “God spared [you] in [your] mother’s womb for a reason, and He’s given you gifts.” His father would also say, “Brett Farve could go and share in any high school he wanted to. One day I think you’ll have that same chance—but will you?”
“Will you use that opportunity and that platform for good or for yourself?” Tim recalled his father asking him after a little league baseball game and repeatedly as he got older. “It really did have an impact in my life, because I realized that influence isn’t just for the positive—and leadership isn’t just positive. And it is just as easy, if not easier, to lead in a negative way. To be a gossiper, to be tattletale, to be an egomaniac, to be arrogant, to be all those things before it is to lead in a humble manner. Before it is to lead in an upright way. Before it is to lead guys to actually rally them together. So I’d actually say that I learned early on from doing it wrong before I ever came close to possibly doing it right.”
