In this episode, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson sits down with athlete, philanthropist, and speaker Tim Tebow to discuss the connection between competitive drive, personal virtue, and Christian compassion. Tebow recounts the life-changing encounter that inspired his foundation — a moment in a remote Filipino village, where he met a disabled boy hidden away from the world. From that day forward, his focus shifted from MVP titles to serving the most vulnerable. Together, they explore the demonization of masculinity, the crisis facing young men today, and how athletic excellence, when rooted in higher purpose, can become a force for good. This is a conversation about strength, faith, responsibility, and redemption — and what it truly means to win at life. Timothy Richard Tebow, born August 14, 1987, in Makati, the Philippines to missionary parents Bob and Pam Tebow, is an American professional baseball player, former professional football player, 3x NY Times best-selling author, international speaker, and ESPN sports broadcaster. He played college football for the University of Florida, and in 2007 became the first player to win the Heisman Trophy as a sophomore. Tim is also a 2x BCS National Champion. In the NFL, Tim played for the Denver Broncos, the New York Jets, the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles. He is currently playing baseball as an outfielder and designated hitter with the New York Mets MLB team. This episode was filmed on March 23rd, 2025. | Links | For Tim Tebow: On X https://x.com/timtebow?lang=en On Instagram https://www.instagram.com/timtebow/?hl=en Website https://timtebow.com/ The Tim Tebow Foundation http://timtebowfoundation.org/
Chapter 1: How does competitiveness relate to higher service?
I'm very curious about how you see the relationship between the competitiveness that has characterized your athletic career and this calling to higher service.
To sum it up, it's the fight for people that can't fight for themselves and competitiveness is not the problem. It's where you steer it. So you saw a lot of people who were suffering, and you knew that that was wrong. I see the boy laying on the cot. I see his legs. I see they're on backwards. And so I get a little bit emotional, but I hold it back.
And Sherwin is the name of the boy who looks at me and said, I've been told my whole life that I'm not impressive.
Let's go back. I don't understand how you developed your athletic ability in relation to team sports and were homeschooled. How did that come about?
Can I back it up even to my birth? There was issues with the entire pregnancy. The placenta wasn't properly attached. She had amoeba dysentery. She went into a coma. The doctor who had finally helped my mom give birth, he looked at my parents and said, I don't know how your baby boy is alive. And God's got a special plan for your life.
Do you know what happens when you hear that over and over and over again? You start to believe it.
So what did it mean to believe that when you were little? I had the opportunity today to talk to one of the world's premier athletes, Tim Tebow, and we had a very interesting conversation. And I would say the crux of the matter is the relationship between Masculinity, masculine competitiveness, masculine striving for excellence, and virtue, all things considered.
Our culture is set up now in large part on the presupposition that competition is And that masculine striving for dominance and excellence is in itself a form of patriarchal oppressiveness. And that's wrong. And it's not only wrong, it's wrong in a deadly way because it demoralizes young men. And when that happens, well, then young women don't have anybody to partner with.
And so that's just a complete bloody catastrophe. And Thiebaud is a very interesting case because he's an excellent athlete and in multiple different athletic domains. And he's extremely competitive and averse to failure. But at the same time, he's a very good man.
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Chapter 2: What inspired Tim Tebow to start his foundation?
And one of the things that I really felt like was pricked on my heart and I don't even know Dr. Peterson if I could have explained it verbally then as much as it was just in my heart. But now the way I'd explain it was I was chasing trying to be my best and every now and then being the best and you could say chasing an MVP of most valuable player.
But God pricked my heart that day and said, I have a more important MVP for you to chase. It's not the most valuable player. It's the most vulnerable people. Because they're worth far more than some other MVP.
There's a weird paradox in your story because, well, many of them, but... I'm very curious about why this boy in particular. Now, you know, so what you just said, there's a bunch of paradoxical elements to it because you're obviously very competitive. You really like winning. You said you hate losing even more.
And that's actually an attitude that many people think is at odds with an attitude of compassion, for example, right? Because there's a huge movement in our culture to demonize competitive sports because they're oppressive and aggressive. And
You were spectacularly successful as an athlete, and you describe yourself as very competitive, and yet you also were highly motivated to start this foundation. And the boy that pricked your conscience, like you said you were on your father's missionary ventures, in many places, and yet it was this particular boy.
And you could think of him in a way as exactly the opposite of you, because literally his feet were on backwards. And I'm curious about why you think it was him in particular. I mean, you were in the Philippines and other places, so you saw a lot of people who were suffering. Like, why do you think it was that it was his existence per se, that stood out for you.
And then the other thing I'm curious about in that regard is, you know, you said that as far as the people in his village were concerned, he was a throwaway. And you knew that that was wrong. And so the first question might be, why do you think that it was obvious to the people in the village that he was a throwaway, so to speak. And why do you think that grated against you?
What's the difference in perspective there? Well, that's a bunch of different questions.
They're great questions. I would start with... My opinion on probably why they believed he was cursed in last thing is because that's what they had been told for a long time. That's what they had believed, that because he was born this way, he was cursed. And it was a belief that... that he was less than.
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Chapter 3: How did Sherwin's story impact Tim Tebow?
And it was really the first time I'd ever seen anything like this that close and personal. And so I get a little bit emotional, but I hold it back and I'm sitting there and I'm talking with these three boys and I'm sharing why we're there and God's heart and love for them.
And the whole time I just had to ask though, I don't know why, I just felt like I had to ask, why did you leave when everybody was so excited to see the Americans? why did you leave? And Sherwin is the name of the boy with his feet on backward and looks at me and said, because our principal really wants to make a good impression and impress the Americans.
And I've been told my whole life that I'm not impressive. And I just knew that I was here now for a reason.
Right, so he had to be hidden from you.
Yes.
Right, because it would bring the village into disgrace.
Yes.
Right. See, there's a very interesting... It's not surprising that that had such an impact on you, because the attitude that you're describing... that would lead that boy to be isolated, that is, you could say in this way, that that's the standard human attitude towards abnormality.
And I would say that was particularly true in the pre-Christian world, is that if someone was deformed or abnormal in any way, that the conclusion would be that they were cursed, and that they were less than, and the evidence would be the fact of their disability.
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Chapter 4: What are the misconceptions about masculinity?
Like, you were homeschooled, I understand. I'm reasonably awake. Well, you know, how awake can you be at 15? You know, I mean, hopefully you're more awake now, like we all are by the time we're older. So, let's go back. Now, you were homeschooled.
Yes, sir.
Okay, so... Tell me about, and everybody else, about how your athletic ability developed and how that related to being homeschooled and then how that came about. And then I want to take that thread and I want to tie it to what you just described, because you said something that's very profound. So my son is a very competitive person. And he was an ornery little kid.
And he was a lot of fun to have around because he was a really tough little kid. He basically had his mother defeated already when he was nine months old. And she's tough. And so, you know, he was very goal-directed and he didn't like anything getting in his way. And he had a will. And...
What he managed to do, and very young, by the time he was three, this was already pretty much in place, he managed to integrate that competitiveness into a very disciplined personality that was also very diplomatic. And then he became a very good athlete, and he became the sort of athlete that people also really wanted to have on their team.
And so what he did with that competitive masculine drive was put it in the right place. You know, and God calls on Adam, this is Adam's job as the human spirit that continues the process of creation. God calls upon Adam to name things and to subdue them, which means to put them in their proper place with relationship to one another. And your claim was that that competitive spirit
if it is directed only towards victory, only towards victory and say self-aggrandizement, then it can become a curse. But if it's put in its right place, subordinate to something higher, then it's a benefit. And that's intelligence is like that too. When it's king of the castle, it's Satan himself, it's Lucifer.
But when it's in the right place, it's the highest of all serving angels, you could say. So let's go back. I like to know how you're, athletic ability developed, especially given that you were homeschooled. And then I want to know how you figured out how to keep that in the proper place given, you know, you had so much success.
that it could have been, it must have even been tempting for you to become narcissistic about that. I mean, that's an easy path for people to take when their ability makes them stand out in such a spectacular way. And so, but it seems to me that even by the time you were 15, you knew that there was something deeply inappropriate about that. So let's go back.
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Chapter 5: How can competitiveness be a force for good?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He opens the chain link fence. He comes walking over. He's got, my dad, especially then was a pretty stern looking, intimidating looking guy. And he walks over, he leans over and he looks me in the eye and he says, Timmy, it's okay. He just doesn't understand. Oh boy. He doesn't get it. And I was like, yes, that's good.
Yeah. Well, that's so important because I don't know, like I've interviewed a lot of people. Well, in my clinical practice, but then 500 people, I guess, as part of this podcast. And one of the things I'm always curious about is, because all the people I interview have been outstanding in one way or another, and I'm very curious to see what makes them tick.
And one of the things that's pretty much universal among them is that both their parents had their backs. And I think if you look at that developmentally, what you see, this is a cliche, I suppose, but it's basically right, is that What you get from your mother is, especially really early in life, is this
embodied sense of your ultimate value, because a mother, especially in the first year, has to sacrifice everything to indicate to you that it's a good thing that something as small and useless as you actually is around, right? So she subjugates everything to establishing that relationship and enticing you into the world.
So, you know, if you take babies and you give them food and shelter and warmth, like material security, but they don't get attention and they don't get touch, they die. Right, 100% of them die without maternal attention. And that's even the case for complex animals like rats. It's like maternal attention and touch, love, is... a primary need.
So a baby's eyes literally have the natural focal distance of eye to breast. That's where they see most naturally. And so the mother sets that inclusion foundation. But then the father's goal is to have your back in situations like that. And to say to you, particularly, particularly this, see, you see this in the story of Abraham, because God comes to Abraham as the spirit of adventure.
So God comes to Abraham, he's like in his 70s, and he's being dependent and infantilized and overly secure his whole life because his parents are rich, so he doesn't have to lift a finger. And God says to him, you go out in the world and have your adventure. And everything will come to you. You'll be a blessing to yourself. You'll establish something of permanence.
Your name will become known among everyone and validly. And you'll do that in a way that will bring abundance to everyone else. If you're adventurous, if you strive forward. And that's what your father did for you that day. He said, even in the face of your coach, he said, no, your desire to... put everything behind it and to become victorious. That's correct.
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Chapter 6: What role did Tim's parents play in his development?
Not at all, no, and they'll break it. And they'll seek false adventure because people aren't built for comfort. They're built for challenge. And then there's one more observation about that. The oldest story we have likely is the dragon fight story. It's really old, thousands of years.
And so the idea is a quest into the unknown to find the dragon that guards the treasure, the voluntary confrontation with the dragon, and then the receipt of the treasure. there's a core idea there, which is that there are treasures, but the treasures are guarded and they're guarded by something terrible.
And so you could say, well, wherever there's a treasure, there's going to be a dragon, but you can reverse that equally. And you can say, wherever there's a dragon, There's going to be a treasure. And so now you walk through your life and some horrible dragon emerges, like you have in the old child, for example, or something arbitrary and terrible.
And you could be crushed by that and get bitter and resentful and no bloody wonder. But you could also think, okay, dragon, there's gotta be a treasure around here somewhere. And that gives you a completely different stance on the problem, which is the stance of a contender. It's like, oh, we have a major league challenge here and that could force us to develop.
We know too, you know, there's psychophysiological studies that show this. It's very, very cool. So imagine you take two groups of people. random assignation to groups, so there's no difference between the groups. And one group you impose a challenge on involuntarily. They have to do it. And the other group has a choice and they choose to do it.
Then you measure their physiological responses and their emotions. They're completely different in the two groups. The group that has to do it in an obligatory way They turn into prey animals and they produce a lot of stress hormones. So now they're frozen and they have the spirit of a prey animal. But the people who do it voluntarily, well, they're now a lot more like predators.
They're a lot more like it's voluntary and it's challenging. And so the whole pattern of activation changes and this cascades all the way down to the genetic level. So if you take on a confrontation voluntarily, you turn on genes that wouldn't otherwise be turned on and they code for new proteins and build you really from the cells upward into a whole different creature.
So this attitude towards challenge, which is developed if you are confronting competition, that attitude towards challenge determines even the way you behave developed physically, much less spiritually, emotionally.
I love that so much because it reminds me of one thing I love to say is we get the choice of living a have to or a get to life. Yeah, right. Like even for sports that you could see certain teammates, people I play with or against, their joy might be taken at times because they would feel like, man, I have to.
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Chapter 7: How does Tim Tebow balance competition and humility?
Now randomly I'll be reading the Bible or I'll be with teammates or friends and we'll be looking at it and I'll be like, I didn't memorize this. And all of a sudden, because I had to memorize it to play games, even though I didn't want to, I had to to play and I would be willing to do whatever it took to play. And now I'll be like, wait a second, I memorized this.
Like it just, you know, the other day we were reading in Proverbs 5 or 6 and I'm sitting there and I'm like, wait, I know so much of this because I had to memorize it. Like, you know, go to the end, O slugger, observe her ways and be wise, which having no chief officer or ruler prepares her food in the summer and gathers her provision in the harvest. How long will you lie down?
O slugger, a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding your hands and rest and your poverty will come in like a vagabond and your need like an armed man. And you could keep going. And I don't even remember.
Say that slowly.
Which part of it?
The whole thing.
Let's see. Go to the aunt, O slugger, observe her ways and be wise, which having no chief officer or ruler, prepares her food in the summer and gathers her provision in the harvest. How long will you lie down, O slugger? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little floating of hands to rest, and your poverty will come like a vagabond or need like an armed man.
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Chapter 8: What lessons can be learned from youth sports?
A worthless person, a wicked man, is one who walks with a false mouth, who winks with his eyes, who signals his feet, who with perverseness heart devises evil continually, and one who spreads strife. Therefore, his calamity will come suddenly, instantly, and there will be no healing. There are six things that the Lord hates, yet seven are abomination to him.
Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that win rapidly to evil, a false witness who utters lies." Okay, so that's a very interesting. I say that it's not because I wanted to memorize that. It's because my parents kept putting that in my head over and over and over again.
So that specifically, you know, in this Proverbs, because my dad didn't want us to be lazy. Yeah. Go to the aunt of sluggards.
Yeah.
For ways to be wise. And then you get to closer to the end of the chapter and you're saying, man, these are the things that the Lord hates. And so there was such a plan, my parents, in putting these thoughts in our head so that you would meditate on them, even though we didn't want to. But eventually when it's in your head and it's in your heart, God can bring it to your memory.
So I'm curious about two things there. So first of all, that's a very telling passage. So there's this... There's this subplot in the Old Testament where the Israelites, they escaped their slavery and they escaped the Pharaoh, who's the tyrant. So now they're a free people, right? And they're trying to organize themselves. And so they organize themselves in a responsible hierarchy.
This is following the suggestion of Jethro, who's Moses' father-in-law. So the Israelites are trying to figure out what they do if they're not ruled by a tyrant. And Jethro says, well, you divide yourself into groups of 10. You elect a representative. You have the 10 elect another representative, elect another representative, all the way up to the 10,000s.
And so he describes a hierarchy of responsibility as the alternative to tyranny and slavery, right? And so, but what that means is that in that hierarchy, everybody has to act responsibly. And then you don't need a king. And so this Proverbs passage that you just described,
zeroes in on that, says that if everyone pulls their weight voluntarily, like the ant, and isn't a sluggard and isn't lazy and waiting for someone else to do it, then there's no need for a tyrant and no one's a slave. But more than that, in that responsibility is tremendous meaning and opportunity. So you get to have your cake and eat it too. You don't need a tyrant
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