A Message to All Soccer Parents

I always have the TV on while I work. It keeps me awake. One of my favorite movies, Pan! It’s the beginning of the movie the boy is playing baseball and he misses to hit the pitch and its a strike out. End of the season and the team loses. The kid feels like shit. Coach’s season is over with a loss! 

I felt bad for the kid and started to think how this kid will carry this loss with them for the rest of their lives. 

But then again, I came to my senses. Really? Not everyone is destined for greatness and not everyone can be a chief. We need Indians and we need normal people like us to worship the Gods who walk the earth. We have had out chance, maybe we still do in whatever we are trying to achieve or maybe we have given up. Maybe we gave up when something went wrong, like swinging and missing the pitch. Maybe we are still swinging our bat and waiting for that moment to come? Or maybe we changed our sport all together realizing that baseball is not our thing? 

This reminded me of all the penalties that Massimo has missed. All the goals he has missed. All the ups and downs he has had emotionally due to his own shortcomings or due to the environment he has been in. 

I always have made the road easy for him to quit. If you are not strong enough, you are not ready to wear big shoes. To be able to handle all the attention, expectations, being worshiped! 

Read the article about Willian how he was emotionally not ready and Conte pushed him and sat him on the bench and how he reacted. 

As a father, our job is to nurture the kids to help them with their self confidence. This is normal. But the extraordinary do not need that. Their attitude and self confidence comes from somewhere deep within. They have a fight in them and desire to accomplish greatness above and beyond what anyone can ever imagine. They will fight for what they want. 

Those who accomplish great things know no boundaries, defeat is not even a thought. They use fear as fuel to work more and better. They use anger as motivation, they use defeat as a learning tool, and victory is nothing but a pat on the back but realize that they need to go on because the victory is in the past and they must go on, the next challenge is just around the corner. There is not enough time to waste! 

These characters do not do this to impress anyone. This is their way of living. That is how they live. They know nothing but to give it 1000%. They don’t say it, they have no idea the effort and energy they put into things, to them it is normal and when push comes to shove, they can even create energy to give it 2000%. No one knows where this comes from, maybe its the Hulk Syndrome? 

Greatness is first and foremost is an attitude and way of living. Either you live this way and have the attitude or you don’t. This can be developed and nourished but it will never grow if you just hug it and tell it how great it is and it will all be ok. It is with difficulty during Gemination that a plant emerges from the seed from the ground. It is not an easy task.