To get things started, let’s get “ego” straight….. When I refer to ego or egotism I’m referring to your own personal self importance and belief in yourself, belief to the point where it is noticeable by others. The best way to explain the benefits of egotism to you is through my own personal experience. I don’t want to speak by annotating scientific research or copying another article. This will all be from personal experience.
Now that that is settled, let’s get into it.
So, when I was 18 years old I was playing park soccer after falling out of love with the higher end or representative scene. I had very little confidence as I was only 18 walking into a team of 30+ year olds who were all life long family and friends. Simply put I was immediately allocated as the bench player, and a player who played in whatever position needed a fill in for that game. I was quiet, I didn’t say much, and as a result I didn’t do much either. I obviously couldn’t take that for very long, because I knew I was a great player, and I finally spoke up, which landed me a telling off by the whole team. Very soon later the season ended and I was out of that door quicker than I could blink. That was most probably my lowest confidence level in football, my ego didn’t even exist.
After that mess of a year I started listening to different music, a lot of Midwest rap, and I started Sydney Street Crew. It was a breath of fresh air not having a coach or players looking down on me, but the best part was having the ability to mould this team to the path that I wanted. I looked at the rappers I listened to as a baseline for the confidence that I wanted in myself. I saw that they all had massive ego’s and I started to develop one myself. At this point in time I wasn’t the best player, I was unpolished to put it nicely. The players I was recruiting were in the same boat. I mean we were 18/19, what player is even close to their prime at that age? One goal I had for myself when recruiting these players was to recruit players who I saw as better than myself, but with the intention of becoming better than them very quickly. That was my motivation, I needed someone to beat, which now I can see as being a little toxic, but for me it worked.
This system I kept for years. I took my team from playing 3 a side football in a shed in Sydney, to playing pro Futsal in a Stadium in Colombia. So clearly my approach wasn't wrong. But this is an article about ego, so I’ll get to the point…. In the first few years, as I recruited these players and successfully overtook them in ability, I became extremely egotistical and was playing my best level of football, but then something changed. Until this point I was only surrounding myself with driven footballers, who all had egos. Let’s be real; to play high level at anything you need some sort of ego, otherwise where’s the motivation or confidence. However now I started branching out and growing connections outside of football, such as new friends or business connections. A few of these new influences told me that I had too much of an ego. At first I didn’t listen at all, because I was young and clearly knew everything there was to know, and couldn’t possibly be wrong. But after sustained and continuous comments on the matter I started to work on my ego.
As I lowered my ego I did become a better person. That I will be honest about. I was less angry and just all out better to be around. But my footballing ability started to dive. I wasn’t as ruthless as usual, wasn’t involved as much as usual, and wasn’t making the huge difference that I used to. I wasn’t playing bad at all, I was still deserving of the level I was at, but I wasn't playing like the best player on the court anymore. I wasn’t dying to score the most goals, I just wanted us to win no matter who scores, I wasn’t going in for hard tackles because I didn’t want to injure myself, and I was dribbling less and focusing on the passing game. Reading all that I’m assuming you're wondering what the problem is, because I clearly became a much better team player, which is true, but as a result the team lost it’s edge and we just became a mid-table team (In the top Futsal leagues in the state).
I kept this same pattern for years. This is the mindset I was in when I played in Colombia for Sydney Street Crew’s professional tour, and to this day I’m still upset with how I played on the biggest stage we’ve been on. I wasn’t the same big game and clutch moment player, and I hadn’t figured out why at this point in time either. I just knew something was wrong. You may not agree, but I believe the music you play has a huge impact on who you are, and at this point in time all I was listening to was dark ambience or atmospheric music without any lyrics.
But recently it all clicked. I switched out the softer ambient music for hard hitting rap, and I began focusing on growing back into my ego. It has been working for the past few months as well, I’m playing much more like the elite player I used to be. I kept all the great lessons learnt during the years of being a team player, because scoring is great, but working in a team will generate more wins. I learnt to pick my moments to play like the player I wanted to be, as well as focusing on being better than myself instead of beating my own teammates. I realised that I need my ego to be better, because without it I wasn’t anything special. It does rub some people the wrong way, I do agree, but those people aren’t for me then. It’s all about choices. I don’t think I ever got to the actual point in this article, but essentially: Utilising your ego in the right way will make you the best player you can be, while not having an ego at all is a recipe for an average playing ability. Just keep the ego in check.
