A very subjective look into AWFC

As you might’ve heard on my podcast, I recently returned from a week’s long vacation which was my first one in my adult life. I know it sounds insane and unhealthy too but it’s just a fact. I haven’t been able to plan anything basically ever because my career always takes more importance, and there are several reasons as to why that is and I believe there is common ground with being a professional footballer.

The first thing that I’ll say relates to the idea of making sacrifices in life to make our dreams come true. I reject that notion but mostly from a neurolinguistic programming perspective in that I don’t like that the word “sacrifice” implies loss, and a lack of something… it implies having to miss out. I talk A LOT about this with students, mentees and at schools, and this usually resonates a lot with people. I choose to see it all as an investment. An investment of time, energy, money and more. Why? Because investing implies getting something back, in implies things returning to us and hopefully tenfold or at least breaking even. And I know this can be boiled down to semantics and that it’s also true that actual sacrifices are made, sure, but I choose to see things differently.

Among the investment situations that I’ve had to face/make, was when I left Venezuela when I was 19 to go to college and pursue music. I think about how this is similar to some footballers that leave their cities and countries to join an academy at a young age, and how their lives are shaped by this decision.

As a musician abroad, so to speak, you have music itself and you have your peers to serve as a support system and thankfully in cases like mine, they are all so reliable that you feel empowered and end up being very active and are fortunate enough to make a living.

Footballers have a team, a club, management, agents and all of these things that are not too different than what musicians might end up having, but there’s another element that might seem very similar but it’s not quite the same, in my opinion. And that is the role fans play and more specifically when they play their role.

Imagine you are a 20 year old guitar player in a college. You dream of playing with big artists and touring the world and yeah, having your own fans or being famous. Now keep in mind that during that process, during those years at school and getting started, a few years that are so important, so personal, so sacred and so crucial to your future, you have thousands upon thousands of people on social media telling you how terrible you are or how good you are. Imagine those people would speak about your weight, or how beautiful you are.

The point is that this usually doesn’t happen in music. The arc is very much behind the scenes until you’re actually blown up. For the most part, you are shielded from negativity and public scrutiny. The process is OURS. And it should be OURS.

In football nowadays everyone is exposed from the moment they have a social media account and launched to places they can’t imagine from a young age. So what I’m trying to say is that we as fans have to be very responsible and know that what we say might reach someone at a very crucial place in their lives during which they are about to make massive, life changing decisions.

I’m not saying that you should’ve have an opinion, but if it doesn’t add value, we can either keep those opinions to ourselves, or at least share them with a friend and not social media.

There’s always room to improve, and I can do better as well, bet on that.

d ❤

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