I’m at an age where the simplest things give me the most pleasure.
Like feeding the cat every morning. The silence of the early hours. Nature, in all its glory, from listening to the torrential rain pelt away on the roof of my office (as it is as I write these words), or watching our community of Canadian geese fly in skeins overhead, cackling away at one another like a group of old ladies at a coffee morning.
There’s something else I draw enormous joy from, too… something, I openly admit, can often bring me to tears – like it did just a few days ago.
I’ll explain.
It must have been late 2014, maybe early ’15.
We were eating, as a family, in the dining room of the two hundred and forty-odd year old farm I lived in for eight years.
My son struck up a conversation.
“Dad?”
“Yes, chief?”
“There’s a lad in my class who’s an amazing footballer”.
“Really?” I replied, “What makes him so?”
“Well, put it this way: six of us played against him the other day. It was him versus the rest of us. We lost 12-1”.
That got my attention. My son was a decent footballer himself.
“Who’s the boy?” I asked.
“His name’s Jude. He’s in my year. Mom teaches him. He’s at the Blues Academy” (“the Blues” being our football team – Birmingham City).
On Monday afternoon before I wrote this piece, I got this text from my lad.
The boy my son was referring to that day was Jude Bellingham, now at Real Madrid, but formerly, via Borussia Dortmund and Birmingham City and his secondary school, a pupil at Hagley Primary School in Hagley, West Midlands.
His text arrived during the World Cup as Jude scored his first goal for his country during England’s 6-2 demolition of Iran.
Little did my son and I know when we had that conversation all those years ago.
Little did we know that Jacob’s mate would rise to commanding performances in the Champions League, the domestic German league and now the Spanish league…
… astounding everyone connected with the game – from pundits to managers – with his talent and maturity… at the tender age of just 19.
In an interview after the Iran game, Jude made a telling comment:
“I can’t put into words how much Blues means to me for how much they have done. I’ve got to keep trying to represent the people that made me.”
And then came the most telling of all, when referring to Birmingham City and Mike Dodds, the former head of their academy.
“In any walk of life it’s important to be around people that support you. All the lads can talk about people who brought the same things for them that Mike did for me.”
Wise words indeed, and quite extraordinary from the mind of a then 19-year-old.
Yes, Jude Bellingham has exceptional talent… but it’s not his talent that makes him exceptional…
… it’s the manner in which he’s deploying it…
… and that is a product of careful stewardship – week in, week out.
Which is precisely what we do at the Conscious Coaching Academy™ in order to produce the Elite Influencers of the Coaching profession.
Let those who choose to be average be average…
… and let those who choose to be exceptional, rise.
Warmly,
Christian
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