Article: What Soccer Taught Me About Building a Brand

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What Soccer Taught Me About Building a Brand

Athletics as metaphor

With the World Cup coming to the USA, I've been reflecting on my own athletic journey — and how it's shaped everything I've built since. Soccer was my thing. I played in college, and I was pretty decent. I peaked a little too late to go pro, but the passion and the work ethic were there.

It's a curious thing to work really hard at something for the better part of two decades, and then have it just end. They say an athlete dies twice. But the reality is that our identities always have to shift and evolve — and the lessons I learned on the pitch are transferrable to life, and to building FITTED Underground.

Top 3 Life Lessons

Here are my top three takeaways from my time as an athlete, and how they apply to my life today.

Lesson 01

No Shortcuts: Consistency + Hard Work Set the Foundation

Talent is great, and can accelerate success — but it's limited on its own. Without consistency and hard work, the foundation for greatness is weak. The process of mastering a craft or a profession happens in the shadows, when it's just you and your work. 10,000 hours doesn't come easy. There's no shortcut for doing the hard work.

Be persistently good. Be relentless. Keep moving forward.

Lesson 02

It Takes a Team

Consistency and hard work are what I need to bring — but if I'm surrounded by people with a different mentality, we won't get very far. The best teams I've been on weren't necessarily filled with the best athletes. They were filled with people who shared a common vision, were happy to play their part, and were willing to sacrifice for each other.

With the right team, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Lesson 03

The Real Skill Is Mental

This is the final piece of the puzzle. It unlocks everything above — and in some ways, it's the only thing that really matters. The athlete's skillset will fade, teams will go their separate ways, the glory dims — but the mentality remains.

Personally, I'm less Mamba Mentality than Messi Mentality. Let me explain.

Kobe Bryant's Mamba Mentality was legendary. For Kobe, discipline = dominance. His core insight was that he could out-work everybody — and he did. He was the perfect mix of talent and dedication. That made him a great player, but not always a great teammate. While the Lakers won five championships with him, there was no shortage of drama along the way. Just ask Shaq.

Lionel Messi — the greatest soccer player who ever lived — operates differently. Yes, he's a genius; a prodigy.

But instead of making the game about himself, instead of getting caught in the trap of ego, he seems to let that genius simply take over when he's on the pitch.

He's humble. That humility endeared him to his teammates; at Barcelona and Argentina, they would run through walls for him. And that combination of greatness and humility allowed his teams to become some of the greatest the world has ever seen.

The Upshot

We all have something great inside. The challenge is to do the work and maintain the humility to get out of your own way — and let your light shine.

Eric Steffen is the founder of FITTED Underground, a custom denim workshop at 108 Bayard Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Est. 2014.

Written by Eric Steffen