2006 vs. Today
How a 2006 World Cup trip report can help you find your people, make your own luck, and turn up loudly for others
I’m writing this from my couch, half-typing, half-watching the Belgium v Senegal World Cup match. Senegal was up 2-0 before Belgium clawed it back to 2-all in the final five minutes, snatching a 3-2 win. I’m crying for Senegal.
I’ve been obsessed with this tournament. My body clock has adapted (I’m naturally waking up at 4am to catch the games). All this football sent me down a deep rabbit hole of nostalgia, where I stumbled across an old trip report I wrote during the 2006 World Cup in Germany (pictured below).
I thought I’d share some of the ideas here. Looking back, those core memories were actually less about football, and more about stuff I like to build into biz and life, so here we go…!
Lesson 1: In community, we trust
Here’s how the adventure started:
On June 8 I arrived at Frankfurt-Hahn airport to meet up with Sydney FC Cove supporters to spend three weeks on their Cove Convoy.
I read about the Sydney Convoy on the Brisbane Roar FC forum and their plan was simple. Hire cars, stake out a campsite, drink and watch football for the duration of the World Cup.
Without knowing a single member from the Sydney supporters group, I signed up, paid, and away I was.
Looking back, this sounds completely reckless.
I was living in Ireland at the time, had no friends travelling to Germany, so I flew to Frankfurt, hopped into a BMW (standard German car) with people I’d never met, and spent three weeks camping with strangers.
I’m pretty sure I told my parents I was travelling with friends (oops).
But it never felt unsafe because I trusted the community they belonged to. Years later, I came across psychologist Henri Tajfel's social identity theory, which helped explain why. It suggests that when we share membership of a group with someone, we instinctively offer them a level of trust we'd never give a complete stranger.
My friend Brendon Baker calls this referred credibility (Brendon and I also met in a community forum).
I shared this story at Con Con a few weeks ago and suggested that everyone could extend a level of trust to the people in the room. After all, they'd already passed the first test: they'd chosen to be there.
Q: Which communities are you part of right now, and are you making the most of the trust that's built into them?
Lesson 2: Walk towards your dreams
From my 2006 trip report:
By June 12 I still hadn’t managed to secure a ticket for Australia’s opening match against Japan. But I wanted to be in the same city as the game, so I jumped in a convoy vehicle for the drive to Kaiserslautern (”K-Town”) early that morning.
My plan was to watch the game at the pub.
But everyone around me started walking towards the stadium, so I figured I might as well walk there, too.
Somewhere along that walk, a ticket found me.
I ended up sitting behind the goals as a Yahoo! sponsor, right at the end where Tim Cahill scored two of the most famous goals in Australian football history.
Dr. Christian Busch (who joined me on the podcast a few years ago) spent a decade studying what he calls the “serendipity mindset.”
His finding? Luck is smart. The people who seem to consistently get lucky create the conditions for unexpected good things to happen. They take the first step before there's any guarantee it'll pay off.
You increase the surface area of your luck by just walking in the direction of your dreams. “Smart luck” is the luck you make.
Q: What's your version of walking towards the stadium today?
Lesson 3: Cheer people on
One of my fave memory from the trip wasn’t even a Socceroos match.
My accommodation was a tent at a campsite in Ohrnberg, a town 6 miles out of Oeringen. It was at the local football team (Ohrnberg TSVs) football club. We camped on the football pitch, showered in the locker rooms and watched the matches on a huge projector screen in their club hall.
One afternoon the Ohrnberg U/12 football side were playing never-beaten rivals Ohringen. We spent all day making a banner for the U/12 kids which read “Vergess ne Schuke, Spiel Fuball” (”Forget School, Play Football”).
Chants such as “You couldn’t score in a sandlot” must’ve worked as the Ohrnberg boys ran out 4-0 winners. Little events like this really summed up the tagline for the tournament, “A time to make friends”.
I can’t say it was the banner made the difference, but I reckon those kids (who’d be in their early thirties now) still talk about the day a couple hundred vocal Australians showed up for their under-12s derby and chanted encouragement for 90mins.
We’re often too reserved with our encouragement at work. We quietly admire people instead of publicly celebrating them. We’re quite measured in our support of each other (well, at least here in Australia).
Q: Who in your world is doing something great right now, and have you told them?
Speaking of celebrating, I want to celebrate my mate Steve Hodgson and share that he’s hosting a Beyond the Noise Men’s retreat in August. He’s a great guy, and if you want to reconnect with nature (and yourself), check out the amazing experience he’s creating.
Anyway, it was an incredible trip. I’m looking forward to waking up at 3am tomorrow to watch the Socceroos hopefully knock-out Egypt. My friend Nathaniel (who I met during the convoy) shared this, “Expect Egypt to play in a 4-3-2-1 pyramid formation…)
Thanks for reading this week.
Also, here’s a score update from my own world cup (351/1001)!
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Leanne “Schade wegen Paraguay" Hughes