This week I watched in YouTube, the story of a professional soccer player that was born in my hometown, Ocotlán, Jalisco. I had already heard that this player came from very humble origins, but it wasn’t until this week, that I knew about the details his life, narrated by himself in two documentaries that two TV stations made about him, one from HBO an another from Televisa, both before the World Cup of South Africa 2010.
I think the story of Carlos is fascinating, because it is almost incredible that having been through so many difficulties in his life, in the middle of an environment that was not the best for sports, he had stood out in the way he has done it in soccer. Another interesting data that surprises me a lot is that he even didn’t know how to play soccer nor was he interested in it, up until he was 19 years old. I think this is out of the ordinary, since usually, most of the professional soccer players, start dreaming about becoming playes since their childhood and at a very early age they start practicing and playing with passion until they become professional players.
There are many lessons we can learn from his life, but in particular, today in this post, I’d like to comment about one aspect of his life in particular and that somehow, is applicable to any normal person, and this is the fact that there’s always someone watching everything we do, and we never know the reach of what we do or stop doing can have in our lives.
In the case of Carlos Salcido, there was always someone who was observing him playing at the Oro Club first, and that took him to play with Chivas, and then there was other set of eyes that watched him play at Chivas and that took him to play with the national soccer team and then to the PSV team in Holland. At first sight, it might seem to be that he achieved all this by sheer luck, but I believe, without being myself an expert on soccer, that what helped him was the constant passion he put on everything he did, moment by moment, day by day, in such a way that when someday, someone important observed him play, his passion stood out before the eyes of the person that had the power to offer him something better.
Personally, I’ve seen how this happens everyday at work, perhaps not with the same impact and reach that a successful soccer player might have, but definitely, this is something real. How many times, we haven’t had the experience of having a customer, boss, partner, coworker, teacher or simply a stranger, that by chance recommends us or that makes an important offer to us. It might be that good job we did months or years ago, or perhaps was that great power point presentation at work or that help we gave to that stranger at work, but at the end, the good impressions last, and we never now when that apparently unnoticed action can change our life.
The lesson I’d like to stand out today, is that in every moment, we have to give the best of ourselves, and be prepared at all times and treat everyone well. Life takes many turns, and that apparent unnoticed gesture or good work, can be the driver so that many doors of opportunities open to us in the future. As once I read somewhere “Good luck is when opportunity meets preparation”
Here is the video from the HBO documentary where Carlos talks about his life (in Spanish):
Héctor Sánchez is a blogger from Ocotlán, Jalisco and he is currently residing in Guadalajara. Héctor is a Public Accountant from Universdidad Panamericana with a Posgrade in Corporate Finance from the same university, and he is currently working as financial analyst for Hewlett Packard. Even though he works in Finance for a living, in his spare time, he is a geek and he likes to build blogs, websites and studies everything related with Internet Marketing and several ways of building businesses online. He is also an active member of Toastmasters, where is the President in turn of his local club, Toastmasters Atlas Chapalita Club.
