As a kid I never felt special.
Not because I wasn’t good. I was good. I had moments that would shock people — plays they didn’t see coming, bursts of something that made the crowd go quiet for a second. I knew I had it. I just never let myself have it consistently.
Because my coaches didn’t believe I could. And so I played that role.
I didn’t deserve to outshine the star players. The popular kids. The ones everyone already decided were going somewhere. So I kept the good stuff for special moments. Rationed it. Like brilliance was something you had to earn permission to show.
Then came Davo.
One season, one coach who actually saw me. He made me captain on a weekend my Uncle Jason came to watch. My dad told me he’d pay me $5 for every try I scored.
I was the club’s leading try scorer that year.
Same player. Same ability. Same everything. The only thing that changed was someone decided I was worth believing in.
I’ve thought about that a lot since then. Because the lesson I took from it for most of my life was wrong. I told myself I needed a Davo. Someone to unlock it. Someone to hand me the captaincy and make it official.
It took me longer than I’d like to admit to figure out that was backwards.
Davo didn’t give me the ability. He just gave me permission. And here’s the thing about permission — you can give it to yourself.
The brilliance was always there. The try scorer was always there. He was just waiting for someone to say go.
You don’t have to wait anymore.
There are leaders and there are followers. The power is already in you to lead. Believe in yourself, believe in the magic, and back yourself like someone’s paying you $5 a try.
The rest will follow.
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