The World Cup concludes this Sunday, after five weeks of play from teams around the world. And through it all, nobody has generated more headlines than Lionel Messi.
Not just for the goals he’s scoring, but for how he’s doing it.
While other players sprint and press and chase, Messi spends much of the game walking. His head is up, scanning the field, reading where the play is going. Then, at just the right moment, he makes a short burst: a well-timed run, a perfectly weighted pass, often leading to a shot or a goal.
He’s not playing this way because he’s old. He’s been doing it his whole career. He does it because he understands something important: knowing where to go matters more than how fast you get there.
I’ve been playing soccer most of my life — first competing as a kid, and later in adult leagues.
My game has always been built on fitness and effort. As a defender and midfielder I would run all day: chasing, pressing, hustling back on defense, making runs forward to support the attack. I took pride in being everywhere.
But learning about Messi’s game has given me a new lens on my own game, and an honest one. My dribbling and passing skills were never very strong. And I suspect that all that running I did was sometimes a hiding place. It was a way to stay busy and feel useful while avoiding the parts of the game that made me uncomfortable: reading the field, deciding where to pass, holding the ball under pressure, or being patient while the play developed.
The cost wasn’t just physical. When you’re always in motion, you can’t see the field clearly. You can’t read what’s developing around you, anticipate where to be, or put yourself in the right position at the right moment.
All that effort, and I was missing what mattered most.
When I reflect on my performance in the office, especially early in my career, I recognize the same pattern. I was quick to put in long hours. Grinding away, proving myself through effort and output. It felt like virtue. But sometimes it was the same pattern — a way to avoid the harder, scarier moves: the difficult conversation, the decisive choice, or the moment that required stillness and clarity instead of motion.
Messi’s genius isn’t just physical. It’s his willingness to stop, look around, and trust what he sees.
That’s harder than it sounds. For me, and maybe for the rest of us.
So here’s a question worth sitting with:
Where might you be over-relying on your greatest strength?
And what might you be missing because of it?
