From the Founder, Brian Mazza 7/17
They Aren’t Letting You In. You Belong There.
The hardest thing you’ll ever have to do isn’t run farther, work harder, or become more talented.
It’s believing in yourself.
My son is training this week at La Masia in Barcelona. He’s the only American there. Kids have come from all over the world, and he knew before stepping onto the pitch that it was going to be challenging.
The night before training, he asked me, “Dad, what was the hardest thing you ever had to do as a kid?”
I thought about it for a second and answered, “Believe that I belonged.”
Not just that I could play with the best, but that I deserved to.
That I wasn’t playing with them.
They were playing with me.
When I was 17 years old, I left home to play Division I soccer at the University of Rhode Island. If I’m being honest, I didn’t feel like I belonged.
A few days into preseason, before we headed to Europe, we played a small sided scrimmage.
I laced up my red Adidas Predators, stepped onto the pitch nervous as hell, and immediately found myself surrounded.
To my left was this monster of a human from Nigeria pressing me with everything he had.
Charging straight at me was one of our American defensive midfielders, known for being as physical and aggressive as anyone on the team.
A ball dropped out of the air toward me.
I brought it down, faked right, slipped the ball through the midfielder’s legs, slid past the Nigerian, and broke into space to create the play.
It lasted only a few seconds.
But it changed everything.
In that moment, I stopped wondering if I belonged.
I knew I did.
That experience is why our message for this week at La Masia became so simple:
They’re not doing you a favor by letting you train with them. They’re training with you.
All you have to do is believe you’re meant to be standing on the same grass.
As adults, the grass just changes.
It’s the interview.
The boardroom.
The investor meeting.
The first day at a new company.
The room full of people you’ve admired from afar.
The business you’re trying to build.
The life you’re trying to create.
Too many people spend their lives feeling grateful just to be invited into the room.
But if you’re in the room, you’ve earned the right to be there.
No one accidentally ends up on the roster.
No one accidentally gets the interview.
No one accidentally sits at the table.
You earned your way there.
Walk in with humility.
Compete with confidence.
Trust your preparation.
Because the hardest battle you’ll ever fight isn’t against the competition.
It’s against the voice inside your own head that tells you that you don’t belong.
Win that battle, and everything else becomes possible.
And remember…
If you’re on the same grass, you belong on the same grass.
