I watched about 70 percent of the games live this summer.
not highlights. not clips the next morning. live, with the boys, in a city that was genuinely electric for a month. it made my summer.
‘ so when I say the ending ruined something for me, understand I'm not saying it as someone who read about it later.
july 19. spain beat argentina 1-0 in extra time. ferran torres in the 106th minute. and then it turned. a brawl at the final whistle. paredes sent off after the match had already ended. and during the trophy lift, argentina's players turned away from the podium.
spain had just formed a guard of honour for them as they collected their silver medals. it wasn't returned.
but here's the thing I keep coming back to. argentina in 2022 were heroes.
they gave messi the trophy he had chased his entire career. that story was airtight. one of the great sports narratives of my lifetime. I myself nearly died watching that final HOPING and praying for Leo and his boys to bring it home
and now here we are. four years later, a lot of neutral fans walked away from this tournament saying the exact thing a small corner of the internet has been saying about argentina for years…that they’re the WORST group of players ever assembled.
in fairness, the fact checks landed a couple of days later. the players say they were facing their own supporters rather than snubbing spain, and the reporting broadly backs that up.
I believe that. I also believe there was snark in it.
some housekeeping for the week (you can skip this section if you’re not interested in some self-promotion):
my speaking slots are open again from July till September! if you’d like me to run a workshop or training for your teams or cohorts, you can do that here. I do both in person in Canada and virtually globally.
also my branding studio is active for the rest of the year. have an upcoming project you need some help with? i’m having conversations this week so reach out here
okay now back to the meat of the letter
the tournament didn't change anyone. it changed the size of the room
most of us treat attention like saviour. we think there's a moment coming. a share from someone big, a post that finally pops, a client that changes everything. and we believe that when it lands, it will make us. it will convert all that potential into proof.
I've thought this way. I still catch myself thinking this way. the belief that somewhere out there is a level of visibility that will turn you into the thing you've been trying to become.
now look at what actually happened this summer.
argentina reached the final. on paper that's a great tournament, the kind a federation sells for a decade. nobody is talking about any of it. they're talking about the fighting, the banner after the england semi final, the backs turned at the podium. FIFA has appointed a prosecutor to investigate what happened after the whistle.
and none of it was new. people have been making this exact case about argentina for years, quietly, to a small room. the tournament didn't produce a new argentina. it produced witnesses.
now run it the other way.
erling haaland gained about 32 million instagram followers during the tournament. he nearly doubled his audience in 39 days. my girlfriend, who could not have picked him out of a lineup in may, now loves this man.
and haaland did not become lovable in june. he was already that guy. norwegians knew. city fans knew. his own small audience had known for years. I knew!
the tournament just introduced him to my girlfriend.
same event. two opposite outcomes. and in neither case did the event do the building. so at what point did we start believing that being seen is the same thing as being made?
the tournament didn't change argentina and it didn't change haaland. it changed the size of the room. both of them just got a much bigger audience for exactly who they already were.
which means the only real question about visibility is not how do I get more of it.
it's this: would I survive a month of it?
I call that the exposure test.
how to pass the exposure test
powerade sponsored the hydration breaks at this world cup. first of all, woke nonsense. every time the announcer said "powerade hydration break," entire stadiums booed. toronto, atlanta, everywhere.
and here's the part that should scare you. it worked. those breaks generated something like 27 million logo impressions, roughly a quarter of powerade's entire exposure from the tournament.
the reach was flawless. the feeling was the problem. you can buy the placement. you cannot buy how people feel when your name appears.
you don't pass this test by being perfect. argentina's problem was never one bad night, and haaland's advantage was never one good one. both were patterns. so that's where the work is.
1. run the tape on your last ten.
not your best post. not the one you're proud of. your last ten emails, posts, client calls, dms. look at the average. that average is what a bigger room meets. most of us audit our highlight reel and then wonder why the crowd is reacting to something else entirely.
2. name the thing you'd be caught doing.
the good pattern and the ugly one. you already have both, and they're already your brand, whether four hundred people can see them or four hundred million. I know from time to time you might catch me tweeting when I should be working, it’s part of who I am and it’s better I own it than try to pretend it doesn’t exist.
3. fix it while the stadium is empty.
changing your behaviour at 900 subscribers costs you nothing. changing it in front of a global audience, live, with everyone screenshotting, is almost impossible. argentina are trying to do the second thing right now and I don’t think it is going too well.
4. make one pattern deliberate.
scotland qualified for their first world cup since 1998, beat haiti, and went home early. but their fans drank the sam adams taproom in boston completely dry, four times what it normally sells in a holiday weekend, and then five thousand of them marched on fenway park.
that wasn't a campaign. that was decades of habit that finally got a camera pointed at it. pick one behaviour you want to be known for and repeat it until it bores you.
5. then go and get the attention.
reach is worth chasing. it's just worth chasing after it can't embarrass you.
the world cup didn't build a single brand this summer. it turned the lights on and let a few billion people see what was already standing there.
you're one moment away from the same thing. not from being made. from being seen.
so tell me: if a few billion people watched you work for one month, what would they catch you doing?
reply and let me know. I write back.
-Mike