Beckham shares recipe for success with SA

"I wasn't born with style," David Beckham said to cheers from a room full of people at the Sandton Convention Centre.

Johannesburg - Retired soccer star and international icon David Beckham counts photographs of himself posing with Nelson Mandela as among the priceless collections in his home.

But he admits that while the late humanitarian looks great in the pictures, he cringes when he sees himself.

That, he said, was because he had cornrows at the time. He was visiting South Africa as captain of the England soccer team in early 2001.

“I wasn’t born with style,” he giggled to cheers from a room full of people at the Sandton Convention Centre on Monday.

He was speaking at the annual Discovery Leadership Summit - a flagship, global thought-leadership event that enables the sharing of intellectual capital to contribute to leadership in business, the government and civil society.

Among the other speakers were Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, The Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and Harvard historian and economist Niall Ferguson.

In line with the theme, Inspiring Minds, the former soccer star and model told the gathering that hard work and discipline on and off the field made him a success.

“While my friends were out, I was training and working hard.”

The work ethic, which he learnt from his parents and childhood soccer coaches, paid off when he was scouted to play for Manchester United.

“I always knew I wanted to play for Manchester United from a very young age. I remember bursting into tears when I found out,” he said.

For aspiring youngsters who want to follow in his footsteps, Beckham said they too should follow the same formula.

“I didn’t play it to be famous or to be rich, I just loved the game. Football was my number one passion, it never felt like a job, it was a hobby.”

He added that it was important for him to surround himself with good people, attributing his success to his wife Victoria, his four children, his parents and the team he worked with.

“You need people around you who can guide you.”

Although the 41-year-old has retired from football after successful stints at prestigious clubs around the world, including Spanish giants Real Madrid and the US’s LA Galaxy, he hasn’t allowed that to stop him.

He has been the face of Hugo Boss, Adidas and more recently global fashion retailer H&M.

Beckham said he made a conscious decision to work just as hard on his personal brand as he did as a soccer player.

“About five years ago, my mindset changed and I wanted to build my brands and own things instead of just being the face of something,” he said.

Beckham, as a long-standing UN Children’s Fund ambassador, has created the David Beckham Unicef Fund, which represents his commitment over the next decade to helping the world’s most vulnerable children.

“One of the proudest moments was becoming a Unicef ambassador. I could just stay as an ambassador of the organisation doing the minimum, but I want to do more.”

karishma.dipa@inl.co.za

The Star