I Worked the FIFA World Cup. Here’s What the Photos Didn’t Show.

On 18-hour days, thousands of fans, finding confidence in the hardest job of my life and what happens when the biggest event in the world finally leaves town.

For most of my life, sports have been part of who I am.

I grew up an athlete. I understand the strange power of competition and the way a game can turn complete strangers into a community.

But nothing could have prepared me for what it would feel like to experience sports on the scale of the FIFA World Cup.

And I certainly wasn't prepared for what it would take to help make one happen.

I knew when I stepped into the role that it would be big.

Of course I did.

It's the World Cup.

But there's knowing something will be difficult, and then there's discovering that "difficult" means 18-hour days, seven-day workweeks, a very small staff, limited resources, constantly changing priorities and an enormous amount of figuring things out as you go.

There were tears.

There was frustration.

There were days when I wondered how I was possibly going to get everything done.

And then I did.

When It Finally Became Real

Oddly enough, the World Cup didn't feel real to me when it began.

Maybe that's what happens when you've spent so long preparing for something.

While everyone else is counting down the days, you're counting deliverables.

There was always another deadline. Another meeting. Another problem to solve.

Another thing that needed to be installed, approved, changed, moved, printed, communicated or somehow made to happen.

Opening day arrived, and my brain was still somewhere inside a to-do list.

It took a couple of matches before I finally looked around and thought:

Oh. This is the World Cup.

Thousands of people were walking toward the stadium.

Different languages. Different jerseys. Different flags.

People who had traveled from all over the world were singing and chanting as team buses arrived. The energy wasn't manufactured. You could feel it moving through the crowd.

And then I noticed people stopping underneath the street pole banners to take pictures.

My street pole banners.

Okay, technically they belonged to the city. But I knew those patterns. I knew those logos. I knew what it had taken to get them there.

I'd spent countless hours working on the branding that transformed North Texas into a World Cup Host City. Now people from around the world were standing underneath it, smiling for photographs they would take home with them.

They had no idea who put it there.

They weren't supposed to.

That's marketing.

When it's done well, people don't think about the person behind it. They simply experience the place differently because it's there.

I stood there watching people photograph something I had created and thought, This is actually happening.

The Best Seat in the House

There were perks. Let's acknowledge that.

While people were spending thousands of dollars to attend matches, I had the extraordinary privilege of walking into games as part of my job.

Sometimes I had to remind myself how ridiculous that was.

I was watching the FIFA World Cup.

For work.

There were team buses arriving while crowds erupted in chants. Thousands of supporters marching toward the stadium. Flags everywhere. Families wearing matching jerseys. Complete strangers hugging because someone scored a goal.

Countries that might have very little in common anywhere else suddenly shared sidewalks, trains, restaurants and stadium seats.

For a few hours, everyone simply cared deeply about the same thing.

Football.

Soccer.

Whatever we're calling it depending on which passport you're holding.

And being that close to it was extraordinary.

What the Photos Don't Show

Major events photograph beautifully.

The stadium lights.

The crowds.

The pitch.

The banners.

The celebrations.

The VIP experiences.

The photos make everything look seamless. That's because they're supposed to.

What they don't show are the people behind those moments who haven't slept enough.

They don't show the 18-hour workdays.

They don't show seven-day weeks.

They don't show frustration, exhaustion or tears.

They don't show someone carrying something across a venue when everyone else is taking pictures.

They don't show the problem that was solved 10 minutes before anyone realized there had been a problem at all.

None of that is unique to the World Cup. Every industry has its difficult jobs, impossible deadlines and seasons when work asks more from you than you think you have left to give.

This was mine.

And because our staff was small, there wasn't much room for saying, "That's not my job."

Sometimes the job was strategy.

Sometimes it was marketing.

Sometimes it was logistics.

Sometimes it was manual labor.

Sometimes it was simply looking around, seeing that someone else on the team was drowning too and asking, "How can I help?"

You did what needed to be done.

Then you got up the next morning and did it again.

The Celebration I Almost Missed

There's an irony to producing experiences for other people.

Sometimes you're so busy making sure everyone else has a moment that you forget to have one yourself.

That happened to me more than once during the World Cup.

There were incredible events and celebrations happening around me, but I didn't always photograph myself at them.

Sometimes I barely experienced them.

There was still work to do.

There were things to move, details to handle and teammates who had been working just as hard who needed help.

Even when our nine-match tournament run ended and we gathered on the pitch to celebrate what we'd accomplished, I was still working.

Looking back, I wish I had stopped more.

I wish I had taken the picture.

I wish I had stood on the pitch for five extra minutes and allowed myself to understand

where I was and what I had just accomplished.

But perhaps that's another lesson I'll carry with me.

When something extraordinary is happening, stop long enough to actually be there.

The work will still be waiting.

The Biggest Thing I Took From the World Cup

I could give you a list of professional lessons from this experience.

There are many.

I know exactly what I would do differently next time.

I know where I would push harder, where I would establish boundaries earlier, where I would ask more questions and where I would trust my own judgment sooner.

But the biggest thing I gained wasn't another line on my résumé.

It was confidence.

Not the motivational-poster kind.

The kind you earn.

I finished the biggest, most challenging job of my career.

I know what it feels like to be overwhelmed and still figure it out.

I know what it's like to work without all the direction, resources or budget I would have wanted and still get to the other side.

More importantly, I can look back now and identify what I would change.

That's growth too.

Maybe especially that.

Because experience isn't just being able to say, "I did this."

It's being able to say, "I did this, I learned from it, and next time I'll do it better."

That may be the greatest professional gift the World Cup gave me.

I walked away knowing something I didn't fully know before:

I can do any job now.

Not because I suddenly have every skill or every answer.

Because I know I can walk into something enormous, complicated and imperfect, figure things out and keep moving.

And wherever I go next, that version of me is coming too.

Beyond the Work

The World Cup showed me something beyond work.

It showed me what happens when people become completely consumed by joy.

For weeks, North Texas felt different. Dallas felt different.

I've spent enough of my life here to understand that Dallas can sometimes be a city of introductions. What do you do? Where do you work? Who do you know? There can be an exhausting amount of attention paid to being in the right room, knowing the right people and appearing to have it all together.

Then the world showed up.

And the world did not care.

People arrived from Argentina, Spain, France, Mexico, Brazil and everywhere in between.

They weren't interested in who was on which list or who knew whom. They didn't care about the social hierarchy of the city they'd temporarily landed in.

They cared about their country.

Their team.

Their families.

Their friends.

And whether the ball went into the net.

It was a breath of fresh air.

Suddenly Dallas belonged to everyone.

The streets were filled with people who weren't performing for one another. They were singing. Chanting. Laughing. Wearing ridiculous outfits. Draping themselves in flags. Hugging strangers.

Nobody cared whether they looked important.

They were too busy having fun.

And I loved that.

For weeks, the city felt less self-conscious and more alive.

I watched thousands of people from completely different countries, cultures and backgrounds come together because they passionately loved the same sport. People who might never otherwise have spoken to one another were taking pictures together, sharing tables, comparing jerseys and celebrating side by side.

There was this enormous collective energy that seemed to say:

Isn't this fun? Aren't we lucky to be here?

And then it ended.

The crowds went home.

The streets got quieter.

The banners came down.

Dallas became Dallas again.

That may have been one of the strangest parts of the entire experience.

I missed the outsiders.

I missed hearing different languages everywhere I went. I missed the flags and the jerseys and the spontaneous celebrations. I missed seeing people care far more about experiencing the moment than being seen experiencing it.

Mostly, I missed the goodness of it.

Because beneath all the logistics and deadlines and exhaustion, I had been given a front-row seat to something incredibly human.

For a little while, people seemed kinder.

More curious about one another.

Less concerned with status.

More willing to celebrate together.

And I found myself wishing we could bottle that.

What if we carried a little more of that energy into ordinary life?

What if we cared a little less about who someone knows and a little more about who they are?

What if we approached strangers with curiosity instead of calculation?

What if we celebrated one another more?

What if it didn't require a ball going into a net for thousands of people who speak different languages to throw their arms around each other?

Maybe that's sentimental.

I'm okay with that.

Because after everything the World Cup demanded from me, that's the part I want to remember.

Not the exhaustion.

Not the tears.

Not even the matches.

I want to remember standing in the middle of thousands of people from around the world and feeling, for a moment, like nobody needed to be important.

We were all simply lucky to be there.