151: Enoch Showunmi (Global Soccer Pathways)

Enoch Showunmi on Innovation City

“You feel like there’s no limits when you see other people doing it [following their dreams] and it’s like, “Yeah, I can do this too.”” – Enoch Showunmi

Welcome to Season 3 of Innovation City, a podcast featuring innovators, creators, and disruptors to discover how business is changing in the modern world.

Created and produced by SLAM! Agency in cooperation with Venture Cafe St. Louis and Venture Cafe Miami, Innovation City gives you an inside look at how rapidly business and culture are changing thanks to increasing diversity and inclusion, heightened creativity, and a stronger and better-connected business community. Venture Cafe is the largest combined gathering of entrepreneurs and innovators anywhere in the world. Events are held every Thursday in St. Louis, Miami, and other leading innovation cities around the globe.

Today’s guest is Enoch Showunmi, Founder of Global Soccer Pathways. Global Soccer Pathways is a resource for players to get education, elite training, and mindset training. Enoch is a former professional soccer player and played for the Nigeria National Soccer Team within just 1 year of becoming a pro player. After playing soccer professionally for over a decade, Enoch started Global Soccer Pathways and is now helping student athletes develop their game and create a SUPERSTAR mindset via his specialty programming. In this episode, Tyler and Leigh-Ann sit down with Enoch to learn more about the sport of soccer, how playing a sport can provide essential exposure for a young athlete’s career, the importance of using education as a tool to get you access to resources, the importance of networking as a new founder, and much more!

They discuss:

• Becoming a professional soccer player at age 21
• His passion for soccer began when he was 8 years old
• Soccer helped him stay “off the streets” in the neighborhood he grew up in
• Many kids don’t have access to the correct resources to be able to go pro or even get on the right pathway to becoming pro
• The importance of using education as a tool to get you access to resources
• It took Enoch several “no’s” to finally get a “yes” and go pro
  • Going pro at age 21 is considered late, compared to his soccer peers
• Top 3 skills from learning/playing soccer professionally:
  • Communication
  • Discipline
  • Willful Mindset
• Poetry is a side passion of Enoch’s. It is an outlet for him when he’s feeling stressed.
• Many young players put too much into their sports training and not enough effort into their education
  • Enoch wants his organization to help athletes find a balance and be successful in both arenas
• The importance of networking as a new founder
• Soccer is bigger than just the game itself
  • There are a multitude of roles within the soccer field (pun intended)
  • Many young athletes get exposed to other types of career paths they might not have known about before playing
• Visit Global Soccer Pathways on their website
• Read Enoch’s poetry on his personal blog
• Connect with Enoch on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn

Lightning Round

• How are you making a difference in this world?
  • Trying to create pathways for as many young soccer players (globally) as possible, so they can be exposed to something different than their everyday lives
• What do you want to let go of?
  • All limits and beliefs
• What is something new you tried recently and loved?
  • His online NLP course
• What moves you to tears or gives you goosebumps?
  • Seeing stories of people breaking past the limits that could have set them back
• What have you witnessed that has strengthened your faith in humanity?
  • People coming together for a common cause or purpose