The Campbell Academy Blog (40)

On Being Gareth Bale

My son Callum came to me a couple of days ago and told me that Gareth Bale was watching the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco.

I wondered about Gareth Bale because I've followed his career for a while, from a distance.

We had a chat Callum and I about how much he might be worth and how much money he's got now and Google told us it was around 145 million dollars.

I suggested to Callum that that was probably enough but then we had a conversation about the fact that that was beyond enough.

Gareth Bale doesn't have to worry about how much tickets cost to see the Golden State Warriors or how to get there; he probably doesn't really have to worry about his schedule anymore, and he doesn't really have to worry about getting up if he's tired tomorrow morning and going to work. He doesn't have to worry about the cost of living crises.

Gareth Bale was nine years at Real Madrid on something like 350,000 a year after he moved in a world record transfer fee of 83.5 million from Tottenham Hotspur.

But I often thought about Gareth as he sat at Real Madrid, out of favour and not playing, whether it wouldn't be better if he just moved to another club and cut his wages.

Maybe at the end of his time, he would have been worth 120 or 110 or 100 million instead of 145 million, but I imagine that as Gareth Bale was a boy, he would have probably sold his soul and given one of his legs to play once at the Bernabéu Stadium, where Real Madrid are even for a low-level team on a visit, let alone week in, week out for years.

As you got to the end of your career, you might think that you'd like to play the most football you possibly could, but it seemed that he didn't or wouldn't or couldn't for some reason.

We also talked about Gareth (Callum and I) about whether he had enough now or felt he had enough, and this is one of the most interesting philosophical points of my life.

A long time ago, Chris Barrow taught me about the difference between being financially independent and independent of finance.

To be truly financially independent, you need an awful, awful lot of money. In fact, I'm not sure anybody ever really gets there.

To be independent of finance is an attitude; it's someone who sets their enough.

Gareth Bale, of course, is just a metaphor; I'm sure he's the loveliest guy who's got his head screwed on tight and who is living his best life.

But I do wonder whether he thinks he's rich enough. He moves in circles with people who have superyachts and dislikes the fact that he's just a little bit short of having his own superyacht, his 17th property in a different country, or being one of the sports billionaires who keep being unfurled, like Magic Johnson, who was just recently on Forbes' rich list.

For all of us, I think trying as hard as we can to set our enough and then sticking by the values and principles that we set is perhaps a better route to happiness than just always trying to get more.