It's common sense that competitive team sports are one of the best ways to become a better person, even if you're not participating yourself. It's even more beneficial to compete, though. I had been thinking about the specific mechanisms of how something playing on an amateur football team makes you a better person, and I think one of the most important ones is that it forces you to boost your social skills. You've got a team who need to work together to achieve a goal and overcome others in a competition. The team needs to be motivated, but there's no money and not much glory to provide that motivation. That makes leadership a challenge. You can't just yell and people, curse and threaten to fire them the way you could on a construction site or at a warehouse job. You gotta be good.

If you just plain don't like sports, you can get the same benefits in other settings. Any situation where long-term teamwork is necessary and money isn't much of a motivator will suffice. Playing in a bar band is another example - there's some money to be had but not much, and you have to keep the team happy and motivated with other incentives. Even if you're not the leader, you will learn a lot just by observing the ways in which people try to give others incentives to do a good job. If you're really lacking in social skills, you might even have to use your brain and consciously try to analyze these transactions the way someone like Roissy analyzes picking up chicks, but you should still benefit trememdously. Here is an example of a non-financial transaction serving as an incentive: if you do your job well you will be more liked and respected by your bandmates, meaning the pianist will invite you to his parties where there are plenty of women you can hit on.

In one way, playing in a band with crap pay or being a lousy amateur footballer is better for you as a person than being a well-paid pro.