I've taken an interest in football, mostly against my will. My brother got "hooked" maybe two years ago and has talked about it constantly. You just end up learning about the teams and the players and whatever else, and before you know it, you're glued to the TV cheering for your favorite team.

Football, by the way, is the one where you have an actual ball that is typically touched by actual feet.

So, yesterday, Paris Saint-Germain were the away team, facing their epic rivals, Olympique de Marseille.

It was an incredible game, but what was even more incredible was the referee.

It felt like the whistle was going off every six seconds, and that this guy was the poster boy for reactive behavior. Now, granted, it's the referee's job to react to what is happening, but it seemed like this guy was personally offended by every tackle.

After the game, I looked up his stats. In his last 10 games: 46 yellow cards, 3 red.

Hot damn. Chill out, bucko.

So as you may have deduced, this post isn't really about football but once again, emotional autonomy. This guy didn't have one drop of it.

I see this kind of behavior everywhere. An egoic urge to impose yourself on the environment. The best referees are invisible, but this man had a rabid desire to be noticed at all cost. Even if that means making a total mess out of the whole game, and creating all sorts of enemies on both teams.

When you're too eager to make an impression, you usually just humiliate yourself.

On the other hand, you have players like Andrea Pirlo who is cold as ice in every situation. No matter how bad things are on the pitch, he keeps his cool and makes the correct play every time. That's why he's known as the world's greatest playmaker.

Technical skill is very important, but in my humble (but accurate) opinion, most things are primarily psychological. Which means one of your greatest assets regardless of whether you are a football player, a referee, a writer, accountant, butcher, baker or candlestick maker, is emotional autonomy.

This is the topic of my book, Magnetism. I'm currently in the process of revising it for 2014. Anything you'd like me to cover? Let me know...