David Beckham "always wants to win" when he plays games with his kids.
The retired soccer star – who has Brooklyn, 20, Romeo, 17, Cruz, 14, and Harper, eight, with wife Victoria Beckham – is still as ambitious as he was when he started his career and admitted that drive extends to all aspects of his life.
Asked how his ambitions have changed over the years, he said: "They haven’t, to be honest. I have always been ambitious in everything that I do. Whether it’s playing in front of 90,000 fans or playing with the kids at home. I always want to win. I always want to work hard.
"The reason I was ambitious as a footballer made me ambitious as a businessman. I have an office of 16 people now and I’m here almost every day when I’m not travelling. If the guys in the office never see me, it sets the wrong example – and I just really love the energy of the team and working together and I guess, in a way, dreaming together."
The 44-year-old star gets "embarrassed" when people describe him as a role model but he is "proud" to be thought of that way because he knows there are points in his life where he could have "gone off the rails".
He told Britain’s GQ magazine: "When people say, ‘You’re a role model’, I get embarrassed, because I just don’t think of myself in that way.
"But I’m proud of the fact that I’ve come so far, because I could easily have gone in the other direction.
"There were certain moments, like the sending-off in ’98 or kicking out at someone or reacting in a certain way, when I could have gone off the rails. Those things could have affected me in a way that I might not have had the career that I had.
"However, I have to be a role model for my children. In the same way that I had father figures in my own life, men like Sir Alex Ferguson, like [then-Manchester United youth coach] Eric Harrison, like Brian Kidd – and, of course, my dad. These father figures taught me how to be a man as well as how to be a good footballer. And I still carry all of that with me, because there are a lot of responsibilities that come with having the kind of profile that I do and I want to respect that.
"You know, we all make mistakes. We will make wrong decisions at times. And I tell my children, ‘You’re young. You’re allowed to make mistakes, but it’s how you behave after that counts.’
"I tell them not to shirk their responsibilities, because I don’t. I’ve always stood up for myself, I’ve always admitted the mistakes I’ve made. I’ve got responsibility for an office full of people now and I take that very seriously indeed."
Competitive David Beckham
