5 Lessons About Success From Pep Guardiola
Martí Perarnau’s fly on the wall account of Pep Guardiola’s first year at Bayern Munich was not only fascinating from a football point of view, but also from a personal development one. The book provides incredible insight into the mind of one of the greatest sporting minds of our generation. But perhaps the best lessons our the ones that can be taken into our own development, so here are my five most important personal development lessons from Pep Confidential.
Different inspirations
Pep Guardiola’s approach to problem solving uses inspiration from many different sources. Whether from chess, water polo or even gastronomy, Pep realised that he could find answers to his football specific problems from anywhere.
One of my favourite examples is Pep’s insistence of controlling the middle of the pitch. This was a somewhat unorthodox focus for football as many coaches before him would focus on the edges of the pitch: the two goals mouths or the wings. However, control of the centre is very common in a different game: chess. And Pep had a close relationship with Gary Kasparov, the former chess champion, surely the two are not coincidental.
“Ideas belong to everyone and I’ve stolen as many as I could.”
Constraints provide freedom
During his time at Barcelona, Guardiola was the man of many hats. On the surface he was simply the manager of the first team, but in reality, he was so much more. Due to the hierarchical organisation of the club, Pep ended up being the coach, spokesman, media manager and even event planner.
It was an incredible amount of pressure to place on person and led to an overwhelmingly stressful environment. The result of this stress was this:
At Bayern, things were very different. The club are well renowned for their organisation and structure which meant that Guardiola was able to focus on his sole job: management. Pep’s newfound focus provided him with the ability to innovate and grow like never before. As one of his own assistants explains: “Pep innovated more in six months at Bayern, than he did in four years at Barcelona”.
Innovation
“I look at the footage of our opponents and then try to work out how to demolish them”. This was Pep’s response when a close friend praised him for being innovative.
Innovation is a concept that many of us attribute mystical properties to. We believe that it’s the result of creative genius or spontaneous brilliance. But if there’s a lesson to take from Guardiola, it’s that innovation is the result of hard work.
Hours upon hours are spent breaking down footage of opposition play. No stone is left unturned in Pep’s analysis and his entire team is involved in the process. No idea is truly original, they are always deconstructions of ideas that came before.
To Pep, innovation is simply the result of problem solving, breaking a problem down to its very fundamentals in order to solve it… or demolish it.
Moments of Perfection
There will be moments of utter perfection.
In his first year at Bayern, there were times when the team reached levels of complete brilliance. 7-0 away to Werder Bremen, 3-0 away to Dortmund, 4-0 against Schalke. But the game that symbolised the best combination of Bayern and Pep Guardiola was the 3-1 win away at Manchester City.
But as great as those moments were, they still only happened occasionally. Pep and his team worked hard to ensure that when those moments presented themselves, they would be taken advantage of. But for the rest of the time, effort and strategy was what would win games.
The point is, moments can’t be relied on. This includes moments of brilliance or moments of inspiration. For the rest of the time, it’s your work ethic and planning that make the difference.
However, when perfection does appear, don’t waste it.
“Excellence is like a bubble, you can look for it, but it only appears from time to time”
Always pick the good ones
This is the advice he gave to Patricia Gonzalez, the coach of the Azerbaijan U-19 women’s team. Her response was very sensible: “who are the good ones”.
The good ones are the ones who never lose the ball. Not the most high profile or the most talented.
To Pep, this is incredibly important. The more I dwell on it, the more I feel the same.
But I’ll chance the phrase very slightly: “Always pick the good ones… the ones who never drop the ball”.
We all know the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people. But it’s not always clear who they are. To me, it’s the ones who are consistent, who are there for you, who you can rely on.
The ones who don’t drop the ball.