Why it took Liverpool FC 30 years to reclaim the premier league competition
The winning mindset is more important than winning
I know you may not like football, (I watch maybe once in 3 months when workload relaxes a bit) or even know anything about it but indulge me for few minutes to tell you this simple story about winning in life that will transform your world for the better.
“If I sit here in four years, I am pretty confident we will have one title.” — Jurgen Klopp, 2015 press conference
This was the statement of Jürgen Klopp, Liverpool FC manager at his first press conference when he signed a contract with Liverpool back in 2015. Fast forward to 2020, Liverpool won the premiership league title after about 30 years of waiting. If this is not amazing then I don’t know what is. If we could duplicate Klopp’s success in whatever we do, then we won’t have so many frustrations in life.
It’s my opinion that the premiership league competition is the toughest football league in the world. I know lots of people have a different opinion about this and it’s okay but at least you will agree with me that it’s one of the best. You always have about 7 clubs that can win the title every season but only one of them will win it. This makes it very difficult to predict the winner and yet a German coach came to England and predicted accurately. Imagine being able to do that in your business and every other thing you do. In this article, I want to show you something more powerful and important than winning itself; It is the winning mindset.
“Everything rises and falls on leadership” — John Maxwell
According to John Maxwell in his book; The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership; knowing how to lead is only half the battle. The character qualities of the leader activate and empower his leadership ability or they can hinder it. That’s why I am going to look at the role that Jürgen Klopp played in this Liverpool historic premiership title. As you go through this article you will be able to connect the major task of Klopp in the Liverpool team that delivered the premiership title to them and how you can use the same principle for yourself in whatever you do.
I’m not going to bore you with a detailed analysis of the technicalities of football. I’m not a football analyst but I love to study what works; I love stories of change because at the foundation of every story like that there is always a leadership lesson to learn. The major work that Jürgen Klopp did in Liverpool FC from 2015 till date was changing the mindset of the players.
Liverpool FC has always been a good team, that is, the potential to win the league has always been in them but they just couldn’t do it for 30 years straight. Let’s be straight with ourselves; doesn’t this sound like what most of us have experienced and some are still experiencing? When we are at a stage where we know that we’ve got everything we need to succeed in that venture but it just seems something keeps happening that always makes the success slip off.
As I began to examine some of Jürgen Klopp’s statements, I found out that the winning mentality he worked into the players was the major catalyst that made the premiership title achievable after 30 years.
Let’s look at some of his statements and how it would have affected the minds of the players to achieve their goal.
Analysis of Jürgen Klopp’s statements
“You have to change from doubter to believer. We have to change our performance because nobody is satisfied at the moment.” — Jürgen Klopp
When he used the word ‘doubter and believer’, he was using words that have to do with the inner state of the players before he talked about their performance. It has to be possible in their minds before it can be possible on the field. Whatever is not first of all possible in your mind cannot be possible in your business. The mindset you have towards yourself and your business is the control switch of your success or otherwise.
“There are opponents who are bigger maybe but in a special Liverpool way we can be successful.” — Jürgen Klopp
Having a winning mindset is not about disparaging your competitors but about aligning with the right image of yourself. So, it’s not about Liverpool’s competitors; whether they are big or they are small, it’s about what he called ‘a special Liverpool way’. This made the players see the potency in their uniqueness. The winning mentality is seeing the worth in yourself and believing in it irrespective of what your competitors are doing. Look at another of Klopp’s statements that emphasize this; “I am not saying I am the best manager in the world. But I’m quite good.”
“My first win feels better than a draw.” — Jürgen Klopp
When a man talks like this, it shows someone who is not ready to settle for anything less than a win. It’s a strong mentality that you need in your work. As long as you are still thinking that it is okay to be average, you can never win. Some of his other statements supported this philosophy too: “To be successful you need results in a row. You can’t win, lose, win, lose.”
“Anyone can have a good day, but you have to be able to perform on a bad day.” — Jürgen Klopp
The Holy Book says, ‘if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small’, It means failure is not because of the adversity but because your strength is small. So, the mindset of Klopp is that regardless of the nature of the day, a win is expected. Don’t give yourself excuses when the condition of a business or a particular project is not favourable, just look for a way to win.
“We all started playing football against our best friends, and I can’t remember a moment where, because it was my best friend, I did not want to win against him.” — Jürgen Klopp
What he was saying here was that they go into every game with the drive and passion to win not just to play the game, but to win. That’s why they are aggressive in winning both small and big clubs. Don’t approach your work with a playful mindset. Whatever you don’t apply a business mind to hardly succeed.
“Liverpool is a club with a big, big, big history and all the clubs in the world have a big history if the present is not too successful. If you have never had success, then nobody knows how it is but in Liverpool, everybody knows how it was. — Jürgen Klopp
The club already knows how being a champion taste, so Klopp worked on bringing back that taste consistently in most of their games until they hit auto-pilot of winning. Sometimes, you need to set a goal for yourself to win in a row until you hit that winning stretch mentality where you become unstoppable.
Final thought
I believe every one of us should have a mission statement that drives us in life. And I’m not talking about some words put together randomly, used as a decoration but words from your inner state that carries the image of you winning. Let it be that it is either you win or you win. In other words, cancel the options that you win some and you lose some. That is a mantra for average players. Because even when you lost a deal, it shouldn’t change your mindset.
The reason it is called a mindset is that your mind is supposed to be set like concrete, constant, not shifting regardless of performance. Liverpool FC didn’t play an unbeaten game for five years but the mindset of the coach and the team never shifted from winning.
“Regardless of what is happening around you, it is what is happening in your mind that matters because the winning mindset is more important than winning itself.” — Self
It may not be the big investors you need, it may not be the new facility that you need or a higher degree of education, you may just need to work on your mindset (I will discuss that in my upcoming articles).
“Bayern want a decade of success like Barca. That’s ok if you have the money because it increases the possibility of success. But it’s not guaranteed.” — Jürgen Klopp
Success is a mindset.
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