Success Tips From Shankly
Bill Shankly, the successful and even legendary Scottish manager of Liverpool United Football Club, died in 1981 but he left behind memories of his energy, wisdom and passionate determination to win. He also left a legacy of powerful sayings which can point the way to the kind of spectacular success he enjoyed with his club. At the first soccer match after Shankly's funeral, a fan unfurled a banner which read: "Shankly Lives Forever". The fan was right. Shankly's legend and his famous sayings do live on. He knew how to see the best in his players. When someone commented that his centre forward Roger Hunt missed a lot of goal scoring opportunities, he defended his player: "Aye, Roger Hunt misses a few, but he gets in the right place to miss them." This sounds daft but Shankly was right. Some players avoid getting in the right place in case they miss a shot and are publicly embarrassed. Roger Hunt, however, had the bottle to get in the right place and have a go even if he might miss and might have to suffer humiliation in front of thousands and, sometimes, millions of fans. Hunt missed plenty of times just as Babe Ruth missed hitting a home run many times. But he also scored many significant goals just as Babe Ruth scored many home runs. Hunt was brave enough to get in the right place and try to score. If he missed, he kept trying till he succeeded in achieving a goal for his club. We need to be willing to risk failure and, if we do fail, have the courage to get over our failures and keep trying until we succeed. Recently the England goalkeeper, Paul Robinson, tried to kick the ball away as it was rolling towards him. It hit a piece of displaced turf and bounced over his foot and into the goal. The score was now Croatia 2 England 0. Paul could have retired into his shell and stopped playing. He didn't. He glared at the offending piece of turf and then got on with his job of preventing goals. He played on brilliantly after a massive failure seen by millions and saved his team and himself from further humiliation. Shankly knew how to celebrate and enjoy his victories and the victories of his nation. Such victory celebrations are among the simple pleasures which make life worth living. He gleefully commented on the result of a wartime England v Scotland match: "We absolutely annihilated England. It was a massacre. We beat them 5-4." Visualization experts teach us that, if we can visualize our victories vividly in advance, we are much more likely to realize them. The only way to find out if the experts are right is to give this theory a try. Shankly knew the importance of loving his work and of bringing happiness to others. He had a life mission to do both: "I was only in the game for the love of football - and I wanted to bring back happiness to the people of Liverpool." One way to bring immense happiness to the fans of Liverpool is to beat their local rivals Everton. After beating Everton in the 1971 FA Cup semi-final, Shankly commented: "Sickness would not have kept me away from this one. If I'd been dead, I would have had them bring the casket to the ground, prop it up in the stands, and cut a hole in the lid." There is passion and commitment for you! One way to bring happiness to people we know and those we don't is to find out their deepest desires and then help them to fulfill them. Their happiness will also become our own. Shankly once came up with a very famous but controversial saying: "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I'm very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that." Possibly, Shankly did not mean that football is literally more important than life and death. What he may well have meant is that life is meaningless without some kind of passion for something whether it is football or something else. People need something or someone to believe in which inspires them. For some this is God; for others it is football. For some it might be both. A recognition of the importance of passion can be found in many areas of life. Mary Lou Retton, the Olympic Gymnast, writes: “Each one of us has a fire in our heart for something. It's our goal in life to find it and to keep it lit.” It is no accident that Shankly revered enthusiasm and felt that natural enthusiasm is the greatest thing in the world. Enthusiasm is all about passion and excitement. You will find both in abundance at Anfield, the home of Liverpool Football Club. In fact you will find it in most football clubs throughout the UK and many other parts of the football world. The historian Arnold Toynbee, who died in 1975 a few years before Shankly, described the power of enthusiasm and the way it could be inspired: "Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can be aroused by two things: first, an idea which takes the imagination by storm; and second, a definite, intelligible plan for carrying that idea into action." Like most great coaches and managers, Shankly believed in the power of hard work: "What we want is hard work and no football club is successful without hard work." The great coach of American Football who died eleven years before Shankly in 1970, Vince Lombardi, felt the same: "The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. You can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price." Shankly demanded hard work from his players throughout an entire match. He wanted his players to play till the referee's whistle ended the game: "That's what the game is all about - being able to play for 90 minutes both individually and as a team." It is no use beginning something with great enthusiasm and hard work and then failing to finish it. Being one goal up at half time is useless if you are 2-1 down at full time. What, then, can we learn about success from Bill Shankly? He believed in seeing the best in his players. If you can see the best instead of the worst in people, you will retain a lot more friends and encounter more of Dr. Jekyll and less of Mr. Hyde. He believed you should be willing to risk failure and humiliation in order to achieve your goals. He worked to bring happiness to others - probably the best way to bring happiness to your self. He taught that passion and enthusiasm are immensely important in life. As Mary Lou suggested, we all need to find our passion and maintain it for as long as we can. We can create our own enthusiasm by having a great goal or dream and by drawing up and following an intelligent plan of action which will realize our dream. Bill Shankly believed in the power of hard work. Whichever way you cut it, hard work is usually necessary somewhere along the line. Hopefully, when we are gone, someone will unfurl a banner which declares to the world that we still live on in the minds and memories of other human beings. If we follow Shankly's example and advice, such a banner or the equivalent might become a reality for some of us at least. John Watson is an award winning teacher and 5th degree blackbelt martial arts instructor. He has written several ebooks on motivation and success topics. One of these can be found at http://www.motivationtoday.com/36_laws.php You can also find motivational ebooks by authors like Stuart Goldsmith. Check out http://www.motivationtoday.com/the_midas_method.php Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site but please include the resource box above |
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