59 Lessons in Winning
Fergus Connolly has worked in elite sports for over 20 years. From the Premier League with Liverpool FC to Boxing, Fergus knows exactly what it takes to sustain true greatness.
Reading his book, “59 Lessons Working with the World’s Elite Coaches, athletes, and Special Forces”, gives you a glimpse into the how and why winners win. The book is filled with golden nuggets of actionable lessons.
Today, I unveil my notes from every lesson, highlighting my key takeaways for both coaches and athletes, regardless of your sport.
Winning Habits
1 - Never Bring A Gun To A Gun Fight
Legendary Swim coach, Bill Sweetenham, enforced the compassionate ruthlessness required to win when one of his swimmers was homesick at the Olympic games.
Bill gave her a hypothetical dilemma, “shoot a dog or win an Olympic gold medal, which one?”. To maintain the mentality required to win at the highest level of any discipline, “the dog should’ve been dead by now”.
Now that may seem a bit extreme, but the principle stands that winning requires you to be ruthless. It’s ugly.
The trick is to find the right balance between ruthlessness and people management.
2 - The Aim Is Not To Win Once
Winning once is one thing, winning again and again is where legacies are built.
If you want to be great, your goal should never be to win just one championship, but to win many.
Equally, have a long-term vision, but don’t get distracted by it and be realistic about every step of the journey.
3 - We Only Play Away Games
Complacency will slowly kill your team from the inside. You see it every day in elite sport - there wouldn’t be any “magic of the FA Cup” if there wasn’t.
Tell yourself you are the best in the world before going to bed. But in the morning, wake up and work like you’re second best.
4 - Only Those Who Endure
Your ability to endure tough times is a great determinant of your long-term success in any sport. It’s not those that can inflict the most, but those that can suffer the most will conquer.
5 - You Can’t Be Half Pregnant
Everyone knows that when you put in the part-time effort, you get part-time results. If you want to be an elite athlete, this way of working will bring your career to a swift end.
You need to go all in on what you want to achieve, or you’ll never reach success.
6 - The Smart Take From The Strong
An elite marathon runner will find it difficult to keep up with the pace of a football match. If you look at this from the outside, it should be obvious that the cardiovascular fitness of a marathon runner can easily translate to football, but fitness can be specific to the sport.
The footballers possess more sport-specific skills which allow them to compensate for lower fitness levels. This same principle can be applied to almost any sport.
You must strive to know everything there is to know about your sport. No amount of hard work or technology can overcome an inadequate grasp of the basics.
7 - Coach In The Gray
You should coach and play the same way as you drive your car - in the grey.
Think about it, how many times have you driven your commute to work or training and had no idea how you got there? Everything is second nature to you.
The point is to coach in principles and broad outlines, but study details.
8 - 99% Healthy Is Not 100% Injured
Injury shouldn’t be a license to rest. It is an opportunity to develop another area of the player’s ability.
We can’t allow ourselves to exist in silos, we must share ideas across different disciplines and unite to serve our players better.
“Coaching is experimentation - Edison did 10,000 experiments before he came up with the lightbulb” - Dan Pfaff
9 - You Only Compete Against Yourself
Your only true opponent is yourself. Those who spend too much time and energy focusing on what their opponent is doing will lose sight of what truly matters - self-competition.
The best are constantly looking to improve. No matter what’s happening or how hard things get, never let your standards drop.
10 - Stay Hungry
Former England Rugby Union coach, Sir Clive Woodward, travelled and worked all over the world and deliberately put himself in unfamiliar situations that made him uncomfortable and forced him to learn new things. The hunger for success never left him, that’s why he was so successful.
“Our success has not been a continual series of victories. We have had several devastating setbacks; how these are handled is the making of a great team… winning does not happen in straight lines.” - Sir Clive Woodward
11 - The Mailman Delivers
No one cares what the mail person does apart from the 30 seconds they’re knocking on your door and delivering your parcel.
Likewise, sports fans don’t flood their team’s training ground every day, they only care when the result matters on the weekend.
Practice to deliver, don’t practice to practice. The goal of practice is not to be good at practice, it’s to perform.
Technology & Communication
12 - The Nine Most Used Words
Marginal gains is the approach and mindset British Cycling teams used to constantly improve in tiny ways, but only once they had mastered the basics.
Just doing something a certain way because, “that’s the way we’ve always done it here,” is insufficient justification if the thing in question stresses athletes out or is counterproductive.
If you’re working with difficult people, try to frame your perspective as a positive one - some of the best lessons come from working with insecure or incompetent people.
13 - You Can’t Ride Two Horses With One Ass
If you try to be the best in two different areas, you’ll most likely end up sub-par in both. The key is to identify one target and relentlessly work to achieve that.
I’ve struggled with this in the past but the truth is, there is no “balance” in all areas of your life when you want to win.
14 - Optimise, Never Maximise
Best is the enemy of better.
Being a perfectionist can have the opposite effect of your intention. The goal should always be to be better than yesterday. Constantly chasing “best” will make you lose sight of the progress you’ve already made.
15 - Your Biggest Opponent Is Kim Kardashian
I’m sure the intention of this lesson wasn’t to form an army of coaches and athletes against Kim Kardashian, but the message still stands strong.
As a coach, it doesn’t matter what you know if you can’t sell it to your audience.
In the modern day, social media and technology take up a lot of our mental space and it can be challenging to garner the attention of athletes because “your biggest opponent is Kim Kardashian (aka the constant battle for attention).
Study your audience, and when meeting with someone in person is an option, take it every time.
16 - Start At The Beginning, But Work Backwards
Get the big rocks in place before you start obsessing about the placement of the pebbles
“The average attention span is 11 seconds for pure concentration. Consistency of message is key” - Joe Schmidt
17 - Does It Affect The Scoreboard?
In sports, the only true goal is result. Anything else should be contributing towards that, or else it’s probably a waste of time.
When you start any new task in a sports setting, start from the scoreboard and work backwards. Ask the question “How will it affect the bottom line or the end goal?”
18 - Quality Always Defeats Quantity
I used to try my hardest to complete any given task as quickly as possible rather than focus on the quality of the task. Big mistake.
Quality of effort and action is infinitely more important than quantity or volume of actions.
Teamwork & Culture
19 - Five Blind Men And An Elephant
The analogy Fergus used for this lesson was powerful. He told the story of when five blindfolded men were brought into a room with an elephant. Each man - without his ability to see - was asked to describe the animal in the room. They all had different answers.
Don’t isolate, focus on embracing teamwork.
20 - Culture Coaches When You’re Not Around
“Above all, I would like to be remembered as a man who was selfless, who strove and worried so that others could share the glory, and who built up a family of people who could hold their heads up high and say, ‘We’re Liverpool’” - Bill Shankly
A strong culture is influential when no one is there to enforce it.
21 - Don’t Get High On Your Supply
You can’t control what other people say. Whether it is positive or negative words, maintain the same reaction of not worrying about what the media and anyone else outside your inner circle say or think about you.
22 - I Ain’t Talking Fast. You’re Just Listening Slow
Listen, observe more than you talk, and limit your interventions. Humour can be used to create common ground no matter what group you’re in and where you are in the world.
23 - McRaven's Law Of Relativity
Sometimes you learn the best lessons through losses or struggling with limited resources.
“If you’re happy, ultimately that’s all that matters. The money’s irrelevant. You can have ‘X’ amount of pounds in your bank every month but if you’re not happy and you’re not finding peace in what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter.” - Brendan Rodgers
24 - Never Make A Reason An Excuse
Every type of movement is a skill, not just a physical action. Every expression of skill involves technical, tactical, physical, and psychological elements.
There’s only one challenge more difficult than finding the solution, and that’s identifying the right problem first.
“Smart work dosed appropriately usually wins. ‘Outwork your opponent and you will win’ can often be a recipe for disaster” - Dan Pfaff
25 - The “No Rule” Rule
You can be the smartest person in the room, but if you can’t communicate and cultivate a relationship, then you will never have an impact. The fastest way to gain trust is to just be candid.
Do what you say, say what you do.
26 - Take The Right Guy, Not The Best Guy
“We never pick the best man. We pick the right man”.
Nothing great or lasting is ever achieved by anyone on their own. Being the best at something doesn’t always equal being the right person for something.
27 - Appeal To Their Need
Always find out what motivates people. Then appeal to and serve that need.
28 - Write Your Narrative
You can spin a win or a loss either way and use it as motivation. You are in control of how you react to the result, and you can write your own narrative.
Management, Facilitation, & Leadership
29 - Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing
You can’t take your eye off the main prize and what is important. Never let the main thing get overshadowed by something else.
30 - Never Buy A Dog And Bark Yourself
Micromanagement can ruin the atmosphere of an entire club or company.
Leadership should be a quality of the entire team, not just the person at the top. But you can’t empower people who haven’t mastered basic skills first.
31 - Small Is Big
Bigger teams don’t always equate to success. In pursuit of winning, it can be easy to assume that the more people you have in your circle, the more chance you have to win.
However, Fergus suggests that this isn’t the case.
Trim the fat, stay effective and lean. Even better, hire one, pay the salary of two, and get the work of three.
32 - This Is A People Business
Sports is a people business. It doesn’t matter how intelligent you are if you cannot work with people.
Another reinforcement of the people-first philosophy I work by, the priority should always be overall health, not just performance.
If you sacrifice health to win, you ultimately lose.
Beyond all the hype, stats, and fancy gadgets, we ultimately thrive on our relationships with others.
33 - Thin Line Between Delegation And Abdication
The ideal scenario is that everyone becomes a leader and is encouraged to act as such.
“Make your hard days hard and your easy days easy” - Charlie Francis
34 - There Is No Such Thing As Discipline
Two teams can be very evenly matched physically and it’s often those who encourage individuality and innovation that take home the trophy.
Serve and always remain vigilant.
35 - The Talent Curse
If you’re talented, you’ve already got a head start over your competition. However, talent is only part of the equation. Work is the difference between winning and losing.
You have to make your path, because you’ll finish second (at best) if you’re following someone else.
36 - Conflict Breeds Trust
All successful teams have conflicts. This breeds trust in one another.
Debating something exposes a healthy vulnerability because you might have to accept you’re wrong. This cultivates trust and helps cement relationships in which you can find solutions together.
37 - Train Them To Leave
Training hard is the only way to prepare for anything. Rest and recover, but never sub-maximally.
“Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to” - Richard Branson
38 - Always Maximise Your Strengths
During performance when results matter, there is no point in trying to improve your weaknesses.
Winners limit their weaknesses but always play to their strengths.
Innovation, Resilience, & Knowledge
39 - Eat Soup With A Knife
The ability to adapt determines your ability to succeed. While others quibble over details, start looking beyond incremental improvements and think bigger.
The greatest ability is adaptability.
Two common mistakes many people make are changing for the sake of it and abandoning their principles. You must identify your values, remain principled, and create a methodology that rarely changes while altering tactics when needed.
Success is the ability to adapt to unforeseen circumstances.
40 - No Difference Between Winning Or Losing
Focus on progress, not perfection. Each setback is an opportunity to learn.
In elite sports your only true opponent is yourself.
41 - Three Is The Magic Number
Only give people three things to do at any time. Three rules, and three things to remember.
Learning is different for everyone, coaches and players alike.
Ask yourself “How can I clarify my message and break it down into a series of easy, adaptable takeaways that people will remember?”.
42 - The Operation Was A Success, But The Patient Died
Winning at the top level is not about what you do well, it’s about making as few mistakes as possible. The best teams force you into errors and capitalise on them.
The only metric that matters in the end is the game score.
A loss is only an issue when you don’t learn from it. Define what winning means to you.
“In this world, you can choose to be positive, or you can choose to be negative. You can choose to see things through a set of eyes that sees good, or you can choose to see things in life that aren’t so good.” - Jack Harbaugh
43 - Henry’s Horse
Innovate and think outside the box to constantly improve. You need outside ideas to consider what others in your area are not thinking about.
If you want to be the best, you have to apprentice with the best. You can learn something of value from anyone in any domain.
“If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” - Henry Ford
44 - The Tomato Fruit Salad
Never confuse information with wisdom.
“Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad” - Miles Kington
45 - Burn The Boats
Move on from bad experiences. Don’t cling to past victories either.
Sir Clive Woodward’s lesson - “rather than over-emphasising the great things we do in games when we play well, ingraining positive habits in players, and building their confidence, we do the opposite and rehash the mistakes to death
We learn from failure, but we should also learn from success. Remove emotion from the situation and look calmly and objectively at reality.
Sometimes things go wrong, and that’s ok.”
46 - You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
Trust what you know to be true. Don’t second guess yourself, but don't believe you know everything.
47 - Play Like Tarzan, Train Like Jane
Training must be hard and realistic to maximise the chance of winning. But the only performance that truly matters is game-day performance.
“Only those who never stand up, never fall” - John Kavanagh
Humility & People
48 - Control The Controllables
You can control more than you realise. Go through every scenario that might go wrong beforehand to save the major decisions for the major events.
While you can’t eliminate randomness or chance, you’ll find you can anticipate and manage a lot more than you think.
49 - It’s Never About The Two Hours
The fight is won long before you take the field. Everyone trains for two hours. The other 22 hours are what matters. Health must be the basis for performance.
You need to schedule rest - and lots of it after pushing hard. Otherwise, you’re going to fall apart sooner or later.
50 - Be Honest, Not Fair
Brutal honesty will always be respected.
51 - Generalists Use Specialists
We achieve the greatest advances when we cross-pollinate with experts in other disciplines.
No matter how versatile you are, you cannot be an expert in everything.
52 - Circle Of Trust
In the best organisations, there is brutal honesty that encourages continual dialogue.
53 - One Man’s Meat Is Another Man’s Poison
Not everyone reacts the same way to similar events.
Push them hard, but also make sure they are being taken care of.
54 - We Won’t Really Know For 20 Years
Understand you need to look after yourself before you can help others.
The greatest ability of any coach is to get someone to want to play for them.
Have a vision, but look after your people first.
55 - Disciples Differ. Leaders Agree
You won’t get the full story unless you spend time with the person.
56 - Never Avoid An Opportunity To Shut Up
The ability to keep your mouth shut is underrated, especially in the world of sports and business.
Allow people to learn and don’t always feel the need to talk. Never refuse the offer to speak if you’re asked for your opinion.
57 - Greg Chappell St
Humility is at the core of all great leaders.
If you’re just starting, you should challenge yourself by being around the leaders in your field and being open to their tutelage.
You must be vulnerable enough to realise that you’re not perfect and, like everyone else, have limiting factors to improve.
58 - Your 2nd String Is More Important Than Your 1st
It is a fact of competition and life that nothing goes to plan.
59 - Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
Thrive on chaos and learn to accept the things you can’t control.
Life is not meant to be constantly straight or plain sailing.
The Final Lesson(s)
One thing is guaranteed in life - everyone makes mistakes
Never, ever quit
Commit completely
“The person who never made a mistake never made anything”
Never run from a problem
Be brutally honest with the person staring back at you in the mirror
Enjoy the journey and laugh!
Recap
This book is a must-read for any aspiring coach or athlete. It took me 2 weeks to read, but the insights and lessons in the book will serve me for the rest of my life.
