What a World Cup! What every business owner should learn from this year

Millennium Cargo Services Ltd

If you know me at all you’ll know I’m a massive footy fan.

I love everything about the beautiful game, from the excitement of an impending match, to the elation of watching my team score a goal.

But I take more from it than just entertainment.

I think we can learn a lot from our football heroes too.

I usually watch the World Cup from the comfort of my own home or down the local pub, surrounded by my fellow countrymen. But this year was different.

The England games happened to fall during my family holiday in Lanzarote.

My youngest daughter had just finished her exams, so we hopped on a plane and decided to enjoy a couple of weeks in the sun.

Watching the World Cup in a foreign country was a little different for me. I missed out on some of the Football Fever that the UK does so well, but it was great to see how another country gets involved.

No renditions of Three Lions on a Shirt, or It’s Coming Home, but I love to experience other cultures, so it was a great experience for me.

This year’s World Cup was filled with anticipation. England had a young team, inexperienced and unlikely to go far in this challenging tournament.

But they trained hard and kept their heads in the game, despite their disadvantages.

And wow what a result! They may not have won the tournament, but they really did do us proud. They far surpassed anyone’s expectations, and to make it all the way to the Semi-Finals was just a fantastic result!

I love looking for the lessons we can take from things like this and apply to our own lives. And this one has some great ones.

Firstly, what would have happened if the England team had decided that they weren’t ready?

Or that they didn’t need to try too hard because they had no chance of winning as such a young team?

They’d never have made it this far. Your mindset is the key to success, so you’ve got to get it right. Forget what people tell you and shoot for the stars.

Aim high and give everything 100%, because you never know what you’re capable of until you try.

That’s a brilliant lesson on its own, but what I found really fascinating was watching the losing game.

From the second Croatia scored that first goal I could see an instant shift in the team’s mindset.

I knew from that very moment they had lost it. That goal could have been nothing.

They could have easily caught up and made the game theirs.

But it got inside their heads and their game changed immediately.

They’d lost the battle before it was even over. In life, in business and even in football, 90% of the battle is in your head.

You’ve got to master your mindset and keep it strong, even when things go wrong. If you don’t control your mind, it will control you!