"Always two there are...

a master and an apprentice." Yoda

“I tried to make Messi the best player in the world, but he ended up making me the best manager in the world”.

Pep Guardiola

In 2008 Pep Guardiola became the coach of Barcelona, a job he did for 4 years, between 2008 and 2012. Messi had made his debut with Barcelona at age 17 in 2004, so by the time Guardiola took the job, Messi was 21 years old.

Messi was very young and extremely talented, and Guardiola was taking on a job as first time series A football (soccer) team coach. Both had a lot to learn if they were going to accomplish big things together.

What ultimately took place over those four years is described by some as the product of the best football team ever in history. Barcelona managed to be both very effective in outcomes and beautiful in style, winning 14 trophies with Messi scoring 211 goals in just those four seasons.

No doubt both Messi and Guardiola grew professionally giving the team their best. However Guardiola would later famously say,

"I tried to make Messi the best player in the world, but he ended up making me the best manager in the world."

What do you think Guardiola meant by saying that?

What is your interpretation from what he said?

Is there something worth extrapolating to your own leadership journey?

Surely Pep Guardiola was first and foremost expressing his admiration for Messi's exceptional talent as well as the impact that the team’s achievements had in his own coaching career.

However I think that what he really meant was that while he worked very hard as a coach to refine Messi’s skills and performance as part of the team; Messi's work ethics and innate talent were so exceptional that it was Guardiola the one that had to continuously elevate his coaching skills and behaviors to be able to have an impact in such player. It is the experience of working with Messi what challenged him, what stretched him and forced him to study and learn new things. It was the apprentice that made the master better.

In the process of leading this team, he did not just coached to success, he had to become a better version of himself in order to have a positive impact on the best player in the team.

Pep Guardiola's statement about Lionel Messi can be extrapolated to life in many ways. The biggest lesson to me is that when you challenge yourself to help others achieve their goals and you go all in, you are really committing to growing yourself first, to improve your own abilities and acquire new skills. You need to become better, sometimes you even need to become different, give birth to a new version of you!

Here are a few ways we can all apply this lesson to your own life and work:

1. Find someone to mentor: Find someone who could benefit from your guidance and support. Make it your mission to help them achieve their goals, and in doing so, you may discover talents within yourself that you didn't know you had or you will realize that your mentee can teach you a lot so have to develop new skills to keep up.

2. Seek out challenges: When you take on stretch assignments or difficult challenges, when you push yourself outside of your comfort zone, you will see emerge new abilities that you didn’t think you were capable of.

3. Value the learning process: This is the most important one. Even if you don't achieve a specific goal, the process of working towards it with someone else will make you grow exponentially. It will make you become more self-aware, it will humble you as you develop a deeper understanding of your own strengths and weaknesses. This is invaluable.

Working with an apprentice can be more important to the master than to the apprentice.

The master has the opportunity to pass on the knowledge and experiences to the apprentice, which not only helps preserve the skills but creates the opportunity for building a legacy. Passing down meaningful stories ensures that those lessons continue living in others, will be alive for future generations to learn from.

As the apprentice grows the master needs to dig deeper to find new ways, new stories, more nuanced approaches… and in the process knowledge and its applications evolves and adapts.

I use the terms ‘master’ and ‘apprentice’ to give a sense of formality to today’s reflection, but what truly matters is the logic, the principles, the framework; not the titles. This applies to colleagues supporting each other at work, to a leader mentoring young talent, to a good manager coaching her team, to an older brother helping the young learn new things, to any human relationship where there is mutual desire for learning and growing, together!

In the end, if the apprentice is dedicated and committed, it will be him who will push the master’s limits, making the master grow in the process.

This is why at any given time there are only two, a master and an apprentice. Who’s who?

They are one and the same.

P.S. Before I go, here you have “The Treat,” where I share some of the music that kept me company while writing … Enjoy as you bid farewell to this post

Lead yourself, Learn to live. Lead others, Learn to Build.

P.S. If you enjoyed reading this post consider subscribing to the newsletter, joining the community and sharing your thoughts.