Want to hear some of Lionel Messi’s success lessons?

One of my favorite inspirations is Lionel Messi, the world famous professional football player.

Messi is considered one of the best football players of all time. He’s won a lot of awards in the past proving just how good he is, including number #1 football player in the world.

Lionel Messi’s Success Lessons

Like most extraordinary people, Lionel Messi’s remarkable success did not come from pure luck or accident. In fact, he worked extremely hard and trained almost every single day to become who he is today.

Here’s 10 of Lionel Messi‘s success lessons:

1. Fight For What You Believe In

If you have a dream, you have to work hard to achieve it. Success will not come easy. There’s a price to pay and you must be willing to pay it.

Most people are not successful because they are not willing to do what it takes to produce the extraordinary results.

The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is the little ‘extra’. Extra means you must do more; go the extra mile, put in more effort, wake up earlier and stay later to produce more for what you truly desire to achieve in life.

“You have to fight to reach your dream. You have to sacrifice and work hard for it.” – Lionel Messi

2. Success Takes Time

This is one of my favorite quotes from Messi. It reminds me that success is a long-term process and it is not something that you can achieve overnight. So stop looking for shortcuts or get-rich-quick schemes.

Rome was not built in a day and Steve Jobs did not start Apple in just one night. It is going to take a lot of effort and consistency to produce amazing results.

Therefore, commit to working hard on your dream and never give up. The journey may not be easy, but the reward will be well worth it.

“It took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success.” – Lionel Messi

3. Just Do What You Love

Does this ring a bell to you? Great people are able to produce great results because they love what they do.

And when you love what you do, you will do great work. Michael Jordan would never have excelled in basketball if he didn’t have love for the sport. Warren Buffett made billions through investing because he has an intense passion for doing just that.

Jack Ma can’t stop himself from thinking and talking about his business because it is in his blood. He sleeps, drinks, talks, walks and dreams his business at all times.

You have to be the same if you want to create something amazing in life. Love what you do and live your life with passion.

“What I do is play soccer, which is what I like.” – Lionel Messi

4. Improvement is Always Possible

You have to focus on improvement every day. If you are in business, you need to improve your business knowledge and skills. If you are a writer, you need to improve your writing skills every day.

As Tony Robbins, one of the best life coaches worldwide has coined it, commit to CANI or Constant-And-Never-Ending-Improvement.

The only way to become better in what you do is to commit to improvement every day.

So do something that will make you better every day. Read a book to improve your knowledge, level up your skills, write more, seek help from a mentor, etc.

“The day you think there are no improvements to be made is a sad one for any player.” – Lionel Messis

5. Give Your Team the Credit they Deserve

No one can succeed alone in this world. In fact, there’s no such thing as a real ‘self-made’ millionaire or billionaire. You need your clients and customers to support you. You need your staff and your partners to help you.

Walt Disney had Roy Disney, and Steve Jobs had Steve Wozniak, to help build their business empires. What about you?

“I’m lucky to be part of a team who helps to make me look good, and they deserve as much of the credit for my success as I do for the hard work we have all put in on the training ground.” – Lionel Messi

6. Don’t Ever Chase the Money

Stop chasing the money. Money is just the score from living your dream. It is a byproduct from your achievements.

The real winning comes from your progress. As long as you are moving forward every day, you will eventually reach your goals.

And stop chasing for the next shiny object. You do not have to compare yourself with others. Just be yourself and do what you are supposed to do.

“Money is not a motivating factor. Money doesn’t thrill me or make me play better because there are benefits to being wealthy. I’m just happy with a ball at my feet. My motivation comes from playing the game I love. If I wasn’t paid to be a professional footballer I would willingly play for nothing.” – Lionel Messi

7. Don’t Forget What’s Most Important to You

Sometimes we over obsess with something, and we neglect other more important things in life. I have seen people who chase money and they start to completely ignore their family members.

Never let this happen to you. Yes, winning is important, but you cannot win all the time and winning is not the only thing you have in life.

Always be grateful for what you have and appreciate those who are around you.

“There are more important things in life than winning or losing a game.” – Lionel Messi

8. Remember That It’s Not All About You

Always focus on winning as a team, instead of it being a one man show. Elon Musk, the guy behind Tesla, said this, “I don’t create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done.”

You are in a team, regardless of whether you are in business or in sports, so work as a team.

Put your main priority on your team’s objectives rather than your own personal mission. This is how your team can grow and move forward.

“When the year starts the objective is to win it all with the team, personal records are secondary.” – Lionel Messi

9. Always Give Everything You’ve Got

You have to trust yourself and believe in your dream. When you have doubts, you will never put in your 100%.

People who truly believe in their dreams are willing to do whatever it takes because they know that their dreams will come true somehow. And this makes them pour in their 100% and give it their best effort.

Are you putting in 100% and do you believe in yourself and your dreams?

“There’s no doubt. It’s certain that I will be 100 percent.” – Lionel Messi

10. Learn to Accept Your Failures

Nobody can win all the time. Sometimes you make more progress and learn more from losing and experiencing failure.

You don’t have to feel frustrated or upset when you fail. It is just part of the cycle. You cannot have the sunshine every day.

Sometimes it will rain, sometimes it will be cloudy and sometimes the sun will shine up high. Things will come and go. So appreciate what you have right now and enjoy every moment, whether you are winning or losing.

When you win, work hard and continue to move forward. When you lose, work even harder and learn from your mistakes.

“Sometimes you have to accept you can’t win all the time.” – Lionel Messi

Summary

Here’s a quick recap on Lionel Messi’s success lessons:

1. Fight for what you believe in
2. Success takes time
3. Just do what you love
4. Improvement is always possible
5. Give your team the credit they deserve
6. Don’t ever chase the money
7. Don’t forget what’s most important to you
8. Remember that it’s not all about you
9. Always give everything you’ve got
10. Learn to accept your failures

These are my favorite lessons from Lionel Messi that inspired me to go further in life.

How many of Lionel Messi’s success lessons do you resonate with? Leave a comment below.

Want to hear some of Kobe Bryant’s success lessons?

Kobe Bryant is a beast;

I remember reading a story where he was called up his trainer at 4am to come and help him practice, and 20 minutes later when his trainer arrived, Kobe was already drenched in sweat.

They trained for a few hours on court and in the weight room, until his trainer went back to get some practice before the team practice at 11am.

When he came back, Kobe was on the other side of court practicing jump shots. He’d only just finished his morning training, right before team practice. Kobe had been there for at least 7 hours before the team training had even begun.

Kobe Bryant’s Success Lessons

There are many success lessons we can learn from Kobe Bryant and his sickening work ethic. And I’m not just talking about within basketball, but within life itself. Here are 5 of Kobe Bryant’s success lessons.

1. Reach Out to People in Different Areas

Besides the obvious ritual of reaching out and connecting with people in the same industry as you, something we can learn from Kobe Bryant is reaching out to those in different areas.

It would be foolish to narrow down the people you listen and learn from to just those on the same career path as you. Whether you’re an athlete, entrepreneur etc.

Since Kobe’s NBA career may be coming to an end within the next couple of years, he’s been reaching out to the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Arianna Huffington. In order to find out more about what they do, why they do it and how they became successful in their fields.

Kobe Bryant’s continuing his learning process and planning his future after the NBA by reaching out to others for great inspiration. Which brings me onto my next point, after his official quotes on the subject.

“I cold call people and pick their brain about stuff. Some of the questions I ask seem really really simple and some of them seem stupid, quite honestly, for them. But if I don’t know, I don’t know. I have to ask. I’ll just do that and ask questions. I want to learn more about how they build their business and how they run their companies and how they see the world.” – Kobe Bryant

2. You Can Always Learn More

It doesn’t matter how good you become at your chosen skill or craft, there is always potential for more learning and development. Many successful people might let their achievements go to their head, and make them think there’s nothing they can improve upon.

This really isn’t true; there’s always room for people to improve and learn more, which is exactly why Kobe Bryant and many other people have continued to grow year by year. It’s all about being hungry to learn more, always.

“It’s really about wanting to learn and feeling like your cup is always empty, because there’s always more that you can fill it with. That’s really the important thing and just continuing to learn, learn, learn.” – Kobe Bryant

3. Respect People Close to You

Earlier on in Kobe’s career, he was very aggressive towards his team mates, and would often give them plenty of orders that they didn’t seem to happy about, because he knew the game and knew what had to be done.

However, as he progressed through his career and got older, he realized it was more about respecting his team mates and communicating better. Not only to produce better results, but also to have happy relationships with everyone else.

“Oh, God. I was barking orders left and right. And these grown men are looking at me, like “Who the hell are you?” But I had studied the game so much. As I got older, I started understanding it’s not just about the game. People carry emotions with them. They have lives off the court. That helped me communicate better.” – Kobe Bryant

4. Where There’s Challenge, There’s Opportunity

A challenge is your opportunity to show the world what you can do, and that you can overcome any obstacles in your way. Where there’s a challenge, there’s a chance to prove people wrong.

Not only that, but it means your constantly bettering yourself and giving yourself more opportunities in the future. When you overcome challenges you grow stronger as a person, and that can only be a good thing.

In Kobe’s case, the strongest example of this was when he came back from his Achilles tendon injury, proving everybody wrong. Kobe had the confidence and belief that he could come back from the injury, and he did just that.

The fact that the chances of coming back after such an injury were low, made the challenge even more exciting, said Kobe.

“I have moments and I have days where I doubt myself. But to me, that’s the exciting part of the challenge.That’s when I realize this is a great opportunity to come out and show everybody this is how you bounce back. This is how you respond to a challenge.” – Kobe Bryant

5. Break Your Problems Down Into Smaller Pieces

If you have an incredibly big problem that looks too large to be solved, chop it down into smaller pieces. This way, it allows you to focus on specific issues individually which gives you a better chance of fixing them.

As Kobe explains below, this is what he did back in 2003, after all the endorsements he had dropped him and told him the situation couldn’t be fixed.

And this problem also relates back to the “where there’s challenge, there’s opportunity” success lesson. This was a big challenge for Kobe to overcome, but he did it and proved people wrong.

“In 2003, I was going through the Colorado situation, and it was very tough. I had to ask myself what I wanted to accomplish. I want to keep my family together. Have to focus on that. I’m a good basketball player: I want more championships. Focus on that. Every endorsement I had, they dropped me. Every marketing person said, “You can’t be fixed.” So I start chopping the problem into smaller pieces, and I focus on them. What else are you going to do?” – Kobe Bryant

Summary

Here’s a quick recap of Kobe Bryant’s success lessons:

1. Reach out to people in different areas
2. You can always learn more
3. Respect people that are close to you
4. Where there’s challenge, there’s opportunity
5. Break your problems down into smaller pieces

How many of Kobe Bryant’s success lessons do you agree with? Leave a comment below.

Want to hear some of Bill Gates’ success lessons?

Bill Gates is the richest man in the world, after founding Microsoft in 1975. He is now worth over $100 billion As of April 2025, as Microsoft has risen to create the number 1 operating system brand Windows, which has been re-developed several times.

Microsoft also created Xbox, which has become one of the most popular, if not the most popular gaming system in the world.

Bill Gates’ Success Lessons

I’ve scoured the net and compiled a list of 10 success lessons from Bill Gates; which he has given to people at one point or another in his lifetime, to show them what it takes to become successful and wealthy.

He is the wealthiest man in the world, after all, so listen up!

1. Start as Early as Possible

The first of Bill Gates’ success lessons is to start as early as possible.

Bill Gates was only 13 years old when he started working with computers. When you start something at an early point in your life, you become molded around it.

Not only will you have a chance of becoming successful sooner than most people, but you would also be less likely to want to give up.

If you’ve had a dream that you start working towards when you’re young, you will be more immune to people telling you what you can or can’t do.

By the time you’re an adult and people actually start to take more notice of what you’re working towards, you will be stubborn enough to just ignore them.

The time that you’re most influenced by others is when you’re younger, so if you’ve seen things on T.V or on the internet where others have become successful, this will be imprinted in your mind and you won’t have doubt about what you can or can’t do.

2. Enter into Partnerships

Bill Gates was very fond of forming partnerships with people, people who were the top dog and that made Gates become the ‘Sidekick’.

He was happy with this because it unlocked new opportunities for him and the potential to learn from other successful entrepreneurs who could teach him a thing or two.

Not only that, but it meant that he built relationships with people that would definitely be able to help him out with his future endeavors.

3. You Will Not Make $60,000 a Year Right out of High School

Let’s be honest, you’re not going to make $60,000 a year straight out of high school, so if for some reason you think you will stop kidding yourself. No matter how much education you have, you still need the experience to work your way at the top.

You won’t get appointed CEO of a multi-national company just because you have a degree in business management.

That’s a position that you need to earn, by either starting your own company and working hard to take it to the top or working your way up within a company and proving yourself to people.

4. Be Your Own Boss as Soon as Possible

Bill Gates became a boss at a fairly early age. He deserved it, and it put him in an excellent position with pure control over his success.

“If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to build theirs.” – Bill Gates

5. Don’t Whine About Your Mistakes, Learn from Them

What is the point in blaming other people for your mistakes? Who are you trying to fool? Your mistakes are on you, they are not anyone else’s fault, so stop blaming other people just to try and rid your conscience of guilt.

Mistakes are made to be learned from. You now know what or what not to do in the same situation when it rolls around for a second time and believe me, in most cases it will roll around again.

“If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.” – Bill Gates

6. Be Committed and Passionate

I think this is always included by every entrepreneur as a good bit of advice. You need to be committed to what you love and have a great passion for what you do.

The successful people in this world make it look so easy because they absolutely love what they are doing. If you’re finding things too stressful and too hard, then I’m not sure you’re working on the right thing.

7. Life is the Best School, Not University or College

No matter how many books you read, no matter how many tests you take, nothing from university or college can properly prepare you for life in the real world.

Real-life jobs and bosses do not just involve you studying and them teaching you. It’s real-life work that you need to be able to carry out, otherwise, you will be fired. End of.

“If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure.” – Bill Gates

8. Be Nice to Nerds

It’s true, people who you’d probably class as ‘nerds’ are actually the ones who will work the hardest, be the smartest, and be determined to succeed.

If you’re horrible to nerds then you’re basically taking your chances with fate, because you could easily end up working for one, or even apply for a position at a company that is run by someone you know and have been horrible to in the past.

Still, think you have a chance of getting the job?

“Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.” – Bill Gates

9. TV is Not Real Life

You need to stop getting sucked into Television and believing that what you’re seeing in some cases may actually be what people do in real life.

Real-life is tough and anybody who’s anywhere near successful will not be sitting around in coffee shops all day talking to their friends. They will be out working the grind to pay their bills and improve their financial situation.

“Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.” – Bill Gates

10. Life is Not Fair

Another of Bill Gates’ success lessons is to learn that life is not fair.

No matter how hard you work in life, there will always be times where things don’t go your way, perhaps through no fault of your own. Things that you cannot control. You will get knocked down, but you need to be able to stand up.

Life isn’t fair. It’s a test, a game, a risk. If you fall down and don’t bother getting back up, you don’t deserve to be successful. Winners know that life isn’t fair and they will keep getting back up until they’ve made it.

“Life is not fair. Get used to it.” – Bill Gates

11. Be Ready to Takes Risks

Starting a business is a little bit like gambling, you’re not always sure if you’ll win or not. However, the only difference is that you can strategize and plan well enough to ensure the success of your business.

This quote from Bill Gates is not only applicable to entrepreneurs, it can also apply in life as a whole. The world is full of uncertainties. Life has no rules and you have to sacrifice certain things to get to your destination.

People will step on and reject you but at the end of the day, if you are able to muster the courage to keep on going, nothing will stand in your way.

“Business is a money game with few rules and a lot of risk.” – Bill Gates

12. Never Fast Forward Your Way to Success

NOTHING comes easy and that includes being successful. Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft on a shaky foundation, but through patience and hard work, they were able to surpass the struggles they encountered.

This just goes to show that there are no shortcuts to success, my friend. It takes time to build an empire and a lifetime of sacrifice to keep the consistency going.

“Patience is a key element of success.” – Bill Gates

13. Be Proud of Who You Are

Many people get frustrated because they’re not as smart, rich or talented as the person they look up to. You may get frustrated because you’re not as successful as Bill Gates, but you have to face the reality that we’re all born differently.

Each person has their own unique abilities and you have to accept that to become successful.

If you start to appreciate yourself and what you can offer, you will be more confident to do things your own way.

“Don’t compare yourself with anyone in this world… if you do so, you are insulting yourself.” – Bill Gates

14. Be Humble at All Times

It’s great to dream of success and all that comes with it. However, if you let it get into your head and start to think that you’re untouchable, that is not what you call success.

Life is a wheel, it’s unpredictable. You can be on top today but at the bottom the next. (Trust me!) It’s best to stay humble at all times and never forget what got you there in the first place.

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t
lose.” – Bill Gates

15. Take Things Positively & Love Learning

Bill Gates also had his fair share of unsatisfied customers, but you know what? He never considered this as something negative. Instead, he took their insights by heart and used them to improve his work.

When people hear criticism and bad feedback, they are easily discouraged and their drive to succeed goes downhill.

But if you think about it, this negativity will help you more than you realize, if you look closely. Learn from your mistakes and shortcomings and use that as a catalyst to be the best in what you do.

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates

16. Accept Failures & Move On

Failures are more important than success, because by failing you become successful. The greatest life lessons and the knowledge that changes everything – are found when you fail.

When you succeed, you can learn lessons, you are happy, people will praise you and everyone is willing to help you. But when you fail, everything is dark and you’ll know how it is to suffer. You will see the real ones from the fake ones.

More than the joy that success brings you, always place greater importance on the lessons you learned when you failed. Use that as your weapon as you go through life’s journey.

“It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of
failure.” – Bill Gates

17. Share Your Success With Others

The last of Bill Gates’ success lessons is to share your success with others.

You know the feeling of being an owner of a small startup. It’s difficult and you have probably experienced many struggles.

A truly successful entrepreneur will support and share his or her knowledge to other aspiring entrepreneurs, giving them the encouragement and inspiration they need.

“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower
others.” – Bill Gates

Summary

Here’s a quick recap of Bill Gates’ Success Lessons:

1. Start as early as possible
2. Enter into partnerships
3. You will not make $60,000 a year straight out of high school
4. Be your own boss as soon as possible
5. Don’t whine about mistakes, learn from them
6. Be committed and passionate
7. Life is the best school, not university or college
8. Be nice to nerds
9. TV is not real life
10. Life is not fair, get used to it
11. Be ready to take risks
12. Never fast forward your way to success
13. Be proud of who you are
14. Be humble at all times
15. Take things positively & love learning
16. Accept failures & move on
17. Share your success with others

How many of Bill Gates’ success lessons do you agree with? Leave a comment below.