Hard Work and Enthusiasm

I am not necessarily a huge sports fan but I do enjoy watching sporting events.  I like the notion of competition and what it takes to be competitive at the highest level in a sport.  What is it that some teams have found that others have not, that makes them so consistently the best?  Some teams always seem to win while others just seem to find the magic formula for success to be too elusive.  I began to wonder about this and to think about coaches. I asked myself what seemed like a simple question. Who would win more often, a team with great talent and a mediocre coach or a team with mediocre talent and a great coach?

Despite the considerable amount of time I spent surfing with my good friend Mr. Google, I still haven’t found a satisfactory answer to this question. However, when I came across the name of John Wooden, I realized that I had found the inspiration for today’s Monday Morning Motivational Minute.

John Wooden was born on October 14, 1910 and died June 4, 2010.  He is one of only three men to be inducted into the basketball hall of fame both as a player and as a coach.  In 1948 he took a loosing UCLA program and immediately turned it around, eventually winning ten NCAA national championships over a 12 year period, seven of them in a row.  Within this period, his teams won a record 88 consecutive games and he was named National Coach of the year six times.

What struck me the most was not so much his winning record, which was certainly impressive, but the tremendous adoration and respect so many people both inside and outside of basketball felt for him.  He earned this respect because of who he was and what he believed in.  He thoroughly lived by his beliefs, and applying them in his life made him the success he was both professionally and interpersonally.  Lucky for us…  He wrote them down.

The John Wooden Pyramid of Success consists of 15 beliefs or building blocks upon which success is built.  Said differently, these are 15 beliefs that, if lived by, provide the structure upon which your own personal success can be achieved.  We don’t have time to cover all 15 building blocks so I will explain two of them. 

John felt that two of his building blocks were the cornerstones of the pyramid.  These were the strong foundation, the strength of which the other ideas must necessarily rest and depend upon.  He believed them to be, indispensably, the most critical components of success. 

They are hard work and enthusiasm.

Tiger Woods, Payton Manning, Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong are just a few individuals legendary for their commitment to hard work.  Legendary coaches like Vince Lombardi, Phil “The Zen Master” Jackson, Red Auerbach, Scotty Bowman and of course, John Wooden himself, all know there is no substitute. 

To John, enthusiasm means your heart is in your work.  Without it, you simply can not work to your fullest potential and perform at your highest level.  Separately, hard work and enthusiasm are powerful tools for success but together, they become an amazingly unimaginable force.

This is so important now, considering the difficulties many Americans face with the struggling economy. Despite the assurances by our leaders, and those hoping to be leaders, that they know exactly how to fix things if we just vote for them, many of us still have uncertainty regarding our future. But whether we want to hear this message or not, the simple truth is that the foundation of our individual success isn’t built on external circumstances.  It is built upon the two things over which we each have complete and absolute control. 

We can choose how hard we work and we can choose whether or not to be enthusiastic about it.

So, choose well, be inspired and have a great day.