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 Cambridge Bobcat Basketball |
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 March 2005 "When you aim for perfection you discover it's a moving target." - George Fisher "To ease one's heartache is to forget your own." - Abraham Lincoln "He is ill clothed that is bare of virtue." - Ben Franklin "A bad habit never disappears miraculously; it's an undo-it-yourself project." - Abigail Van Buren "Entertain great hopes." - Robert Frost "Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise with time." - Theodore Roosevelt "Don't mistake pleasure for happiness." - Josh Billings "People resist giving that high level of effort. There's a tendency to settle for less and then have to overcome that." - Pete Carril "The really free person in society is the one who is disciplined.?Players feel love when they are disciplined." - Dean Smith "I can't stand a player who plays in fear." - Red Auerbach "The masters all have the ability to disciplined themselves to eliminate everything except what they are trying to accomplish." - Dale Brown "Loyalty is a very important thing when things get a little tough, as they often do when the challenge is great." - John Wooden February 2005 "You may find the worst enemy or best friend in yourself." - English Proverb "No one really knows enough to be a pessimist." - Norman Cousins "Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself." - St. Francis de Sales "Beware of the man who won't be bothered with details." - William Feathers Sr. "In great attempts it is glorious even to fail." - Wilfred Peterson "The strength of the wolf is in the pack, and the strength of the pack is in the wolf." - Rudyard Kipling "Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom." - Thomas Jefferson "When you are top dog, everyone wants to put you in the pound." - Charles Barkley "Leadership is getting others to believe in you." - Larry Bird "People say 'relax the game is over. The game is over.'? Well the game is never over." - Red Auerbach "How hard you work at correcting your faults, reveals a man's character." - John Wooden "The masters all have the ability to discipline themselves to eliminate everything except what they are trying to accomplish." - Dale Brown "Players need to learn how to play without the ball and without the coach." - Pete Carril January 2005 "A wise man turns chance into good fortune." - Thomas Fuller "There are few successful adults who were not at first successful children." - Alexander Chase "Genius is formed in quiet, character in the stream of life." - Goethe "Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men." - Thomas Huxley "Every man is the son of his own works." - Cervantes "The greatest use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it." - William James "Next time we have to put a team together, and stop looking at this as marketing players." - Larry Brown "Discipline of others isn't punishment. You discipline to help, to improve, to correct, to prevent, not to punish, humiliate, or retaliate." - John Wooden "Overcoaching is the worst thing you can do to a player." - Dean Smith "The prospect does what is required of him as a player.?When he does more, he becomes an athlete." - Hank Iba "Don't let winning make you soft.?Don't let losing make you quit.?Don't let your teammates down in any situation." - Larry Bird "I always set out to deliberately wear down the man who was covering me.?I felt confident that when I was still relatively fresh, he was bound to be tiring." - John Havliceck December 2004 "It takes 20 years to make an overnight success." - Eddie Cantor "A great part of courage is having done the thing before." - Ralph Waldo Emerson "Wisdom is the power than enables us to use knowledge." - Thomas Watson "Make the work interesting and disciple will take care of itself." - E.B. White "One man practicing sportsmanship is better than a hundred men teaching it." - Knute Rockne "I am here; I must do the best I can, and bear the responsibility of taking the course which I feel I ought to take." - Abraham Lincoln "The greatest pleasure in life is dong what people say that you cannot do." - Walter Bagehot "Trying to get by on talent is a fatal mistake." - Pete Maravich "You are indeed in the presences of a true competitor when you observe that he is indeed getting the most joy out of the most difficult circumstances." - John Wooden "If you get caught up in things over which you have no control, it will adversely affect those things over which you have control." - John Wooden "Commitment to the team; there is no such thing as in-between, you are either in or out." - Pat Riley "I've never known anyone so loyal. If you are Larry Bird's teammate you are one of the most important people in the world to him." - Kevin McHale "We are not real fast.?In fact we had three loose balls roll dead yesterday in practice." - Les Wothke "The most important measure of how good a game I had played was how much better I had made my teammates play." - Bill Russell Each block in the Pyramid was selected with meticulous care and consideration over many years and after a variety of experiences in my life. Some of the blocks selected in the early years were discarded when I concluded they were less than essential. Other blocks were put in different positions within the structure as I learned more with time. The position of each block and the specific order of the tiers of blocks in the Pyramid have great importance, starting with the foundation and cornerstones and building up to the apex; own personal success. In 1934 I chose two blocks as the cornerstones of my "Pyramid of Success" without any clear knowledge of how many blocks it would eventually have of its eventual size. That would come only after hundreds of hours of reflection over a period of fourteen years. I did know that at the top of the Pyramid, at the apex, was success as defined by many of the teachings Dad had given us back on the farm. To those I added my own ideas gained from experience. So in 1934 I began by putting in place two huge and powerful blocks as the cornerstones of the Pyramid, two fundamental personal qualities that I wouldn't change if I had to do it over again today in 1997, because without them you will not succeed. These are the biggest and most essential blocks in the Pyramid: INDUSTRIOUSNESS and ENTHUSIASM. Let me tell you a little about both of them. There is no subsitute for work. Worthwhile results come from hard work and careful planning. Industriousness? I mean very simply that you have to work and work hard. There is no substitute for work. Worthwhile things come only from work. Michael Jordan? More important than his physical ability is the way he has worked hard to improve any weaknesses he had. Jack Nicklaus? Mr. Nicklaus is legendary for his hard work. Cal Ripken Jr.? The same. And anyone else you might care to mention who has achieved personal success and competitive greatness. Businessperson, clergy, doctor, lawyer, plumber, artist, writer, coach, or player, all share a fundamental trait. They work very hard. More than that, they love the hard work. You may suggest that Babe Ruth achieved greatness even though he broke training in every sort of way over and over again. But just imagine what he might have done if he had focused on bringing out the best that he had within him. He may have achieved greatness in the eyes of many, but did he achieve his own personal greatness? Did he try to be the best that he could be? Hard work is essential, and only you really know if you're giving it everything you've got. People who always try to cut corners will never come close to realizing their full potential. Hard work is essential, and only you really know if you're giving it everything you've got. People who always try to cut corners will never come close to realizing their full potential. Grantland Rice understood this when he wrote "How To Be a Champion." You wonder how they do it, You look to see the knack You watch the foot in action, Or the shoulder or the back. But when you spot the answer Where the higher glamours lurk, You'll find in moving higher Up the laurel-covered spire, That most of it is practice, And the rest of it is work. So I chose work as the first cornerstone in the Pyramid of Success. I call it INDUSTRIOUSNESS to make very clear it involves more than merely showing up and going through the motions. Many people who tell you they worked all day weren't really working very hard at all, certainly not to the fullest extent of their abilities. INDUSTRIOUSNESS is the most conscientious, assiduous, and inspired type of work. A willingness to, an appetite for, hard work must be present for success. Without it you have nothing to build on. You can work without being INDUSTRIOUSNESS, but you can not be industrious without work. On the other side of the Pyramid foundation is my second powerful cornerstone: ENTHUSIASM. By that I mean simply that you have to like what you're doing; your heart must be in it. Without ENTHUSIASM you can't work up to your fullest ability. I have a little problem with those who complain about their jobs--coaches who tell me how hard their job is, businesspeople who whine about this or that, teachers who complain about how tough they have it working with youngsters. Gracious sakes alive! The opportunity to teach and coach and work with youngsters hard? I believe otherwise. And I believe it's true in any profession. If you're knocking it all the time, get out! Don't whine, complain, or criticize. Just leave. Maybe you can't leave immediately, today, right now, but understand you must eventually do it. Because if you don't enjoy your endeavors, it is almost impossible to have enthusiasm for them. And you must have enthusiasm to prepare and perform with industriousness. ENTHUSIASM ignites plain old work and transforms it into INDUSTRIOUSNESS. ENTHUSIASM brushes off on those with whom you come into contact, those you work with and for. You must have ENTHUSIASM, especially if you're a leader or if you wish to become a leader. Leadership Requires ENTHUSIASM. People in positions of leadership have many responsibilities. They must be interested in finding the best way rather than having their own way. Leaders must make sure that those under their supervision understand that they're working with the leader, not for the leader. But, most important, leaders must always generate ENTHUSIASM if they wish to bring out the best in themselves and those under their supervision. Regardless of whether you're leading as a teacher, coach, parent, or businessperson, or you're a member of a leadership team, you must have ENTHUSIASM. Without it you cannot be industrious to the full level of your ability. With it you stimulate others to higher and higher levels of achievement. So as the cornerstones of the Pyramid of Success I placed these two essential qualities: INDUSTRIOUSNESS and ENTHUSIASM. You must be willing to work hard, to be industrious. You must join that with enthusiasm. Separately each is powerful in its own particular way. Joined together they become a force of almost unimaginable power. You need those qualities within yourself. And if you are a leader, you will soon instill those qualities in those under your supervision by your example. No structure is going to be very strong and solid unless it has a sturdy foundation. The blocks in between my two cornerstones make a strong and solid foundation because they include others, and when we include others we're adding tremendous strength. Those additional blocks of the foundation are FRIENDSHIP, LOYALTY, and COOPERATION. Their great importance is that they being together and amplify the qualities at the cornerstones: INDUSTRIOUSNESS and ENTHUSIASM. The additional blocks show that it takes united effort to succeed. For success, either individually or for your team, there must be a level of FRIENDSHIP. It is a powerful force that comes from mutual esteem, respect, and devotion. It isn't FRIENDSHIP when someone does something nice for you. He or she is simply being a nice person. FRIENDSHIP is mutual; doing good things for each other. There's no real FRIENDSHIP when only one side is working at it. Both must give for there to be FRIENDSHIP. FRIENDSHIP takes time and understanding. Rarely will you find in working toward a common goal that others will be able to resist FRIENDSHIP if you offer it sincerely and openly. However, you may have to prime the pump first. Be brave enough to offer FRIENDSHIP. Toward the end of the Civil War, reparations were being discussed in the White House. Abraham Lincoln was told by one of his advisors who favored punishing the South, "Mr. President, you're supposed to destroy your enemies, not make friends of them!" Mr. Lincoln replied, "Am I not destroying an enemy when I make a friend of him?" He understood the tremendous force of FRIENDSHIP. FRIENDSHIP includes others and adds strength to your foundation. My goodness, how can you work to the best of your ability unless you have someone or something to whom you are loyal? Only then do you gain peace and an increasing ability to perform at your highest level. LOYALTY to and from those with whom you work is absolutely necessary for success. It means keeping your self-respect, knowing whom and what you have allegiance to. It means giving respect to those you work with. Respect helps produce LOYALTY. Great LOYALTY was stressed on all my teams, from Indiana State Teachers College to UCLA. LOYALTY is a cohesive force that forges individuals into a team. LOYALTY is very important when things get a little tough, as they often do when the challenge is great. LOYALTY is a powerful force in producing one's individual best and even more so in producing a team's best. In order to reach the full potential of the group, there must be COOPERATION at all levels. This means working together in all ways to accomplish the common goal. And to get COOPERATION, you must give COOPERATION. You are not the only person with good ideas. If you wish to be heard, listen. Always seek to find the best way rather than insisting on your own way. All of this requires COOPERATION. It allows individuals to move forward together, to move in the same direction instead of going off in different directions. Ten strong field horses could not pull an empty baby carriage if they worked independently of each other. Regardless of how much effort they exerted individually, the carriage wouldn't budge without their mutual COOPERATION. No edifice is going to be better than its structural foundation, just as no individual is better than his or her mental foundation. Those five blocks-FRIENDSHIP, LOYALTY, COOPERATION, and the powerful cornerstones of INDUSTRIOUSNESS and ENTHUSIASM-are the strong and sturdy foundation upon which you build success. Once this had been constructed I put in place the second tier, four blocks that build on the solid foundation: SELF-CONTROL, ALERTNESS, INITIATIVE, and INTENTNESS. SELF-CONTROL is essential for discipline and mastery of emotions, for discipline of self and discipline of those under your supervision. You cannot function physically or mentally unless your emotions are under control. That is why I did not engage in pregame pep talks to stir emotions to a sudden peak. I preferred to maintain a gradually increasing level of both achievement and emotions rather than trying to create artificial emotional highs. For every contrived peak you create, there is a subsequent valley. I do not like valleys. SELF-CONTROL provides emotional stability and fewer valleys. Remember, discipline of others isn't punishment. You discipline to help, to improve, to correct, to prevent, not to punish, humiliate, or retaliate. When you punish you antagonize. You cannot get the most positive results when you antagonize. SELF-CONTROL is essential to avoid antagonizing. When you lose control of your emotions, when your self-discipline breaks down, your judgement and common sense suffer. How can you perform at your best when you are using poor judgement? In the many years before we won a championship I overcame disappointment by not living in the past. To do better in the future you have to work on the "right now." Dwelling in the past prevents doing something in the present. Complaining, whining, making excuses just keeps you out of the present. That's where SELF-CONTROL comes in. SELF-CONTROL keeps you in the present. Strive to maintain SELF-CONTROL. ALERTNESS is the next building block in the Pyramid. There is something going on around us at all times from which we can acquire knowledge if we are alert. Too often we get lost in our tunnel vision and we don't see the things that are right in front of us for the taking, for the learning. My favorite American hero is Abraham Lincoln. He had ALERTNESS. He once said that he never met a person from whom he did not learn something, although most of the time it was something not to do. That also is learning, and it comes from your ALERTNESS. As you strive to reach your personal best, ALERTNESS will make the task much easier. Be observing constantly, quick to spot a weakness and correct it or use it, as the case may warrant. You must not be afraid to fail. INITIATIVE is having the courage to make decisions and take action. Keep in mind that we all are going to fail at times. This you must know. None of us is perfect. But if you're afraid of failure, you will never do the things you are capable of doing. I always cautioned my teams, "Respect your opponents, but never fear them. You have nothing to fear if you have prepared to the best of your ability." Never fear failure. It is something to learn from. You have conquered fear when you have INITIATIVE. The fourth block in the second tier of the "Pyramid of Success" is INTENTNESS. I could say it means determination. I could say it means persistence. I could say it means tenacity or perseverance. I will say it is the ability to resist temptation and stay the course, to concentrate on your objective with determination and resolve. Impatience is wanting too much too soon. INTENTNESS doesn't involve wanting something. It involves doing something. The road to real achievement takes time, a long time, but you do not give up. You may have setbacks. You may have to start over. You may have to change your method. You may have to go around, or over, or under. You may have to back up and get another start. But you do not quit. You stay the course. To do that, you must have INTENTNESS. Here's a little example of what I mean. In 1948, I began coaching basketball at UCLA. Each hour of practice we worked very hard. Each day we worked very hard. Each week we worked very hard. Each season we worked very hard. Four fourteen years we worked very hard and didn't win a national championship. However, a national championship was won in the fifteenth year. Another in the sixteenth. And eight more in the following ten years. Be persistent. Be determined. Be tenacious. Be completely determined to reach your goal. That's INTENTNESS. If you stay intent and your ability warrants it, you will eventually reach the top of the mountain. In the third tier I put what I think is the heart of the Pyramid. It may seem to apply to athletics alone, but it doesn't. The personal characteristics in the third tier apply equally to individuals and teams anywhere. These blocks are CONDITION, SKILL, and TEAM SPIRIT. You must be conditioned for whatever you're doing if you're going to do it to the best of your ability. There are different types of conditioning for different professions. A deep-sea diver has different conditioning requirements from a salesperson. A surgeon has different physical conditioning requirements from a food server. You must add to physical conditioning mental and moral conditioning. I stressed all forms of conditioning for my teams. Some believed my players were simply in better physical condition than the competition. They may have been, but they also had tremendous mental and emotional conditioning.You must identify your conditioning requirements and then attain them. Without proper conditioning in all areas, you will fall short of your potential. It is impossible to attain and maintain desirable physical CONDITION without first achieving mental and moral CONDITION. At the very center of the Pyramid is SKILL. You have to know what you're doing and be able to do it quickly and properly. I had players at UCLA who were great shooters. Unfortunately they couldn't get off any shots so they didn't help us. I had players who could get off plenty of shots but couldn't shoot a lick. You need both; the ability to do it quickly and properly. SKILL means being able to execute all of your job, not just part of it. It's true whether you're an athlete or an attorney, a surgeon or a sales rep, or anything else. You'd better be able to execute properly and quickly. That's SKILL. As much as I value experience, and I value it greatly, I'd rather have a lot of SKILL and little experience than a lot of experience and little skill. The last block in the third tier is TEAM SPIRIT. This means thinking of others. It means losing oneself in the group for the good of the group. It means being not just willing but eager to sacrifice personal interest or glory for the welfare of all. There is a profound difference between mere willingness and eagerness. A prisoner on a chain gang may be willing to break rocks to avoid punishment. But how eager is he? Of course, we all want to do well and receive individual praise. Yes, that's fine, if you put it to use for the good of the team, whatever your team is: sports, business, family, or community. TEAM SPIRIT means you are willing to sacrifice personal considerations for the welfare of all. That defines a team player. Near the apex of the Pyramid are POISE and CONFIDENCE. I believe these two important blocks of the structure are the natural result of the personal qualities that we put in place below. POISE and CONFIDENCE ensue from all the other blocks. That is why the exact order of the tiers and the blocks in those tiers is so important. I don't believe POISE or CONFIDENCE can come about until all the other blocks are in place. My definition of POISE is very simple: being yourself. You're not acting. You're not pretending or trying to be something you're not. You are being who you are and are totally comfortable with that. Therefore, you'll function near your own level of competence. You understand that the goal is to satisfy not everyone else's expectations but your own. You give your total effort to becoming the best you are capable of being. It takes POISE to accomplish this. You must have CONFIDENCE. You must believe in yourself if you expect others to believe in you. However, you can't have POISE and CONFIDENCE unless you've prepared correctly. (Remember that failing to prepare is preparing to fail.) Every block is built on the others. When all are in place, POISE and CONFIDENCE result. You don't force them to happen. They happen naturally from proper preparation. Just above competitive greatness I have placed PATIENCE and FAITH, two essential qualities that are like mortar keeping the individual blocks firmly in place. PATIENCE and FAITH are really present throughout the Pyramid, holding everything together. Most of us are impatient. As we get a bit older, we think we know more and things should happen faster. But PATIENCE is a virtue in preparing for any task of significance. It takes time to create excellence. If it could be done quickly, more people would do it. A meal you order at a drive-through window may be cheap, it may be quick, it may even be tasty. But is it a great dining experience? That takes time. Good things always take time, and that requires PATIENCE. COMPETITIVE GREATNESS requires PATIENCE. Excellence requires PATIENCE. Most of all, success requires PATIENCE. Of course, I believe we must also have FAITH that things will work out as they should. Please keep in mind that I'm not saying things will necessarily work out as we want them to. However, we must believe they will work as they should as long as we do what we should do. And we must let that suit us. That should be satisfactory. Ultimately, all fourteen building blocks in the "Pyramid of Success" are necessary for COMPETITIVE GREATNESS. What is COMPETITIVE GREATNESS? It's being at your best when your best is needed. It's enjoying the challenge when things become difficult, even very difficult. True competitors know it's exhilarating to be involved in something that's very challenging. They don't fear it. They seek it. Is it fun to do that which is ordinary, easy, simple, something anyone can do? Not at all. Yet most of the tasks we do in our everyday lives are very simple. Anybody could do them. They will not produce the joy that comes from being involved with something that challenges your body, mind, and spirit. Competitors love that challenge. They know it offers the chance to produce their very finest. It brings forth their COMPETITIVE GREATNESS. The highest point of a pyramid is called the apex. In our Pyramid, it is SUCCESS. Above the block of competitive greatness and above patience and faith, at the very pinnacle, representing the culmination of all the qualities working together below, those powerful blocks we put in place, is success. True SUCCESS is attained only through the satisfaction of knowing you did everything within the limits of your ability to become the very best that you are capable of being. SUCCESS is not perfection. You can never attain perfection as I understand it. Nevertheless, it is the goal. SUCCESS is giving 100 percent of your effort, body, mind, and soul, to the struggle. That you can attain. That is SUCCESS. As a coach, leader, and teacher you're to bring individuals up to their greatest level of competence, and then meet the real challenge of putting them together as a group. That can be extremely difficult. The Pyramid shows the way. As an individual you strive to bring forth your best. The Pyramid has allowed me to accomplish that, and with it, to achieve a very precious commodity: peace of mind. What is so important to recognize is that you are totally in control of your SUCCESS-not your opponent, not the judges, critics, media, or anyone else. It's up to you. That's all you can ask for; the chance to determine your SUCCESS by yourself. Over the years since completing the "Pyramid of Success", I would ask players to come in a couple of weeks before practice started to review it with me, to go over what it meant and how it applied to the team and themselves. What's surprising is that nearly every player told me later that although they didn't understand it all while they were students, the "Pyramid of Success" had been very meaningful to them as adults. I'm very pleased by that. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar told a reporter he actually thought the Pyramid was kind of corny when he first saw it (you may also think this). But by the time he graduated, it had begun to make a little more sense to him. It was only later, he said, years after he had left UCLA, that it had its greatest effect on him. Perhaps that's as it should be, because the "Pyramid of Success" is about life more than about basketball. 
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