Wooden's Wisdom | Leadership Resource Center

Issue 545 - My Favorite Dynamic Duo: Booker T. Washington and John Wooden: "Make Your Best Better" (Booker T. Washington Part Twenty Six)


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 11	Issue 545
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MY FAVORITE DYNAMIC DUO: BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND JOHN WOODEN: "MAKE YOUR BEST BETTER" (BOOKER T. WASHINGTON PART TWENTY SIX) John Wooden Video Clip (36 sec.): Coach Wooden is asked "Did you give preference to your better players?" Booker T. Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, he was the dominant leader of American educational innovation and reform. Booker T. Washington and John Wooden both had great success over a long period of time. Both men were able to inspire their students to make their best better everyday and never become complacent even though they had achieved success. Coach Wooden said: "I believe that failure to prepare is preparing to fail. The constant focus on the future is one reason we continued staying near the top once we got there. Work constantly to improve without becoming satisfied. Perfection is what you are striving for, but perfection is an impossibility. However, striving for perfection is not an impossibility." In his 1902 book, Character Building, Mr. Washington describes how he inspired his students: "Any institution runs a great risk when it begins to grow—to grow larger in numbers or larger in any respect. It can succeed then only in proportion as those who have responsibilities are conscientious in the highest degree. We can succeed in putting up good buildings only in proportion as everyone performs well his part in the erection of each building. We can succeed only in proportion as the student who makes the mortar, who lays the bricks, puts his whole conscience into that work, and does it just as thoroughly as it is possible; for him to do it. If he is mixing mortar, he must do it just as well as he can, and then, tomorrow, must do it still better than he did it today, and the next week better than he did it this week. The student who lays the bricks must learn to lay each brick as well as it is possible for him to lay it, and then do still better work on the morrow." What parts of your life are you trying to make your best better every day? Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 545. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 545. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE When The Young Are Grown Once the house was lovely, but it's lonely here to-day, For time has come an' stained its walls an' called the young away; An' all that's left for mother an' for me till life is through Is to sit an' tell each other what the children used to do. We couldn't keep 'em always an' we knew it from the start; We knew when they were babies that some day we'd have to part. But the years go by so swiftly, an' the littlest one has flown, An' there's only me an' mother now left here to live alone. Oh, there's just one consolation, as we're sittin' here at night, They've grown to men an' women, an' we brought 'em up all right; We've watched 'em as we've loved 'em an' they're splendid, every one, An' we feel the Lord won't blame us for the way our work was done. They're clean, an' kind an' honest, an' the world respects 'em, too; That's the dream of parents always, an' our dreams have all come true. So although the house is lonely an' sometimes our eyes grow wet, We are proud of them an' happy an' we've nothing to regret. Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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