Wooden's Wisdom | Leadership Resource Center

Issue 549 - My Favorite Dynamic Duo: Booker T. Washington and John Wooden: "Your level of consideration is a measure of your education." (Booker T. Washington Part Thirty)


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 11	Issue 549
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MY FAVORITE DYNAMIC DUO: BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND JOHN WOODEN: "YOUR LEVEL OF CONSIDERATION IS A MEASURE OF YOUR EDUCATION." (BOOKER T. WASHINGTON PART THIRTY) John Wooden Video Clip (2 min. 19 sec.): Coach Wooden explains how his change in his attitude after seventeen years at UCLA had a positive impact on his results. Once when Coach Wooden was asked how he would like to be remembered, he replied: "As a person who was considerate of others." The following is a list of synonyms for the word considerate: attentive, thoughtful, mindful, obliging, accommodating, helpful, cooperative, patient, kind, unselfish, compassionate, sympathetic, caring, charitable, altruistic, generous, polite, sensitive, tactful. Coach acted toward others with all these qualities. The wisdom that he learned and tried to share with us was that being considerate was not a burden or obligation to him, but rather it made him incredibly happy to do it. In his 1902 book, Character Building, Booker T. Washington taught his students that showing consideration for others was the purpose and measure of their education: "Education is meant to make us change for the better, to make us more thoughtful, to make us so broad that we will not seek to help one man because he belongs to this race or that race of people and seek to hinder another man because he does not belong to this race or that race of people. Education in the broadest and truest sense will make an individual seek to help all people, regardless of race, regardless of color, regardless of condition. And you will find that the person who is most truly educated is the one who is going to be kindest and is going to act in the gentlest manner toward persons who are unfortunate, toward the race or the individual that is most despised. The highly educated person is the one who is the most considerate of those individuals who are less fortunate. I hope that when you meet persons who are afflicted by poverty, whether of mind or body, or persons who are unfortunate in any way, that you will show your education by being just as kind and just as considerate toward those persons as it is possible for you to be. That is the way to test a person with education. The highly educated person, the one who is really cultivated, is gentle and sympathetic to everyone. Education is meant to make us give satisfaction, and to get satisfaction out of giving it. It is meant to make us get happiness out of service for others. And until we get to the point where we can get happiness and supreme satisfaction out of helping others, we are not truly educated." What brings you the greatest satisfaction? Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 549. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 549. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE His Other Chance He was down and out, and his pluck was gone, And he said to me in a gloomy way: 'I've wasted my chances, one by one, And I'm just no good, as the people say. Nothing ahead, and my dreams all dust, Though once there was something I might have been, But I wasn't game, and I broke my trust, And I wasn't straight and I wasn't clean.' 'You're pretty low down,' says I to him, 'But nobody's holding you there, my friend. Life is a stream where men sink or swim, And the drifters come to a sorry end; But there's two of you living and breathing still— The fellow you are, and he's tough to see, And another chap, if you've got the will, The man that you still have a chance to be.' He laughed with scorn. 'Is there two of me? I thought I'd murdered the other one. I once knew a chap that I hoped to be, And he was decent, but now he's gone.' 'Well,' says I, 'it may seem to you That life has little of joy in store, But there's always something you still can do, And there's never a man but can try once more. 'There are always two to the end of time— The fellow we are and the future man. The Lord never meant you should cease to climb, And you can get up if you think you can. The fellow you are is a sorry sight, But you needn't go drifting out to sea. Get hold of yourself and travel right; There's a fellow you've still got a chance to be.' Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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