Issue 728 - Success Starts with Holding Yourself Accountable


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 13	Issue 728
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SUCCESS STARTS WITH HOLDING YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE John Wooden Video Clip (42 sec.): Coach Wooden is asked: "What was one of your most difficult decisions to make as a coach?" "Don’t whine, don’t complain, don’t make excuses." — Joshua Wooden "A person can make mistakes, but they’re not a failure until they blame others." — John Wooden "The best way to improve the team is to improve yourself." — John Wooden After the 1961-62 season, John Wooden looked in the mirror. For thirteen years at UCLA, he had quietly accepted the idea that poor facilities and strict academics were holding him back. "Our practice facility, the Men’s Gym, was cramped and poorly ventilated," he said. "There was constant commotion and distraction—hardly a place to teach or learn the finer points of basketball." Coach Wooden admitted that, deep down, "I just felt there was no chance that UCLA would ever be able to go all the way." Then something changed. That unheralded 1961-62 team—practicing in that same little gym—nearly won the national championship. "Our near victory was a revelation to me," he recalled. "Suddenly—it became clear that our inadequate basketball facility did not mean we couldn’t win the national title." Coach Wooden realized the barrier wasn’t the gym, it was his own thinking. "If I had been using the Men’s Gym as a rationale for poor performance…I couldn’t use it anymore. A subconscious barrier had been removed; a light went on." Coach Wooden held himself accountable at a new level. He reevaluated every aspect of his program and made several significant changes. From that day forward, there would be no excuses, only a ceaseless search for solutions. Two years later, UCLA won its first national championship in that same Men’s Gym. Success, like accountability, starts when you stop blaming what’s outside and start improving what’s inside. "Who looks outside, dreams, who looks inside, awakes." — Carl Jung Where are you looking? Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 728. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 728. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE Life’s Slacker The saddest sort of death to die Would be to quit the game called life And know, beneath the gentle sky, You'd lived a slacker in the strife. That nothing men on earth would find To mark the spot that you had filled; That you must go and leave behind No patch of soil your hands had tilled. I know no greater shame than this: To feel that yours were empty years; That after death no man would miss Your presence in this vale of tears; That you had breathed the fragrant air And sat by kindly fires that burn, And in earth's riches had a share But gave no labor in return. Yet some men die this way, nor care: They enter and they leave life's door And at the end, their record's bare— The world's no better than before. A few false tears are shed, and then, In busy service, they're forgot. We have no time to mourn for men Who lived on earth but served it not. A man in perfect peace to die Must leave some mark of toil behind, Some building towering to the sky, Some symbol that his heart was kind, Some roadway where strange feet may tread That out of gratitude he made; He cannot bravely look ahead Unless his debt to life is paid. Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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