Issue 743 - If your ambition is focused on a noble goal anything is possible


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 13	Issue 743
Craig Impelman Speaking \| Championship Coaches \| Champion's Leadership Library Login
IF YOUR AMBITION IS FOCUSED ON A NOBLE GOAL ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE John Wooden Video Clip (58 sec.): Coach Wooden is asked: "How do you keep perspective considering your fame?" 58 seconds of great wisdom. Listen closely to the end. Coach Wooden included: Ambition (for noble goals) as a desirable character trait on his Pyramid of Success. In his book "Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success", with Jay Carty, Coach Wooden expanded on the idea: "I believe we are most likely to succeed when ambition is focused on noble and worthy purposes and outcomes rather than on goals set out of selfishness." The story of Margaret Haughery is an inspiring example of this idea. Margaret Haughey was born in County Leitrim, Ireland, in 1813, Margaret immigrated to America as a child and grew up in poverty. She never received formal schooling and never learned to read or write. As a young woman she married, but tragedy soon followed. Her husband fell ill, and they moved to New Orleans seeking better health in the warmer climate. It did not save him. Their child also died. Margaret was left alone. She found work ironing clothes in a laundry, laboring long hours for modest wages. Through a window near her ironing board, she could see children from the nearby Poydras Orphan Asylum playing in the yard. They had no parents. Quietly, she decided to help. Margaret began giving part of her weekly wages to the orphanage. Determined to do more, she saved enough money to purchase two cows and a small delivery cart. At dawn she drove through the streets of New Orleans selling milk. As she made her rounds, she collected leftover food from hotels and wealthy homes and delivered it to the orphanage. Careful with money and shrewd in business, Margaret expanded her dairy. Eventually she took over a bakery and became known throughout the city as the "bread woman." After the Civil War, her enterprise grew large enough that she built a steam-powered bakery—an impressive accomplishment. As her success increased, so did her generosity. During the Civil War she continued delivering bread, providing for soldiers and for her "babies" at the orphanages. She made no distinction among those she helped. By the time she grew old, Margaret was known throughout New Orleans. Business leaders and. the poor alike sought her advice. Children loved her. She often sat in the doorway of her office in a simple calico gown and shawl, greeting rich and poor with the same steady kindness. When she died in 1882, her will revealed that she had left more than $30,000—every cent of her savings—to the orphanages of New Orleans. Her will was signed with an X. In 1884, the city erected a marble statue in her honor, one of the earliest public monuments to a woman in the United States. It depicts her just as she lived—seated, unadorned, protective, near the Mississippi River. It is a statue unlike most others. It does not show a general on horseback or a political hero pointing toward the future. It shows a woman seated quietly in a plain dress, a shawl around her shoulders, one arm wrapped protectively around a child leaning against her. With noble ambition anything is possible. Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 743. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 743. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE Count That Day Lost If you sit down at set of sun And count the acts that you have done, And, counting, find One self-denying deed, one word That eased the heart of him who heard, One glance most kind That fell like sunshine where it went— Then you may count that day well spent. But if, through all the livelong day, You’ve cheered no heart, by yea or nay— If, through it all You’ve nothing done that you can trace That brought the sunshine to one face— No act most small That helped some soul and nothing cost— Then count that day as worse than lost. Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880) Mary Ann Evans adopted the male pen name “George Eliot” so her fiction would be taken seriously in a literary culture that often-dismissed women writers.
For more information visit www.woodenswisdom.com