Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 4 | Issue 166 |
Craig Impelman Speaking | Championship Coaches | Champion's Leadership Library Login | |
HOW COACH WOODEN ACHIEVED SERENITY
Coach Wooden had a six page, hand written document entitled:
In this document, Coach referenced the Serenity Prayer as follows:
Remember the words of St. Francis of Assissi-
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Coach, in his own files, had referenced this important idea for himself in two different ways, in this case placing serenity first and courage second.
Obtaining serenity, inner peace or inner confidence is easier to do when we are not fighting to maintain just a survival level of existence. What that survival level is for different people is a matter of individual, personal perspective.
In his book The Essential Wooden, with Steve Jamison, Coach Wooden discusses how he achieved that serenity while he was the Head Coach at UCLA:
I never had any fear of losing my job - being fired - at any point in my 40 years of coaching. This was true at Dayton High School in Kentucky, South Bend Central high school, Indiana State Teachers College, and The University of California Los Angeles.
There are a couple of good reasons for this. First, I felt confident, both as a coach and as an English teacher. If an administrator or the school board felt otherwise, I believed I could catch on someplace else.
Second, I never acquired a lifestyle that was difficult to pay for. Nor did I get my salary up so high that I might become “unhireable."
Therefore, in one of the most uncertain professions of all, coaching, I was certain of one thing; no athletic director or school board could hold fear of firing over my head. They knew I had absolutely no fear of being dismissed.
You might examine how you can achieve the same inner confidence about your job. When you do, it's a potent source of strength and serenity that ultimately makes you a much better leader. You are not vulnerable to inappropriate pressure.
If a young pro athlete or a rising executive receives a substantial pay raise and immediately buys a bigger house or better car, is it possible that they have unknowingly raised their personal survival level and placed new unneeded pressure on themselves that in the long run has a negative effect on their serenity and in turn their performance?
As Coach liked to say: Promise to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
Yours in Coaching,
Craig Impelman
Twitter: @woodenswisdom
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Renascence
I saw and heard and knew at last Edna St. Vincent Millay
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