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Issue 168 - The Future May be When You Wish You Had Done What You Are Not Doing Now

Woodens Wisdom
Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 4 Issue 168
Craig Impelman Speaking |  Championship Coaches |  Champion's Leadership Library Login

 

THE FUTURE MAY BE WHEN YOU WISH YOU HAD DONE WHAT YOU ARE NOT DOING NOW

 
This favorite quote of Coach Wooden's is designed to cause us to think about how we are approaching our lives on a daily basis.
 
There have been many articles written where older people are interviewed, and talk about what regrets they have about the way they did things when they were younger.
 
This advice is passed along to younger people, with the hope that they will live a happier, more productive life now, rather than later.
 ,
As a result of my research I compiled eight areas of life people most commonly had regrets about.
 
Then, using the Pyramid of Success, I put together some advice from Coach Wooden on these most common areas of regret. This issue will address the first area people have regrets about:
 
1. I regret all the time I wasted.
 
In the Industriousness Block of the Pyramid of Success, Coach says worthwhile results come from hard work and careful planning. In his book with Steve Jamison, Coach Wooden's Leadership Game Plan for Success, Coach commented on how he valued time:
 
One of the very few rules I enforced from my first day of coaching until my last was as follows: “Be on time.” Players—even assistant coaches—who broke this rule faced serious consequences. Being late showed disrespect for time. I felt that one of the ways I could signal my own reverence for time was to insist on punctuality. And, to be punctual myself.
 
If a player appeared to be taking it easy during practice, not giving it everything he had, I told him sternly, “Don’t think you can make up for it by working twice as hard tomorrow. If you have it within your power to work twice as hard, I want you to do it right now.” This was another way of telling them not to waste time; to make this practice a masterpiece.
 
I believe effective organization of time—budgeting and managing time—was one of my assets as a coach. I understood how to use time to its most productive ends. Gradually, I had learned how to get the most out of a minute. In return, each minute gave back the most to our team. I was never the greatest X’s and O’s coach around. Never. But I was among the best when it came to respecting and utilizing time. I valued it, gave it respect and tried to make each minute a masterpiece.
 
Make Each Day Your Masterpiece. You have nothing without time. Treat it with great respect.
 
 

Yours in Coaching,
 
 
Craig Impelman
 
 
Twitter: @woodenswisdom


 

 

 

Watch Video

Application Exercise

COACH'S
Favorite Poetry
AND PROSE

 

Renascence
(Part Four)

 

I ceased; and through the breathless hush
That answered me, the far-off rush
Of herald wings came whispering
Like music down the vibrant string
Of my ascending prayer, and—crash!
Before the wild wind’s whistling lash
The startled storm-clouds reared on high
And plunged in terror down the sky,
And the big rain in one black wave
Fell from the sky and struck my grave.
I know not how such things can be;
I only know there came to me
A fragrance such as never clings
To aught save happy living things;
A sound as of some joyous elf
Singing sweet songs to please himself,
And, through and over everything,
A sense of glad awakening.
The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,
Whispering to me I could hear;
I felt the rain’s cool finger-tips
Brushed tenderly across my lips,
Laid gently on my sealèd sight,
And all at once the heavy night
Fell from my eyes and I could see,—
A drenched and dripping apple-tree,
A last long line of silver rain,
A sky grown clear and blue again.
And as I looked a quickening gust
Of wind blew up to me and thrust
Into my face a miracle
Of orchard-breath, and with the smell,—
I know not how such things can be!—
I breathed my soul back into me.
Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with such a cry
As is not heard save from a man
Who has been dead, and lives again.
About the trees my arms I wound;
Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering arms on high;
I laughed and laughed into the sky,
Till at my throat a strangling sob
Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb
Sent instant tears into my eyes;
O God, I cried, no dark disguise
Can e’er hereafter hide from me
Thy radiant identity!
Thou canst not move across the grass
But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however silently,
But my hushed voice will answer Thee.
I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!
The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,—
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.



Edna St. Vincent Millay 

 

 

 

 

 

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