It is no secret that I am a huge fan of Coach John Wooden.  Most people that have not studied or read his body of work tend to align him with his coaching, especially at UCLA and they would be hard to blame based on his success.  I tend to focus on the ideals of the man and the concepts of his approach to life that led to the success he had on and off the court.

Over the next year, I am going to break down the Pyramid of Success from Coach Wooden – these posts will not be successive, more sporadic but will be complete within a years-span.  Breaking down the Pyramid has been done many times by many people; the concepts of the Pyramid of Success are taught in college courses and to many company leaders across the world – so why am I doing with my own breakdown?

I want to relate it to Youth Sports.  Today, in current form, it is simple enough to read and understand for anyone.  That being said, I’d like to break it down and try to make it more relevant for youths with an obvious focus on sports but to also relate it to areas outside of sports.  For this series, I will introduce the topic and then build out a section on the topic for parents/coaches and youths in 3 different age groups (pre 5th grade, 5th-8th grade and high school age).

For a great poster of the Pyramid, please check out this link: Pyramid of Success

For those not familiar, the Pyramid of Success is a foundation that is based fifteen building blocks that are the basic ingredients to building success; each building block (starting with the cornerstones) is very simple to understand but, with detailed explanation, can be quite difficult to achieve if not nurtured on an ongoing and daily basis.

This week I will break down the first cornerstone of the Pyramid, Industriousness.

According to Wikipedia, a cornerstone is the first stone set in the construction of a foundation and is important because all other stones that are set will be in reference to this stone.  For the Pyramid of Success, the two anchor corners are often called the ‘cornerstones’ to the Pyramid and while there is ever only one cornerstone to a building, this is a special pyramid and therefore requires special treatment.  It is fitting that Industriousness is considered a cornerstone for the Pyramid of Success.

Industriousness simply means to work hard (not to be confused with Industrial Music, which is not hard working music, it is music that is hard to listen to).  This is not as easy of a concept today as it was in the past; with the advent of technology, it seems that we are becoming more accustomed to creating easier ways to work and building in short cuts to life.  There is no reason not to take advantage of these tools and processes, but it should not make us lazy and that is my greatest concern.  

I can see this with my own children.  Why visit with Grandma when I can just call her (or Skype her)?  Heck, why even do that when I can just text her?  Not that visiting Grandma is work, but in this case to keep the relationship we need to encourage working at it instead of always taking the easiest route.

I have often heard the phrase “word smarter, not harder” and I ask, “why not do both?”  In order to incorporate both ‘hard’ and ‘smart’, one would need to work with intent and purpose, not just effort, and this requires planning.  Anyone can pick up a shovel and start digging, but without a plan a lot of effort would be wasted without much of anything being accomplished other than the wasted effort and possibly some damage.

For athletics, working hard is typically translated in physical conditioning.  While this is extremely important, there are other areas that also need to be considered such as mental conditioning and balance – all of this takes planning with vision, goals and process.  If you are not equipped to come up with these on your own, seek advice from coaches and professionals – it pays off.

For these next paragraphs, they are written as I would address them personally – feel free to take these and adapt them to your needs.

Parents/Coaches:  I think it is important to stress history (past and present) when relating a topic to children.  History with examples is a very good way to reinforce the ideas with a level of concreteness that cannot be ignored because of documented evidence.  In talking to the past, some very good examples of people that have worked hard can be found all over, from Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Edison to Cliff Lee and Diana Taurasi.  No doubt that Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods and Lebron James have also worked VERY hard to get where they are, but in dealing with kids it is sometimes best to point to athletes that are not or have not been involved in fairly recent controversy when trying to convey a positive point.  I am not advocating avoiding the topics if they arise, I am suggesting driving the conversation toward a positive example when possible.  Talk about your own road to success, your parents, someone they know and can observe so that they can understand the point of planning and working hard.

Pre-5th Grade: Think about what you want to be when you grow up and don’t limit yourself, use your imagination and when you have it in your head, I will share with you the secret that will give you the best chance to get there.  Ready???  You have to not only want it to happen, you have to not only WILL it to happen, you have to make it happen.  And the way to do this? (solicit hands – encourage answers; they will either say it or not, go with it) Hard work.  You name anyone that is successful and they have either worked hard to get there or have had to work hard to stay there.  One of my favorite hard workers is Michael Jordan.  Michael Jordan is considered by many to be the best to have ever played the game of basketball.  Most people know that he was cut from his high school varsity team and that he worked hard to make the team the following year but my favorite story about Michael is how he was injured his second year in the NBA and was projected to miss the entire season.  Determined to get back to his team, Michael worked so hard in his therapy that he returned for the playoffs and in one game scored 63 points, still a record to this day.  Michael worked hard every day to be the best he could be, and he always had a plan to be better than he was the day before.  Michael did not compete with others to be great; he competed with himself and never settled for ‘good enough’.  One of the best basketball coaches to ever live, and one of the first ‘life’ coaches ever, called hard work one of the first fifteen steps to reaching success – his name is Coach John Wooden and to him, hard work or industriousness, was the first step to becoming successful.

5th – 8th Grade: When you think about goals such as what you want to be someday, what you want to do in high school, maybe what kind of car you might want to have – you have to stop and ask yourself “what am I doing to make these goals become real instead of a wish or a dream?”  If you don’t ask yourself this question, then you’ll be lucky if any of your goals ever happen.  In order to meet or exceed your goals, you not only have to have a goal (or goals), but you need to incorporate hard work into a plan to make these goals a reality.  I like it when young people are told that they can be anything they want to be.  This is a saying that is really nice for kids that are very young, but by the time you get into middle school, you start to realize that it may not be as advertised.  If everyone in the United States wanted to be President of the United States, REALLY wanted to be the President, then most if not all of them would be disappointed as the chances of getting that job are really tough.  But let’s not miss the point; every President to date had that goal and they built a plan and worked hard to get there, so it is not impossible and if they had not done all of the hard work, they had no shot at success.  One of my favorite examples of hard work is with a former NBA player named Magic Johnson.  Magic was a gifted player and an early age, all players that make it to the NBA are gifted with talent but Magic had an intangible element to his game in that his teams always seemed to win at every level and he was the leader.  This intangible element is attributed to his hard work; Magic was routinely the first one into the gym and the last one out.  Magic started and ended with the fundamentals of the game and then worked on other, more advanced parts to his profession but only after he covered his fundamentals.  As a student of the game, he studied other players, other teams and worked hard to prepare for his ‘upcoming’ battles.  With his talent, some might argue that he did not need to work so hard but it was because of his hard work that Magic was able to rise above even the best of players to be considered as one of the best 50 players to ever play the game.  One of the best basketball coaches to ever live, and one of the first ‘life’ coaches ever, called hard work one of the first fifteen steps to reaching success – his name is Coach John Wooden and to him, hard work or industriousness, was the first step to becoming successful.

High School:  One thing you may tire of hearing from adults while you are in High School is the topic of goals.  What are you going to be when you grow up?  What college are you going to attend?  What are your plans?  The reason, if you have not figured it out yet, that adults are so focused on the next step is that these same adults realize that without these goals, without these plans, life after high school can get rough, quickly.  We adults are not trying to force you to make decisions that will pin you down for life, rather we are trying to make sure that you are *thinking* about the next steps and that you are getting prepared for it because high school happens very quickly.  And while having goals is critical, having a plan to get there that includes hard work is just as critical.  One of my favorite hard workers of all time is Bill Bradley.  Bill Bradley came from a wealthy family, so the need to work hard was not necessarily a critical factor for Bill to become successful, but that was not how Bill was raised.  Bill Bradley worked hard through high school and college to get good marks, and when he left for college he received 75 scholarships even though he only applied at five schools.  He ended up attending Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship and was also awarded Eagle Scout and the Arrow of Light, two of the highest awards for Boy Scouts.  Bill went on to become a three term U.S. Senator.  All of this might have been enough for anyone, a rather full and successful life but Bill was also a ten-year professional basketball player for the New York Knicks and as a result also earned his way into the NBA Hall of Fame.  All of this was due to his hard work; at the point he started his high school career, Bill practiced, mostly alone, for at least 3 hours a day on every aspect of his game because he always had a desire to become better and he knew that it would take hard work to get there.  One of the best basketball coaches to ever live, and one of the first ‘life’ coaches ever, called hard work one of the first fifteen steps to reaching success – his name is Coach John Wooden and to him, hard work or industriousness, was the first step to becoming successful.

Thanks for reading – next post on this topic I’ll delve into the concept of enthusiasm, the other ‘cornerstone’ of the Pyramid of Success.

Please remember to listen, hustle and have fun™.

Note: I initially planned to release a 15 part series over 15 weeks but decided that there are too many topics to write about that will need their own timeline, so I have changed the approach.