If you won the game (or the contest, or the fight, etc.) but you didn’t do your best, then you’re still a loser.

And if you did do your best, you’re automatically a winner, no matter what the final score.

That’s my belief, and also the belief of John Wooden, one of the most successful basketball coaches of all time, and the coauthor of The Essential Wooden, a leadership playbook packed with 200+ of his maxims and principles.

I was such a big fan of this book that I wrote a complete breakdown of The Essential Wooden for the Stairway to Wisdom, highlights of which I’ll share with you here in this email.

The breakdown itself is about 9,100 words, covering all the Key Ideas, Book Notes, Action Steps, and more.

It’s also free, by the way.

It’ll only take you about 35 minutes to read the whole thing, and in it, you’ll learn all about Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success, the idea of “Competitive Greatness” and how it’s available to each of us, how to squeeze every second out of every minute of practice time, and more to help you become exceptional at whatever it is you choose to do in life.

You can read the full breakdown here, but I’ll give you a little preview in this email so you can decide whether to check out the full one later.

Again, totally free.

I should actually say “free for right NOW,” because it’s going back behind the paywall very shortly.

Then it’s just for members only at the Stairway to Wisdom. 

Alright now, let’s commit to doing our absolute best in life as we learn from…

This Book is For:

*Anyone who is deeply interested in the study of human potential, and especially those who know that they themselves have much more inside themselves to give than they've ever been called upon to contribute before.

*Businesspeople and leaders in all areas of civic life who want to learn how to inspire themselves and their teams to greatness, and who want to learn from the very best about exactly how to do that.

*Athletes and coaches who want to bring the absolute best out of themselves, and increase their own contribution to the success of the teams of which they are a significant part.

*Everyone who knows that there's more to life than winning and that a life defined by competitive greatness and unshakeable self-worth has nothing to do with whatever it happens to say on the scoreboard.

Summary:

It's hard to do your best, much harder than most people realize. By definition, "your best" is the absolute greatest effort you are capable of giving, and sadly, most people just never even come close to that.

Legendary basketball coach John Wooden was a master when it came to seeing potential greatness and infinite self-worth lying dormant inside the players on his teams, and his leadership style - that you can learn to adapt for yourself - was perfectly suited to drawing excellence from the teammates entrusted to his care.

For Wooden, there was a standard that ranked above winning, and he believed that if you give every single thing you have within you to be your very best, then you're already a success no matter what.

Doing your best is all that can ever be asked of you; it's literally everything, and although winning may be a natural byproduct of that supreme effort, it could never be the sole reason for a team's or a person's existence.

Before people start to think that this "gentle" approach may be good for building self-esteem and making players "feel good" but wouldn't translate into winning actual ballgames, they should know that John Wooden was also one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time. Teams he coached won 10 NCAA championships in 12 years, including winning 88 consecutive games, setting legendary records that likely will never be broken. So yeah, there might be something to this "gentle" approach after all.

Additionally, just like some people underestimate what the gym can teach them about life (Spoiler Alert: a lot), they may also underestimate what this book can teach them about leadership and achieving greatness in whatever it is they're called to do.

On the contrary, John Wooden always believed that basketball was simply a vehicle for teaching his players the most important lessons about life itself. You can take the leadership principles and maxims concerning personal excellence and adapt them to whatever situation you find yourself in, whether that be leading a sales team, helping your children become the people you've always known them capable of becoming, or stretching yourself to fulfill more of your own potential.

I won't pretend that winning isn't important to me. Indeed, John Wooden and his elite basketball players loved to win, but it was the way they played and behaved that was ultimately more impressive than any of the records or the championships themselves. Disciplined, intensely focused on executing the fundamentals, self-controlled, team-focused, and unselfish, they would have been winners no matter what, and this is because of Wooden's exceptional leadership style.

John Wooden also possessed an immense moral strength that was given expression in many of the actions he took as a coach and leader. For one thing, when racism was still a significant presence in collegiate sports, he refused to enter basketball tournaments that his black players weren't allowed to participate in.

They were a team, and if they couldn't all play, then none of them were going to be there. It was this strict, incredibly demanding coaching style, combined with this gentleness, and a strong, enduring belief in human potential and infinite human worth that made John Wooden such a spectacular role model. One that we would all do well to emulate in our own lives.

There's so much that we can all learn from John Wooden's example, and we're going to examine several of his most fundamentally important lessons here in this book breakdown.

For example, we're going to discuss "Competitive Greatness," what it is, how it's achieved, and how it fits into a development model he called the Pyramid of Success.

We're also going to take a look at his extreme time management methodology and how exactly he was able to motivate and enable his players to reach deeper - and stretch further - than even they thought possible.

This isn't just about basketball, it's about life, and in life, there are effects and there are causes. To get the effects you want, you need to repeat the causes, over and over and over again, and you have to commit to doing your utmost in every situation, every circumstance, and while facing down any challenge.

Winning is never guaranteed, but if you give your absolute best to something, and you commit to standards of personal excellence far beyond anything that anyone else could ever ask of you, then you will be rewarded. You're going to get somewhere, and you're going to be damn proud of yourself once you do.

The mindsets, tactics, and strategies laid out in this book will arm you with virtually all of the tools you'll need to achieve championship results in your life, whatever that looks like for you. The Essential Wooden is about determining what true success looks like and how you can achieve it, no matter what it says on the scoreboard. So let's find out what your best actually looks like. Time for tip-off!

READ THE FULL BOOK BREAKDOWN HERE

Key Ideas:

#1: Doing Your Best Is Success

One of my core beliefs - and something I've repeated over and over again in my work - is that you don't need to "do" anything to make yourself worthy of basic human dignity and unconditional positive regard.

In a similar way, success, as John Wooden defines it, has nothing whatsoever to do with what it says on the scoreboard at the end of the game. Winning or losing will never define your worth as a human being, whether that's in sports, business, or anything else.

What matters is that you do your best, that you put in every single thing you have within you to become the best person you can possibly be, in whatever you happen to be doing. That is true success, and if you gave it everything you had, there's nothing that can ever appear on the scoreboard that will make you a loser.

That being said, doing your best is not easy. It's not simply shrugging your shoulders and saying, "Oh well, I guess I did my best." No, doing your best is literally the hardest thing you'll ever be called upon to do, and that's why so few people are actually doing their best in life.

It's hard - it's unbelievably hard to do your best - and if you're willing and able to give that much to something, then you're automatically a success. So no, doing your best is never easy. It's hard; "easy" is not a part of it. But what you'll find is that it's worth it. Here's why, according to John Wooden's philosophy:

Winning is sometimes the byproduct of success (doing your best), but success is never the byproduct of winning. You could do your best and still lose, but that will never make you a loser. Not to John Wooden, and not to me.

What's much more important than all of that is the personal pride - the tremendous satisfaction - that comes from doing your absolute best in life.

If you give your best effort every moment, you will be a winner for the rest of your life no matter what, and that pride in yourself that comes from doing something incredibly difficult and meaningful will matter to you more than anything else you could ever win.

#2: The Pyramid of Success

There are 15 essential qualities of a competitor that make up John Wooden's "Pyramid of Success," a teaching aid he developed over decades while helping to lift the teams he coached to the highest levels of university sports.

The full pyramid is introduced below, and you can read about each block right here in more depth, but the main takeaways are that greatness isn't an accident and that success leaves clues.

There is a specific, intentional structure to Wooden's Pyramid, and these qualities are literally the building blocks upon which success - in any endeavor - is constructed.

You don't have to memorize the whole thing, but if you begin to consciously develop these qualities within yourself, then lasting success will be the inevitable result. See the full Pyramid of Success laid out below, and notice how each level builds upon the level underneath it, culminating in the achievement of Competitive Greatness at the very top of the Pyramid:

You may also notice that along the sides are listed the qualities "faith" and "patience." When you assimilate these qualities within yourself over time, consistently strengthening them with faith and patience, then you will be a winner, no matter what happens.

But it's not going to happen by accident. You need to prepare for greatness, invite it to come by working hard, and never taking your eyes off the top of that Pyramid. This takes time, you need to have faith in the process, and you have to work hard today, with patient assurance that your efforts will be rewarded in the end.

Greatness is never an accident. It is always the intentional result of consistent, neverending self-improvement, preparation, of constant striving toward a worthy goal. Eventually, if you keep stacking those blocks one on top of another, fortifying them with patience and faith, you will get to the apex. You will achieve Competitive Greatness. It's all in the preparation:

#3: Achieving Competitive Greatness

Just because you won, it doesn't mean you were any good. And even though you may have lost, that doesn't mean that you didn't achieve Competitive Greatness.

Performing at your best - Competitive Greatness - has nothing to do with winning, and everything to do with the battle itself. Speaking for myself, it's much more gratifying to lose to a superior opponent (after having given my best effort) than to win easily against someone in a competition where I didn't even have to try.

We feel good about ourselves because we kept going when it was difficult; because victory was never guaranteed; because the opponent was great but we were even better. So you can see how, in this way, the result of the contest is irrelevant compared to the manner in which you showed up and the supreme effort you brought to the attempt.

You'll never know how good you could become if you never face an opponent that demands your total effort in order to defeat them. In another excellent book about the teachings of John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership, Coach has this to say:

READ 4 MORE KEY IDEAS HERE

Book Notes:

READ 42 MORE BOOK NOTES HERE

Action Steps:

So you've finished reading. What do you do now?

Reading for pleasure is great, and I wholeheartedly support it. However, I am intensely practical when I'm reading for a particular purpose. I want a result. I want to take what I've learned and apply it to my one and only life to make it better!

Because that's really what the Great Books all say. They all say: "You must change your life!" So here, below, are some suggestions for how you can apply the wisdom found in this breakdown to improve your actual life.

Please commit to taking massive action on this immediately! Acting on what you've learned here today will also help you solidify it in your long-term memory. So there's a double benefit! Let's begin...

#1: Measure Your Own Best Effort

Everything begins and ends with a promise - an unbreakable promise to yourself - that you will always, in every situation and at all times, do your absolute best at whatever's in front of you. That's basic. That's your new normal. That's who you are and what you do.

Beyond that, it helps to actually measure your progress towards this ideal (because it won't happen overnight; you'll still have to work up to doing your best over time), and thus keep your efforts at the front of your mind. I do this myself. I track - literally on a sheet of paper - how close I came to doing my best today.

It's a subjective measure, sure, and no one except you will know whether you actually did your best or not, but most of the benefits will come simply by adopting the practice of reviewing your day and asking yourself, sincerely and honestly, whether you did in fact do your best. This will change your life, I guarantee it.

What's beautiful about this method is that doing your best automatically makes you a winner, and it's within your complete control whether or not you do your best. This means you can be a winner every single day because you can always give your absolute best effort in every single thing that you do.

Do this for a year and watch your current situation transform before your very eyes. It did for me. You won't even recognize yourself - it's honestly more than a little bit astonishing the positive changes you'll begin to see from committing to this simple, but extremely challenging, daily practice.

#2: Focus on Just One Block at a Time

It's exceptionally difficult to install more than one new habit at a time, and it's the same with assimilating all the blocks of John Wooden's Pyramid of Success. Don't try and perfect the entire Pyramid all at once. Just take one single block per month and do your best to develop that quality within yourself. That's a lot, and that's enough.

Again, measuring your progress is part of the magic. What you can do is pick the one block (quality) you most want to strengthen and record at the end of each day whether or not you did anything to help this process along.

For example, you could pick the quality of industriousness and track how hard you worked during the last 24 hours and whether or not you're improving in this area. Or, say that it's poise that you want more of. In that case, practice taking negative events in stride and track whether you let adverse conditions or circumstances threaten your equanimity that day or not.

Track that one particular quality for the next month and then move on to the next one. With patience and faith - trust in the process - you'll stack one block on top of another and ascend to the peak of the Pyramid eventually.

READ 1 MORE ACTION STEP HERE

"The path to success is to take massive, determined action."

-Tony Robbins

About the Author:

John Robert Wooden was an American basketball coach and player. Nicknamed the "Wizard of Westwood", he won ten National Collegiate Athletic Association national championships in a 12-year period as head coach for the UCLA Bruins, including a record seven in a row. No other team has won more than four in a row in Division I college men's or women's basketball. Within this period, his teams won an NCAA men's basketball record 88 consecutive games. Wooden won the prestigious Henry Iba Award as national coach of the year a record seven times and won the AP award five times.

Additional Resources:

Coach-Wooden.com | Main Website

John Wooden's Pyramid of Success

The Difference Between Winning and Succeeding

50 Interesting Facts About John Wooden

This Book on Amazon:

The Essential Wooden, by John Wooden and Steve Jamison

If You Liked This Book:

Wooden on Leadership, by John Wooden and Steve Jamison

Winning, by Tim Grover

Discipline is Destiny, by Ryan Holiday

Do Hard Things, by Steve Magness

Be Your Future Self Now, by Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Learn, Improve, Master, by Nick Velasquez

Discipline Equals Freedom, by Jocko Willink

Doing the Impossible, by Patrick Bet-David

The Gap and the Gain, by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

The Good Neighbor, by Maxwell King

Ok, that’s it for now…

More excellent book recommendations coming your way soon!

Again, the rest of the above breakdown is absolutely free (for now!), and you can find it right here.

What you see in this email is less than half of what you get at the Stairway to Wisdom. I left out most of the Book Notes, all the Questions to Stimulate Your Thinking, several of the Key Ideas, etc.

So there’s a lot more for you left to read if you enjoyed what you read in this email!

You can also apply to work with me directly on this page right here. I help clients gain wisdom and strength by using the knowledge found in the best books to assist people like you to get in peak physical shape, master your mind, make more money, and live a life you won’t regret.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your week!

All the best,

Matt Karamazov

P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are three more ways I can help you apply the wisdom found in the greatest books ever written to your life:

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   Simply head to this page if this is something you're interested in working with me on, and I'll let you know more about it, answer all your questions, etc. Click here to apply!

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