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- Reading This Book Will Help You Achieve "Competitive Greatness"
Reading This Book Will Help You Achieve "Competitive Greatness"
Matt Karamazov
November 19, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 18 minutes
YOUTUBE đź“š CREATOR LAUNCH ACADEMY đź“š PATREON
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I have virtually zero interest in tennis whatsoever, and yet, The Inner Game of Tennis is one of my all-time favorite books.
I’m not really into football (I like it, it’s just that I would just rather read!), but I’m reading The TB12 Method, by Tom Brady right now and it’s helping me become a better, all-around healthier athlete.
Likewise, you’ll likely never see me at a basketball game, but John Wooden, his books, and his lessons on leadership and discipline changed my life forever.
Tonight’s book recommendation is called The Essential Wooden, and it contains Wooden’s greatest contributions to the study and practice of leadership - coming from perhaps the greatest college basketball coach of all time.
But there’s something most people don’t get when they study John Wooden’s leadership style. Even though he had:
*620 Wins as a Coach.
*10 NCAA Championships
*Four Perfect 30-0 Seasons
*An 88-Game Winning Streak
Even with all that…John Wooden NEVER talked about winning.
It’s not that winning didn’t interest him, or that he didn’t enjoy winning - everyone does. But there was a higher standard at play, something that mattered to him more than winning, and that’s what we’re going to talk about here.
There’s another book that I’ve been reading recently that would go great with Wooden’s book, and it’s called Take the Wheel, by Vlad Sopov. You’ll see why once you get into my book notes and summary below…
Vlad’s book will help you become the leader people want to follow - and I’ve been extremely impressed with Take the Wheel so far.
It’s a secret weapon of a book that focuses on crafting an ownership mindset, and overcoming your own challenges so that you can lead others with integrity, wisdom, and effectiveness.
So yes, definitely check out Take the Wheel and see if it doesn’t match up with Wooden’s winning philosophy that we’re going to discuss next…
Oh yeah, and just in case you didn’t have enough to read, here are 365 books to read in 2026 - no pressure to read all of them! But you’re bound to find your next few dozen favorite books in there.
Now, before our coffees get cold, let’s hit the books!
“The great benefit of repression is that it allows us to live decisively in an overwhelmingly miraculous and incomprehensible world, a world so full of beauty, majesty, and terror that if animals perceived it all they would be paralyzed to act.”
"The problem with the past is that we remember memories we shouldn't, and we don't forget what we should."
Inside my private business mastermind, Creator Launch Academy, we’re tackling one nonfiction book per month and implementing its lessons inside our businesses.
This month’s book is The Millionaire Fastlane, by MJ DeMarco, a great business book about building a profitable business around the C-E-N-T-S Framework, and a book that helped me leave a dead-end job in my twenties and never look back.
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After achieving my (somewhat meaningless) goal of reading 1,000 books before I turned 30, I set a new (also meaningless but cool) goal of reading 10,000 books. As of today, I’ve read exactly 1,430 books, including 78 books so far this year, and if you’re interested, here’s my full Reading List.
“Just before our team took to the court before a game, including the 10 to decide a national championship, these were my final words to the players:
'Make sure you can hold your head high after this game.'
They all knew I wasn't talking about the final score.
I did not say it as a fiery exhortation, but with all the seriousness and sincerity I had in me. It was the most important message our players could take with them into the battle: 'Do your best. That is success.'
Believing that simple truth gave us tremendous strength. Teaching it gave me tremendous satisfaction."
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.
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. And the best part is that we can. We “just” have to do our best.
“His teaching went beyond just trying to win. Before games, he told us to do our best, never harbor ill feelings if we lost, never denigrate our opponent, and, if they played well, to congratulate them. And, of course, no profanity.
His morality - that basic decency he has - affected me deeply. He was a gentle man who was a very strong coach. I came away from him with a feeling of wanting to do my best in whatever I took on. We were prepared and trained well. And not just for basketball."
“Competitive Greatness includes a love for the hard battle and teaching those under your supervision the same.
It is the competition itself - a worthy opponent - that gives you and your organization the opportunity to find out how good you are, to reach deep inside and perform at your best when it counts.
This is Competitive Greatness. In my book, the score doesn't always reveal whether you achieve it."
“No one has ever achieved anything he or she wasn't capable of. Whatever you have accomplished, you could have accomplished more. What you have done, you could have done it better."
“For me, there is a standard that ranks above winning. I would never allow the scoreboard to be the judge of whether I had achieved success."
“Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.”
“Over and over I have taught those under my supervision that we are all given a certain potential unique to each one of us. Our first responsibility is to make the utmost effort to bring forth that potential in service to our team. For me, that is success.
Then perhaps when circumstances come together, we may find ourselves number 1. If that happens, it is merely a by-product of the effort we make to realize our own competency - our full potential. Success may result in winning, but winning does not necessarily mean you are a success."
“There are really only two things to worry about: whether you are a success or whether you are a failure. If you are a success, there is no cause for worry, and if you are a failure -
There are only two things to worry about: whether you have your health or whether you do not have your health. If you are healthy, a healthy person should certainly not worry, and if you do not have your health -
There are only two things to worry about: whether you regain your health and get well or whether you fail to regain your health and pass on. If you regain your health, there is no cause for worry, and if you fail to regain your health and pass on -
There are only two things to worry about: whether you will go to the place where we all hope to go or whether you go to that other place. If you go to the place where we all hope to go, you should not have worried, and if you go to that other place -
You are going to be with all your friends and the people here. So why worry?"
“I slept well, comfortable in the knowledge that I had done the best of which I was capable. This knowledge is a very soft pillow on which to sleep."
“The next time you wake in the middle of the night, ask yourself, 'Am I fretting about the future, or figuring out what to do?' If it's the former, have a warm glass of milk and try to get back to sleep. If it's the latter, have a cup of coffee and make some notes."
“You must also be the kind of individual whose opinion means something.”
“If you looked at my outline and organization plan for a practice in 1949 and compared it to its counterpart in 1975, you'd wonder how I got anything done in 1949. Year to year there were changes, little improvements, seemingly inconsequential adjustments, that gradually added up to big changes."
“I focused our team’s attention on 'us' to the exclusion of everything else. Virtually no mention was made of the upcoming opponent - its style, tendencies, or key players. Nor did I talk about the standings or the consequence of other games being played in our conference.
A joke even circulated that UCLA's team manager would go out into the lobby before a game and buy an official program so our players would know who the opponent was."
“You become weaker as your need for praise becomes stronger.”
“Turn a deaf ear to praise and criticism, and you’ll hear all you need to hear of both.”
“Afterward, Coach Wooden said he was proud of us, how we gave it everything we had, that we could hold our heads high. There was disappointment in our locker room, but I don't believe any player felt like a loser. We had given it our best."
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OK, that’s it for now…
I’ve got plenty more excellent book recommendations coming your way soon though!
There’s also my YouTube channel, where I publish book reviews, reading updates, and more each week.
And if you want to learn how I’ve built an audience of 170,000+ followers across social media, became a full-time creator, and how I’m rapidly growing my audience and my profits in 2025, join us inside Creator Launch Academy and that’s exactly what I’ll teach you — we’d love to have you in the community!
With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your day!
Until next time…happy reading!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
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