The Pyramid of Success
Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden is known for success. His Bruins captured an unprecedented 10 NCAA championships between 1964-1975, including seven consecutive titles between 1967-73. He coached four UCLA teams to perfect 30-0 records and the Bruins had an 88-game winning streak between 1971-73. But Coach Wooden never put an emphasis on winning; he never mentioned the words winning or losing to his players. He viewed the score of an athletic contest to be the by-product of a team's preparation. He had a different way of determining success.
Coach Wooden was born Oct. 14, 1910, in Hall, Ind., and graduated from high school in Martinsville, Ind., in 1928. He was a three-time All-State selection in basketball and led his high school team to the state tournament three years in a row. Martinsville won the state tournament in 1927. He attended Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., and graduated with a degree in English in 1932. He was a three-time All-American basketball player for the Boilermakers and he led them to the 1932 NCAA National Championship.
Wooden's views on success can be traced to his rural Indiana upbringing. His father, Joshua Wooden, passed along to young John and his brothers two sets of "threes" by which to live: "Don't lie, Don't cheat, Don't steal," and "Don't whine, Don't complain, Don't make excuses." Upon Wooden's graduation from grade school, his father gave him a card. On one side was a verse by American author Henry van Dyke (1852-1933):
Four things a man must learn to do
If he would make his life more true:
To think without confusion clearly,
To love his fellow man sincerely,
To act from honest motives purely,
To trust in God and heaven securely.
On the other side was a list of seven things to do:
-
Be true to yourself -
Help others -
Make each day your masterpiece -
Make friendship a fine art -
Drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible -
Build a shelter against a rainy day -
Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day
This Seven-Point Creed became the life-blood of Wooden's teaching.
He taught, coached basketball, and was athletic director for two years at Dayton High School in Kentucky before returning to Indiana. Dayton's basketball team was 6-11 in Wooden's first season. It was his only losing season as a basketball coach or player. He taught and coached basketball at South Bend Central High School for nine years until his enlistment in the Navy in 1942 during World War II. In 11 seasons as a high school basketball coach, Wooden's overall record was 218-42.
Wooden became basketball coach, baseball coach, and athletic director at Indiana State Teachers College (now Indiana State University) in Terre Haute in 1946. The Sycamores won their conference basketball championship in 1947 but Wooden refused an invitation to play in the NAIA national tournament because of its policy that banned African-Americans. The ban was lifted in 1948, and Wooden's Sycamores again gained an invitation to the tournament by winning their conference. They lost the championship game to Louisville. Indiana State's Clarence Walker became the first African-American to play in a post-season intercollegiate basketball game. Wooden's two-year record at Indiana State was 44-15. He earned a Master's Degree while at Indiana State.
Coach Wooden left Indiana State for UCLA in 1948. His first choice was the University of Minnesota and he would have accepted the offer to coach the Golden Gophers but for a delay in telephone communication due to a snow storm. By the time Minnesota contacted Wooden, he had already accepted the position at UCLA. Being a man of his word, he turned down the offer to stay in the Midwest and moved to Los Angeles.
The Bruins won 19 conference championships in Wooden's 27-year tenure. They had a streak of 38 straight wins in NCAA Tournament games, and made 16 (including nine consecutive) Final Four appearances. It took him 16 years before UCLA won a national championship, but they won 10 in his last 12 years. His most famous players were Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton. Wooden retired in 1975. He won 664 games and lost 162 while at UCLA.
Much has been made of the Wooden formula for success, because he was so successful. He developed the Pyramid of Success not for athletes, but for students while he was teaching high school English classes in the 1930s. He wanted to demonstrate another method for marking success rather than letter grades, and it carried over into athletics. Instead of grades and wins, he defined success as "piece of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable."
The cornerstones of the Pyramid are Industriousness and Enthusiasm. Industriousness means hard work. Showing up and going through the motions is not industriousness. Putting forth your best effort is the first step toward success. Enthusiasm is the thrill of enjoyment in your work. If you do not like what you are doing, find something else to do with your time. If you do enjoy your work, let it show; having fun is contagious. Lack of enthusiasm can also spread rapidly.
Friendship, Loyalty and Cooperation round out the base of the Pyramid. These blocks deal with how we interact with each other. Friendship means camaraderie and respect, not affection. A spirit of goodwill. First off, loyalty is staying true to one's self. If we bend our own convictions for whatever reason, we won't think twice about others' beliefs and feelings, let alone our collective values. If we stand tall for what we believe in individually, we can then rally around our collective values and will gain mutual respect for our comrades. Cooperation is the sharing of tasks and responsibilities for the common good. We must all be going in the same direction if we seek to achieve our goals.
Self-Control, Alertness, Initiative, and Intentness make up the second row of the Pyramid. These are all focused on the individual's mindset. Self-control is the ability to keep emotions in check. We will strive to eliminate peaks and valleys in our emotions. We lose self-discipline and become careless when we let our emotions rule our behavior. If you discipline yourself, others won't have to do it for you. Alertness is learning by observing and then having the ability to anticipate situations before they develop. Sometimes learning what not to do is a better lesson than the opposite. Initiative is having the courage to take risks. The more alert we are and the more self-control we have, the smarter our risk-taking becomes, but if we fail to act based on fear of failure or of the unknown, we will not advance toward our goals. The failure to act may be the greatest failure of all. Intentness is the ability to avoid temptation and to stay the course. We will concentrate on our goals with determination and resolve.
The third row of the Pyramid deals with our minds and bodies. Condition is being at our peak performance level physically, mentally, and morally. It is how we prepare for competition: when, what, and how much we train, eat, and rest. Everything we do on and off the field is a benefit precisely in the degree to which it tends to allow us to reach our goals. Everything we do on and off the field is a detriment precisely in the degree to which it tends to prevent us from reaching our goals. Skill is knowing what to do and when to do it. We all have different skills and skill levels. Knowing what to improve upon and what combination of players' skills work best together is the trademark of a successful team. Team Spirit is the eagerness to sacrifice personal interest for the welfare of all. We ought to seek praise that comes because of our contribution to the group rather than for individual glory.
The fourth row of the Pyramid includes Poise and Confidence. Poise is the ability to stick to your principles in the face of adversity, being true to one's self, and not getting rattled or unbalanced due to the circumstances or situation. Confidence is knowing you have done all you could to prepare for competition. We must be watchful so that confidence does not turn into arrogance. Arrogance can appear if goals are met: it is the abandonment of all of the things that brought you success in the first place.
In order for us to utilize the Pyramid of Success and reach our goals, we must have faith and patience. We must have trust in ourselves, our teammates, our coaches and our goals in order for the blocks to build on one another. We must also have patience. Anything worth having is worth the wait. Anything that comes easy does not have significant value.
The pinnacle of the Pyramid, Competitive Greatness, can be achieved by all who strive for it, if they truly put forth their best effort in pursuit of their goals.
Coach Wooden's Maxims:
"Be quick, but don't hurry"
"Failure to prepare is preparing to fail"
"If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"
"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do"
"It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen"
"Discipline yourself so that others won't have to"
"Its what we learn after we know it all that counts"
"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be"
"Success is never final and failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts"
"Things turn out best for people who make the best out of the way things turn out"
"The condition of our team is determined by two factors: how hard we work at practice and how well we behave between practices"
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