A few lessons you can learn from John Wooden

Although this talk by John Wooden is from 2001, I think it is even more relevant today than it was eight years ago. See it. Off course, as someone who is interested in education, I learned a lot from it about being a teacher. But there are also great lessons for managers.

A few great quotes and my thoughts about them:

1. “Not all are born equal”
Wooden’s attitude to equality reminds me of what I wrote in my E-book: “All men are not born equal. Whoever tells you that is lying. All man should deserve an equal opportunity to excel, to be happy and to use their comparative advantage. That is the truth. And there is a big difference between the two”. The more time passes and experience I go through the more I believe in that.

2. “Never try to be better than someone else, always try to be the best you can be”
I found this quote to be so insightful. How many times in life do we found ourselves comparing ourselves to someone else? There are actually some scholars who believe that this is a big part of people’s motivation. We also know that our perception is always relative, even when it shouldn’t be. Is the grass of the neighbour really always greener? What would happen if we concentrate a little bit on ourselves and what we can do? If you agree that point number one is true, than this is the attitude you must adopt.

3. “Things will work out as they should providing we do what we should”
Peter Drucker said that: “Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things”. Whether you agree with this saying or not (and I am not sure that I do), the belief in doing the right thing is in my eyes, an important aspect of the success of leaders and managers. But it also means that at the first instance you have, as a manager or a leader, you should ask yourself, “do I understand myself?” and “what it is I think I should do?”.

4. And the last one is my favourite: “Our tendency is to hope that things will turn out the way we want them to so much of the time, but we don’t do the things that are necessary to make those things become a reality“.
A few posts ago I asked “are you ready?” – To listen, to change, to do, to fail. As Samuel Beckett wrote in his novel Worstward Ho: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better”. We must try and we must do. Otherwise, we are not entitled to hope that things will turn the way we want them too.

Elad