WISE WORDS FROM COACH WOODEN

"Your strength as an individual depends on how you respond to both criticism and praise.  If you let either one have any special effect on you, it's going to hurt us...You have little control over what criticism or praise outsiders send your way.  Take it all with a grain of salt.  Let your opponent get all caught up in other people's opinion.  You don't you do it."

RELENTLESS EFFORT

We posted this on our coaching blog, "Hoopthoughts" but it is such an important read for student-athletes that we've added it to this site as well.

The following are excerpts from a chapter titled "Relentless Effort" from Coach Urban Meyer’s book “Above the Line.”

In our world, at the end of the day it is pretty simple; either you worked harder than your opponents or you got out worked.

At Ohio State, we have made relentless effort part of our DNA, and here is why: great effort can overcome poor execution, but great execution cannot overcome poor effort.  Toughness and effort are the foundation of our succe3ss.  I place a premium on relentless effort because in all my years coaching, I’ve never been in a football game where the team that played the hardest didn’t win.

One of the ways we accomplish this is by embracing what we call the grind.

We believe that being elite is not about how talented you are.  It is about how tough you are.  To achieve anything great in life, you have to fight for it.  Every day.  The grind is mental and physical.  In fact, it is more mental than physical.  Physical ability is important, but it will only take you so far.  You won’t be achieve excellence until you train your mind to take you there.

The principle of relentless effort applies to everyone, not just college football players.  Here’s the not-so-hidden secret for achieving extraordinary success: clarify what you really want, then work as hard as you can for as long as it takes.  Toughness can achieve things that talent by itself can never accomplish.

Success is cumulative and progressive.  It is the result of what you do every day.  Both successful and unsuccessful people take daily action.  The difference is that successful people take action Above the Line.  They step up and act with intention, purpose, and skill.

For every goal you are pursuing a process is involved.  There is a pathway you must follow.  To achieve your goals you must commit to the process with daily Above the Line behavior.  Not just once or twice, but repeatedly over time.  Success is not achieved by an occasional heroic response.  Success is achieved by focused and sustained action.  All achievement is a series of choices.  The bigger the achievement, the longer the series and more challenging the choices.

Goal clarity is essential, but so is the process clarity.  For every goal you have set, be exceptionally clear about the process necessary to achieve the desired outcome.

Sometimes it’s a grind. Sometimes tedious and uncomfortable things are required for success.  And that means doing what needs to be done even though you don’t feel like it.  It will be uncomfortable, maybe even for long stretches, and it will be tempting to settle for an easier way that is more convenient and less difficult.  But don’t compromise. Don’t give up.  Step up and embrace the grind.

Relentless effort (not talent or intelligence) is the key to achieving great things in your life.  Struggle is part of the process.  It is hard and often painful.  But it’s also necessary, because it’s in the struggle that great things are achieved.

Do you decide what to do based on what is comfortable and convenient, or based on what is productive and necessary?  Following your passion isn’t always 100 percent pleasurable.  Sometimes it means doing things you don’t’ want to do for the sake of achieving your goals.

If you want to win in the future, you must win the grind today.  And then tomorrow and the next day and the next. Many people give up – they compromise – must too easily when life gets difficult.  Be the exception and step up to the challenges you face.  The grind is when it gets tedious, tiring, and difficult.  But that’s what separates the elite from the average.

 

 

MYLES GARRETT AND THE IMPORTANCE OF FOCUS

"Drinking, smoking, going out -- unnecessary to me. You have to know what you're doing to help people and have an important stance in life. You can only do that by staying focused, and I can't lose focus for a second. It's just like in football, it's a game of angles and seconds. As soon as you lose depth or that amount of time, you can lose that play, you can lose that game. You lose focus, you slip up, you're not in the same place you were before."

                        -Myles Garrett

PEYTON MANNING: I LOVE BEING COACHED

If you ever wondered what has made Peyton Manning one of the best football players to have take the field, this might be the most important reason:

"I love being coached. I get angry when I'm not coached. I ask a lot of questions and certainly appreciate any insight and feedback. I think if you ever stop listening to coaching or stop asking questions, you probably need to be doing something else."

Peyton didn't say he "he was coachable."  He didn't say that "he appreciated coaching."  He said he "LOVED" being coach.  That's an amazing mindset.  In fact, Peyton is notorious for detailed preparation.  Here is advice he would give to rookies:

"If I could give them a couple pieces of advice, I would start with this: ‘Don’t ever go to a meeting to watch a practice or a game without having already watched it by yourself.’ That’s one thing that I have always done. When the coach is controlling the remote control, he’s gonna rewind when he wants to rewind. He’s gonna skip certain plays. He’s not watching every single detail. When you can control the rewind button, you can go in there and you watch—first, you better watch your mechanics. Watch what you’re doing. Is your drop good? How’s your throw? OK, now rewind it again. Now you better watch your receivers. OK, looks like Demaryius Thomas ran a good route here. Not sure what Julius Thomas was doing here. Then you better rewind it again and watch what the defense is doing. So, there’s time in that deal. You have to know what they were doing so you can help them. So that has helped me. When I go in and watch it with the coach, I’m watching it for the third, fourth, fifth time. That’s when you start learning."

LIMITATIONS ARE ONLY IN YOUR MIND

A big thanks to Coach Dale Brown for forwarding this to me via email.  Coach Brown never misses an opportunity to motivate or inspire.

TALENT IS NEVER ENOUGH

The following came from an email newsletter from John Maxwell.  His book "Talent Is Never Enough" is one that I always recommend to student-athletes to read.  In fact, it was an assigned book to read by our team during last season in our run to an Elite Eight.  Here is what Maxwell said today:

Talent is never enough. There’s no substitute for it, but there’s also no guarantee of success with it. To turn talent into influence, a person must prepare it with hard work, surround it with the right relationships, strengthen it by taking responsibility, and protect it with character.

Preparation Positions Your Talent
Author Emile Zola spoke truly when he said, “The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” Preparation positions you so that when opportunity comes, your talent can shine. “Talent alone won’t make you a success,” Johnny Carson once remarked. “Neither will being in the right place at the right time, unless you are ready. The most important question is: Are you ready?”

Relationships Influence Your Talent

People knew LeBron James had special talent when he was a teenager. His high school basketball games were televised on ESPN. He was considered a future hall-of-fame ballplayer before he even turned pro.

Marcus Dupree was like LeBron James, only on the football field. A running back from small-town Mississippi, Dupree had it all as an athlete: size, speed, power, and grace. All of the top college programs invested heavily in his recruitment. Some blatantly disregarded collegiate rules when recruiting him, illegally provided him with money to influence his decision of where to attend school. The University of Oklahoma even sent an assistant coach to live in Dupree’s hometown of Philadelphia for six weeks in an effort to win his commitment.

Yet despite flashes of brilliance, Dupree never made it big. A movie about his life proclaims him as The Best That Never Was. Perhaps the main reason Dupree never capitalized on his remarkable talent was his relationships. Everyone close to Dupree—his extended family, friends, and coaches—wanted to profit from his success. Instead of adding value to Marcus, they sought to extract it from him. Without an encouraging support system, Dupree faltered the first time he encountered adversity and never fully recovered.

Responsibility Strengthens Your Talent
The ESPN documentary, Broke, examines why so many professional athletes, despite signing multimillion dollar contracts, find themselves penniless when their playing days are over. According to the film, “By the time they have been retired for two years, 78 percent of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress; within five years of retirement, an estimated 60 percent of former NBA players are broke.”

Regrettably, these athletes never learned to manage their money. Their reckless spending prevented them from enjoying the financial stability that their talent should have secured for them. They enjoyed the momentary pleasures accompanying their ability without taking responsibility for their future wellbeing.

Character Protects Your Talent
Figure skater Tonya Harding, golfer John Daly, sprinter Marion Jones, and cyclist Lance Armstrong…each of these athletes had dazzling ability, but lacked the character to sustain it. Overcome by jealousy, Harding hired a hitman to attack her rival, Nancy Kerrigan, thereby sacrificing her shot at Olympic stardom. Daly won the PGA Championship as a rookie, and the British Open a few years later, but his off-course drinking problems kept him from winning as much as his talent merited. Both Jones and Armstrong gave in to the temptation to supplement their natural talents with performance enhancing drugs. While the decision brought them victories in the short-run, each eventually got caught and suffered a fall from grace.

Thought to Ponder
When have you seen talent squandered? What was the reason why someone’s ability went to waste?

SABAN ON IT TAKES TO BE A GOOD PLAYER

"To be a good player on your team, you have to affect someone else on the team. You have to cause them to play better by the way you play. You affect other players with the character and attitude. To be a great player, you have to affect your entire unit. If you are a great player, every player on that unit plays better when you are on the field. The number one thing on any team that will keep your players from being selfish is respect for the other players. Having respect leads to trust and from that they begin to believe in each other. That is the way it works and that is the way it has to be."

-Nick Saban

WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE?

BE THE BEST YOU

KEEP THE WINNING SPIRIT ALIVE

There will be days when it is difficult to muster enough to be our best.  We may be tired or frustrated or in a bad mood.  There may be unforeseen circumstances and distractions, setbacks and injuries.  Professional or personal issues may arise.  Nevertheless, these are the times when it is most important to push onward and stay focused.  We do not want to give in to a belief that we are victims of circumstances.  Even in our darkest hours and toughest challenges, we must give it everything we have if we wish to succeed.

The winning spirit is kept alive by living and performing in the moment, visualizing success, finding the support of a coach and inner circle, making a personal commitment to excellence, living a discipline life, affirming our truest values -- all while believing in our ability to achieve our goal.

From "The Winning Spirit" by Joe Montana

LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM TIM DUNCAN

The following is an article written by Scott Williams for www.BigIsTheNewSmall.com:

Well the NBA Finals wrapped up with the unlikely San Antonio Spurs missing the opportunity to win their 5th title. I say unlikely because everyone including them Heat themselves had pretty much crowned the Miami Heat as the 2013 NBA Champions before the season even started. Well, the Heat were tested throughout the playoffs and passed every test, even the test of the well-coached Spurs.

Even though the Spurs lost and Duncan missed a point blank shot, he will go down as one of the greatest NBA Superstars ever. Not to mention a SuperStar who shined bright like a diamond while staying outside of the spotlight. Here are 10 Leadership Lessons From Tim Duncan’s Career.

1. Substance Over Style – Looking good is great, performing great is better. Duncan doesn’t win the style contest, but he is a straight up winner.

2. Greatness Is Appreciated More When It’s Gone – Tim Duncan’s Game, Career and Place in history won’t be appreciated until he’s retired and gone.

3. Great Leaders Know When To Defer – Duncan has admittedly turned the team over to Tony Parker, which has extended his career and allowed him to continue his greatness.

4. You Can’t Care What People Think – Duncan doesn’t get the commercials, the shoes, the endorsements… He just gets the trophies. Duncan could care less what people think about his personality or lack there of, all he does is win.

5. Classy over Sassy – Tim Duncan is one of the classiest players in the NBA. It’s hard not to like classy… when in doubt, keep it classy.

6. Quietly Be The Best At What You Do – Tim Duncan will quietly go down as one of the best power forwards to ever play the game. Period, the end.

7. Nice Guys Don’t Finish Last – Nice guys finish wherever they want to finish, Duncan is nice and he doesn’t finish last.

8. Get Better With Age – They say some things get better with age, great leaders get better, lead better, play better and make better decisions with age. Duncan seems to get better the older that he gets.

9. Know How To Lead Up – Duncan plays for a tough coach and he’s one of the few players that knows how to lead up, talk to Popovich, how to handle him in the media and how to lead up. There is an art to leading up and Duncan figured it out.

10. Make Those Around You Better – Duncan makes his teammates, his coach, his city, his community and the NBA better.

CHAMPIONS BELIEVE YOU LEARN AND GROW FROM ADVERSITY

"If it weren't for the dark days, we wouldn't

know what it is to walk in the light."

-Earl Campbell

Champions believe if you remove the adversity, you remove the victory.  As a result, they tend to view adversity as a challenge through which learning and growing occurs.  Their world view is evident in the way they describe the adversities they face. While average people choose the path of least resistance, world-class performers operate at a higher level of awareness.  They understand that stress and struggle are the key factors in becoming mentally tough.  While average people watch television and hang out at happy hour, the great ones continue to push themselves mentally and physically to the point of exhaustion.  Only then will you see them in rest and recovery situations.  Adversity to average people equals pain.  Adversity to world-class performers is their mental training ground.  It's how they become mentally tough.  Average people scorn adversity.  Those who are world class don't welcome adversity; yet they see it as the ultimate catalyst for mental growth, as well as the contrast needed to recognize the beauty of life.

From "177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class" by Steve Siebold

MICHAEL STRAHAN'S MOTIVATION

"My greatest motivation was the fear of failure. I knew the team was depending on me, and the very last

thing I wanted to do was let my teammates down."

 

-Michael Strahan

THE BATTLE WITHIN

An elderly native-American is telling his grandson about a fight that is going on inside of the young man -- he describes it as a "battle between two wolves."

One wolf is evil: lazy, angry, selfish, full of self-pity, resentment and excuses. He wants to stray from the pack.

One wolf is good: hard-working, joyous, filled with hope, humility, kindness. He wants to lead the pack.

After some thought, the grandson looks to his grandfather and ask, "Which wolf will win?"

To which the grandfather replies, "The one you feed."

THE POWER OF COURAGE, DETERMINATION AND THE LOVE FOR YOUR TEAMMATES AND COACH

WHAT IS YOUR PICK UP GAME MENTALITY

The following comes from Steve Hale who was one of Michael Jordan's teammates:

Hale noticed another thing about Jordan: Even in pickup games, he has become unusually purposeful. There was a tendency in games like this, when there were no coaches around, for players to resort to what they did best, to reinforce their strengths and avoid going to any part of their game that was essentially weak. But Jordan, Hale believed, was constantly working on the weaker part of his game, trying to bring it up. It was, Hale thought, one more sign of his desire to be the best.

From "Playing For Keeps" by David Halberstam

I TOLD MYSELF I WAS UNSTOPPABLE

A sold-out crowd of more than 17,000 watched from the risers of the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia on March 19, 2011 at Arizona State University senior Anthony Robles emerged from the locker room on crutches.  After handing them to ASU assistant coach Brian Stith, he hopped to the corner of the mat, crouched down on one knee, and waited for the whistle that would signal the start of his final wrestling match.

"I told myself I was unstoppable," says Robles of that moment.  "I had put way too much into it to go in there and not come out with a national title."

That day, Robles, who was born without a right leg and permanently traded in a prosthetic one for crutches at the age of 3, defeated defending national champ Matt McConough 7-1 to become the first disabled wrestler in history to win a national college title.

By Alison Miller of Spirit Magazine

ARE YOU UP FOR THE CHALLENGE?

WORDS OF WISDOM

The following comes from author and motivational speaker Don Yaeger:

LOVED THIS! So as we were wrapping up the National Player of The Year presentation to Anthony Davis, a father and son approached Davis's parents and the father asked Mr. Davis if he could offer any advice that might help his 11 year old become as special as Anthony. Mr. Davis said: "Listen to you father...and appreciate that he's part of your life. Not enough young men like you have that. Let that give you an advantage." As they walked away, the father had a tear in his eye. Nothing better than those unscripted moments.


Wised words indeed!!!

ARE YOU PROUD OF HOW YOU LIVED TODAY?

"At night when I go to bed, I ask myself, 'If I don’t wake up tomorrow, would I be proud of how I lived today.'”

-Muhammad Ali