Last night with nothing really to do, I hopped on the web and started to look for something interesting. My first instinct is always to relate it to volleyball and coaching/playing. Eventually I stumbled on a blog post where there was a man named Coach John Wooden. A long time basketball coach at UCLA as well as elementary school teacher, I figured he probably had something interesting to say. He was a very successful coach and all of his players respect him a great deal.
Little did I know that this one guy would change my whole coaching perspective in about 20 minutes. Everything he had to say seemed like it could directly apply to adjustments I can try out in my own coaching. Much of what he had to say regarded the focus that everyone has on winning. If you don’t win, you are not successful. Instead, he defines these two things as independent of each other and very different. I will let you see for yourself below how he does this, but I think it should really be taken to heart. Now, I take this with a grain of salt because I think it is pretty easy to say this when you are a coach at UCLA and have both very intelligent and very talented players. Perhaps he had to place less focus on winning because it was natural that all of this talent put together would produce wins. That is a minor point though.
So enjoy the video and I know that this has influenced my philosophy. Check out his pyramid of success here as well.