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Once You’ve Given Everything You Have Inside, the Scoreboard Can Never Make You a Loser
John Wooden was a legendary college basketball coach who led his team at UCLA to 10 championship victories in 12 years and made it into the Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach.
So, he knows a thing or two about winning; although, strangely, you’ll hardly ever hear him talking about it. And it’s not because he’s being humble.
I mean, it’s partly that, but what it’s really about is a relentless focus on executing the fundamentals, giving the best effort he and his team possibly can, and then leaving the results to take care of themselves.
Instead of “winning,” Coach Wooden strives for “competitive greatness,” or being the best that you can be. You can win without being any good (in which case, why are you even proud of yourself?), and you can also lose, yet still have nothing to be ashamed of. It’s effort that’s the game-changer.
One of the things I found most powerful about his approach is that he believes that no matter what the end result, so long as you gave your absolute best, nothing that it says on the scoreboard can ever make you a loser. This staggering idea has stayed with me ever since I first read this book, and it’s something I try to pass on as well.
