7 Timeless Principles from Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success by John Wooden

Coach John Wooden was the antithesis of our culture’s current focus on hacks, shortcuts, and virtue signaling. Here are seven ideas on what really constitutes a philosophy of success.

Principle #1: Focus on what you can control

As a basketball player, I wanted to be in the best possible physical condition. There was a time when I’d tell myself, I’m going to be in better condition that anyone else. As I grew older, my thinking changed to I’m going to be in the best possible condition I can be. I had learned that I only have control over myself.

My Takeaway: It’s tempting to focus on things outside your control because it relieves you of your responsibility to improve. But you have to own yourself before worrying about others.

Principle #2: Plan your day

When I coached basketball at UCLA, I believed that if we were going to succeed, we needed to be industrious. One way I accomplished this was with proper planning. I spent two hours with my staff planning each practice. Each drill was calculated to the minute. Every aspect of the session was choreographed, including where the practice balls would be placed.

My Takeaway: Most productive people don’t leave their day to chance. Unstructured time leads to laziness, not focus.

Principle #3: Discipline is everything but punishment

We must remember why we discipline. We do it to help, to prevent, to correct, and to improve, but not to punish.

My Takeaway: We’ve all worked for or have been coached by someone who uses discipline only as a punishment. Let’s break the cycle.

Principle #4: Make more mistakes than your opponents

My college coach once said, “The team that makes the most mistakes will probably outscore the other one.” What he meant is that doers make mistakes, but if we aren’t doing anything we’re making the greatest mistake of all. We must not fail to act when action is needed. We cannot be afraid. We must act anyhow, knowing that at times, we will fail.

My Takeaway: The path of innovation and success is littered with mistakes because mistakes are feedback and a sign you are pushing your boundaries.

Principle #5: Intentness

Intentness is the ability to resist temptation and to avoid rabbit trails of distraction. An intent person will stay the course and go the distance. He or she will concentrate on objectives with determination, stamina and resolve. Intentness is the quality that won’t permit us to quit or give up, even when our goal is going to take a while to accomplish… Our society has been permeated by a mind-set of immediate gratification. Simply put, people are impatient. They want too much too soon. They have lost sight of an overarching truth: In life, worthwhile accomplishments and acquisitions take time. Usually the better the reward, the more time it takes to acquire it.

My Takeaway: You probably have all the knowledge, research, materials, etc you need for whatever it is you want to do. You just need to focus on the damn thing.

Principle #6: Double responsibility

I also talked to my players about double responsibility—mine and theirs. As coach, my responsibility was the practices. I decided what drills to use, how long to use them, in what part of the practice to place them, how things are arranged and how long we would run…Their responsibility was between practices. I said, “You can tear down more between practices than we can build up during practices.

My Takeaway: It’s probably true of most things – a great 2 hour practice, no matter the sport or skill, is worthless if you sabotage yourself the other 22 hours.  

Principle #7: Fundamentals

Any measure of competency requires a command of the fundamentals of a given endeavor. The greater the competency the more detailed a person must be in carrying out the fundamentals. It follows that a person with limited competency can become at least somewhat skillful if he or she works on the details of the fundamentals

My Takeaway: Fundamentals are boring and never make headlines but are the keys to success.