Introduction:
Last week I posted John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success and a short video in which he describes the difference between winning and success. John Wooden firmly believed that success comes from knowing that you did your utmost and put in the work to make sure you performed the best you possibly could. I am paraphrasing the great man here, and therefore am not doing as good a job, however hopefully you still get his meaning of success. Winning to Wooden was different. Wooden believed that sometimes his teams may have won the basketball game, however in his eyes they lost. When his teams did not put in the effort, or display the right behaviours on a way to a win he would view this as a loss. The converse was also true to him. At times his teams may have lost the game, however the effort, sportsmanship and manner in which his team lost filled him with pride and allowed him to see this as a victory. Can we look at our wins and losses in life with such integrity and dignity? I would love to say yes, but sadly I know that I fall short. Listening to a recent John Wooden interview, reading about the man and returning to his pyramid of success after a number of years has re-ignited a genuine interest in the man and exploring his thoughts, passions and beliefs. Therefore I am going to use the next few blog posts to go into a bit more detail on the different blocks of the pyramid of success. I truly am standing on the shoulder of a giant here and I want to be very clear that I am not trying to mimic John Wooden in any way, rather I am looking to explore the different blocks within the pyramid and reflect on how these can impact our personal leadership in the different aspects of our lives. I hope that this is an interesting exploration into the fundamental attributes that made John Wooden and everyone he influenced very successful. Let us begin!!!!! The first block and one of the cornerstones to the Pyramid of Success is Industriousness, or to put it simply hard work. John Wooden said, ‘Success travels in the company of very hard work. There is no trick, no easy way.’ When reflecting on this block there are four clear benefits to putting in the hard work. Hard Work Trumps Talent….in the Long Run The work of Carol Dewek on the talent myth has greatly changed how the education system in Scotland is aiming to develop children as they learn and grow into adulthood. The belief that the is no such thing as talent, rather a propensity of some individuals to be better at a certain thing than others, has made the education system look at how it is treating those previously perceived as being talented, or adversely not talented. The myth of talent was arrived to by Dewek when she was exploring why early high achievers often regressed and often became average as they grew towards adulthood. This phenomenon was noticed in topics like maths and science as well as in the sports arena. Tony Stanger has been working for the last decade on this very thing within sports. We all know the kid at 10 who was the captain of the football, rugby and athletics team and seemed to be able to master any sport he/she tried. However this same kid has time and again been caught up with and even overtaken by their peers. Why is this? What Dewek and Stanger conclude is that effort is the deciding factor. The common factor that almost any successful person will tell you is hard work. Whether you are the most successful architect, lawyer, businessman (or woman), mother, father, athlete, the common factor that has put you on top of the pedestal is hard work. Generally if you put in the graft you will find success. That is not to say that you will always win, always get to the top. However, the hard work will allow you to open the conversations with others that will help you navigate to the top of whatever profession you are climbing. Your mindset determines your effort and if you look at difficulties as challenges to overcome, rather than road blocks, you will allow yourself to become more successful. Hard work is the foundation for success. In sports you can not expect to go into competition without preparing properly. If you do not practice in the correct fashion and put in the sweat time you will not prepare yourself for the rigours of competition. If you don’t work on your relationships they will fatigue and grow weary very quickly. If you don’t prepare, gain the correct knowledge and understand how to carry out your job you won’t last long in that role. Put in the hard work, especially after a big win, because hard work will always trump talent in the long run. You Will Revert to Type Under Pressure I have seen it all to often in the office and on the basketball court. When stress comes people will revert to type. What I mean by this is that we all have a default safety blanket. When moments of stress happen we return to these safety blankets and the usual result is failure. Now that failure can manifest itself in many different ways. The best way I can describe this to you is through a sporting analogy. When teaching someone to shoot the basketball a massive amount of patience is needed, especially when you are trying to weed out any fundamentally poor aspects of someone’s jump shot. A jump shot is a whole body action that includes every part of the body, from the feet to the fingertips. Due to this it is a very complex skill to teach and master. When teaching someone to shoot you tend to do it in safe environment where you are only looking at that specific skill in itself. You can spend hours working with someone looking specifically at one aspect of the jump shot. This could be something as simple as keeping the elbow below the ball, or flicking your wrist as you release the ball. As soon as you take this person out of the safe, controlled environment and put them into the fast paced, physical environment where the player now has to think about where he is on the floor, how he has been passed the ball, was it passed just right? Was it passed to high or low? Did the player have to stretch to control the pass? Was it passed to hard or soft? Where is the defender? Is the player in a position they are comfortable shooting from? Do the need to dribble? Is the person defending them smaller or taller than them? What is the score? How do their legs feel? Are they tired? This is an instantly more stressful environment. I have seen many players over the years work so hard to get their shots right, only to revert back to their former shooting technique once they get into a game. Time and again I have seen someone work hard to make inprovements to their jump shot technique, only to revert to their poor technique once in the heat of competition. So what is happening here? In this instance the athlete appears to have put in the hard work, and is still destined to fail. Does that not contradict the first point that hard work trumps talent? The problem here is not the effort that is being put forth, it is the environment in which the work is taking place. In order for someone’s jumpshot to improve you have to get the mechanics right, however, you need to put those mechanics under stress in the practice environment in order to prepare them properly for competition. Step one, get the mechanics right, step two test the mechanics under increasingly difficult situations, step three go into competition. When you think about preparing for exams in school, you learn the subject, you test your knowledge in class tests or mock exams, then you do the real exam. You learn the theory, you get to test your knowledge of the theory and continue to learn, then you test your knowledge properly in the exam. If you don’t put in the work you won’t get the results. In order to perform under stress you need to get used to stress. In this instance I am referring to stress as anything that will test your skill, knowledge or temperament. So go out there and challenge yourself, experiment and get outside your comfort zone. Get used to stress so that the hard work you do will work for you in the moments that it matters. Hard Work takes Hard Work Hard work can be infectious. However it takes time to cultivate and grow and can be snubbed out easily. To grow effort you need to be attentive and feed it with a vision, recognition of genuine effort and through careful handling of goal setting. When these are all taken care of and people feel valued, nurtured and needed they will be able to naturally grow their capacity for hard work. This is true in any walk of life. In work you will get much more from your team if everyone knows what they are working towards, if they get recognition for great work and are given autonomy to reach goals and targets set. In a relationship sharing aspirations and ambitions, appreciating what each other brings to the relationship and working together on shared goals are vitally important to continued growth and happiness. All too often I see couples who have not spent the time to align their priorities and understand the strengths that each other brings to the relationship. The typical result of this is a breakdown of the relationship, which is always sad to see. Also people do not understand that a relationship needs hard work. People change and evolve over time. I often think that my wife met me at just the right time. If we had met 5 years earlier she may not have hung around, as I was not yet mature enough to be with my wife. I did not understand the effort and work that is needed to keep a relationship fun, vibrant, growing and moving forward. When people feel valued and loved they will put in the effort and hard work to make it work. When they feel undervalued and unloved they will spend their energy tearing it all down. Work on the Small Details The foundation of any success is focusing on the details, learning how to do the fundamentals and putting them into practice. For example I could not go tomorrow and start working as an Architectural Engineer like my wife’s brother. If I could his five years at university would have been a waste of time, money and effort. Fraser (my wife’s brother) has gone to university and studied the details, he has worked on the fundamentals like maths, thermodynamics and tolerances of different substances. He has built up the applied knowledge to go and do that job. In the same instance I could not go tomorrow and become an Olympic Track Cyclist. I have not prepared my body to withstand the demands of that sport and I do not know the nuances needed to help me get a competitive edge when on the track. To be truly great at something you need to spend time learning the details. Andy Murray is now the world’s number one tennis player and people all over Great Britain are very proud of him for climbing to the top. However, very few people understand the hard work and effort that he has put into becoming the best in the world. It is fascinating to see the attention to detail that Andy has put in to give him the edge against anyone he is playing against. He has put a lot of work on his mindset, on his physical strength and his endurance. Through focusing on the small details he has built himself up to become the best tennis player in the world. He has looked at his weaknesses and turned them into strengths. As a younger player he would constantly psyche himself out of games, reverting to shouting at himself and melting down when the game was not going his way. Now he deals with adversity and works through it often turning the game back to his advantage through sheer perseverance. Facing off against Dockivic and Nadal (and others) the superior fitness of these athletes would allow them to outlast Andy over the course of a game. Not any more, Andy worked on the physical aspect of his game to make him strong and flexible, able to endure long rallies and hard fought five set matches. Through focusing on the details Andy has slowly, but surely, risen to the top. So moving forward please make sure that you understand that a fundamental instrument to carve out success is hard work. Understand that hard work, not talent, will allow you to be successful over the long haul. Seek out and look for ways to test your skills and knowledge to allow you to perform under stress. Be attentive to cultivating a culture of hard work. Finally pay attention to the details. Peace and Happiness.
2 Comments
Coach P
10/12/2016 10:04:16 pm
Brilliant read Andyv( and a great write) . As you say
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Anthony Blackburn
15/12/2016 08:28:10 pm
It were a great read. I'd quite like to read this t' kids of today. The 5 P's - Persperstion Prevents Poor Pit Pong. - Uncle T
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AuthorMy name is Andy Smyth, I have spent the last decade working in the field of Sports Development, where I have had the pleasure of working to grow leaders within local community sports clubs in Scotland. Archives
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