Motivate Your Team! Cheer Up A Friend! Inspire Yourself!
Motivate Your Team! Cheer Up A Friend! Inspire Yourself!
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| Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 13 | Issue 776 |
| Craig Impelman Speaking | Championship Coaches | Champion's Leadership Library Login | |
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"THE SECRET OF GETTING AHEAD IS GETTING STARTED." (TAYLOR SWIFT AND JOHN WOODEN)
When I see someone accomplish something extraordinary, I always want to know: How did they do that? John Wooden won ten national championships. Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour became the highest-grossing concert tour in history. What happened before those achievements?
John Wooden coached for twenty-eight seasons before the season that brought his first national championship. Taylor Swift worked at her craft for over twenty-two years before launching the Eras Tour. Both got ahead by getting started—and kept working.
Taylor Swift grew up in Pennsylvania, performing anywhere anyone would listen—karaoke contests, county fairs, festivals, and cafés. Sometimes she sang for hours, making up songs when she ran out of material. At eleven, she reasoned that the national anthem was the best way for an unsigned kid to stand in front of a big crowd, so she began singing it wherever she could. Before the big break she sang it at a local high school faculty-vs-community basketball game. Then, on April 5, 2002, at age 12, she sang it at a Philadelphia 76ers game.
At eleven, Taylor also persuaded her mother to drive her to Nashville. While her mother waited in the car with her younger brother, Taylor walked into record-label offices along Music Row, handing homemade demo CDs to receptionists with a simple message: "Hey, I’m eleven, and I want a record deal. Call me."
The trips produced no record deal.
Taylor noticed that everyone in Nashville could sing; what set people apart was having something of their own. So, she decided to write her own songs. Around age 12 a computer repairman who came to the house saw her guitar and showed her three chords. She went on to write her first song, "Lucky You,". She later recalled: "I was playing four hours a day until my fingers were bleeding and my mom called me to dinner."
Her family continued taking her to Nashville. She worked with songwriters, recorded demos and performed. At fourteen, the family moved to Tennessee. She attended school and worked at songwriting.
At sixteen, Swift released her first album. Then came radio station visits, interviews, performances and hours spent meeting listeners. She was just getting started.
Taylor Swift did not wait until she was "ready," had connections, or had a deal. She started with what she had: a voice, a notebook, three chords, and a mother who was willing to drive — and the starting created the next opportunity.
A February 2007 profile reported that the seventeen-year-old had already written approximately 250 songs and was keeping up with schoolwork on her tour bus.
Psychologist Carol Dweck asks in Mindset: The New Psychology of Success: "Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better?"
Coach Wooden placed Industriousness at the foundation of his Pyramid of Success: "There is no substitute for work. Worthwhile results come from hard work and careful planning."
He planned practices minute by minute, kept records and used his notes to improve the next practice.
Jim Collins writes in Good to Great and the Social Sectors: "Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline."
Years later, preparing for the Eras Tour, Swift practiced singing her set list while exercising on a treadmill. She trained for the demands of the show months before opening night.
Psychologist Angela Duckworth puts it succinctly in Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance: "Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare."
Here are four favorite ideas Coach Wooden shared that can help us get started and keep going:
Reflect on this idea of building Initiative and Intentness. How are you doing? Write it down. Share it with someone on your team. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman
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"The most drastic and usually the most effective remedy for fear is direct action." William Burnham (1855–1941) "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." Lao-tzu —Sixth Century B.C. "Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good actions: try to use ordinary situations." Jean Paul Richter (1763–1825) "It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little. Do what you can." Sydney Smith (1771–1845)
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