Coach John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success Playbook

Industriousness (Hard Work) Building Block 1 “There is no substitute for work. Worthwhile results come from hard work and careful planning.” On Coach’s path to excellence, he chose an aspect of the game and studied it thoroughly. Make a list of issues in your life that need some hard work. Choose one area and establish a plan to develop excellence. Who will you contact? What will you read? What will you do?

Industriousness (Planning) Building Block 1 (Part 2) Make a list of the activities you do each week. Estimate the time spent on each activity. Does the time spent reflect the amount of time you’d like to spend? Do you start and end on time? What changes do you need to make to better manage your time and become more industrious?

Enthusiasm (Building Block 2) “Your energy and enjoyment, drive and dedication will stimulate and greatly inspire others.” List three responsibilities in your life that you enjoy the most and three that you enjoy the least. How does your level of enthusiasm differ when approaching your most favorite tasks as compared to your least favorite tasks? What can you do to keep your enthusiasm under control and quietly rub off on others?

Friendship (Building Block 3) “Comes from the mutual esteem, respect and devotion. Like marriage, it must not be taken for granted but requires a joint effort.” Make a list of people in your life who would qualify as your friends. Who on that list do you trust the most? How could you go about establishing accountability with that person or persons?

Cooperation (Building Block 4) “Have utmost concern for what’s right rather than who’s right.” List some key contexts where you find yourself in a cooperative group and where you find yourself alone.

Loyalty (Building Block 5) “Be true to yourself. Be true to those you lead.” Recount times when you made a commitment to be loyal to someone and it proved costly. Recall one time when you depended on someone to be loyal to you and he or she failed. Describe the emotions you felt at that time and afterward regarding the incident and the person.

Self-Control (Building Block 6) “Control of your organization begins with control of yourself. Be disciplined.” What areas of your life present the greatest difficulty in gaining and maintaining self-control? Describe two or three encounters in which you have seen your emotions hinder clear thinking.

Alertness (Building Block 7) “Constantly be aware and observing. Always seek to improve yourself and the team.” Describe how you are alert. Describe ways you can improve your alertness and observation with others. What can you change about yourself to become more alert?

Initiative (Building Block 8) “Make a decision! Failure to act is often the biggest failure of all.” When was the last time that you attempted something new and it didn’t work out? How did failure affect you?

Intentness (Building Block 9) “Stay the course. When thwarted try again; harder; smarter. Persevere relentlessly.” How do you usually respond to circumstances that could prevent success? Describe a time when you successfully pushed through distractions and difficulties to reach a goal?

Condition (Building Block 10) “Ability may get you to the top, but character keeps you there – mental, moral, and physical.” List the things that you do regularly to condition yourself physically, mentally, and morally?

Skill (Building Block 11) “What a leader learns after you’ve learned it all counts most of all.” Apart from sleeping, list the top five activities in which you spend most of your time. Measure the time spent in your top five time-consuming activities against the choices below. Are you spending most of your time doing what seems to come naturally? Write the phrase that best describes you. People drain me, energize me or I prefer small groups. I communicate best with spoken words, written words or artistic expression. I like working with things or ideas. I am most skilled at working with my hands, solving problems, selling things, or teaching others.

Team Spirit (Building Block 12) “The star of the team is the team. We supercedes me.” List the groups to which you belong (e.g. church, parachurch, community, school). What role do you play in each group? Do your current roles best utilize your gifts and natural talents?

Poise (Building Block 13) “Be yourself. Don’t be thrown off by events whether good or bad.” To answer the following questions, rate yourself on a scale of one to ten by writing out the question and the number that best fits you. Do you usually spend adequate time in preparation, or do you usually wing it? Prepare 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Wing It When it comes to your relationship with your parents/guardians, are you poised, or are you a poser? Poised 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Poser Based on the above self-evaluation, what do you need to work on the most?

Confidence (Building Block 14) “The strongest steel is well-founded self-belief. It is earned, not given.” Do you consider yourself a confident person? Explain. Where do you see your confidence play out the most? Where do you see your confidence play out the least?

Competitive Greatness (Building Block 15) “Perform at your best when your best is required. Your best is required each day.” List a few times when you boldly stood up for someone. Were these events in the distant past or are they more current? Is your boldness increasing or decreasing? If you need more boldness, how are you going to go about obtaining it?

Ambition (Mortar Quality 1) List the current driving forces in your life. How much of your ambition in these areas is self-centered and how much is noble? Do you need to rethink and redirect any of your goals? What will be your first steps to change?

Sincerity (Mortar Quality 2) Do you consider yourself a sincere person? If so, how? How sincere are you with your family, teachers, and friends? How do you become sincere in the midst of life’s hard situations? What can you do to reduce the number of cracks in your life?

Adaptability (Mortar Quality 3) What criteria do you use to determine when you need to adapt? List a few significant times in which you adapted, even if you did so reluctantly. How do you respond when your parents/guardians asks you to adjust a habit, attitude or behavioral pattern in your life?

Honesty (Mortar Quality 4) Think about the last time you were tempted to cheat. What were the circumstances? Did you try to justify it? Did you dwell on the temptation or chase it away? Why did you react the way you reacted? Do you need to change the way you deal with the temptation to cheat?

Resourcefulness (Mortar Quality 5) Can you remember an incident when you used creative or unconventional thinking to solve a problem? What was the key to finding the solution?

Reliability (Mortar Quality 6) Among the people you know, who are the most dependable? Why do you consider them to be so reliable? List some of the ways people depend on you. Are you more (or less) dependable now than in the past? How can you become a more reliable person?

Fight (Mortar Quality 7) Describe a time in your life when you fought a good fight but came in second. How were you a winner in that situation? Describe a time in your life when a situation forced you to dig deeper within yourself than you knew you could dig. What did you discover about determination?

Integrity (Mortar Quality 8) Who are the top five people of integrity that you know? Why have you put each on the list? Would any of your friends put you on their top-five list? What do you need to do to increase the purity of intention in your life?

Patience (Mortar Quality 9) Are you patient or do you want things to change quickly? Has your patience increased as you have grown older? Give an example of something you now wait to see happen that you might have been impatient to see happen when you were younger.

Faith (Mortar Quality 10) Coach encouraged his players to have a faith and to be able to defend it. What areas in your life do you have faith?

Final Reflection Now that we have finished the Pyramid of Success, tell me which building block or mortar quality affects you the most. In other words, which block/quality is playing most in your life. Explain.