Brian Johnson shares a story about meeting Bulls coach Billy Donovan and uses his son Emerson's chess championship and reading acceleration to show why being coachable matters. John Wooden taught that good leaders never stop seeking improvement.
Questions this video answers
March 23, 2024
10 years old
Billy Donovan
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. As you may recall, not too long ago, we chatted about our family trip to watch the Chicago Bulls play the San Antonio Spurs. We were blessed to be connected with Billy Donovan, their head coach, via a couple of new friends. Thank you, Gina and Darturis. And Billy was kind enough to hook us up with some tickets. And then he and I got to hang out for a few hours the following morning, chatting about leadership and in all things arete and heroic. It was a fantastic weekend. Now, funny story, Emerson is a wonderfully autonomous human being. Alexandra and I are trying to raise a couple of iconoclastic heroes and have worked very hard to make sure he and Eleanor, behind me on the wall back there, feel empowered to make their own choices. We homeschool them and have very rarely pushed them to do anything. To put it in perspective, Last year at 10 years old, Emerson won the Texas State Chess championships for his JV division before he could read at grade level. He wasn't that into reading until he was. Then he quickly advanced several grade levels in six months with the help of a tutor once he got into it. Now, when it comes to chess, we've also let him follow his bliss and just let him do what he felt inspired to do. Now, that worked really well for the early phase of his development. Then he got to a point where it was clear he was going to need to follow his coach's advice if he wanted to go to the next level. So Alexander and I were trying to explain to him that a great athlete pays attention to what their coach tells them to do so they can go to the next level and be their best. Now, as we were trying to explain to Emerson how important it is to have a great coach and to actually do what your coach tells you to do. We told him about the Bulls game and how Billy, the guy he met at the end of my breakfast with him, was the coach of the Bulls and told the players what to do. Emerson was like, really? He tells them what to do? I thought they just did whatever they wanted to do. And Mommy and I were like, insert confused face head exploding emoji. Not so much, buddy. Then we proceeded to tell him how important it is to be coachable. And that's the point of today's plus one. Are you coachable or do you lack the confidence to admit that you don't always have everything figured out? Know this. The greatest among us have enough confidence to know they don't know it all. Obviously, as they and we at our best obsessively search for the next idea that can help them unlock their next level potential. Which is why in Wooden on leadership, check out those notes. John Wooden says a good leader always seeks improvement. Always. Once again, it's day one. We're all in, and we're coachable. Time to go to the next level today.
