Brian Johnson reflects on Coach John Wooden’s leadership and coaching legacy, highlighting Wooden’s extraordinary achievements at UCLA and introducing the concept of ‘competitive greatness’ — defined as being your best when your best is needed. Johnson connects Wooden’s idea of success (peace of mind from self-satisfaction in effort) to the Greek term arete and relates these lessons to his own work teaching leadership to a naval carrier team in February 2024.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. We've mentioned John Wooden a couple times over the last handful of plus ones. Let's spend some more time with the wizard of Westwood. As I've shared many times before, Coach Wooden is one of my all time favorite heroes. I often have a heroic portrait of a fierce looking younger Wooden on my office wall barking at me to remember to dominate the fundamentals and do my best. Now as you know, if you're a sports fan, he's considered the greatest coach of the 20th century. His UCLA Bruins won a staggering 10 NCAA National Championships in 12 years. They also had an 88 game winning streak and won 38 straight NCAA tournament games. That's crazy. Wooden only had one losing season in his entire 41 year coaching career and that losing season came in his first season coaching high school basketball. Now we had featured wisdom from the wizard of Westwood in our notes on Wooden A Lifetime of Observations and reflections on and off the Court and in Be Quick But Don't Hurry by Andrew Hill. Now I somehow managed to go all this time without reading Wooden on leadership. And my goodness am I glad my dear friend and big heroic investor and heroic coach Jeff Everidge reminded me that that I hadn't included it in my collection yet. So I read the book on my flights to and from Norfolk, Virginia in February 2024 where I was honored to spend time with Captain Dave Pollard and his leadership team on the USS George H.W. bush. Now to put it in perspective, Captain Pollard and his crew helped defend Ukraine and our allies. I had the privilege of leading a three hour workshop to help them roll out heroic across the 20 departments of their carrier to serve the 5,000 sailors who are serving my family and your family so profoundly. I repeat, freedom isn't free. And I repeat, without the men and women and their families dedicating their lives to protecting the freedoms we can so easily take for granted, there's no way we will have a shot at fulfilling our mission of helping create a world in which 51% of humanity is is flourishing by 2051. Which is why it is such a sacred honor to serve the force and their families who have sacrificed so much to preserve the freedoms on which our flourishing are so dependent. Now we'll talk about Coach wooden and the 15 virtue blocks in his pyramid of success in our next plus one. For now, I want to shine a quick spotlight on the top of his pyramid. You know what he says is the ultimate expression of all the other virtues. He works so hard to help his players embody. He called it competitive greatness, which he defines as being your best when your best is needed. And you know how you tap into that? You do your best moment to moment to moment. Which is why Wooden defines success as, and I quote, peace of mind, which is a direct result of self satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable. Now, there's a single word for how to go about achieving that ultimate success and winning the ultimate game of life. And that word is arete. Here's to closing the gap and giving the world all we've got, as we activate our heroic potential and cultivate the ability to be our best when our best is needed. All day, every day, especially today.
