Legendary college basketball coach John Wooden and Jay Carty, former Laker and one time Wooden assistant, knew that success is an equal opportunity player. Anyone in his career can be successful. Based on John Wooden’s own method to victory, Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success reveals that success is built one block at a time, where each block is a crucial principle contributing to life-long achievement in every area of life. Wooden refined success by spending 14 years designing a structure for his team, which would in time lead him to his ultimate goal, winning. He envisioned a pyramid composed of 15 building blocks and by developing the performance in these 15 areas, he would be able to be a leader himself and this philosophy would pass on to those associated with him on his team.
To think about:
Covering an area of thirteen acres, the Great Pyramid in Egypt has a square base and triangular sides, each facing one of the four points of the compass. This pyramid is 482 feet high and was constructed with 2,300,000 individual stones. These stones range in weight up to 5,000 pounds each! Each tapering four-faced stone column, known as an obelisk, is crowned by a pointed cusp in the form of a pyramid. An obelisk is a stone having a square or rectangular cross section and a pyramidal top. How were such huge stones quarried, transported and put in place? This cannot be said with certainty. But it has been concluded that a labor force of some 100,000 men toiled for twenty years to complete the Great Pyramid. The earliest pyramid dates back some 4,000 years. Even the most recent one is about 2,000 years old.
Consider this:
If this is true in basketball and pyramid building, this idea can also work in the Network Marketing business as well. The Pyramid idea of success provides a blueprint to guide you toward the dynamic qualities within yourself and your team.
We all know that a blueprint in building is invaluable in building any structure. With each block of the pyramid you will discover one of the 15 secrets of winning. By creating the circumstances that form constructive self-evaluation, the pyramid simplifies the challenge of consistently improving the quality of your life. In your business opportunity, you will be able to use the pyramid to accelerate your advancement as a leader by identifying specific areas to strengthen and at the same time benefit those on your team. It is only by taking steps and consistently working on fundamentals that this will help you actually achieve your goals as a leader and team player.
Think about this:
Almost every great teacher and coach in history has stressed the importance of building a good foundation in all aspects of their personal and professional life. Without a strong foundation the building will crumble.
Mahatma Gandhi established several fundamentals or foundations that he practiced faithfully as a way to strengthen his connection regarding his beliefs. Each day he walked four to six miles (6-9 kilometers) as the sun rose, and maintained a very simple healthful diet, that kept him remarkably fit physically and mentally throughout his long life.
IT IS said that Mohandas Gandhi devised a list of what he termed the “Seven Blunders of the World.” They are as follows:
- Wealth without work
- Pleasure without conscience
- Knowledge without character
- Commerce without morality
- Science without humanity
- Worship without sacrifice
- Politics without principle
Maybe you could suggest a few more, but this list is certainly thought-provoking isn’t it?
Great coaches such as Paul Bryant, Vince Lombardi, Lou Holtz, and of course John Wooden deliberately avoided fancy plays in practices or games. Instead, these men favored consistent focus on developing outstanding fundamental habits. They repeatedly used repetition. Successful teaching includes the use of repetition. When an important point is stated more than once, those listening are more likely to remember it. If the idea is restated in a slightly different way, they may even be able to understand it more clearly. If your listeners do not remember what you say, your words will not influence what they believe or how they live. They will probably continue thinking about points to which you give special emphasis.
Try this:
- Develop a mental outlook over time. Personalize the pyramid in your business by deciding which areas are most important for you to develop. Only you can evaluate your true progress in each block of the structure. The pyramid is something you use to develop mental and moral qualities, not just a reputation.
- Be someone to imitate. If you are to lead others, it is crucial that you lead yourself by those same high standards. A good leader gives clear direction and helps his team under his care to gain personal strength and resources so that they can solve problems successfully. ‘This is a requisite for the successful 21st century leader,’ says the book 21st Century Leadership: Dialogues With 100 Top Leaders.
- Use all your building blocks. Every building block must be set securely in place or the pyramid might crumble at the slightest tremor. It would be like building on sand. Not a good idea. The two cornerstones of the pyramid, industriousness and enthusiasm, offer a perfect example of this principle. Industriousness refers to your work ethic. There is no substitute for effort if you wish to develop your full potential as a leader in your business opportunity. Yet industriousness in Network Marketing without enthusiasm is a painful and uninspired pursuit, which eventually leads to failure. To access your full potential, you must do what you love. Certainly, if you build well by applying what you learn, storm like tests will not only fail to break your pyramid but will not even shake it. What a comforting thought!
You can be assured that if you apply what you learn, you will be happy in your doing it. By committing yourself to consistent action as you learn how to make use of the pyramid blueprint, and build accordingly, you will discover the extraordinary leader that is inside of you.
REPLACE FEAR WITH CURIOSITY Courage Changes Everything.
