Offseason Talks, Volume 5 – Coach Wooden’s 7 Rules for Life

Phil: [00:00:00] Welcome back to How Soccer Explains Leadership. Once again, very much appreciate your download. Very much appreciate you being a part of this conversation. I am Phil Darke, your host, Paul Jobson is the co-host of this show and we haven't had a show together for a while. That's because we're doing these off season talks, which really are just a break from the normal programming of the interviews that we do on this show and the conversations that Paul and I get to have together.

These are just really things that Paul and I have been thinking of things that we know are very important leadership principles, very important, principles for us in our lives for us to be able to flourish. For our teams to be able to flourish and really in every area of our life, for us to be able to be the best version of ourselves we can [00:01:00] be and to help others be better as well. If you've been following along with these off season talks, you know, that we've been spending a lot of time on really self-leadership. And the reason for that is he in John Maxwell really talked about the hardest person for us to lead as ourself. And John wooden has talked a lot about self-leadership as well.

He once said discipline yourself and others won't need to. And, you know, the reality is if we're not healthy, it's going to be really hard for us to be able to help our teams to be healthy, whether that's in soccer, whether that's in our homes, whether that's in organizations that we run, we absolutely need to be healthy ourselves.

And so that's something that we wanted to spend some time, covering and really, you know, before I get into what we're going to talk about today, I wanted to just remind you, join the Facebook group. If you haven't done so already, that's a great place to continue the conversation. Also love to hear from you on my email, [00:02:00] phil@howsoccerexplainsleadership.com.

That's a great place. You can just send me a question. If you have thoughts on some great people that could be interviewed on this show, that's a great place to do that as well in just if you want to get in touch with me about anything, whether it's DISC training, whether it's coaching the bigger game program that we're developing.

If you want to talk to Paul about the warrior way, you can reach out to me, about that as well, and I can connect you with him. So that's just a reminder of how we can stay in touch and how we continue the conversation offline. I've absolutely loved getting to know some of you. There via phone calls, zoom calls, whatever it may be.

It's just, it's just something. That's why I do what I do. I love to be able to just get on these calls and be able to see how we can help each other and work together, um, to really make the world around us. So today I wanted to just talk about this idea that I, I mentioned John wooden, and he really had these seven rules that he got from his dad.

I read a great book, on this and it, and it was really just going through these [00:03:00] rules and I thought I'd just give my take on it and just what each of these mean to me. That hopefully will be helping you to think through them as well for you to be able to think through them and go, how does this apply to my life?

Because if there's a leader that, uh, I've been impacted by Janell John, Wooden's definitely on that list. And so, uh, and he's, uh, he's, I know on the list of a lot of people and that's for good reason, he had his pyramid pyramid of success and he had the seven rules as well. And the other seven rules are, are be true to yourself.

make each day a masterpiece help others drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible. Make friendship a fine art. Build a shelter against a rainy day. And pray for guidance and counsel and give thanks for your blessings each day. I'm gonna spend the next couple episodes going through these, and I'm going to be real quick.

Obviously there's seven of them and I'm not going to be able to [00:04:00] take 15 minutes on each of them, just a little nugget on each. And, hopefully it'll get you thinking a little bit about what this means in your leadership, in your different, in the different areas of your life. So the first one is be true to yourself.

You know, and he said, if you're true to yourself, you're going to be true to everyone else. This is something I talk a lot about with my kids, with people that are talking to me about interviewing. And I say, how should I interview? What, what do I do? What are the tricks of interviewing? What are the ways that we go into an interview and do this?

And, and really what I tell people is just be yourself, because here's the reality. If you, you go into an interview or if you go into any relationship and you put on a face and you aren't yourself, Then these people are liking someone other than you, people are hiring someone. Who's not really you. You're going to find that out.

If they don't want to hire you. If they don't want to be friends with you, the real you, then you don't really don't want to be friends with them [00:05:00] because they're, they're just not a fit. So if you're faking it, if you're putting on a face, then that's not healthy in any way. Now, the reality is sometimes we don't know who we are.

And we've talked a lot about that. Know your, why know your identity, who you are once you know who you are, a massive topic, we could spend hours and hours on, but assuming you know who you are and assuming, you know, how you're wired as we talked about with the disc and assuming, you know, all that, and you're secure in your identity, be yourself.

And if you're true to yourself, you're going to be true to everyone else. Like John wooden said, so poignant, so simple yet. So profound, something that we really need to be thinking about in our players, as I've said, our players will read right through it. If we aren't genuine, if we aren't shooting ourselves, our kids, they know us.

Right. So if we're trying to fool them by acting different than who [00:06:00] we are, they're going to see. Right. Different people were leading in any organization. Absolutely will be the case. And also, if you tell the truth, if you're true to yourself, you don't have to keep up that act, which gets exhausting. If you're trying to keep on a face and keep on an act, as you're working with different people, as you're doing different things, if you're on a team, if you're in an organization, whatever the case may be, if you're not true to yourself, you're going to have to keep, keep going with that.

It's like what they say. If you tell the truth, you never have to keep your story straight because it's the. So those are all things that I think are critical for us to remember. So the other thing, uh, the second one is make each day a masterpiece. Now this is just the idea that life is a vapor life is so short.

Enjoy the journey, put everything you got in each day, because you don't know if it's your last, that's just the reality of life. It's something that we just assume that we have lots and lots of time here, but we don't know that. And life is short. [00:07:00] You keep hearing that I know every year seems to go faster and faster.

The older I get. My kids keep growing up faster and faster. It seems. And so with everything you got, give everything, you got to everything you got and make it the best day that you can make it. You know, people often will say on their messages or whatever, make it a great day. Well, that is our choice a lot of the time.

We can't choose the circumstances that happened to us, but we can choose how we react to them. So those are things that make it a great day, make each life each day a masterpiece enjoy the journey. In law school. People were always like, Hey, you know what? It's three days. I just got to buckle down. I just got to do work really hard.

And then the rest of my life I'll be able to do it. And I just said, you know what? It's still three years of your life. We need to enjoy this time. We need to make the most of this time. So wherever you are in your life, make the most of it. Savor it and just make each day a masterpiece. Last thing I'm going to cover today is this idea of help others.

We've [00:08:00] talked a lot about this, but this is that servant heart servant leadership. John wooden said your greatest joy comes from doing something for another, especially when it was done with no thought of something in return. That's servant leadership. Helping others. Simon Sinek said something about this too.

You know, he wrote, start with why, but he had another talk that was 15 minutes or so. And he said, there's plenty of books on self-help in the library. What we really need are more books in the help, others section. You don't see a lot about that. We talk a lot about legacy, the book legacy, about the New Zealand, all blacks on this show.

It's been the most recommended book, on this. And there's a chapter in there called sweep, the sheds Cori Close, talked about that as well as she has a broom on her wall to remind her to be servant hearted, to remind her as the leader we are to serve, we are to help others. If we as coaches, don't see massive [00:09:00] part of our job as helping others to be the best they can be.

Not just as players, but as human beings, we're missing the point. We're missing the point. So remember. To help others in everything that you're doing. So those are three simple things. As I said, these are just nuggets. I could go on and on about each of these things, but I won't today. I just want you to remember the first three lessons that John wooden talked about.

Be true to yourself, make each day a masterpiece and help others. Yet often complex and how it lives out, how it plays out, how it manifests in each of our lives. And it will look different in each of our lives. So with that, I'm gonna wrap up another episode, very, very excited to continue sharing just these, these thoughts, these little nuggets that have really impacted my life with you.

Love getting them to do what I get to do. And [00:10:00] again, please reach out to me. Please connect with me. Absolutely love connecting with each of you to see how we can work together in this world to help others to make each day a masterpiece and how we can encourage each other to be true. And with everything that we always do on the show that, that, that we, that we really hope that as you're listening to this show, as you're engaging with others, as you're talking with others about the different things that you hear on the show, I really do hope that it helps you to maybe be a better leader, that it helps you to be better in every area of your life, whether that's your home, whether that's your organizations that you work with, whether it's the teams that you coach and with all of it that you continually, I remember in more and more how soccer does explain life and leadership. Thanks a lot. Have a great week.