John Wooden Quotes

Never make excuses. Your friends don't need them and your foes won't believe them.

"Be prepared and be honest." -John Wooden

You should never try to be better than someone else, you should always be learning from others. But you should never cease trying to be the best you could be because that’s under your control and the other isn’t.

Remember, discipline of others isn’t punishment. You discipline to help, to improve, to correct, to prevent, not to punish, humiliate, or retaliate

There are no big things, only an accumulation of many little things. Remove enough rivets and the wing falls off. However, it is up to you, the leader, to identify the correct rivets and determine how much attention each will be given. Do this correctly and your organization will survive flying through even the most turbulent competitive storm.

Don’t be afraid to fail. The greatest failure of all is not to act when action is needed.

Sposobnost može da te dovede na vrh al da bi opstao na vrhu, potreban ti je karakter.

Results matter. They matter a great deal. But if this is an organization’s singular purpose, then the people who sign on are often doing it for the wrong reasons.

Just do the best you can. No one can do more than that.

Drawing up plans such as these diagrams is the easy part. I did it thousands of times. Creating a successful organization with people who execute the plans at a level of Competitive Greatness — now, that’s the challenge of leadership.

Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.

SEEK SIGNIFICANT CHANGE • Never be content with performance or results. • Remove all excuses for getting to the next level. Don’t say “no”; ask

For the strength of the pack is the wolf; and the strength of the wolf is the pack.” — Rudyard Kipling

I believe effective leaders are, first and foremost, good teachers. We are in the education business. Whether in class or on the court, my job was the same: to effectively teach those under my supervision how they could perform to the best of their ability in ways that best served the goals of our team. I believe the same is true for productive leaders in any organization.

I’m very proud of the fact that while all the records were being set at UCLA by our basketball teams, I felt exactly the same way. Family is first. Always. Always.