THE LAW OF PRIORITIES

Brian Tracy on the art of prioritizing:

The very worst use of your time is to do what need not be done at all. The Pareto Principle says that 20% of your activities will account for 80% of the value of your activities. This means that, if you have a list of ten items to accomplish, two of those items will be worth more than the other eight items altogether.

To achieve great things, you must always be concentrating on the small number of activities that contribute the greatest value to your life and your work.

Determine the Consequences
The value of anything in your order of priorities can be measured by assessing the potential consequences of doing it or not doing it. Something that is important has significant consequences to your life and your career. Something that is unimportant has few or no consequences of significance to your life or career. The mark of the superior thinker is your ability to consider possible consequences before you begin.

Ask the Key Question
Continually ask yourself, "What is the most valuable use of my time, right now?" And whatever it is, work on that. Your ability to discipline yourself to work on those few tasks that can make the greatest difference in your life is the key quality that makes everything else possible for you.

Action Exercises
Here is how you can apply this law immediately:

First, make a list of everything that you do as a part of your job. Now, analyze the list and select the three to five things that are more important than everything else put together.

Second, imagine that you are going to receive a $100,000 bonus at the end of the month if you can work on your highest priority items every minute of the day. How

COACH WOODEN ON YOUR TRUE LEGACY

“Mentoring is your true legacy. It is the greatest inheritance you can give to others. And it should never end. It is why you get up every day. To teach and be taught.”

-John Wooden

A NEW DAY

"My motto is that whatever happens on Wednesday whether you or lose, whether youhave a sense of exhilaration or feel the lowest level of remorse, it has no bearing at all on what happens on Thursday.  Every day has to be a new day with a new set of challenges."

-Pete Carril

STARTING: THE GREAT SEPARATOR

Here is a wonderful post from: http://johnmaxwellteam.com/

Do you want to be a success? As you know, many obstacles can keep even a highly-motivated person from succeeding. But today I want to talk about the ONLY obstacle that will ALWAYS keep us from success: Not starting.

Starting is the Great Separator. It separates…

...the doers from the do-nots,

...the haves from the have-nots,

...the winners from the whiners, and

...the successful from the unsuccessful.

If a desire were enough, then everyone would be a success. But success is like a book, and starting and finishing are the front and back covers. Until you open that front cover, you can’t experience anything from the pages within.

So how do you get started?

1.  Start with Yourself.
If you’ve ever flown on an airplane, you’ve heard the pre-flight instructions about the oxygen masks – which drop down from the ceiling in the case of emergency. If you’re traveling with someone who would need help, who do they always tell you to place the mask on first? Yourself! They want to remind you that you can’t help anyone else get oxygen if you aren’t able to breathe.

Starting with yourself is not a selfish goal – as long as you’re not doing it for your benefit alone. By putting on my oxygen mask, I get the oxygen I need in order to help others get oxygen. As a leader, I obtain what I need in order to help others succeed.

2.  Start Early.
I can’t overstate how much you gain from starting early. It’s something you can’t really understand or grasp when you’re young. One creature that understands this principle is the ant. Consider what the Bible says in Proverbs:

“Go to the ant, you sluggard;
Consider its ways and be wise!
It has no commander,
No over seer or ruler,
Yet it stores its provisions in summer
And gathers its food at the harvest.”

-Proverbs 6:6-8

The activity of any individual ant seems to have little impact. After all, it can only carry one seed or leaf or grain of sand. And it’s not clear what any single grain has to do with the big picture of what is being formed. But regardless of how it looks from the outside, the impact is happening, and something is developing.

Whether you are trying to lose weight, build a business, build a marriage, raise a child, overcome a pattern, resolve a depression, or build a business, it is done the same way: one brick at a time. And the earlier you begin, the more bricks (or grains of sand) you can accumulate.

3.  Start Small.
Most of us would love to see the entire path from where we are to the top. But life doesn’t work that way. Like a person carrying a lantern, most of us only see the small portion of the path ahead. Our best response is to just take the next step.

Why start small? It encourages you to get started and allows you to prioritize and concentrate. It also provides the necessary step to take the next step.

Like the person carrying the lantern, your path will only be illuminated a short distance ahead. We’ve all walked home in the dark. The lantern we carry may not illuminate the house, but it does show us the path that will take us there.

4.  Start with The End in View.
John Wooden, an American basketball coach, was known for his focus on preparation. Every practice kept the goal – the next game – in view. Why? Because, as he said, “It’s too late to prepare when opportunity arrives.”

First, pursue your passion. A passion, a goal that you feel strongly about, gives you energy. Next, let planning give you direction. The beginning of the journey is the place to study the map. You may not always know the entire route, but your planning should always point in the direction of your destination.

5. Start now.
It’s too easy to say, “I’ll start tomorrow.” We promise that tomorrow, we will start a diet, studies, a career, or a relationship. But until we actually begin, a dream remains a dream.

It may be a cliché to say that every journey begins with the first step, yet it is still true.  Successful people don’t wait for everything to be perfect to move forward. They don’t wait for all the problems or obstacles to disappear.  They don’t wait until their fear subsides. They take initiative. They know a secret that good leaders understand: momentum is their friend. As soon as they take that first step and start moving forward, things become a little easier. If the momentum gets strong enough, many of the problems take care of themselves and talent can take over. But it starts only after you’ve taken those first steps.

THE WARRIOR'S MARK

"Each warrior wants to leave the mark of his will, his signature, on the important acts he touches.  This is not the voice of ego but the human spirit, rising up and declaring that is has something to contribute.  In every contest, there comes a moment that separates winning from losing.  The true warrior understands and seizes the moment by giving an effort so intense and so intuitive that if could only be called one from the heart."

-Pat Riley

TRUST IS LIKE THE AIR WE BREATHE

Great post today from Stephanie Zonar for the BusyCoach:

"Trust is like the air we breathe. When it's present, nobody really notices. But when it's absent, everybody notices."
—Warren Buffett

Most BusyCoaches would agree that trust is the foundation of every healthy team. No team will achieve ongoing success without it.

Yet, when it’s firmly in place we may not even realize it’s there. Like oil helps the perfectly-fitted parts of an engine to work seamlessly together, so trust helps all the parts of a team to function without friction.

Without oil, engine parts rubbing together will eventually destroy each other. The same holds true for a team.

Without trust, friction like relational tension, unforgiveness and bitterness grows, becoming obvious to everyone and resulting in fragmentation that prohibits the team from reaching its goals.

Make trust-building activities part of your ongoing focus, BusyCoach, and you give your team a better chance of ongoing success.

"Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge."
-Psalm 62:8

Check out Stephanie's website: http://lifebeyondsport.com/

RICK MAJERUS ON POST PLAY

Thanks to Coach Creighton Burns for passing these on in his latest newsletter:

Why Post Players Miss Shots

1. Not low enough

2. Don’t focus on target

3. Don’t get the ball high enough

 

Post Player Philosophy

1. Low – sit in stance

2. Slow – be patient
3. Under control
4. Need to have 1 go to move
5. Need to have 1 counter move
 
3 Things to Develop Hands For Post Players
1. Soft Hands to Catch
2. Strong hands
3. Soft touch when shooting

BECOMING MORE OPTIMISTIC

From "Monday Morning Choices" by David Cottrell

Want to be a more optimistic person? You can find the path in the Six Laws of Growing Optimism:

You reap only what you sow.
If you’ve sown apple seeds, you’ll get apples. Don’t expect oaks from apple seeds. If you want to be more optimistic, sow seeds of optimism. Sow positive behaviors to reap positive results, and surround yourself with positive people.

You need to know where to sow.
Seeds sown on rocks will never bear fruit. Find fertile ground, and sow your seeds there. Commit to positive projects, people, and tasks. Spend your energies to achieve positive goals, never wasting precious resources.

As some point, you must reap your harvest.
One farmer loved to cultivate and till the soil into neat rows and then sow his seed, but when it came time for harvest, he hated to drive the combine into the fields, crushing the neat mounds of soil and leaving nothing but chaff in its wake. If we sow, then we must reap. Otherwise, why bother?

You can’t do anything about last year’s harvest.
Life is filled with important choices, and every choice has a consequence. It’s not about whether last year’s harvest was good or bad. It’s about how you handled the success or failure of that harvest. Did your failure prevent you from sowing positive seeds today? You can do something only about this year’s crop, but you can also take what your learned last year and make this year’s harvest more bountiful.

Don’t worry about the weather, the beetles, or anything else.
Worrying is a wasted effort and a fertile breeding ground for self-doubt. It will lead you to focus on potential losses rather than effective solutions. Your best choice to stop worry Is positive action.

Be easy on yourself.
It’s important to have the strength and the desire to continue sowing. Beating yourself up for a poor harvest only wastes time. You’re can never like anyone more than you like yourself, and you can’t expect others to like you if you don’t hold yourself in high esteem.

TO EVALUATE LEADERSHIP, EVALUATE THE FOLLOWERS

There are certainly a variety of ways to guage the effectiveness of a leader but shouldn't it start with the growth and effectiveness of the followers.  Afterall, isn't that the primary goal of leadership?  To effectively grow those that follow you in a direction that makes both them and the organziation successful.  Here is what John Maxwell has to say about that subject in his book "Leadership Gold."

The question is often asked, “How am I doing as a leader?” The answer is how the people you lead are doing. But good or bad, leaders always impact their people.

“The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers.” -Max Depree

Revealing questions to ask about followers:

Question #1: Are the people following?

All leaders have two common characteristics: first, they are going somewhere; second, they are able to persuade other people to go with them. In a very practical sense, the second characteristic is what separates the real leaders from the pretenders.

Clarence Francis, who led the General Foods corporation in the 1930s and ‘40s, asserted, “You can buy a man’s time; you can buy his physical presence at a given place; you can even buy a measured number of his skilled muscular motions per hour. But you can not buy enthusiasm…you can not buy loyalty… you can not buy the devotion of hearts, minds or souls. You must earn these.” As a leader, you should never expect the loyalty of others before you have built a relationship and earned trust.

Question #2: Are the people changing?

President Harry S. Truman commented, “Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.”

Good leaders inspire their followers to have confidence in them. But great leaders inspire their followers to have confidence in themselves.

My role as a head coach was to do three things: One, bring people who are committed to being the very best; two, eliminate people who not committed to begin the very best; and three, the most important of my responsibilities, create an atmosphere where they could achieve their goals and the goals we set for our team. I wanted to put them in the right environment and delegate the responsibility so they could be the best they could be.

Question #3: Are the people growing?

“The growth and development of people is the highest calling of a leader.” (Dale Galloway)

The responsibility of developing people falls on the leader. And that means more than just helping people to acquire job skills. The best leaders help people with more than their jobs; they help them with their lives. They help them to become better people, not just better workers. They enlarge them. And that has great power because growing people create growing organizations.

Walter Bruckart, former vice president of Circuit City, remarked that the top five factors of excellence in an organization are people, people, people, people, and people.

As a leader, my success in developing others will depend upon the following:

My high valuation of people—this is an attitude issue.

My high commitment to people—this is a time issue.

My high integrity with people—this is a character issue.

My high standard for people—this is a goal-setting issue.

My high influence over people—this is a leadership issue.

Question #4: Are the people succeeding?

Basketball coach Pat Riley, who has led two different teams to NBA championships, comments, “I think the ways a leader can measure whether or not he or she is doing a good job is (1) through wins or losses, (2) through the bottom line, (3) through the subjective and objective visual analysis of how individuals are improving and growing. If individuals are getting better results, I think the whole product is improving.”

Leaders may impress others when they succeed, but they impact others when their followers succeed.

Peter Drucker observes, “Leadership is the lifting of a man’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a man’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a man’s personality beyond its normal limitations.”

To see how a leader is doing, look at the people.

BRIAN TRACY'S CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT FORMULA

Here is a great blog post from Brian Tracy that I think really gives great steps for assistant coaches:

Put Your Career on the Fast Track
There are many things you can do to put your career onto the fast track. You can set clear, specific goals for each area of your life and then make plans to accomplish them. You can plan your work and work your plan.

Ask For Greater Responsibility
You can accept 100% responsibility for everything you are and everything you become. You can refuse to make excuses or to blame others. You can tell your boss that you want greater responsibilities and then when you get them, put your whole heart into doing an excellent job.

Utilize Your Inborn Talents
In the parable of the talents in the New Testament, Jesus says, "Oh good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over small things. I will make you master over large things."

If you too will carry out every assignment to the very best of your ability, you will be given larger and more important things to do and you'll be paid more as a result.

Dedicate Yourself to Continuous Improvement
The key to long term success is for you to dedicate yourself to continuous improvement. If you become one tenth of one percent more productive each day, that amounts to 1/1000th improvement per working day. Is that possible? Of course it is!

Improve a Little at a Time
If you become one tenth of one percent more productive each day, that amounts to one half of one percent more productive each week. One half of one percent more productive each week amounts to two percent more productive each month and 26% more productive each year.

The cumulative effect if becoming a tiny bit better at your field and more productive amounts to a tremendous increase in your value and your output over time.

How to Double Your Productivity
Twenty-six percent more productive each year, with compounding, amounts to doubling your overall productivity and performance every 2.7 years. If you become 26% more productive each year, with compounding, times 10 years, you will be 1004% more productive over the next decade. That is an increase of ten times over ten years.

The Reason For All Great Successes
This is called the Law of Accumulation, or the Principle of Incremental Improvement. It is the primary reason for all great success stories. By the yard, it's hard. But inch by inch, anything's a cinch!

Become A 1000% Person
Make a decision, right now, to be a 1000% person. Commit yourself to continuous personal and professional development. Read, listen to audio programs and take additional courses. This process will completely transform your life.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do to put these ideas into action immediately.

First, make a plan to become a little bit better every single day. Learn and apply one new idea each day to help you to become more productive and effective at your work. The incremental effect will amaze you.

Second, be patient. Don't expect overnight changes or instant results. Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare. Become a little bit better each day and your future will take care of itself.