DOES YOUR BANK ACCOUNT MAKE YOU HAPPY? PART 1 As I travel the world speaking on success, people often ask me, Well Tai, how do you define success and happiness - do you judge by who has the biggest bank account? Such a loaded question… >>Read The Full Article Here>> bit.ly/13XjhsA Let me defer to the wise words of UCLA legendary basketball coach, John Wooden when he says, “Success is peace of mind that is the direct result of self satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” Sounds cliche, but I am not sure I have ever read a better definition. Today’s book of the day is Coach Woodens Pyramid of Success: Building Blocks For a Better Life by John Wooden. Wooden won more basketball championships than any other coach in history. A lot more, 10 national titles in 12 years to be exact. He coached the greats like Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Bill Walton. He even received the Presidential Medal of Honor. More importantly he had the respect of the world. This little book has had me thinking for the last two days. There are so many ways I have heard humans try to define the purpose of life. Most answers usually center around happiness, success, and living “the good life.” That seems to be something to agree on. Of course not everyone agrees on HOW to get there. Christianity lays out one path. Buddhism another. Islam a different route. And Agnostics come up with their own formula. Nowadays everyone and their brother is an amateur philosopher. The rapper, Kanye West lays out his plan in one of his popular songs: “Yall pop the trunk, I pop the hood - Ferrari And she got the goods And she got that a**, I got to look - sorry! Yo its gots to be cause Im seasoned Haters give me them salty looks - Lawrys 50 told me, go head, switch the style up And if they hate then let em hate and watch the money pile up The good life Now I, I go for mine, I got to shine (Now throw yo hands up in the sky) Now I, I go for mine, I got to shine” Kanye’s lyrics certainly reflect much of the modern concept of success and happiness, just go for yours and everything will fall into place. But the great philosopher Aristotle disagreed with Kanye. Aristotle said life should be about reaching Eudomonia. Eudomonia is a magical blend of moral virtues and cultivating the right balance between these virtues to create excellent character in yourself. In this book John Wooden takes a world view similar to Aristotles. He is not alone, the famous psychologist, Martin Seligman says, “There are three very different routes to happiness. First the Pleasant Life, consisting in having as many pleasures as possible and having the skills to amplify the pleasures. This is, of course, the only true kind of happiness on the Hollywood view. Second, the Good Life, which consists in knowing what your signature strengths are, and then recrafting your work, love, friendship, leisure and parenting to use those strengths to have more flow in life. Third, the Meaningful Life, which consists of using your signature strengths in the service of something that you believe is larger than you are.” Seligman says this has been proven scientifically: “Chris Peterson at the University of Michigan and Veronika Huta at McGill University have just tested it (the 3 routes to happiness) with converging results that are startling... The target was life satisfaction. They found that both the Good Life and the Meaningful Life were related to life satisfaction. Astonishingly, however, the amount of pleasure in life did not add to life satisfaction.” So it seems that the Kanye West “Hollywood” version of pleasure leading to happiness may be flawed. The idea of the Meaningful Life is nearly identical to John Wooden’s definition of success. Wooden believes that we all cant be billionaires, that some people are born with more natural capacity than others. But he says we had better try to max out our capacity or we will never be truly happy. For Wooden happiness is how you remember your past. How you got to where you are today. He says his favorite poem explains, “At Gods footstool, to confess, A poor soul knelt and bowed his head. ‘I failed,’ he cried. The master said, ‘Thou didst thy best. That is success’.” Wooden says by this measure that, “You are the only one who knows whether you have won. I always wanted my students to know that it was up to each of them to become as good as they could become with the gifts and talents they had been given and in the circumstances in which they found themselves.” Reminds me of Nick Vujicic who was born with no arms and legs. Jonathan Haidt in his book Happiness Hypothesis says, “The final version of the happiness hypothesis is that happiness comes from between. Happiness is not something that you can find, acquire, or achieve directly. You have to get the conditions right and then wait.” In today’s book of the day coach Wooden lays out what he thinks are the ‘conditions’. He calls it his 26 step “Pyramid of Success”: Let’s go through each step, starting with the first 11 today. Tomorrow, well finish up with the rest of the pyramid. 1. Industriousness (hard work and planning): Wooden says simply, “There is no substitute for hard work.” But he adds, “Undirected diligence isn’t very efficient; therefore, some planning must go into hard work. The combination of the two [hard work and planning] produces industriousness.” In my experience success is simple. It’s Plan and Execute. Then modify your plan based on feedback and re-plan and execute again. Just like the scientific process: Formulation of a question Hypothesis Prediction Testing Analysis Tweak Your Hypothesis and Start All Over It’s amazing that most of us never apply the scientific method to our own life since it’s responsible for almost all the good things we enjoy in the modern world. So think back on your life. You either had a good plan and couldn’t execute (which is depressing because you see the fruit hanging right in front of you but you just can’t reach it, just like the story of Tantulus) Or you had a stupid plan and amazing execution (this is a slight nightmare since you will basically create a monster). Or you had a stupid plan and couldn’t execute (I call this ignorant bliss because you never knew how dumb your plan was because you couldnt pull it off). Or you were one of the 5% who had an amazing plan and executed on it (this of course will bring you health, wealth, love and happiness). 2. Enthusiasm: Wooden explains, “If we are to succeed, we have to enjoy what we do. If we enjoy what we do, we will be enthusiastic about it. Enthusiasm thereby enables us to push as hard as we need to push for as long as we need to push to achieve our best.” When I first read this I disagreed a bit because I have seen the idea of “do what you love” fail so often. Allan Nation told me once, “Tai don’t do what you love because once you do it for a job you won’t love it anymore. Do what you like.” It’s kind of like marrying someone you lust after. Lust will go away and if you aren’t married to someone you get along with also as a friend, well that marriage will probably be short lived. I remember that I used to love Salsa dancing. I went almost every night. I competed, loved it. Then I decided to open salsa nightclubs and guess what happened? I never really danced again for years. Once it was a job all the ‘love’ for it when away. I was interested though to see that Wooden adds, “As beneficial as enthusiasm is, it must be dispatched in moderation. Extreme highs do not work. In fact, too much emotion can be counterproductive. Highs lead to lows, and such swings of intensity result in instability. I wanted my players on an even keel so that their thinking wasn’t adversely affected by emotion. Quiet enthusiasm gets results. It exudes confidence and rubs off in wonderful ways.” 3. Friendship: He says, “People make us better… We were not designed to go through life alone… Make friends and maintain friendships.” 4. Cooperation: Wooden explains, “Some individuals, such as writers and scientists, often work alone and accomplish much. But in my opinion, those who primarily work alone will never become all they could become if they were working in cooperation with others.” You could probably argue this both ways in my opinion. There is an interesting new book: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Cant Stop Talking by Susan Cain where she argues that introverted, non social people like Bill Gates are the ones who change the world. Maybe the answer is somewhere in the middle - being able to be alone when needed to concentrate but selectively partnering up with amazing people. In Michael Eisner’s great book Working Together: Why Great Partnerships Succeed he writes how Bill Gates told him, “‘I’ve never done anything solo… Except take tests. But with the exception of that, I would always seek someone out’.” Eisner adds, “It’s clear from the early part of Bill’s life that partnerships were integral to all that he did at warp speed.” It’s kind of like dating. It’s better to be alone than in a relationship with a horrible person. But like Dr. Agus says in A Short Guide to a Long Life by David B. Agus M.D. if you can find a good person to live with you will be a heck of a lot happier. 5. Loyalty 6. Self-Control 7. Alertness 8. Initiative: Wooden says, “Cultivate the ability to make decisions and think alone. Do not be afraid of failure, but learn from it.” This follows what Joel Salatin used to tell me, “Tai, do something - even if it’s the wrong thing.” Initiative creates momentum. Mikhail Tal the chess grandmaster played a momentum game. He wouldn’t always have the best position on the board but he still won because he kept one step ahead of his opponent. The person with momentum usually wins. Wooden says, “My college coach once said, ‘The team that makes the most mistakes will probably outscore the other one’.” (Love that. Need to write it on my hand and look at it every time I have a tough decision to make). At the talk I just did in Sweden I talked about the “Law Of Junte” which is a tradition in Sweden that basically discourages people from trying new things. The fear of failure is intense here in Sweden but I see that fear all over the world. It’s flawed because, remember, the average millionaire failed 2 or 3 times before hitting it big. The question that always plagues me is even if you eliminate your fear, how in the world can you know what the right thing to do is. We never have 100% of the facts in front of us. I recently read a genius answer in the The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell. He says General Colin Powell follows the “40%-70% rule.” Powell says that every time you face a tough decision you should have no less than forty percent and no more than seventy percent of the information you need. Once you have that much info just decide. This is the balance between getting too little information and making a mistake and waiting too long and overthinking it. Genius answer in a world of so many choices and so much “Paralysis by over analysis.” 9. Intentness: Wooden says, “Intentness is the ability to resist temptation and to avoid rabbit trails of distraction. An intent person will stay the course and go the distance. He or she will concentrate on objectives with determination, stamina and resolve. Intentness is the quality that won’t permit us to quit or give up, even when our goal is going to take a while to accomplish. Our society has been permeated by a mindset of immediate gratification. Simply put, people are impatient. They want too much too soon. They have lost sight of an overarching truth: in life, worthwhile accomplishments and acquisitions take time. Usually, the better the reward, the more time it takes to acquire it. Intentness gives us the doggedness to hang in there and overcome impatience. Intentness is patience with action.” This is just too good for me to even attempt to comment on actually. Focus Tai, focus... 10. Condition: Wooden basically says rest, exercise, and eat healthy. 11. Skill: I think this is the defining part of success. Inborn talent is in some ways just a myth. Read Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice by Matthew Syed. Syed makes a compelling case that we think people are born with innate talent. But Syed has the science to prove that it’s not about talent, it’s about purposeful practice and skill building. I wrote an article that said: “The average millionaire does NOT have a genius IQ. Research has shown this to be true. Jay Zagorsky, author of a study on wealth and IQ and a research scientist at Ohio State University s Center for Human Resource Research says ‘People dont become rich just because they are smart,” he said “Your IQ has really no relationship to your wealth.’ Warren Buffett, one of the richest billionaires in the world says that if you have an IQ over 130 you should sell the extra to someone else. Your IQ has LITTLE to do with how wealthy you become. My mentors taught me that what is important is building skill. You have to let go of the ‘Talent Myth’. The belief that some people are just born with natural skills that make them successful. We now know this may be the biggest lie ever forced on humans in the last 500 years. Let me quote from ‘The Independent”: “What if our deepest assumptions about success in education and sport – indeed, in life itself – are misconceived? “ A ground-breaking study on British musicians found that the top performers had learned no faster than the lower performers. The various groups improved at almost identical rates. The difference was simply that top performers had practiced for more hours. Further research has shown that when top performers seem to possess an early gift, it is often because they have been given extra tuition at home by their parents. And the same insight is revealed by looking at child prodigies who seem to have been blessed with amazing skills. But research proves otherwise. Tiger Woods, for example, was considered The most talented player of all time” But remember Woods was given a golf club five days before his first birthday; that by the age of two he had played his first round; that by five he had accumulated more hours of practice than most of us achieve in a lifetime. Way back in 1896 the French psychologist, Alfred Binet experimented with two math geniuses against two ordinary cashiers from a department store in Paris. The cashiers had an average of 14 years experience in the store, but no natural mathematical talent. Binet made the 2 groups compete on math problems. And guess what - the ordinary cashier was faster than the ‘math prodigies’. So just old fashioned practice made the perfectly normal people smarter than the prodigies. Recently Professor Brian Butterworth of UCL, the worlds foremost expert on mathematical expertise, has put it: There is no evidence for differences in innate specific capacities for mathematics. Carol Dweck, a leading psychologist and Matthew Syed’s recent research shows that instead of inborn talent it’s more about a mentality of practice, purposefulness and what scientists call a ‘growth mindset’. And if you study millionaires you see that they were not concerned with the hand that life had dealt them at birth. No, my mentors taught me that we have everything we need right in our own power no matter how much ‘talent’ we were born with. Once you understand this you will be set free from the myth that keeps so many people poor.“ Now John Wooden doesnt completely agree with me or the book “Bounce”. He thinks that talent is somewhat inborn and adds, “God only made one Kareem Abdul Jabbar.” But where we agree is that we must all focus on building skills in areas that are our strengths. Whether or not those strengths are innate is irrelevant semantics. Now finding out what your real strengths are is trickier than you think. I wrote about Peter Drucker’s opinion in a past article. This is just the first 11 steps of the pyramid. Stay tuned tomorrow for the top half of the pyramid. Stay strong, Tai P.S. Quote Of The Day: “Success is peace of mind that is the direct result of self satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” - John Wooden P.P.S. I just launched a book-of-the-day Facebook group >>CLICK HERE TO JOIN NOW>> on.fb.me/1E9eFzq
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 21:23:53 +0000