One of the great leaders in sports history is John Wooden. John Wooden was one of the best coaches in history. During a 12 year span in his coaching career, while John Wooden was the head basketball coach at the University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) his teams won ten national championships, including seven in a row. It took John Wooden years to develop his formula for success and documented the formal in his pyramid of success. This pyramid took years to create (started in 1932 and finalized in 1948) and became John Wooden’s roadmap to success.

At the core of the Pyramid of Success was John Wooden’s definition of success – “ Success is peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you’re capable”. John Wooden had a great teacher in his father. In Johnn Wooden’s book on Leadership, he recalls an early lesson from his father to him and his brothers – “Sons,” he would tell my three brothers and me, “don’t worry about whether you’re better than somebody else, but never cease trying to be the best you can become. You have control over that; the other you don’t.”

The message is the same – you define your success, others don’t. Too often we measure success by money, possessions, being better than others or popularity. Take a lesson from John Wooden, every day is an opportunity to do your best and be satisfied in that. You define your success, others don’t.