June 2010
Being Prepared for Opportunities and Challenges
About seven years ago, I set out on a journey to co-author a book with Jamaal Wilkes and Pete Nelson to be titled Crunch Time. Our plan was to interview people who were known to be successful in a wide variety of professions and to write a book about how they were able to successfully get through important, pressure-filled, make-or-break moments in their lives.
Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, who passed away this month, was one of the 28 people we interviewed. After spending about three hours with him in his humble condo in Encino, I can testify that all the widely circulated stories and personal memories of him are true. He was a great man who lived a simple life based on simple truths and who made a positive impression on millions of lives. What would the world be like if all of us left such a legacy?
In our book, which for interesting reasons became titled Success Under Fire: Lessons for Being Your Best in Crunch Time, we identified Six Principles of Success from the stories our interviewees told us. While John Wooden certainly practiced all Six Principles, his strength was in teaching others to be “Prepared for Opportunities and Challenges.” I can hear him now, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”
Coach Wooden talked about two aspects of being prepared. First, there was developing and practicing a skill over and over again so that when you needed to use the skill it was natural and easy to do. The other aspect was being mentally prepared, by not being affected by pressures outside of oneself that make situations more challenging than they need to be. For Coach, every moment was just that particular moment in time, nothing more or less important because of the meaning that might be attributed to it by others.
In honor of and in the spirit of John Wooden — who famously said, “Flexibility is the key to stability.” — this newsletter has a variety of articles related to learning how to be better prepared for opportunities and challenges in managing your business in this New Economy. It is obvious that things are not going to bounce back to where they were before the economic downturn began, almost two years ago. It’s more important than ever to keep learning and listening for ways to be successful in the future, so one article in this month’s newsletter presents several events that we can attend to do just that. An article by Vistage Group Member Susan Holguin examines the exciting, often cost-saving benefits of video conferencing. And my Web editor, Doug Drenkow, has contributed a great article about the life and lessons of leadership left to us by Coach John Wooden.
I hope that you find all these articles useful and inspiring, so that you can be your very best and seize the opportunities that come your way.
To your success!
Gail Schaper-Gordon, Ph.D.
Business Psychologist and
Vistage CEO Group Chair