Put Your Socks on Right

There's a video on John Wooden's website in which NBA great Bill Walton retells a story about the importance of paying attention to detail involving his legendary UCLA college coach.

In case you didn't know.

Coach Wooden is considered by many to be one of the most successful coaches across all professional sports.

Why you ask?

• He won 10 NCAA National Championships in 12 years while at UCLA
• Seven championships wins in a row
• Four undefeated seasons
• In his 40 years of coaching, he only had one losing season, his first year.
  

He's translated his success off the court in the form several business books focussed on leadership and a corporate leadership program at UCLA.

Anyhow, Coach Wooden gathered a young Bill Walton and several of his teammates and explained the importance of paying attention to detail through the example of socks.

The man known as the Wizard of Westwood believed that success came from paying attention to all the fine details.

You see, to John Wooden's rationale was pretty simple.

If you don't put your socks on properly:

they could lead to blisters;
blisters could lead to irritation;
irritation could lead to distraction;
distraction could lead to turnovers.

And in the closing seconds of a championship game, a turnover could be catastrophic.

The key is understanding the things that fall within the scope of your control regardless how minor, still can make a difference.

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Thanks for reading!

Audley