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Ever since I moved to Los Angeles years ago I’ve been hearing about a basketball coach named John Wooden. He’s everywhere. An athletic club I’ve frequented has a John Wooden award. Books have been written about him – good books, books people actually read. Recently when I took a seminar at UCLA I heard some more about Wooden there too. This guy’s an icon.
John Wooden is the former UCLA basketball coach who won eleven out of twelve NCAA national championships. The most championships that anyone else has ever won were three in a row.
So I decided to read up and see what Wooden did so well. And it looks like Wooden did mainly one thing: He forced his players to be honest and to eliminate rationalization. Did a player do his best in the game? That’s what mattered. If an individual player did not do his best, he was a loser. Wooden told his players:
His essential message was clear: Even if you lost and didn’t have the most points on the board, if you gave your heart and soul to the game and did your best, you still won. He wanted his players to be honest in having given their best and in never settling for less than they were capable of.
Because he could inspire his players to be completely honest and give each game their all and eliminate rationalization, his teams kept winning.
Are you honest with yourself? Do you consistently give the most of yourself that you can give—or do you make excuses? Most people make excuses for not reaching their full potential. The average life is littered with excuses about why we fell short, why things didn’t work out as planned.
Chances are pretty good that if you wanted something badly and did not make excuses along the way there’s little you could not accomplish — CEO of a major company, expert in your field, successful entrepreneur.
Successful people achieve because they set goals and don’t make excuses; they put in the effort. When I meet incredibly accomplished people, I’m often struck by how average they initially seem. And, true, they may be average in some ways, but unlike so many others, they refuse to rationalize in the areas of their lives they want to improve. Excuses are simply not part of their vocabulary.
The more you’re able to eliminate excuses from your life, the better. Excuses are “softeners” that allow you to feel good about yourself for not reaching your potential.
Think about some of the things you may have wanted to accomplish in your life. Maybe a better job, more friends, greater wealth, more time with your family — everyone has dreams. But the sad fact is that most people never accomplish these dreams. And the reason they never do is because they’ve become experts at rationalization:
Just about everyone I know is expert at using words like if, but, and however. You probably are too. Think of all that you would have become in your life if it hadn’t cost too much time, too much effort, too many resources. Or maybe it was too far, or would take too much time to accomplish.
Most people sit around and never get the results they want from their careers and lives because it will cost them “too much” of something. The people who reach great heights of achievement, though, are those for whom the word too is rarely used as it is above. The real achievers realize that the only way they can make the most of themselves is to banish excuses and give the absolute most they can.
Something I’m sure you‘ve noticed—how can you not?—is just whom people choose to spend their time with. Some people spend their time with those who’ll make them feel good about themselves and allow them to feel comfortable. Others choose people who’ll help them grow. Still others spend time with their peers.
You can usually tell how secure people are by the sorts of friends they have. Insecure people, for example, will generally choose friends who are not their equal, because that helps them feel superior. They’re confident they won’t be challenged or questioned. Conversely, secure people will associate with people who raise the bar, even if it’s demanding or even occasionally uncomfortable.
In a similar vein, some people take jobs that are beneath them. I once knew an honors graduate of Stanford Law School who became a bike messenger. I’ve seen medical doctors working at fast-food restaurants. These are people who want above all to feel comfortable. They shrink from being pushed.
Working in a job that’s below your potential, consistently associating with people who aren’t your peers, seeking out situations where you’ll not be criticized or stimulated—these are “softeners.” By consistently choosing people who won’t question or test you but will allow you to just be comfortable, you set yourself up for a life of mediocrity.
People who are where you’d like to be in your life have not arrived there because they’re lucky; they’re there because they chose situations where they didn’t accept excuses and gave everything they could to get where they wanted to be.
Some of your greatest enemies won’t be the people who tell you what you’re doing wrong; rather, they’re the people who’ll say you’re doing just fine when you really are not. They’ll see all the mistakes you’re making but won’t say anything. They’ll see that you have a lot of potential—but they won’t hold you to that potential. Many of our worst enemies are those who simply don’t hold us to a high standard.
Be sure to surround yourself with people who have high standards. If you want to become a good tennis player, try playing tennis with professional tennis players (I’m not kidding). If you want to become a good attorney, try working with the best attorneys out there. You’ll become really exceptional at something only if you associate yourself with people who inspire you to reach.
Nothing will ever get better in your life until you admit something’s wrong. The difference between winning and losing in life is all an internal game that requires you to tell the truth to yourself. If you tell the truth and don’t use softeners, you’re going to change and get better. Most people are very good at telling themselves stories about why something didn’t work, or why they didn’t need to change. But when you stop making excuses, when you’re honest with yourself – that’s the ultimate game changer.
About Harrison Barnes
Harrison Barnes is the Founder of BCG Attorney Search and a successful legal recruiter himself. Harrison is extremely committed to and passionate about the profession of legal placement. His firm BCG Attorney Search has placed thousands of attorneys. BCG Attorney Search works with attorneys to dramatically improve their careers by leaving no stone unturned in a search and bringing out the very best in them. Harrison has placed the leaders of the nation’s top law firms, and countless associates who have gone on to lead the nation’s top law firms. There are very few firms Harrison has not made placements with. Harrison’s writings about attorney careers and placements attract millions of reads each year. He coaches and consults with law firms about how to dramatically improve their recruiting and retention efforts. His company LawCrossing has been ranked on the Inc. 500 twice. For more information, please visit Harrison Barnes’ bio.
About BCG Attorney Search
BCG Attorney Search matches attorneys and law firms with unparalleled expertise and drive that gets results. Known globally for its success in locating and placing attorneys in law firms of all sizes, BCG Attorney Search has placed thousands of attorneys in law firms in thousands of different law firms around the country. Unlike other legal placement firms, BCG Attorney Search brings massive resources of over 150 employees to its placement efforts locating positions and opportunities that its competitors simply cannot. Every legal recruiter at BCG Attorney Search is a former successful attorney who attended a top law school, worked in top law firms and brought massive drive and commitment to their work. BCG Attorney Search legal recruiters take your legal career seriously and understand attorneys. For more information, please visit www.BCGSearch.com.
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In this article Harrison discusses how persistent pursuit of something you believe in, against all obstacles, is one of the most important keys to success. So many of us just decide at some point not to push through and not to keep going even when a little bit of extra effort would push us through. The secret to being incredibly good at everything is pushing through and getting better and better when others around you are quitting. Even while hiring, employers want experts and people who are the best at what they are doing–they do not want dabblers. They want to hire the person who is incredibly committed to a job and has persisted against odds in one direction when others have given up.
In this article Harrison suggests that you actually may be safer getting a job without the help of family or friends. It is exceedingly rare that a friend or family member will ever be able to get you a position. They may not even want to help you get a job for various reasons. Their involvement in your job search may actually hurt you. The organization may actually look upon you negatively if you try to use a friend or family member to get a job. So going through a close contact is often counterproductive to your job search. Even if you get a position through a friend or family member, you could harm your relationship with that person in the process. Your friend or family member’s act of kindness may ultimately unbalance your relationship. The risks involved in this kind of job far outweigh the potential rewards.
A powerful sense of self will make all the difference in your life. You must understand that your sense of yourself and your capabilities come from inside of you, not from the external forces that have brought you to your current place in life. What you feel internally might be completely different from what the world is telling you, and you must learn to focus on the former rather than the latter.
In this article, Harrison explains the importance of making an effort in your job which is way above what is expected of you. When you have been given certain responsibilities, it means that someone is dependent on you for certain things. When you fulfill these duties far more efficiently, put in a lot more time and effort, and even stay back on weekends and holidays to complete or do extra work, your employers get the message that you are sharing their burden of pressures with them and begin to place tremendous trust in you. This is what paves the path to your promotion and growth in the company. Harrison believes that you need to develop the correct attitude and possess an extraordinary work ethic to thrive in the job you do.
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Adopting a positive attitude will always bring you closer to success, as nobody wants to be associated with a losing side. Everyone wants to associate with and hire winners, and avoids losers. Nothing is more important than maintaining a positive attitude, as many employers hire people based primarily on attitude; with the right attitude, everything else will fall into place. You must look like you are on the winning team, even if times are tough; nobody wants to hire a loser.
The past does not dictate the future, so you should not use inductive reasoning to make conclusions about your life or career. Recognize when you are making incorrect conclusions based on past events, and switch to deductive reasoning in which you are not limited by the past. You will find your conclusions to be much more accurate, and you will succeed as a result.
When I was an attorney, I stopped going out to lunch with other attorneys during the day. The reason was not that I was not hungry. Instead, I stopped going out to lunch because just about everyone I worked with would want to dedicate the lunch to a critique—whether it was critiquing our bosses, coworkers, or others. When these people were not being critiqued, the job itself was being critiqued. When the job was not being critiqued, the attorney’s home life was being critiqued.
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Think about your ultimate purpose in life, and what you are currently doing to accomplish it. Everyone is gifted with unique talents, and a failure to identify and utilize yours would be tragic for your life and career. The greater purpose you identify in your life, the greater the obstacles you will face. If you persevere and push through these hurdles, you will find the rewards to also be correspondingly greater.
Your perceptions of the world determine your reactions, and your reactions in turn determine your destiny. External factors do not dictate your life and destiny so much as your response to them, which is usually dictates by your emotional state. You must challenge yourself to make the best use of disorder in your life, and use it as a basis to develop a superior kind of order.
Be the person you want to be; if you see yourself naturally going in a certain direction, then you must allow yourself to go that way. Be grateful for every little thing in your life, and you will position yourself to receive more good things. You must hold the correct mindset to achieve a successful life and career; “get your mind right”, look at the world differently, and get away from your established ways of doing things.
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It is very important that you always ask questions in an interview when given the opportunity. Here are some good questions to ask and why you should ask them.
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In this article Harrison discusses that there is incredible power which is available out there that we only need to capture in order to achieve what we want in the world. Everything we need and could possibly want is already around us. There is power in existence all around us that is available if we are not limited by our own minds. Anything you believe is possible. It is your beliefs about the way things are that shapes reality. There are forces out there which you can utilize to do and become virtually anything you want to be. There is far more potential in the world, in you, and around you than you realize. Capture it now.
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Very good article.