Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden won 10 national championships in 12 years as head coach.
No other major college athletics coach can boast accomplishments that come close to this.
A consummate coach and educator of people, Wooden’s wisdom and ability to motivate has filled up numerous books on sports, leadership and winning culture.
If you are reading this, chances are you’ve seen his sayings, quotes, or mantras before.
For me, one has always stood out above all.
He would tell his players to “Make each day your masterpiece.”
It’s motivation board material. It’s inspiring. It even sounds impressive.
But what if we really lived that way? How could we even measure such a thing?
What if we spent the next 30 days focused on each day and each day only? Going all out in pursuit of our most important and most inspired goals?
Do I have the energy to go that hard for an entire month? Should people do so in general? How quickly can burnout affect us?
What would change in the next month? What could change?
I sit here and think of question after question, and it makes me angry.
Angry because I don’t know the answers to these questions. Because I’ve never asked them of myself before. But my favorite Chinese proverb is “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but the second-best time is right now.”
Maybe we should find out what’s possible. Let’s practice in public and see how it goes.
Tomorrow, we talk three non-negotiables that must happen to make each day a masterpiece for me in the next 30 days.
What would be your three things?
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