Bobby Clark: They Called Him Boss

Here's an awesome tribute to Bobby Clark, recently retired coach of Notre Dame men's soccer: "They Called Him Boss."

Direction

"Direction is more important than speed."

Bill Belichick On Goal Setting

From an interview with Bill Belichick: 
Q: "With all you have accomplished in your coaching career, what is left that you still want to accomplish?"
A: "I'd like to go out and have a good practice today. That would be at the top of the list right now."

Core Values: USC Football (Pete Carroll)

Three Rules
Rule 1: Always protect the team
Rule 2: No whining, No complaining, No Excuses
Rule 3: Be early

Here's more.

My Coaching Philosophy

I posted an older version of this document last year (my "program philosophy"). I've modified the document since then and wanted to share the latest version:

Areté

I first heard the word 'areté' when listening to Brian Johnson interview Dean Karnazes, ultramarathon runner and author of Road to Sparta. It fits really neatly with the idea of "helping players become the best version of themselves." Areté is defined as "living at your highest potential moment to moment to moment."

Here's a video that describes the concept in more detail: 

Process

"A goal without a plan is a wish." - Antoine de Saint Exupéry

My Favorite Lines: Extreme Ownership By Jocko Willink And Leif Babin

The following are a few of my favorite lines from Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin:

Introduction
"The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails."

"Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame."

Chapter 1: Extreme Ownership
"On any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win."

"When subordinates aren't doing what they should, leaders that exercise extreme ownership cannot
blame the subordinates. They must first look in the mirror at themselves. The leader bears full responsibility for explaining the strategic mission, developing the tactics, and securing training and resources to enable the team to properly and successfully execute. If an individual on the team is not performing at the level required for the team to succeed, the leader must train and mentor that underperformer. But if the underperformer continually fails to meet standards, then a leader who exercises extreme ownership must be loyal to the team and the mission above any individual. If underperformers cannot improve, the leader must make the tough call to terminate them and hire others who can get the job done. It is all on the leader."

--

To be continued ... 

Terrier Identity

The following is from an article on Huddersfield's David Wagner:

"We call it the Terrier's identity. Exactly the style of football I love is like a terrier. We are not the biggest dog, we are small, but we are aggressive, we are not afraid, we like to compete with the big dogs and we are quick and mobile and we have endurance. We never give up. This small dog has fighting spirit for sure." 

"I don't set targets because sometimes targets are limits and we don't like limits. But I'm not a dreamer, I'm a worker."

How The Astros Went From Baseball's Cellar To The 2017 World Series By Ben Reiter

This is awesome: How The Astros Went From Baseball's Cellar To The 2017 World Series.

"The Astros, though, never claimed to own a crystal ball, or that they would never make a mistake. They always expected to make many of them. Their goal was to make marginally more correct decisions than their competitors in the long haul."

"The most remarkable thing of all about the Astros is this: they told everyone exactly what they were going to do—and then they did it."

Play Like A Beast

"You play at the rhythm you train at. If you train badly, you play badly. If you work like a beast in training, you play the same way." - Pep Guardiola

PJ Fleck Choosing Culture Over Results In 'Year Zero' For Gophers

Here's another good article about PJ Fleck.

"When are you guys going to be tired of being average?" - PJ Fleck, halftime speech 

How To Lead A School From Worst To Best

Why Top Players Have A Greater Influence On Teammates Than You Might Think

How Marcus Mariota Became The Best Leader In The NFL

Here is a great article about Marcus Mariota and his leadership qualities. Here are a few stories:

1. “Last year, there was a rookie who didn’t have a car,” said Ben Jones, the Titans’ center. “Marcus found out and he’d drive the rookie back and forth. Even after games, we’d land late at night, he’d go 30 minutes out of his way.” Who was it? “He didn’t make the team,” Jones said.
2. In the middle of this August, Titans players were roaring and ready for a training camp off-day. As soon as their meetings the night before are done, they are gone. “Everyone’s in a rush to get out,” Cassel said. “There’s these folding chairs in the meeting room that weren’t put away. [Mariota] walks in the back of the meeting room and starts folding them up and going and helping somebody who [would have to do it]. There is no other player who is doing this. I’m ready to get out of there, and I see that and I’m like, ‘Oh, OK, I’ll help too.’” Other playersfollowed suit.
3. Darnell Arceneaux, Mariota’s high school coach, said there was a tradition at Saint Louis High School in Hawaii in which the lowest quarterback on the depth chart would pick up equipment after practice and carry it to the locker room. That tradition stood until Mariota wouldn’t let anyone else pick up balls and cones at practice. “So we’ve got this guy who has already committed to Oregon and he’s bringing in as many footballs as he can,” he said. “It was amazing.”

The Glory of God By Alistair Begg

"The Lord our God has shown us his glory." - Deuteronomy 5:24

God's great design in all His works is the manifestation of His own glory. Any aim less than this would be unworthy of Himself.

But how shall the glory of God be manifested to such fallen creatures as we are? Man's eye is not single in its focus; he always has a side glance toward his own honor, has too high an estimate of his own powers, and so is not qualified to behold the glory of the Lord. It is clear, then, that self must stand out of the way, that there may be room for God to be exalted. And this is the reason why He often brings His people into straits and difficulties, that, being made conscious of their own folly and weakness, they may be fitted to behold the majesty of God when He comes to work their deliverance. He whose life is one even and smooth path will see but little of the glory of the Lord, for he has few
occasions of self-emptying and hence but little fitness for being filled with the revelation of God. They who navigate little streams and shallow creeks know but little of the God of tempests; but they who are "doing business on the great waters"1 see "his wondrous works in the deep."2 Among the huge waves of bereavement, poverty, temptation, and reproach, we learn the power of Jehovah, because we feel the littleness of man.

Thank God, then, if you have been led by a rough road: It is this that has given you your experience of God's greatness and loving-kindness. Your troubles have enriched you with a wealth of knowledge to be gained by no other means: Your trials have been the crevice of the rock in which Jehovah has set you, as He did His servant Moses, that you might behold His glory as it passed by. Praise God that you have not been left to the darkness and ignorance that continued prosperity might have involved, but that in the great fight of affliction you have been qualified for the outshinings of His glory in His wonderful dealings with you.

Click HERE for the full devotional. 

How Do You Want To Be Remembered?

In Depth with Graham Bensinger - Kobe Bryant 

Graham Bensinger: "How would you like your career to be looked back on?"

Kobe Bryant: "I would love people to look back on my career and say that I maximized everything that I possibly could; every ounce of talent that I had, I got the most out of it. And if people can say that about me, I'll be very happy."

The Importance Of Body Language By Geno Auriemma

UCONN women's basketball coach, Geno Auriemma, on the importance of body language:

The Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it." - Matthew 13:44-46

An Olympic Coach On How To Train Smarter, Not Harder

Here's an interesting article on peak performance: https://heleo.com/conversation-an-olympic-coach-on-how-to-train-smarter-not-harder/14901/.

Hope

From Grit by Angela Duckworth:

What is hope? 

One kind of hope is the expectation that tomorrow will be better than today. It's the kind of hope that has us yearning for sunnier weather, or a smoother path ahead. It comes without the burden of responsibility. The onus is on the universe to make things better. 

Grit depends on a on a different kind of hope. It rests on the expectation that our own efforts can improve our future. I have a feeling tomorrow will be better is different from I resolve to make tomorrow better. The hope that gritty people have has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with getting up again. 

The 25 Leadership Lessons Of Steve Kerr

Here's a great article looking into why the Golden State Warrior's have been so successful without Steve Kerr on the sidelines and what that says about his leadership qualities: Steve Kerr's Absence - The True Test Of A Leader.

Bill Belichick's 5 Rules Of Exceptional Leadership

Here's a great interview with Bill Belichick:

In the video, Belichick's discusses what he's learned about leadership during his 17 years in charge of the New England Patriots:

1. Leadership means building a team that's exhaustively prepared, but able to adjust in an instant
2. Leadership means having the discipline to deploy your "dependables"
3. Leadership means being the boss
4. Leadership means caring about everything going on in the lives of your people
5. Leadership means never resting on your laurels

Stay At 17 Inches

Below is a great article about standards:

In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old and five years retired from a college coaching career that began in 1948. He shuffled to the stage to an impressive standing ovation, wearing dark polyester pants, a light blue shirt, and a string around his neck from which home plate hung — a full-sized, stark-white home plate.

Seriously, I wondered, who in the hell is this guy?

After speaking for twenty-five minutes, not once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach Scolinos appeared to notice the snickering
among some of the coaches. Even those who knew Coach Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was going with this, or if he had simply forgotten about home plate since he’d gotten on stage.

Then, finally …

“You’re probably all wondering why I’m wearing home plate around my neck. Or maybe you think I escaped from Camarillo State Hospital,” he said, his voice growing irascible. I laughed along with the others, acknowledging the possibility. “No,” he continued, “I may be old, but I’m not crazy. The reason I stand before you today is to share with you baseball people what I’ve learned in my life, what I’ve learned about home plate in my 78 years.”

Several hands went up when Scolinos asked how many Little League coaches were in the room. “Do you know how wide home plate is in Little League?” After a pause, someone offered, “Seventeen inches,” more question than answer.

“That’s right,” he said. “How about in Babe Ruth? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?”

Another long pause.

“Seventeen inches?”came a guess from another reluctant coach.

“That’s right,” said Scolinos. “Now, how many high school coaches do we have in the room?” Hundreds of hands shot up, as the pattern began to appear. “How wide is home plate in high school baseball?”

“Seventeen inches,” they said, sounding more confident.

“You’re right!” Scolinos barked. “And you college coaches, how wide is home plate in college?”

“Seventeen inches!” we said, in unison.

“Any Minor League coaches here? How wide is home plate in pro ball?”

“Seventeen inches!”

“RIGHT! And in the Major Leagues, how wide home plate is in the Major Leagues?”

“Seventeen inches!”

“SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!” he confirmed, his voice bellowing off the walls. “And what do they do with a a Big League pitcher who can’t throw the ball over seventeen inches?” Pause. “They send him to Pocatello!” he hollered, drawing raucous laughter.

“What they don’t do is this: they don’t say, ‘Ah, that’s okay, Jimmy. You can’t hit a seventeen-inch target? We’ll make it eighteen inches, or nineteen inches. We’ll make it twenty inches so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches.'”

Pause.

“Coaches …”

Pause.

” … what do we do when our best player shows up late to practice? When our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him, do we widen home plate?

The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach’s message began to unfold. He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed, complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows. “This is the problem in our homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our discipline. We don’t teach accountability to our kids, and there is no consequence for failing to meet standards. We widen the plate!”

Pause. Then, to the point at the top of the house he added a small American flag.

“This is the problem in our schools today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and discipline our young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where is that getting us?”

Silence. He replaced the flag with a Cross.

“And this is the problem in the Church, where powerful people in positions of authority have taken advantage of young children, only to have such an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our church leaders are widening home plate!”

I was amazed. At a baseball convention where I expected to learn something about curveballs and bunting and how to run better practices, I had learned something far more valuable. From an old man with home plate strung around his neck, I had learned something about life, about myself, about my own weaknesses and about my responsibilities as a leader. I had to hold myself and others accountable to that which I knew to be right, lest our families, our faith, and our society continue down an undesirable path.

“If I am lucky,” Coach Scolinos concluded, “you will remember one thing from this old coach today. It is this: if we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of what we know to be right; if we fail to hold our spouses and our children to the same standards, if we are unwilling or unable to provide a consequence when they do not meet the standard; and if our schools and churches and our government fail to hold themselves accountable to those they serve, there is but one thing to look forward to …”

With that, he held home plate in front of his chest, turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside.

“… dark days ahead.”

Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at the age of 91, but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players and coaches, including mine. Meeting him at my first ABCA convention kept me returning year after year, looking for similar wisdom and inspiration from other coaches. He is the best clinic speaker the ABCA has ever known because he was so much more than a baseball coach.

His message was clear: “Coaches, keep your players — no matter how good they are — your own children, and most of all, keep yourself at seventeen inches.”

Carry On, My Son

I'm always interested in watching how coaches communicate with their players. Here's a great video of Steve Kerr talking to Steph Curry:

Training Load

Below is a chart our staff came up with to talk about training load in practice and formulate a plan for the weeks ahead:

*RPE stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion; it describes the physical intensity of a practice session. 

Toronto Maple Leafs (1960s)

Inscribed in the original Toronto Maple Leafs dressing room at Maple Leaf Gardens: "defeat does not rest lightly on their shoulders."

Core Values: USA Basketball (2008) (The Players)

Gold Standards

1. No Excuses
- We have what it takes to win

2. Great Defense
- This is the key to winning the gold
- We do the dirty work

3. Communication
- We look each other in the eye
- We tell each other the truth

4. Trust
- We believe in each other

5. Collective Responsibility
- We are committed to each other
- We win together

6. Care
- We have each other’s backs
- We give aid to a teammate

7. Respect
- We respect each other and our opponents
- We’re always on time
- We’re always prepared

8. Intelligence
- We take good shots
- We’re aware of team fouls
- We know the scouting report

9. Poise
- We show no weaknesses

10. Flexibility
- We can handle any situation
- We don’t complain

11. Unselfishness
- We’re connected
- We make the extra pass
- Our value is not measured in playing time

12. Aggressiveness
- We play hard every possession

13. Enthusiasm
- This is fun

14. Performance
- We’re hungry
- We have no bad practices

15. Pride
- We are the best team in the world and we represent the best country

Man On A Mission: Brother O'Connell And The Rise Of Kenyan Athletics

In The Gold Mine Effect, one of the talent 'gold mines' Rasmus Ankersen examines is St. Patrick's High School in Kenya, specifically their athletics program coached by Colm O'Connell. Here is a great documentary featuring O'Connell and the world champion runners he's coached:

The Man Who Thinks He Can

“Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man. Sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.” 

- Vince Lombardi

Core Values: Boise State Football (Chris Petersen)

1. Accountability
Make decisions with the knowledge that your actions control not only your own destiny, but the program's too.

2. Unity
Understand and embrace your role; use it to lift others.

3. Integrity
Do unto others as you would have them do to you; free yourself of pride arrogance and falseness. 

It's About Belief

Here is Colm O'Connell, godfather of Kenyan running, discussing the role talent plays in the success of world champion marathoners (taken from The Gold Mine Effect by Rasmus Ankersen):

“People make a big mistake when they believe that the discussion is about good and bad genes. In reality, it’s about belief. What do you think is possible? There is no more running talent in Kenya than in Britain, but the British believe there is. And if you believe you are limited by your genes you will probably never invest what it takes to become good. You’ve excluded yourself.” Here in [Kenya], nobody is in doubt.

Core Values: Pittsburgh Riverhounds (Dave Brandt)

1. Team is conditional.
2. Team is first.
3. We are not entitled.
4. We look to help.
5. We ask for nothing.
6. Everyone leads.
7. We ‘sweep the sheds.’
8. We don’t complain.
9. We show no weakness.
10. We finish.
11. “If you work your balls off, you’re going to get rewarded.”

Core Values: Messiah Men's Soccer (Dave Brandt)

1. We dare greatly.
2. We work hard.
3. We choose to be positive.
4. We mean no offense and take no offense with each other.
5. We show no weakness.
6. We finish strong.
7. We walk like champions.
8. We support the team mission regardless of our circumstance.
9. We are a collection of friends first, soccer players second.
10. We seek excellence in all areas of our lives, not just soccer.
11. We want our four-year experience to have an unspeakable impact on our lives.

Core Values: Cal Rugby (Jack Clark)

Jen Sinkler conducted a great interview with Cal rugby coach, Jack Clark. In the interview, Clark shares 10 values that drive his team's winning culture:

1. Love conditionally
2. Be thoroughly accountable
3. Share a vocabulary
4. Practice resiliency
5. Expect everyone to lead
6. Improve relentlessly
7. Get a great coach
8. Value team

Core Values: Navy SEALs

The Seal Code
1. Loyalty to country, team and teammate
2. Serve with honor and integrity on and off the battlefield
3. Ready to lead, ready to follow, never quit
4. Take responsibility for your actions and the actions of your teammates
5. Excel as warriors through discipline and innovation
6. Train for war, fight to win, defeat our nation’s enemies
7. Earn your trident everyday

You're A Weber Boy

Below is a story I've heard Coach Brandt repeat often. It's told by Stu Weber, former Green Beret and now pastor of a church in Portland, Oregon.

Grandpa and Grandma and I were seated in the kitchen nook, at the old, yellow Formica table, playing Parcheesi. To my frustration, I had fallen well behind in the game, and I was becoming desperate. The last thing a scruffy little boy would ever want to do is lose to his own grandma. So I cheated. And I got caught.
 
The game stopped. So did the chatter. My grandma turned her eyes to my grandpa, and the mood in the kitchen turned very serious. I felt my face getting hot. Grandpa dropped his glasses down to the tip of his nose, and he looked directly into my eyes. “Stu,” he said, “you’re a Weber boy. And Weber boys don’t lie, cheat, or steal.”

The story is about identity. Stu Weber is a Weber boy. And because he is a Weber boy, he must not lie, cheat and steal. His actions are rooted in his identity. 

Stu Weber goes on to talk about the impact that moment had on him later in life:

Twenty years later, when a superior officer in the Army directed me to falsify a report, I refused to lie. That night at the Formica table flashed through my mind, and I remembered my grandpa’s words: “Weber boys don’t lie, cheat, or steal.”

Later, quite apart from any initiative on my part, the inevitable investigation (which deception always breeds) was launched. Not only was my own name clean, but the senior commander actually commended me.

Gus' Toy Box

Here is an awesome excerpt from Run with the Horses by Eugene Peterson:

I once knew a man who had come to this country after World War II as a displaced person. He had been a skilled cabinetmaker in his home country but after the war he had to settle for a job as sexton in a church. Not long after I became a pastor in that same church I also became a father. Toys began to accumulate around the house. Knowing of his dexterity with tools and lumber, I asked Gus if he would throw together a toy box for me when he had a few minutes. I wanted a storage bin for the toys; I knew Gus could do it in an hour or so. Weeks later he presented our family with a carefully designed and skillfully crafted toy box. My casual request had not been treated casually. All I had wanted was a box; what I got was a piece of furniture. I was pleased, but also embarrassed. I was embarrassed because what I thought would be done in an off hour
had taken many hours of work. I expressed my embarrassment. I laced my gratitude with apologies. His wife reproached me, "But you must understand that Gus is a cabinetmaker. He could never, as you say, 'throw' a box together. His pride would not permit it." That toy box has been in our family for over fifty years now and rebukes me whenever I am tempted to do hasty or shoddy work of any kind.

Peyton Manning's Summer School

Peyton Manning's Summer School is one of the best documentaries I've seen:

Core Values: New Zealand All Blacks

The First XV
1. Sweep the Sheds
2. Go for the Gap
3. Play with Purpose
4. Pass the Ball
5. Create a Learning Environment
6. No Dickheads
7. Embrace Expectations
8. Train to Win
9. Keep a Blue Head
10. Know Thyself
11. Sacrifice
12. Invent your own language
13. Ritualise to Actualise
14. Be a Good Ancestor
15. Write Your Legacy

*For more, read Legacy by James Kerr or this article by Ian Brookes.

Core Values: Ohio State Football (Urban Meyer)

Our Purpose is Clear: NINE UNITS STRONG

1. I am member of an elite team of warriors, a group of men with an uncommon commitment to a common purpose.
2. Our brotherhood has been forged through rigorous training, unrelenting discipline and painful adversity. We train to fight and we fight to win.
3. I have an obligation to hold my unit accountable and be held accountable for our actions.
4. I will do my job. I will hold my point.
5. Nothing is more important than my connection to my unit.
6. My actions, my words, and my attitude are all in alignment with our purpose.
7. I trust my unit leader and his vision for our unit.
8. I seek no glory for myself but for my unit and for my teammates.
9. To be a brother in such a unit is a privilege I must earn every single day.
10. The culture of our unit begins with my character.
11. The team's core values are my core values.
12. I am not perfect and strive to fix the problem areas in my life.
13. I behave in a way that shows my unit that they can count on me in the most difficult of situations. 14. My response will be greater than any event I face.

*For more read Above the Line by Urban Meyer. 

Core Values: San Francisco 49ers (1979 - 1988) (Bill Walsh)

Standard of Performance

1. Exhibit a ferocious and intelligently applied work ethic directed at continual improvement.
2. Demonstrate respect for each person in the organization.

3. Be deeply committed to learning and teaching.

4. Be fair.

5. Demonstrate character.

6. Honor the direct connection between details and improvement, relentlessly seek the latter.

7. Show self-control, especially under pressure.

8. Demonstrate and prize loyalty.

9. Use positive language and have a positive attitude.

10. Take pride in my effort as an entity separate from the result of that effort.

11. Be willing to go the extra distance for the organization.

12. Deal appropriately with victory and defeat, adulation and humiliation.

13. Promote internal communication that is both open and substantive.

14. Seek poise in myself and those I lead.

15. Put the team’s welfare and priorities ahead of my own.

16. Maintain an ongoing level of concentration and focus that is abnormally high.

17. Make sacrifice and commitment the organization’s trademark.

*For more, read The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh. 

Core Values: UNC Women's Soccer (Anson Dorrance)

*For more, read The Man Watching by Tim Crothers. 

What Is Hard Work by Alan Stein

Alan Stein narrated the Steph Curry video I posted a few weeks ago. In the video below, Stein talks about what it means to work hard:

Stein says that in order to make it in basketball, you must do three things: 

1. You need to work hard
2. You need to work smart
3. You need to work consistently

He also defines what it means to work hard:

You take yourself to the point of discomfort. That can be physical; that can be mental;
that can be emotional. But you take yourself out of your comfort zone.

He continues:

If you guys want to make it, you have to learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. And if you want to be great. If you want to be like a Kevin-Durant-type player, you have to make working hard a habit. Every time you enter the gym to workout or to practice or to play a game, you have a choice to make. You have the choice to work hard. Or you have the choice to not work hard. And most of you don't grasp that not working hard is a conscious choice.

The Transformative Power Of Accumulation (UNCOMMEN)

I wrote this post for a friend who helps with UNCOMMEN.org.

UNCOMMEN exists to encourage men to be better leaders, husbands and dads by equipping individuals and organizations with inspiring and educational resources. Our vision is to help men succeed at being the man they were always meant to be.

-- 

I'm not free thinker. I prefer reading what others have to say, organizing ideas and making connections. So this post isn't as much original writing as it is highlights from a few books (and one video) that have inspired me.

I particularly like reading about people who are good at what they do. One of the most fascinating things about high performers is how much consistency exists across disciplines. High performers in sports, business, the military and every other field are all the same. Their big secret is there is no big secret; they are regular people who choose to do small things well, day after day, year after year, all pointed in the same direction.

Below are sections from three books that have contributed to the way I understand excellence (or greatness or success):

Champions: The Making of Olympic Swimmers by Daniel Chambliss
Daniel Chambliss wrote Champions after observing the practice habits of Olympic swimmers ahead of the 1988 Olympic Games. A year later, he wrote a follow-up article called "The Mundanity of Excellence." Both are awesome.

They become champions by doing what needs to be done, by doing everything right, by concentrating on all the silly details that others overlook. What makes them champions is the knowledge—and the action following from that knowledge—that champions are only real people, not gods, and that all it takes to be a champion is to do what champions do.

The ‘big secret’ that all the visitors around the world came looking for was—that there is no ‘big secret.’ There is only the will to swim for miles and miles, all the turns done correctly, all the strokes done legally, all the practices attended, all the weights lifted, and all the sprints pushed to the point of exhaustion, day after day for years and years.

This is a ‘heroic’ conceit—a literary device, basically—and it actually does a terrible injustice to the athletes, for the heroic conceit mystifies excellence, removing it from the routines of daily life where it must, each day, be lived; it looks back over years and years of small events and tries to explain them in a quick phrase: ‘a career of excellence,’ ‘incredible dedication,’ ‘the will to win.’ So it fails, finally, to do justice to the drab routine of athletic training, and it presents dedication, too, as a gift—as something that one day you just ‘have’ (like ‘talent’). In fact, world-class athletes get to the top level by making a thousand little decisions every morning and night. If you make the right choice on each of these—decide to get up and go to practice, decide to work hard today, decide to volunteer to do an extra event to help your team—then others will say you ‘have’ dedication. But it is only the doing of those little things, all taken together, that makes dedication. Great swimmers aren’t made in the long run; they are made every day. 

Doing is the only thing that counts. The truth is simple: most swimmers choose everyday not to do the little things. They choose, in effect, not to win. They say, ‘I could do this workout if I wanted to.' In some sense, everyone ‘could’ win the Olympic Games, but ‘could’ doesn’t count. The gold medal is reserved for those who do.

Good to Great by Jim Collins
Good to Great examines key differences between great and mediocre companies. Defining the Flywheel Effect, author Jim Collins looks at the incredible effort required to rotate a 5,000 pound flywheel. He writes:

Now suppose someone came along and asked, 'What was the one big push that caused this thing to go so fast?' You wouldn't be able to answer; it’s just a nonsensical question. Was it the first push? The second? The fifth? The hundredth? No! It was all of them added together in an overall accumulation of effort applied in a consistent direction. Some pushes may have been bigger than others, but any single heave—no matter how large—reflects a small fraction of the entire cumulative effect upon the flywheel. The flywheel image captures the overall feel of what it was like inside the companies as they went from good to great. No matter how dramatic the end result, the good-to-great transformations never happened in one fell swoop. There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no wrenching revolution. Good to great comes about by a cumulative process—step by step, action by action, decision by decision, turn by turn of the flywheel—that adds up to sustained and spectacular results.

Resilience by Eric Greitens
Resilience is a collection of letters written by former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens to another former SEAL plagued by depression, alcoholism and debilitating lack of purpose. The quotes below are from a chapter called "Habits":

The direction of a person’s life is shaped not by a single turning point, but by thousands of days, each filled with small, unspectacular decisions and small, unremarkable acts that make us who we are.

For most people engaged in pursuits of excellence, we are not dealing with a single important day of decision. We are instead dealing with days and weeks and months and years of accumulated effort, consistent practice, and wise habit formation.

Steph Curry: A Case Study
Steph Curry is a great model of what these authors are describing. Once overlooked by every major college basketball program in the country, Curry is now the best shooter in the NBA and winner of back-to-back MVP awards. Trainer Alan Stein offers great insight into Curry's transformation:

In the video, Stein describes Curry as the least recognized player at Kobe Bryant's Nike Skills Camp. But because of Curry's work habits, Stein labels him the most impressive. Here's what Stein observed:

Thirty minutes before every single workout, most players were still in their flip-flops and had on their headphones, and Stephen Curry had already started doing some form shooting. He had already started taking game shots from games spots at game speed. By the time the workout officially started, he had probably already made 100, 150 shots and was in a full sweat. When the workout actually started, he was meticulous with everything that he did. He made sure that he had perfect footwork. He made sure that he had perfect shooting form. If he did anything and it wasn’t perfect, he did it over again.

He continues:

The moral of that story is that success is not an accident. Success is actually a choice. And Steph Curry is one of the best shooters on the planet today because he has made the choice to create great habits. And my question to you is: are the habits that you have today on par with the dreams that you have for tomorrow? That’s something that you need to ask yourself every single day. Because whatever you do on a regular basis today will determine where you will be tomorrow.

The Challenge
If Chambliss, Collins, Greitens and Stein (and countless others) are to be believed, excellence is simple. But if excellence is simple, why is excellence so UNCOMMEN? The answer: excellence costs. Legendary West Point football coach Red Blaik, a mentor of Vince Lombardi's, preached to his teams: "anything is ours provided we are willing to pay the price." If you want to achieve excellence—at work, at home, in your faith, in your relationships—you can. But don’t be fooled, you must pay the price. The price of excellence is the price of building good habits. The habits that transformed Steph Curry into the superstar he is today were not bought cheaply. They came at the expense of physical comfort, time with friends, sleeping in and looking cool (it's not cool to workout when your teammates are still in their flip flops). Whatever that means for you, excellence will always cost.

A Word To The Wise
It’s true excellence builds through accumulation. But so does mediocrity. We've witnessed the cumulative effect of small things done well. But the cumulative effect small things done poorly is equally powerful—as is the cumulative effect of neglect. Be sure the small things you do on a daily basis are taking you where you want to go; good or bad, they are in the driver's seat.