My Favorite Lines: A Man's Search For Meaning By Viktor Frankl

Below are a few of My Favorite Lines from A Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. You can find all my notes HERE.

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“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your inner freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.” - p. x

“Don’t aim at success -- the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what you conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run -- in the long run, I say! -- success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.” - p. xv

“A man’s suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the ‘size’ of human suffering is absolutely relative.” - p. 44

“In attempting this psychological presentation and a psychopathological explanation of the typical characteristics of a concentration camp inmate, I may give the impression that the human being is completely and unavoidably influenced by his surroundings. (In this case the surroundings being the unique of camp life, which forced the prisoner to conform his conduct to a certain set pattern.) But what about human liberty? Is there no spiritual freedom in regard to behavior and reaction to any given surroundings? Is that theory true which would have us believe that man is no more than a product of many conditional and environmental factors -- be they of a biological, psychological or sociological nature? Is man but an accidental product of these? Most important, do the prisoners’ reactions to the singular world of the concentration camp prove that man cannot escape the influences of his surroundings? Does man have no choice of action in the face of such circumstances?

We can answer these questions from experience as well as on principle. The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms -- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, you inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the playing of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.

Seen from this point of view, the mental reactions of the inmates of a concentration camp must seem more to us than the mere expression of certain physical and sociological conditions. Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him -- mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.” - p. 65-66

“Thus it can be seen that mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become ... What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” - p. 104-105

“Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.” - p. 109

“Being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself -- be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself -- by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love -- the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.” - p. 110-111

“The question was whether an ape which was being used to develop poliomyelitis serum, and for this reason punctured again and again, would ever be able to grasp the meaning of its suffering. Unanimously, the group replied that of course it would not: with its limited intelligence, it could not enter into the world of man, i.e., the only world in which the meaning of its suffering would be understandable. Then I pushed forward with the following question: ‘And what about man? Are you sure the world is a terminal point in the evolution of the cosmos? Is it not conceivable that there is still another dimension, a world beyond man’s world; a world in which the question of an ultimate meaning of human suffering would find an answer?’” - p. 118

“First of all, there is a danger inherent in the teaching of man’s ‘nothingbutness,’ the theory that is nothing but the result of biological, psychological and sociological conditions, or the product of heredity and environment. Such a view of man makes a neurotic believe what he is prone to be believe anyway, that he is the pawn and victim of outer influences or inner circumstances. This neurotic fatalism is fostered and strengthened by a psychotherapy which denies man is free.

To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward conditions. As I once put it: ‘As a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, I am fully aware of the extent to which man is subject to biological, psychological and sociological conditions. But in addition to being a professor in two fields I am a survivor of four camps -- concentration camps, that is -- and as such I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.” - p. 130

“Man is not fully conditioned or determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.” - p. 131

Time Management By Andy Stanley

Here's a great section from Andy Stanley's book The Best Question Ever on time management:

Crossing & Finishing (Bob Lilley)

Here's a staple crossing and finishing game that Bob runs often (with a bunch of different tweaks):

It's pretty simple, but it creates a lot of game realistic crossing and finishing situations. The GK plays the Target who lays the ball off to a teammate who plays it wide (this is all free). The Wing receives the ball and crosses it. Three players attack (the Target and two other players) and two players defend (play is now live). The Target always stays but never defends. The other two players attack, defend, then rotate out for two new players. The ball is live until it goes in the goal or out of bounds or the defensive team wins it and plays their Target to go the other way. 

Possession Game (Bob Lilley)

This is a really simple possession game we play often:

Today, we played it where the players on the outside come inside when they receive the ball. There's no scoring (we don't often have scoring in possession games), but the goal is to keep the ball. The big emphasis are passing and moving, creating angles and getting the ball out of areas. We play it two-touch. 

"Fun" Warmup Progression

Here's what Bob did for warmups today: 

In a 20 x 20 box, with half the group (9 players per group) working at a time (the other half was stretching on the outside) ...

1. Tag

2. Tag while dribbling the ball (one ball per player) 

3.  One touch passing with two balls; you can't play the same ball two times in a row (play one ball then go find the other one)

4. Two touch rondo with two balls (7 v 2) 

My Favorite Lines: The Advantage By Patrick Lencioni

Below are a few of My Favorite Lines from The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni. You can read all my notes HERE. 

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“Failing to hold someone accountable is ultimately an act of selfishness.” - p. 59

“There is no getting around the fact that the only measure of a great team -- or a great organization -- is whether it accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish.” - p. 65

“Alignment is about creating so much clarity that there is as little room as possible for confusion, disorder, and infighting to set in.” - p. 74

“A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” - General Patton, p. 79

"All organizations exist to make people’s lives better." - p. 82

“When it comes to creating organizational clarity and alignment, intolerance is essential. After all, if an organization is tolerant of everything, it will stand for nothing.” - p. 91

“Great leaders see themselves as Chief Reminding Officers.” - p. 142

“Most executives get enamored with what candidates know and have done in their careers and allow those things to overshadow more important behavioral issues. They don’t seem to buy into the notion that you can teach skill but not attitude.” - p. 156

Making Practice Like Fortnite By Nick Sciria

Here's a great article by Nick Sciria that makes reference to Daniel Pink's Drive: https://coachnickbasketball.wordpress.com/2018/08/30/making-practice-like-fortnite/.

"Traditionally, motivation in a basketball setting revolves around rewards and punishments. But as JP Nerbun explains, rewards and punishments build compliance, not character. The result becomes players doing things for the wrong reasons—they aren’t doing it because it’s the right thing to do."

French National Team Warmup

Below is a warmup I saw the French National Team doing:

I've used it a few times with the pro team and I really like it. I've added some dynamic stretching and rondo's with guys in the same setup.

Here's the video: https://twitter.com/keepitonthedeck/status/959734820581593088?lang=en.

Iron Cowboy

I randomly watched Iron Cowboy: The Story of the 50.50.50 Triathlon on a bus trip a few weeks back and really liked it. It's "the true story of James Lawrence's herculean 50-day journey to complete 50 Ironman distances in 50 consecutive days in all 50 states as he redefines the limits of what is humanly possible." Here are a couple of my favorite quotes from the movie:

“It was a massive turning point in the journey because I was able to shed a lot of the pain, a lot of the excuses, a lot of the whining, the entitlement. This rebirth happened in Connecticut and from 30 on, I just made a very conscious decision that, look, I am not entitled, I am not complaining, I am here for a reason. And once I made that decision and I just owned what I was doing, my journey changed, the crew’s journey changed, the donations changed. It’s amazing how that one decision and that moment of complete vulnerability and desperation changed the direction of where we were going. It was like the alter ego Iron Cowboy was actually changed.” - James Lawrence

“It was an absolute nightmare, but it was crazy and, looking back, it was awesome. It was a totally character building. And I think that’s what people don’t like. Human beings believe that if things are hard, they’re wrong. They think that nothing should be hard. They don’t like adversity. They don’t like people with positive attitudes in the midst of adversity. Compromise and sacrifice don’t really exist. And they don’t ever see the reward of the refining fire.” - Sunny Lawrence (James' wife)

Packing At The World Cup

Created by Impect, the packing stat tracks the number of defenders bypassed by each pass or dribble (read more about it here). Impect put out the following graphic on Twitter, showing an incredible correlation between packing and results at the 2018 World Cup:

Japanese Show Class At The World Cup 2018

Below are two great articles documenting the Japanese cleaning up after themselves at the World Cup in Russia:

1. Japan Fans Impress By Cleaning Up Stadium
2. Japanese Team Leaves Dressing Room Spotless After Devastating Loss To Belgium

It reminds me of the New Zealand All Blacks 'sweeping the sheds.'

Four Box Passing

Below is an passing exercise I haven't done, but I want to play with a little:

2 v 0 Finishing

Below is a finishing exercise I did with the pro team this morning (Dave Brandt often did a version of this at Navy):

Two Box Passing

Below is a passing exercise I did with the pro team this morning:

Passing Square

Here is a passing warmup I did with the pro team a few days ago:

I Stand By The Door By Sam Shoemaker

Scott Stevens read this poem ("I Stand by the Door" by Sam Shoemaker) during his sermon on Sunday:

"I stand by the door.

I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,

The door is the most important door in the world --

It is the door through which men walk when they find God.

There's no use going way inside, and staying there, 

When so many are still outside, and they, as much as I, 

Crave to know where the door is.

And all that so many ever find

Is the wall where the door ought to be.

They creep along the wall like blind men,

With outstretched, groping hands, 

Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door, 

Yet they never find it ...

So I stand by the door. 

I admire the people who go way in. 

But I wish they would not forget how it was

Before they got in. Then they would be able to help

The people who have not even found the door,

Or the people who want to run away again from God.

You can go in too deeply, and stay in too long, 

And forget the people outside the door." 

Brad Stevens And The Celtics Have A Special Brand Of Toughness By Zach Lowe

Here is a great article on Brad Stevens and the toughness he's instilled in his Celtics team.

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"Toughness is king." - Celtics staff

"Toughness is being able to physically and emotionally perform your task through any condition." - Unknown

"If things are going well in a home game, do you get caught up in that, or do you keep playing the right way? If things are going like they were going in the second quarter last night [when the Sixers went on a run], do you say, 'I have a job to do and I'm going to do it, and I don't care that everyone is going nuts over this [Joel] Embid dunk?' That is toughness. It sounds cliche, but the hardest thing to do is stay in the moment and do your job." - Brad Stevens

"Do use your youth as excuse. Expedite your learning curve. If there's film to watch, or something your need to work on with a coach, go do it." - Brad Stevens

"Gather enough tough players and it can have an exponential effect on a team's collective toughness. They inspire each other to more intense fury. They hold everyone accountable; even brief moments of lethargy and weakness are unacceptable. Wyc Grousbeck, the team's owner, compares them to a crew rowing together: they feel when one guy is giving only 90 percent, and either push him harder or eventually replace him." - Zach Lowe

Pep Guardiola: What Man City Boss Said On Monday Night Football

Here's a good interview with Pep Guardiola from "Monday Night Football."

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"I try to convince them to run like the most humble team in the world, that is our secret, and they know. If they don't do it they don't play, they go alongside me on the bench. I can forgive absolutely everything, mistakes, but if they don't run they are not with us. They have to fight. I don't like to see players saying 'I'm good, the other 10 play for me', I don't like that. You run because after that they are going to run for you. Our physicality in terms of sprints are always high, that is one of our secrets, more than tactics, our spirit, consistency, competition; try to run, that's good."

My Favorite Lines: Above The Line By Urban Meyer

Below are a few of my favorite lines from Above the Line by Urban Meyer. You can find all my notes HERE.

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"We don’t control the events in life, and we don’t directly control the outcomes. But we always have control over how we choose to respond. How we respond means everything. We call it the R Factor." - p. 43

"How you feel is not always the best guide for you what you should do." - p. 47

"Make sure the habits you have today are in alignment with the dreams and goals you have for tomorrow." - p. 51

"Embrace discomfort. Discomfort marks the place where the old way meets the new. Discomfort indicates that change is about to happen. Push through the pain. If it doesn’t challenge you, it will not change you." - p. 52

"If you permit it, you promote it." - p. 74

"Here’s the not so hidden secret for achieving extraordinary success: clarify what you really want, then work as hard as you can for as long as it takes." - p. 91

"Success is cumulative and progressive. It is the result of what you do every day. ... Success is not achieved by an occasional heroic response. Success is achieved by focused and sustained action. All achievement is a series of choices. The bigger the achievement, the longer the series and more challenging the choices." - p. 91

"It’s your training versus his training." - p. 102

10-80-10 Principle: "At the very center of it, the nucleus, are the top 10 percenters, people who give all they’ve got all the time, who are the essence of self-discipline, self-respect, and the relentless pursuit of improvement. ... Outside the nucleus are the 80 percenters. They are the majority  -- people who go to work, do a good job, and are relatively reliable. ... The final 10 percenters are uninterested or defiant. ... How well you perform as a team is going to depend on the work you do with the 80 percenters. That’s why I devote more time to them by far than to either of the 10 percenters." - p. 161-162

"I can’t relate to lazy people. We don’t speak the same language. I don’t understand you. I don’t want to understand you." - p. 164 (Kobe Bryant)

"If your habits don’t reflect your dreams and goals, you can either change your habits or change your dreams and goals.” - p. 174

Real Sports with Bryan Gumbel: Nebraska Women's Bowling

I randomly caught an episode of Real Sports with Bryan Gumbel featuring the Nebraska women's bowling team and their coach, Bill Straub. The program has won 10 NCAA National Championships since 1991. Here's a trailer for the episode:

I'm struck by how much consistency exists amongst successful athletic programs across all sports -- and even more broadly, successful organizations in any arena. Again and again: there's no secret sauce, just small things done well, over and over and over again. 

Navy Men's Soccer (Dave Brandt): Style of Play

Some clips illustrating Navy men's soccer's style of play under Dave Brandt:

Joleon Lescott’s Defensive Masterclass

Below is a good video of Joleon Lescott demonstrating how to step / drop the back line (0:50 - 1:12):

10-80-10 Principle

I'm in the process of typing up My Favorite Lines from Above the Line by Urban Meyer and decided to give this concept it's own post. The following is an excerpt from pages 161 - 164. 

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There is a theory about human behavior called the 10-80-10 principle. I speak of it often when I talk to corporate groups or business leaders. It is the best strategy I know for getting the most out of your team. Think of your team or your organization as a big circle. At the very center of it, the nucleus, are the top 10 percenters, people who give all they’ve got all the time, who are the essence of self-discipline, self-respect, and the relentless pursuit of improvement.

They are the elite--the most powerful component of any organization.

They are the people I love to coach.

Outside the nucleus are the 80 percenters. They are the majority --people who go to work, do a good job, and are relatively reliable. The 80 percenters are for the most part trustworthy and dutiful, but they simply don’t have the drive and the unbending will that the nucleus guys do. They just don’t burn as hot.

The final 10 percenters are uninterested or defiant. They are on the periphery, mostly just coasting through life, not caring about reaching their potential or honoring the gifts they’ve been given. They are coach killers.

The leadership challenge is to move as many of the 80 percenters into the nucleus as you can. If you can expand the top 10 percent into 15 percent or 20 percent, you are going to see a measurable increase in the performance of your team. By the end of the 2014 season, our nucleus group was close to 30 percent. We did that by challenging our top 10 percent to identify and go get some of the 80 percenters and, in turn, influence the 80 percent to elevate their level of play, deepen their commitment, and give more of themselves for the program. We wanted our top 10 percent to be leaders who influenced and motivated others. This is essential because leadership is about connecting. Leadership is an activity that happens person to person and heart to heart. It’s about engaging deeply with others and inspiring them to be better.

When I coached Tim Tebow at Florida, he was a leader and an influencer. He’d come in my office and we’d say to each other, “Let’s go get an eighty today and get him into the top ten.” It was a daily, intentional priority for Tim and for me.

How well you perform as a team is going to depend on the work you do with the 80 percenters. That’s why I devote more time to them by far than to either of the 10 percenters. As much as you love your top 10 percenters, you don’t need to motivate them because they are doing it by themselves. Everybody -- coaches, staff, trainers -- wants to be around these elite people. They are positive, high-achieving people, and it’s fun to associate with them. But remember, your goal as a leader is to build and motivate your whole team, and the way to do that is to focus your attention on the 80 percenters.

On the other end, the bottom 10 percenters are not really worth wasting any energy on. It took me a while to realize this. For years I would try to change them. I would look at their corner-cutting ways and take it as a challenge to make them see the virtue and satisfaction that comes with working hard and getting results. It was probably arrogant on my part to think I could get them to change. The lesson I learned was this: time is a nonrenewable resource. If you waste it, you never get it back, so it’s essential to pick your battles wisely.

We talk about that at length at Ohio State. The hours you spend trying to motivate a guy who doesn’t care about getting better or about being there for the team are hours you would be much better off investing elsewhere. Players under stress from problematic family situations or dealing with drug-related issues, my staff and I will do whatever we can to help. If you want to get better and battle through adversity, we will be right there with you. The bottom 10 percent that I’m referring to are the players who have only one gear and don’t want to find another one. I had a player once who was the quintessential bottom 10 percent guy. He had the natural ability not only to make it to the NFL, but to be a really good NFL player. He was smart and had many advantages to capitalize on. He was on scholarship for four years, but the money that the school spent on him was wasted. He did little as a player and even less as a student. I talked to him. Mentored him. Other coaches did as well. We tried to help him see how he was slacking his way right out of a degree. Our efforts proved futile.

When we discover that a player is willfully resistant to our efforts and refuses to take advantage of the resources we provide, we redirect our attention elsewhere.

Kobe Bryant expressed it well. “I can’t relate to lazy people,” he said. “We don’t speak the same language. I don’t understand you. I don’t want to understand you.”

Old Practice Plans

Below are sample practice plans I created for a coaching seminar in 2013:

Attacking Moves 1

Attacking Moves 2

Cutting

Passing & Receiving

Ball Striking

Quadrant Passing

I haven't run this yet, but here's another idea for a passing warmup:

I would dictate the first few patterns, then let players play freely within the rules of the exercise: 

1. You and your partner must always be in different lines (horizontally and vertically).

2. You can never receive the ball in the same quadrant two times in a row.

Poles Passing

Below is the passing warmup I ran this morning:

... and another I did in a small group session: 

Curriculum: Future Stars Development League

Below is the curriculum I created in 2013 for a youth development league:

And here is a video demonstrating the eight skills featured in the curriculum:

US3 Homework: Ball Striking & Finishing

Below are videos I created in 2012 to help players improve their ball striking and finishing:

Ball Striking

Inside of the Foot Finishing

Shooting on the Dribble

Crossing & Finishing

US3 Homework: Passing

Below are videos I created in 2012 to help players improve their passing:

1 & 2 Touch Passing

Receiving Across Your Body

Turning

Driven Balls

US3 Homework: Dribbling

Below are videos I created in 2012 to help players improve their dribbling:

Cuts 

Attacking Moves

Vs

Shake & Bake

My Thoughts And Prayers Are With You

From Scott Steven's sermon at Northway Church this morning: "'My thoughts and prayers are with you' has become the spiritualized way of abandoning the responsibility of being involved in other people's lives and trying to meet their brokenness with the love of God."

Is The Patriots' Secret Weapon Their Character Coach? By Lorenzo Reyes

Here's a good article on the New England Patriot's 'character coach,' Jack Easterby. A few lines from the article:

“Character and the kind of people you hire is something that our country is in desperate need to get back to evaluating. Unfortunately, sometimes it matters most when we count it the least. And when we evaluate it the least, it matters most. It’s tough, but we have seen a lot of businesses and industries fall because of a lack of character."

“I just think that love wins. Communication with others wins. Servanthood wins. That’s why when we went through some of the stuff we went through earlier this year, it was a conversation, not a judgment."

“My role is to simply serve. To help them create healthier relationships, healthier viewpoints, so that they can become the kind of people they want. Doing that would make them more sustainable in just about everything.”

What Drives Winning: Brad Stevens

I've posted content from What Drives Winning in the past. Led by Brett Ledbetter, "What Drives Winning is an conversation on how to repurpose sport to build character." I'd especially recommend the videos; every one is gold. Below are all the videos featuring Brad Stevens, head coach of the Boston Celtics:

A Conversation with Brad Stevens & Geno Auriemma: Part I

A Conversation with Brad Stevens & Geno Auriemma: Part II

A Conversation with Brad Stevens & Geno Auriemma: Part III

A One-on-One Conversation with Brad Stevens: Part I

A One-on-One Conversation with Brad Stevens: Part II

A One-on-One Conversation with Brad Stevens: Part III

My Favorite Lines: Champions By Daniel Chambliss

Below are a few of my favorite lines from Champions: The Making of Olympic Swimmer by Daniel Chambliss. You can find all my notes HERE.

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“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 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.” - p. 14

“The difference, what makes Schubert and a few others remarkable, is not their knowledge, not something that could be learned from a book, symposium, or clinic, but simply their willingness to do
what is necessary. All the ‘little’ things Schubert began in his first summer at Mission mattered.” - p. 32

“He attracted others who wanted to become great and were willing to pay the price.” - p. 37

“Going to the beach is fine, but if you want to be on this team, you have to come to practice. You see
these guys? They want to be national champions, and as a team we want to be national champions. If you want to be one, you can train with us. If you don’t, you can train somewhere else.” - p. 61

“I just came here to get more guts.” - p. 69

“This is an ‘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 you 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.” - p. 94

“Hard training was the key to success; if the preparation was right, the performance would follow.” - p. 114

“There was no room for being ‘cool,’ for staying even a little bit detached.” - p. 172

“[Meagher] had become excellent, she believed, by doing fairly ordinary things consistently and with care. She was better than most swimmers, she thought, because she worked hard and enjoyed it … and because of a whole series of mundane habits she had developed over the years.” - p. 200

“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.” - p. 215

Complainers By Rudy Francisco

"Complainers" by Rudy Francisco is a spoken-word poem performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: 

"Remember that every year two million people die of dehydration so it doesn’t matter if the glass is half full or half empty, there’s water in the cup. Drink it and stop complaining."

High Standards By Jeff Bezos

Below is an excerpt from Jeff Bezos' annual letter to Amazon shareholders. It's very good.

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Intrinsic or Teachable?

First, there’s a foundational question: are high standards intrinsic or teachable? If you take me on your basketball team, you can teach me many things, but you can’t teach me to be taller. Do we first and foremost need to select for “high standards” people? If so, this letter would need to be mostly about hiring practices, but I don’t think so. I believe high standards are teachable. In fact, people are pretty good at learning high standards simply through exposure. High standards are contagious. Bring a new person onto a high standards team, and they’ll quickly adapt. The opposite is also true. If low standards prevail, those too will quickly spread. And though
exposure works well to teach high standards, I believe you can accelerate that rate of learning by articulating a few core principles of high standards, which I hope to share in this letter.

Universal or Domain Specific?
Another important question is whether high standards are universal or domain specific. In other words, if you have high standards in one area, do you automatically have high standards elsewhere? I believe high standards are domain specific, and that you have to learn high standards separately in every arena of interest. When I started Amazon, I had high standards on inventing, on customer care, and (thankfully) on hiring. But I didn’t have high standards on operational process: how to keep fixed problems fixed, how to eliminate defects at the root, how to inspect processes, and much more. I had to learn and develop high standards on all of that (my colleagues were my tutors).

Understanding this point is important because it keeps you humble. You can consider yourself a person of high standards in general and still have debilitating blind spots. There can be whole arenas of endeavor where you may not even know that your standards are low or non-existent, and certainly not world class. It’s critical to be open to that likelihood.

Recognition and Scope
What do you need to achieve high standards in a particular domain area? First, you have to be able to recognize what good looks like in that domain. Second, you must have realistic expectations for how hard it should be (how much work it will take) to achieve that result – the scope.

Let me give you two examples. One is a sort of toy illustration but it makes the point clearly, and another is a real one that comes up at Amazon all the time.

Perfect Handstands
A close friend recently decided to learn to do a perfect free-standing handstand. No leaning against a wall. Not for just a few seconds. Instagram good. She decided to start her journey by taking a handstand workshop at her yoga studio. She then practiced for a while but wasn’t getting the results she wanted. So, she hired a handstand coach. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, but evidently this is an actual thing that exists. In the very first lesson, the coach gave her some wonderful advice. “Most people,” he said, “think that if they work hard, they should be able to master a handstand in about two weeks. The reality is that it takes about six months of daily practice. If you think you should be able to do it in two weeks, you’re just going to end up quitting.” Unrealistic beliefs on scope – often hidden and undiscussed – kill high standards. To achieve high standards yourself or as part of a team, you need to form and proactively communicate realistic beliefs about how hard something is going to be – something this coach understood well.

Six-Page Narratives
We don’t do PowerPoint (or any other slide-oriented) presentations at Amazon. Instead, we write narratively structured six-page memos. We silently read one at the beginning of each meeting in a kind of “study hall.” Not surprisingly, the quality of these memos varies widely. Some have the clarity of angels singing. They are brilliant and thoughtful and set up the meeting for high-quality discussion. Sometimes they come in at the other end of the spectrum.

In the handstand example, it’s pretty straightforward to recognize high standards. It wouldn’t be difficult to lay out in detail the requirements of a well-executed handstand, and then you’re either doing it or you’re not. The writing example is very different. The difference between a great memo and an average one is much squishier. It would be extremely hard to write down the detailed requirements that make up a great memo. Nevertheless, I find that much of the time, readers react to great memos very similarly. They know it when they see it. The standard is there, and it is real, even if it’s not easily describable.

Here’s what we’ve figured out. Often, when a memo isn’t great, it’s not the writer’s inability to recognize the high standard, but instead a wrong expectation on scope: they mistakenly believe a high-standards, six-page memo can be written in one or two days or even a few hours, when really it might take a week or more! They’re trying to perfect a handstand in just two weeks, and we’re not coaching them right. The great memos are written and re-written, shared with colleagues who are asked to improve the work, set aside for a couple of days, and then edited again with a fresh mind. They simply can’t be done in a day or two. The key point here is that you can improve results through the simple act of teaching scope – that a great memo probably should take a week or more.

Skill
Beyond recognizing the standard and having realistic expectations on scope, how about skill? Surely to write a world class memo, you have to be an extremely skilled writer? Is it another required element? In my view, not so much, at least not for the individual in the context of teams. The football coach doesn’t need to be able to throw, and a film director doesn’t need to be able to act. But they both do need to recognize high standards for those things and teach realistic expectations on scope. Even in the example of writing a six-page memo, that’s teamwork. Someone on the team needs to have the skill, but it doesn’t have to be you. (As a side note, by tradition at Amazon, authors’ names never appear on the memos – the memo is from the whole team.)

Benefits of High Standards
Building a culture of high standards is well worth the effort, and there are many benefits. Naturally and most obviously, you’re going to build better products and services for customers – this would be reason enough! Perhaps a little less obvious: people are drawn to high standards – they help with recruiting and retention. More subtle: a culture of high standards is protective of all the “invisible” but crucial work that goes on in every company. I’m talking about the work that no one sees. The work that gets done when no one is watching. In a high standards culture, doing that work well is its own reward – it’s part of what it means to be a professional.

And finally, high standards are fun! Once you’ve tasted high standards, there’s no going back.

So, the four elements of high standards as we see it: they are teachable, they are domain specific, you must recognize them, and you must explicitly coach realistic scope. For us, these work at all levels of detail. Everything from writing memos to whole new, clean-sheet business initiatives. We hope they help you too.

Chef Jacques Pepin

"A young, professional chef today should ignore as much as possible the hoopla and glamorization of the trade. Work with a good chef for a couple of years. Be humble, be on time, be neat, be willing, and try to see through the palate and eye of that chef a different taste and sense of esthetic, regardless of your own taste and esthetic. Repeat this experience with another two or three chefs. By then, you will have absorbed a great amount of knowledge. Now, you can give it back and you will be filtering it through your sense of taste and esthetic; now you are creating your own taste and style. At some point you cannot escape yourself. You have to be who you are, but not too fast.‬" - Chef Jacques Pepin

Regret

"What will haunt you until your final breath is who you could have been but never became and what you could have done but never did." - Erwin McManus, The Last Arrow