Book Notes - John Wooden Quotes

I'll be sharing some of my favorite quotes from John Wooden's book, "Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections on and Off the Court."

ON FAILURE

"Are you going to make mistakes? Of course. But it s not failure if you make the full effort." (55)

"If you prepare properly, you may be outscored but you will never lose. You always win when you make the full effort to do the best of which you’re capable." (55)

"You can make mistakes, but you aren’t a failure until you start blaming others. When you blame others you are trying to excuse yourself. When you make excuses you can’t properly evaluate yourself. Without proper self-evaluation, failure is inevitable." (56)

“You must not be afraid to fail. Initiative is having the courage to make decisions and take action…But if you’re afraid of failure, you will never do the things you are capable of doing.” (185)

ON SUCCESS
"The concept that success is mine when I work my hardest to become my best, and I alone determine whether I do so, became central to my life and affected me in a most profound manner. Try your hardest in all ways and you are a success. Period. Do less than that and you have failed to one degree or another." (52)

"You become infected with success when you think that your past is going to have an impact on your future." (56)

"How you respond to past success can be damaging if you let it infect your thinking, if you let it diminish your preparation in the present for the future. Then you’ve been infected with success." (57)

"When you see a successful individual, a champion, a “winner”, you can be very sure that you are looking at an individual who pays great attention to the perfection of minor details." (63)

“I was just as satisfied with my efforts in the fourteen years before we won a national championship as I was the final twelve years, when we captured ten championships." (82)

"Success is peace of mind that is the direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” (170).

“True success is attained only through the satisfaction of knowing you did everything within the limits of your ability to become the very best that you are capable of being.” (192)

“What’s so important to recognize is that you are totally in control of your success – not your opponent, not the judges, critics, media or anyone else. It’s up to you. That’s all you can ask for; the chance to determine your success by yourself.” (193)