How Good Do You Want To Be?

Nick Saban: How Good do you want to be?

I have heard that this book was a good book for a coach to read.
Here are some notes that I took:

*The Basics: Work to DOMINATE your opponent.
1. Be a team and do things together.
-everyone accomplishes more.
2. Being positive affects your team.
-be a positive coach/teammate.
3. Individual responsibility for self determination.
-be responsible for what you do.
4. Be a champion on and off the floor

-Be relentless in the pursuit of your goals, resilient in the face of adversity and overcome your own errors and mistakes.
-Your opponent should never determine your level of competitive spirit.

-Be focused on the process of being a champion.
-Champions take on an attitude of dominance everywhere they go.

-Eliminate clutter in your life.

*Foundations for a championship team:
-Develop a good product
-Know the competition
-Teamwork
-Create a culture of expectations
-Branding your product
-Discipline
-Commitment
-Toughness
-Effort
-Pride

*5 Lessons Coach Saban has learned:
1. Work with a purpose
-Invest your time, don’t spend it. Investing time can impact the results dramatically.
2. You don’t always get what you want, but you always get what you deserve.
3. Promise a starting time, but not a quitting time.
4. Patience is a necessity for success. The pyramids took 76 years to build!
5. Enjoy your work. 80 % of Americans dislike their jobs.

*Ability to persevere during difficult times:
-The author of Chicken soup of the soul was rejected 140 times
-Dr Seus’s first book was rejected 23 times
-In 1968 John Akhwari from Tanzania ran in the Olympic Marathon and finished over an hour after everyone else. When asked why he didn't quite or stop the race he said, ” My country did not send me 7 thousand miles to BEGIN a race, they sent me to FINISH the race!”

*Two more feet
-In 1849 a miner dug for gold and finally gave up, sold his claim and left. The next miner in that exact area dug down just two more feet and found one of the largest gold deposits ever recorded in history.

*The competitive spirit:
-Don’t look at the scoreboard...compete against you.
-Find honor on how you compete
-Worry about things only YOU can control.
-Stay focused at all times, but don’t have tunnel vision.
-Champions can NEVER relax.
-Success is never final and failure in never fatal.
-Lessons should be learned in success AND failure.
-Complacency allows teams and people to fall!

*Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan will never allow success to create complacency. It motivates them to reach for a higher standard. What is your capacity for success? How do you handle it?

*Know the competition
-It is critical to know as much about your opponent as possible.

1. Anticipate
-Noah anticipated and prepared as he built the ark awaiting the great flood.
2. Prepare for adverse situations.
3. Embrace change.
4. Change can lead to a better choice.
5. Make a decision and never look back

*Teamwork
1. Do not allow mistakes to go uncorrected.
2. Talent is defined as "putting skills into productive use"
3. Trust your teammates.
- Ben Franklin said before the revolutionary war, “We must, indeed, all hang together on this or we shall hang separately.”
4. Teams must take ownership of themselves.
5. Teams that play hard often end up lucky.

*A review of the “Disease of Me.”

-7 issues that destroy a team
1. Not dealing with success.
2. Chronic feeling of feeling unappreciated.
3. Feeling cheated out of one’s rightful share.
4. Resenting teammates.
5. Selfishness.
6. Forming cliques.
7. Individual frustrations even when the team performs well. (The "POOR ME" Syndrome)

*Looking for Dominance
-There is no I in team but there is an I in WIN.
-Fundamentals
-Do not blink
-Having skill is not having talent.
-Create a nightmare for your opponents.
-Very good teams make other teams quit.
-Dominant teams do not look at the scoreboard.
-You always come with you’re A-Game.
-Do not allow complacency
-Enjoy playing the best...even on their turf!

* Leadership
1. Being a leader is about vision, organization, and anticipation.
2. Great leaders stand up through adversity.
3. Great leaders create ownership by their team.
4. Great leaders embrace future leaders.
5. Great leaders pick their battles.
6. Great leaders do not rush to make changes because of failure.
7. Great leaders hire good people and not “yes” men.
8. Great leaders make tough decisions.
9. Great leaders do not have all the answers, but they find them.
10.Great leaders are not always very popular.

*Communication
1. Communicate with your staff.
-They always need to know what is to be expected of them.
-Are you making your assistants better coaches?
-Always be clear with your expectations.
2. Listen twice as much as you talk.
3. Teach your players how they need to communicate.
4. Communication does not always mean talking.
5. Choose your words wisely.
6. Be wary of the Internet.
7. First impressions are so important.
8. Don’t let problems linger!

*Motivation
1. Pre-game talks are over-rated!
-What is said during the week of practice is more important. A message is more important than a motivational talk.
2. We all motivate differently.
3. Passion is a key to motivation.
4. Strive for intrinsic motivation.
5. Discipline is not punishment. It does not motivate. Discipline is done for people to change their previous behavior.
-Punishment just makes people suffer

*Education
-Coach Saban talks about how he got a poor grade on his report card as an eighth grader His father took him to a local mine shaft, took him down to the bottom and turned the power off and asked him if this is what he wants to do the rest of his life?

*Doing the right thing
1. It takes a lifetime to build a reputation but only a few seconds to lose it. Example: Woody Hayes hitting an opponent.
2. Be honest.
3. Do the right thing.
4. Never take anything for granted.