#1 “The key component to any success is the most basic of
human emotions—love.”
When you boil it down to the most basic element, life is
all about love. This book and story
teach us this. The interesting thing is that
you can take just about any action and if it is done out of love, it will have
a long-term positive affect. Often times
we think of love as being something that is always soft, gentle or kind. The De La Salle story teaches us that love
can be tough, direct, and hard at times.
No matter what we do, if our hearts are right, if we do it out of love for
others, no matter what it is, it can be received well by others and can
influence their life for good. When we
have love, our ability to encourage and influence others is tremendously
multiplied.
#2 Stand for something more than winning
Winning provides a certain level of motivation and
satisfaction. It can inspire and push
people to great heights however when we represent something, or dedicate
ourselves to a cause, our efforts and motivation grow beyond what we believe is
possible. De La Salle didn’t focus on or
even care that much about winning. For
their program, it wasn’t about the winning per say, but was about who they
wanted to become and what they wanted to represent. As leaders we need to set a vision higher
than just competing and winning. We need
to establish a vision that stands for something. At De La Salle, they represented and cared
about something greater than winning and that is what inspired and lifted them
to unimaginable success.
#3 Success=Effort
De La Salle’s remarkable success is defined by their extreme
discipline. Their philosophy centered on
the notion that success was based on their individual and collective efforts rather
than on the outcomes of the game. They
strived to give a “perfect effort” in every moment and that is how they defined
success.
Establishing a similar measuring stick, one that is based on the amount
of effort rather than the final result will push all of us to become our best
individual selves. Not everyone can be
the best in the world at everything or win every time, so if that is our goal
we will be disappointed, but each of us can be our best selves by always
putting forth our maximum effort. The
coaches at De La Salle taught that we will all one day eventually regret not
putting forth our best effort; thus every situation in life requires our
personal best.
#4 Decide Now
Rather than wondering what type of effort we will give today,
tomorrow, or a year from now, the De La Salle coaches encouraged their players
to decide now, before the games, practices, or the season even started. They had to decide from day one what kind of
effort they were going to give, and what kind of season they would have.
Waiting to make decisions in the moment, when the pressure is on
will cause us at times to make unwise choices.
If we make our decisions before we ever face the pressure moments, it
will be so much easier to do the right thing.
Like the De La Salle football players, making the decision now on what
type of effort we will give and who we will become will lead us to better
outcomes.
#5 Peer Accountability
Once someone starts holding themselves accountable, or peers hold
each other accountable, than a leader knows his efforts have paid off. Peer accountability is so much more
meaningful and powerful than accountability coming from a designated leader and
this is proven in the book. Part of De
La Salle’s magic is their ability to influence their team members and hold each
other accountable. We must strive to
create and foster similar environments wherever we may find ourselves.
I love the book When the
Game Stands Tall because I believe there are so many important lesson we
can learn from the De La Salle football story.
As we apply even the basic principles listed above we will become much
better leaders and people.
To see how I rate
this book click here
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