Initiative by John Wooden

Cultivate the ability to make decisions and think alone. Do not be afraid of failure, but learn from it.

Initiative is having the courage to make decisions and take action. People with initiative will act when action is needed.

People with initiative use all the information that they've previously acquired in regards to any particular situation, and they act with self-control. People with initiative move forward without fear of failure, even though they might make mistakes or fail.

If we allow the fear of failure to keep us from acting, we will never be a success or reach our full potential. Let's face it, we're all imperfect and we're going to fall short on occasion; but we must learn from failure, and that will enable us to avoid repeating our mistakes. Through adversity, we learn, grow stronger and become better people. When pondering this principle, I think of a poem I once memorized:

When I look back, it seems to me,
All the grief that had to be,
Left me when the pain was O'er,
Stronger than I was before. (Author Unknown)

My college coach once said, "The team that makes the most mistakes will probably outscore the other one." What he meant is that doers make mistakes, but if we aren't doing anything we're making the greatest mistake of all. We must not fail to act when action is needed. We cannot be afraid. We must act anyhow, knowing that at times, we will fail.

There were times when I wasn't happy with practices because we seemed to be afraid to make a mistake. I wanted my players to be active. I wanted them to take initiative. I didn't want them worrying about mistakes, as long as they didn't repeat the same ones over and over. I wanted them to learn from their mistakes. I didn't like conservative practices. I expected a certain number of turnovers in our scrimmages, but I wanted the right kind. Careless mistakes aren't the right kind.

Mistakes made while expanding boundaries are what I wanted. If we weren't making mistakes, we weren't far enough out on the edge. If we weren't pushing against the walls of our capabilities, we weren't practicing correctly. The time to cut down on turnovers is during games, although we should try to avoid them during practice, too. When the game was tight, I wanted the person taking the last shot to be surprised if he missed. When we needed a basket badly, the player who wanted the ball was the one I wanted to have it. For example, in my next to the last game as a teacher, we were two points behind Louisville with only a few seconds to go. We set up a play for Richard Washington. Afterward a reporter asked, "Why did you pick Washington?" I replied, "Because he's not afraid to make a mistake. He thinks he's a pretty good shooter — and he is — but if he misses he'll think, Well, you can't make them all. He won't be devastated. Therefore, he's harnessed his fear. The others might be thinking, I've got to make it. If that's their thinking, they'll be fearful about missing. I didn't want that. I went with Richard."

He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood (Luke 22:44).

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John Wooden was coach of the UCLA Bruins basketball team from 1948-1975 and currently speaks across the country.

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From Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success, ©2005 by John Wooden and Jay Carty. Published by Regal Books, www.regalbooks.com. Used by permission. All rights reserved.