Success Advice
The 4 Principles to Excellence

Our college coach, Gordie Gillespie, had this to say about athletic practices, “You play as you practice.” Excellent practices lead to excellent games; poor practices make for poor performance. Dean Smith, the former University of North Carolina basketball coach, believed, “The practices belong to the coaches; the games belong to the players.” The practices must properly prepare the players for the games.
Practices in athletics can be based on four principles. Are these four principles relevant to the training in your business or your organization? Does your organization’s training properly prepare your people for excellence in execution of your policies?
1. Effort
Vince Lombardi, the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, used to tell his players, “We will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way we shall catch excellence.” I don’t think you ever reach perfection, but you can reach the goal of excellence.
Lack of effort, sloppy play, and poor concentration cannot be accepted in practices and must be addressed immediately and emphatically. The great coaches critique the action, not the person’ with one exception. If a player has been corrected for the same error repeatedly, the coach can and should question his attitude and his commitment to his teammates.
A major factor in catching excellence is mental errors. Most losses are the result of mental, not physical, mistakes. Lack of concentration leads to shabby execution. Bob Knight, the former Indiana and Texas Tech coach, used to say the mental is to the physical as 4 is to 1. We thought it might be closer as 10 is to 1. If excellence is to be achieved, mental effort and concentration must be paramount in both training and practices.
2. Toughness
The second important principle in practices is that they must be physically and mentally demanding. Please think of THE BEST teacher you ever had. If I were to ask you to raise your hand on one of these two questions about that teacher, which one would you choose?
Was he easy? Was he tough and demanding?
I believe most of you, if not all of you, would choose the latter for two reasons. That demanding teacher may have taken you to levels even you didn’t think were attainable. Secondly, that teacher may have made you tougher and may have given you the GIFT of toughness.
The gift of toughness was best articulated in the title of Reverend Robert Schuller’s outstanding book, Tough Times Never Last but Tough People Do. There is a lot of adversity in life and none of us are exempt. Toughness does help us get through the difficult times.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle
3. Repetition
Repetition is critical for practices to be effective. John Wooden, the iconic UCLA basketball coach, believed in the adage, “Repetition is the mother of learning.” Too often students or players are labeled as dumb too quickly. If they had the time to repeat the task often enough, they could very well master it.
Imagine being Rudy from the movie, “Rudy.” For the first twelve years of his education – first grade to senior year in high school – he was told he was too dumb to learn. It wasn’t until his first year at Holy Cross Junior College that diagnostic testing informed him that he had dyslexia. He says it was the best day of his life because now he knew why learning came so difficulty.
Through the repetition of the fundamentals of football and repetition of his classwork, Rudy earned his degree and his spot on the football team at the University of Notre Dame. When an action happens in game situations, Players do the following:
See, think, react or read, relate, react.
Great players and great teams eliminate the second step. Instead, they see and react or read and react. There is not enough time to think or relate because the play will be by them. They can quickly react because they have repeated the task so often in practices.
4. Structured
Great practices must be well-organized. It is critical that coaches take the time to meticulously organize practices. Some coaches use the scoreboard to time each segment of the practice. Others write the sequence of drills and scrimmages and ascertain how each segment is performed prior to moving to the next phase.
Some coaches have a practice structure they follow with multiple drills and scrimmages that can be used in each segment.
One format used by basketball coaches is:
- Offensive Fundamentals
- Defensive Fundamentals
- Team Defense
- Team Offense
- Special Situations
Many coaches like to end practice on a fun team drill, so the players will leave on a good note and be ready for the next day’s practice.
Final Thoughts
Consider these four points in organizing your practices or training sessions in pursuit of excellence:
- Chase perfection; catch excellence.
- Make practices/training tough and demanding.
- Give thought to the importance of repetition.
- Devise well-organized practices that end on a positive, fun note.
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Success Advice
How to Break the Cycles of Mediocrity and Manifest Your Greatness
There is no greatness without becoming and there is no becoming with authenticity

In just a few weeks, we will be wrapping up 2023. Can you believe it? This year has been absolutely incredible for me.
I have seen amazing doors opened, new relationships formed and I am seeing dreams realized in my life. While this seems like the hallmarks of a great year, this has also been the most challenging year of my life. With all of the change happening in my life, I have been forced out of my comfort zone and challenged to grow in every area of my life.
I can truly say that I have made the most of my moments this year and I have used everything as a catalyst for maximizing my greatest potential.
As a revolutionary leader, I have the pleasure of consulting and advising leaders around the world to fulfill purpose, realize their greatest potential and make an impact.
I want to share some insights with you that will help you to break cycles of mediocrity and manifest your greatness.
Everything legal must come through the matrix
I am sure that some of you are wondering why I am using the term matrix. However, what you have to understand is that I am trying to make a highly complex spiritual principle practical to understand.
Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, every life has an origin and I believe that origin is divine and begins with eternity. You are birthed from eternity and into time to fulfill a unique purpose and assignment in your lifetime and generation.
The matrix is simply the portal or vehicle that brings something out of the invisible realm and into tangible form. The problem with much of the teaching today is that it excludes the matrix. We are told to believe that success is instantaneous and overnight.
Nobody talks about how a dream progresses through stages beginning with visualization and ultimately culminating in manifestation. Without a matrix or portal then everything that you attempt to birth and build will be illegal.
The matrix not only makes you legal but it gives you the authority and power to function as the greatest expression of who you were created to be.
Every matrix has an incubation process
While many people admire and respect me today, I remember a time when nobody knew who I was or the significance of my message. How did I get to where I am today? I got here through an incubation process.
In other words, everything that has been destined for your life is incubating and awaiting a set time of manifestation. The problem is that most people live their entire lives idle and never initiate the incubation process.
What do I meany by that? Most people are living reckless and very few people are living intentionally. I am amazed at the number of people I have conversations with that have no vision, goals or strategies for their lives. They show great promise and they have undeniable potential.
However, without development they will die with their dreams still in them.
Everything that has been destined for your life must be incubated and converted to become realities born to time.
“Visualize this thing that you want, see it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blueprint and begin to build.” – Robert Collier
You must give expression to that which is not yet born to time
When you think about a matrix or a prophetic incubation process, you have to understand that potential is often unrealized and untapped. In other words, your potential is in raw form and your potential cannot serve you as long as it is untapped.
The thing that makes me valuable is that I have the ability to convert potential into power. I have done it in my own life and I have empowered leaders around the world to do the same. How do you convert potential into power?
First, it is important to note that you have to perceive potential. If you cannot perceive your potential then you can never cultivate your potential. In addition, you must take the time to cultivate your potential. We often get excited about our capabilities; however, we never expand our capacity in order to realize our greatest potential.
In other words, the strength of your potential is only discovered through your willingness to stretch. The more we are challenged the more we are empowered to expand our capacity for greatness. Most of all, you must begin to express your potential. The expression of potential is different for every person.
For example, the expression of my potential is best demonstrated through the thoughts, ideas, products, services, books, etc.
For another person the expression of potential may look like a screenplay, artwork, sports, scientific discoveries, medical breakthroughs, etc.
Regardless of the form of expression, I know that you will live empty and unfulfilled until you make the decision to express your potential. The expression of your potential gives voice to your dreams, life to your vision, significance to your moments and activates your true power.
You must manifest your greatness
As a revolutionary thinker and leader, my work has impacted people around the world. I am grateful that my life is a source of empowerment to so many people. However, before anyone could ever benefit from my life, I had to make a non-negotiable decision to become who I was born to be.
I wish I could tell you that this journey is easy and that you will get there overnight. However, in a world that celebrates us for doing we are often criticized for being. As a result, I wasted a lot of time trying to be who other people wanted me to be instead of being who I was born to be.
There is no greatness without becoming and there is no becoming with authenticity. It is through our bravery to be vulnerable that we ultimately manifest our greatness. We do not bless the world by being a duplicate. We bless the world when we honor our difference. When you honor your difference you honor your potential.
Ultimately, your difference is how you manifest your greatness.
When you present anything but your authentic self to the world, you are playing small and you are robbing the world of your significance. Manifesting your greatness requires you to master your gifts.
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