The PGC Blog

Hey, why should you have to study geometry? You’ll never need that stuff. I’ve heard kids say that their fathers sold insurance and never once used geometry. Or their fathers built cars and they never once were asked about ancient history. Smugly, all sorts of kids say and think they will never again need some random stuff they are supposed to learn in school so they feel justified in passing it off and not bothering to learn it.

Scientific experimentation has shown conclusively the value of setting goals. If you have to prepare and mail a thousand letters, and if someone else who works exactly like you has to do the same, you can get your letters done faster by having your thousand in stacks of ten and the other guy’s letters in one stack of a thousand. If he has the stacks of ten and you the one stack of a thousand, he will do his faster.

You need to give your players a realistic opportunity to demonstrate their leadership. Give them some leeway, some space. Make all the corrections and criticisms that you have to. Just hold them for a defined period of time now and then so your players have a chance to show you what they can do. You can’t expect your players to take initiative if you are always taking it for them.

Few athletes are overjoyed at the thought of conditioning. It’s tough. It’s demanding. It causes pain. But everyone has to do it. Conditioning is crucial to success in every sport. The best technique and the most ability won’t help you win if you are too tired to use them. To be a champion, get in great physical condition.

Being organized is an essential ingredient of productivity. If you want to maximize your time and be as effective as possible, you have to be organized. It’s hard to imagine that you are really trying to maximize your abilities if you aren’t attentive to being personally organized. We’re all human. We all make mistakes. We can’t be perfect at everything. But we can have an attitude that seeks perfection as a habit.

Most every athlete has a vivid imagination. Most of us think often of what it will be like standing in the winner’s circle, or on the winner’s platform, or cutting down a net, being carried off a field, standing at a microphone, being interviewed on national TV. Having a vivid imagination not only helps get you through difficult practices and lonely sessions aimed at improving your skills, it also keeps you energized and on course.

Part Two of How to Evaluate Yourself. Stemming from the need for a standard of personal excellence, I offer a citizenship test or “State of the Person” report card. In brief, here are twenty-one categories or subjects in which I think each person should strive to get an A. In my opinion, all A’s in these would qualify a person to think of himself as approaching excellence as a person in the same way Michael Jordan approached excellence as a basketball player. How do you measure up?

How to Evaluation Yourself: Part One. Stemming from the need for a standard of personal excellence, I offer a citizenship test or “State of the Person” report card. In brief, here are twenty-one categories or subjects in which I think each person should strive to get an A. How do you measure up?