How does a coach win a national college basketball championship and get elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame all in the same day? That question should be posed to Rick Pitino, coach of the Louisville Cardinals because he accomplished this earlier this week. Successful thinking had to be a part of the equation.
By many accounts, he had a very successful week. As if winning the college basketball championship was not enough, he also became the first coach to do it coaching two different teams or colleges. This was not his first time coaching a college basketball championship team. You see he has a history of success. His performance will be praised for years to come.
If you participated in college basketball’s “March Madness” by filling in a bracket relative to the tournament and followed Louisville’s road to the final four, you saw just how successful people think and execute when challenged and faced with adversity. Given an injury to one of his key players before the final two games, Pitino and his staff summoned others on the team to step up and perform in order to accomplish their goal.
Don’t know about your picks and results, but our prediction of the college basketball championship tournament this year was squashed after the second round of play. You have to wonder….could successful thinking have worked in changing the outcome? Probably not, as we can speculate most of the other teams were focused on being successful in the tournament as well but it did not work out for them.
So what does this mean for you and your business? While in a bookstore the day after the championship game this week, came across a book by John Maxwell, How Successful People Think, and could not help thinking about Pitino and his thought process in winning the tournament.
In the book, Maxwell says, “The Right THOUGHT plus The Right PEOPLE in the Right ENVIRONMENT at the Right TIME for the Right REASON = the RIGHT RESULT.” He stressed this is the formula for stretching your thoughts and ultimately the potential to achieving something great. There are eleven skills he emphasizes that are critical to becoming a good thinker which inevitably leads to achieving great things. They are:
- Seeing the Wisdom of Big Picture Thinking
- Unleashing the Potential of Focused Thinking
- Discovering the Joy of Creative Thinking
- Recognizing the Importance of Realistic Thinking
- Releasing the Power of Strategic Thinking
- Feeling the Energy of Possibility Thinking
- Embracing the Lessons of Reflective Thinking
- Questioning the Acceptance of Popular Thinking
- Encouraging the Participation of Shared Thinking
- Experiencing the Satisfaction of Unselfish Thinking
- Enjoying the Return of Bottom Line Thinking
After reading through the list, did it occur to you how thinking in this fashion can be liberating to you and your business. Go pick up your copy of the book, it is a quick read and will get you focused on how your thinking can influence and determine success in your business.
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