Building the Pyramid - The First Cornerstone

INDUSTRIOUSNESS
"Success travels in the company of very hard work.
There is no trick. No easy way."

This semester, we are learning about character as we build John Wooden's famous Pyramid of Success together.  Each week, we will focus on another "stone" in the pyramid, culminating with Competitive Greatness the week of first semester exams.   Please take some time this week to discuss Industriousness with your child.


John Wooden on Industriousness 
(Excerpt from Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections)

Industriousness?  In plain language, I mean that you have to work - and work hard.  There is no substitute for work.  None.  Worthwhile things come only from real work.

Businessperson, clergy, doctor, lawyer, plumber, artist, writer, coach, or athlete; all share a fundamental trait if they achieve competitive greatness.  They work very hard.  It is essential and only you really know if you're doing it - giving it everything you've got.

Grantland Rice understood this when he wrote "How To Be a Champion."

You wonder how they do it,
You look to see the knack
You watch the foot in action,
Or the shoulder or the back.
But when you spot the answer,
Where the higher glamours lurk,
You'll find in moving higher
Up the laurel-covered spire,
That most of it is practice,
And the rest of it is work.

So I chose work - Industriousness - as the first cornerstone in the foundation of the Pyramid of Success.  I called it Industriousness to make very clear it involves more than merely showing up and going through the motions.  Many people who tell you they worked all day weren't really working very hard at all, certainly not to the fullest extent of their abilities.

You can work without being Industrious, but you cannot be Industrious without work

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men. - Colossians 3:23