Pyramid of Success 4; Cooperation

"Alone we can do so little;
together we can do so much."
~Hellen Keller

"We must be willing to learn the lesson that cooperation may imply compromise,
but if it brings a world advance it is a gain for each individual..."
~Eleanor Roosevelt

Listen if you want to be heard. Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

It should go without saying that a cheer squad is going to go nowhere if they can't cooperate. Cooperate with their coach and with each other during practice, cooperate with each other during a game or during a stunt. If a train has 8 cars and all 8 want to go in different directions, it won't go anywhere.

I know, I know, once again, it seems like I'm writing this just because I it's something I want this squad to work on, but again, it's just a coincidence. Well, come to think of it, maybe not- maybe Coach Wooden put these blocks in his "Pyramid of Success," because they're problems that every team runs into- even NCAA championship teams like his at UCLA. Maybe he included them because they really are things that everybody needs to achieve success, not just in sports, but in school, and work, and life.

Compromise- sacrificing our own personal self-interests, agendas and ambitions for the sake of what's going to make things work out best for everybody else can be really hard sometimes, but sometimes it's the only way to move forward.

Thomas Jefferson had to put up with a lot of changes to his Declaration of Independence to get it passed Congress.

You may not be Nebraska Cornhusker fans and I wouldn't blame you, they haven't been very good lately. But back when they were a "dynasty" under Coach Tom Osborne, the reason was because they didn't have any hot dogs, no glory hounds, primadonas or spotlight hogs. Every player was a team player, they weren't concerned with personal records or attention, they were all willing to sacrifice for the greater good of the whole team. During the 1980's most Nebraska quarterbacks went on to play as running backs, not quarterbacks when they went on to the NFL- that's because they were never big show offs while they played for the Huskers. The result was 13 conference championships and 3 national championships. That success came from cooperation, not domination.

King Arthur had this motto carved into the round table at Camelot, “In serving each other we become free.”

Think about that. The best way to become free is to voluntarily serve. Sounds illogical, but then, I bet it sounded illogical last time when I told you that you should try to be friends with people you can't stand. "Servant-Leader," it's not really such an oxymoron, actually it's a phenomenal key to success.