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Nowhere to Be

Everyone knows the name John Wooden. He coached UCLA basketball for 27 seasons. In that time, he won 10 national championships, seven in a row, plus an 88-game winning streak that still stands as the longest in college basketball history. He was a legend that coached legends.
A noteworthy aspect of Wooden’s accomplishments was his coaching style. On most game nights he sat calmly with his rolled-up program in his hand, simply watching his players perform. He knew the majority of his work had been done in practice and by this point, he had surrendered the outcome. He wasn’t consumed by the scoreboard. He wasn’t obsessed with berating officials. Unlike his coaching peers, Wooden found a way to separate himself from the one thing everyone else was fixated on - the outcome.
It was intentionality, not indifference. And it was grown from deep within him, through years of losing and mediocrity that most disregard. Wooden spent 14 years quietly building his definition of success that had nothing to do with trophies before winning his first championship. Wooden’s definition goes like this: "Success is the peace of mind which is a direct result of the self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable." 
He eliminated the external validation, making it completely absent from his definition of success. Wooden arrived somewhere most people spend their whole lives chasing and never find. Nowhere. He had nowhere to go. Nothing to get. No one to be. 
Why Should We Care?
Most of us are living one step ahead, or behind, ourselves. We're not here, where our feet are. We're on to the next win, reaching for the next promotion, and already working on the next version of ourselves that may (fingers crossed) finally feel like enough. We believe that if we can just get there - wherever there is - we'll be good.  We'll finally lead well, live well and feel like we've made it.
Unfortunately, or fortunately for those who have accepted it, there is no there. And deep down, you already know it. Because no matter how much you chase it, no matter what mountain you climb, there’s always another one.
Some lazily attribute this mindset to a lack of ambition, but ambition isn’t the problem. Ambition isn’t inherently good or bad. The problem is making your peace of mind contingent on outcomes you can't fully control. When that's the deal you've made with yourself, fear runs your decisions, not conviction. You protect the destination and those you lead can feel it. They feel the difference between a leader who is fully present with them and one who is desperately trying to be somewhere else.
Leading from desperation and leading from fullness are two very different things. When we start from a place of fullness, those we lead don’t have to wonder what we need from them because the answer is obvious. We need nothing. We’ve already decided what success is. 
That kind of leadership feels like freedom, not pressure. And the people worth following give that to the people around them because they've stopped needing, not because they've stopped caring.
REAL TALK - Action Steps
Living from a place of nowhere to go and nothing to get requires intentional work. Here are three places to start:

• Define the Score That Matters 
  
  • Wooden's definition of success had no scoreboard in it. How about yours? Write it down. What does success look like that has nothing to do with outcomes you can't control? What does it look like to fully give your best today regardless of what the result is? Be specific. Make it something you can actually measure.
    

• Become Aware
  
  • The next time you feel yourself managing someone's perception of you, ask one honest question: What am I protecting right now? The answer will tell you what you're still placing your identity in. What we cling to controls us. Naming it is the first step toward letting it go.
    

• Free Your Team
  
  • The most freeing thing a leader can offer their team is a version of themselves that doesn't need anything from them. Just full, present, committed leadership for its own sake. Start one conversation today with no agenda other than genuine investment in that person. No return required. No destination in mind. Just there.
    

Nowhere to go, nothing to get, no one to be … sounds easy enough. It's a mindset available to every one of us who is willing to stop running toward something long enough to ask whether what we already have is actually enough.

Checkout Surrender the Outcome on Amazon and order The Score That Matters with Ryan Hawk & Brook Cupps. The latest blog from Blue Collar Grit can be found here!