Business, Sports & Gaming

How to Demand Maximum Effort

Lesson time 12:16 min

Geno shares the level of hard work necessary to break through perceived barriers and teaches some of his strategies for getting more effort out of his players and teams than they even knew they had to give.

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Topics include: How to Find Your Top Speed • Good Enough Is Not Good Enough • The Trouble With Meeting Halfway

Geno Auriemma

Teaches Leading Winning Teams

Legendary basketball coach Geno Auriemma teaches you how to lead any kind of team, inspire others to new heights, and build sustainable success.

Preview

[MUSIC PLAYING] - Now I want to talk about the level of hard work. And more important, the level of commitment that you have to have to getting it right-- to getting it right. And how much effort that takes to win championships and to win in business. You know, every team in the country has a huddle and they put their-- they put their fist in there, or put their hand in there, whatever they do, and they all have a saying. And for a lot of them, it is hard work. And I like to think that's the baseline, that there's hard work and then there's a commitment. And when you're committed to something, you don't give up on it just because you get tired. You push through whatever it is. You don't even know you're working because the commitment is so strong. That's the only thing you know. And sometimes you could work beyond your capacity and still not win. So you could be committed and still not reach that championship level. But without those things, you certainly are not going to reach it. The best way I can say this is this. Everybody wants to win. Nobody sets out to lose, okay? So take that as a starting point. Everybody wants to win. Not everybody wants to prepare and train to win at the highest levels. So if you want a championship team, then every day you have to train like a championship team. Think about who are you going to have to beat to win a championship. What company or what group-- who is your competition and you have to beat them. What do you think they're doing? You have to assume that they're training at a championship level. So you've got to max-out every day, your training to where you go home and your players and you, you know it can't be done any better than the way we just did it today in practice. And now you've got to get them to do that every day. [MUSIC PLAYING] So I went to go see a basketball clinic years and years and years and years ago that Bob Knight was coaching, and he was a legendary coach at Indiana. And he did this thing that he was trying to illustrate there's your pace that you want to play at and there's my pace that I want you to play at. So he brought this kid out on the court and he put him on the end line of a basketball court. And said to the kid, I want you to run up to the end line, other end line, and back. So the kid lined up and ran. Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, up and back. When the kid got back, Knight reached into his pocket and pulled out $20, $50, hundred-- I don't know what it was. Says to the kid, if you can get from the end line to the end line and back in 10 seconds, I'll let you have this. Now the kid sees the money, gets on the end line like a sprinter now. And Knight goes, go. Like a bat out of hell. That kid takes off, hits the line, comes back, and Knight's like this. And the kid gets about two feet from end line and Knight goes, 10. You just missed it. And the kid's, like, devastated. Like, what do you mean? I didn...

About the Instructor

With 11 national college basketball championships and two Olympic gold medals, Geno Auriemma has coached some of basketball’s most iconic teams. Now he’s showing you how to build and lead any kind of team—at home, work, or in your community—and achieve sustainable success. Learn strategies for being an empathetic, resilient leader so you can inspire others to push past their own barriers and reach their highest potential.

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Geno Auriemma

Legendary basketball coach Geno Auriemma teaches you how to lead any kind of team, inspire others to new heights, and build sustainable success.

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