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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Man and His Pyramid, December 10, 2010
This review is from: Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success: Building Blocks For a Better Life (Paperback)
I am a long-time fan and admirer of the late, legendary Coach John Wooden, and his famous Pyramid of Success. I read this book wanting to learn more about both the man and the Pyramid. The book did teach me about both, but my education was a bit diluted by the execution of the authors' best intentions. The book was logically organized around the Pyramid's fifteen building blocks and its ten mortar qualities (the mortar that holds the building blocks together). A four-page chapter was dedicated to each of the building blocks and mortar qualities. Each chapter had three parts: Coach's experienced thoughts; Jay Carty's biblical perspectives; and then Bible readings, probing questions, a commitment statement, and a concluding prayer to help readers apply the chapter's principles to their lives. Coach Wooden was a very spiritual man, and he helped inspire my own budding spirituality. In this book, I expected to read about how his spirituality influenced his Pyramid. However, the book was much more Bible-focused than I expected. I found too many Bible passages too long (I printed all the cited passages in seventy-three pages!) and disconnected from their chapter topic. Fewer, shorter, and more focused/more easily understood Bible passages would have been much more effective in complementing the authors' preceding insights. I am sure many people will find the book's content properly balanced, and appropriate for their expectations. As much as it pains me to say something less than stellar about Coach Wooden's work, I was disappointed with this book. Overall, I would still recommend it for anyone wanting deeper insights into Coach Wooden and his Pyramid of Success.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Challenge By Coach Wooden, March 7, 2008
This review is from: Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success: Building Blocks For a Better Life (Paperback)
"Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success" consists of 3 main areas: 1. Introduction to Coach Wooden and his concept of using a pyramid to teach success. 2. 15 chapters on "Building Blocks" that includes such traits as: planning, self-control, alertness, and loyalty. 3. 10 more chapters on "Mortar Qualities" such as ambition, sincerity, and honesty. At the end of the book, Wooden and Carty take these qualities and show how they help form the "apex" of the pyramid. In each chapter ending there is a mention of a particular Bible verse that could apply to the described trait. Read, enjoy, and be challenged by one of the greatest coaches in all of sports history! Highly recomended.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful Advice, but not as Visionary or Devotional as I Hoped it Would Be, October 21, 2010
This review is from: Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success: Building Blocks For a Better Life (Paperback)
Coach John Wooden was legendary for his success in coaching UCLA basketball teams which won 7 consecutive NCAA titles and a total of 10, as well as winning 88 straight games. But people off the court have also recognized him as a great teacher. His "Pyramid for Success" is a widely used motivational, self-help method/book, and it is filled with useful life information. His definition of success, for example, is very useful for those distracted by more worldly and more selfish measures of success. For Wooden, success is "a peace of mind that is the direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming." Anyone who reads this book will not fail to come away with some important lessons in life. I also like the way that Jay Carty has taken Wooden's principles and then applied them to the life of Christians from the Bible: what a wonderful enhancement to Wooden's work! I do, however, have 2 criticisms of the book. First, I'm not convinced that all of the 15 "building blocks" and 10 "mortar qualities" necessarily build on each other the way the book implies. They seem more like disjointed points which, though excellent, don't add up to a coherent vision to understand and live life. My second criticism is that by building a devotional book on top of Wooden's pyramid, one comes away sometimes with the idea that one is building up oneself in terms of faith or salvation. Wooden's advice is based on human experience and endeavor and doesn't begin with the gospel of grace. For this reason, the devotional part of the book, while very useful in some ways, is insufficient and even misleading.
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