Customer Reviews

Winning Every Day: The Game Plan for Success

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Lou Holtz, currently the head football coach at the University of South Carolina, has written one of the best, and most enjoyable leadership books I have ever read. His game plan for success was largely told through his gridiron experiences, but this plan is about much more than just football-it is a proven, common-sense guide for succeeding in the game of life.

What makes Holtz's life and leadership insights so compelling and believable are his dynamic life experiences and his incredible list of accomplishments: parents were divorced; fiance' broke off their engagement, but they later married and remain so after 40 years; only coach to lead 4 different programs to top-20 finishes and 6 different programs to bowl games (William and Mary, N.C. State, Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame, South Carolina); 23 of 32 college teams he coached have received bowl bids, with 18 top-25 finishes, 8 top-10 finishes, and one undefeated national championship; 3rd winningest active coach and 7th place all-time with 243 victories; wife's heroic battle with throat cancer; fired or let go as assistant coach more than once; polled as the best motivational speaker in the country two years in a row, and his motivational video "Do Right!" is the all-time best-seller; guest speaker at most Fortune 500 companies; and was invited to the Oval Office by four different presidents.

Holtz's game plan consists of ten steps. Each step is explored in detail in its own chapter. The colorful, real-world stories and humorous anecdotes Holtz used to present the steps' lessons perfectly complemented his conversational writing style. The final chapter is considered the "end-zone" of success-where you can be if you have the courage, desire, and character to apply the lessons described within the plan's steps.

The book is jammed full of common-sense, spiritual, philosophical, and motivational life and leadership perspectives. The most memorable passages for me as a father, leader, and follower were Holtz's thoughts about discipline:

"For me, a disciplinarian is someone who requires that people understand the consequences of their decisions. You use discipline to reinforce choices. Our athletes and my children knew that if they chose to misbehave, they were also choosing to pay the consequences...In each case, I never punished anyone; the offenders chose the punishment themselves by their actions."

He illustrated his commitment to being a disciplinarian by describing the circumstances that led to him suspending his top three Arkansas players before the 1977 Orange Bowl (against Oklahoma), and to suspending two of his best players before his top-ranked Notre Dame team played the second-ranked University of Southern California in 1988:

"[They] recklessly violated our Do Right rule, which governs personal conduct...These were not bad guys; they simply made a bad decision...I didn't want the keys to our offense to miss our biggest game of the year, but when they decided to break our rules, they also decided to miss the game. Now I had to support that choice."

Holtz is a master motivator and a proven true winner in football and life. My highest recommendation for this book is best captured by Holtz himself when he wrote, "As you know, the only things that will change you from where you are today to where you want to be five years from now are the books you read and the people you meet." I hope I someday get a chance to meet Lou Holtz and thank him for his outstanding book on life and leadership.

Lou Holtz gives you motivation tips and how to succeed in life. He breaks it down into direct on clear-cut. The power of your attitude, tackling adversity, sense of purpose, your friends, being the best you can be, competing, taking care of yourself, trust, committed to your obligations, and care for others are all phases of the book takes you through. The goal of this book is to make you feel that Lou Holtz is sitting in front of you discussing all issues in a humorous way.

Winning Every Day": The Game Plan for Success is a book for everybody that wants to become a winner in every situation that life throws at you. It is direct, concise, clear-cut, humorous, wise, and precise in its recommendations for how to win every day. The book will make you a winner. All you have to do is spend two hours on reading the book. It's funny and a great book to read if you want to get on track or continue staying on track.

I happened to notice this book one day when I took my daughter to the library. A friend of mine is a personal acquaintance of Lou's so I decided to see what 'Ol Lou is all about for myself.

This is a book of (mostly humorous) stories that makes it a fun, easy read. At the same time, each story has powerful success principles and truths embedded within.

If you want to see powerful leadership in action, this is a great book.

If you want to get more from your interactions and relationships with people in every area of your life, this is a great book.

If you find yourself doubting your abilities and potential, this is a great book.

If you want to be able to learn from someone who started out as a nobody with nothing and ended up as somebody who had something, this is a great book.

If you weren't fortunate enough to have a parent or adult-figure who taught you how to win at the game of life, then I heartily recommend this book to help fill in that void.

If you don't see yourself in the preceding statements, or, if you have read all the success books and you are looking for something brand-new that you have never heard of before, then this probably isn't the book for you.

lou holtz gives the impression that he never stops learning even after u would expect that he knows it all. Mainly he teaches how to be inspired & focused as u achieve your goals etc. He gives many examples of players & coaches & everyday people who went from nowhere to somewhere & turned things around when life appeared dismal. The most impressive aspect, for me, is that he has a knack for turning adversity & tuff situations into an advantage. Reading this book will at the very least give you improved perspective

We have used Coach Holtz's videos in our corporate training programs for years, and we have found his book to be equally inspiring. Values-based management is a key to Coach Holz's success, and it should be a part of everyone's training program and personal motivational library.

If you are looking for pure Lou Holtz motivation, you will not be disappointed. There are no "silver bullets" here, but the book will do a good job of reinforcing some great principles for creating a successful team or organization.

I found this book to be an excellent source for the youth coach of any sport. It offers standards and reasons for maintaining them. It gave me a great deal of insight into coaching beyond the mechanics of the game.

Lou Holtz shows how the principles appplied to winning in sports can be applied to achieveing any goal set in life. You win some, you lose some, but if you take a strategic approach, adjusting your game plans as you go, you still come out a champion. Excellent book.

A Motivating Message of Sincerity and Inspiration,

Winning Every Day
I had the opportunity to hear Lou Holtz as a keynote speaker a number of years ago,and I must say I was impressed by his message! While I knew a bit of his coaching background, I did not know much about the man, his beliefs or his approaches. This book is an illustration of his messages that day - inspiring, down-to-earth, focused and caring. Unlike some other speakers who deliver their same speech regardless of where they are, Holtz personalized his message to the audience and that is what this book does.

In 11 chapters, he outlines his style and love of coaching, but he focuses more on his attention to family, the athletes he sincerely cares about and the role of the university or team environment. He is amusing, but sincere. His stories about attitude, perseverance, standards, pride, the lessons learned in both winning and losing are heartfelt and real.

I looked at other reviews and some of them were a bit critical about Notre Dame details or grammar, but this book is more than a coach talking about wins and championships. This is a book about dealing with the challenges of reality in life as well as a sport and I find it excellent.

As always, comments are welcome

John Hogan CHA CHE
HospitalityEducators
HoganHospitality

First off, I'm also reading Jim Tressel's "The Winners Manual" and so far the differences are night and day. Team loyalties put aside, I feel both are very similar in the aspect of helping others in football as well as in life, but I was simply engrossed in Lou Holt's book as he writes in such a way, such as the way he describes it, as just like if he was talking to you face to face in person. I really liked that aspect of his writing. Even so, the few parts with editing mistakes and typos were annoying but still didn't detract too much from the soft easy flow of his prose. Tressel on the other hand, was a slow start that led (more than once) to rolling eyes and thoughts of "get on with it already!" Gutsy, honest, and critical, Lou takes a hard look at his organizations throughout the years, his many players coached, and even at himself with his marital relationship. Although I am a Notre Dame fan, I enjoyed that this book wasn't just about Notre Dame and about the best parts of his coaching career, but every aspect of it with both the good and the bad! "Winning Every Day" has won me over!