Drink Deeply From Good Books, Especially The Bible | John Wooden

All credit of this article goes to Pat Williams and his book, Coach Wooden.  He breaks down Coach Wooden’s seven-point creed that was given to him by his father when he graduated from elementary school.  Many attribute a large part of his success to this creed and his ability to live it out daily.

The 3^rd creed is ‘Drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible.’  Below are quotes and passages from that 3^rd creed.

- You can read about the 1^st creed, 'be true to yourself,' here.
- You can read about the 2^nd creed, ‘help others,’ here.

Coach observed, “Poetry, biographies, and all the other great books will greatly enrich your life.  There are so many that are so good, and they will all be available to you.  The poetry Dad read to us when we were kids instilled a love of reading … Drink deeply from those great books of your own choosing and you will enrich yourself.”
- Coach John Wooden

The highest-earning 10 percent of Americans read two to three hours a day.  What do they read?  Anything and everything that expands their knowledge and enables them to keep up with a fast-changing world: books, newspapers, and magazines.  80% of American have not read or purchased even one book during the past twelve months.  The average American is simply not a reader.  No wonder he’s so average!

Anyone with a high school education can read a book a week.  And what’s a book a week?  It’s 52 books a year, or 520 books over the next decade.  

If you can read five books on any one subject, you can consider yourself a world-leading authority on that subject.

So if you take his advice, you could become an authority on hundreds of subjects in a single decade.  With all of that wisdom and knowledge crammed between your ears, you can’t help being more effective and successful at anything you do.
- Brian Tracy with Pat Williams

Don’t just read books; interact with them.  Argue with them.  Wrestle with them.  Mark them up.  Write your insights, questions, objections, and ideas in the margins.  Use a pen or highlighter to mark passages that spark your thinking or challenge your cherished beliefs.  As Roycroft Press founder Elbert Hubbard said, “I do not read a book.  I hold a conversation with the author.

“A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity, and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon, and by midnight.”

- Robertson Davies; novelist and playwright

“Sometimes people say, ‘I can never remember a joke.’  Well, that’s because they never tell it.  If you tell a joke over and over again, you remember it.  It’s the same with reading.  If you take the stories, events, and ideas that you read about in books, and won you are constantly sharing those insights with others, you remember them.  They stay fresh in your mind.  You have to keep using what you’ve learned.”
- Swen Nater; former UCLA center

Don’t confine your reading to a narrow range of interest.  Brilliant ideas are everywhere, even in comic books.  Read broadly, keep an open mind, and maintain a wide perspective.  Subjects and authors outside of your chosen field can challenge your thinking and reveal new solutions to seemingly insoluble problems.

“You are the same today as you’re going to be in five years except for two things, the people you meet and the books you read.  In two years, if you read in style, you will drive in style.  If you read like a bum, you’re going to drive like a bum.”
- Tremendous Charlie Jones

Read, read, read, read.  A proper diet is good for your body, and the best books are good for your mind … Read biographies, autobiographies and history.  Books will provide many of the friends, mentors, role models and heroes you will need in life.  Biographies will help you see that there is nothing that can happen to you that wasn’t experienced by many who used their failures and tragedies and disappointments as stepping stones for more tremendous lives.  Many of my best friends are people I’ve never met – Oswald Chambers, George Mueller, Charles Spurgeon, A.W. Tozer, Abraham Lincoln, Jean Gietzen, hundreds of others … God’s greatest gift for our time on earth is His Word.
- A letter from Charlie “Tremendous” Jones to his 9 year old grandson