“It takes time to create excellence. If it could be done more quickly, more people would do it.” - John Wooden

Jimmy Johnson wrote this on the blackboard his first day with the Dallas Cowboys.

PA + E = P

It stands for… Positive Attitude + Effort = Performance.

Simple formula. But here's what made it powerful - he actually believed it.

Jimmy Johnson took over a 3-win Cowboys team. His first year, the Cowboys went 1-15. Johnson didn’t make any excuses, he knew had to think outside the box. So he started with trades and made 51 trades in five years - more than the entire league combined. He knew if he played the old NFL way, "pick by pick on a team that was that bad, we would never be around to see anything good."

Most people say they believe attitude and effort matter. Then adversity hits and they start blaming circumstances, talent gaps, or timing.

Johnson didn't waver: "You can control your attitude and you control your effort. If we improve those two things... your performance is going to go up."

He also acknowledged the cost: "My hard work, I mean, I spent night and day. I lived two blocks from the Dallas Cowboy complex and I was over there 24 hours a day almost. I would go home to sleep a few hours. It comes with a cost."

But here's the part that stuck with me most:

"People say, 'Well, I put in my eight hours.' You know what? During those eight hours, you know how many other people are working. It's pretty competitive. But you work that ninth hour and that 10th hour and that 11th hour, there's not a lot of competition. You work a little longer and all of a sudden the competition falls out. Hard work overcomes a lot of things."

The formula works. But only if you actually live it.

This week's question: Do you really believe attitude and effort determine your performance? Or do you only believe it when things are going well?

Source: Jimmy Johnson: UNTOLD Stories of Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin and Jerry Jones | 90's Cowboys Dynasty

Nick Saban told his players something that sounds contradictory at first:

"You have the right to fail. Each and every one of you have the right to fail. You have the right to make the choices and decisions to fail, but you really don't have the right to make those choices and decisions that affect everybody else and cause them to fail."

Individual accountability with team responsibility.

Then he flipped a cliché on its head: "There's no 'I' in team. I know you've heard that many times before. But there is an 'I' in win, and that stands for the individual who has the right intensity, immediacy, sense of urgency, and intelligence to carry out and do the role that he needs to do."

I talk with coaches all the time who struggle with this balance. They want to give people room to fail - that's how you grow. But they also feel the weight of protecting the team from one person's poor choices dragging everyone down.

Your failure is your business. Your growth is your journey. But the moment your decisions start costing the people around you - that's where the line is.

It's not about perfection. It's about ownership. And it's about understanding that your "I" - your intensity, your urgency, your intelligence - is what makes the team work. Not the other way around.

The question he left them with: "Once you make this commitment, once you have this goal, what sacrifices are you willing to make? Because you're certainly going to have to make some if you want to accomplish something of significance."

Most people have goals. Few people have sacrifices they're actually willing to make for those goals. That gap - between what you say you want and what you're willing to give up - is where most teams and most individuals fall short.

This week's question: What sacrifices have you actually made for your goals this year? And what are you still holding onto that's getting in the way?

Jay Bilas spent time as a graduate assistant on Coach K's staff after playing for him. He saw something that changed how he understood great leadership:

"The level of detail and the depth of scouting that Coach K and the staff did... and then the difference between what the staff was prepared for and what they shared with the players. One of his greatest strengths is taking the complicated and making it simple. We would boil down a game plan - here are the four things we need to do. We don't need to stop every action that they have. We don't need to get bogged down in those details."

Grant Hill saw the same thing from the player's side. He stayed at Coach K's house one week and got up at 3am to raid the freezer. Coach K was downstairs watching film. Working. Preparing. Knowing everything so his players didn't have to.

I think about this constantly. The temptation for coaches - for any leader - is to share everything you know. You've done the work. You've watched the film. You've read the books. And you want your players or your team to benefit from all of it.

But that's not leadership. That's information dumping.

The best coaches, the best leaders - they know more than they share. Not because they're hiding information. But because they understand that clarity beats complexity every time.

Coach K could have given his players 47 things to think about. Instead, he gave them four. And those four things were the right four things because he'd done the work to figure out what actually mattered.

Knowing everything isn't the skill - knowing what to leave out is.

Source: The Rebound Podcast LIVE w/ Matt Doherty | Jay Bilas

This week's question: How much information are you dumping on your team that they don't actually need? And what would happen if you cut it in half?

Jimmy Johnson's PA + E = P formula. Nick Saban's "I in Win" framework. The principles behind Coach K's simplicity.

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For coaches and leaders:

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What I am reading and listening to:

📚 Book: The New Toughness Training for Sports by Dr. Jim Loehr

🎥 Video: The True Habits, Rituals, & Discipline of High Performers with Dr. Kevin Elko

🎧Podcast: Dabo Swinney: From Walk-On to 2x National Champion | Coach Mark Gottfried

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