#45 - The Eight Laws Of Learning

Exuding excellence

My favourite part about doing this each week is not just uncovering the rules I write about but learning about the people who champion them.

People we might never have heard of, but who have written, said or taught things that will far outlive themselves. 

People who have (at least once) said something that I’ve been compelled to note down and to come back to time and again.

People who you know exude excellence. 

John Wooden was a legendary basketball coach whose achievements in college basketball are unlikely to ever be matched.

In his 12 years coaching UCLA, the team won ten NCAA championships, including seven straight titles between 1967 and 1973. Ten total titles remain a record, and no team has won more than four consecutive titles since.

In college Basketball, Wooden typically only had his players for a few seasons. While he had infrastructure around him, you don’t win 10 championships out of 12 without being a truly remarkable coach.

Before he arrived, UCLA had won 2 championships in the past 18 seasons.

Beyond just being a spectacularly good coach, Wooden exuded excellence. 

Just type in “John Wooden quotes” into Google, and you’ll get a sense of the kind of man he was, and you might begin to see why he and his teams were so successful.

Here are a couple of my favourites of those quotes:

Discipline yourself, then others won’t need to.

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

But my absolute favourite is his definition of success. (I made my own attempt at defining success back in TR30).

Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of the self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.

Just beautiful.

Wooden became renowned for his short, simple, inspirational messages to his players.

Speaking of his players, they truly loved him, including all-time great Kareem Abdul-Jabar and Hall of Famer Bill Walton, who said, "He was the most influential person in my life, outside of my parents. His teachings made me a better player, but more importantly, a better person."

He was also a man of incredible integrity. Before joining UCLA, he was touted for Minnesota's head coach position. It was his and his wife's strong desire to be in the Midwest, but bad weather prevented him from receiving Minnesota's calls. Thinking they had lost interest, he instead accepted the offer from UCLA. Almost immediately after he accepted, Minnesota contacted Wooden to offer him his preferred job. Still, he declined, having already given his word to UCLA. 

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There are several artefacts that Wooden left behind that would be more than worthy of a Tuesday’s Rule feature. The “Pyramid of Success” is perhaps the most well-known, and was the focus of one of his published books.

His “Seven-Point Creed” is another which holds deep-rooted wisdom.

But, it is his “Eight Laws of Learning” that I first came across, and that we’re focusing on.

Wooden taught his players how to win. So his laws of learning are certainly worth knowing.

About them, he said: The goal is to create a correct habit that can be produced instinctively under great pressure. To make sure this goal is achieved, I created eight laws of learning.

Here are the Eight laws, from the perspective of us, the learners.

1.        Explanation

The first step of learning is for the concept to be explained to us. We hear.

2.        Demonstration

Next, we see the concept in action. We watch.

3.        Initiation

Now it’s our turn. We make our first attempt at replicating what we have just seen and heard. We try.

4.        Repetition

We do it again. We repeat.

5.        Repetition

And again.

6.        Repetition

We do it again.

7.        Repetition

And again.

Before finally….

8.        Repetition

We do it again.

Until we exude excellence.

There's nothing fancy or complicated about this idea. It sounds boring. It is boring.

But that's what made Wooden and his teams extraordinary. He understood that excellence isn't built on moments of inspiration – it's built on countless hours of repetition. It's about showing up, putting in the work, and doing it again.

And again.

And again.

Until you can perform "instinctively under great pressure."

This philosophy helped him transform college players into champions. It helped him build not just great basketball players, but as Bill Walton noted, better people.

Perhaps most importantly, it gave his players that opportunity to tap into that definition of success: the peace of mind that comes from knowing you've done everything possible to become your best self.

There are no shortcuts or "hacks" to excellence. It isn’t easy, but it is simple.

Wooden's Eight Laws remind us of an eternal truth: mastery comes through patient, deliberate practice. It's not glamorous. It's not exciting. But it works. And that's why his wisdom, like his legacy, endures.

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Thank you for reading, see you next week. ✌🏻❤️