I love dipping into the TED archives now and then when I feel I need to tighten up my own work as a speaker.
Yesterday I listened to a basketball coach, John Wooden, talking about his definition of true success. He describes it as: peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you’re capable.

It is an interesting talk, although the stream of consciousness ramblings of an elderly man are quite hard to follow at times. So I have transcribed some of his nuggets of real wisdom. He must have been quite a coach to work under.

I thought about [success] for quite a spell, and I wanted to come up with my own definition. I thought that might help. And I knew how Mr. Webster defined it: as the accumulation of material possessions or the attainment of a position of power or prestige, or something of that sort.
Worthy accomplishments perhaps, but in my opinion not necessarily indicative of success. So I wanted to come up with something of my own.

I was raised on a small farm in Southern Indiana. And Dad tried to teach me and my brothers that you should never try to be better than someone else.
Never try to be better than someone else, always learn from others.
Never cease trying to be the best you can be: that’s under your control. If you get too engrossed and involved and concerned in regard to the things over which you have no control, it will adversely affect the things over which you have control.

From those things, and one other perhaps, I coined my own definition of success. Which is: peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you’re capable.

I came up with a pyramid [about living a good life]. It helped me, I think, become a better teacher. The cornerstones [are] industriousness and enthusiasm, working hard and enjoying what you’re doing.
Coming up to the apex, according to my definition of success, and right at the top: faith and patience.
And I say to you, in whatever you’re doing, you must be patient. And I believe that we must have faith. I believe that we must believe, truly believe. Not just give it word service; believe that things will work out as they should, providing we do what we should. I think our tendency is to hope that things will turn out the way we want them to, much of the time. But we don’t do the things that are necessary to make those things become reality.

Reminds me of another set of threes that my dad tried to get across to us. Don’t whine. Don’t complain. Don’t make excuses. Just get out there, and whatever you’re doing, do it to the best of your ability. And no one can do more than that.

I tried to get across, too, that you never heard me mention winning. Never mention winning. My idea is that you can lose when you outscore somebody in a game. And you can win when you’re outscored.
And I just wanted them to be able to hold their head up after a game. I used to say that when a game is over, and you see somebody that didn’t know the outcome, I hope they couldn’t tell by your actions whether you outscored an opponent or the opponent outscored you.

That’s what really matters: if you make effort to do the best you can regularly, the results will be about what they should be. Not necessarily what you would want them to be, but what they should, and only you will know whether you can do that.