In this talk, I summarize and synthesize the key lessons from 4 of the most successful college basketball coaches in history. Collectively, these 4 men have won 2700 games and 9 national championships. Learn how to transfer their winning formulas on the court into successful strategies for your business.

1. GREATEST COACH EVER!
Life Lessons from Dean
Smith, Roy Williams, Coach
K, and Jimmy V

2. OUR TIME TOGETHER TODAY
 Inspire you to take action that improves your
business
 Give you at least 3 ideas you can implement
immediately
 Explore the relationship between sports and life
 Learn from the greatest local basketball coaches
 Hear who I think the Greatest Coach Ever is!
 Have some fun
 Meet new people
 Your Goal: Get an expanded sense of your own
potential and opportunities

3. BUSINESS IS A GAME
Keeping score
Team (Together Each Achieves More)
Sports metaphors can apply to business
 Game Plan
 Offense
 Defense
Teams provide a sense of identity, pride and
affiliation, the same way work can

4. BUSINESS IS NOT A GAME
Business is rarely black and white
No clear end times
Uneven rules
No referees
Unfair teams
No time-outs
Not much practice time before the game
Hard to know who the real star players are

5. DEAN SMITH – THE INNOVATOR
“I’m tired” hand signal
Huddling at the free throw line before a foul
shot
Scorer honoring the passer's selflessness
Best-selling technical basketball book in
history
Starting all seniors on Senior Day
Four corners offense
Creative visualization

6. ROY WILLIAMS – THE WORKER
All-time record for most consecutive NCAA
Tournament appearances
Sixth all-time in the NCAA for winning
percentage
Seven Final Fours (fourth all-time in NCAA
history)
Third-fastest to achieve at least 600 career
wins
2 NCAA Championships

7. COACH K – THE MOTIVATOR
 27 NCAA Tournament berths in the past 28 years
 Postseason play in 28 of his 31 years at Duke
 Most winning active coach in NCAA Tournament
 11 Final Fours
 4 National Championships
 One of only 3 coaches to win 4 or more championships
 Duke National Champions and US National Team
Gold medal in same year
 And, of course, the number. The Number. THE
NUMBER.

8. JIMMY V – THE CHARACTER
Won 346 games during 10 years at NC State
career
2 time ACC Tournament Champions
2 time ACC regular season champions
1 National Championship
The Credo: "Don't give up, don't ever give up"

9. GUIDING VALUES
Personal
Renewal/Ritual
Hard
Passion
Work Courage

10. COURAGE
Personal mastery: Know your WHY
Persistence: Numerous trips to ACC
Championships/Final Four before winning
national titles, and then years to return, and
years more to win again.
Examples:
 Heavy personal sacrifice during early years of
careers
 Williams/Smith: Both took over programs placed on
probation for violations that took place prior to their
arrival

11. PERSONAL SACRIFICE
“I don‟t know many people who paid a higher
price to get started, but I did those kinds of
jobs for many years to be able to stay in
coaching. There were times when I despised
it. It was demeaning.” (Roy Williams talking
about odd jobs he did to support himself.)

12. PERSONAL RENEWAL/RITUAL
Inner balance
Pre-game ritual
Constant improvement
“It is a big thing for me to stay fresh and
balanced.”
“My satisfaction is not based on wins and
losses.”
“I will never let a basketball game break my
heart.”

13. RITUAL IN WORD
“I learned the „Thought for the Day‟ from
Coach Smith. I have a file of over 1,000
inspirational phrases collected from airline
in-flight magazines, PGA golfers, letters from
fans. Sometimes I‟ll spend 20 minutes before
a practice picking the thought the team needs
to hear that day.”
Have you EVER spent 20 minutes picking a
thought for the day???

14. RITUAL IN ACTION
“One player may bounce the ball 3 times
before shooting a foul, others may not bounce
at all. I just wanted them to do the same
thing every time they went to the foul line.
Their minds would be on their own ritual – it
helped them focus.”

15. HARD WORK
Committed to mission and vision of
something larger than self
Need to put ego aside
Practice, practice, practice
“Practice is a privilege.”
Personal best - KPIs

16. ROY – THE WORKER
“I tell every prospect I recruit that I'm going to
try to outwork every other coach... I like to ask
prospects, "Who is recruiting you the hardest?"
If they don't say me, I'm mad and I'll go back to
my staff and tell them we've got to do more.”

17. HARD WORK PAYS OFF
“Some thought Dean Smith was a little harder on
Michael Jordan in practice than he was on other
players, as if accepting his greater possibilities and his
own limitless ambition and holding him to it, setting
higher standards for him than for the others.
“I‟m working as hard as everyone else,” Jordan
answered.
“But Michael, you told me you wanted to be the best,”
Williams once reminded him. “And if you want to be the
best, then you have to work harder than everyone else.”
There was a long pause while Jordan pondered that.
Finally he said, “Coach, I understand.”

18. WHAT JORDAN SAYS
"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my
career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty -six
times, I've been trusted to take the game-
winning shot and missed. I've failed over and
over again in my life. And that is why I
succeed.”
“The games were easy. It was practice that
was hard.”

19. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE
“We win because of what happens behind
closed doors.” (Duke player)

20. PASSION
The more people you inspire, the more people
will inspire you.
“Seconds after Laettner's shot went
in, Krzyzewski rushed to the Kentucky bench
to console its devastated players, three of
whom were Kentucky-born seniors who stayed
loyal to their school through two years of
probation and Pitino's Napoleonic rule. "You
guys are not losers," Krzyzewski told them.”

21. TRUST
“Honey, there‟s just one catch,” Roy Williams
telling his wife that Dean Smith had just
offered him a job, “it only pays $2700 year.
Wanda said, “That is the stupidest idea I ever
heard. We just built a house, our son is 15
months old, we‟re making $30,000 between
us and you‟re asking me to go back to UNC for
$2700 a year?”
“Honey, it will work out.”
Wanda, exhaling, “When do we leave?”

22. WORDS TO LIVE BY
“There are three things we all should do every day.
Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day.
Number two is think. You should spend some time
in thought. And number three is, you should have
your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness
or joy.
But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you
cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You
do that seven days a week, you're going to have
something special.” (Jim Valvano)

23. DREAM X GOAL X PLAN = ACTION
“Dreams are great on paper but will not come
alive unless you do the hard work to make
them happen.”
“I was a top recruit in high school. Many
coaches assured me I would start. But not
Coach K. „I‟m not going to promise you
anything,‟ he said, „if you come here, you have
to work hard and earn everything you
receive.‟” (Grant Hill)

24. OUR TIME TOGETHER TODAY
 Inspire you to take action that improves your
business
 Give you at least 3 ideas you can implement
immediately
 Explore the relationship between sports and life
 Learn from the greatest local basketball coaches
 Hear who I think the Greatest Coach Ever is!
 Have some fun
 Meet new people
 Your Goal: Get an expanded sense of your own
potential and opportunities

25. FOR MORE INFORMATION
Jim Jubelirer
ActionCOACH
308 West Rosemary Street
Suite 307
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
(919) 969-7818
jimjubelirer@actioncoach.com
Actioncoach.com/jimjubelirer