John Wooden

I borrowed this from another person's blog. I think that it is really worth sharing.

John Wooden’s Favorite Maxims for Life

Many of the following quotes are from John himself, others he mentions as favorites of his but are not from him directly.

1. Happiness begins where selfishness ends.
2. Earn the right to be proud and confident.
3. The best way to improve the team is to improve ourselves.
4. Big things are accomplished only through the perfection of minor details.
5. Discipline yourself and others won’t need to.
6. Ability may get you to the top but character will keep you there.
7. I will get ready and then, perhaps, my chance will come.
8. If I am through learning, I am through.
9. If you do not have the time to do it right, when will you find the time to do it over.
10. The smallest good deed is better than the best intention.
11. The man who is afraid to risk failure seldom will have to face success.
12. Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.
13. Time spent getting even would be better spent trying to get ahead.
14. It is what you learn after you know it all that counts.
15. Consider the rights of others before your own feelings and the feelings of others before your own rights.
16. There is nothing stronger than gentleness.
17. You discipline those under your supervision to correct, to help, to improve; not to punish.
18. Goals achieved with little effort are seldom worthwhile or lasting.
19. Make sure the team knows they are working with you not for you.
20. Be most interested in finding the best way not in having your own way.
21. What is right is more important than who is right.
22. You handle things, you work with people.
23. As long as you try to your best you are never a failure; that is unless you blame others.
24. Tell the truth, that way you don’t have to remember a story.
25. Don’t let making a living prevent you from making a life.
26. If I were ever prosecuted for my religion I truly hope there would be enough evidence to convict me.
27. Although there is no progress without change, not all change is progress.
28. If we’d magnified blessings as much as we magnified disappointments we would all be much happier.
29. The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
30. The worst thing that you can do for another person is the things they can and should do for themselves. Abraham Lincoln
31. It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely help another without also helping himself. Ralph Waldo Emmerson.
32. Do not permit what you cannot do to interfere with what you can do.
33. Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Character is what your really are; reputation is merely what you are perceived to be.
34. Love is the greatest of all words in our language.
35. Much can be accomplished by teamwork when no one is concerned who gets credit.
36. Never make excuses; your friends don’t need them and your foes won’t believe them.
37. We don’t have to be disagreeable just because we may disagree.
38. Be slow to criticize and quick to commend.
39. Be more concerned with what you can do for others than what others can do for you; you’ll be surprised at the results.
40. The more concerned we become over the things we can’t control the less we will do with the things we can control.
41. Don’t permit fear of failure to prevent effort; we are all imperfect and will fail on occasion but fear of failure is the greatest failure of all.
42. Being average means you are as close to the bottom as you are to the top.
43. The time to make friends is before you need them.
44. We are many but are we much?
45. Never be thrown off stride in how you behave or what you believe in because of outside events.
46. Nothing can give you greater joy than doing something for another.
47. Material things are not gifts but apologies for gifts, the only true gift is a portion of thyself. Ralf Waldo Emerson.
48. We cannot live a perfect day without doing something for another without the thought of something in return.
49. Do not mistake activity for achievement.
50. You can do more good by being good than any other way.
51. Forget favours given, remember those received.
52. Make each day your masterpiece.
53. Make friendship of fine art.
54. Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.
55. Treat all people with dignity and respect.
56. Acquire peace of mind by making the effort to become the best of which you are capable.
57. Be fast but do not hurry.

In one of the last interviews that John Wooden gave he was asked what he would like God to say to him when they met at the peril gates, John’s reply was “well done.”

Actually John I am pretty sure you got more than that, He likely had the whole place do the wave as you entered.

Below is Johns famous pyramid of success. If you click on it, it will open in it’s own window so you can see it without my overlapping blog sidebars. I have a copy in my office and another one in our dog training building. It is worth the re and re-read and re-read.

Be proactive instead of reactive

I have been going thru some of my old sheepdog clinic notes and thought that this one would be a good subject to approach.

I am so bad at being reactive instead of proactive when it comes to running my own dogs on sheep. I can see it with other people, but find it so hard to put it to action with myself. I can so understand what is being said and then I forget about so many things that I have been told. Shame on me.

Here are some of my notes from Carol Campion that have made me think about this again.

"You need to actually figure out the pressure, etc., before you ever send your dog. Then handle the dog to keep AHEAD of what MIGHT happen rather than playing catch up. A stop, or there, or early flank, those are the kind of things that dictate to the sheep what they will do rather than fix what they have done."

"Give the dog what he/she needs, be it a there if the sheep are easy or heavy, and a stop if they very light and need room. She lets hers pick where to turn in on them, but decide how much dog I need for the lift."

"Don't think of downing your dog at the top so much as controlling him as much as you are just maintaining contact. If left along too much at the top, or anywhere else and then you try to step in to help, you are too late. Need to be more proactive. Need to be in contact much sooner."

"You need to be more proactive, if you see a potential for a bad spot or a problem area, then be prepared for it and try to set up your dog sooner to be successful. Don't wait until the problem pops up."

Here is some more that was directly related to a run of mine with my Jag.

"Think of it as more contact with you(me) rather than control from you(me). She thought that I kind of left him to figure out stuff too much for himself. (Which I did) Then if it wasn't what I wanted I was behind on timing because my intervention and direction was needed earlier for precision work."

The above was so true of me when I was running Jag. I sure hope that I can improve on myself with my upcoming dogs.

Kensmuir Heart of The Rose trial

These are the only two pictures that I took while at the Kensmuir HOTR trial. They are of the sunrise on the first morning of the trial. I was too busy the rest of the time to be able to tote my camera along.

The trial went well. I was super busy the first day and then just regular busy the second two days. I had to sort the lambs away from their moms each morning. I wish that I had taken a picture of the t-shirt and jeans after the second day of lamb wrestling.

We received a lot of compliments on the trial and hopes that we'll continue to have trials.

I should say that our runs did not go well. The grass was tall which made it difficult for the dogs to find their sheep. Cash found his sheep on his first run after a couple more aways to me. He did not get out to his sheep on the second run as they moved around, the spotter and her dog then moved and Cash figured that they were her sheep and he started looking for sheep somewhere else.

I pulled Corbie from her second run as the first one did not go well at all. She was heading out very nicely on the come by side and the spotter started flicking her whip at the sheep and her dog. Every time she flicked her whip Corbie would stop and I'd give her another flank command. I finally had to walk all the way out to help her. She did go up to the spotter and wanted to jump up on her and greet her, she corrected her for jumping which might have added to her fear. The judge did give us a re-run, but by then Corbie was way too scared to go out there even tho the spotter on the second run was very still.

Steve's run with Stryker did not go well either as he couldn't see his sheep at all and didn't get out to them. Steve pulled from his second run which was just as well since he wasn't feeling that hot.

Irises of 2010

I know that I have been bad at blogging this spring. It has been a busy spring with lambing, work and trying to get a veggie garden in. I just wanted to share some pictures of the irises that are blooming right now. These are some of the first ones to bloom so far.

We had some rain over night and early this morning and I was able to catch some rain drops on the flowers.

And I know, this isn't an iris. It is one of the last of the tulips of this year. I was very lax in getting any pictures of the tulips and we had some nice ones this spring. Reminded me of the tulip garden that my Mom had when I was growing up.

We are helping with a trial this spring just over the border in Wisconsin. I have been very busy helping with setting up this trial. Hopefully once we are done with the trial I'll be more on the ball on blogging, or maybe not. We'll see. The trial is over the Memorial Weekend and hopefully I'll get some pictures from the trial to post here.

Lambs of 2010

We are finally finished with lambing for this year. This is one of the lambs who was born on 5/20/10. This is a little girl and we'll be keeping her.

This is the other girl born on 5/20/10 above.

This is mom with the girl and boy born on 5/20/10.


The pictures below were taken on 5/2/10 and are of the rest of the lambs born this year.