Book Review – The Landry Legacy: 20 Principles Of Success

Kumar Gauraw

As you know, I live in Texas,  the land of legendary football coach Tom Landry and his Dallas Cowboys. I also love reading books on leadership and virtually any area intended to help personal growth. This book review is dedicated on this book which is based on his life journey.

Landry Legacy - 20 Success Principles From The Coach

When I saw the book The Landry Legacy, I was excited. I thought, “What an opportunity to learn leadership lessons from the life of the legend himself!”

You may recall a mention of the mentorship program I discussed in the blog post about fighting complacency to keep up with reading habits. I get book recommendations every month and this time, I picked up the book The Landry Legacy: 20 Principles of Success by Michael Thornton.

As I started reading the book, I remembered about the book Beyond Success that had so many profound success principles outlined through the example of the legendary basketball Coach John Wooden of UCLA. That book has been one of  my top picks when speaking of books on success. I wrote a review of Beyond Success several months ago and I encourage you to go ahead and check my review out before proceeding further on this post.

Coach Landry taught me, if you have the right people, in the right place, focused on the right priorities, then miracles can happen. ~Roger Staubach

Coach Tom Landry is known for his unparalleled record of coaching a team (Dallas Cowboys) that had twenty consecutive winning NFL  seasons. This is a record that no other NFL franchise has ever been able to approach so far.

The book The Landry Legacy: 20 Principles of Success gives you the success principles that Dallas Cowboys followed under the mentorship of coach Landry. The books talks of 20 distinct principles that are not just applicable to the game of football, but in every aspect of our lives, to enrich ourselves and others around us.

The author, Michael Thornton has interviewed 20 individuals who either played with coach Tom Landry or who were extremely close to him. Based on these interviews, he shares these 20 most important principles that built the foundation for Dallas Cowboys that led them to such a victorious winning streak that went on for two decades.

While you should get hold of this and read it cover to cover, I want to outline the 20 principles outlined in the book:

  1. Develop your character
  2. Be completely committed
  3. Adjust your attitude for success
  4. Love your work
  5. Build a winning team (you can’t do it alone)
  6. Learn to listen
  7. Set some goals
  8. Develop a plan to achieve your goals
  9. Develop daily discipline
  10. Prepare to win
  11. Evaluate your performance – regularly
  12. Commit to excellence
  13. Commit to doing thing right
  14. Take responsibility to know your job and do your job
  15. Build a huge network to support your vision
  16. Be extremely organized
  17. Be completely confident
  18. Have control on your emotions
  19. Find your encouragers and associate with them
  20. Never quit persevering  because quitters never win

I truly believe that these principles are applicable to our personal and professional lives alike. If you pick up this book, whether you are a Dallas Cowboys fan or not, you will greatly appreciate these 20 valuable life lessons that you will find in the pages of this book.

Questions: What intrigues you the most about this book? What do you think coach Tom Landry would have done to ensure such a legendary success? Would you like to get a copy of this book? Please share your thoughts in the comments section. Thank you kindly!

Kumar Gauraw

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Kumar Gauraw is a Personal Branding & Social Media strategist helping entrepreneurs and skilled professionals achieve personal and professional success by developing leadership and leveraging the power of the Internet, Blogging and Social Media.

8 Awesome Thoughts So Far, Add Yours Now...

  1. I am currently reading this book and this goes in one of the top picks in books that make our lives better. Highly recommended for everyone.

  2. I am going to grab a copy of this book once I finish Think and Grow Rich. Thank you for recommending the book.

    • You are welcome, Ankit. Let me know if you can’t get hold from there. I will see if I can help you get a electronic copy if available.

  3. Rajendra

    Its an amazing book.. Thanks for sharing Kumar! Every chapter is must read in this book and especially setting goals is amazing, it clearly describes what it takes to achieve Goals..

    • Absolutely Rajendra. Proud of you for being part of our BOM program and then reading the book. Great job!

  4. Shweta Sharma

    I am going to get this book. Thank you for the inspiration Kumar!

  5. Great principles, i will look for the book and read more. Thank you for sharing the information

  6. I like the review. Personally, having the right team and setting goals is a sure way of accomplishing a given task more efficiently with less efforts

Please Note: My goal is to host interesting conversations with caring, honest, and respectful people. Therefore, I reserve the right to delete comments that are snarky, offensive, or off-topic.