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.
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:
- Develop your character
- Be completely committed
- Adjust your attitude for success
- Love your work
- Build a winning team (you can’t do it alone)
- Learn to listen
- Set some goals
- Develop a plan to achieve your goals
- Develop daily discipline
- Prepare to win
- Evaluate your performance – regularly
- Commit to excellence
- Commit to doing thing right
- Take responsibility to know your job and do your job
- Build a huge network to support your vision
- Be extremely organized
- Be completely confident
- Have control on your emotions
- Find your encouragers and associate with them
- 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!