How hard can it be? I’m talking about BP’s apparent lack of ability to get out of its own way. Time and time again BP has been able to say or do exactly the wrong thing. Forget about what the oil company could or could not have done to avoid this whole tragic mess. Let’s just focus on how the people at the company have dealt with it since the spill occurred some 67 days ago, as I write this.

Just as a reminder, what started all of this was an April 20 explosion and fire on a BP drilling rig that resulted in the death of 11 workers. The rig sank two days later about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast. Since then, BP has made one misstep after another, and it starts at the top.

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Forgive me for bragging, but I’ve got a group of fantastic coworkers. Many of them were in action again this morning. You see, some of our people volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House here in Nashville today. As I write this, they’ve already served breakfast to the families staying there and another team will be serving lunch. In addition, we have a group that will be getting together during their lunch hour to make blankets for the families of the Ronald McDonald house.

It’s amazing to watch people come together to perform selfless acts that benefit others who are in need. Ever since the Nashville community rose up to help its own in the days and weeks following the flood that devastated many parts of our city, I’ve been thinking about how wonderful people can be in times of need — and how the people who do the volunteering often are the ones who benefit the most.

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Legendary basketball coach John Wooden died on June 4 at the age of 99. During his coaching career his teams won more than 80 percent of their games. At UCLA, his teams won an astonishing 10 NCAA national championships during his final 12 years of coaching, including seven in a row. Wooden was a talented coach, teacher, and leader, and much can be learned from his philosophy. I’d like to share with you some of my favorite quotes and lessons from John Wooden.

More than a half century ago John Wooden created his Pyramid of Success. The Pyramid contains 15 building blocks of success, including industriousness, loyalty, initiative, skill, enthusiasm, and self-control. In creating the Pyramid, Wooden chose for his two cornerstones industriousness and enthusiasm, and the capstone on the Pyramid is competitive greatness.

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I hope I don’t disappoint when I tell you that what you’re about to read isn’t about Tiger Woods, the OctoMom, or anything remotely salacious. Instead, this is about you.

Let me share with you a story that Jim Stovall tells in his book You Don’t Have to Be Blind to See. It’s about two tribes that lived in the Andes Mountains and were constantly at war. One tribe lived in the lowlands and the other high in the mountains. The mountain people invaded the lowlanders one day and, as part of their plundering, kidnapped a baby of one of the lowlander families. They took the infant with them back up into the mountains.

The lowlanders didn’t know how to climb the mountain. They didn’t know any of the trails that the mountain people used. They didn’t know where to find the mountain people or how to track them in the steep terrain.

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