♖ The Little Things Are the Big Things

I've always been fiercely competitive despite being terribly unathletic. I was so slow, my high school baseball coach used to yell: "spring…….summer…….fall…….winter" every time I ran the bases. Brutal.

Intro

I am fascinated with sports. Perhaps obsessed. It's where I get most of my mental models for both work and life.

What fascinates me? How champions stay on top when so many inputs are straight-up uncontrollable. What makes someone win not just once, but consistently, year after year?

It's the ultimate strategic question, right? How do you create a system that delivers despite the chaos?

How do you build something that withstands competitors, changing markets, and the unexpected?

The socks and shoes story

Back in my early 20s, I read John Wooden's autobiography, They Call Me Coach.

Wooden won 10 NCAA championships at UCLA—a dynasty never matched in college basketball.

I grabbed his book hoping to uncover his secrets—anything that explained how one coach could dominate for so long.

Instead, I found a detailed account of his first practice ritual: teaching players like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton how to properly put on socks and shoes.

Just imagine, future NBA stars, cross-legged on the court, listening to step-by-step instructions from Coach Wooden, perfecting the art of putting on socks and shoes.

Wooden's logic: Blisters prevent practice. Missed practice means poor preparation. Poor preparation leads to subpar performance. Subpar performance loses us championships.

The pattern of champions

This ritual wasn't a coaching quirk—it was Wooden's secret weapon. And as I studied other “champions” across different fields, I kept finding their version of "socks and shoes":

• Chef Thomas Keller insists on folded paper towels only in his kitchen. This seemingly small detail builds the precision mentality that defines his Michelin-starred restaurants.
  

• Steve Jobs spent weeks perfecting the sound of opening an Apple box, testing dozens of materials to create that perfect suction effect customers love.
  

• Phil Jackson began every practice with meditation before basketball. These stillness rituals helped build the most clutch NBA dynasty in history.

In my 18-year business career, whenever success felt most effortless, our own "socks and shoes" rituals were quietly at work.

The best teams I've known share one trait: obsessive excellence in small things, driven by pride not perfectionism.

And it's contagious—when one person preps meticulously, others can't show up unprepared.

Small habits, massive results

Teams that build something special have their own "socks and shoes" ritual that becomes part of their DNA.

What could become yours? What seemingly trivial detail might your team perfect that would make everyone else wonder how you keep winning?

Pick something small that matters deeply:

• The onboarding ritual that makes new hires feel they've found their tribe

• The meeting framework that guarantees decisions and next steps every time

• The pre-client checklist that ensures your team walks in impossibly prepared

• The file naming system where anyone can find anything in seconds

These mundane details? They're where moats are built. That's culture.

That's how you win.

"The little things are the big things." - Coach John Wooden

Til next time,

—Ali Mamujee


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Bonus: The lesson that lives on

I finally found a heartwarming video of Coach Wooden teaching his famous "socks and shoes" lesson to a young child. After searching for this footage for years, I feel happy to finally see it live.