Reach for the Summit

“I’m someone who will push you beyond all reasonable limits.  Someone who will ask you not to just fulfill your potential but to exceed it.  Someone who will expect more from you than you may believe you are capable of.  So if you aren’t ready to go to work, shut this book.”
–Pat Summitt

Pat Summitt, head coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Vols, was a phenomenon in women’s basketball.  Her ferociously competitive teams won the NCAA championship in 1996 and 1997 and made her the winningest coach in NCAA Division 1 women’s history.

Summitt wrote the first motivational book by a high-achieving female coach.  In Reach for the Summit, she presented her formula for success, which she called the “Definite Dozen System.”  In each of the book’s twelve chapters, Summitt talked about one of the system’s principles–such as responsibility, discipline, and loyalty–and showed how to apply it to your own situation.

Pat Summitt used her own remarkable story as a vehicle for explaining how anyone can transform herself through ambition.  Through many amusing anecdotes and a few very painful memories, she revealed her mistakes and triumphs as a beginning basketball player, as an Olympic athlete, as a Division 1 coach, and as a mother.  Although Summitt was not born to the easy life–she was born into a hard-working farm family in a remote corner of Tennessee–she became one of the most successful and highest-paid coaches in the country.  She candidly talked about how she turned her losses into wins and then showed how you can do the same.

Wonderfully entertaining and brilliantly instructive, Reach for the Summit discloses the winning secret to building a principled system and making it to the top at whatever you do.  Pat Summitt’s story will motivate you to achieve in sports, business, and the most important game of all–life.