I am a person who believes that mentors are given to you when you’re ready to learn from them; it’s part of my spiritual beliefs. What surprised me is that I got the chance to meet one of the greatest leaders of our time, a man who would influence the way I defined success for the rest of my life, and I almost missed the opportunity twice.

Last year, before I really knew who John Wooden was, I was at a charity event and I saw a John Wooden collector’s item, a framed collage of signed photos and his pyramid of success. I stood there and I thought—I know who John Wooden is.

I remembered seeing the John Wooden pyramid of success on the desk of one of my sales people at SkyPipeline. I also recalled watching the Superbowl when the Giants had defeated the Patriots, and the coach of the Giants talking about Wooden being one of his main inspirations. A notable figure in sports and leadership, this is someone I knew I’d have to learn more about.

I stood there staring at this John Wooden piece for a long time. I decided not to bid on it. I had already bid on two pieces of JFK and Marilyn Monroe memorabilia, and if I walked out with everything I’d bid on that night, I’d have spent too much. After the charity was over, my girlfriend and I walked out to the parking lot, and there it was. Facing backwards and leaned up against the tire of my car was this John Wooden collector’s item.

What a coincidence, I thought. I had been debating on bidding on this thing and here it was sitting on the ground by my car. My mother or my stepfather must have bought it for me. Maybe someone saw me staring at it.

Right away I called my mom, who had helped organize the charity, and she told me she didn’t buy it. Later she checked the registry, and we found out it had been stolen.  So I was standing outside a charity event, with a stolen artifact leaning against my car. It must have looked real bad. My mother decided that the piece was important to me and the way the events lined up were too coincidental to ignore, so she would buy it for my birthday. I hung the board in my office as a conversation piece and it’s been there ever since.

Later that year, another coincidence came. My friend Coach Dale Brown called me and told me he had a treat for me—I was going to meet John Wooden.

Of course there were more obstacles. The day I was supposed to meet John, I had to call him and tell him I couldn’t do it, since I had already made a commitment to be at the Vitality event for ViSalus. I felt very conflicted over this because I knew I was supposed to meet this man, and John Wooden was 96 at the time. I might never get another chance.

Dale called me back in April 2008 with another offer to meet John Wooden. This time everything lined up. I went to John Wooden’s house in Encino, and we sat and spoke for an hour and a half. I left with four pages of notes from that meeting, and some of the most valuable lessons I’ve gotten from any one man.

One of the practical lessons I came away with that day, got applied immediately to a business transaction I was considering at the time. Wooden helped me use the same set of criteria used in deciding whether or not to ‘go pro’ to the concept of taking a company to the next level. I used these criteria when negotiating the Blyth and ViSalus transaction in 2008. I’ll go more into this in my book Nothing to Lose coming out later this year, which is more geared toward teaching business principles.

In the meantime, I’d like to share three pieces of wisdom from John Wooden that struck a chord with me on a personal level.

•    The first lesson was about success. At the time when I met Wooden I’d been searching for a personal definition of what it meant to be successful. I wondered, who was the standard of success? Sitting there in this meeting I thought—here I was, a young man with some very ambitious goals. How many others would have wanted to be in my shoes that day? What an amazing life Wooden has, to have a long list of future leaders seeking him out for his time and attention. In a society where the majority of our elders feel lonely and unappreciated, if I could reach the age of 96 and have young leaders to give my wisdom to, then I can truly say my life has been a success.

•    The second lesson was about love. John Wooden is well documented for his enduring devotion to his wife, who died many years ago. He showed me his room where he sleeps in bed next to his wife’s dress and her photo every night. On the anniversary of her death each month, he pens her a note. I decided that this is the ultimate definition of love.

•    Which ties in well to the final piece of wisdom that I received from John Wooden, the answer to my question—what was the most important thing you could to do as a father? Wooden told me that the best thing a parent could do for a child is to love its mother.

Not knowing that I would become a father myself just a little less than a year later, these words of wisdom soon became extremely meaningful to the way I now live my life. How many difficulties did all of us have as children that came from our parents lack of love for each other? If we could apply this one principle and be good fathers, the world really would become a better place. And that’s a good place to start.

Thanks to John Wooden I have my standard for success, and I also have an example of love that endures beyond death. As for the collector’s item, it still hangs proudly in my office, with a signed note addressed to me by the legend himself.