Our military school wresting coach Luke Worsham was a teacher I’ll never forget. In the years I wrestled on his team, we did not lose a single match.

That does not mean we won every event.

I lost my share. But we always won the overall match – often by wide margins.

After my 1st match on the team, he had us show the wrestlers on the rival team our take-down and pin holds. That surprised me. Why should we give away our secrets.

“This way, we improve everyone’s ability,” he explained. “It will make better athletes and better wrestlers of us all.”

He was a true teacher at heart.

He truly wanted to improve all of us, not just those of us on his team.

It took me years to begin to appreciate and recognize the value of his philosophy.

Sharing success secrets gives all of us a greater chance of becoming successful.

THE GREAT Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi knew about secrets, too.

Lombardi took over a losing pro football team, the only one in the NFL owned by local residents. The owners loved their team and tickets were sold out for generations. You had to wait from somebody to die to

You had to wait from somebody to die to buy his tickets – if his family would sell.

The owners packed the stadium for home games no matter the weather. They would huddle in blankets and ski caps to watch their team lose again on icy Sundays with the temperature hovering at 15 below zero.

Lombardi waded into this pool of misery with a simple game plan. No fancy stuff. No trick plays. Just solid hard nose football.

He taught his players to be tough and shake off what he called “little hurts.”

On almost every play the rival coaches were smart enough to figure out what the Packers were going to do.

Stopping them was the problem.

YEARS AGO Chuck McCurry shared a secret that gave me a title for my 1st book, “How to Peel a Green Banana.”

It was not a book about fruit.

Chuck generously shared the idea in a seminar he was conducting with a banana.

In the jungle the monkeys peel and eat greener bananas that we get in this country, Chuck said. Did any of us know how to peel a green banana? No one did.

Chuck started at the stem. The semigreen banana would not open. Then he tried the end. The banana popped open.

“The point,” Chuck said, “is if you know how to do something – or someone with greater experience shows you how – your chances of success jump 100%.”

The analogy was a great title for a book for rookie sales people. It was based on what successful veteran sales people had taught me over the years.

In those years, newspaper and news service publishers and state press association from New England to California invited me to share our secrets.

Universities and technical colleges have asked me to teach writing, advertising, marketing and business start up.

Was this teaching wannabe business people to be more competitive? You bet.

Was this teaching them to compete with us and our friends. I don’t think so.

That’s what makes this country exceptional. Opportunity is there for all of us.

Next: Learning from tough times

An offer for you

Jerry Bellune’s new book, “The Art of Compelling Writing,” is ready to release. To place a $9.99 advance order, write him at JerryBellune@yahoo.com