Quotes from Phil Jackson

I often reminded the players to focus on the journey rather than the endgame, because if you give the future all your attention, the present will pass you by.

Por eso soy partidario de la filosofía del difunto Satchel Paige, que afirmaba: «A veces me siento y pienso y otras, simplemente, me siento».

In order to practice sincerely and to develop patience," he says, "you need someone who willfully hurts you.

Basketball is a great mystery. You can do everything right. You can have the perfect mix of talent and the best system of offense in the game. You can devise a foolproof defensive strategy and prepare your players for every possible eventuality. But if the players don't have a sense of oneness as a group, your efforts won't pay off. And the bond that unites a team can be so fragile, so elusive.

Rather than squeeze everybody into preordained roles, my goal has always been to foster an environment where the players can grow as individuals and express themselves creatively within a team structure.

His fearless attack on both ends of the court galvanized the team.

Before each series I spent a lot of time visualizing new ways to neutralize our next opponent's attack.

Smush was a slight, crafty player who was good at slipping through defenses to attack the basket and playing tough, full-court defense.

After years of experimenting, I discovered that the more I tried to exert power directly, the less powerful I became.

Michael was more likely to break through his attackers with his power and strength.

I had always insisted on structured practices with a clear agenda that the players would receive ahead of time.

He was good at coming off the bench and igniting the attack with his quickness and speed.

If your primary objective is to bring the team into a state of harmony and oneness, it doesn't make sense for you to rigidly impose your authority.

What's more, obsessing about winning is a loser's game: The most we can hope for is to create the best possible conditions for success, then let go of the outcome.

That's the essence of what it means to bring individuals together and connect them to something greater than themselves.

To be successful at basketball, as author John McPhee once pointed out, you need to have a finely tuned sense of where you are and what's happening around you at any given moment.

Winning is about moving into the unknown and creating something new.

Cuando haces cosas desde el alma, sientes un río, un gozo que fluye en tu interior. RUMI

In the West we tend to think of compassion as a form of charity, but I share Lao-tzu's view that compassion for all beings—not least of all oneself—is the key to breaking down barriers among people.

Now that all of our children were out of the house, she was looking forward to creating a new, more fulfilling life. So was I—or so I thought. I explored other interests, including giving speeches on leadership.

The soul of success is surrendering to what is.

In the strictest form of Zen, monitors roam the meditation hall, striking sleeping or listless meditators with a flat wooden stick, called a keisaku, to get them to pay attention. This is not intended as punishment. In fact, the keisaku is sometimes referred to as a "compassionate stick." The purpose of the blow is to reinvigorate the meditator and make him or her more awake in the moment.

Remember that scene in the first Indiana Jones movie when someone asks Indy what he's going to do next, and he replies, "I don't know, I'm making it up as we go along." That's how I view leadership. It's an act of controlled improvisation, a Thelonious Monk finger exercise, from one moment to the next.

I've discovered that you can solve many difficulties with what Lao-tzu called non-action