Quotes from Phil Jackson

NBA is not exactly the friendliest environment for teaching selflessness. Even though the game itself is a five-person sport, the culture surrounding it celebrates egoistic behavior and stresses individual achievement over team bonding.

Forget mistakes, forget failures, forget everything, except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day. WILL DURANT

I learned to dial back my ego and distribute power as widely as possible without surrendering final authority. Paradoxically, this approach strengthened my effectiveness because it freed me to focus on my job as keeper of the team's vision.

Practice doesn't make perfect," he used to say. "Perfect practice does.

No toques el saxofón, déjate tocar por él. CHARLIE PARKER

I've always been interested in getting players to think for themselves so that they can make difficult decisions in the heat of battle.

What I love about Monk's list is his basic message about the importance of awareness, collaboration, and having clearly defined roles

In his new adaptation of the Chinese sacred text Tao Te Ching, Stephen Mitchell offers a provocative take on Lao-tzu's approach to leadership: I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are the greatest treasures. Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.

As Friedrich Nietzsche said, "Invisible threads are the strongest ties.

There's no I in the word 'team,'" Tex would say. "But there is in the word 'win,'" Michael would counter with a grin.

They developed the confidence to bounce back from adversity and tap into a source of inner strength many of them had never experienced before. They faced their demons head-on and didn't blink.

Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but . . . life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

time was limited. In The Tao of Leadership, John Heider stresses the importance of interfering as little as possible. "Rules reduce freedom and responsibility," he writes. "Enforcement of rules is coercive and manipulative, which diminishes spontaneity and absorbs group energy. The more coercive you are, the more resistant the group will become.

Heider, whose book is based on Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, suggests that leaders practice becoming more open. "The wise leader is of service: receptive, yielding, following. The group member's vibration dominates and leads, while the leader follows. But soon it is the member's consciousness which is transformed, the member's vibration which is resolved.

Work is holy, sacred, and uplifting when it springs from who we are, when it bears a relationship to our unfolding journey," writes activist, teacher, and lay monk Wayne Teasdale in A Monk in the World. "For work to be sacred, it must be connected to our

I added that Red Holzman used to say that "the real mark of a star was how much better he made his teammates.

For some reason, God is telling me to move on, and I must move on," he said. "People have to learn that nothing lasts forever." Then we tried to figure out a way that he could compete in the playoffs without playing

Every year Tex, who loved inspirational sayings, would recite to the team his favorite proverb about the importance of learning the details: For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the message was lost. For want of a message the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

What I discovered after years of meditation practice is that when you immerse yourself fully in the moment, you start developing a much deeper awareness of what's going on, right here, right now. And that awareness ultimately leads to a greater sense of oneness — the essence of teamwork.

Made people laugh. Dennis had a way of making everybody lighten up when things were tense. How could you get down on yourself when there's this crazy guy on the team who had dyed his hair with a big yellow happy face?

After years of experimenting, I discovered that the more I tried to exert power directly, the less powerful I became. I learned to dial back my ego and distribute power as widely as possible without surrendering final 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. The ride is a lot more fun that way.

When I let him solve the problem himself, he was more likely to buy into the solution and not repeat the same counterproductive behavior in the future.

The Celtics were so dominant in the 1960s that Jerry West stopped wearing anything green because it reminded him of the frustration the Lakers had endured during that decade.