Quotes from John Wooden

Never believe you're better than anybody else, but remember that you're just as good as everybody else.

Seek Players Who Will Make the Best Team Rather Than the Best Players.

Whether in basketball or business, you must be able to perform all aspects of your job, not just part of it. You must be able to "get open" and "shoot." One without the other makes you a partial performer, someone who can be replaced because your skills are incomplete.

Set your standards high; namely, do the absolute best of which you are capable. Focus on running the race rather than winning it. Do those things necessary to bring forth your personal best and don't lose sleep worrying about the competition. Let the competition lose sleep worrying about you. Teach your organization to do the same.

I never dreamed about winning a national championship. What I was dreaming about was trying to produce the best basketball team we could be. My thoughts were directed toward preparation, our journey, not the results of the effort. That would simply have shifted my attention to the wrong area, hoping for something out of my control.

Failure isn't fatal, but failure to change might be

Reputation is what others perceive you as being, and their opinion may be right or wrong. Character, however, is what you really are, and nobody truly knows that but you. But you are what matters most.

You must define success as making the complete effort to maximize your ability, skills, and potential in whatever circumstances—good or bad—may exist.

Condition Your Team to Love the Struggle.

Remember That Success Can Take Months—or Years—to Achieve but Can Be Undone in Minutes.

Organizations Succeed When They Become More Than the Sum of Their Players. That's one of the real tests of any leader, making the whole more than the sum of its parts. No team will consistently succeed unless the leader is able to achieve this critical goal.

Sometime you can do everything right and still lose. It's all a journey. You do your best, and then you have to let it go. Lots of people preach that, but come crunch time—oops, not so easy to do.

While I made my living as a coach, I have lived my life to be a mentor, and to be mentored! Constantly. Everything in the world has been passed down. Every piece of knowledge is something that has been shared by someone else. If you understand it as I do, mentoring becomes your true legacy. It is the greatest inheritance you can give to others. It is why you get up every day—to teach and be taught.

Remember, discipline of others isn't punishment. You discipline to help, to improve, to correct, to prevent, not to punish, humiliate, or retaliate

Be quick - but don't hurry.

If we are surrounded by flawless individuals, it can make our own mistakes seem magnified. And if a problem appears overlarge, it becomes more intimidating to attempt to overcome it.

Politeness and courtesy are a small price to pay for the goodwill of others.

It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. -John Wooden

SEEK THOSE WITH A FIRE-IN-THE-BELLY ENTHUSIASM FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION

DON'T MISTAKE ACTIVITY FOR ACHIEVEMENT

Ethics and Attitude Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Character is what you really are. Reputation is what people say you are. Character is more important.

Remember That a Great Quarter in Basketball or Business Starts with a Great Minute.

Never mistake mere activity for accomplishment

Things turn out the best for people who make the best of the way things turn out.