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Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success

A New York Times bestseller During his storied career as head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, Phil Jackson won more championships than any coach in the history of professional sports. Even more important, he succeed

(11 total)

“The key to a 3-peat is change. You can't 'repeat' the formula. Your opponent has already figured it out. You have to keep growing. Continue into the unknown.”

— Phil Jackson, amazon.com

Tagged: strategy

“They say 'Find somewhere inside yourself to get better,' because that's what I'm doing everyday of the week, every minute of the day. They have no tolerance for anything else. None.”

— Rick Fox, amazon.com

Tagged: Life

“One thing I’ve learned as a coach is that you can’t force your will on people. If you want them to act differently, you need to inspire them to change themselves.”

— Phil Jackson, Hugh Delehanty, amazon.com

Tagged: Coaching, Mentoring, Leadership

“My intention was to give the players the freedom to figure out how to fit themselves within the system, rather than dictating from on high what I wanted them to do. Some players felt uncomfortable because they'd never been given that kind of latitude before. Others felt completely liberated.”

— Phil Jackson, amazon.com

Tagged: Freedom, Liberation, Open

“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.”

— Phil Jackson, amazon.com

Tagged: Ego, Managment, Negotiation, Power Dynamics

“Kobe, who had been named the NBA's most valuable player that year, was particularly laser focused. I've always been impressed by Kobe's resilience and ironclad self-confidence. Unlike Shaq, who was often plagued by self-doubt, Kobe never let such thoughts cross his mind. If someone set the bar at te…”

— Phil Jackson, amazon.com

Tagged: Confidence, Kobe Bryant, Self-Confidence, Shaquille O'Neal

“The essence of coaching is to get the players to wholeheartedly agree to being coached, then offer them a sense of their destiny as a team.”

— Phil Jackson, amazon.com

Tagged: Consent, Managment, Same Page

“This forced me to start thinking of the game as a strategic problem rather than a tactical one. As a young player, you tend to focus most of your attention on how you're going beat your man in any given game. But now I began to see basketball as a dynamic game of chess in which all the pieces were i…”

— Phil Jackson, amazon.com

Tagged: Beyond the Tactical, Growing Up

“I bought a bicycle and pedaled all over town, trying to connect with the real New York City. But no matter how much time I spent in Central Park, to me living in the city felt like living indoors. I needed to be someplace where I could feel a strong connection to the earth.”

— Phil Jackson, amazon.com

Tagged: Nature, New York City, Rural Vs. Urban

“What I liked about basketball was how interconnected everything was. The game was a complex dance of moves and countermoves that made it much more alive than other sports I played. In addition, basketball demanded a high level of synergy. To succeed, you needed to rely upon everybody else on the flo…”

— Phil Jackson, amazon.com

Tagged: Basketball, Sports as Transcendence, Teamwork

“The old Knicks were used to taking responsibility for our own laundry because there was no equipment manager then, and strange as it may sound, washing our own uniforms had a unifying effect on the team. If the newcomers weren't willing to wash their own gear, we wondered whether they would take res…”

— Phil Jackson, amazon.com

Tagged: Humble, New York Knicks, The Importance of Drudgery