John Wooden Quotes

No written word nor spoken plea Can teach our youth what they should be. Nor all the books on all the shelves. It’s what the teachers are themselves.

Why is that person in our organization if he or she is not contributing? What is the impact of a negligible producer on other team members? What can we do to enhance that person’s contribution? Do we move him to another “position,” restructure his current job, or make other fundamental changes that would amplify that person’s contributions? Should that person be removed from our team?

Champions never complain, they are too busy getting better

Patience is the ability to wait and calmly preserve. We all grow impatient, but some people have more trouble waiting than others do. We tend to forget that all good things take time.

You can always look back and see where you might have done something differently, changed this or that. If you can learn something, fine, but never second-guess yourself. It’s wasted effort.

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

Achievement will continue at the same or a greater level only if you do not permit the infection of success to take hold of you and your organization. The symptom of that infection is called complacency. Contentment with past accomplishments or acceptance of the status quo can derail an organization quickly. In sports or business, getting to the top is difficult. One of the reasons staying there is so rare is because the infection sets in.

If we are not true to ourselves, we cannot be true to others — our wife or husband, our family, our profession and colleagues

Never lie. Never cheat. Never steal.

The smallest good dead is better than the best intention

three of the things we want most — happiness, freedom, and peace of mind — are always attained when we give them to others.

I prize intensity and fear emotionalism. Consistency in high performance and production is a trademark of effective and successful organizations and those who lead them. Emotionalism destroys consistency. A leader who is ruled by emotions, whose temperament is mercurial, produces a team whose trademark is the roller coaster — ups and downs in performance; unpredictability and un-dependability in effort and concentration; one day good, the next day bad.

Characteristics of a Team Player We all fit into different niches. Each of us must make the effort to contribute to the best of our ability according to our own individual talents. And then we put all the individual talents together for the highest good of the group. Thus, I valued a player who cared for others and could lose himself in the group for the good of the group. I believe that quality makes for an outstanding player. It is also why the best players don’t always make the best team. I mean by this that a gifted player, or players, who are not team players will ultimately hurt the team, whether it revolves around basketball or business. Understanding that the good of the group comes first is fundamental to being a highly productive member of a team.

How hard you work at correcting your faults reveals your character.

Now parents will say, “We’re just trying to make ends meet,” and they’re telling the truth. But if you think too much about the pursuit of material things, you’re going to hurt those youngsters you’re working so hard to buy material things for.