IT'S DRIVE!

Kobe Bryant was once asked: What makes one guy a champion and not the next guy?

"It's drive.  It's the will.  There are certain people that have a tremendous hunger.  There are certain people that have a will, determination, hunger that you need to be the best in the world.  Those people -- and those people alone -- become champions."

THE PRICE OF TEAMWORK

As a follow up to the "The Price That Must Be Paid," here are some great thoughts from John Maxwell on "The Price of Teamwork."

Sacrifice:

There can be no success without sacrifice. James Allen observed, “He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much.”

Time Commitment:

Teamwork does no come cheaply. It costs you time-that means you pay for it with your life. Teamwork can’t be developed in a microwave time. Teams grow strong in a Crock-Pot environment.

Personal Development:

Your team will reach its potential only if you reach your potential. That means today’s ability is not enough.  Or to put it the way leadership expert Max DePree did: “We cannot become what we need to be remaining what we are.”  UCLA’s John Wooden, a marvelous team leader and the greatest college basketball coach of all time, said, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”

Unselfishness:

“When you give your best to the world, the world returns the favor.”

-H. Jackson Brown

And if you give your best to the team, it will return more to you than you give, and together you will achieve more than you can on your own.

MYLES GARRETT AND THE IMPORTANCE OF FOCUS

"Drinking, smoking, going out -- unnecessary to me. You have to know what you're doing to help people and have an important stance in life. You can only do that by staying focused, and I can't lose focus for a second. It's just like in football, it's a game of angles and seconds. As soon as you lose depth or that amount of time, you can lose that play, you can lose that game. You lose focus, you slip up, you're not in the same place you were before."

                        -Myles Garrett

SABAN ON IT TAKES TO BE A GOOD PLAYER

"To be a good player on your team, you have to affect someone else on the team. You have to cause them to play better by the way you play. You affect other players with the character and attitude. To be a great player, you have to affect your entire unit. If you are a great player, every player on that unit plays better when you are on the field. The number one thing on any team that will keep your players from being selfish is respect for the other players. Having respect leads to trust and from that they begin to believe in each other. That is the way it works and that is the way it has to be."

-Nick Saban

SUCCESS IS NEVER AN ACCIDENT

A short but powerful video and message from Alan Stein:

I AM HABIT

I am your constant companion.  I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden.  I will push you upward or drag you down to failure.  I am completely at your command.  Half of the things you do you might just as well turn over to me and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.  I am easily managed -- you must merely be firm with me.  Show me exactly how you want something done and after a few lessons I will do it automatically.

I am the servant of all great men, and alas, of all failures as well.  Those who are great, I have made great.  Those who are failures, I have made failures.  I am not a machine, although I work with all the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of man.  You may run me for profit or run me for ruin -- it makes no difference to me.  Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet.  Be easy with me and I will destroy you.

Who am I?

I am HABIT


From "Thinking for a Change" by John Maxwell

A TREMENDOUS HUNGER

When Kobe Bryant was asked what makes one guy a champion above the next guy he responded with this:

"It's drive.  It's the will,  There are certain people that have a tremendous hunger.  There are certain people that have a will,  determination and hunger that you need to be the best in the world.  Those people -- and those people alone -- become champions."

IT'S "WHAT CAN BE" THAT MEASURES WORTH

The following is a poem written by Dan Clark for Anthony Robles.  It comes from Roble's book "Unstoppable."  Want to learn more about Robles? Check out one of our previous blog posts: http://goo.gl/mwgVC.

Every soul who comes to earth
With a leg -- or two -- at birth
Must wrestle his opponents knowing
It's not what it is, it's what can be that measures worth.
Make it hard, just make it possible
And through pain I'll not complain,
My spirit is unconquerable
Fearless I will face each foe, for I know
I am capable, I don't care what's probable
Through blood, sweat and tears
I am unstoppable.

I TOLD MYSELF I WAS UNSTOPPABLE

A sold-out crowd of more than 17,000 watched from the risers of the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia on March 19, 2011 at Arizona State University senior Anthony Robles emerged from the locker room on crutches.  After handing them to ASU assistant coach Brian Stith, he hopped to the corner of the mat, crouched down on one knee, and waited for the whistle that would signal the start of his final wrestling match.

"I told myself I was unstoppable," says Robles of that moment.  "I had put way too much into it to go in there and not come out with a national title."

That day, Robles, who was born without a right leg and permanently traded in a prosthetic one for crutches at the age of 3, defeated defending national champ Matt McConough 7-1 to become the first disabled wrestler in history to win a national college title.

By Alison Miller of Spirit Magazine

HOW MJ BECAME THE "BEST TO EVER PLAY"

The following is conversation between Coach Roy Williams, then an assistant at the University of North Carolina and a young freshman named Michael Jordan:

When Michael Jordan first got to UNC, we were sitting at the track one day after conditioning. It was just the two of us. “Coach,” he said. “I want to be the best player to every play here.”

“You’ll have to work much harder than you did in high school,” Williams said.

“But, Coach. I worked as hard as everybody else.”

“Oh, excuse me. I thought you just said you wanted to be the best player to ever play here. Working as hard as everybody else is not even going to come close, son.”

That was the end of the conversation.

Two days later, after the next conditioning session, Michael comes up to me and we were sitting there alone again. He said, “Coach, I’ve been thinking about what you said. I’m going to show you. There will never be anyone who will outwork me.”

He did that. From that day on, Michael tried to kick everybody’s rear end in every drill.

From "Hard Work: A Life On and Off the Court" by Roy Williams

ARE YOU UP FOR THE CHALLENGE?

DREAM BIG...WORK HARD!

HOW HUNGRY ARE YOU?

"Wanting something is not enough. You must hunger for it. Your motivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come your way."

~Les Brown

WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO DO TO HELP YOUR TEAM SUCCEED?

The following comes from the book “The Gold Standard” written by Coach Mike Krzyzewski in which he shares his thoughts and stories about the 2008 Gold-Medal Olympic Basketball Team.

“Having players have a defensive DNA and desire goes without saying. I am ready to learn and excited to be coached by one of the best and looking forward to the thrill of a new challenge and the job of a new kill.”

“Coach, can you do me a favor?” Kobe Bryant said. “And what’s that?” I responded. “I want you to let me guard the best player on every team we face. And I promise that I will destroy him” Kobe said.

Here was possibly the greatest offensive player in the game asking me for the opportunity to play defense at the highest level. It was also his way of telling me that he was willing to adapt to help make us the best team we could become.”

BRUCE LEE ON THE WILL TO WIN

"The will to win. The attitude 'that you can win if you want to badly enough' means that the will to win is constant and no amount of punishment, no amount of effort, or no condition is too 'tough' to take in order to win. Such an attitude can be developed only if winning is closely tied to the practitioner’s ideals and dreams. Experience shows that an athlete who forces himself to the limit, can keep going as long as necessary. It means that ordinary effort will not tap or release the tremendous store of reserve power latent in the human body. Extraordinary effort, highly emotionalized conditions, or a true determination to win at all costs will release this extra energy. Therefore an athlete is actually as tired as he feels, and if he is determined to win he can keep on almost indefinitely in order to achieve his objective."

-BRUCE LEE

NO EXCUSES

MAVS ALL ABOUT "TEAM"

Wonder why Dallas has been peaking at the right time?  Look at these quotes from two of their all-stars:

"This is a bunch of veterans who want to play and are unselfish. I think that’s what makes this group special, I mean, everybody sacrificing for each other and we just want to win. It’s been fun to play with these guys all season long, so hopefully we can have a great series.”
-Dirk Nowitzki

“There’s a point in everybody’s career where you’ve got to make certain sacrifices if you really want to get to that ultimate goal.  Sometimes you’ve got to do certain things you probably don’t want to do, or make changes you’ve never done in your whole career just to make something work. At the end, when you can get that prize, that’s all that matters."
-Shawn Marion

4:21 AM WAKE UP CALL GETS CHRIS PAUL'S WORKOUT STARTED

Great video from NBA Fit on Chris Paul and his workout regiment, his perspective and attitude.

GOING THE EXTRA MILE

Practice is finished, but Patrick Peterson isn’t.

He walks across the green turf of LSU’s indoor practice facility, into a corner of the massive building next to the north end zone where a row of blocking pads are attached to the wall.

Knees bent, he locks into ready position as though the pads are a real live opposing receiver and begins his work. He slides from one pad to the next, back and forth, his arms firing out like pistons, slapping them like they’ve hurled an insult his way.

Bap...bap...bap...bap...bap.

No one is around. No coach is in his ear imploring him to work harder. No one has to tell him anything.

The voice is in his head. The voice telling him that it isn’t just talent alone that will take him where he wants to go.

It’s sweat. It’s the extra mile. It’s every day.

Bap...bap...bap....bap...bap.

“It comes from my father,” Peterson said. “He always put in my head that you’ve got to be better than the next man. While I’m working, someone else is sleeping. I definitely took that to heart. That helped me be the player I am today, but there are definitely things I can sharpen up.

“I tell myself, I want to be the best cornerback to ever come out of not only LSU, but the whole NCAA. That was my goal coming into college. I believe I have achieved some of the goals I have set.”

Read Scott Rabalais' complete article at: http://bit.ly/gEha9f

WE'RE ALWAYS TRYING TO GET BETTER

''We got better yesterday. We got better on Wednesday. We're going to have a better team this Sunday. That really has been a trademark of this team ... to always make improvements over the course of the season. So I don't think we take weeks off. I don't think we take days off. We're always trying to get better.''

-Tom Brady