Eleven Rings, Phil Jackson, Hugh Delehanty

when I was force-fed religious dogma by my parents, both Pentecostal ministers. I was expected to think and behave in a rigidly prescribed manner. As an adult, I’ve tried to break free from that early conditioning and develop a more open-minded, personally meaningful way of being in the world. (Location 197)

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. (Location 209)

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. (Location 218)

The rituals had a profound effect on me—and on my approach to leadership—even though later I drifted away from the Pentecostal faith and found a new direction spiritually. (Location 253)

Sometimes no matter how nice a guy you are, you’re going to have to be an asshole. You can’t be a coach if you need to be liked.” (Location 337)

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. (Location 356)

“Practice doesn’t make perfect,” he used to say. “Perfect practice does.” (Location 469)

Somewhere on the outskirts of Piscataway, I found myself having an imaginary conversation with my father, who had died a few months earlier. “What am I going to do, Dad?” I said. “Is the rest of my life going to be total drudgery, just going through the motions?” Pause. “How can anything else ever be as meaningful to me as playing basketball? Where am I going to find my new purpose in life?” (Location 841)

The beauty of the system—and this applies to all kinds of systems, not just the triangle—was that it turned the whole team into a learning organization. Everybody from Michael on down had something to learn, no matter how talented or untalented he was. So when I came down hard on a player in practice, he understood that I was merely trying to get him to understand how to work the triangle offense. As I said earlier, the road to freedom is a beautiful system. Another aspect of the system I liked was its reliability; it gave the players something to fall back on when they were under stress. They didn’t have to pretend to be like Mike and invent every move they made. All they had to do was play their part in the system, knowing that it would inevitably lead to good scoring opportunities. The system also gave players a clear purpose as a group and established a high standard of performance for everyone. Even more important, it helped turn players into leaders as they began teaching one another how to master the system. When that happened, the group would bond together in ways that moments of individual glory, no matter how thrilling, could never foster. (Location 967)

Red Holzman used to say that “the real mark of a star was how much better he made his teammates.” (Location 988)

Dad was a pastor in the true sense of the word. He was one of the few genuinely Christian men I’ve ever met. (Location 1267)

wasn’t trying to turn the Bulls into Buddhist monks. I was interested in getting them to take a more mindful approach to the game and to their relationships with one another. (Location 1336)

“To hear the unheard,” he said, “is a necessary discipline to be a good ruler. For only when a ruler has learned to listen closely to the people’s hearts, hearing their feelings uncommunicated, pains unexpressed, and complaints not spoken of, can he hope to inspire confidence in the people, understand when something is wrong, and meet the true needs of his citizens.” (Location 1354)

The way you do anything is the way you do everything. TOM WAITS (Location 1477)

Getting the players to turn inward wasn’t always easy. Not everyone on the Bulls was interested in “spiritual” realization. But I didn’t hit them over the head with it. My approach was subtle. Every year the team went on a long West Coast road trip in November when the circus took over the stadium for a few weeks. Before the trip I would select a book for each of the players to read, based on what I knew about them. Here’s a typical list: Song of Solomon (for Michael Jordan), Things Fall Apart (Bill Cartwright), Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (John Paxson), The Ways of White Folks (Scottie Pippen), Joshua: A Parable for Today (Horace Grant), Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (B.J. Armstrong), Way of the Peaceful Warrior (Craig Hodges), On the Road (Will Perdue), and Beavis & Butt-Head: This Book Sucks (Stacey King). (Location 1681)

Another way I pushed the envelope was to have experts come in and teach the players yoga, tai chi, and other mind-body techniques. I also invited guest speakers—including a nutritionist, an undercover detective, and a prison warden—to show them new ways of thinking about difficult problems. (Location 1690)

For starters, I appealed to his sense of a higher calling. I said that God had given him a remarkable talent that made millions of people happy, and I didn’t think it was right for him to walk away. But he had an answer for that. “For some reason, God is telling me to move on, and I must move on,” he said. (Location 1774)

“This is probably the hardest time for me to play the game of basketball,” he said. “I had a lot of things on my heart, on my mind. . . . And maybe my heart wasn’t geared to where it was. But I think deep down inside, it was geared to what was most important to me, which was my family and my father not being here to see this. I’m just happy that the team kind of pulled me through it because it was a tough time for me.” (Location 2210)

To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself. SØREN KIERKEGAARD (Location 2224)

Shaw was the team’s truth teller. He had a good read on the team’s prickly interpersonal dynamics, and I encouraged him to speak his mind. “My mother always told me growing up that my mouth would get me in trouble someday,” says Brian, “because if I saw something that wasn’t right, I had to point it out. I felt that as long as I was telling the truth, I’d be all right. You can’t be mad at the truth.” (Location 3335)

As devout Christians, my parents felt that anger was a sin and should be dispelled. But trying to eliminate anger never works. (Location 3537)

Leadership is not about forcing your will on others. It’s about mastering the art of letting go. (Location 4073)