Quotable Quotes – Coaching and Mentoring

I attended a leadership conference the other day about coaching and mentoring.  I am sharing a whole peck of notable quotes that were presented to us.

Vince Lombardi

• Winning is not a some time thing; it’s an all the time thing.
• You’ve got to be smart to be number one in any business.  But more importantly, you’ve got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body.  If you’re lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he’s never going to come off the field second …
• And in truth, I’ve never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline.
• But I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour- his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear- is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle- victorious.
• You don’t do things right once in a while… you do them right all the time.
• Once a man has made a commitment to a way of life, he puts the greatest strength in the world behind him.  It’s something we call heart power.  Once a man has made this commitment, nothing will stop him short of success.
• The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
• It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.
• Winning is not everything- but making the effort to win is.
• The spirit, the will to win and the will to excel- these are the things that will endure and these are qualities that are so much more important than any of the events themselves.
• They call it coaching but it is teaching.  You do not just tell them …you show them the reasons.
• After all the cheers have died down and the stadium is empty, after the headlines have been written, and after you are back in the quiet of y our room and the championship ring has been placed on the dresser and after all the pomp and fanfare have faded, the enduring thing that is left is the dedication to doing with our lives the very best we can to make the world a better place in which to live.
• Teams do not go physically flat, they go mentally stale.
• Success is like anything worthwhile.  It has a price.  You have to pay the price to win and you have to pay the price to get to the point where success is possible.  Most important, you must pay the price to stay there.
• Leaders are made, they are not born.  They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.
• Winning is a habit.  Watch your thoughts, they become your beliefs.  Watch your beliefs, they become your words.  Watch your words, they become your actions.  Watch your actions, they become your habits.  Watch your habits, they become your character.
• The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.
• Confidence is contagious and so is a lack of confidence, and a customer will recognize both.
• If you don’t think you’re a winner, you don’t belong here.
• It is essential to understand that battles are primarily won in the hearts of men.  Men respond to leadership in a most remarkable way and once you have won his heart, he will follow you anywhere.
• If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you’ll be fired with enthusiasm.
• If you can’t get emotional about what you believe in your heart, you’re in the wrong business.
• There’s only one way to succeed in anything, and that is to give it everything.  I do, and I demand that my players do.
• To be successful, a man must exert an effective influence upon his brothers and upon his associates, and the degree to which he accomplishes this depends on the personality of the man.  The incandescence of which he is capable.  The flame of fire that burns inside of him.  The magnetism which draws the heart of other men to him.
• Some of us will do our jobs well and some will not, but we will all be judged on one thing: the result.
• The object is to win fairly, squarely, by the rules- but to win.
• Morally, the life of the organization must be of exemplary nature.  This is one phase where the organization must not have criticism.
• Win without boasting. Lose without excuses.
• All right Mister, let me tell you what winning means… you’re willing to go longer, work harder, give more than anyone else.
• People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.
• The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.

Lou Holtz

• How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or loser.
• No matter how bad someone has it, there are others who have it worse.  Remembering that makes life a lot easier and allows you to take pleasure in the blessings you have been given.
• Your neighbors will make judgments about you based on how your lawn and house look, and people who see you passing will judge you based on how clean you keep your car.  It’s not always fair, but it has always been true.  Appearances matter, so make yours a good one.
• It’s always better to face the truth, no matter how uncomfortable, than to continue coddling a lie.
• Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
• If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.
• I’ve never known anybody to achieve anything without overcoming adversity.
• Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.

John Wooden

• Nothing will work unless you do.
• Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
• A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.
• Make sure that team members know they are working with you, not for you.
• Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.
• As long as you try your best, you are never a failure. That is, unless you blame others.
• Be most interested to find the best way; not in having your own way.
• Be slow to criticize and quick to commend.
• Big things are accomplished only through the perfection of minor details.
• Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
• Everything we know, we learned from someone else!
• Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.
• If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?
• If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.
• Never mistake activity for achievement.
• The most important key to achieving great success is to decide upon your goal and launch, get started, take action, move.

George Halas

• Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.

Mike Ditka

• You’re never a loser until you quit trying.

Leroy Satchel Paige

• You win a few, you lose a few.  Some get rained out.  But you got to dress for all of them.

John Madden

• Coaches have to watch for what they don’t want to see and listen to what they don’t want to hear.
• Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.

Pat Riley

• Excellence happens when you try each day to both do and be, a little better than you were yesterday!

Casey Stengel

• Gettin’ good players is easy. Gettin’ em to play together is the hard part.

Tony Dungy

• Hard work and togetherness. They go hand in hand. You need the hard work because it’s such a tough atmosphere….to win week in and week out. You need togetherness because you don’t always win, and you gotta hang tough together.

Paul “Bear” Bryant

• If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, then we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games.
• In a crisis, don’t hide behind anything or anybody. They are going to find you anyway.
• Little things make the difference. Everyone is well prepared in the big things, but only the winners perfect the little things.

Yogi Berra

• If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.
• It ain’t over till it’s over.

Don Shula

• My responsibility is leadership, and the minute I get negative, that is going to have an influence on my team.

Tommy Lasorda

• The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man’s determination.
• I believe managing is like holding a dove in your hand. If you hold it too tightly you kill it, but if you hold it too loosely, you lose it.

Rick Pitino

• The only way to get people to like working hard is to motivate them. Today, people must understand why they’re working hard. Every individual in an organization is motivated by something different.

Joe Paterno

• The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.

Chuck Noll

• You can’t make a great play unless you do it first in practice.

Phil Jackson

• Love is the force that ignites the spirit and binds teams together.

Click here to MD Leader Home Page