Basketball Motivation Quotes

Champions never sleep, the eternal spirit keep them alert and awake.

Your limits are somewhere up there, waiting for you to reach beyond infinity.

If you really want to be great at something you have to truly care about it. If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it.

It is not over. Champions extend their limits and make things happen.

From the beginning, I wanted to be the best. I had a constant craving, a yearning, to improve and be the best. I never needed any external forces to motivate me.

Pretending you aren’t going to die is detrimental to your enjoyment of life. It is detrimental in the same way that it would be detrimental for a basketball player to pretend there was no end to the game he was playing. That player would reduce his intensity, adopt a lazy playing style, and, of course, end up not having any fun at all. Without an end, there is no game. Without being conscious of death, you can’t be fully aware of the gift of life.

Get the big picture! See 2 Believe!

The only difference between a good shot and a bad shot is if it goes in or not

In any game, the game itself is the prize, no matter who wins, ultimately both lose the game.

Who could better motivate Bill Russell than Bill Russell?

Who is the learner and what is his or her relationship to knowledge and learning? Is he or she basically good or evil (or both)? Passive or active in learning? Capable of choice, or has life already been determined somehow? Motivated internally or externally? An unmarked slate or having unrealized potential? These questions are answered every day in every classroom, daycare center, or basketball court—answered by the way children are viewed and treated by adults.

Follow these steps—over and over again for a decade—and you just might become a master: • Remember that deliberate practice has one objective: to improve performance. “People who play tennis once a week for years don’t get any better if they do the same thing each time,” Ericsson has said. “Deliberate practice is about changing your performance, setting new goals and straining yourself to reach a bit higher each time.” • Repeat, repeat, repeat. Repetition matters. Basketball greats don’t shoot ten free throws at the end of team practice; they shoot five hundred. • Seek constant, critical feedback. If you don’t know how you’re doing, you won’t know what to improve. • Focus ruthlessly on where you need help. While many of us work on what we’re already good at, says Ericsson, “those who get better work on their weaknesses.” • Prepare for the process to be mentally and physically exhausting. That’s why so few people commit to it, but that’s why it works.

Cohen continued to struggle with his own well-being. Even though he had achieved his life’s dream of running his own firm, he was still unhappy, and he had become dependent on a psychiatrist named Ari Kiev to help him manage his moods. In addition to treating depression, Kiev’s other area of expertise was success and how to achieve it. He had worked as a psychiatrist and coach with Olympic basketball players and rowers trying to improve their performance and overcome their fear of failure. His background building athletic champions appealed to Cohen’s unrelenting need to dominate in every transaction he entered into, and he started asking Kiev to spend entire days at SAC’s offices, tending to his staff. Kiev was tall, with a bushy mustache and a portly midsection, and he would often appear silently at a trader’s side and ask him how he was feeling. Sometimes the trader would be so startled to see Kiev there he’d practically jump out of his seat. Cohen asked Kiev to give motivational speeches to his employees, to help them get over their anxieties about losing money. Basically, Kiev was there to teach them to be ruthless. Once a week, after the market closed, Cohen’s traders would gather in a conference room and Kiev would lead them through group therapy sessions focused on how to make them more comfortable with risk. Kiev had them talk about their trades and try to understand why some had gone well and others hadn’t. “Are you really motivated to make as much money as you can? This guy’s going to help you become a real killer at it,” was how one skeptical staff member remembered Kiev being pitched to them. Kiev’s work with Olympians had led him to believe that the thing that blocked most people was fear. You might have two investors with the same amount of money: One was prepared to buy 250,000 shares of a stock they liked, while the other wasn’t. Why? Kiev believed that the reluctance was a form of anxiety—and that it could be overcome with proper treatment. Kiev would ask the traders to close their eyes and visualize themselves making trades and generating profits. “Surrendering to the moment” and “speaking the truth” were some of his favorite phrases. “Why weren’t you bigger in the trades that worked? What did you do right?” he’d ask. “Being preoccupied with not losing interferes with winning,” he would say. “Trading not to lose is not a good strategy. You need to trade to win.” Many of the traders hated the group therapy sessions. Some considered Kiev a fraud. “Ari was very aggressive,” said one. “He liked money.” Patricia, Cohen’s first wife, was suspicious of Kiev’s motives and believed that he was using his sessions with Cohen to find stock tips. From Kiev’s perspective, he found the perfect client in Cohen, a patient with unlimited resources who could pay enormous fees and whose reputation as one of the best traders on Wall Street could help Kiev realize his own goal of becoming a bestselling author. Being able to say that you were the

A school bus is many things. A school bus is a substitute for a limousine. More class. A school bus is a classroom with a substitute teacher. A school bus is the students' version of a teachers' lounge. A school bus is the principal's desk. A school bus is the nurse's cot. A school bus is an office with all the phones ringing. A school bus is a command center. A school bus is a pillow fort that rolls. A school bus is a tank reshaped- hot dogs and baloney are the same meat. A school bus is a science lab- hot dogs and baloney are the same meat. A school bus is a safe zone. A school bus is a war zone. A school bus is a concert hall. A school bus is a food court. A school bus is a court of law, all judges, all jury. A school bus is a magic show full of disappearing acts. Saw someone in half. Pick a card, any card. Pass it on to the person next to you. He like you. She like you. K-i-s-s-i . . . s-s-i-p-p-i is only funny on a school bus. A school bus is a stage. A school bus is a stage play. A school bus is a spelling bee. A speaking bee. A get your hand out of my face bee. A your breath smell like sour turnips bee. A you don't even know what a turnip bee is. A maybe not, but I know what a turn up is and your breath smell all the way turnt up bee. A school bus is a bumblebee, buzzing around with a bunch of stingers on the inside of it. Windows for wings that flutter up and down like the windows inside Chinese restaurants and post offices in neighborhoods where school bus is a book of stamps. Passing mail through windows. Notes in the form of candy wrappers telling the street something sweet came by. Notes in the form of sneaky middle fingers. Notes in the form of fingers pointing at the world zooming by. A school bus is a paintbrush painting the world a blurry brushstroke. A school bus is also wet paint. Good for adding an extra coat, but it will dirty you if you lean against it, if you get too comfortable. A school bus is a reclining chair. In the kitchen. Nothing cool about it but makes perfect sense. A school bus is a dirty fridge. A school bus is cheese. A school bus is a ketchup packet with a tiny hole in it. Left on the seat. A plastic fork-knife-spoon. A paper tube around a straw. That straw will puncture the lid on things, make the world drink something with some fizz and fight. Something delightful and uncomfortable. Something that will stain. And cause gas. A school bus is a fast food joint with extra value and no food. Order taken. Take a number. Send a text to the person sitting next to you. There is so much trouble to get into. Have you ever thought about opening the back door? My mother not home till five thirty. I can't. I got dance practice at four. A school bus is a talent show. I got dance practice right now. On this bus. A school bus is a microphone. A beat machine. A recording booth. A school bus is a horn section. A rhythm section. An orchestra pit. A balcony to shot paper ball three-pointers from. A school bus is a basketball court. A football stadium. A soccer field. Sometimes a boxing ring. A school bus is a movie set. Actors, directors, producers, script. Scenes. Settings. Motivations. Action! Cut. Your fake tears look real. These are real tears. But I thought we were making a comedy. A school bus is a misunderstanding. A school bus is a masterpiece that everyone pretends to understand. A school bus is the mountain range behind Mona Lisa. The Sphinx's nose. An unknown wonder of the world. An unknown wonder to Canton Post, who heard bus riders talk about their journeys to and from school. But to Canton, a school bus is also a cannonball. A thing that almost destroyed him. Almost made him motherless.

Was Wooden a genius, a magician able to turn mediocre players into champions? Actually, he admits that in terms of basketball tactics and strategies, he was quite average. What he was really good at was analyzing and motivating his players. With these skills he was able to help his players fulfill their potential, not just in basketballl - but in life. Something he found even more rewarding than winning games.

In my case, the stats that were being quoted to me were not about me personally. I’m not a stat, I’m a person. I considered myself a ‘stat breaker.

The students at Sudbury Valley are “doin’ what comes natur’ly.” But they are not necessarily choosing what comes easily. A close look discovers that everyone is challenging themselves; that every kid is acutely aware of their own weaknesses and strengths, and extremely likely to be working hardest on their weaknesses. If their weaknesses are social, they are very unlikely to be stuck away in a quiet room with a book. And if athletics are hard, they are likely to be outdoors playing basketball. Along with the ebullient good spirits, there is an underlying seriousness—even the 6 year olds know that they, and only they, are responsible for their education. They have been given the gift of tremendous trust, and they understand that this gift is as big a responsibility as it is a delight. They are acutely aware that very young people are not given this much freedom or this much responsibility almost anywhere in the world. But growing up shouldering this responsibility makes for a very early confidence in your own abilities—you get, as one graduate says, a “track record.” Self-motivation is never even a question. That’s all there is.

Every morning you have two choices: Continue to sleep with your dreams, or wake up and chase them.

Basketball is not just a game its a way of living if you apply it to everyday life.

Waking up each day, is like you are in the Basketball Court dribbling the ball, its up to you.. If you wan't to pass the ball or passed through the wall.

I liken my marriage in my twenties to the ill-chosen shot by a basketball player, done without any thought from an impossible angle and motivated by a mix of pure adrenaline and ego, which his coach watches with complete despair as he involuntarily shouts “nooooo.

Michael Jordan is indeed the greatest basketball player of all time. Still, he has never won a game by himself. Instead, he and his teammates strategize to setup power-plays in hopes of gaining a winning-edge over their opponents.

But when basketball legend John Wooden’s father said to him, “Make each day your masterpiece,” Wooden knew something profound: Life is now. Life is not later on. And the more we hypnotize ourselves into thinking we have all the time in the world to do what we want to do, the more we sleepwalk past life’s finest opportunities. Self-motivation flows from the importance we attach to today.

When you first start working out, don’t go full out straight away. If you exhaust yourself straight off the bat, you’ll be adding fuel to the idea that you don’t like exercising. Take it steady and build up gradually, enjoying the training along the way. Exercise is movement. It’s not confined to the gym or a set block of workout time. It could be walking, swimming, playing basketball or any other activity that you enjoy that will get your heart rate up for 30 minutes.

Cotton Fitzsimmons was a famous NBA basketball coach who was brilliant at motivating his teams. On one occasion when his team was playing the great Boston Celtics in a game they were not expected to win, Fitzsimmons hit on an idea that he thought would help motivate his players. His pre-game speech went something like this: “Gentlemen, when you go out there tonight, instead of remembering that we are in last place, pretend we are in first place; instead of being in a losing streak, pretend we are in a winning streak; instead of this being a regular game, pretend this is a playoff game!” With that, the team went onto the basketball court and were soundly beaten by the Boston Celtics. Coach Fitzsimmons was upset about the loss. But one of the players slapped him on the back and said, “Cheer up, Coach! Pretend we won!’”1

Ulterior means something is intentionally kept concealed. An ulterior motive is usually manipulative. It’s when we do or say one thing out in the open but intend or mean another thing in private. Ultimate means the farthest point of a journey. An ultimate goal is an eventual point or a longed-for destination. Examples are when a person begins college hoping to become a physician one day or when a kid starts playing basketball with dreams of one day playing in