Red Auerbach:
"There are two kinds of success. There’s success in your own eyes and there’s success in the eyes of other people. If you want to feel successful in your own eyes, you gotta feel satisfies with your life, satisfied with your accomplishments. That’s success.”
John Chaney:
“I always say to my guys, ‘The most important day of your life is today. This very moment is the most important minute of your life. You must win this minute. You must win this day. And tomorrow will take care of itself.”
Anne Donovan:
“Success to me is the satisfaction of knowing that I’ve been prepared, I’ve done absolutely everything I could do that’s in my control to be prepared. And I guess part of success is being committed to enjoying the process.”
Tony Dungy:
“I would define success as doing the absolute best that you are capable of doing. That’s not the same as winning every game—it’s being as good as you could possibly be.”
Dan Gable:
“I look at what impact you as a person have in society. And when the people that I directly influence go out and influence other people for positive and good, I think success had been accomplished.”
Marvin Lewis:
“Preparation. Accomplishing your goals through preparation.”
Lute Olson:
“Being the best you can be, regardless of what it is that you do. And a person needs to be passionate about what they do because that’s the only way you’re going to be happy: if you have a passion for what you do.”
Tom Osborne:
“So I guess my definition of success would hinge more on doing the best you can with what you have. Having good character, a good work ethic, integrity. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you make a lot of money or that you ever attain a position of power.”
Bill Parcells:
“I would say that success is never final. No matter what you achieve, you’ve gotta move forward. It’s gotta be onward and upward because it’s not final. You can go from being pretty successful to pretty downtrodden and you can do it very quickly, particularly in this business.”
Tubby Smith:
“To me it’s the satisfaction within each individual that they’ve given their best effort. That you did all you could. You did the right thing. You felt like in your heart, in your mind, in your soul, that you have done your best.”
Joe Torre:
“To me, success is getting the most out of your ability. It’s being able to go past that wall where you feel tired and frustrated. And once you go beyond that wall I think there’s a great deal of pride involved. Life isn’t easy and if you just sit down when you get tired instead of pushing on, then I don’t think you ever realize satisfaction and self-esteem.”
Bill Walsh:
“Success is progress. It’s becoming better at what you do. That’s what I always emphasize with the players, that if you can improve your skills and take advantage of it, that’s success. I don’t necessarily measure it in winning and losing, although that’s always a factor. But if you’ve improved, that’s success.”
John Wooden:
“Success, to me, is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you were capable. Success is coming as close as possible to reaching your maximum potential at whatever task you’re involved in.”
From "How to Succeed in the Game of Life" by Christian Klemash
