Michael Jordan

“Famously, there was a clause in Michael Jordan's contract called for the love of the game clause, meaning he could play basketball anytime and anywhere he wanted”

“No endorser up until that point had gotten a percentage of profits as Nike had offered Jordan”

“And that deal makes Jordan You know, a hundred, somewhere around like a hundred and fifty million a year today, which sounds crazy and is obviously fantastic for Jordan, but it wound up being an even better deal. The main point of me telling you the story is l…”

“Highly competitive personalities like Jordan and Bryant could absolutely kill a team atmosphere with displays of ruthlessness or selfishness. That, that sentence right there. You put, take out Brian and Jordan, and put in Steve Jobs are really a ton of the peo…”

“Cause if you think about it, like they bet their entire marketing budget on Jordan when he was somewhat known, but not nearly as world famous as he was obviously going to be.”

“There's no way I could have played the way I played if I didn't watch David Thompson or guys prior to me. There's no way Kobe could have played the way he played without watching me play. That's the evolution of basketball. You cannot change that.”

“What they all have in common is they were relentless, and relentlessness wins because in aggregate, unseen details become visible.”

“When you're doing that, you're just watching game tape. It's no different than a young Kobe Bryant watching videotape of Michael Jordan and magic, magic Johnson, and just constantly being exposed To a million different game scenarios and then using that knowle…”

“I'm always amazed when the media report on a superstar athlete who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars or even more on their training and health, as if that's a luck, as if that's a luxury. Look, they have a chef. They have a masseuse. He's got a whole gym …”

“So every year on Labor Day, Michael would shut, or by Labor Day, Michael would shut down everything outside of basketball and just train. Three workouts a day. Workout. Golf. Workout. Lunch. Golf break. Workout. Dinner. Bed. Every day. No commercial suits. No …”

“Because they're so, such domineering personalities is, is back down from them is the worst thing because they're just going to keep abusing you. They're just going to realize, you know, this person soft, this person's weak. I can basically have my way with the…”

“They never stop working physically or mentally because it gives them too much time to think about what they've had to endure and sacrifice.”

“Michael worked hard, but was more naturally talented, and Kobe worked harder, but was less naturally talented.”

“And what's interesting between Michael and Kobe and Steve Jobs is they were about, like, mastering the fundamentals and trying to get, like, they were addicted to, like, simplicity.”

“They're never in it for the money. He knows what he's worth and he'll remind you if you make the mistake of forgetting it, but the money is secondary to what really drives him. The most important thing, the one thing that defines and separates him From any oth…”

“MJ knew when to stop. Kobe didn't. You would never find MJ on a court at four AM. He slept at night because he knew sleep was part of his training.”

“I pulled people along when they didn't want to be pulled. I challenged people when they didn't want to be challenged and I earned the right because my teammates who came after me didn't endure all the things that I endured. Once you joined the team, you lived …”

“Trusting others is the same as giving up control. And they usually have a painfully hard time with that. They have this in common. At some point, they learned that they can only trust themselves. Maybe it was a lesson they learned in childhood or something tha…”

“He goes into the kitchen, gets a butcher knife, and literally cuts up everything. This was like his second or third year in the league. He literally took a butcher knife to my shoes, ripping and cutting. When he's all done, he picks up every little scrap and w…”

“Tim says, I always felt Michael's legendary trash talking wasn't meant for the other guy. It was another way for him to heighten the pressure that he put on himself. Because once you've told others how bad you're about to fuck them up, you're gonna have to del…”

“Routine reduces the number of decisions, right? So if you outsource, you just, you make routine things that you just have to do all the time, then you can actually focus on the important things.”

“A good competitor always evaluates his opponent and you understand him for what he really is. You never try to give him confidence. You try to take it at all times.”

“The big downfall of otherwise gifted players is thinking about failure. He would say, why would I think about missing a shot I haven't taken yet?”

“If you're aiming to be the best at what you do, you cannot worry about whether your actions will upset other people or what they'll think of you. Your strategy is to make everyone else get on your level. You are not going down to theirs. You're not competing w…”

“MJ was angry with the Bobcats with his team for being so bad. So he came to their practice, took away all their Jordan gear and beat the starters with the second unit. Keep in mind, MJ was in his fifties and he came and waxed NBA starters with the bench.”

“The fact that he's got this crazy deal with Nike that he's been getting five percent royalty. I think he's going to make something like three hundred million dollars this year.”

“He gets invited to buy into the Chicago Bulls a few years. I think it was two years before they drafted Michael Jordan. And so if I remember correctly, he said something like, you know, the annual div, he has to do nothing for that, right? He just has like the…”

“Michael Jordan's royalty, he gets five percent of all the sales of the Jordan brand.”