The Winners Manual
By Jim Tressel
Below are my notes and key hi-lighted passages from The Winners Manual. (Italics = quotes from the book. Bold = my personal notes)
“Athletic coaches carry players or teams from one point in their development to the place they want to be. I tell our players that the most important thing to me is to see them grow as men. Their spiritual plan, their morals, their values, their work ethic - all of those elements need to be part of who we are, what we talk about, and what we demand from each other as a team.”
“Many people get frustrated when they set out on a particular course and then they can’t reach the end. But you have to remember that success isn’t necessarily doing what you thought was perfect for you when you were eighteen. As you progress through life, you may find that your purpose is a little different from what it was when you started out.”
“A good attitude can overcome some other limitations, but even great talent can’t overcome the wrong attitude.”
“Attitude is not something that comes by instinct. It has to be practiced over and over or relearned over and over. The more our players study and practice this fundamental, the more they believe they can decide how they feel.”
Each person has the power to determine their personal attitude. It is 100% in each person’s control to determine how they will respond to their feelings and emotions.
“I have studied the lives of a lot of different people, people I wanted to be like, and I’ve found that one common denominator is that they were sincerely grateful for their blessings.”
“Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position fails, your ego goes with it.”
“Focus is when your mental attention is centered on what you need to do. Nothing else can get into your head. Focus is when someone can resist temptation in the present to further pursue a goal in the future. - Focus means concentrating on your responsibility. - Focus means total concentration. Committing to something and staying with it until it is done and done right. Never giving up. - Focus is the ability to concentrate on something by ignoring outside, important forces that can interfere with the task at hand. Taking advantage of all opportunities that facilitate the task and increase the chance of success. Focus is disciplined and zeroed in on the goal and only the goal.”
The ability to channel FOCUS in your own life is critical for the development of any leader and any team.
“Here’s a good working definition of excellence: “Everybody striving to reach their full potential.”
“Excellence doesn’t affect just our own lives; it affects the lives of others in our sphere of influence. Our world doesn’t revolve around us; it revolves around the group, around the community, and it’s in that group setting that our excellence will shine.”
“Fear of rejection is one of the biggest hurdles in any endeavor, but those who are courageous and take on the challenge will ultimately excel.”
The need to develop courage in the face of fear and fear of rejection is never more prevalent than the world today. Leaders are on display more now than ever by way of social media/digital media.
“It’s important to understand that work is not who you are; it’s what you do. Many people get that backward and think their lives are defined by what they accomplish or what positions they hold.”
Identity will always be at the forefront of our vocation. We must continually separate our identity from what we do.
“I have learned more from losing than I’ve ever learned from winning. As a head coach, an assistant coach, and a player, I learned more from the defeats than the victories. When you compare the value of the two, it’s not even close. The takeaway value of loss is so much greater.”
“Coach Wooden - Your strength as an individual depends on how you respond to both criticism and praise.”
“From the moment we’re born to the moment we die, life is about relationships. True winners in the game of life will not merely look at goals and achievements. True winners who are part of a winning team will care more about the people beside them in the trenches than they will about the trophy at the end of the journey. True winners will have compassion for their teammates and desire the good of others as well as their own.”
“How can a team achieve its goals? - When everyone learns its schemes, works on its disciplines, and practices plays, but none of those activities will lead to attaining the goal if the player’s don’t love another. If they’re bound together by more than a simple desire to win, their striving will be losing. I’m not knocking the desire to win - that has to be there - but the overriding question is this: Does your team love?”
“Every championship team I’ve been with has been unselfish. Guys weren’t worried about their rushing stats, or how many tackles, interceptions, or catches they’d made, or how many points they’d scored. They were concerned primarily about the team. And because we had teams full of unselfish people, we were able to accomplish extraordinary things together.”
“Life is a series of ups and downs, peaks and valleys, wins and losses. When the bad time come, and they inevitably will, the seeds we’ve sown in our lives - what we believe in and hang on to and what we know is true and right - will help us maintain the hope that whatever stands before us is not permanent but only a temporary obstacle.”