Bill Walsh Quotes

The culture precedes positive results. It doesn't get tacked on as an afterthought on your way to the victory stand. Champions behave like champions before they're champions: they have a winning standard of performance before they are winners.

Concentrate on what will produce results rather than on the results, the process rather than the prize.

Your path and purpose will become crystal clear when you begin to trust your vision.

When you stand and overcome a significant setback, you'll find an increasing inner confidence and self-assurance that has been created by conquering defeat. Absorbing and overcoming this kind of punishment engenders a sober, steely toughness that results in a hardened sense of independence and a personal belief that you can take on anything, survive and win.

Good talent with bad attitude equals bad talent.

When I give a speech at a corporate event, I often ask those in attendance, 'Do you know how to tell if you're doing the job?' As heads start whispering back and forth, I provide these clue: 'If you're up at 3 A.M. every night talking into a tape recorder and writing notes on scraps of paper, have a knot in your stomach and a rash on your skin, are losing sleep and losing touch with your wife and kids, have no appetite or sense of humor, and feel that everything might turn out wrong, then you're probably doing the job.'

Champions behave like champions before they are champions

Invest in great relationships, they will pay a lifetime of dividends.

People thrive on positive reinforcement. They can take only a certain amount of criticism and you may lose them altogether if you criticize them in a personal way... you can make a point without being personal. Don't insult or belittle your people. Instead of getting more out of them you will get less

I've observed that if individuals who prevail in a highly competitive environment have any one thing in common besides success, it is failure—and their ability to overcome it.

Failure is part of success, an integral part. Everybody gets knocked down. Knowing it will happen and what you must do when it does is the first step back.

Afford each person the same respect, support, and fair treatment you would expect if your roles were reversed. Deal with people individually, not as objects who are part of a herd-that's the critical factor.

For me the starting point for everything - before strategy, tactics, theories, managing, organizing, philosophy, methodology, talent, or experience - is work ethic. Without one of significant magnitude, you're dead in the water.

Many people erroneously think they have only one chance to succeed, and if they miss that chance, they are doomed to failure. In fact, most people have several opportunities to succeed.

Strength of will - is essential to your survival and success. The competitor who won't go away, who won't stay down, has one of the most formidable competitive advantages of all. In evaluating people, I prize ego. It often translates into a fierce desire to do their best and an inner confidence that stands them in good stead when things really get rough. Psychologists suggest that there is a strong link between ego and competitiveness. All the great performers I've ever coached had ego to spare.

The minute you step away from the negative people in your life you will instantly see the beauty in your horizon.

Nothing is more effective than sincere, accurate praise, and nothing is more lame than a cookie-cutter compliment.

The ability to help the people around me self-actualize their goals underlines the single aspect of my abilities and the label that I value most—teacher.

If you see players who hate practice, their coach isn't doing a very good job.

Your enthusiasm becomes their enthusiasm; your lukewarm presentation becomes their lukewarm interest in what you're offering.

The [best] coaches... know that the job is to win... know that they must be decisive, that they must phase people through their organizations, and at the same time they are sensitive to the feelings, loyalties, and emotions that people have toward one another. If you don't have these feelings, I do not know how you can lead anyone. I have spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out how I was going to phase out certain players for whom I had strong feelings, but that was my job. I wasn't hired to do anything but win.

One of the common traits of outstanding performers-coaches, athletes, managers, sales representatives, executives, and others who face a daily up/down, win/lose accounting system-is that a rejection, that is, defeat, is quickly forgotten, replaced eagerly by pursuit of a new order, client, or opponent.

You can only succeed when people are communicating, not just from the top down, but in complete interchange. Communication comes from fighting off my ego and listening.

If your why is strong enough you will figure out how!

Nothing is more effective than sincere, accurate praise.

There is another side [to ego] that can wreck a team or an organization. That is being distracted by your own importance. It can come from your insecurity in working with others. It can be the need to draw attention to yourself in the public arena. It can be a feeling that others are a threat to your own territory. These are all negative manifestations of ego, and if you are not alert to them, you get diverted and your work becomes diffused. Ego in these cases makes people insensitive to how they work with others and it ends up interfering with the real goal of any group efforts.

The absolute bottom line in coaching is organization and preparing for practice.

Act like a VIP and become a VIP

Before you can win the fight, You’ve got to be in the fight.

Innovation involves anticipation. It is having a broad base of knowledge on your subject and an ability to see where the end game is headed. Use all your knowledge to get their first. Set the trend and make the competition counter you

Strong leaders don't plead with individuals to perform.

Your attitude will unlock the mystery of success you seek!

Flying by the seat of your pants precedes crashing by the seat of your pants.

Find a great mentor who believes in you, your life will change forever!

To a winner, complacency and overconfidence can be destructive. To losers, desperation and despondency are just as harmful.

Everybody's got an opinion. Leaders are paid to make a decision. The difference between offering an opinion and making a decision is the difference between working for the leader and being the leader.

Calculated risks are part of what you do, but the idea that something completely crazy will work just because it's completely crazy is completely crazy.

Consistent motivation usually comes from a consuming desire to be able to perform at your best under pressure, namely, the pressure produced by tough competition. If a player needed me to light a fire under him by turning the other team into a demon, he was lacking something I couldn't give him.

A burro is an ass. A burrow is a hole in the ground. As a journalist you are expected to know the difference.

Commit yourself to something you have a passion for.

We have a lot of players in their first year. Some of them are also in their last year.

A harsh reality of newspaper editing is that the deadlines don't allow for the polish that you expect in books or even magazines

Writing headlines is a specialty - there are outstanding writers who will tell you they couldn't write a headline to save their lives.

Consistent effort is a consistent challenge.

As the leader, part of the job is to be visible and willing to communicate with everyone

We all know gifs are pronounced "jifs," right? Their creator says so, damn it!

If I have any talent, it's in the artistic end of football. The variation of movement of 11 players and the orchestration of that facet of football is beautiful to me.

By instinct we-leaders-want to run hard all the time; by intellect we know this is not possible. Reconciling those two positions in the context of leadership is an ongoing challenge.

There is a weird phenomenon where technology seems to be getting dumber in some ways as it gets smarter.

Writers' bedtimes vary, but few have been spared the shock of a copy editor's early wake-up call.