Ambition & Success
Goals, winning, and what success really means.
So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two.
Verified sourceThe Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination · Watch at 13:40 · Harvard Gazette
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As delivered So, given a time-turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a checklist of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two.
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.
SourceLetter to Isham Reavis (5 November 1855) · via Wikiquote
Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed.
SourceAddress Delivered in Candidacy for the State Legislature (9 March 1832) · via Wikiquote
Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.
SourceKnox College Commencement Address (4 June 2005) · via Wikiquote
There are millions of Americans outside Washington who are tired of stale political arguments and are moving this country forward. They believe, and I believe, that here in America, our success should depend not on accident of birth, but the strength of our work ethic and the scope of our dreams.
SourceSixth State of the Union Address (January 2014) · via Wikiquote
...happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a persons own mind—than on the externals in the world
SourceFrom George Washington to Mary Ball Washington · National Archives on Founders Online
Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful, that's what matters to me.
SourceOn the success of Bill Gates and Microsoft, as quoted in The Wall Street Journal (Summer 1993) · via Wikiquote
Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.
SourceThe Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison (1948), p. 110 · via Wikiquote
I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.
That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
Some day I shall be President.
Growth is kinda built into everyone's genes. It's built into management's genes, the salesman's genes, the investors' desires. People expect companies to grow.
We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don't want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.
There's no medals for trying. This isn't like eighth grade where everybody gets a trophy. We are in a professional sport, and it is competitive to win. That's what we do.
If there is something that's your passion when you're young, do it. Let everything else take care of itself.
Like my friend Warren Buffett, I feel particularly lucky to do something every day that I love to do. He calls it 'tap-dancing to work.'
If I'd had some set idea of a finish line, don't you think I would have crossed it years ago?
Winning 'Motor Trend' Car of the year is probably the closest thing to winning the Oscar or Emmy of the car industry.
Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic goals, but that's one of the hardest things to do because you don't always know exactly where you're going, and you shouldn't.
If Alibaba cannot become a Microsoft or Wal-Mart, I will regret it for the rest of my life.
But ever since I was a kid, I was always the winner.
I have short goals - to get better every day, to help my teammates every day - but my only ultimate goal is to win an NBA championship. It's all that matters. I dream about it. I dream about it all the time, how it would look, how it would feel. It would be so amazing.
And winning is a huge thing for me.
As a kid, we would drive up and down 77 North - that's our highway - there would be office buildings on the side of the highway and I'd be like, that's what my house is going to look like when I get older. I'm going to start making my house look like this.
Well, I mean, to me, I think my ultimate - my ultimate goal is winning championships and - and I understand that me going down as one of the greats will not happen until I, you know, win a championship.
I won at every level - all the way since I started playing the game of basketball at nine. I've won at every level, won championships at every level. And, you know, it won't be fulfilled until I win at the highest level.
Money is a scoreboard where you can rank how you're doing against other people.
To be a billionaire, you have got to get lucky.
I used to drive around looking at the big houses, wondering how they got there. I used to love biographies about successful business people, wondering how they got there. You start to realize that if they can do it, I can do it.
I'm not the type to pat myself on the back and all that, but somebody has to be lucky, right? When I got to Dallas, I was struggling - sleeping on the floor with six guys in a three-bedroom apartment. I used to drive around, look at the big houses, and imagine what it would be like to live there and use that as motivation.
I placed too much importance on comparing how much I had to others early on. Then I started realizing time was a far more valuable asset. When I started using money to create more time, I appreciated both more.
I love to compete. To me, business is the ultimate sport. It's always on. There is always someone trying to beat me.
I'm a competitive person. Business is a much more competitive sport than any real sport. It's 24x7x365. I'm a business adrenaline junky.
My goal was never to just create a company. A lot of people misinterpret that, as if I don't care about revenue or profit or any of those things. But what not being just a company means to me is not being just that - building something that actually makes a really big change in the world.
The ultimate goal is to be an interesting, useful, wholesome person. If you're successful on top of that, then you're way ahead of everybody.
I believe in a man and a woman being equal. I really believe that we can do anything we set our minds to.
I am a hero worshiper. I love the number one tennis player. I love the number one baseball player. I want to see those records broken.
When I was a model - and I was all during high school and college - you always wanted to be on the cover of a magazine. That's how your success was judged. The more cover, the better.
We all fly. Once you leave the ground, you fly. Some people fly longer than others.
You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.
You have competition every day because you set such high standards for yourself that you have to go out every day and live up to that.
I play to win, whether during practice or a real game. And I will not let anything get in the way of me and my competitive enthusiasm to win.
Winning isn't always championships.
I want to be perceived as a guy who played his best in all facets, not just scoring. A guy who loved challenges.
I always knew I was destined for greatness.
Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming.
Too many people measure how successful they are by how much money they make or the people that they associate with. In my opinion, true success should be measured by how happy you are.
Most people would assume my business success, and the wealth that comes with it, have brought me happiness. But I know I am successful, wealthy, and connected because I am happy.
Material things are delightful, but they're not important.
Starting your own business isn't just a job - it's a way of life.
My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.
We are going to transform Britain's rail system from the worst in the world to the best. If you can do a few things like that, when the body gives out, you can say you've lived a good life.
It's a common misconception that money is every entrepreneur's metric for success. It's not, and nor should it be.
Everyone's dream can come true if you just stick to it and work hard.
Luck has nothing to do with it, because I have spent many, many hours, countless hours, on the court working for my one moment in time, not knowing when it would come.
Hopefully, we can build a rivalry and we'll be able to do this a lot. Make a legacy, then retire champions.
I hate losing.
I was just tired of losing... Life was passing me by.
What's going to make me happy is going on the court and holding up trophies, singles and doubles.
It doesn't matter where you come from, what you have or don't have, what you lack, or what you have too much of. But all you need to have is faith in God, an undying passion for what you do and what you choose to do in this life, and a relentless drive and the will to do whatever it takes to be successful in whatever you put your mind to.
Sometimes people make it seem like you have to have certain prerequisites or a crazy life story in order to be successful in this world. But the truth is you really don't.
Whatever that means, however you got on that mountain, why not try to climb it? And do it in your own way.
Control your own destiny! Control your own destiny!
It's really annoying for me. That's not what I'm playing for, to be the face of the NBA or to be this or that or to take LeBron's throne or whatever.
You know, I'm trying to chase rings, and that's all I'm about. So that's where the conversation stops for me.
For me, I don't want to cheat the game by saying, or kind of doing lip service by saying, I want to be the greatest ever. I want to be able to show it.
I know the blessing of having a dad who played 16 years in the league. That experience, and seeing him as an example, let me know that it's possible. It's not easy, but it's possible.
I expected to be a pretty good NBA point guard and hopefully win a championship. But MVP and all this stuff? Not really.
To win MVP was a dream come true for sure, but there are guys who have done this multiple times.
That feeling is so intoxicating, walking off the court holding the Larry O'Brien trophy. So I just want to do that again.
I want to put a ding in the universe.
I was lucky - I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.
I want to be the Cecil B. DeMille of science fiction.
I'm not in a race with anybody to make the biggest hit movie anymore. I am just trying to tell stories that I can stay interested in for the two years it takes me to supervise the writing and to direct them.
Even though I get older, what I do never gets old, and that's what I think keeps me hungry.
If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.
If you embrace that the things that you can do are limitless, you can put your ding in the universe. You can change the world.
Everybody in technology seems to want big numbers. Steve never got carried away with that. He focused on making the best.
The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.
I'm a pretty good winner. I'm a terrible loser. And I rub it in pretty good when I win.
You know, watching Dan Marino and Steve Young get nominated to the Hall of Fame... those guys are unbelievable and they did it for so long. I'd love to play like those guys, but there's still a long way to go and a lot of growing.
I think that at the start of a game, you're always playing to win, and then maybe if you're ahead late in the game, you start playing not to lose. The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.
Awards are wonderful. I've been nominated many times and I've won many awards. But my journey is not towards that. If it happens it will be a blast. If it doesn't, it's still been a blast.
The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.
I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious.
If it doesn't matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?
There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game and that is first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay and I never want to finish second again.
I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don't ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win.
The will to win is the only thing.
I've never been with a losing team in my life, and I don't think I'll start now.
I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn't know how to get along without it.
I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute.
Basically, when you get to my age, you'll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.
The big question about how people behave is whether they've got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.
We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.
If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don't care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster.
I am easily satisfied with the very best.
No crime is so great as daring to excel.
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