Explore Quotes by Bill Walsh

Commit yourself to something you have a passion for.

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.

Champions behave like champions before they are champions

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

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

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

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

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 [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.

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

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