Calendar Book #5 May: Finding flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Win Forever by Pete Carroll. Quotes VIII

-Being supportive would be crucial. Our always enduring will to be positive and hold on to the belief that something good was just about to happen, no matter how dire the circumstances, would truly prove to be worthwhile.
-I am very lucky that I have a job that I love doing and am so passionate about, but I also realize that I still am a part of a larger world.
-We have the power to create our own reality.
-When it comes to leadership and performance the basic principles are almost universal.
-The discipline comes when you consistently stay in touch with your vision.
-I know myself so well that if I miss my first ten shots, you had better look out, because I know I am going to make my next ten.
-When you truly know yourself, you have the best change of using your strengths to your best advantage.
-Compete to make yourself valuable at whatever you're doing.
-Your first job experiences may not be what you have dreamed about, but there is intrinsic value in a job well done.
-Listen to your heart, trust your intuition, and allow yourself to be fascinated by the adventure to find the real you.
-Life is never about singular moments because they are never enough to sustain pure happiness.
-Life is about the journey.
-When I am asked about what I will miss the most, it will be the people.
-The beauty of life is that it doesn't stop.
-The first meeting I held included everyone in the organization. I wanted them to know that everyone was an important part of the team.
-I believed that setting the bar extremely high was necessary and appropriate for putting our new program in motion.
-Games were determined not by how you start, but how you finish.
-We have the power to direct and redirect our lives and the opportunities that surround us, but first we have to acknowledge the power that resides in our thoughts and visions.

Win Forever by Pete Carroll. Quotes VII

-I am always looking for the fun in everything I do.
-The idea is to keep them fascinated with what's going on, so they keep coming back.
-To effectively handle major swings of emotion in a game is a skill that will allow a player to perform at this best.
-Our players were loose and relaxed.
-Our guys knew that the only thing left to do was go out and perform like they have been prepared to do. And that is exactly what happened.
-A head coach's primary objective is to orchestrate the overall mentality of his team.
-The greatest detractor from high performance is fear. If you can eliminate that fear through hard work and preparation you will put yourself in an incredible position to take on the challenges you face.
-Those setbacks, challenges and hardships have been learning experiences.
-When you have gotten to a place where you are as ready to embrace the learning opportunities given to you by the games you lose as to embrace the ones given to you by the games you win, then you are ready for all the potential outcomes.
-The only comparison that matters is yourself.
-If you create a vision for yourself and stick with it, you can make amazing things happen in your life.
-What you expect is usually what you get.
-The power of visioning. You can create whatever you envision as long as you are willing to always compete and stay on course with you objective.

Win Forever by Pete Carroll. Quotes VI

-What actually occurred was a result of our preparation, which allowed every player to perform brilliantly under the most pressure-filled  situation imaginable.
-Practice is everything.
-In my nine years at USC we had freshmen starting at every position, including quarterback.
-We conveyed our expectation that every incoming player had the chance to start in this first year.
-We discovered that by setting these high expectations and using supporting, consistent language, we could enable a freshman to contribute immediately.
-We didn't promise trophies, titles, or even that they would start, much less play. As coaches, we would create opportunities for them to show their value and worth to the team and perhaps earn a starting position. What we did promise at USC, and will continue to do so at the Seahawks, it that all players, be they freshmen or rookies, seniors or veterans, would be given an equal opportunity to compete for a spot right away. That wasn't a sales pitch, it was the truth.
-First-year players could help us win.
-The most important things I am looking for are competitive will and love of the game.
-Recruiting was just another way to compete.
-Not every recruit was equipped to handle the best working alongside the best.
-The only way to earn the right to be on the field was by competing for it, and they also knew that we would respond accordingly.
-We were far more wary of setting expectations too low than of setting them to high, and by placing great expectations on our student-athletes, our coaching staff had the belief they could field a championship team year after year.

Win Forever by Pete Carroll. Quotes V

-I want our guys to know that we believe in them, and I want to show them how far we will go to stand by them. When I do that, I get it back many times over in the long run.
-Having the freedom to weigh my options was more important to me than money or a sense of security. In Seattle, as at USC, I want everyone to know that we want them to realize their dreams. I want people who will fight for us because they know we'll fight from them.
-We live in a society that celebrates executives, coaches, and other leaders yet doesn't put a very high value on teaching as a profession.
-Leading and teaching go hand in hand.
-A flexible and open communication is an incredibly powerful leadership tool.
-Failure to communicate is unacceptable for a parent, a coach, or a leader.
-Learn your learner.
-The competitive environment we operate in as coaches demands that we be extraordinary teachers.
-We wanted to observe our players in as many situations and scenarios as possible.
-It's a challenge to understand the people you're dealing with so that you can approach them in the most effective possible way. A way that allows them to operate and perform at their very best.
-The best teachers, coaches, and leaders are often the best observers.
-I never want to be cut off from the flow of what's going on and what everybody is thinking.
-This effort to know more about our players is never ending, as our teaching is never ending.
-The greatest competitors of our time own a deep down desire to be the best.
-The details of each day's work are accounted for down to the minute.
-I wanted them to see practice as something to look forward to with excitement and focus. When we did that properly, our practices were as competitive and fiery as any game.
-I wanted to practice at game speed.
-Critique effort first.
-Our goal was for our players to face tougher opposition on our practice field than they would encounter in games.
-Competitive cauldron. Anson Dorrance.
-We kept score during everything.
-Finding the right balance and emphasis is critical for keeping practices fresh and players focused.
-A different theme for each day of the week:
TELL THE TRUTH MONDAY
COMPETITION TUESDAY
TURNOVER WEDNESDAY
NO REPEAT THURSDAY
REVIEW FRIDAY
-Always passionate speaking from the heart.
-Players need to focus no matter what is going on around.
-By making our practices competitive, by making the most of teachable moments, and by creating a stadium-like atmosphere, our players definitely felt more comfortable in real game's situations.

Win Forever by Pete Carroll. Quotes IV

-The Win Forever philosophy is not just about maximizing the potential of our players. It is about maximizing the potential of everyone in a program or organization. A big part of my job is creating an environment where this will happen.
-As head coach, I set the vision and the philosophy, but it is the coordinators and other coaches who are charged with implementing it on the ground with the players every day.
-I love to stoke little rivalries between the coaches of various position groups.
-I am constantly making suggestions, but they coach the message in their own ways, in their own voices.
-If I want them to coach to their full potential, I have to not only allow them to be authentically themselves but insist upon it.
-They would have to teach from inside themselves.
-Putting together a staff may be the most important part of any head coach's job, and I have always enjoyed it.
-One person at the top simply can't do everything that needs to be done.
-If a leader is clear and consistent about his philosophy's core values, it frees everyone up to do their best. It frees the top leadership to treat its middle managers in a whole new way.
-When everyone gets to contribute his maximum effort, it is transformative for the whole organization.
-You want to compete with people you can trust to lead and those are my coaches.
-Our efforts to win are based on our ability to control every aspect of our team environment, from energy to focus to camaraderie.
-There is so much more room for personal style and expression than many people realize. Whatever the context, not taking advantage of that may be a huge missed opportunity to involve people on a deeper, more competitive, and ultimately higher-performing level.
-How can an organization expect to maximize its overall potential if its people up and down the ladder don't have the chance to contribute in a way that taps into their ability as individuals?
-Rather than expecting loyalty from my coaches, I found that I got all the loyalty I could ask for by supporting them and advancing their careers.
-Our success depends on every one of us being willing to sacrifice parts of ourselves to the share effort. That only works when we trust one another completely, and once that level of trust is in place, it's worth a lot to keep it there.

Win forever by Pete Carroll. Quotes III

-Do things better than they have ever been done before.
-Practice is one of the many places where we compete to be the best.
-How we practice defines who we are.

THE ENERGY, THE PASSION IN PRACTICE
-From the moment I got out of the car, I could hear it: whistles, kids, and coaches, all sounding somewhat unlike the practice I'd come from. Here, there was something very different: it was the energy. Despite the fact that both teams clearly had the same gear, the same facilities, and players of comparable ability, this practice and the one I had just come from were two utterly different experiences. From the moment I got out of the car, I sensed this was going to be a better practice.
As I got closer, I could hear coaches speaking in Spanish and English, but the language didn't matter. The players could interpret the passion, energy, and excitement.
These coaches were the source of the difference, and it just blew me away.
-How crucial the energy of the coaches was to create a great practice atmosphere.
-The passion and the excitement that coaches bring to the field will transfer directly to the players and will allow you to create a competitive practice environment.
-We worked to gain confidence and erase fear by practicing for every contingency.
-Every year, as you build your team, there always seems to be a critical moment when things either come together or go south.
-Standing in the middle of our team, I told them that if we remained as tight as we were at that moment, it didn't matter who came over the walls of this great coliseum to challenge us.
-A tradition in spring practice. Every year, on the first day or our monthlong spring practice, we would begin with a team meeting.
-We wanted to maximize our potential and do everything we did better than it had ever been done before. This meant everything, not just as football coaches and players but as human beings.
-Self-talk can be powerful and ultimately can create anticipated outcomes.
-As soon as he stopped doubting himself and began to envision positive outcomes, his natural gifts propelled him to great success.
-Part of teaching players to execute on the field is teaching them to execute off the field as well. 

Win forever by Pete Carroll. Quotes II

-Contingency planning. Preparation and practice sessions should be designed so that the performer is trained for all potential outcomes and events.
-In all areas, he wanted to have a plan for everything.
-I had learned that they were winners not solely because of their win/loss records but also because of their strict attention to detail, confidence in themselves, and rock solid philosophies.
-Great leaders in sports seem to have a knack for creating defining moments.
-I talked from the inner depths of my being.
-A head coach should be able to hire his own coaching staff if he wants a cohesive unit and also have a strong hand in selecting players. Confidence and trust are vital to a successful organization, and leadership must be supported unconditionally, to the bitter end if necessary.
-If I were ever to find myself in an organization where competition didn't play a central role, then I should immediately recognize that I was in the wrong place.
-The essence of my message about competing has nothing to do with the opponent. My competitive approach is that it's all about us.
-My opponents are the people who offer me the opportunity to succeed.
-In our practices, we always end each day with our best offensive players competing against our best defensive players to create the most competitive situations.
-The beauty of it was that his mentality became a part of the 49ers culture.

Win forever by Pete Carroll. Quotes

-I embarked on a process of discovering who I was, not only as a football coach but, more important, as a person.
-One of the keys to success lies in knowing and believing in yourself.
-Something good is just about to happen.
-You are either competing to be the best you can be or you are not.
-Maslow is widely considered to have been the first psychologist to study happy, healthy people.
-The first step to doing great things was affirming the belief that great things are possible.
-The simple act of making thoughtful, affirmative statements about who we are and what we want to achieve can be an incredibly powerful tool for getting the best possible performance out of ourselves.
-In order to be successful, you must have a consistent philosophy.
-The realization that I would need to have a philosophy in order to really maximize my potential was one of the breakthrough moments in my personal education and professional career.
-The essence of the Inner Game is to acquire and maintain a quieted mind.
-When players know that they have mastered the rigors of training, whether on the football field or in the weight room or classroom, then their confidence leads to an unusual focus, free from distractions, doubt, or fear.
-I was freed up because I was not worried about the outcome. Let it happen.
-I went back to the principles of the Inner Game and decided to introduce the players to the concept of creating peak experiences or playing in the zone.
-It was everybody's job to get his mind right by game time. It was their job to first believe.
-That night after the game, like I've done on many occasions, I went back into the stadium. When the crowds are gone, and the only people around are the guys sweeping up, there's a special quiet in the air that speaks to me in a way that nothing else does.
-That's success. Those guys had shown that they had what it took to continue to win year after year, in an almost permanent state of winning.

Calendar Book # 4: April. Win forever by Pete Carroll