The only yardstick for success our society has is being a champion. No one remembers anything else.
Interpretation
Success is measured solely by achievements and championships in society.
This quote by John Madden emphasizes that societal standards define success predominantly through titles and victories. Achievements like championships overshadow other forms of accomplishment, suggesting that the recognition of one's efforts is often tied to winning and being recognized as a 'champion'.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about striving for greatness in sports.
Since 1981, I've spent every Thanksgiving Day broadcasting a game, and it is one of my favorite days. You can say, 'Woe is me, I never get to be part of the tradition,' or you can say, 'Heck, we've got our own tradition, and it's pretty good.'
Sometimes you can be one of the best, but you don't accept that if you don't get the ring or win the Super Bowl. There's a lot of good teams between the Super Bowl winner and other teams. Once the Super Bowl is over, we lump everyone into the other 31, and that's not fair.
Coaches have to watch for what they don't want to see and listen to what they don't want to hear.
Any defensive coordinator is worried about two things: a running quarterback and a deep ball. You know, don't get beat deep and don't let the quarterback run, because a big part of your defense can't account for the quarterback as a runner, so he gets a free run.
Nobody, not even the head coach, would do anything to the football unilaterally, such as adjust the amount of pressure in a ball, without the quarterback not knowing. It would have to be the quarterback's idea.
I was an old tackle riding around talking to people about sports. Like I've said to a lot of people over the years, 'I only go where old tackles go, and if an old tackle does not belong there, I'm not going.'
I still work hard to know my business. I'm continuously looking for ways to improve all my companies, and I'm always selling. Always.
I was probably born a scorer, but I was made a winner. Whatever works, whatever wins championships, wins games, that's what I do.
I don't think I have achieved anything that I can really be proud of.
I'll drop something for a while, a year or maybe several years, and then pick it up again. I think that's the way successful innovators work. They keep juggling ideas, keeping them in the air, in the back of their mind, to inspire them or enable new recombinations.
The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you.
In business, the earning of profit is something more than an incident of success. It is an essential condition of success. It is an essential condition of success because the continued absence of profit itself spells failure.
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