9 inspiring Michael Jordan quotes that will get you fired up for any challenge
Former NBA player Michael Jordan inspires many. Here are some of his famous motivational quotes. Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images
In the ESPN series “The Last Dance,” Jordan is asked if his intensity gets in the way of being perceived as nice, to which he replied: “I pulled people along when they didn’t want to be pulled, I challenged people when they didn’t want to be challenged. I earned that right … One thing about Michael Jordan is that he never asked anyone to do anything that he didn’t do.”
Jordan was inducted to the NBA Hall of Fame in 2009. He closed his acceptance speech with this moving quote about pushing through perceived limitations.
Jordan also said, “the game of basketball has meant everything to me. It’s my refuge, my peace. It’s been the place of the most intense pain and joy that anyone can imagine. I hope that it’s given the millions of people who I have touched the motivation to follow their dreams.”
Amid a surge of violence related to police officers and African-Americans in 2016, Michael Jordan released a statement to the Undefeated, an ESPN website, that included this quote.
In the same statement, he announced the donation of $1 million for the Institute for Community-Police Relations and $1 million for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the oldest civil rights law organization in the US.
Jordan shared this advice in his 1994 book “I Can’t Accept Not Trying Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence,” which includes the principles he has built his life and career on.
In the same book, Jordan shared this quote that he lives by. By the time the book came out in 1994, Jordan had won three NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls.
Jordan told the Associated Press these words were going through his head in 1990 when he scored 69 points in a single game against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“I didn’t think about being tired because I wanted to win the game,” Jordan told the Associated Press.
“I’ve been in that situation where I’ve scored a lot of points and we lost, and I didn’t want that to happen.
“So I kept pushing myself, kept talking to myself, saying, ‘Don’t stop, don’t stop. Keep going.’ You feel better about the effort when you win.”
In an autobiography called “For the Love of the Game: My Story,” Jordan shared this quote. The book, which came out in 1998, details Jordan’s career as an athlete and as a businessman.
In the same book, Jordan said, “there is no such thing as a perfect basketball player, and I don’t believe there is only one greatest player either. Everyone plays in different eras. I built my talents on the shoulders of someone else’s talent. I believe greatness is an evolutionary process that changes and evolves era to era. Without Julius Erving, David Thompson, Walter Davis, and Elgin Baylor there would never have been a Michael Jordan. I evolved from them.”
Jordan shared this insight in an ESPN interview about how to handle pressure.
“People didn’t believe me when I told them I practiced harder than I played, but it was true,” Jordan told ESPN.
“That’s where my comfort zone was created. By the time the game came, all I had to do was react to what my body was already accustomed to doing.”
This article was originally written by Joey Hadden and appeared here.
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