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Anyone else read Sam Smith's "The Jordan Rules"? Jordan is without doubt one of the greatest, if not the greatest, basketball player the world has seen. He is a

Anyone else read Sam Smith's "The Jordan Rules"? Jordan is without doubt one of the greatest, if not the greatest, basketball player the world has seen. He is also known to be egotistical, as many competitive athletes/alpha males are (it's probably the testosterone). Like Steve Jobs, Jordan would not suffer fools gladly, would "bully" team-mates, had laser-focus etc. Had a good wingman in the form of Pippen (Tim Cook). Yet one cannot fault him for his many accomplishments. He rose to the occasion time and again (how many times have we seen him take the buzzer-beater?), and had an admirable work ethic. As the saying goes "haters gonna hate". The fact is that Jordan, Steve Jobs, and many other people changed their respective industries and beyond. Jordan not only changed professional sports, but also sports management and sports equipment marketing. Steve Jobs' achievements probably need no introduction.

loso 15y ago
Have you seen the perception of Jordan lately? I was and probably still am one of the biggest Jordan fans ever but he's a dick and as a fan I have to admit it. His former teammates do not have many nice things to say about him and the people he played against even less so. Right now there are a bunch of young NBA players, who grew up watching Jordan's accomplishments, considering boycotting Jordan brand sneakers because of him being an asshole during the lockout negotiations. Even take a look at how poorly his hall of fame speech was regarded by the general public and his peers. The chip on his shoulder helped him be a winner on the court but not so much off of it. Yes, your egotistical ways might lead you to win in your field but don't expect the people you ran over to all of the sudden see the light and respect you as a person. You can respect a persons accomplishments while also despising who they are as a human being.
- brisance 15y ago
  There is no way to please everyone all the time. I saw the HoF induction speech. Did it come across as self-centered... yes, I thought it did. But that's his privilege, he earned it. About a person's qualities as a human being: I feel there isn't much need to pass judgment on others, whether they are celebrities or not. Each of us are also humans and are also prone to our own lapses of judgment, integrity etc. That's what we are. Otherwise we'd all be saints and life would be predictable and boring. :) There was a time in the 90s where there was all this talk about being a "role model" and Barkley famously got into trouble for it. It's touching on exactly the same issues. And I agree with Barkley: that parents should be the ones bringing up their offspring, not the media,entertainers, sports/tech heroes et al. Coming back on topic: I respect Jobs for the things he'd done, to "push the human race forward". He was a giant, and my opinion is that the world became a better place for it. You're free to disagree (refer to RMS's stance), but that doesn't mean my own opinion is any less valid, and I'm sticking with it. :)
  - loso 15y ago
    I agree with you about Jobs and even about Jordan. They most likely have probably made the world better than when they came in. But there has been a sacrifice made in that achievement. On a personal level. But to be considered great that is always going to be the case. And I also add Bill Gates to that list as well. His enemies were more competitors than personal but he has gathered a lot of bad will over the years. But he was able to place computers in a lot of homes at a reasonable price. He sacrificed a lot of good will in the tech community to accomplish that.
- matwood 15y ago
  From watching Jordan it appears to me his self motivational technique was to make everything personal. Of course it makes him sound like a dick when he can pick out something that happened 20 years ago, explain why it pissed him off, and then thank the person for doing it to him. As far as ego is concerned, that's basketball. It is probably the most individualistic team game out there. A single player can and does win games. A great player must believe they are going to hit every shot they take so that they don't have any fear when taking that last shot. Jordan certainly recognized he wasn't perfect and used that as even more motivation: I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is precisely why I succeed. -Michael Jordan And finally, how Jordan is acting during the lockout is completely expected. He was once a player, then an ex-player and now that he owns 80% of the Bobcats, he is an owner.
comedian 15y ago
Copy the good qualities. Learn from and ignore the bad ones.
- maratd 15y ago
  The "bad" qualities are what made them effective. If they didn't have them, you would never have heard of them. Just be yourself. You don't really have a choice in the matter. You are you. You can only be you. If you try to graft aspects of somebody else's personality onto your own, you will find that it's a rather futile effort. You can't. Find out who you truly are, discover yourself, and then embrace yourself in the fullest sense. You can be a better you, but you can't be somebody else. If that means you don't end up a minor celebrity, c'est la vie.
  - theshadow 15y ago
    >>The "bad" qualities are what made them effective. If they didn't have them, you would never have heard of them.<< Please justify the above statement. How could you possibly know that? What is to say that these people would not have gone to achieve even greater heights if it had not been for their bad qualities? There is something incredibly depressing about this attitude that pretty much states that it's okay to be a complete and utter jerk if you have achieved some level of success. Maybe it's cool to say that because it's counter-cultural thing or maybe we as a society have reached a state where people have a knee jerk tendency to apotheosize those who are successful and explain away their flaws as somehow critical to their success (also read the Mark Pincus stuff to further observe this phenomenon). Either way it's depressing.
    - wallawe 15y ago
      Ex. 1: People would go the length of the world making sure that they accomplished every minute detail of what he had asked to perfection. Had he not been such a hardass and callous type person, I highly doubt things would have been done in the time frames and to the scope that he required. It's the tragedy of success in his circumstance. Take the bad with the good.

loso 15y ago

Have you seen the perception of Jordan lately? I was and probably still am one of the biggest Jordan fans ever but he's a dick and as a fan I have to admit it. His former teammates do not have many nice things to say about him and the people he played against even less so. Right now there are a bunch of young NBA players, who grew up watching Jordan's accomplishments, considering boycotting Jordan brand sneakers because of him being an asshole during the lockout negotiations. Even take a look at how poorly his hall of fame speech was regarded by the general public and his peers. The chip on his shoulder helped him be a winner on the court but not so much off of it. Yes, your egotistical ways might lead you to win in your field but don't expect the people you ran over to all of the sudden see the light and respect you as a person. You can respect a persons accomplishments while also despising who they are as a human being.

brisance 15y ago
There is no way to please everyone all the time. I saw the HoF induction speech. Did it come across as self-centered... yes, I thought it did. But that's his privilege, he earned it. About a person's qualities as a human being: I feel there isn't much need to pass judgment on others, whether they are celebrities or not. Each of us are also humans and are also prone to our own lapses of judgment, integrity etc. That's what we are. Otherwise we'd all be saints and life would be predictable and boring. :) There was a time in the 90s where there was all this talk about being a "role model" and Barkley famously got into trouble for it. It's touching on exactly the same issues. And I agree with Barkley: that parents should be the ones bringing up their offspring, not the media,entertainers, sports/tech heroes et al. Coming back on topic: I respect Jobs for the things he'd done, to "push the human race forward". He was a giant, and my opinion is that the world became a better place for it. You're free to disagree (refer to RMS's stance), but that doesn't mean my own opinion is any less valid, and I'm sticking with it. :)
- loso 15y ago
  I agree with you about Jobs and even about Jordan. They most likely have probably made the world better than when they came in. But there has been a sacrifice made in that achievement. On a personal level. But to be considered great that is always going to be the case. And I also add Bill Gates to that list as well. His enemies were more competitors than personal but he has gathered a lot of bad will over the years. But he was able to place computers in a lot of homes at a reasonable price. He sacrificed a lot of good will in the tech community to accomplish that.
matwood 15y ago
From watching Jordan it appears to me his self motivational technique was to make everything personal. Of course it makes him sound like a dick when he can pick out something that happened 20 years ago, explain why it pissed him off, and then thank the person for doing it to him. As far as ego is concerned, that's basketball. It is probably the most individualistic team game out there. A single player can and does win games. A great player must believe they are going to hit every shot they take so that they don't have any fear when taking that last shot. Jordan certainly recognized he wasn't perfect and used that as even more motivation: I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is precisely why I succeed. -Michael Jordan And finally, how Jordan is acting during the lockout is completely expected. He was once a player, then an ex-player and now that he owns 80% of the Bobcats, he is an owner.

comedian 15y ago

Copy the good qualities. Learn from and ignore the bad ones.

maratd 15y ago
The "bad" qualities are what made them effective. If they didn't have them, you would never have heard of them. Just be yourself. You don't really have a choice in the matter. You are you. You can only be you. If you try to graft aspects of somebody else's personality onto your own, you will find that it's a rather futile effort. You can't. Find out who you truly are, discover yourself, and then embrace yourself in the fullest sense. You can be a better you, but you can't be somebody else. If that means you don't end up a minor celebrity, c'est la vie.
- theshadow 15y ago
  >>The "bad" qualities are what made them effective. If they didn't have them, you would never have heard of them.<< Please justify the above statement. How could you possibly know that? What is to say that these people would not have gone to achieve even greater heights if it had not been for their bad qualities? There is something incredibly depressing about this attitude that pretty much states that it's okay to be a complete and utter jerk if you have achieved some level of success. Maybe it's cool to say that because it's counter-cultural thing or maybe we as a society have reached a state where people have a knee jerk tendency to apotheosize those who are successful and explain away their flaws as somehow critical to their success (also read the Mark Pincus stuff to further observe this phenomenon). Either way it's depressing.
  - wallawe 15y ago
    Ex. 1: People would go the length of the world making sure that they accomplished every minute detail of what he had asked to perfection. Had he not been such a hardass and callous type person, I highly doubt things would have been done in the time frames and to the scope that he required. It's the tragedy of success in his circumstance. Take the bad with the good.