I wanted to learn how the business worked. I wanted to see how people got drafted, how players got traded, how they got picked up in free agency, how the salary cap worked, how do you manage an organization, how do you negotiate contracts. The Bulls gave me an excellent opportunity to answer all the questions that I wanted to ask.
People can say what they want to say, but at the end of the day, I can look at myself in the mirror. I know how hard I fought. I know how many storylines I pitched. I know how hard I worked in the ring.
Some people think all I did was trash talk. But ask my teammates, coaches - they saw how hard I worked, how hard I prepared.
You look back and see how hard you worked and how poor you were, and how desperately anxious you were to succeed, and all you can remember is how happy you were.
I can't tell you how hard I worked the last year. In fact, I worked so hard that I know I can't maintain that same work level in 2001, so I've got to quit something.
I think anybody that's worked hard and has built something and has been successful can testify to how, you know, how wonderful that was, how wonderful it still is.
How fragile life was, how fleeting their days on earth, and how fickle was Death, claiming the young as often as the old, the healthy as often as the ailing, cruelly stealing away a baby's first breath, a mother's fading heartbeat.
The Nike Fuel Band is interesting - it measures your movements and how far you've walked and how hard you've worked that day. I prefer using when I travel. It's a fun way to see how far I've walked - how many steps I've taken when I'm walking around different cities.
We forget how the Greeks and Romans prevailed magnificently in a barbaric world and how that triumph ended-how a slackness and softness finally overcame them to their ruin. In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security and a comfortable life; and they lost all-comfort and security and freedom.
I'm still doing what I've always wanted to do, and how big it gets or how much money I make for it or how popular I am in the public's eye is really not that important, even though it's hard to let that go.
When I step back and look at all of these really successful people that I've worked with, one thing I do take away from it is how hard they work and how focused they are.
I was a beast in college. I worked hard and I played hard. I was relentless learning about business. I actually snuck into MBA classes my freshman and sophomore years. I wanted to challenge myself to see how I compared to the smartest kids at Indiana University so I was 18 and pretended I was an MBA student.
I don't think I've ever worked so hard on something, but working on Macintosh was the neatest experience of my life. Almost everyone who worked on it will say that. None of us wanted to release it at the end. It was as though we knew that once it was out of our hands, it wouldn't be ours anymore.
My grandma told me, don't get into trouble. I know how hard she worked to take care of her own nine kids and my mama's three. And I just never wanted to hurt her. I never wanted to do something that would embarrass her.
When I worked on my game, that's what I thought about. When it happened, I set another goal, a reasonable, manageable goal that I could realistically achieve if I worked hard enough. I guess I approached it with the end in mind. I knew exactly where I wanted to go, and I focused on getting there.
Ah, life, life, how madly, how cruelly it raced along your pulses!