Finding myself in a final with Atletico makes me happy. Why? Because I know the feelings of all the people at the club - because I know how the players feel. They need to see their team as champions, so we have more fans every day.
This is definitely a playoff team. There's no question about that. It's just a matter of how much we want it.
A company is a group organized to create a product or service, and it is only as good as its people and how excited they are about creating. I do want to recognize a ton of super-talented people. I just happen to be the face of the companies.
My thing is trying to convince them they can win.
Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers. You can buy a person's hand, but you can't buy his heart; his heart is where his enthusiasm is. You can buy his back, but you can't buy his brain. That's where his creativity is. Treat employees as volunteers just as you treat customers as volunteers, because that's what they are. They volunteer the best parts - their hearts and minds.
Surround yourself with strong people, make sure they fully understand your principles, give them room to work, reward good performance and correct bad performance—and be sure they know you can tell the difference.
The thing is, once you're in the Super Bowl, you want to win. As time goes on, you want to win more and more.
When your best player puts it on the line every day, the other guys can't cut corners
What you have to have is very smart, motivated, dedicated, and focused engineers and focus them on the right goal.
A good coach will come in ra, ra, ra and rejig the whole set-up. That might work for a year or 18 months but isn't sustainable. A great coach has the ability to get the best out of his players without the ra, ra, ra stuff.
I play to lift a city, and raise a banner.
Our coach was absolutely out of his head. He must have read Bear Bryant's book. We had 78 players out. The first day 35 quit. Twenty quit the second day. We ended with 17 players. It was depressing.
I've got a lot of belief in Aaron Gordon and he's one of the reasons that I took the job here with the Magic. When a guy cares as much as he does and works as hard as he does, that impacts the group. And that type of attitude is infectious.
The best coaches have strong charisma to motivate the whole team while managing the relationship with the media, which can be tense.
I love for the crowd to feed off me, and I try to make my teammates feed off me.
I discovered that as a founder and now CEO, my commitment to and passion for Affectiva is super contagious. It is contagious with my team and at internal company meetings, injecting a new energy and sense of camaraderie.
As CEO, I believe my most important job is to both define reality and inspire hope for the PayPal team. Defining reality includes being realistic about all the things that could go wrong so that we are prepared to navigate those challenges.
You really just have to come in and build the spirit up of your team by working them everyday, showing them examples of what they've done and reinforce their work.
A business leader has to keep their organization focused on the mission. That sounds easy, but it can be tremendously challenging in today's competitive and ever-changing business environment. A leader also has to motivate potential partners to join.
The support of our fans is vital to everything that we do - we always play for our country and our fans.
I think the Americans are ready to play, they want to beat us. I think that players like Chris Chelios and his leadership over there goes a long way.
As a leader you set the tone for your entire team. Communicate your vision.
You have to treat your employees like customers
So, I didn't say we are going to win a lot, but we are going to play like winners, and we've got a plan in place to teach our guys how to play like winners and play like a champion.
When the leader lacks confidence, the followers lack commitment.
