Unselfishness plays a special role in business
Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley arrives for the morning session at the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, in July 2012.
Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley arrives for the morning session at the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, in July 2012.
Bill Bradley recently spoke to a group of Minnesota Timberwolves season ticketholders.
The topic wasn’t his stellar career, basketball strategy or memorable wins. Instead, he talked about unselfishness. After 40 years of traveling America as a Hall-of-Fame basketball player and a U.S. Senator, the Rhodes Scholar has a lot of stories to tell about the remarkable unselfish accomplishments of people both famous and unknown. He features them during his weekly American Voices program on Sirius/XM Radio.
Bradley briefly talked about his two NBA championships with the New York Knicks and how unselfish his teams were.
They wanted to be champions more than they wanted individual achievements. They realized being a champion is the highest individual achievement.
That’s why I love team sports. Players learn not only the power of teamwork, but how to be unselfish, regardless of their individual abilities.
Another basketball superstar, Michael Jordan, won six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls. His personal accomplishments on the court give him bragging rights beyond compare. Yet he wrote in his book “I Can’t Accept Not Trying”: “There are plenty of teams in every sport that have great players and never win titles. Most of the time, those players aren’t willing to sacrifice for the greater good of the team. The funny thing is, in the end, their unwillingness to sacrifice only makes individual goals more difficult to achieve. One thing I believe to the fullest is that if you think and achieve as a team, the individual accolades will take care of themselves. Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”
