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LeBron James Used A Steve Jobs Speech To Motivate The Cavs To Victory (bgr.com) 97

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BGR: Well, LeBron James finally accomplished what he set out to do when he announced his triumphant return to the Cleveland Cavaliers 2014: he brought an NBA championship to Cleveland. Going into the NBA Finals, the Cavaliers were clear underdogs. And once the Cavs went down three games to one, the odds in Vegas that LeBron and co. could take back the series were as high as +900. Looking back at the Cavaliers' historic championship run and odds-defying victory, ESPN has a fascinating piece up detailing how LeBron sought to find every and anything that could help motivate his teammates and help them believe that an unprecedented comeback was indeed within the realm of possibility. And interestingly enough, one of the sources of inspiration James turned to was Steve Jobs. Specifically, James played portions of Steve Jobs' iconic 2005 Stanford University commencement speech to rally the troops ahead of game 3. "You can't connect the dots looking forward," Jobs passionately said, "you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life." You can watch Jobs' aforementioned speech in its entirety here on YouTube.
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LeBron James Used A Steve Jobs Speech To Motivate The Cavs To Victory

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @09:03AM (#52365695)

    How is this news for nerds? Other than a mention of Steve Jobs.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I knew Steve Jobs

      Everyone who knew Steve Jobs knew that Steve Jobs was definitely ain't a Mr. Nice Guy

      But he was effective and whatever he had set out to do, he would do everything to achieve the goal

      However abrasive Steve Jobs was, however imperfect Steve Jobs was, there was, and will only be one Steve Jobs

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Adolf Hitler was also 'effective' and 'he would do everything to achieve the goal'. He conquered Europe and it took the whole world to take him down. Hater gonna hate.

        Also, there was, and will only be one Adolf Hitler.

        Did you even had a point? Or did you just wanted to say that 'you knew Steve Jobs'?

  • by turkeydance ( 1266624 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @09:04AM (#52365707)
    but the NBA got what it wanted, a 7-game series. the Mouse won't have to pay advertisers any make-good money.
  • Hindsight Bias (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @09:09AM (#52365721)

    It's called Hindsight Bias [wikipedia.org] A logical fallacy.

    Not only is it used by folks to say they knew it all along. But it's also used by folks to judge others with "you should have known better." for actions that no person could possibly have known the outcome.

    Life is quite unpredictable but we have this cultural delusion that it is.

    We have a media that reports only on the successes in our society - the people that took irrational risks and made it and don't report on the majority who do the same and fail miserably. As a result, we have a very distorted view of the likelihood of success in this country and as a result judge people who fail as people with an inherit character deficiency.

    • by Anonymous Coward
      Human beings have an ingrained need to find patterns and attach meaning to events. Call it a fallacy, make fun of it, pretend you're immune, do whatever you want that makes you feel superior but at the end of the day it's human nature and you cannot get away from it. It's served the species well. The truth of the matter is that luck plays as anything else in determining who succeeds and who fails. The old saying "I'd rather be lucky than good" is very true.
      • Human beings have an ingrained need to find patterns and attach meaning to events.

        Read about the Etruscan(passed onto the Romans...) religious practices, who took the reading of events and patterns in nature to the extreme.
        Every ritual had to be performed exactly correct or they would have to start over.
        These rituals could last hours...

        The Gods wouldn't have it any other way.

      • by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @10:42AM (#52366211) Journal

        Criminals think that they are unlucky when they get caught. They'll tell you "I got unlucky this time; I've shoplifted a hundred times before and never been caught." The second sentence is of course untrue - they WERE caught, just now. The fact is, if you make a habit of shoplifting, you'll be caught shoplifting sometimes. If you don't shoplift, you won't be caught shoplifting. The "luck" is only WHEN the shoplifter is caught. If you're in the habit of shoplifting, you probably have a court date ahead of you - no luck about it.

        Further, the same people who think that way about shoplifting also think the same way about driving with an expired license, ditching school or work, etc. It's not LUCK when you're once again skipping school to drive over to the store in your unisured car to do some shoplifting and you get caught doing one of these things.

        On the other hand, if you make it a habit to try to be helpful to people around you, eventually you'll be helpful to someone who can offer you a good job, or an important introduction or some other "lucky" thing. If you make it a habit to forego Starbuck's and Netflix in order to save back 10%-15% of your income, you'll luckily be prepared to take advantage of other opportunities that come your way.

        We each make a hundred decisions every day. Get up now or hit snooze and hope to get to work on time? Eat a healthy breakfast or a cinnamon roll? Get the wrinkles out of your shirt or go to work looking like you don't care? Cut the person off on the way to work or slow down and let them go by? Hold the door for someone on the way into the building or not? Smile at the receptionist or not? Pleasant chit chat in the elevator or stare at the wall? I've made seven or eight decisions which could affect my career before I get to my desk each morning.

        My habits, good and bad, mostly determine my outcomes. If I make a habit of flipping all other drivers, the only luck is whether eventually one of those drivers turns out to be my new boss or a random stranger with road rage, or maybe a sheriff. It'll eventually turn out bad somehow.

  • Sue him for a gazillion dollars for copyright infringement!

    Isn't that how it works if you take an excerpt of something someone else did and use it for your own profit?

    • I realize you're making a joke, but LeBron had the right to show the video to his teammates, because it was a private viewing, and no admission fee was charged. Now, had they played the video on the Q Arena's Jumbotron to 20,000 people then there would be licensing issues involved (but still not copyright infringement, as you say).

      Incidentally, Stanford holds the copyright to the video, no Jobs' estate.

      • I realize you're making a joke, but LeBron had the right to show the video to his teammates, because it was a private viewing, and no admission fee was charged.

        That's not the simple limit that "private viewing" implies. Did he show the video to his team mates as a business function? Did he show the video in a business environment? Did he prevent the viewers from leaving the area if they so chose? It isn't simply whether an admission fee was paid.

        Now, had they played the video on the Q Arena's Jumbotron to 20,000 people then there would be licensing issues involved (but still not copyright infringement, as you say).

        Incidentally, Stanford holds the copyright to the video, no Jobs' estate.

        Interesting detail.

  • This methodology sort of failed Jobs when he decided against a western-medicine treatment for his pancreatic cancer. Although, it may not have made a difference.

    I do recall him saying, near the end, that was his biggest regret.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Who is LeBron James? Who are the Cavs?

  • Failed approach (Score:5, Informative)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @09:30AM (#52365807)
    >>This approach has never let me down

    Up until needless death from curable cancer.
  • LeBron should have used an Elon Musk speech.

    Get with the times LeBron!

    • LeBron should have used an Elon Musk speech.

      Get with the times LeBron!

      "Elon Musk" sounds like either a lab created pheromone used by Wildlife Biologists in British Columbia or a hipster cologne.

    • LeBron should have used an Elon Musk speech.

      Get with the times LeBron!

      Sure: http://www.simplethingcalledlife.com/2015/elon-musk-usc-success-speech/ [simplethin...edlife.com]

      • Tip #1: Work Super Hard.
      • Tip #2: Attract Great People.
      • Tip #3: Focus Solely on the Product or Service.
      • Tip #4: Don’t Follow Trends.
      • Tip#5: Take Risks.

      Tip 3 and probably tip 5 would help in basketball finals. Of course having to hear Musk go through the list would make you fall asleep in the 5 minutes it takes...

      And people complain about Tim Cook's oratory skills.

  • ...because the Splash Brothers didn't play well enough to win, that's it. The speech is BS.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Repeat after me teammates... You are NOT my Child. You are NOT my daughter. The test results are in and they say there is a one in 13 million chance you are not my child... so you better keep looking.

  • I wasn't born in this country (but English IS my first language)

    cav (singular) is short for cavalry (as in Air-Cav helicopter mobile troops first used in 'Nam

    or is it CAV = Computer Aided Visualization?

    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )
      Cavaliers. NBA team for Cleveland, Ohio; a city which hasn't had a professional championship win for any professional sport in over 50 years and is basically known for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, being the setting for the Drew Carrey Show, and generally being boring. Oh, yes, and the main player (LeBron James)is egotistical, had a whole primetime special a few years ago announcing where was going to be playing at next and essentially shops around teams and tries to run them himself, getting coaches fi
    • by bws111 ( 1216812 )

      The first one. It is short for Cavaliers, the name of the team.

    • I wasn't born in this country

      Is that your excuse for not even reading the first sentence of the summary?

  • by Sir_Eptishous ( 873977 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @10:04AM (#52366005)
    I was never a fan of Apple or of Steve Jobs.
    I've been a Windows/Linux guy since the 90s'.

    Apple fanbois, etc and the cult surrounding Apple has always turned my stomach(and continues to, to this very day).
    However, just for curiosity I read "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson and was blown away.
    I hadn't enjoyed a book that much in a long time, and I mainly read non-fiction.

    The story of his life, what he did and how he did it is hard to describe and really "you couldn't make this stuff up".
    I was really stunned by the different sides of Steve Jobs personality, which shows again that in human nature, some people can be really complex.
    I was stunned by the sheer balls Steve Jobs had to pull off what he did.
    The writing and pace of the story in the book was just great and I highly recommend it.

    I have to say it really is a tragedy that he passed at that point in his life.
    But he managed to accomplish and influence our world like almost no one else has.
    • Right with you on this - never been a fan of apple products and only ever purchased a small iPod once. Isaacson's book was profoundly moving, it reads as if your by Job's side the whole time. Highly recommend anyone to read this.

    • However, just for curiosity I read "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson and was blown away. I hadn't enjoyed a book that much in a long time, and I mainly read non-fiction.

      So you read "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson, which is quite flawed, and thus fiction. http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/walter_isaacson_steve_jobs [daringfireball.net]

      There is much that is wrong with Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs, but its treatment of software is the most profound of the book’s flaws. Isaacson doesn’t merely neglect or underemphasize Jobs’s passion for software and design, but he flat-out paints the opposite picture.

      Isaacson makes it seem as though Jobs was almost solely interested in hardware, and even there, only in what the hardware looked like. Superficial aesthetics.

      [How Isaacson doesn't understand what "Antennagate" was about, and gets the technical details completely wrong because of his "looks above everything else" theory]

      Isaacson, it seems clear, mistrusted Jobs. That’s good. But rather than using that mistrust to push back, to ask insightful questions, he instead simply turned to others. ...

      Again, skepticism is good. But rather than do the research to verify Jobs’s version of events, to learn the facts so as to be able to dispute Jobs himself, he simply turned to sources he did trust, like Hertzfeld and Gates. But Gates is an odd choice to trust, because he clearly has a conflict of interest. His company competed against Jobs’s, and at a personal level, he is Jobs’s only rival in terms of historical stature in the industry.

      ...

      You could learn more about Steve Jobs’s work by reading Rob Walker’s 2003 New York Times Magazine piece [nytimes.com] than by reading Isaacson’s book, but even then we’re left wanting for the stories behind any of Apple’s products after the iPod. Isaacson’s book may well be the defining resource for Jobs’s personal life — his childhood, youth, eccentricities, cruelty, temper, and emotional outbursts. But as regards Jobs’s work, Isaacson leaves the reader profoundly and tragically misinformed.

      Isaacson gives us the story of an asshole. But the world is full of assholes. What we need is the story of the one man who spearheaded so many remarkable products and who built an amazing and unique company.

    • I read "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson and was blown away. I hadn't enjoyed a book that much in a long time, and I mainly read non-fiction.

      So, you learned that you enjoy fiction more than you thought you did?

      (j/k; I have no idea how accurate Isaacson's book is. Your comment motivated me to go grab the book on Audible.)

    • However, just for curiosity I read "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson and was blown away.
      I hadn't enjoyed a book that much in a long time, and I mainly read non-fiction.

      Cool! I'll have to buy that for my Kindle with the Apple eBook Settlement [slashdot.org] money I got through Amazon.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • "You can't connect the dots looking forward," Jobs passionately said, "you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever...

    Worked for Jar Jar also

  • Let's all thank Steve Jobs!

The hardest part of climbing the ladder of success is getting through the crowd at the bottom.

Working...