Phil Jackson's Eleven Rings: The Soul Of Success

How He Came to Be Phil Jackson was raised in a farm community in North Dakota by parents who were both Pentecostal ministers and very strict practitioners of their faith. He explains in his book, Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success (2013), that after growing up with such rigid rules and guidelines, he has taken an opposite approach as an adult and has become much more easy going and relaxed (p.15). He wrote about his search for spiritual grounding where he studied many different religions and their practices throughout his years in college. After combining many of them together he came up with his own set of beliefs and practices that provides him with the foundation he felt he needed all along (p. 15). This search for spiritual guidance had a profound impact on his professional career as a coach. As an assistant coach on the Chicago Bulls, Tex Winter taught Jackson the triangle offense that he felt “aligned perfectly with the values of selflessness and mindful awareness” he learned from Zen Buddhism (p. 17). The triangle offense also incorporated the basics of ball movement that were drilled into him as a player for the

Finding unique ways to encourage grown men making millions of dollars to play a game seems like a simple concept, however we have seen many struggle to do just that over the years. Jackson creatively found ways to extract the desired changes from his players. Specifically, when dealing with Shaquille O’Neil, Jackson told him not to be afraid of Allen Iverson’s penetration move which resulted in Shaq stepping up and reducing Iverson’s impact for the rest of the game (Jackson, 2013, p. 227) Another time, Jackson told the press that Shaq wasn’t playing well because his toe hurts and although Shaq came back with a big game, he also responded negatively towards Jackson in his own interview (Jackson, 2013, p.