Joe Montana quotes: “Joe Cool” on confidence, living in the now, life after football, and more.
“Always be prepared to start.”
“Winners, I am convinced, imagine their dreams first. They want it with all their heart and expect it to come true. There is, I believe, no other way to live.”
“There’s only one reason for doing anything that you set out to do. If you don’t want to be the best, then there’s no reason going out and trying to accomplish anything.”
“You can decide to prepare more, to work harder, to envision success, and to feed yourself positive self-talk. Those are the fundamentals that build confidence and you can choose to implement those fundamentals and raise your confidence level any time you want.”
“You will never perform higher than your confidence level and lackluster confidence leads to lackluster results.”
“When it comes to performance, in sports or business, if we don’t have confidence that we’re going to complete a pass or make that big sale, the chances of our doing so are not good. We will have defeated ourselves before we even get into the game.”
“Any of us can have our confidence shaken by a series of mistakes or defeats, but no one can take it away from us. Confidence is completely ours to give to ourselves, and ours to take away when we feel low. If we’ve lost it, we simply must find it again.”
“Don’t complain about not getting a chance and then be unprepared when you finally do.”
“If you miss perfection, you end up with greatness.”
“Yeah, it’s nice to look up to people, but the more you try to be somebody else, the less you are of yourself.”
“You need to be able to work with people.”
“Confidence is a very fragile thing. We don’t have much control over the opponent or obstacle we’re about to face. However, we do have control over our own confidence level.”
“Confidence is the belief you have in your own ability. The size of your confidence determines the size of your success. The more confident you are, the more success you will tend to have.”
“The size of your confidence is up to you, regardless of the size of the challenge that lies ahead. When you feel your confidence dwindling, you must immediately remind yourself that you – and only you – get to determine how confident you are.”
“Never let someone else rob you of your confidence. Remind yourself always that your effort and your attitude are completely determined by you.”
“I have a fear of failure. I hate to lose. Period. In anything.”
“When you’re first starting out, it’s good to be a little scared.”
“It’s not easy to go to another team and get accepted, no matter how much success you’ve had and how many years you’ve played.”
“I started a business with two guys I played with: Champion Ventures. It’s a fund of funds. We have $400 million or so under management. I really took the lead on putting together the real estate fund-to-funds. Real estate was always interesting to me.”
“If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’. You know, everybody does everything they can to possibly get a little bit of an edge. Everybody wants to win, so you do whatever you can to make it happen.”
“As a quarterback, there’s no better way to finish your year, in winning a Super Bowl, than with a touchdown pass. The chances of that happening, by the looks of most of the Super Bowls, is a very rare chance. Fortunately for me, I had an opportunity.”
“I was the mailman, just delivering people’s mail, and there were all kinds of houses to go to.”
“When the game is over I just want to look at myself in the mirror, win or lose, and know I gave it everything I had.”
“Yeah, I think it motivates you as people start to count you out. It doesn’t make you play any harder, because every time you go out on the field you give 110%, but it does give you more of an edge mentally, knowing that you were in the same situation, because in sports you always find yourself behind.”
“In sports, you play from the time you’re eight years old, and then you’re done forever.”
“If you overemphasize the past, you forget about what is going on right now. Everyone thinks about the past players, but we had our time in the limelight. People have asked me, ‘Will you go to the parade?’ Why would I go ride in the parade? I’ve been there; why celebrate me? They don’t need us old guys there interfering. It’s nice to have guys around in certain areas, to help younger guys understand what it takes to win, but this has nothing to do with me. I am not one to go get involved. If I was going to get involved, I’d want to be a coach, someone in the organization. I’ve been there, done that. While I still remember those days, this is about these guys, not us old guys.”
“I don’t live in the past. I just live in the enjoyment of the game.”
“It is the greatest game that I’ve ever been around. It’ll continue to get better and be the greatest.”
“When you retire, you got the majority of your life still ahead of you.”
“After I retired I figured I didn’t have to work out as often and I could still eat like I was playing. I think everybody thinks, like I did, it’s not going to happen to me. People don’t like to make changes in their life. They love the way they exercise, they think they’re getting the right amount; they love the way they’re eating. For me, I won’t lie… I was one of those guys. And then you stop playing and you realize you can’t do that.”
“If you can save one person’s life and make a difference, then that’s the best. We’re hoping for a lot better than that.”
“I’m probably more fortunate than most, or than a lot of guys out there. I can still get around, I’m still pretty active in my life.”
“My mother and father, Joe and Theresa Montana, brought me along and taught me to never quit, and to strive to be the best.”
“I’ve been there and I’ve done that. I’ve never liked looking back, whether it’s looking back at college or at high school. I’m going forward. I could do the analyst thing, but I would have to be gone every weekend, and I don’t want that. I missed seeing my daughters grow up because of this crazy game.”
Related: Tom Brady quotes.
