Championship Mindset Kobe Bryant

Go after your dreams, right? Go after it. I never compromised that. I never allowed anybody to tell me what I was capable of accomplishing. I never let anybody tell me that I can't do right. I went after it. If you want to accomplish something or do something that a lot of people think is difficult to accomplish, you have to put all your eggs in one basket and there's no compromise. Doubt is such a strange thing. There'll be times where you succeed and there are times that you fail. Wasting your time doubting whether you're going to be successful or not is pointless, and you just put one foot in front of the other. You control what you can't control, and then you see what the outcome is, right? If you win, great, you're going to have to wake up the next day and do the journey over again. If you lose, sucks, but you're going to have to wake up the next day and do the journey all over again anyway. Yeah, if you want to play at an excellent level, if you want to do something excellent, you have to be excellent all the time. It's a way of life. It's not just I show up on Monday and be excellent. No, I don't work that way. You got to be excellent across the board, all right? And that's how you build habits when excellence becomes a habit. And that's just who you are. The fact of the matter is, I'm still trying to get better. Make sure that you put your mind to it and go, go at it 110%. Don't let everybody tell you otherwise. Not only academically, but whether it's athletically. You have to go at it, you know, 110% Don't let anybody tell you you can't do something. The only person that can stop you from accomplishing something is yourself. Mental toughness. Mental toughness I'm going through a really tough time. Body sore. Whatever the case may be, I can't get you this particular thing right. To me, being mentally tough means you can take your mind someplace else and concentrate on that other thing to the point where the thing that was bothering you is no longer focused. You don't feel it anymore. It's a competition. My, my mission is to destroy you. When I play against somebody and we line up, you're guarding me. My whole purpose was to get you to reconsider your life choice to play basketball. So at the end of the day, you'd be like, you know what? Maybe this isn't for me. How can I mentally figure out ways to break break you down? How can I show you that no, I have the edge, want to beat you. I want to let you know I need you. I'm going to want you to reconsider your professional life choice. Really simple, man. I'm, I'm there to just absolutely demoralize and and dominate the person that I'm playing against, the team I'm playing against, you know, and that was my mentality going into every single game is just to absolutely obliterate this guy. I wasn't surprised that I scored 80 points and then that sounds really crazy to say, but truly, I was not My shot felt sharp. My footwork was sharp, my conditioning was sharp. I mean, that summer I put a lot of time in jail. I put a lot of time on track. I could run all day. The most important thing I think, for players that come after me is to understand that these things are possible because you don't want to ever limit your imagination. How in the world can we inspire people if we're continuing to give them what they believe is possible? Not really inspiring anyone, right? So I think that is the the most important thing that I would like the next generation of athletes to take from them. The greatest fear you face is yourself because we all have dreams and it's very scary sometimes to accept the dream that you have. The greatest fear you face is yourself And it's scarier still to say, OK, I want that. It's scary because you're afraid that if you put your heart and soul into it and you fail, then how are you going to feel about yourself, right? So being fearless means putting yourself out there and going for it no matter what. Go for it, not for anybody else, but for yourself. I think the definition of greatness is to inspire the people next to you is how can you inspire a person to then in turn inspire another person and then inspires another person. And that's how you create something that I think lasts forever. And I think that's our challenge as people is to is to figure out how our story can impact others and motivate them in a way to create their own greatness. You got a lot of people playing their hard earned money to come watch you perform. The importance of being in shape It's your job to be in shape. It's your job to be strong enough to perform at that level every single night. And as a competitor, I'm not, I'm not ducking shit. So if there's something I can leave for this next generation is to have that constant curiosity about the game. You have to continue to ask questions and try to understand why things happen, you know? Because when you understand why things happen, then you understand how to make things happen. The way we approach the game the same way we approach life, you do the right thing, you make the right play, make the right play, and life is the same thing. What do you feel in your heart is the right thing to do? And you do that. You know, it seems so simple, but sometimes the simplest things are the hardest things to do. What I've learned is to to, to always keep going, Always. No matter what happens, the storm eventually ends. And when the storm does end, you want to make sure that you're ready. He had a great quote that said rest at the end, not in the middle. And that's something I always live by. I'm not going to rest and I'm going to keep on pushing. Now got a lot of answers that I don't have, even questions that I don't have, but I'm just going to keep going. Have a good time, enjoy life. Life is too short to to to get bogged down and be discouraged. You have to keep moving. You have to keep going, put one foot in front of the other, smile and just keep on rolling. My philosophy was a very simple one. And I made a promise to myself that I was going to work that hard every single day so that when I do retire, I have no regrets. And that was the most important thing for me is to leave no stone unturned, get better every single day. And if I live that way, then over time, you know, I'd have something that was beautiful. You know, if you live your life to just get better every single day and do that for 20 years and what do you have is how do you you negotiate with yourself? Negotiating with yourself And you talk about the mental side of it, like the thoughts that happen in your mind when you're going through the competitive situation or you're facing a tight deadline. You talk yourself out of it. Then you say, OK, we won't be able to do it or I don't have to get up on a Tuesday morning. Then go ahead and hit the track. What is this day really mean? Like when you have those conversations with yourself, are you able to negotiate your way out of that little, you know, voice telling you it's not that important? Or does that little voice get the best of you? I think that's what separates people who are going to do great things versus people who don't. If you're going to do something, do it to the best of your ability, no matter what it is. If you're going to do it and do it to the best of your ability. Like when you find that thing that you love, then life makes sense. You wake up in the morning and life makes sense. You have to figure out what it is that you really want to do. Like wake up in the morning and say, I'm excited to go do this. But when you find what it is that you love to do, then you wake up every morning with a sense of purpose. If you love what you do and it's making you happy, all the hard work and perseverance will pay off. Yeah, that's the trick, isn't it? It's finding what you love to do. I wake up in the morning excited to get to it. And if you have that feeling, then you're truly doing what God has put you on this earth to do. I I don't negotiate with myself. I told myself, you know, at 13 that I want to be one of the greatest who I've ever played. That's the deal I made. I shook hands with myself. That is the deal. That is the contract that is non negotiable. I was on the track at like 4:30 AM. In the middle of it, I'm thinking to myself, hey, my legs are really tired. They're really hurting. And then I thought to myself, well, what would a quitter do? Would they just stop right now? Like, how does that work? Like if I just stop right now, what would that feel like? Is that why fuckers always get second place? But I want to tell you guys something. When you have a dream, the one thing you have to watch out for are those out there that'll try to crush your dream. The one thing you have to watch out for when you have a dream And you cannot allow that to happen. That is your biggest challenge. So I challenge you to have your dream, go after it with all you have and be legendary in your own right. The confidence comes from preparation, you know? So when the game's on the line, I'm not asking myself to do something that I haven't done thousands of times before, right? And so in those moments, if it looks like ice cold or I'm not nervous, it's because I've done it thousands of times before. So it's one more time. The key factor for me was wasn't whether or not I was ready. It was the fact that if I wasn't ready, I was determined to figure out how to get ready. And ultimately, even if I was ready, I still need to improve anyway, right? So the work's not going to stop. The message is always to go out there and dominate. There's no let up once the game starts and once the practice begins, you know you're in that mode. You know everything is a Game 7. And when you approach every practice, every game with that kind of mentality, you know it bleeds into the rest of the guys. And then the rest of the unit has that same approach and that same intensity, but it starts at the top. The most important thing is that you become the best version of yourself. That is the key, you know, get better every single day. Are you better today than you were yesterday? The answer is yes and you're on the right track. You know, that's Mamba mentality. Get better every single day 'cause sometimes you know your body just hurts, your legs hurt and they're sore. But that's how you get better. And the only way that you can get better is by pushing yourself beyond what you believe you're capable of of doing. At the end of every day, you look yourself in the mirror and you ask yourself, did I get better today? If the answer is yes, and you do that for five years, 10 years, 15 years, how much better are you going to be? Are you getting better every single day? That's the question, and it's just taking small steps. You don't try to get it all done in one day, in one week, in one year. It's the process of getting better every day and doing that for a period of years that then create the masterpiece. It doesn't matter if I'm serious. It doesn't matter if I have a sprained ankle. The kid that's sitting in there might be the next me sitting up there watching and trying to get inspiration from that. I need to go out there and play. That is my message. Don't look at what I did, but look at how I did it right. How? Then you can really transfer that over to any profession in any listen. That's Mama mentality.