Best Kobe Bryant MOTIVATION (1.5 HOURS of Pure INSPIRATION!) | #BelieveLife

want to be happy build a life not just a business hey it's evan carmichael and this channel was created to help you overcome the number one challenge that is holding you back a lack of belief in yourself you watch these videos because you know there's something more inside you you've got michael jordan level talent at something so today let's live your best believe life and get some fire motivation from kobe bryant there's a choice we have to make as people as individuals if you want to be great at something you have to make inherent sacrifices that come along with that family time hanging out with your friends so at the age of 18 i knew that i was not going to be stopped this was my life we all can be masters at our craft but you have to make sacrifices that come along with making that decision follow your passion first first first first first first um when i retired from the game and i said they're asking kind of all the wrong questions you know what's the biggest industry i can get into and it's all the wrong stuff and you got to sit there and ask yourself okay what am i truly passionate about what do i enjoy doing and when you feel that way i honestly i mean you feel like you have never worked a day in your life it's the most fun thing in the world you get up in the morning excited about what you're doing and you got to be really honest with yourself about it if you wake up in the morning and you're dreading going to work dude do something else do something else and those are hard decisions to make but when you make those decisions it's a very liberating experience and you find out that the rewards will come when i played one of the things i had to learn is how to get the best out of my teammates yeah and most people think it's a simple thing you know passing the ball you know but that's not how you make guys better you have to really affect their behavior how do you do that so yeah like i would tell guys you know we got back to backs you know i don't care if we're in miami i don't care if we're in a great city or chicago you can't go out we gotta get rest right back-to-back games back-to-back games right monday tuesday play monday and play again tuesday you guys aren't gonna listen right you're gonna you're right so a few times all right we'll all go out go out together really i'll drink with you right but the next morning i'm banging on your door at five in the morning let's go they're not getting where are we going i hung out with you now you come hang out with me wow this is what we do all right let's go they're at the gym we're working out right we hit the bus we go to practice we play that night and they're dead and they're dead they're like lesson learned take them out once listen if you're going to do that do that but don't let that compromise what we're here to do right this is why we're here this is why you're here in the first place yeah right and if we're going to win a championship we have to have that championship mentality work ethic that's it so you got to show them no kobe can do that and still has the energy to get up and do this so either i got to meet that same energy or i got to keep my butt more early also if you want to have unstoppable confidence check out my 254 series they're free the links to join are in the description below or to go play someplace else to try to chase a championship that's not me man that's not being that's not what my career has been about we all can be masters at our craft but you have to make sacrifices that come along with making that decision you start with what do you want your game to be what would make your game most unstoppable my philosophy was a very simple one i um and this is where i think film plays a big part of my life i you know rudy was one of my favorite films growing up after watching that film i come to understand if i could work that hard every day with the being blessed with the physical tools that i have what would my career be and i made a promise to myself from that day 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 lived that way then over time you know i'd have something that was beautiful but that was my philosophy it seems like a pretty simple one but you know if you live your life to just get better every single day and do that for 20 years i mean what do you have here's why practice was important to me not from just the standpoint that i enjoyed playing like i enjoyed being there i enjoy getting better but as a leader of a team it's also your responsibility to elevate the rest of the guys and what people tend to get stuck on a lot saying okay the way to make players better is to pass them the ball when they're open that's a very trivial way to look at things what you have to do is you have to get them emotionally to want to be better you want you have to get them to an emotional space where they wake up every morning driven to be the best version of themselves right how do you do that and in practice for me it was a chance to drive them to challenge them right if they're and this is where you have to know your teammates because if it's late we just had a back to back and we had practice the next day and you show up and guys don't feel like going through the motions don't feel like practicing it's important to know each and every one of them individually personally because then you know what nerve to touch some guys it's like okay come on let's you know we can do this that'll get them going other guys know you got to figure out what button to push you know pow was always spain if i tell them how they lost in a gold medal to us and how they're going to lose again how i'm going to beat your ass in practice just like i beat you in a gold medal game oh that oh he would hate that he'd hate that but that's what practice was you have to drive them you absolutely have to and if practice is more intense and harder than a game seven will be then a game seven will be easy but if it's not then that's when teams start folding and capitulating once you have the passionate thing that you're passionate about now you can look at other people or other entities or other things or works of art and you can draw things from that to help you be better at what you do by looking for those common denominators johnny wanted to know how do i prepare how do i prepare how do i study how do i view the game how do you build your game and you know my response is much like the way he builds products you think sequentially you know yeah you look at this the end result of what you want to create but in order to create that there's so many other little things that go into this massive entity or device it's no different than building my basketball game you start with where you want your game to be what would make your game most unstoppable or hard to deal with and now you work backwards from there and you start building it one piece at a time one move at a time one counter at a time so there's a lot of similarities there you just gotta have the uh the fearlessness to really take those shots you know because you miss those shots then you have to deal with the the criticism you have to deal with uh us talking about it right right right so you know and a lot of times a lot of people kind of get a little apprehensive about taking those shots because of that why would we mention it seems like you started smiling already just thinking about the word yeah well it's it's it's always uh it's always been a myth to me as to why um certain people don't really like those situations because of the the pressure you know because we've all lost games before so it's not like by you missing that shot you're about to face something that you will never face again or haven't faced in the past you know what i mean we've all come up short at you know one time or another so um just kind of kind of let it all hang out and you know trust your skills and trust the work that you put in you know i've been with you for a long way i i the one moment that stands out out of we've done i don't know how many done we've done what 800 events the one time was 4 a.m we went out to practice at 4 00 a.m and that was your idea to do it but and then you know all these nike people are like no no no no let's not let's not do that and then you're like let's do it at 4am so you got security you got brand marketing sports marketing going no no no no let's not do it you're like let's do it because that's your accessibility right i mean to me it just makes complete sense not to us but i don't like usually i'm sleeping at 4 a.m you're working out so talk about that okay so if if if your job is to try to be the best basketball player you can be right to do that you have to practice you have to train right you want to train as much as you can as often as you can so if you get up at 10 in the morning train at 11 right 12 say 12 train at 12 train for two hours twelve to two um you have to let your body recover so you eat recover whatever you get back out you train start training again at six train from six to eight right and now you go home you shower you eat dinner you go to bed you wake up you do it again right those are two sessions right now imagine you wake up at three you train at four go four to six come home breakfast relax now you're back at it again nine to eleven right you relax and now all of a sudden you're back at it again two to four and now you're back at it again you know seven to nine look how much more training i have done by simply starting at four right and so now you do that and as the years go on the separation that you have with your competitors and your peers just grows larger and larger and larger and larger and larger and by year five or six doesn't matter what kind of work they do in the summer they're never going to catch up because they're five years behind right so it makes sense to get up and start your day early because you can get more working is that genetic or is that something you you ingrained and trained yourself no it really taught you that for me it was it was just common sense like i can i can if i start earlier i can train more hours and i know the other guys aren't doing it because i know what their training schedule is right so i know if i do this consistently over time this the gap's just going to widen and wide and why why and why and they won't be able to get that back so to me it was just common sense i'm like thinking how can i get an advantage oh start earlier yeah let's do that how do you how do you develop that or where do you where do you learn that from well i i think it's just you know it's just a matter of what's important to you mm-hmm and what's important to you for whatever reason you know i i felt like i didn't feel good about myself if i wasn't doing everything i could to be the best version of myself if i felt like i left anything on the table um it would eat away at me i wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror right so the reason why i can retire now and be completely comfortable about it because i know that i've done everything i could to be the best basketball player i could be um and so that's where it comes from for me you can't leave any stone unturned when you think about your risk tolerance for failure how far are you willing to fail well i mean unfortunately unfortunately i failed quite a bit you know but i understand that's actually part of the process of succeeding i'm not one that really believe in failure i believe you have setbacks and you know you have to learn from those you have to learn what are those landmines that can be avoided the next time what are those pitfalls you have to learn from that stuff and um so you're not welcome those things it's a part of life but are you prepared to like really fail it's something totally new like what if you're just pvc yeah you know and then i work at it and then i'm not at vc the next yeah or you know whenever it happens listen i my first year in the league on national tv at 18 years old and i shot five straight air balls in the playoffs in front of millions of people yeah i think my time is pretty high yeah yeah i think i'm all right the passion came from the love for the game you know i loved everything about it like the smell of the ball you love the smell of the ball yes the ball you know the smell of like brand new sneakers and like the sound the ball makes when it hits the ground sneakers in the gym yeah the ball going through the net like all those things i love and so the passion comes from that because once you have that love you just want to be a part of this thing all the time is there one moment where you can say it define your passion for basketball is there a story or moment when you said yeah that was that was it that was like when i felt really passionate no i it doesn't it never leaves it never leaves like you know the game is just a part of me um so it never leaves even now that i'm retired you know everything that i've learned from the game of basketball i've carried it over into life you know like basketball's helped me be a better person a better friend a better house well because there's life lessons that are within the game like communication like unselfishness um like attention to detail and um empathy and compassion like all those things are in the game and uh as an athlete if we are aware of those things um it helps us become better human human beings and you can apply that toward your post post basketball days your retirement into your business world future ventures sure i mean you can play you know i was applying that um even while i was playing just in life outside of the game and even more so now you know in building a business and all these things you know the kind of culture you want to have um you know all those things are directly uh learned from the game of basketball for me when i injured my achilles and it became something where it's okay this is this is immediate the end of my career could be now so since i was 21 years old and thinking okay i have to figure out what comes next you kind of brainstorm you ideate but you never really execute anything and when the injury happened it's like okay no i need to start building now right and that's when the turning point was for me when i'm sitting there and i have the achilles injury um it's one thing to sit there and try to block out the frustrations of being injured because that's you're constantly tugging with that right as opposed to simply replacing that with a new challenge right something that gets you excited so now you're not focused on not being depressed you're focused on the excitement of building something new and so uh it was extremely exciting man having to figure something out and build it from the ground up do you want to be known long-term as kobe bryant the storyteller and business person who happened to be a basketball player or the basketball player who had a uh successful career thereafter you know it depends who you talk to i mean talking to you well i'm saying if you ask that question to a writer who's never seen a basketball game before i would love to be known as a kick-ass storyteller right right if you talk to an athlete that doesn't like reading a book for anything then i like to be known as a phenomenal basketball player right personally i would love to be both because i am both right you can't shelf one for the other i mean the game has brought me to where i am today um you know the investment platform the brian steibel platform the storytelling that we're doing is going to put me where i will be 20 years from now we really want to create something that is epic and the patience of making sure every detail is cared for um making sure you're hitting the proper beats from a plot perspective right you know the patience the detail so hopefully we can create something that is absolutely epic and timeless and if it isn't timeless honestly we won't put it out you know when we put it out it's because we believe that it is it is the best work that we can possibly do what i try to do is just try to be still and understand that things come and go emotions come and go the important thing is to accept them all to embrace them all and then you can choose to do with them which you want versus being controlled by emotion you know a lot of times i've seen players even myself you know when i was younger being consumed by a particular fear and to the point where you're saying okay nah it's it's not good to feel fear i shouldn't be nervous in a situation like not and it does nothing but grow versus stepping back and saying yeah i am nervous about this situation yeah i am fearful about the situation well what am i afraid of and then you kind of unpack it and then it gives you the ability to look at it for really what it is which is nothing more than your imagination running this course you know yeah absolutely yeah i love that because what you're saying is that when you're dealing with something it's almost like how can i get to the root of it yeah because sometimes what we're dealing with like you're saying it's an imagination an illusion it's not really it's not it's not really a thing yeah you know like you think about game-winning shots and or game-winning free throws and people go to the free-throw line and you're nervous about it well what are you really nervous about if you unpack that okay you're nervous that you're gonna miss the shot all right so you missed the shot then what happens people are gonna be embarrassed you're gonna be embarrassed because thousands of people millions people see you missed the shot all right and then what people are gonna talk bad about you okay right and so you're looking at you go are those things even important you know what i mean if that that is my fear like what is you worried about letting your teammates down okay have you let them down before well i'm sure and practice and things of that nature right they're still there yeah you know and so when you're able to unpack it you kind of look at it for what it is which is really nothing there's a quote from one of my english teachers a little marian named mr fisk he had a great quote that said rest at the end not in the middle and that's something i always live by you know i'm not going to rest and i'm going to keep on pushing now there's a lot of answers that i don't have even questions that i don't have but i'm just going to keep going it's going to keep going and i'll figure these things out as you go right and you just continue to build that way so that i try to live by that all the time rest at the end rest at the end dreams is uh they should be pure and i think a lot of times when we're born into this world we actually wound up going backwards and it seems like the more we mature the more responsible our dreams become and the more governors we put on ourselves and our ability to dream and to reimagine and it's always a fight for his parents and you know for you guys to make sure that your dreams always stay pure and so it's not a matter of of um of pushing beyond your limitations or expectations it's really a matter of protecting your dreams protecting your imagination that's really the key and when you do that then the world just seems limitless shaq's future is certain the big shift in the balance of power in the nba as the league's most dominant player is headed back east the newest member of the miami heat remember this i'm gonna bring a championship to miami i promise after we split apart were you trying to get more more championships than me oh absolutely you were absolutely and i knew you were going to get one i knew you're going to get one because of the energy you know going into miami and dude and everything that was there i knew you were going to get that one so i knew i had to get at least two or three and the miami heat are champions of the basketball world i wanted you to get that because i needed that i wanted that like i wanted people to say see see this is what they're missing here this is what they gave up for right kobe should have been the one to go now he's in miami he's been like i needed that i wanted that i wanted everybody to hate me i wanted to fuel off of that and just come back with so much anger and so much vengeance so i wanted that so when you won right after you won i went out to the track and i ran i did my conditioning i did my drills i woke up the next morning i hit my weights i did my thousand shots i did everything humanly possible to get myself ready but i was i needed i was alright yeah good good i knew that i read a quote that you said you love business as much as basketball there's no way that's true it's a hundred percent true there's no way you lo i mean basketball was your life your passion everything you you're telling me you love doing business as much if you could you know basically snap a finger and be 25 year old kobe or the kobe today you wouldn't go back and keep playing basketball no because i've already done it see here's the thing when i was playing and you know teammates would say oh kobe's not out on the road what is he doing you see me on the plane he's reading what is he reading he's writing what is he writing i'm practicing i'm writing i'm practicing i'm understanding how to tell stories i'm reading joseph campbell and how to create arcs compelling arcs and plots i'm reading that stuff so this is going back 15 years right so i don't just retire right dear basketball and luck into winning an oscar you know what i'm saying yeah stuff comes from hard work and from studying for 15 years how to write and how to organize structure right and you can't do that without having a serious love or commitment to the craft at 13 years old and i played the longer game because my game wasn't about being better than you at 13. it was to be better than you when you know the chips are really on on the line so when you played at 13 i would size you up and see what your strengths and weaknesses are how do you approach the game are you silly about it are you goofy about it are you good at it just because you're bigger and stronger than everybody else right or is there actually thought and skill that you put into it right and when i'd play i'd played in my weaknesses i went played in my strengths i played in my weaknesses because when you're playing summer basketball there's so many games so there's not a lot of skill work being done so when are you going to get better right when you're playing in competition situations you're only playing to your strengths why because you want to win right so what i would do i always work on the things during those games that i was weak at left hand pull up jump shot uh post game right so i have a strategy and so then fast forward to when i'm 17 and my game is completely well-rounded and that player at 13 that i saw at 13 is still doing the same at 17 now you got a problem that's right going to take us behind uh kind of the current with michael was there ever a moment that you guys spoke that you felt like it energized you and you learned from him yeah it was well it was crazy man because my favorite player was magic growing up and then i quickly realized my father stole all my height and i was gonna be a six nine point guard so i had to you know so look at this young guy coming up and the thing that i marveled at wasn't the fact that he was getting to the rim and doing these fancy stuff it was like how is he getting to the rim how is he doing it right you look at the footwork look at the fundamentals look at the spacing the pacing right and all those little things the angles and that's what becomes fascinating it's like okay how do i get there right so i started studying all those basics and then when i came to the league the first time i played against him um i wanted his respect because it was like this kid's not scared of me at all right and he saw kendrick's spirit from that standpoint and that started a relationship and it became something where it was like you know text them anytime hits me right back questions hits me right back and we're talking all the time where did you get your killer instinct from well yeah i think a lot of it had to do with um isolation growing up over there and being the only uh african-american kid not being able to speak the language i gravitated towards the game and in that game you find a lot of um you find solace in the game and then when you play with kids that might not uh accept you because you're an outsider but yet when we come to play the game that's my chance to to to get vengeance on them for not accepting me and and that's where it kind of started developing and throughout the course of my life it's always been that it's always been the outsider and having to come in and prove you know or or to seek some sort of vengeance swell boy you were so dominant your whole career one of the greatest of all time was there a weakness that you had the challenge for me was always compassion and empathy because you're like guys let's go get results shut up don't complain right i don't want to hear your whining i don't want to hear it no excuses don't tell me how rough the water is just bring the boat in you know like i don't i don't want to hear it you know and it's uh funny it's understanding like okay these guys have lives right out of here they have other things happening other things happening to them that may be affecting the way that they're practicing or the way that they're performing right and it was hard for me to understand that because nothing bothered me you know anything personally that never phased me when i compartmentalized it very well but so i couldn't understand how my teammates couldn't do that either until i you know so i had to really work on that aspect of it that's hard do you have a mindfulness or meditative practice that you used while you played yeah well phil introduced meditation to us when he came to our team in 99 2000 and it was something that i instantly gravitated to because i could see the effects right you i used to watch you know studying the games the bulls teams and um you know watching their demeanor watching their composure playing in a tough place in like utah doing the finals and being down 17. but everybody was like this you couldn't tell if they were down 17 or up 20 or tie game it never changed and i was wondering why that is and that's why i started doing more research and when phil came i immediately gravitated to it and then found myself accepted the challenge of finding what that space is and for the 81 point game and to be honest i was i wasn't even thinking about the game my knee was hurting so much um i didn't know then but you know i had to flap a joint of cartilage stuck in my joint line and so my mind was really trying to go to a place where i don't feel that pain and uh game started and because of that i was just in a different space you know i wasn't worried about what was to come i wasn't worried about what just happened i was just here and when you're just there in the moment playing plays right in front of you your focus is heightened because nothing else matters um and that's the space i've tried to get to do you remember what you told me one day in the forum when i first met you you said you were going to be the finish it for me like the greatest player of all time yes you remember you told me that no but that sounds that sounds something no it sounds like something that i would say you actually you actually said that and then you actually said i'm gonna be the will smith of the nba you know i've always had ambition phil will come to me and say there was a year there in 03 where i had 40 points in nine straight games right shaq was out it was a toad thing so phil comes to me before the stresses kobe we need you to take over the offense i'm like all right cool so that's no more i got it i got it so that literally started the streak a 40 straight game you know 40 points in nine straight games shaq comes back from injury and phil goes you know i still continue to do it right and then phil calls me to his office goes hey you know we're starting to lose the big fellow what do you mean well he's not getting the attention you know this this 40-point streak is starting to kind of take away his fire to prove something right so i need you to start dialing it back i'm like what he says we're going to lose him and we need them in june okay all right we have a game against the clippers yeah like 38 or something like that and i had a chance to score 40 and get 40 again it's a blowout game like dump the ball in the shack instead of shooting a wide open shot the 40 point streak ended that night wow that was it and that's inside stuff that people don't know right you want people to go out and say are you happy yeah because phil was like hey we got to dial it back gotta dial it back we're starting to lose the big fight perfect kobe too you're like he's like you gotta dial it back you're like alright i'll score 38 instead of 40. well i mean it's a streak thing i wouldn't it would have been ten or else broke a record right right right i would have broke the record but instead you know reunite the two of you back together again on valentine's day what's up young boy what's up man so good to play with you again we did i had flashbacks felt great every game was real easy and we read each other very easily and um it was a it was fun to kind of you know go back to memory lane you believe him when he says was all me deployed by him to grab attention and take pressure off you big chief marketer yeah you should say that all the time you say that all the time kobe bryant shaquille o'neal co-mvps of all-star 2009. i know you're not exactly the sentimental type but when you guys are having the interaction on the court feel like old times a little bit does it make you a little bit at all wistful for being able to play with shaq having those those moments no no but do you remember what you did during that game to make me realize i was were you all these years no you don't remember so we got the co-mvp it's me sharif and you signed on stage what did you tell me to do he told me to take the trophy home i tried you know that i did and i took it home and i gave it to sharif yeah and i realized that i was like i think i may have messed something up because a lot of times that our beef was going on you know me i'm the master marketer or 60 of the time i would just say it just to keep it going but like when you did that when you didn't have to do that because you know usually they take it and they mail it right like jack you know you know sharif loves you uh he goes sharif and you gave him a trophy i you know i just said myself that i was like luckily i won three out of four with this guy but i was up to this guy so i i owe you an apology i'm gonna give you apology but we're gonna be doing all that crime but thank you for that moment because uh sharif wrote that moment that was the first time i was able you know to give him something he was there i was going through a lot at that time and you know he loves you for it i love you for that moment thank you thank you when you're going into the league you're going with a lot of guys that were you know same same age you know same class as you were going in yeah were you sizing those guys at the same exact way as you did in high school i did but you know in the nba it was actually easier because what i found in the nba is a lot of guys played for financial stability and when they came to the nba they got that financial stability so therefore the passion and the work ethic and the obsession the obsessiveness was gone so i'm looking at that i'm like oh my god it's gonna be like taking candy from a baby and i wonder mike wins all these championships this is crazy you know what i'm saying and like and then you had the players that had that passion but weren't willing to commit their entire lives to doing that right it's a choice right you have other things you have family you have all these other things you have to do the game can't really be your number one priority and so that's just looking at that like man i'm this is going to be fun you've always gone at it what took you a while what was something in your life that you were shy about originally or that took you a while to go head-on with but then finally you got there and you figured it out uh riding dear basketball that was a hard jump you know because i had i'd written before i mean i started writing probably about 17 years ago so practicing every day a lot of things that i wrote were were ads and so you write an ad nobody looks up at who wrote the ad right you can kind of there's a certain uh anonymity that comes along with that right but right there basketball was different you know it's putting it out there for the world to see it's trying to create a short film and uh i didn't know if i could do it man and uh you know it was my daughter who kind of put things in perspective for me gianna she's now 13 and she was like well you know you always tell us to go for it so [Laughter] yeah she put me on the spot she was like you're gonna talk about it you're gonna be about it basically and you know and that that gave me the final push that means taking things using things in your life that are scars using those moments as a weapon right using those as you know using basketball as kind of like a vehicle through which to express yourself right so it doesn't so at that moment for us to face the celtics again it's not about the celtics it's not about your opponent it's about you it's about you taking your inner struggles and channeling that through the game right as a as a as a way to to unleash right so now it became a matter of how do i express that to them how do i get them to that point where they figure this out for themselves because i can't say hey listen i need you to play harder so what'd you do well i had to share my story i had to open up to them and let them know i've dealt with things this is the things that i use this is how i go about focus this is how i deal with adversity this is how i deal with you know arguing with my wife the day of the game and showing up to the game and still having that focus to be able to play like i used those things to open up with them and then in turn they were able to um to to to take those stories and and make them their own well you just got to put one foot in front of the other and you know sometimes i think uh you know even for myself it's easy to become distracted a little bit and start trying to look at the final what the final picture is going to look like and you know when you do that you can you can easily become frustrated with where you are at the moment so um you know my advice is just to focus on each day and you know you have a plan in place of how you want to improve and how you want to get better and you stick to that plan and trust the fact that you know every day that you you know um stick to the plan it'll get you to your end result you know i mean if everybody wants to compete and they think it's it's knowing how to compete and also you know um you know true competitive instinct really kicks in when you're down you know like i said a lot of people are competitive at things that are rolling their way and you know um things that they're naturally good at you know but it takes a true competitive person to uh when things are down like this to really step up to the plate and go out go after it now it's of utmost importance like i mean i was such a die-hard fan laker fan growing up man and just my personality like it would for me to ask for a trade or to go play someplace else to try to chase a championship that's not me man that's not being that's not what my career has been about that's not who i am you know i stay with it you know stuff that i've been through in my life and been through in my career just taught me anything it's the fact that you'll have good moments you have bad moments you have great moments you have horrible moments you just keep going through all of them and then things work themselves out and i've always had some of my best performances in the world [Applause] you know when fans boo i absolutely love it i thrive they don't understand who i not only am i comfortable being an outsider that has become a source of motivation for me so when i go to these places and you boo it actually comforts me yeah i think the best way to prove your your value is to work is to learn is to absorb to be a sponge but you always want to outwork your potential you know as hard as you believe you can work you can work harder than that and that's what i tried to do when i first came in the league but you know basketball is such a direct competition sport that me coming in at 17 i hated when like my teammates would say you know i get hit with an elbow right shaq would hit me with elbow in practice and like you know you know nick van nextel will come up and say are you okay what am i are you okay what's wrong with you you know so like i always had that extra chip on my shoulder so like every day in practice for me was really trying to annihilate everybody that was that i was playing against because i wanted to prove you don't need to babysit me like i'm fine you know and uh and so it's always that competitive nature the work ethic and curiosity because i asked a lot of questions you know playing with byron scott i asked him a lot of questions eddie jones who was great at chasing guards off the screens and i didn't understand how to do that i would sit with him before practice after practice magic james worthy kurt rambis kareem abdul all the laker greats i would always sit down and just ask them questions about certain games that i studied growing up what actually happened there what did you feel there why you know very tough to defend why because you look slow to me i'm like i'm missing something so like tell me what i'm missing you know what i mean and so i would always ask questions and try to learn as much as i could a really critical time where i i had a summer where i played basketball when i was like 10 or 11 years old and a very prominent summer league in philadelphia called the sunny hill league where my father played my uncle played and they were like all-time greats yeah stuff and will chamberlain played in the league you know early pro-monroe playing league and here i come playing and i don't score one point the entire summer really not one how old were you 11 10 11. and you're playing against other 10 11 year olds or you didn't score once not one were you in the game i was in a game how did you not score because that was terrible really yeah that happened 11 years old you were that's awful i mean i you know and i had these big knee pads on because i was growing really fast and i had socks all the way up here and i had like the high top like skinny and i scored not a free throw not a nothing not a lucky shot not a breakaway layup zero points is that when you think the mentality of hard work started to come in for you at that age when you failed so miserably i guess that summer i think that's when the idea of understanding a long-term view became important because i wasn't going to catch these kids in a week i wasn't going to catch them in a year right so that's when i sat down and said okay this is going to take some thought all right what i want to work on first all right shooting all right let's knock this out let's focus on this half a year six months do nothing but shoot right after that all right creating your own shot and then you focus so you start i started creating a menu of things when i came back the next summer i was a little bit better right yeah imagine being like i've got my jump shot from 15 i've got yeah i got my jump shot from 15. i got my three-point shot like just open shots not miss open shots right be able to shoot it with speed because those kids are so much more athletic yeah and then the next time i came back was a little better the summer came back somewhere it was a little better i scored yeah it wasn't much right but i scored and this is 12 13 12 13. then 14 came around back half of 13 14 years old and then i was just killing everyone and it happened in two years and i wasn't expected to happen in two years but it did because what i had to do was work on the basics and the fundamentals well they relied on athleticism and their natural ability and because i stick to the fundamentals it just caught up to them and then my body you know my knee stopped hurting i grew into my frame and and then your athleticism once you have the fundamentals exactly the hard work the mindset and you attack on the elections and then it was game right wow so from 13 your good average still i was good i was good and then about about like the end of my third like right when i was turning 14 i became the best player in the state 14 and 14. so from 12 to 14 you went from scoring zero to being the best in the state of all ages yeah i mean we talk about hard work all the time it's like you know man if you got to get up every single morning remind yourself how hard you need to work you probably need to choose a different profession you know because that shouldn't be there i wake up in the morning excited to get to it you know if i'm not training i'm missing it if i'm not watching the game of basketball i miss it you know there's no place i'd rather be and if you have that feeling then you're truly doing what god has put you on this earth to do my journey began in philadelphia pennsylvania at the age of three years old my father putting the basketball in my hands and me taking it from there basketball was in kobe's blood his dad is joe jellybean bryant he played eight years in the nba before uprooting his family to take his career overseas as i grew older we moved to italy while joe was getting used to playing in europe his son was also making an adjustment in italy not many kids were perfecting a jump shot but kobe bryant was soccer was a big sport so they had goal posts underneath the baskets on concrete courts where kids used to play soccer all day and i would be one of them and then after soccer i'd stayed here for another three four five hours just playing basketball it was a different country with a different language even though he had his family he was essentially alone so kobe looked inward and developed the relentless drive to work on his game [Music] when his family moved back to philadelphia that time spent alone on the court paid off as kobe announced his arrival to the basketball world he was the top high school player in the country breaking wilt chamberlain's scoring records becoming a celebrity at 16. kobe's next step may have seemed ambitious but with his basketball pedigree and work ethic it was an easy decision [Music] i decided to feed my talent to uh take my time to the aba [Music] kobe bryant now he's gonna be retiring i remember season one you said who is this kid his 20th season all with the latest greatest careers in basketball this will not allow him to be what he once was any longer no one understands what it takes to be great the force that drives you to do what others don't the sacrifice is made all with one purpose in mind push yourself to become better the extra seconds minutes hours of work put into perfecting one's game lifting yourself above the rest to make sure your name will forever be synonymous with one word greatness what does it take to be great work ethic determination drive takes ability it takes a desire baylor moves on russell again turns and puts up a tremendous field goal i think it takes years of players relying on you to take the big shot make the great play you know do the things that bring success to the team that's that's what it's all about it's getting out and measuring yourself against others and i think that when you have an attitude like that that's what i think that's part of greatness [Music] at first i met kobe cove was just out of high school it was out here for a workout and i've never seen anyone work out as hard as this kobe i've never seen anybody that prepared he was 17 years old and was ready to play nba basketball that's that's pretty amazing i think jerry west was the one who said this he said i want this kid because this kid had more talent than anybody i have planned for me right now and he had a great team just kidding would never take a night off even if it wasn't going well it was always going to be trying to uh slay the dragon if you don't have that type of work ethic you don't get to enjoy the benefits [Applause] in 2006 against the toronto raptors you scored 81 points which is second only to wilt chamberlain's 100 points you know i always dreamed as a kid that you know it was possible to score 80 or 90 or 100. i always just like you know had a dream you know like sometimes you lay down in bed and you visualize things you just kind of you know just you know that's how that's at least how i would go to sleep i'd lay down i'd imagine playing for the lakers and i would imagine what the uniforms look like i would imagine where we'd be playing and you know the smell of the arena and all sorts of stuff and i would see myself you know getting hot you know score 10 straight points and then but in the dream like why would you ever interrupt that like you're not going to have a dream and be like okay then he misses his next six like it's not gonna happen so you just keep dreaming and dreaming and dreaming and before i go to sleep i'm like at 120 points you know and so when you grow up downloading that into your brain over and over and over and then you know that summer i made a thousand shots a day a thousand right that's on top of weight training and my conditioning i made a thousand shots and they weren't just shots it was shots that you saw in that game there were specific shots somebody was coming out of the corner going to the pinch post footwork in the post coming off the screen it was very specific so when you download that into your system and you go on in the court and you're just executing things that you've done thousands of times before and you have that dream then that becomes possible yeah everything's been not choreographed but it's been practiced so many times that this second nature there's there's why reinvent it like i don't understand that you go out and play the game and you're just trying to create something new no no this is what i do this is what i do extremely well you're gonna have to stop me from doing that and if you do stop me from doing that i have a counter to that done another thing you told me as an 18 year old i'm gonna be better than mike so i knew it definitely drove you and you know it's always going to be there those comparisons when somebody has come before you and you deal with tim i mean i don't know if you patted the game after him or not i don't know if you watched him in high school but it was a lot of similarities but i know i know that day you passed up michael jordan i know you was probably riding in your car like you know what man i thought i would be but like what happened is when i came in the league and i wanted to take them on right i mean all i heard was you know they called them black panther they called black jesus and all this stuff i want to see what this is about and um but what happened is that we wound up he wound up becoming a big brother i know where you're going you got to get up quickly if you knew where i was going why you go for the faith right after you fake the ball where else you lose off your feet yeah but he saw something in me that reminded him a lot of himself when he was coming up he took me under his wing a lot and showed me a lot of things taught me a lot of things a lot of leadership things kobe bryant passes the great michael jordan and moves into third on the nba's all-time scoring list so when i pass him i remember talking to him afterwards and saying you know this is kind of it's it's you know he's still here the information and the stuff that he's passed on to me i'm breathing that spirit back into the game all over again which is a lot of the reason why i try to do that now for the next generation because he did that for me bill russell jerry west [Music] but michael in particular what does losing feel like to you oh it's exciting why is it exciting um because it means you have different ways to get better there are certain things that you can figure out that you can take advantage of right certain weaknesses that were exposed um that you need to shore up right so it was exciting i mean it sucks to lose but at the same time there are is there if you just look at them um because you get the information from losing more than from winning probably yeah yeah i mean the answers are there when you win too you you just have to look at them yeah right so it's a constant process it's exciting when you win it's exciting when you lose because the process should be exactly the same whether you win or you lose as you go back and you look and you find things that you could have done better you find things that you've done well that worked figure out how did they work why did they work how can you make them work again yeah and uh but the hardest thing is to face that stuff that's a really really tough challenge you mean face it you mean look yourself in the mirror and say okay this is how i showed up or this is what happened and i give an example so katie lou samuelsson is one of the best college basketball players in the country she plays at uconn she's going to be a senior right now right now and uh she's from huntington beach out here by us and so she comes down and she works with some of my my girls on the team and she helps coach and yeah and they just had a really tough season last year where they lost to notre dame in the final that's right really tough first loss first loss years right and so i actually said have you watched the notre dame game she was like no well why not he said i don't want to watch that i said i know you don't but you're going to play notre dame this year yeah yeah there's a chance that you see him again in the final well you'll probably see me again i said well you can't show up and play them without knowing why you lost that one right so you know the mistakes that you've made in that game you have to do the hard stuff and watch that game and study that game to not make those mistakes over and over again just because you weren't brave enough to face it so she came down to the office i brought down the office and we sat down we watched that game together right you gotta you gotta deal with it face it gotta deal with it face it learn from it wow it must have been cringing for her and she'd be like oh you're playing like we could have won all these things that's exactly it isn't it i just did that one thing exactly if i didn't get that foul if i scored that layup it's exactly right you're looking to say oh there's the mismatch oh there's the gap uh you know and all those little things and it sucks but but you don't want to have that feeling again do you right so you got to really study it face it and uh not to say you'll win the next time you face but you at least you'll give yourself a better better chance what are you most proud of from your 20 seasons um honestly it was sounds uh may sound a little shallow but i gotta say beating the celtics in game seven um that's what i'm most proud of because it was it was the hardest um you know you're playing with rajon rondo paul pierce kevin garnett um all-star ray allen and you know it was myself powell and players that other teams didn't want and you know how do we figure out as a group what to do and the reason why i love that series so much is that we went down three games to two against boston and now you got two games coming home i remember sitting in the locker room and they beat the crap out of us too that game so we're sitting in the locker room and it's really really quiet i'm sitting there looking around and we just lost the celtics and 08 so this is like revenge right they're kicking our butt again right so i sit around i just started laughing i started laughing and then i remember uh derek fisher looked at me like and lamar looked at me and goes what is funny i said dude they beat the crap out of the bus they just beat the crap out and say i'm missing the part where that's funny i said man listen if we start this season and they say you know all you have to do is win two games at home in your nba champ would you take that yeah and like right yeah that's all we got to do yeah go down three two one two we're nba champions all you gotta do is wait two get two games in a row that's it we'll take care of the first game and i promise you they're not winning game seven on our home floor it's not happening so we all just laughed about it and then we went out and we figured it out but that game seven was we're down 15 points in the fourth quarter right and that's when you have to collectively look at each other and say you know the spirit of your team must be good because at that moment is when teams fracture if the energy amongst each other isn't there that trust isn't there you're done and we were able to collectively dig deep together and say all right we're going to figure this thing out wow and i wasn't playing well i wasn't shooting the ball well at all um and so my teammates picked you up and they delivered yes yeah wow the storytelling for me is the number one thing it's writing it's outlined it's creating uh narratives that can inspire the next generation of athletes right what are those things and you know and not from uh merely a documentary perspective but from a fantasy perspective from a mythology perspective right what are those stories that we can use to teach the next generation of athletes not just about the sport but teach them about life through sport how do we make those connections and so that's what i obsess over every single day one thing what i loved about you as an 18 year old is is you wanted it a lot of guys on our team didn't want it but you wanted it at a 18 yard and that's why in the utah game everybody talks about those air balls i wasn't mad at you but kobe bryant for three another air ball he shoots back about their balls jazz basketball that's why i was the first one to come grab you and say hey i know everybody's laughing and giggling that but one day people will fear you at the end of the game so i knew that about you as 18 year old you know it was it was fun have you noticed a moment where you're like i can't uh maybe i can't be as intense as i was during sports i can't demand people to be here until midnight or practice without a ball for three hours or yeah no listen my my thing is really simple here is that you know i expect excellent work we all do so i don't care if you're here in the office at six a.m and you leave at midnight if the work that you do is average then this is not the home for you conversely you cannot be in office at all and have excellent work this is the place for you so i don't really care if you're here there's a lot of guys that get in the gym and work hard work hard work hard work hard but then they can't transition that to 7 30. yeah right what it was like for you with all of the grit and all of the makeup that you had to be such a great competitor what was it like for you to play with people that that weren't as gritty as you were how did you deal with that how did you set your expectations knowing that that you were so far out there and and how did you deal with the players that you played with you know knowing that they they were still kind of somewhere on the spectrum but uh but you you're on the top of it good question that's a great question um my response might sound a little um tough but i i just i'd kill him i bury him um you know it's it's you know tolerance for that and the kind of culture that the laker organization stood for winning championships is not tolerated you're going to show up to play and you're going to lollygag through this scrimmage through this drill i'm going to beat you i'm going to let you know i beat you i'm going to want you to reconsider your professional life choice you know and and for the most part you know people will say okay that doesn't make a great teammate well i'm not here to be a great teammate i'm here to help you win championships so there's a difference um and you know fortunately for us and for me you know we had an organization that you know it was championships or nothing and they were really good about identifying that and bringing players in here that had that competitive streak and you know getting rid of the ones that did not if i got a fight to get you in the gym that's a problem that's a problem you want players that are gym rats players that want to be in the gym that want to work and then from there you build on top of that but if you're lazy man i don't want to talk to you i won't deal with you you don't make me feel dumber you know you know you're going to lower my level i don't think so you can go over there there's plenty of teams in here where you'll fit right in you mentioned at the time they were right down the hall from us they were 96 through 99 was a frustrating point i don't know about well maybe a little bit for you but for me being one of the best bigs in the league and having that title of not winning one they ain't got one yet right i remember one day reading it reading in the paper oh shaq's averaging 20 or 30 of doing this and the great karim of jujibar said well he didn't win that yet right so is he great and that just kind of i just kind of yeah you know well i i one thing that you know um i understood was your necessity to have to win one there's a lot of pressure and i think there's a lot of frustration because you kept seeing this kid and everybody kept saying okay be patient with this kid be patient with this kid and you're saying listen i don't have patience i have to win now and this kid needs to develop now i think i can remember the the first time we had our first fight um and you looked and said okay this is crazy i did say that yeah anyway it was we're playing a pickup game he's doing a lockout season southwest college playing a pickup game we're on opposite teams right and trash talking yes and you kept saying yeah take that little take that little i'm like i'm looking around oh me yes right and i said well hold on ain't gonna be too many more of those you know yeah remember what'd you say what you're going to do about it what you going to do about it and then that's the next thing i knew i saw a big hand coming this way and i remember going this way i remember throwing some lollipop holding polynesia and then they all just kind of broke us apart broke us up i'm looking at this and i'm saying but he wants this thing he's it's it affects him right i mean he's it consumes him and then from that moment on i knew we spoke the same language doesn't matter if we had disagreements and saying the other our drive to win like we have to win there's just no other option now we're going to figure this out we're going to get this done and uh and we did portland has three timeouts left the lakers have two brian how would you explain that mindset of just trying to continuously improve i enjoy what i do you know this is fun for me you know i i truly love what i do and i'm that's where the passion comes from that's where the will to get better comes from is just because i truly enjoy it i enjoy the preparation your high school coach greg donner says that you might actually be a little embarrassed by how much you love basketball yeah is that true probably yeah i mean it's like well i mean it's like anything you know i i just so happened to be playing basketball like if i was a computer kid you know in high school people would have probably made fun of me you know what i mean and it just so happened to be basketball what i'm passionate about and my passion knows no boundaries but it embarrasses you well i mean it's just a little weird little strange i mean when you're around like in the olympics i'm around other athletes who kind of share that same that shame mine same mindset it's it's fun to be around them because you can have conversations about those things i know it's good to say that you want to win the championship every year but it probably wasn't really a realistic one so how do you would adjust how do you adjust as a team leader and then how what conversations does ownership have with the coaches and teams about rebuilding genie is so sweet that she saw me work so hard for so many years and the last few years her rob who was at the time my agent called me and said listen we are so sorry for what happened to this team we're sorry that we don't have seriously it's like we don't we're sorry we don't have a team around you that can contend for a championship i mean you know it's um so we can make a few calls and get you on a contending team uh if that's something because we just feel horrible about seeing you going out there and struggle remember this and i said then i listen i said you know we've known each other for a very long time now i'm questioning myself because i'm wondering what about me makes you think i would jump ship i've been a laker fan since five years old man i know the laker history all the way from minneapolis all the way to where it is today right so it's in my blood in this family her father um believing in me and standing by me and also stuff like i'm not not gonna go anywhere like this is home to me you know we work through this stuff together and like you know as a leader you gotta be able to take the good with the bad man you can't just because the ship's sinking all of a sudden i'm gonna jump off and swim to another ship like that you don't do that right if you can win championships in front of everybody then you can miss the playoffs in front of everybody you gotta be able to take both sides of it i remember the first practice we had travis knight on the team and uh i mean you proceeded to just annihilate this kid and you know just from everything from talking trash to him to you know he was afraid to get on the bus and um one thing that i noticed about you from the jump was that you didn't respect people that you could bully and respect them and you test them and you'd see what they let you get away with and you'd see if they would fold to that and that was the first thing i observed about you and that competitive fire that you had and then it all started making sense to me that's how i see him play with that rage when it comes out that's how i see guys when he plays they back away from because they're fatal they're afraid of that that confrontation that physicality and uh and then i remember you taking me down to jerry's deli back in the day we had the big big flip phones you know what i mean i didn't have one though you have one i said man i ain't getting one of those man that's pretty damn cool you know the big joint and just hanging out with you man and uh you showing me the ropes from day one what are the characteristics that you you're looking for to bring into your team is it much like you want a teammate for the lakers those type of or what are you what are you looking for specifically yeah the most important thing is curiosity first i want curious people people that ask questions that want to figure things out figure out new ways to do things you know that's the most important thing and then from that curiosity having the determination to see that curiosity through right to figure out those steps if you figure out okay this is a particular course of action that we feel like we should be taking has it been done before no but that's exciting to me let's figure it out those are the characteristics that i look for the final question is what's your definition of greatness i think the definition of greatness is to inspire the people next to you yeah i think that's what greatness is or should be it's not something that's that that lives and dies with one person it's how can you inspire a person to then in turn inspire another person that inspires another person and that's how you create something that i think lasts forever yeah and i think that's our challenge as people is to um is to figure out how our story can impact others and motivate them in a way to create their own greatness what did you know and learn at the end of your career that you wish you knew at the beginning understanding empathy and compassion right because as a young kid when i came in the league it was like i'm driving this way and either you're going to be on the train or be on the track right where there was no such thing as understanding that people have lives outside of the game which apparently i did not um but like if i understood at an early age it helps me as a leader to communicate better i came to understand that later and getting to know people on a personal level um what are their fears where are their insecurities right what are their dreams and ambitions desires those sorts of things when you come to understand that about a person then you can help them reach the best version of themselves so i wish i'd known that earlier my favorite kobe moment is [Music] in the finals in indiana i file out rose's 20-foot jumper no good rebound should be shacked smith's got it loose ball fouls jack is out of the game i'm like damn i let the team down again and you and you put you and you put your hand on my shoulder don't worry big fella i got it and you just and you took over kobe fires the jumper and gives la the lead shaw running one-hander by kobe bryant [Applause] or you can just feel the tension in this building reggie off the screen for three reggie for the win no and that's it the lakers take a 3-1 series lead it doesn't get any better than this ever always knew you was a bad cat but that moment right there because you had no fear i was like well you know i knew how much it meant to you right now as brothers you don't let you you don't let your brother down right it wasn't my time yet this championship was yours right because you have worked hard to get us to this point right for your whole career in orlando and all the disappointments and here you are and it's my responsibility to pick that up was it a hard decision like i'm going pro or did you just know because a rod obviously did the same thing yeah um you know as a young kid 17 18 going to be a pro athlete it was uh it was a tough decision i i you know ultimately um 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 it was just a matter of do you want to come to the league and learn from the best and i'm doing the math in my head i'm looking at stockton how many years he's playing drexler how many years he's playing mj how many years more he's playing hakeem these are players that i studied growing up and the best way to learn from them is to have that jump off of the film jump off of the page and see it face to face that's the best way to learn because i had it was like a database i had everything in my mind what they could do what they didn't like to do where they did it when they did it now if i could see that up close that is the greatest form of education that i could possibly receive so that's when i was like nah i'm gonna i'm gonna go pro you have a brand you have a shoe um but you've chosen to do something else something that's that's more bold something that you really haven't done before can you tell us why you're doing this why you're going into a creative endeavor like granity studios um because i love doing it i mean it's that simple you know you have to sit and ask yourself what is truly going to get you up in the morning it's going to keep you up at night and you know when you find what that answer is you stay true to that you know i've built the brand for the last 20 some years personal brand which is great but that is not where our focus is going to be for the next 50 years right it's what we are doing now are we taking a big risk yeah but i think that if we focus on one thing and do that one thing exceptionally well we won't fail at that one thing so sometimes you got to put the other stuff to bed and focus on what you believe is is uh is the core of the company and that always starts from what you love to do the most what most people don't know is our story goes back when i met you um in orlando in orlando you guys said we're playing the pacers in the playoffs in 94 and i came to a game and you know penny back then was my role model and i looked up to him quite a bit asked to take a picture with him he kind of brushed me off i remember that yeah and i came to you guys take a picture and you were like hey come here young fella yeah where you from you know i remember and uh that's when the first time i met you i don't know if you know this but i was in atlanta still with the orlando magic uh we get a call from from jerry west and my agent 2am me and jerome we're out of the club jerry west says i got what you want at that time i was asked for 150 i know i was gonna get 150 but jerry got me 120. so he called me up to the room and he put the piece of paper on there and before i could sign he stopped me he said let me tell you something i just acquired this kid from charlotte you and him gonna get about three or four championships i was like what are you talking about say kobe brown's like oh cool i wasn't worried about nothing i was just trying to get you there once when you're gonna try to get to that 120. and that was the first time i i knew of your greatness and then when you came in he was 18 he was doing a lot and i can remember i can remember one time in the three-on-two drill you came out on sean rooks and you put them into your ding ding ding ding dale kobe what did you gonna be a great player but don't have to do that again the people that i've always had issues or problems with other people that don't demand excellence for themselves i won't tolerate that except then when the career is said and done they're not going to be looking at you a player on this team and saying you didn't win a championship no doing me looking here right so it's my responsibility to make sure everybody's holding themselves accountable i'm holding you accountable if we just played a back to back and we have practice the next day your ass better be there tape ready to go right cause i'm there and i'm ready and i just got finished lifting weights for two hours right so i hold guys to a higher standard i was wondering if you've had to tone down your competitiveness and your approach in a new work environment um yeah yeah um more than a little bit yeah no it well like i said basketball is different because it's such a direct competition um what we do now there isn't the competitiveness that i um bring to work every day is really helping people in a sense be competitive with themselves right if you're if you're animating something or or um you're writing a screenplay or you're composing a piece of music is that the best you can do right don't ask me don't say okay do you approve don't ask me i'm not the musician i'm not the composer you know right so the competitiveness is more from an individual perspective are you is this the best you can do and uh if the answer is yes then off we go so it's different for me it was it was kind of the perfect series playing the celtics you know then beating us in 08 and then you know having five i mean we joke about that a lot but the most important thing was beating the celtics because of everything that they meant to this organization it was a tough series for me most people don't know this but i had a bone spur in my ankle and then a couple games in boston i had to leave the game go back in the locker room and get it injected because i could barely walk i had a broken finger i was playing with it had to cast my right finger and then i was having to deal with garnett pierce ray allen rondo rashid why i mean all these guys and having to try to figure out how to get through that series and so um it was a big relief to win first and foremost relief to win and get out of that series allowed if i lost to the celtics man i i've been miserable trivial things weren't going to pull my attention it had to be things weren't going to put my attention it had to be things that were i had a purpose i wanted to be one of the best basketball players to ever play and anything else that was outside of that lane i didn't have time for at at what age did that goal become crystal clear i made that deal with myself at 13 years old at 13 years old 13 years old that's the deal i mean clear about it crystal clear and where did inspiration come from um the love of the game the love of the game the challenge like i would watch magic play i'd watch michael play and i would see them do these unbelievable things and i said you know can i get to that level i don't know but let's find out do you think one of the edge you had over everybody else was the biggest percentage of your focus was on one thing do you see it that way like that was my edge over everybody else i do um at the time i didn't really understand that right so you know basketball for me was the most important thing so everything i saw whether it was tv shows whether it was books i read people i talked to everything was done to try to learn how to become a better basketball player everything everything and so when you have that point of view then literally the world becomes your library to help you to become better at your craft i read a story that you used to play uh guys to a hundred you did you'd be like you have to stay in this gym and play me to a hundred and i mean what was the biggest margin of victory you'd ever win at uh well in high school i used to spike guys 99 no kidding um but you know listen these practices practices are meant to be competitive they're meant to be competitive if your practices aren't more competitive than the games themselves you're doing the wrong thing and most of these teams and coaches have gotten into a mindset of resting players oh it's too much you know we're not gonna practice light day light day light day phil never gave us a light day there's no days off you show up and you work and you practice yeah and practices are going to be worse it's going to be more physical there's going to be more trash talking and i'm going to let you know right if you're going to show up today i'm going to let you know and it's going to be embarrassing and you're gonna hate it um but when game seven rolls around the nba finals you will be prepared how do you see dance and other art forms and athletics in alignment with one another well um there was a there was a year i played um indiana pacers in the finals i rolled my ankle really bad jaylen rose stepped under me on purpose he admits it now finally drove my ankle really really bad i came back finished a series but i couldn't touch a basketball until mid-september which was driving me crazy so i couldn't train but i looked at this was like the tenth time i rolled my ankle in one season so i'm looking at that i'm saying okay i gotta address that and so being that i couldn't get on the basketball court um what i did was i took tap dancing lessons okay no kidding i took tap and tap was like the best training for me in the world because the strength in my feet it changed my rhythm and my approach to the game i was able to change speeds when i came back the following season um you know i think dancers put way more strainer in their body than athletes do and i think there's a lot that can be learned from that my daughter took ballet for several years and i was sitting there in the class right and i didn't know what i was getting into because i don't know anything about ballet right but i'm sitting there in the class and i'm watching her and watching to get the first position the second position i'm learning the structure and the rules that go along with that and as athletes there's a lot to be learned from that because if you simply go out there and perform and play yeah you'll be great every now and then but if you play with structure if you understand the rules that come along with that the discipline that comes along with that then you reach another level but you guys have my respect if other people don't see that there that's on them thank you what habits allow you to consistently come through in the clutch and specifically when it matters most just be calm just be calm you know sometimes we tend to over hype situations you know kind of our imagination gets in our own way yeah you know at the time you know brian d wade a lot of those guys especially brian was still young yeah and hadn't really figured out those pressure situations and for me i was able to detach myself from it and and to allow and to allow the work that i put in that practice to manifest itself during the game right so there's no need to panic like i've taken these shots thousands and thousands of times before nothing changes yeah i've had games that i've won games that i've lost at the buzzer you show up the next morning and you get to practice again anyway right right so not getting in your own way if i'm buddies with you from high school if i'm a cousin of yours what happened to our relationship how did that gravitate when you went into the league and you're you're determined to become the greatest so you're determined to become one the greatest what happens to our relationship well it suffers it does suffer oh yeah okay yeah and you understood that you were okay with that well yeah and the people that love you like friends and family like they know that about you got it so they let you be you and when you reconvene you know you pick back up where you left off but make no mistake about it everything in between is lost right so those long-term relationships the commitment of time of uh you know uh taking vaca like i see a lot of players take vacations with other players that are close friends and i'll just take vacations just to take vacations or just hang out just to hang out like i i'm not i never did that why why didn't you do that well because when i retire i didn't want to have to say i wish i would have done more i don't want that in today's nba i mean you see a guy like kevin durant go to golden state yeah you would never have made that move no i wouldn't have but you know different strokes for different folks man i you know when i was coming up it was kobe can't win without shaq but i've never heard that argument made about magic and kareem right or michael and pip right but that was the that was the thing being thrown my way and i was like all right well it is what it is let's see you were born in philadelphia yeah you spent quite a bit of your time uh as a child in italy yep right uh what was it like having to move away from the states learn a new language and how did that experience play a role in who you ultimately became well it was uh you know when we moved i was six and my sisters were seven and eight and at the time we didn't know anything right right we were in philadelphia we didn't know much you know our parents kind of tricked us into saying well you know at the age of 12 you could ride around on like a moped and drive around that got us excited about moving to it right so um but once we moved over there it was amazing because we didn't really understand you know kind of the the shift that was occurring you know you get there you're immediately put into an italian school right where nobody speaks english and you have to adapt you have to adapt you have to adjust and i think it had a way of opening our minds a little bit more to what's possible and being able to or being willing and comfortable to adapt to new things who were some of the guys that you saw and you watched that weren't just driven by the money were there some names that you looked at and says these three guys are as crazy as i am i do i at the time i deal with what i've referred to as goat mountain i went to goat mountain and i talked to magic michael byrd kim olajuwon jerry west oscar robinson bill russell you know so i would talk to them what did you do what were your experiences michael in particular he's become my big brother he's been my big brother since i first came in the league and what was that process like so i went to them and started understanding the ins and outs of the game and you know how they approach things and their level of detail and obsessiveness and um that's what i did how did you get that mentality of just being like i need to get over this like i need to get over myself you know trial and error you know you grow up and you make game-winning shots and it's awesome you come back the next day and miss a game when it's shot and it's misery and then the next day comes and you're back playing again and you understand that life has this cyclical nature where it's you know what you do on monday it's fantastic but then tuesday's a bad day but guess what there's wednesday so are we just supposed to live our lives like this the whole time you know versus just staying like this and understanding that it's really just a journey of evolution every day it's just constant improvement constant curiosity constantly getting better the results don't really matter uh it's the figuring out that matters yeah and we all get obsessed about the results yeah like we get obsessed about like the output yeah not the input of not figuring it out and not like changing things well you said trial and error like the experimenting yeah we forget to do that it's unfortunate man like i've seen a lot of players um especially now you know in youth basketball dealing with that um you have players that are like bigger and faster and stronger and you know their coaches are just coaching them for results you know we're just going to use your size that because you're bigger than every other 12 year old out there to dominate today and but they're not growing right so they're just based on that result but they're not focused on growing this young child yeah into becoming a better athlete and through that teaching them how to become a more well-rounded person and we're missing that now i've got a really special bonus clip that i think you're going to enjoy but before that question of the day i want to know what is the single greatest lesson you learned today from kobe bryant let me know put it down the comments below and if you made it this far in a video you're still here watching i want to celebrate you because believe nation we don't just watch videos we do something about it so that's you and you commit you promise you're gonna take action immediately after watching this video give me a hashtag believe down in the comments and tell me where you're from because i want to celebrate you three two one remember in your jersey retirement and i'm walking out and we were in the playoff race in the hunt and going south they were walking out and i gave you dexter man i love you you know congratulations everything and i was just you know happy for you you know but i couldn't help but say you know this night has made a lot sweeter because i know you have four and i have five oh yeah this type of duo i don't think you'll ever see it again never ever ever made it none of that none of that hold on we gotta take a picture give him five and give me four one left you get them all in the picture if you want more fire content from les brown check out the video right there next to me i think you'll enjoy it continue to believe and i'll see you there

Channel: Evan Carmichael

Views: 163,124

Rating: 4.9197478 out of 5

Keywords: entrepreneur, yt:cc=on, evancarmichael, Entrepreneur, evan carmichael, kobe bryant, kobe bryant advice, best lessons, kobe bryant’s life changing advice, best habits for success, motivational advice

Id: ncsJnhLAtJo

Length: 84min 50sec (5090 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 11 2020