Turn Your Fear Of Starting Again Into Your Greatest Transformation | Kobe Bryant

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation show.

0:11One of the things that 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. But that's not how you make guys better. You have to really affect their behavior. How do you do that? So, you know, like I would tell guys, 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 got to get rest. Back-to-back games. Back-to-back games. That's right, Monday, Tuesday. You play Monday and play again Tuesday. Guys are going to listen, right? Right.

0:40So a few times, I said, all right, we'll all go out. We'll go out together. Really? I'll drink with you, right? But the next morning, I'm banging on your door at 5 in the morning. Let's go. They're not getting there. 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. And we'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. And they're like, lesson learned. Really? Lesson learned. You should take them out once. Listen, if you're going to do that, do that.

1:10But 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. That's it. Work ethic. That's it. So you've got to show them, no, Kobe can do that and still has the energy to get up and do this. So either I've got to meet that same energy or I've got to keep my butt in my room. Go to bed early, yeah. Wow. What are some other things you did to rise the level of your teammates? What are some other ways you can – and what do you think people can do in general with the business team or any sports team?

1:39I think you have to listen. You have to pay attention to what your colleagues or teammates are saying and what are certain things that drive them, certain things that motivate them, that trigger them. And one of my favorite ones, Powell hates it every time I tell this story. But we lost to the Celtics in 08. And it was a physical series. I mean, they beat the crap out of us. Yeah. And so we go into the Olympic year that year. We wound up playing Spain for the gold medal match. And we beat them. And so now we come back to start training camp. And Powell shows up the first day of training camp. I had my gold medal hanging in his locker room.

2:16Oh, no. And he, I mean, like the one thing that he truly, truly loves is his country. Of course. That is like everything to him. So it just drove him crazy. I said, Powell, listen. He said, you heard it. I said, listen, Powell. you lost to the Celtics you lost to us in a gold medal match let's not make this three in a row this year wow let's win this thing and that was it for him and he probably stepped up at a whole other level well you know Powell was a phenomenon to begin with and then for him was just stepping up to a level of physicality that we needed him to get to which he did and we went on to win back to back championships my man how important is understanding human psychology and human behavior to work with a team as opposed to just relying on your gifts and talents?

3:05It's probably the most important thing. When you're in this culture in our society, you can do some phenomenal things individually, but they'll never reach their full potential unless you do them collectively. You have to figure out how to do that. Phil Jackson was great at that. Phil, he wouldn't just coach the team or coach the game, but he'd read everything about every single player. You learn about your history, how you grew up, how you were raised, where were you raised? He'll read every interview and he'll learn about you and gives him a better understanding of what's motivating you, what your insecurities are.

3:48And then it just helps him communicate with you better or even push a button here if he needs to. When did you learn that it was important to understand who your teammates are, what their likes or dislikes are? Was that in high school for you or more? No, I learned it from Phil. There was a stretch in 03 where Shaq was out with an injury. And Phil called me up to his office and said, okay, we need you to really turn on the afterburners and start scoring a lot if we have to win. So I did, and I wound up scoring, I think it was nine straight games with 40-plus points. Nine straight? Nine straight games.

4:24And then Shaq comes back, second to last game of that. and then Phil calls me up to his office and says, Kobe, okay, I need you to dial it back. I'm like, why? Like, we're winning. I don't understand. It's because our goal is to win a championship. And we can get through the Western Conference with you playing this way. But in the East, you know, we can dominate them inside with Shaq in the post. But if you continue to do this, we'll lose Shaq. We'll lose him. His motivation, his excitement. What triggers him, right? So I need you to pull back so we can pull Shaq forward for June. Wow. And I just looked at him like, this is a smart dude.

5:06Wow. Yeah, this is one smart dude, man. So I pulled it back. Wow. Yeah. What do you think has been the greatest challenge you've had since leaving the game? The greatest challenge?

5:24I think it's you know I mean you won an Oscar you're launching podcasts and shows and you got a book coming out yeah but it's it's it's different though like you know we were just talking about it here in the office the other day you know when you play the game you hit a game-winning shot you miss a shot the reactions there you can see how people responding to it You can feel it. The energy is there. The energy is there. What I do now, you don't. Like, I don't see how people are affected by deer basketball or, you know, creating the punies and you put it out there. Like, I wish I could see a car ride of a family the first time their daughter hears Lily's Lemonade and what she's doing, you know, she's singing along to it.

6:08That's not there. Right. So that's the challenge. That's the one thing that I miss is being able to feed off of the energy. the instant feedback you get from missing or scoring a shot, winning or losing a game. It's like either way you're getting a result, right? Yes, yes. Yes, that's the one thing. I spent a lot of time with mentors as well. I bet Pixar and Disney Studios have been absolutely wonderful animation, Disney animation. I've talked to them about Frozen and Moana and how our kids love them and they're always like, oh, that's awesome. And they want to hear it because they don't ever get a chance to see it.

6:42They're not sitting in a movie theater like no no and they don't have time to go to disneyland and walk around the park and see how many families are enjoying the content that they've created because they're busy making the next creating yes yes so that that's the one thing what do you think the biggest challenge is for most athletes after they retire i think it's the fear of starting anew and that was certainly uh present for me as well really yeah like identity you mean or well it's starting from scratch right because when you when you play for 20 years i play for 20 years you reach a certain level you're like okay wait a minute i have to start again at the base of a mountain and try to climb the top of this mountain first of all what mountain am i climbing i don't even know like what the hell am i going to be doing it'd be it's very it's very scary it's very even for you oh absolutely absolutely and the thing that helped me actually was hurting my achilles because that forced me to sit there and say, okay, the day could be today that your career is over.

7:41At any time when you were playing, you mean, yeah. Now what do you do? You have these ideas about doing something with your life after basketball, but what if today is the day that you, that's it. Now what do you do? So I had all this time sitting there with my Achilles injury and contemplating and thinking, and I said, I better get to work. Wow. That was that. What was the vision for you afterwards then? Was it to do what you're doing now? Did you have other ideas? Or what's the vision? I struggled with it at first. Because the first question I asked, which is the wrong question, is what's the biggest industry I can get into?

8:16Was it more money thinking? Yes, money thinking. Saying, okay, athletes are saying you can't make more revenue when you retire. This is your source of your income is here. Saying, okay, that's a challenge. What can I do? And I remember just going for a... Didn't you launch a fund or something? I did. I did. And so I went for a ride. And I said, OK, stop thinking of it that way. You're thinking of it the wrong way. Why did you start playing basketball? Because I loved it. What do you love to do? I love to tell stories. All right, let's do that. And then that's where it started for me. And then on top of that, it became things like we started learning more about the financial industry and about players going broke once they retire.

8:57And saying, OK, how can I how can I minimize the chances of that happening? what are things that I can do to invest my money smartly also help control some of that outcome to a certain extent right and that's what I called Mike Rapoli who Mike Rapoli was an entrepreneur who built vitamin water Pirates Booty and some other companies and started learning from them and then from that came the opportunity to invest in body armor yeah and which yeah which It's good. It's delicious. But all that came from the injury and really having to self-assess and face that really dark room of what comes next. Storytelling is something you're really passionate about.

9:40What's a story over your life that's been a constant theme that you go back to? Is there something you heard as a kid that really resonates with you or a book or a movie that just feels like this is me? Yeah, that's funny. movies there are plenty but there's a quote from one of my English teachers at Lorimerian 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 I'm not going to rest I'm going to keep on pushing now there are a lot of answers that I don't have even questions that I don't have but I'm just going to keep going I'm just going to keep going and I'll figure these things out as we go and you just continue to build that way so I try to live by that all the time rest at the end what's the question that eats you alive the most that you haven't answered yet the question that eats me alive that I haven't answered yet that you're still looking for the answer I'm still looking for the answer how to tell a good story I don't think anybody has that answer you know like when I sat down to write Dear Basketball I was like okay what do I want to say and you have certain acts and how you can structure certain things, right?

10:59The ebbs and flows of story, certain formulas that have been there since the beginning of time. But it's such an exact... So challenging, yeah. Right? And so that one question is really interesting. Why do you want to tell a great story? I think stories is what moves the world. Whether it's an inspirational story, It's an informational one. Nothing in this world moves without story. You know, being from the political world, sports world, nothing that we have moves without story. And so I think that is the root of everything.

11:43I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. and if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you wanna make it easier, you wanna make it flow, you wanna feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is gonna help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following. And thank you for listening to this episode of The Daily Motivation Show.

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