Kobe Bryant's Greatest Speech | BEST Motivation Ever

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. 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. That's something I'll always live by. 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 I go, right, and you just continue to build that way. So I try to live by that all the time. 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 made. You were crystal clear about it. Crystal clear. And where did the inspiration come from? 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'd say, you know, can I get to that level? I don't know, but let's find out. Let's find out. And so that curiosity to see where I could push this thing led me down that path, I think. I had a summer where I played basketball when I was like 10, 11 years old, and here I come playing and I don't score one point the entire summer. Not a free throw, not a nothing. Not a lucky shot, not a breakaway layup, zero points, and I remember crying about it, being upset about it, and my father just gave me a hug and said, listen, whether you score zero or score 60, I'm going to love you no matter what. Wow. That is the most important thing that you can say to a child. Because from there, I was like, okay, that gives me all the confidence in the world to fail. I have the security there. But to hell with that. I'm scoring 60. And from there, I just went to work. I just stayed with it. I kept practicing, kept practicing, kept practicing. 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. So that's when I sat down and said, okay, this is going to take some thought. What do 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. After that, all right, creating your own shot. So I started creating a menu of things. When I came back the next summer, I was a little bit better. I scored. It wasn't much, but I scored. This is 12, 13? 12, 13. And 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 expecting it to happen in two years, but it did because what I had to do was work on the basics and the fundamentals, but they relied on their athleticism and their natural ability. And because I stick to the fundamentals, it just caught up to them. And then my body, my knees stopped hurting. I grew into my frame, and then it was game over. Wow. Were you always competitive from the day you were born? You were super competitive? Competitive with things that I participate in. So I'll put it to you this way. So 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 Everything was done to try to learn how to become a better basketball player. 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. So at 13 years old, I had a kill list. And so they used to do these rankings, Street and Smith basketball rankings, and I was nowhere to be found, because I was like 6'4", scrawny, like 160 pounds soaking wet. So I was like 57 on the list. And so I would look at 56, 55, all the way up to number one, who these players are, what club teams they played for. So when we go on an AAU travel circuit, I got to hunt them down, right? And so that became my mission in high school, is to check off every other person, all those 56 other names, hunt them down and knock them down. So when we 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? Or is there actually thought and skill that you put into it? And when I'd play, I'd play to my weaknesses. I was working on the things during those games that I was weak at. Left hand, pull up jump shot, post game. So I have a strategy. What was really your work ethic like and for how long did you stay disciplined? Well, I mean, every day, I mean, since 20 years, it was an everyday process and trying to figure out strengths and weaknesses. For example, jumping ability. My vertical was a 40, it wasn't a 46 or a 45. My hands are big, but they're not massive, right? So you got to figure out ways to strengthen them so your hands are strong enough to be able to palm a ball and do the things that you need to do. Quickness. I was quick, but not insanely quick. I was fast, but not ridiculously fast, right? So I had to rely on skill a lot more. I had to rely on angles a lot more. I had to study the game a lot more, but I enjoyed it though. So like from the time I was, I can remember when I started watching the game, I studied the game and it just never changed. What does losing feel like to you? It's exciting. Why is it exciting? Because it means you have different ways to get better. There's certain things that you can figure out that you can take advantage of, right? Certain weaknesses that were exposed that you need to shore up, right? So it was exciting. I mean, it sucks to lose, but the hardest thing is to face that stuff. That's a really, really tough challenge. How did you get mentally and emotionally so strong where it doesn't bother you? Well, you know, you got to look at the reality of the situation. You know, like for me, it's not, you know, you kind of got to get over yourself, right? And then after that, it's okay. Well, why did those air balls happen? Got it. I didn't have the legs. So you look at the shot. Every shot was online. Every shot was online, but every shot was short, right? I got to get stronger. I got to train differently. The weight training program that I'm doing, I got to tailor it for an 82-game season so that when the playoffs come around, my legs are stronger and that ball gets there. So I look at it with rationale and say, okay, well, the reason why I shot air balls is because my legs aren't there. I go, well, next year they'll be there. 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 you got to deal with it. Got to deal with it. Face it. Learn from it. You don't want to have that feeling again, do you? Right? So you got to really study it. Face it. And not to say you'll win the next time you face it, but at least you'll give yourself a better chance. It's an obsessiveness that comes along with it. You want things to be as perfect as they can be. Understanding that nothing is ever perfect, but the challenge is try to get them as perfect as they can be. And what can you do? It's in your control. So control what you can. You have this mindset, but how did you develop that? And I don't know if that's what you call the Mamba Mindset, but how did you develop that and when did it start? It started in middle school and high school because a lot of the kids that I was playing against were inner city kids. And so you're looking at me as if, okay, this kid is soft. It felt like they could try to be physical or try to intimidate me and do all this other stuff, which they couldn't, right? But now I'm saying, okay, well, you're trying to attack me. How am I going to attack you? How can I mentally figure out ways to break you down? How can I show you that no, I have the edge, right? And so that's when it first started for me is figuring out how to get the upper hand on an opponent that way. And what would you do to mentally break people down then? One of the things I would do is while everybody would be at the cafeteria, we're, you know, eating and doing all sorts of stuff, I'd just go back to the gym. And so that was my way of showing them. Yeah, I may be on the suburbs, but you're not going to outwork me. Wow. Like, I see a lot of players take vacations with other players that are close friends and we'll just take vacations just to take vacations or just hang out just to hang out. Like I'm not, I never did that. Why not though? 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. I play games with the flu. I play games with 102 degree fever, man. We had a game against Toronto in 2000 and Vince was tearing the league up. My back was jacked, jacked. So I would be in a layup line like, okay, there's a lot of days where, you know, you can rest and recover. Today ain't one of them. Your back can bother you any other day. That ain't bothering me today. He's going to have to see me today. You're playing against the Golden State Warriors. Score is 107-109. You guys are close to getting into the playoffs. You know exactly what happens in the game. You go up, you're about to take your shot and then all of a sudden, boom, Achilles happens, right? Friend of mine, Nima, he is here just to listen to you. He played ball. And he told me, he says, Patrick, I don't think you understand. He says, when I tore my Achilles in high school, he says, four friends of mine dragged me to the hospital. I was crying from there straight to the hospital. He says, I have no clue how the hell this guy did it. He went and hit the free throws and then you walked off the stage. How the hell do you tolerate that kind of pain? You know, I use this, I tell this example and I think this is the best way to explain it. You know, you have a hamstring injury, you pull your hamstring really, really badly. You can barely walk, right? Let alone play anything. You're at home, all of a sudden, a fire breaks out in the home. Your kids are upstairs, your wife is wherever she may be, you know, going down. I'm willing to bet that you're going to forget about your hamstring, you're going to sprint upstairs, you're going to grab your kids, you'll make sure your wife's good, you're getting out of that house. And the reason is because the lives of your family are more important than the injury of your hamstring. And so when the game is more important than the injury itself, you don't feel that injury. Not at that time. I went in the trainer's room, my kids are in there and, you know, they're looking at you and stuff. And I'm looking at them and I'm like, you know, it's all right, dad's going to be all right. It'll be fine. It'll be all right. As a parent, you got to set the example. You got to set the example. This is another obstacle. This obstacle cannot define me. It's not going to cripple me. It's not going to be responsible for me stepping away for the game that I love. I'm going to step away on my own terms. And that's when the decision was made that, you know what? I'm doing it. You got to lead by example. As parents, you got to lead by example. If you want your kids to do whatever it is they want to accomplish in life, you got to show them. You got to show them. The definition of greatness is to inspire the people next to you. I think that's what greatness is or should be. It's not something that lives and dies with one person. It's how can you inspire a person to then in turn inspire another person that then inspires another person. And that's how you create something that I think lasts forever. And I think that's our challenge as people is to figure out how our story can impact others and motivate them in a way to create their own greatness.