Daily Motivations - 30 minutes that will change your perspective on Life

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

“It makes a big difference in your life when you stay positive.” Speakers: Kobe Bryant Valuetainment Lewis Howes Kindly follow us on Instagram - @daily_motivationsorg   Facebook- @daily_motivationsorg  Please Kindly support this show by clicking the link below Grab your Ultimate Female Body Fitness Guide Ebook  copy now at an exclusive 50% off discount  https://selar.co/42zb40?currency=USD Kindly Support Us Below to sustain future episodes. Support the Show.

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BidMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Imagine you wake up at 3, you train at 4. You go 4 to 6, come home, breakfast, relax, so-so, blah-blah-blah. Now you're back at it again, 9 to 11. Relax, and now back at it again, 2 to 4. And now you're back at it again, seven to nine.

Look how much more training I have done by simply starting at four. And that was the most important thing for me is to leave no stone unturned, get better every single day. And if I live that way, then over time, I'd have something that was beautiful. That was my philosophy. It seems like a pretty simple one, but if you live your life to just get better every single day, you do that for 20 years, I mean, what do you have? Overall, the idea is a very simple one. And the mama mentality simply means trying to be the best version of yourself.

That's what the mentality means. It means every day you're trying to be the best version of yourself. That's what the mentality means. It means every day you're trying to become better. It's a constant quest. It's an infinite quest. To me, the mentality is a really simple one in the sense that the confidence comes from preparation. So when the game's on the line, I'm not asking myself to do something that I haven't done thousands of times before.

When I'm prepared, I know what I'm capable of doing. I know what I'm comfortable doing and I know what I'm not comfortable doing. So in those moments, if it looks like I'm ice cold or not nervous, it's because I've done it thousands of times before. So it's one more time. So starting at the age of two, when i first started playing the game and on and on and on i always ask questions i always try to get better every single day learn more you'd be surprised like some people like my kids at two could do a lot of things at two i could dribble a basketball i could shoot a basketball on the nerve hoop at the house and i

would go to practice with my father. I would observe my father. I'd sit and watch games with him. A lot of things I learned by just being around the game. So by the age of six, I was already strategizing versus other six-year-olds. At the age of six, I figured out six-year-olds couldn't dribble with their left hand. So when I was playing these six-year-old kids,

I would make them dribble with their left because I knew they couldn't. And so these six-year-old kids, I would make them dribble with their left, because I knew they couldn't. And so they'd dribble off their foot, I'd pick it up, lay it up. Do it again, dribble off foot, pick it up, lay it up. So at six years old, I had 63 points. I just constantly looked for things to learn from, and, you know, very observant.

The passion came from the love for the game. I loved everything about it, like the smell of the ball, the smell of brand-new sneakers, the sound the ball makes when it hits the ground, the ball going through the net, 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.

I was born to play basketball. You know what I mean? And I played a lot of different sports. But nothing brought me the sense of peace and of escape that the game of basketball did. When I need that escape, it's there for me. When I need a friend, it's there for me. When I need to vent and dunk, it's there for me, right? When I need a friend, it's there for me. When I need to vent and don't talk, it's there. So the game is absolutely everything for me.

I had goals. I had expectations and things I wanted to accomplish. So the outside world could not meet that, for sure. I knew I wanted to win five, six, seven championships. That was my goal. For me to come out and say that, people would think I was a lunatic. You know, so no matter what they said or what they threw at me, my expectations were certainly higher. But, you know, you can't you can't control that passion.

And, you know, sometimes you just kind of have a fire. You need to you need to keep those flames burning. There ain't nothing you can do about it. Like you don't really have much of a choice. Like you wake up in the morning and you go. Even if you tried to dial it back, it'll just build up and build up. And then it'll just come out ten times worse than it was before. Can't really control it.

There's a quote from one of my English teachers at Lower Merion 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. Welcome to Daily Motivation, where you get motivated and inspired. 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. There are 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. And you just continue to build that way. So I try to live by that all the time. 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 in 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 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 are certain things that you can figure out, that you can take advantage of. Certain weaknesses that were exposed that you need to shore up. So it was exciting. It sucks to lose.

But the hardest thing is to face that stuff. That's a really, really tough challenge. As athletes, the psychology is before you start a game, how can you lock in and get into that mental space where nothing else matters? You're completely locked in and focused on what you're trying to accomplish as an athlete out here. The noise of the crowd doesn't matter. Whether you're cheering or booing doesn't matter. You're just completely locked in. focused on what you're trying to accomplish as an athlete out here. The noise of the crowd doesn't matter.

Whether you're cheering or booing doesn't matter. You're just completely locked in. How do you do that? If we're talking about a basketball decision where you read a certain coverage or something like that, a lot of that comes from the pre-work. Pre-work and understanding what their defensive package is and how to put teammates in certain situations. For example, if you look at players nowadays that are charged with taking game-winning shots,

making game-winning decisions, and you look at the play and then you look at it and say, okay, well, that shooter was there, the double team came, and, you know, the player couldn't do anything but pass the ball, right? Well, that's because they didn't do the pre-work. So when you do the pre-work, you understand, okay, this team in a situation likes to run a double team from this particular angle. All right, so I'm going to clear that side out, force the double team to come from a different angle, move myself to a space on the floor where it's going to take a long time for the double team to come,

and now I can circumvent the double team and get to a place on the floor where I can knock down a shot and get to the basket. So it's all that pre-work. I can circumvent the double team and get to a place on the floor where I can knock down a shot and get to the basket. So it's all that pre-work. Well, I mean, here's why practice was important to me. Not from just the standpoint that I enjoyed playing. Like, I enjoyed being there. I enjoyed 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 is 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 have to get them to an emotional space where they wake up every morning driven to be the best version of themselves. How do you do that? And in practice, for me, it was a chance to drive them, to challenge them.

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, no.

You got to figure out what button to push. You know, power was always Spain if I tell them how they lost in a gold medal to us and how they're gonna lose again how I'm gonna beat your practice just like I beat you in a gold medal game oh, he would 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 7 will be, then a game seven will be easy. But if it's not, then that's when teams start folding and capitulating. I think the best way to prove your value is to work, is to learn, is to absorb, to be a sponge. You always want to outwork your potential. 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 basketball is such a direct competition sport. That competitive nature, the work ethic, and curiosity. Because I asked a lot of questions. 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. defend why because you look slow to me 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 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 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 inspiration come from? 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'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. Were you always competitive from the day you were born? You were super competitive? Compet competitive with things that i i participate in so i like i'll put it to you this way so like 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. My competitive competitiveness inside was like, I'm going to do something in the next 20 years that is better than these last 20. So at 13 years old, I had a, I had a kill list. And so, you know, they used to do these rankings. It was 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 will 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 wouldn't play to 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 I always work on the things during those games that I was weak at left hand pull up jump shot

post game right so I have a strategy how did you get mentally and emotionally so strong where it doesn't bother you? Well, you know, it's, 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 because my legs

aren't there i got 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 uh not to say you'll win the next time you fade but at least you'll give yourself a better a better chance yeah 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. 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. 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? 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 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 from the suburbs, but you're not going to outwork me. I see a lot of players take vacations with other players that are close friends. And, oh, 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? 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 the layup line like, okay, there's a lot of days where 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. I had a summer where I played basketball when I was like 10 or 11 years old. And here I come playing and I don't score one point the entire summer. Not a free throw, nothing, not a lucky shot, not a breakaway layup, zero points.

And I remember crying about it and 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. Now 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. 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, right? So that's when I sat down and said, okay, this is going to take some thought, all right? 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, right? After that, all right, creating your own shot and you focus. So you. 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. 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. Well, 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, you know, my knees stopped hurting. I grew into my frame. Then it was game over. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hey there, fellow listeners.

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Get your e-book now before it's too late. I always dreamed as a kid that it was possible to score 80 or 90 or 100. I always just had a dream. Sometimes you lay down in bed and you visualize things. That's at least how I would go to sleep. I'd lay down and I'd imagine playing for the Lakers. I'd imagine what the uniforms looked like. I'd imagine where we'd be playing and the, you know, the smell of the arena and all

sort of stuff, and I would see myself, you know, getting hot, you know, and 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, and then he misses his next six, like, it's not going to 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 that's on top of weight training and my conditioning I made a thousand shots and it weren't just shots it were

shots that you saw in that game there were specific shots i mean it's 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 possible. I come to understand, if I could work that hard every day, 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. Dreams, they should be pure. I think a lot of times when we're born into this world, we actually wind 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 us 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 pushing beyond the limitations or expectations it's really a matter of protecting your dreams protecting your your imagination. That's really the key. And when you do that, then the world just seems limitless. I think the greatest fear that we face is ourselves, actually. You know, I think it's not anything that's external or anything that's superficial. I think the greatest fear you face is yourself, because we all have dreams,

and it's very scary sometimes to accept the dream that you have and it's scarier still to say okay I want that it's scary because you're afraid that if you put your heart and soul into it and you fail then how are you going to feel about yourself right so being fearless means putting yourself out there and going for it. No matter what, go for it. Not for anybody else, but for yourself. You have to dance beautifully in the box that you are comfortable dancing in. Everybody's box is different.

My box was to be extremely ambitious within the sport of basketball. Your box is different than mine. Every kid here has their own box, but it doesn't mean that your box isn't as beautiful as mine, right? Everybody has their own. It's your job to try to perfect it and make it as beautiful of a canvas as you can make it. And if you have done that, then you have lived a successful life. You have lived with Mamba mentality. So it doesn't mean you have to go out here and do all of these crazy things. I'll have to be like this person or that person. No, what are you comfortable being? What is it that you want to do with your life? And once you have that, then you try to live it to the best of your ability. I never looked at it as like, I'm just going to, you know, try something completely crazy or like, just go out of my box with me. I just looked at it as

I want to be one of the best basketball players who've ever played. That's the end goal. Okay, how do I get there? How do I get there? And every decision I made in my life was centered around the process of helping me eventually get there. So I had that purpose. Once I had that purpose, every decision that I made was I had that purpose. And once I had that purpose, every decision that I made was centered around that purpose. 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 my 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 uh you know I 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 pull your hamstring really really badly you can barely walk right let alone play anything you're at home all of a sudden the fire breaks out

in the home right your kids are upstairs 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're going to 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. It'll be all right. 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.

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 have to show them you got to show them but the message we want to get across is that you know kids matter like investing heavily in kids is extremely important in fact more important than it is investing in adults because children are our future so instead of spending all of our resources and doubling down on the grown-ups, let's double down on kids. And so for me, it was like, okay, I have to aim for something. So I said, I want to aim for size. I want

to aim for bulk, right? So that's a tangible thing. I'm going to go for that, right? But then also, it's my children because your kids can't see how hard you work. You go to the office, I come to the studio, they don't really see the effort. So how can we teach our children what it means to work hard? Well, you do it through training. So when I get up in the morning, my daughter goes with me. 4 a.m., my 15-year-old goes with me. She goes with me before school and it becomes a daddy-daughter thing.

She just got her permit, so she drives in the morning. It becomes a cool thing, right, but through that process she understands the value of hard work and things taking time. And the same thing with my 12 year old. She practices every day, right, and so it's through those behaviors is where I find the motivation to do it. And what brings you the most joy right now? Being with my family. Really? That is, man, that is the most fun.

It's just, you know, it's hanging out with them all summer, being able to do things that I ordinarily couldn't do because of training, because of season, stuff like that. So being around them and watching Bianca grow up, because there are a lot of things that I miss with Natalia and Gianna because I was playing. So being there every day with them is so much fun, man. So it brings me the most joy. What does love feel like for you?

What does love feel like? I think I would describe love as happiness. I think I'd describe it as a beautiful journey. You know, it has its ups and downs. Whether it's in marriage, whether it's in the career, you know things are never perfect but through love you continue to persevere and you move through, you move through and then through that storm beautiful sun emerges. Right? And inevitably another storm comes. Guess what? You ride that one out too. So I think love is a certain determination and persistence

to go through the good times and the bad times with the someone or something that you truly love. My vision of what my goal is changed drastically as I got older. So like as a kid, I said, I want to be the best ever. And now you go through your life and everything you do is trying to be the best ever, be the best ever, be the best ever. And as you get older, you start understanding that those things are very superficial things. And everybody has a different opinion about it.

No matter what you do, I can win 20 championships. There's always an opinion on who's the best. Everybody has different opinions. And so I started really kind of understanding, maybe that's not the important thing. Maybe the important thing is to, you know, how do we as a team grow? How do I help my teammates be better? So that was the first change for me. And then as I got older still, it became more about how are you inspiring others, right, to find themselves?

That is the ultimate championship. So one in five championships, that's great. Another team won a championship this year. Teams going to win a championship next year. Those things come and they go. But what stays is how do you use your passion and use that to inspire somebody else to create their passion? And then how can they pass that on to the next person? That is true success.

So my goals have changed drastically from the time I was six years old to the time I was 17 to the time I was 25 and now sitting here at 37. It's always teaching the game, right? Teaching the game through various ways. We do camps and clinics, we do those things, but also through storytelling. How can you share stories with the rest of the world that challenges them to look internally and to learn things like process and learn how to navigate the sense of self and all these things. How can you infuse that into entertainment in a way that pushes our culture and our society forward? Those are the

questions that I'm really really intrigued by and that's what we'll focus on. What I have to do now is make sure that the people that we bring in, these obsessives that we bring in, are challenging themselves to do the best job that they think they can do. That's what I'm there for, is for them to constantly look in the mirror and self assess and challenge themselves if we have a project and you saying okay I can do that that's not the project we want the projects that say I don't know if I can animate that I don't know how to write that story I don't know how to do that those are the things we want. Because through that curiosity, you'll reach a level that you didn't think was possible. 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. Thanks for listening. Kindly support the movement of this podcast by supporting us or subscribing to our premium content a way to create their own greatness.