Daily Motivations - DEDICATED by Kobe Bryant

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

DEDICATED! If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride - and never quit, you'll be a winner Speakers: Kobe Bryant Tom Bilyeu Don’t forget to LIKE, SHARE, and Follow for more Instagram - @daily_motivationsorg Facebook- @daily_motivationsorg Please Kindly support this show  Support Us

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please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. I wonder if someone would have whispered, Kobe! when he got in the car that day. Six more days. How would that week maybe have been different for him? What would he have said? Who would he have loved? Who would he have reached out to?

What would have mattered to him? About the Saturday before, Kobe, one more day. He was getting on that helicopter. Kobe, one more day. He's getting on that helicopter. Kobe, one more hour. See it hits us when I say that and there's a whisper happening that you can't hear. Tom, eight more years, 18 more years. Whatever it is, there's a whisper.

We forget. We're going to die. Napoleon Hill says, begin with the end in mind. What if you do that with your life? Good evening. We start tonight with some breaking news. So much of the world is just in shock. Retired Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Kobe Bryant has been killed in a helicopter crash.

What I've learned is to always keep going. Always. There's been times, particularly early in my career, where it just feels like this is the end. But what I've come to find out is that, you know, no matter what happens, the storm eventually ends. And when the storm does end, you want to make sure that you're ready. And so I've really learned to put one foot in front of the other, good, bad, or indifferent, because eventually that storm passes. Every time I step on a basketball court,

I'm going to put a strong effort out there on the floor. I'm not going to leave anything on the floor. Kobe pops out. Kobe's going to go. basketball court I'm gonna put a strong effort out there on the floor I'm not gonna leave anything on the floor everything was done to try to learn how to become a better basketball player everything 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. And as I'm walking onto the court, who do I see? I see Kobe Bryant already working out. And I'm like, okay, that's kind of cool. It's Kobe. So I worked out for a good hour, hour and a half. And when I came off, after I was done, I sat down.

And, of course, I still heard the ball bouncing. I looked down. I'm like, this guy's still working out. He was working out. Like, it looks like he was in a dead sweat when I got here. And he's still going. And it's not like his moves are nonchalant or lazy. He's doing, like, game moves, you know?

I sit there, and I unlace my shoes i'm like i want to see how long this goes i sit out there and watch another 25 minutes and he got done he's like okay i think i've seen enough go play you know come back get in the sauna get ready for the game that game he drops 40 on us okay and after the game is over i'm like i have to ask this guy i have to understand like why why he works like that right so after games I'm like hey Kobe like why why were you in the gym for so long he's like because I saw you come in and I wanted you to know that it doesn't matter how hard you work that I'm willing to work harder than you wow and he's like there's nothing wrong with that like I'm not saying I

dislike you as a person. You inspire me to be better. And it was the first time I started to see this level of competitiveness where I said, I need to start doing more. Wow. Well, I mean, here's the thing. It's competitiveness, yes, but it's a simple theory or idea to live life by if you're going to do something do it to the best of your ability no matter what it is you're

gonna do it do it to the best of your ability if you love what you do and it's making you happy all the hard work and perseverance will pay off I once had a guidance counselor tell me that I shouldn't play basketball. That it would never amount to anything for me. His negativity towards me made me stronger. You can't stop people from trying to limit your dreams. But you can stop it from becoming a reality. Your dreams are up to you.

I encourage you to always be curious, always seek out things you love, and always work hard what you find. The day could be today that your career is over now what do you do i said i better get to work 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 I go. And you just continue to build that way. So I try to live by that all the time.

Have a dream. Sacrifice for it. And never, ever rest in the middle. I came into the NBA, I was like, man, these dudes really don't work that hard. One of the things I would do is, while everybody would be at the cafeteria work, you know, eating and doing all sorts of stuff, I'd just go back to the gym. I'd go back to the gym. How can I show you that, no, I have the edge? Well, you do it through training, right?

So when I get up in the morning, my daughter goes with me. 4 a.m.? 4 a.m. My 15-year-old goes with me. She goes with me before school, and it becomes a daddy-daughter thing. That's cool. Through that process, she understands the value of hard work. And so it's through those behaviors is where I find the motivation.

I think 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 and then inspire another person. And that's how you create something

that I think lasts forever. It's not sit around and all, it's all happy-go-lucky type of thing. The leader, your job is to get the best out of it. Gotta deal with it, face it, learn from it. It's exciting when you win, it's exciting when you lose, because the process should be exactly the same. But the hardest thing is to face that stuff.

But what if today is the day that you, that's it, now what do you do? What can I say? Mamba out. My parents were great. Growing up, they instilled in me the importance of imagination, of curiosity. Understanding that, okay, if you want to accomplish something, I'm not just going to sit here and say, yes, you can do whatever you want.

Yes, you can, but you have to also put in the work to get there. So they taught me that at a really early age, man. And when you grow up as a kid thinking that the world is your oyster, all things are possible if you put in the work to do it, you grow up having that fundamental belief. Who was more influential for you, your father or mother? Both were influential at different points. Yeah.

My mom was there on a daily basis. My father was really influential at a really critical time where 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 one. You didn't score once. Not one. Were you in the game? I was in the game. How did you not score? Because I was terrible. Not a free throw. Not one. You didn't score once. Were you in the game? I was in the game.

How did you not score? Because I was terrible. Not a free throw, not a nothing. Not a lucky shot, not a breakaway layup. Zero points. I remember crying about it and being upset about it. My father gave me a hug and said, listen, whether you score zero or score 60, I'm going to love you no matter what. That is the most

important thing that you can say to your 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. Let's go. Right, right. And from there, I just went to work. I 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?

Shooting. Let's knock this out. Let's focus on this half a year, six months, do nothing but shoot. After that, creating your own shot. start i started creating a menu of things when i came back the next summer i was a little bit better 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 to happen in two years but it did because'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 me. And then my body, you know, my knees stopped hurting. I grew into my frame. And then your athleticism, once you have the fundamentals, the hard work, the mindset, and you tack on the athleticism, it's game over. Then it was game over.

Wow. 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 there was a stretch in

03 Where Jack 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 if we have to win so I did and I wound up scoring I think it was nine straight games 40 plus points nine straight nine straight games and then Shaq comes back second second to last game of that And then Phil calls into his office and says, Cole, 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. 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 shack forward for june wow i mean that was the big challenge as you move from you know being the single dominant player to understanding okay i have to help these other guys oh i lift everyone else up it's tough it's more like you put you put

yourself to the side and you put yourself in their shoes and understand what they're feeling. And then you have to make certain decisions of, okay, what buttons do I need to push for this player to get them to the next level? So it's not sit around and it's all happy or lucky time. As a leader, your job is to get the best out of them, even if they may not like it at that time. He was very demanding because he expected everyone to put in the same effort as he was, and that was unrealistic. You're not behind me, you're not in front of me, you're right there parallel with me.

Practice was very competitive right away. You know how Kobe is. He was jawing, we had it going sometimes. He didn't let me slip a lot. Times where I get ejected or about to get a technical foul or going off the deep end, he would be there to, you know, set me straight a lot, which helped me a lot. So we get into timeout, he's like,

hey, hey, hey, I'm open. I'm like, okay. So we go out and same thing, come, hey, hey, hey, I'm open. Okay. Come back in, hey dude, you gotta throw me the ball. I said, man, fuck that. Get it off the rebound if I miss, bro.

Listen, I don't deal with people that don't commit at that level, but then act as if they do. The running joke, doesn't pass and all that crap. That's okay. I'll take those five games. I'll take five. The best in the game, the best closer finisher, Kobe Bryant.

Those times when you get up early and you work hard. Those times when you stay up late and you work hard. Those times when you don't feel like working. You're too tired. You don't want to push yourself, but you it anyway that is actually the dream that's the dream it's not the destination it's the journey and if you guys if you guys can understand that then what you'll see happen is that you won't accomplish your dreams. Your dreams won't come true. Something greater will.

It's an amazing thing about passion. If you love something, if you have a strong passion for something, you would go to the extreme to try to understand or try to get it. Whatever you have a love for, if you have to walk, you will go get it. If you have to beg someone, you will go get it. I don't think you guys understand how present you guys were with me. You know, you guys were there with me at 5.30 in the morning when I was running the track and I was midway through my workout and I didn't know if I could make it through and I thought about the expectations you guys had for me and you had for our team and it pushed me through.

It got me through those 800s and 400s and 100s at 530 in the morning so I thank you. We're not on this stage just because of talent or ability. We're up here because of 4AM. We're up here because of 4AM. We're up here because of two-a-days or five-a-days. We're up here because we had a dream and let nothing stand in our way. If anything tried to bring us down,

we used it to make us strong. We were never satisfied, never finished, we'll never be retired. My high school English teacher, Mr. Fisk, he had this beautiful quote, and it read, rest at the end, not in the middle. And I took that to heart. I believe there's time for resting at the end, but for me, that time is not now. Thank you for this tremendous honor in acknowledging my basketball career,

but I'll be far from done. My next dream is to be honored one day for inspiring the next generation of athletes to have a dream, sacrifice for it, and never, ever rest in the middle. Rest at the end, not in the middle. Be yourself. That's it. Be you. Be you. There's no gimmick there's no you don't have to contrive anything who are you where are you today

what is your story where does that come from and uh if you guys can understand that that I'm doing my job as a father thank you guys so much I love you

Mamba out. You want first place, come play with me. You want second place, go somewhere else. 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. 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 so because you know what you want the world's giving you exactly the information 100 because you know what you're looking for so many guys tell stories about your work ethic what was really your work ethic like and for how long did you stay disciplined um well i mean i mean every day i mean since you know 20 years it was an everyday process and trying to figure out strengths and weaknesses for example jumping ability man my vertical was a 40 it wasn't a 46 or 40 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 uh 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 had to study the game a lot more and uh but i enjoyed it though so like from the time i was i can remember when had to study the game a lot more and uh 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 it's a good separation for me you know emotionally to be able to put myself in a place where at practice or when i'm training or during games, I switch my mind to something else. I switch my mode into something else, right? For me, it's the equivalent of Maximus, Desmus, Meridius,

and Gladiator picking up the dirt, smelling the dirt. It's go time, right? So that was my mental switch. It was like an actor getting ready for a film. You got to put yourself in that cage. When you're in that cage, you are that character. And then when you leave there, it's something completely different.

But when I'm in that cage, bro, don't touch me. Don't talk to me. Just leave me alone. 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. It's not about you, man. Like, okay, you feel embarrassed.

You're not that important. Like, get over yourself. That's where you go. Get over yourself, right? Like, you're worried about how people may perceive you and like you're walking around and it's embarrassing because you shot five air balls. Get over yourself. Right. And then after that, it's OK. Well, why did those air balls happen? Got it. High school year before we play 35 games max. Right.

Week in between spaced out plenty of time to rest in the NBA. It's back to back to back to back to back to back to back 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 go next year they'll be there that was it done done were there some names that you looked at and says these three guys are as crazy as I am I do 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, Bird, Kim Olajuwon, Jerry West, Oscar Robinson, Bill Russell. 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 how they approach things and their level of detail and obsessiveness. That's what I did. 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 I was just looking at that like man I'm this is gonna be fun if 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 you're determined to become one the greatest greatest, what happens to our relationship? Oh, it suffers. It does suffer. Oh yeah. Okay.

Yeah. And you understood that you were okay with that. 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 You know taking big 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 go what white 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 No

You know, you got a lot of people playing their hard-earned money to come watch you perform. Perform. Perform. It's your job to be in shape. It's your job to be strong enough to perform at that level every single night. And as a competitor, I'm not ducking shit. Like, it's not, oh my god, my back hurts, I'm sore, we gotta play Vince Carter and Toronto

Raptors tonight. We actually had this happen. We had a game against Toronto in 2000. And Vince was tearing the league up. My back was jacked. Jacked. But like the perception of that, like what? Kobe's missing a game against Toronto and Vince Carter

because my back was really spasming but people will be like what oh he's ducking Vince excuse me no I don't think so 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 you any other day. That ain't bothering me today. He's going to have to see me today. Amen. Amen. If you're looking at a big investment you got to make, what is the decision-making process there?

Do you call? Is there first you do your own research, you take this much time, you call an advisor? Is there a system you follow? It's pretty simple for me it's it's do you understand the business is it a business that you can help in some form or fashion what are the barriers of entry to that business and then the entrepreneurs themselves the company itself right do they have a culture that you believe is sustainable are these leaders people that you believe in? Are they people that

are obsessives? And in turn, have they created a culture of obsessiveness? So I tend to look at those four factors and that's it. That's big right there, by the way. I don't know if you guys caught that right there. That's pretty massive right there. Same determination. what's your current work schedule look like today? It's different because I personally am not writing every word of the novels. I am not animating the films. 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're saying, okay, I can do that, that's not the project we want. The projects that say, I don't know if 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. And so running the studio, that's what I'm doing. 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? He went and hit the free throws, and then you walked off the stage. Yeah. You got the surgery done. Right, 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 gonna be all right. It'll be fine, it, 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, 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. Doing it. You're a fricking beast, man. Hey, hey. So