Daily Motivations - DRASTIC WORK ETHIC

Episode Date: February 20, 2022

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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. Welcome to Daily Motivations by Tolu Dave, where you get motivated and inspired. As a leader of a team, it's also your responsibility to elevate the rest of the guys. 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. 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, you just have a back-to-back, and you had practice the next day, and you show up, 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. 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.

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.

I would always sit down and just ask questions about certain games that I studied growing up. What actually happened there? What did you feel there? Why? I always dreamed as a kid that it was possible to score an 80 or 90 or 100. I always just like, had a dream. Sometimes we lay down in bed and visualize things. I'd imagine playing for the Lakers and I'd imagine what the uniforms look like. I'd imagine who we'd be playing, the smell of the arena and all that stuff.

And I would see myself getting high. 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 that summer, I made a thousand shots a day. A thousand.

They weren't just shots. They were shots that you saw in that game. There were specific shots. I mean, it 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're out in court and you're just executing things that you've done thousands of times before and you have that dream, then that

becomes possible. Rudy was one of my favorite films growing up. before and you have that dream then that becomes possible. 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 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 live that way, then over time, I'd have something that was beautiful. And 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,

what do you have? 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. At 13 years old, 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 the chips are really 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? Or is there actually thought and skill that you put into it? And when I'd play, I'd play to my weaknesses because when you're playing summer basketball, 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 play to 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, post game, pull up, jump up jump shot. So I have a strategy. 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. I see a lot of players take vacations with other players that are close friends just to take vacations or just hang out,

just to hang out. 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.

What were some of the factors you looked at on how to improve your game season after season? The game itself was a complicated answer. So there are very tactical things in terms of footwork and geometry of the court. So you're looking at the court and looking at the 45 degree angles that the court is shaped in and how it needs to operate. That's one component to it. So looking at spots on the floor where you can increase your efficiency. You can be on the wing, but there's a certain spot on the wing that improves your angle to drive to the basket.

So that sort of stuff. Footwork of the opposition, looking at the emotion of the opposition, their tendencies, their weaknesses, and all that stuff. Understanding the momentum of the game, how to create momentum shifts, where momentum shifts come from, all this sort of stuff. And then studying outside of that, right? Looking at different industries, looking at conductors, looking at writers, looking at actors, and how they get into character, and then how do

they keep themselves in that mental space. So looking at different industries, looking at nature itself, learning from that and how you can incorporate that into the game. Man, it's a lot of studying. What is the conversation like with your wife and kids to say, listen, this is what I'm doing. How did that conversation go? Well, with the kids, it's different. So like the communication with our children is that Pops is working hard. This is the level of attention to detail you need to have

in everything you do. So it's setting the example. Same thing with my wife. My wife's a stay-at-home wife. It's the hardest job, man. So she works really hard at that. So her attention to detail with that as well are examples for our children. And then for my wife, it's, you know, she's as competitive as I am.

She's just like, listen, man, if you're going to be out here training eight hours a day, if you're going to spend nine months out of the year away from your family, you better win the championship. But it's a balancing act, and that's the thing that's important, is understanding that we have to have so much energy. Because for like Natalia and Gianna, when they were babies, especially Natalia, because they were doing prime years, and I'd go to practice, and I'd train, and I'd play the game, and I'd come home, and I'd be sore, and I'd come home and I'd be sore and I'd be tired. And she wants to go swimming. She wants me to take her to the park.

She wants to just jump on my back or whatever the case may be. You can't say, I'm too tired, I'm going to lay down. That's not fair. She don't know what the hell's going on, right? And if this was a game, you'd suck it up and play. I play games with the flu. I play games with 102 degree fever I play games with a 102-degree fever, man. You can't do that. That is so powerful. You got to be on, man. Sometimes I'd fly back.

Like I'd play a game to not miss my daughter's birthday. I'd fly back, be there for her birthday, and then fly back with the team just to make sure I don't miss anything. You got to lead by example. As parents, you got to lead by example. As parents, you gotta lead by example. If you want your kids to do whatever it is they wanna accomplish in life, you have to show them. You can't. You gotta show them.

That's what I tried to do. Competitiveness inside was like, no, I'm gonna do something in the next 20 years that is better than these last 20. 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 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. What is your recruiting approach? So if you're sitting down with me, I'm somebody you really want, you really want me on the team. What's your approach to recruiting? You want first place, come play with me.

You want second place, go somewhere else. Mamba 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 become better. And it's a constant quest. It's an infinite quest. So starting at the age of two when I first started playing the game and on and on and on, I always asked questions. I always tried to get better every single day. 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.

I just constantly looked for things to learn from. I'm very observant. 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, OK, 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. My goal has changed drastically as I got older. It's 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. You 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 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 to find themselves? That is the ultimate championship. So one in five championships, that's great. Another team won a championship this year. Teams gonna 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. Dreams, it 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. The more governors we put on ourselves and our ability to dream. So it's not a matter of pushing beyond the 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. Thanks for listening.

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