Daily Motivations - I was a Loner. EMOTIONAL Kobe Bryant Motivation

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

In this motivational, inspirational, and emotional video, we will hear from Kobe Bryant himself, as he talks about his mindset in and out of the basketball court. This video talks about his early days, his failures, his successes, and much more. You will get to hear how Kobe Bryant trained to be one of the greatest basketball players, how he strategized, and stories from other players talking about his insane work ethic. Get inspired and motivated with this powerful motivational video of Kobe Bryant!Speaker: Kobe BryantInstagram - @daily_motivationsorgFacebook- @daily_motivationsorgSupport us PayPal

My name is Kobe Bryant. I'm 17 years old. I wasn't invited to parties or, you know, friendly, gatherings on the weekend. So on Fridays and Saturdays, I would go to my rec room with my basketball and basically dribbled myself to sleep. And I think that that was the best thing that could have ever happened to because during those lonely hours in the rec room,

I discovered the hunger, the motivation, and the desire to be the best possible basketball player that I could be. If I just played a great basketball game, had 40 points or whatever, I'm getting all this positive feedback from people who were at the game, my head swelling up and everything. My parents would be the first people

tell me, hey, look, play the great game, there's no need for your head to get all big. No need for you to get cocky and think that the world owes you something. But at the same time when things are bad, are going bad, they'll come up to me and say, hey, there's another day, the sun will come out tomorrow. It's time for you to move on and go for bigger and bigger sites, set some bigger goals. We were playing against the Lakers, Tom, and we're out here in L.A. You know, look, I always try to outwork people, right?

That's just how I made my mark. So the game was at 7. He's like, you know what? I'm going to come to the stable center because we're playing. This is when Lakers had Kobe in Shaq. Okay? This is like the championship Lakers. I'm going to get there at 3 o'clock.

I want to make sure I make 400 made shots before I go back into the room and then I sit in and so on and I get ready for the game. So, you know, get in the car, get to the gym, get there and as I'm walking onto the court, who do I see? I see Kobe Bryant, already working out. So once I set my foot across that line, I started working out. And 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.

I look down 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 there and watch 25 minutes and he got done it's 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 he works like that. So after the game is, I'm like, hey, Kobe, like, why were you in a 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.

We were in Vegas for the start of training camp, and we're getting ready for the Olympics in Beijing. We're going to head to Beijing. And I wanted to establish myself as a young leader on the team by waking up bright and early. Day one. So the goal was to be the first one at breakfast. So I set my alarm. I make sure I'm up by sunrise. I get out of bed.

I put on my gear and I head downstairs. But when I get there, Kobe's already there with ice packs on his knees. Drinched and sweat. Now, it took me a minute to figure it out. but this guy wasn't only awake before me. He had already worked out. He had just played in the finals days earlier. Meanwhile, I'd been off for months and I was still exhausted.

What he had done that morning was incomprehensible to me. That dedication he had only days after falling short of an NBA championship. That taught me something I've never forgotten. Legends aren't defined by their successes. They're defined by how they bounce back from their failures. So when you think about the greatest players of all time, 90, 80% of them have God gift of natural talent ability body. Right?

So Jordan, 48-inch vertical, right? You got the big hands, right? You got LeBron, right? You have Shaquille O'Neal, right? In Magic, 69, point guard with vision. Kobe standard if I give you 6-6

and then took every 6-6 guard in the NBA and NBA history you would never find him right you would never find Kobe because he didn't have big hands right he wasn't quick he wasn't fast 38 inch vertical that's standard like if you don't have a 30 inch

vertical you you're not even a shooting guard in today's game right And what he did with that body, it's like you took a S-500 and he was pushing it like a Bogatti. That's what we look at. We look at the normal person fighting guys. Yes. You're playing against the Golden State Warriors.

Score is 107-109. You guys are close to getting into the playoffs. You're about to take your shot and then all of a sudden, boom. Falls down. Again, he's struggling. He's at the line to shoot free throws, so he can't be taken out of the game right now. Right after you're injured, you went on Facebook,

and you posted a lengthy blog. This is such BS. All the training and sacrifice just flew out the window with one step that I've done millions of times. The frustration is unbearable. Anger is rage. Why the hell did this happen? Makes no damn sense.

Now I'm supposed to come back. from this and be the same player or better at 35, how in the world am I supposed to do that? I have no clue. Maybe I should break out the rocking chair and reminisce on the career that was. Maybe this is how my book ends. Maybe Father Time has defeated me. Then again, maybe not. There are far greater issues and challenges in the world than a torn Achilles. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Find the silver lining and get to work with the same belief, same drive, and same conviction as ever. One day the beginning of a new career journey will commence. Today is not that day. If you see me in a fight with a bear, pray for the bear. 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. My brain cannot It cannot process failure. It will not process failure. Because if I have to, if I sit there and have to face myself and tell myself, you're a failure, I think that's a worse,

that's almost worse than death. If your job is to try to be the best basketball player you can be. To do that, you have to practice, you have to train. You want to train as much as you can, as often as you can. So if you get up at 10 in the morning, train at 11, 12, say 12, train at 12, train for 2 hours, 12 to 2. You have to let your body recover, so you eat, recover, whatever. You get back out, you train, start training at 6. Train from 6 to 8, right?

And now you go home, you shower, you eat dinner, you go to bed, you wake up, you do it again, right? Those are two sessions. Now imagine you wake up at 3, you train at 4. You go four to six, come home, breakfast, relax, so-so, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now you're back at it again, nine to 11, right? You relax, and now it's done, you're back at it again, two or the four. And now you're back at it again, you know, seven to nine. Look how much more training I have done by simply starting at four, right?

And so now you do that. And as the years go on, the separation that you have with your competitors and your peers just grows larger and larger and larger and larger. and by year five or six, it doesn't matter what kind of work they're doing in the summer, they're never going to catch up because they're five years behind. So it makes sense to get up and start your day early because you can get more working. If I start earlier, I can train more hours. And I know the other guys aren't doing it because I know what their training schedule is.

So I know if I do this consistently over time, the gap's just going to widen and widen and widen and widen, and they won't be able to get that back. So to me it was just common sense. I'm like thinking how can I get an advantage of to start earlier. This is right after that playoff game. We flew back to L.A. that night and I got home.

It was probably like three in the morning. And I went down to the high school, which is down the street from my house. And the janitor let me in a gym. And I shot all day. All day. I mean all day. And I didn't leave the gym.

I just kept shooting, shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting and and practicing. And I got a chance to let out the steam of disappointing my teammates and millions of fans. I got a chance to let all that out instead of bottling it up and envision that moment over and over and over and over and over. That was a huge something for me because I, I, I felt like everybody had written me off after those air balls. 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. 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. You got to deal with it. Face it. You got to deal with it. Face it. Learn from it. And all those little things and it sucks. But, but 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 faith, but at least you'll give yourself

a better chance. Yeah. 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's soft, right? He's from the suburbs of Philadelphia. His father played in the NBA, played professionally. He's got it easy. He's got it easy. Born and second, you know, all this other stuff, right? And so 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 note? 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? We used to have an All-American camp that I used to go to. At the time, I first showed I was a sophomore. And one of the things I would do is everybody would be at the cafeteria work, you know, eating and doing all the stuff. I'd just go back to the job. I just go back to the day. They'd be resting, eating.

And they'd see me leave. Right. But now you're in a tough position because you're like, okay, I want to be like, I'm following a kid to go work out. I know he's working, he's up early, and he's doing all the such stuff. So that was my way of showing them. Yeah, I may be on the suburbs, but you're not going to outwork me. Wow.

And I'm mentally going to. Did someone teach you that? Was that just the thing that you decided, like, I'm going to get in people's minds? I think it's just figuring out ways to be better. There's a quote from one of my English teachers at Lord Merriening named Mr. Fisk. You 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 out. There are a lot of answers that I don't have, even questions that I don't have. I'm just going to keep going. And I'll figure these things out as you go, right? And you just continue to build that way. So I try to live by that all the time.

You've got a lot of people playing their hard on money to come watch you 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. As a competitor, I'm not, I'm not ducking shit. Like, it's not, oh my God, my back hurts, I'm sore. We got to 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 chapped. 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 duck and 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. You can bother you any other day. That shit ain't bothering me today. He's going to have to see me today. Oh, man.

Yeah. 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, right? Certain weaknesses that were exposed

that you need to shore up, right? So it was exciting. I mean, it sucks to lose. But at the same time, their answer is there. You just look at them. Because you get the information from losing more than from winning probably. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the answers are there when you win, too.

You just have to look at them. Yeah. Right? So it's a constant process. It's exciting when you win. It's exciting when you lose because the process should be exactly the same. Whether you win or you lose is you go back and you look and you find things that you could have done better. You find things that you've done well that worked.

Figure out how did they work. Why did they work? How can you make them work again? Yeah. But the hardest thing is to face that stuff. 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. at what age did that goal become crystal clear I made that deal with myself at 13 years old

at 13 years old that's the deal I made 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 curious that to see where I could push this thing, let me down that path, I think. I think the greatest fear that we face is ourselves, actually. 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 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 you know the chips are really on the line 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? Right? Or is there actually thought and skill that you put into? Right? And when I'd play, I'd play to my weaknesses. I wouldn't play to my strengths. 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.

So what I would do, I was work on the things during those games that I was weak at. Left hand, pull-up jump shot, post-game. 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 shit at 17. Now you've got a problem. The 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. 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 ask questions. I always try to get better every single day. 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. Was he your first coach?

Yeah, man, I guess you could say that. 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. 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 try to do when I first came in the league. But basketball is such a direct competition sport. And me coming in at 17, I hated when my teammates would say, I get hit with an elbow. Shackway hit me with elbow in practice. And like, you know, Nick Van Hector will come up and say, Are you okay?

What the fuck? Wow, are you okay? What hell is wrong with you? You know, so like I always had that extra chip on my shoulder. So, like, every day in practice for me was really trying to annihilate everybody that I was playing against. Because I wanted to prove you don't need to babysit me. Like, I'm fine, you know? Breaking news in this Sunday afternoon, five-time NBA champion, former league MVP Kobe Bryant died earlier this afternoon in Los Angeles in a helicopter crash.

The world was heartbroken yesterday by a helicopter accident in Los Angeles that claimed the lives of nine people, including that of Kobe Bryant, including that of Kobe Bryant. Bobby Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Johnny. Life is short and it's fragile and we don't know how many birthdays we have. So just, we don't have to have a birthday to celebrate. Just celebrate life. And if you haven't told someone you love them, do it now. Do it, tell people you love them. Call your friends, text your friends, hug them, kiss them.

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 do it anyway. That is actually the dream. That's the dream. It's not the destination. It's the journey. 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. And what brings you the most joy right now? Being with my family. Really? That is, man, that is the most fun hanging out with them all summer,

being able to like do things that ordinarily couldn't do yeah because of training because of sure and stuff like that so being around them and watching bianca grow up because there's a lot of things that i miss with natalia and giana because i was playing so being there every day with them is so much fun man so it brings me the most joy no one knows how much time we have that's why we must live in the moment we must enjoy the moment we must reach the moment we must reach and see and spend as much time as we can with our families and friends and the people that we absolutely love. I've always said that I wanted to be remembered as a player that didn't waste a moment,

didn't waste a day. And I felt extremely blessed by the God-given talent. But at the same time, I didn't take it for granted at all. And so if I could be remembered as a person that it, was born with a lot of talent, but did everything he could to try to overachieve. I lived every day as if he was the 12th guy on the bench. You know, I think that's a very powerful message to have. It's something that hopefully the players that are now and players that will come later

choose to embody as well.