Motivation Daily by Motiversity - THE COMEBACK IS PERSONAL - Powerful Motivational Speech Compilation 2025

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

Job's not finished. This comeback is personal. This motivational speech compilation features speeches from Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Mike Tyson, Tom Brady, Lebron James, Marcus Taylor, Coach Pain and many more.Special thanks to our partners:Chris Williamson: https://www.youtube.com/@ChrisWillxPatrick Bet-David of Valuetainment: https://www.youtube.com/@VALUETAINMENTLewis Howes: https://www.youtube.com/@lewishowesSpeakersKobe BryantMichael Jordanhttps://twitter.com/michaelb4jordanCoach Pain YouTube: http://bit.ly/2LmRyeaInstagram: http://bit.ly/2XLcLW5Website: http://bit.ly/2YTgWvqBook Coach Pain to speak at your organization: https://bit.ly/BookCoachPain Marcus A. TaylorYouTube: http://bit.ly/38FUFoSInstagram: http://bit.ly/3aLfu3PWebsite: https://unlockelevation.com/Book Marcus to speak at your organization: bit.ly/BookMarcusTaylorBrian Bullockhttps://www.instagram.com/brianmbullockBilly AlsbrooksWebsite: https://www.billyalsbrooks.comYouTube: http://bit.ly/2pVY8h9Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/billyalsbrooksFreddy Fri YouTube: http://bit.ly/FreddyFriInstagram: https://bit.ly/37FxFcPSpeaking: http://www.freddyfri.com/hire-meGet Freddy's new book "Make Every Day a WINSday" now: https://amzn.to/37Hv2r8Tony Robbinshttps://www.tonyrobbins.com/LeBron Jameshttps://www.instagram.com/kingjames/Kobe Bryanthttps://www.instagram.com/kobebryantChris Williamsonhttps://www.youtube.com/@ChrisWillxWalter BondYouTube: http://bit.ly/WalterBondMotivationEric Thomashttps://www.youtube.com/user/etthehiphoppreacherPatrick Bet-Davidhttps://www.youtube.com/@VALUETAINMENTSerena Williamshttps://www.instagram.com/serenawilliams/Tom Bradyhttps://www.instagram.com/tombrady/Tim Groverhttps://www.instagram.com/timgrover/Morgan Houselhttps://x.com/morganhousel?lang=enChris Bumsteadhttps://www.instagram.com/cbum/?Frank Brunohttps://www.instagram.com/frankbrunoboxer/Mike Tysonhttps://www.instagram.com/miketyson/Greg Plitthttps://www.instagram.com/gregplitt/?hl=enAlex Hormozihttps://www.instagram.com/hormozi/?hl=enRyan Holidayhttps://ryanholiday.net/David GogginsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidgoggins/Twitter: https://twitter.com/davidgogginsWebsite: http://www.davidgoggins.com/Music by Really Slow Motion Buy their music:iTunes: http://bit.ly/1ee3l8KSpotify: http://bit.ly/1r3lPvNBandcamp: http://bit.ly/1DqtZSoSecession Studios - To Boldy Go, Bound by Lighthttps://www.youtube.com/@SecessionStudiosAudiomachine - Restorehttps://audiomachine.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello listeners. Motivosity is excited to share that we have launched a new podcast called Morning Motivation by Motivore. If you are looking to start your day with positivity and the most uplifting motivational audio, this is the show for you. For today's episode of Motivation Daily by Motivority Podcast, we are sharing a recent episode from the Morning Motivation Podcast. If you like it, go follow the show. New episodes are being released every week.

The link is in the description. When I rupture my Achilles, I knew the severity of the injury, and I didn't know if I was going to come back from it. Like, this is it. Like, my career could be over right now. You know, I went home, and I was just really angry. I worked so hard for us to get to the playoffs and to have a chance to win another championship,

and then this happened. So I had a lot of anger. Then from the anger, then I was sad. and then you say, what am I going to do now? I mean, it's just, 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're not as good as Magic Johnson. You're not as good as Larry Bird. You're good, but you're not as good as those guys. You know, I had to listen to all this. And that put so much wool on that fire that,

that it kept me each and every day. I'm trying to become the best that I can. It became personal with me. Tough life. That's what life is. Life is going to always be tough. But just remember, it's up to you to carry on.

Remember you owe you something. Continue to believe that. We all have desires and dreams. Make your dream a reality. You look for any kind of messages that people may say or do to get you motivated to play the highest level. You have the power to lose the lead and still come back and get back. How does that nine? You're wanting to know. I've had many rejections.

I had many doors slammed in my face, but I didn't give up. I didn't quit and neither should you. I know you're bleeding, but get up. I know it hurt, but get up. I need you in this moment. Get up and try again. Every word I say it, the sound of a comeback. You have this innate ability, this instinct on the inside,

that you can come back from anything. Good times create weak people. Weak people create bad times. Bad times create strong people Strong people Create good times This comeback

It's personal Because I owe it to myself It's like Muhammad Ali once said he goes It's hard to beat a guy When he's got his mind made up to win And can't nobody stop me but me That's how bad you gotta want it Tired don't mean nothing

Tired was only in the mind You tell yourself you're going to be tired. I don't get tired. I'm going to beat you. I'm going to let you know I beat you. I'm going to want you to reconsider your professional life choice. My father who raised me, his thing was son. You may not be the best, but leave everything on the floor.

You put 120%. I'm just asking you to 120. Like every day when you come in 120. You got to want it so bad. You got to give all of yourself to get it. You've got to be obsessive. Because I didn't grow up with things being handed to me. I had to work hard.

I had to dedicate myself. And I had to be determined. And I was. The bottom line is that if you're talking about beating everybody else on the planet to a thing, what you're actually talking about is what are you prepared to sacrifice psychologically, physically, existentially, relationally, socially, in terms of your self-esteem, you're confident, everything, right? All of that.

That pain you feel? That's a pain and success. You must be willing to shoulder that pain to get success. The success is something that's a very lonely path in this world. Because few are willing to make that down payment of pain, that futurement of success, that better than life. Very few are. So if you want to be the top, you've got to move different.

There wasn't a lot of smiley faces with me out there. There wasn't a lot of smiley faces with Michael Jordan. There weren't a lot of smiley faces with Kobe Bryant. There weren't a lot of smiley faces with Tiger Woods. Even when I watched sports today and see these guys on the range, like, they're all buddies. And I'm like, that's not the killer instinct. That's just not.

I don't think Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson were trying to be friends with anybody. I think they were going out there on a mission. And if there was someone in their way, they had to crush them. There's never any doubts in my mind because I'm the best in the world. Even though a lot of you don't like to hear it, it's fast. I'm the best. You know what I mean? I sometimes I don't want to believe in myself, but it's the truth.

I'm the best. You can love me. You can hate me. I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to win. At the end of the day, even Alexander, one of his famous quotes is, I have met the enemy. It is I, right? And although that is one element of an enemy, that's great.

We need that. Michael had it. Brady had it. Kobe had it, but there's a crazy psychologically, you can call it, you know, psycho-competitor that they're constantly in the search of recruiting their next enemy. It's like, you know, life is boring if I don't have my next target. You know, I'm almost, you know, bad for myself if I don't have the next target, the next enemy. And if I choose it the right way, then I'm able to bring God aside of me I've never seen before.

Success is the only revenge. As you expand, they shrink into irrelevance. As you get louder, no one can hear them. You don't beat them. You cast a shadow so big, no one can see them to begin with. And that's what, it comes down to like, what are you willing to sacrifice at the end of the day? You know, people don't understand the level of sacrifice is going to take. And there's been moments where I realize that I compete because I want to win.

I love winning. I love being the best in the world. I've sat many times trying to find the balance of what I want within all this. If I was losing, I wouldn't be competing. I'm here to win. It is hard. It's hard when you're young to wake up in the off season at 6 a.m. to go train and work out, knowing that all your friends are sleeping in and eating pancakes.

It's hard when you're on your way to practice, way down with all your gear. And it's 90 degrees out and all the other kids are at the pool or at the beach. No matter who you are, there are bumps and hits and bruises along the way. And my advice is to prepare yourself because success and achievement come from overcoming adversity. When the rest of the world says no to you, you say yes to yourself. You say yes, I believe. You say yes, I can do it. You say yes. Nothing can stop me.

If you want to be a great player, if you play every single day, two, three hours, every single day, or a course of a year, how much better are you getting? Most kids will play maybe, you know, an hour and a half, two days a week. It's not going to get it done. You have to be obsessive. You have to be obsessive. You have to be obsessive. You have to be addicted. You have to be disciplined. The key there is you. Everyone else is looking for other individuals to do stuff for you. Stop looking for fucking help from everybody else. Okay, it starts and it ends with you. Your identity starts and it ends with you. Every day is an opportunity based on your choices on how you look at things.

The choices you make every day. That is what you are in the mirror today. From the captain to the cashier, There is more in you. Stay at home father, stay at home mother, lawyer, doctor, hygienist, author. I don't know who you are, where you're from, but there's more in you. That becomes a part of who you are. That changes how you think.

That changes how you move. That changes how you behave. If you could become an executor, if you can execute, I'm talking about learn it. I'm talking about put it deep within. Not you hear it. You have to realize that there's always work to do. and you want to be the hardest working person and whatever you do

and you'll put yourself in position to be successful. Muhammad Ali said, suffer now and live the rest of your life a champion because he knew that the training wasn't killing him. The training was making him. It was forging him in fire. I got to trust that nothing out there can stop who I am inside.

You've got to stop. You got to stand on your faith. You got to stand on your strength. You got to stand on who you are. I will rise again and I will push. I will be the victorious one. I will conquer. Listen to me, if you work forward, if you will put in that sweat,

that blood and those tears, baby, I'm telling you, you can have what you won't, be what you won't, do what you won't. Are you hear me? Don't give up, don't give in. You hang in there. You hang in there. there because if you quit right now you ain't gonna never see it you ain't gonna never get it but if you hold on baby but if you hold on if you hold on

everything you dreamed of everything you envisioned everything you work for it's coming if you work hard you can't have it it ain't none you can't have you deserve it it ain't none you can't have if you willing to work for it look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself how much more can you take what tried to kill you only made you stronger. So what are you waiting for? You have greatness within you. I was born David Gagons.

David Gaggans wasn't good enough. He was a scared, bullied, abused kid who struggled in life. And that kid, whenever something got tough, you matter how hard I trained, never how ready I was. whenever something got tough for me David Gagins the real David Gagins

would come out and he would quit so I realized this over a period of time so I had to build Gagons and in that process that's where I get better you get to face a lot of shit young man you got a long journey

ahead of you because you're going to find out that while your dad did a lot of shit to you you're going to have to make it on your own because this world we live in it's tough. It's tough. It will beat you down. The world in the life that we live in is the ultimate competitor. The world's tough. It will try to take you out. It will find your weakness and it will just hammer you. So it's time to get back to work. Get back to work. Stop hearing yourself talk. Get off the podcast. Don't be on social media too much.

Cut out all the fucking noise. Get back to the fucking mental lab. because that's where the knowledge came from. It is hard. It's hard when you're young to wake up in the off season at 6 a.m. to go train and work out, knowing that all your friends are sleeping in and eating pancakes. It's hard when you're on your way to practice, way down with all your gear, and it's 90 degrees out, and all the other kids are at the pool or at the beach. It's hard to throw, catch, block, and tackle, and hit kids when they're way bigger.

and way more developed than you, only to go home that night bruised and battered and strained, but no one you have to show up again the next day for just the chance to try again. But understand this, life is hard. No matter who you are, there are bumps and hits and bruises along the way. And my advice is to prepare yourself because football lessons teach us that success in achievement come from overcoming adversity. I remember being downstairs for like the fourth round and that came and gone. And the fifth round, you know, was coming and going and all these other guys were getting picked. And it was hard.

I remember taking a walk with my dad and mom around the block. It was just a tough day, you know. You know, finally when the Patriots called, I was so excited. You know, I was like, I don't have to be an entrant. and salesman, you know. All those experiences that we think are the hardest things in our life end up being the best experiences in our life because if you approach it with humility and you look inward, they become the best opportunities for growth and learning. Because I developed this work ethic in high school and I realize, man, if I want to be good, I got to wake up in the

morning and I got to do the extra work and I got to show up when other guys aren't and I've got to learn. I've got to continue to be open to learning. To be successful at anything, the truth is you don't have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren't. Consistent, determined, and willing to work for it, integrity, purpose, determination, and discipline that it takes to be a champion in life. No shortcuts. It was a tough battle for me. It was a tough go. It was tough. It was in high school. It was really tough in college. If I want to be the best, I got to beat the best. And this is where the best are. I said, I wasn't the prodigy. I learned about work ethic. I learned about resilience. I learned about gaining the trust and the respect of my teammates and

coaches. I learned about how to dig deep within myself a long way from home without a ton of support to still try to find a way to succeed in this situation that I really wanted to be in because it was the best for me anyway. Focus on what you can control. Focus on what you're getting, not what anyone else is getting. Go out there and treat practice like no one else does. And I did that every single day.

I didn't care about going to all these different places and doing those things. I just wanted to be my best. The team believed in me, I didn't want to let them down. What's the choice you get to make every day to wake up and say, all right, this is where I'm going to focus my time and energy.

How discipline are you to maintain that routine over a period of time? And I think that will determine your level of success. Be proud of that man that wakes up every day and does the best that you could do with his priorities. Did you always have an absolute killer instinct where I'm going to show you, I'm going to prove the way to see what I'm going to do. I'm going to kill this guy when we face them. Was it always like that when you were in high school or that kind of developed later on? Yeah, I think it developed over a period of time.

And I think there was a work ethic that was in me. but I was never, I would say, like a prodigy. I didn't have the arm that could throw the ball 80 yards. I didn't have the speed that Michael Vick had. I didn't have the size that a lot of guys had. But I did have something inside of me that no one could see from the outside, this level of discipline that I could accomplish something that was really important and really special.

I wanted to be a great football player. If I was going to be a great football player, I wanted to compete against these other guys. And they were all better than me. Don't worry about all these things are out of your control. Focus on what you can do. Focus on the two reps you got.

Fuck your tired body. Fuck that unmotivated mind and get out there and do it anyway. And the mindset is, me versus me, it's no bullshit. It was all about not making excuses. It was about how do we go and get it done. I was so motivated.

to be the best I could be, that it wasn't, I wasn't motivated to be the starter. I wasn't motivated to win the Super Bowl. I just was motivated to give my best, do the best with the opportunity I got, and to never let my teammates down. Those were my motivations. I think you wake up every day and hopefully you can look at yourself and say, did I give it my best? I wanted to be the best I could be, period.

That's all I wanted. I just think winning Super Bowls was the result of a lot of great process. Like my view is like you can't control the outcome all the time, right? Like the ball's going to bounce the other team's way. Like shouldn't always go your way. So you get motivated by the losses. You stay motivated through the winning. What you can control is your process.

You can control those intangibles. You can control the work ethic, the consistent discipline, your attitude, your culture, how much you care. All those things are in you. They just need to be drawn out of you. And really, when you're in that position that you feel like you've got those pretty well under control, then you start passing those on to the other people that you're working with that are parts of your team.

Because I don't care how good any one of you are sitting out there. It doesn't matter unless you got a great team around you. You know, you could be great. You probably are great. You need a lot of other great people to support you. It takes so many people to get to where we get in our life. Yeah, I was there doing some of the work, but couldn't have done it if I didn't have them. When I was a quarterback, I was just playing quarterback.

Yeah, it was me, the person. But it was me the quarterback that was out there because I was doing a job. I wasn't the father. I wasn't the dad out there. I wasn't, you know, the husband out there. I was the quarterback out there on the field. I was the quarterback when I went to work. Nothing was going to get in the way of that.

You've got to create a lot of different emotion to, to height. your sense of awareness and focus. Like, for me, anger was good. Anger was good because it was motivating. The more I could create an enemy, the more I wanted to go on and kill those guys. Now, I knew I was going to kill them physically. But man, if I could just, what did they say?

You know, and what did they look like? Do they disrespect me at all? Those are little, little things that can get me right in the emotional frame of mind that when I ran on the field And I said, let's fucking go. It was really, let's go kick some ass. That's what we were doing.

This is the moment right now. Let's get to work. The fundamental belief is I'm giving myself to something greater than myself. Something greater than me as an individual. If I look at that journey from where I was as a kid, I had my parents that were in my life to support me every step of the way. I had my junior varsity football coaches, my throwing coach and mentor. I went to Michigan, I had coach Carr challenged me to say,

those who stay will be champions. So I stayed. But don't think that you're going to have a lot of success if all you do is care about yourself. You don't work that hard. No one's that accountable. But in the end, what does culture mean to me? Do we care about each other and do we care about what we're trying to accomplish? Most people just care about themselves.

Well, that's a lot. That's a lot of consistent discipline. It means that you got to do a lot more right than wrong. It means that you got to make a lot more good choices than bad choices. It means you have to be more disciplined than not discipline. Physically, mentally, emotionally, all those little things add up. The man in the glass, that's the one that motivated me. He's the guy I was accountable to. Nothing that anyone did took away from me. The only person that could take away from me is me. everyone believes in the American dream until it comes true. And I remember because what had happened was everybody when I was sleeping on the gym floor, right? Like, you know, I was the underdog. You know, my clients were all like, oh, good for you. You know, you're going after your dream. They'd see my blanket and my pillow in the corner of the gym. And they knew I was sleeping there.

And it was evident. You know, I lived there. And that everybody was like pro me. And then people would come in, they sign up like, I'm going to support you, right? And then within nine months, I had hired people. and I had a manager and I pulled up and I remember I walked in the lobby and all the same the same people were like ah boss man's here oh you're not too good for us now right and I remember being so jarred by the experience and I was like you guys rooted for me and I was like and now I did what

you said you were rooting for me to do and that was when I realized that people want you to do well but not better than them. The reason the goal isn't coming at you fast enough is because every person you've seen accomplished the goal, you only see it the moment they accomplish it. And the reason that it hurts so much when people are like, must be nice, oh, that happened overnight, is because every time you fail, no one cares and no one sees.

But when you finally win, people take notice. Disgraded. But it's the only time they know. notice is when you actually win. And so to even further reinforce the point, the fact that everyone looks like an overnight success means that the 10 years where they sucked, no one saw. And so the fear that you have about people noticing the fact that you fail is ridiculous because they're barely going to notice when you succeed. The difficulty with personal development and entrepreneurship is that you don't know when the end is coming, but you still need to fight in.

And the only certainty that I can give you is that it's the same thing that every other person who got through that period went through. But I think the thing that everyone who's listening lacks is the context on how hard, hard work is, not in that it's complex, but just in that it's a continuous and unending focus on one thing and noticing the details that separate mediocrity from greatness. And if you're like, I don't know what the difference between those two things is. that is the opportunity that hard work reveals. And most people expect that is hard work because that's the hardest they've worked, not the amount of hard work that is required in order to get the level of outcome that they say they want or that they expect. And until you get great, because as soon as you get great at one thing, you realize just the tremendous amount of hours and work that it takes to be great,

at one thing. And then there's this oh shit moment that I can express personally, which is you realize that there's so few things that you can be great at. And then the discipline comes down to saying, what are the two or three things that I can be really good at in my life? Because it will take me five to seven years to be exceptional at this one thing. I am okay being a beacon of relentless hard work. And that's the never-ending cycle of excellence. Oh, I just have to figure out what to do. When I wake up every day, there's only one voice I have to listen to. And so then it's like, just do it for me. Yeah, we need to be reminded more than we need to be taught to all my favorites. There been so many times in my life where I knew I needed to do something and then I filled

all this extra time not doing that thing. And then the moment I did it, I was like, wow, that took way less time than I thought it was going to take. And not only that, it took way less time than it took me to delay to actually get to this point. And if I had only started with just doing what I was supposed to do, I could have done four or five other things that I was also supposed to do by this exact same point. Waking up and then trying to shrink the time between when I wake up and when I start working and shrinking the time between one task and the next task. Like you don't need to take 30 minutes of getting ready to start working. Like you can just start working because as soon as you get into it, you start pulling the thread and you're like, oh, here it is. And all of the time that I was

getting ready to work, I was just using up my best brain power time on things that truly don't move the needle at all. The vast majority of business owners work a fair amount. They just work on the wrong stuff and they do it the wrong way. And so they get so little for their effort that they wonder when they're at home empty handed in bed. Why is in this working when I am working? but if you define work, at least the way I do, which is output. And in order to get output, it's volume times leverage. So how many times you do the thing times, how much you get for each time you do it. And so that is the do you work smart or do you work hard.

It's you do both. You do as many reps as you possibly get. And you do it with the most leverage possible. So if I make 100 phone calls, the leverage that I can have there would be how skilled I am. So if I make 100 calls, I might get 10 times more. And so I worked more. I had more output that somebody has less skill. skill, but the only way you get skilled is by working more.

And so it's this virtuous cycle of doing more and getting better, and then you get more for what you do. I talk about the Rule of 100 on steroids, which is something that I learned from a guy who owned 13 or 14 really successful gyms, and he called it open to goal. And he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He said, my managers work open to goal. And I was like, what does that mean? It's like, so they work open until they hit their goal.

And so sometimes that means they hit their goal by noon and they can cut it. out or that means that they have to go from 5 a.m. until midnight that night because that's how long it took them to hit the goal. And so I've seen this across a lot of high achievers across domain. So like I'll keep shooting free shots until I hit 100 free shots. I will run until this happens. I will practice my presentation until I do zero mess ups, right? Or whatever that that output is that you want for quality or quantity. And the more times you do what is required to, you know, to get what you want, the more times you get what you want. When no one's watching, I work harder than when they're watching.

Thinking about it like that has given me this persistent and ever-present scorecard or third party that's like, no one's watching, which means now you have to work, because otherwise you're full of shit. And so it's this continuous reinforcing cycle of me and other me holding the whip behind me to see how much I can take, but with each lash of the whip that I take, learning that I can take it and continue to trudge on, as long as you keep going, you bear witness to yourself of what you are capable of. And I find that incredibly satisfying in the trenches of misery when you have to go through it.

Hard work is the goal. And so it's not like work hard so that. that X. Because as soon as you have a so that, then the X is the thing. But if the goal is to work as hard as you possibly can, then the only real output we have is who we become along the way. Then it's something that I can win or measure myself against every day in real time throughout the day, which is how hard am I working? Because that is the goal. Because I know that when I look back on my life, the days that I loved the most were days when I had nothing left in the 10. And so then the goal becomes to empty the tank, not where I drive, but just to drive the car as hard as I possibly can.

And that means that in the beginning, it's just straightaways and just seeing how high I can drive the engine. But as it become more advanced, it's like, all right, well, now we've got turns, and then it's turns in elevation, and then it's turns in elevation without guardrails because we have risk. And so when I think about how hard I want to work, the interesting thing about that is that the only person who can judge you on your success is you because you're the only one who knows. how much left in the tank you really had. There's this huge time delay between when we start behaving in a way that a winner behaves and when we start winning. And the problem is that the bigger the mountain you're trying to climb, the bigger the W you're trying to get, typically the more delayed it is between when you start behaving

like a winner and when you start being a winner. And most people don't get the fast enough feedback loop to know. know that they're on the right path when they are taking these first steps in the right direction because they have this really big goal but they forget that with that really big goal comes to even longer delay that it takes to get there those times when you get up early and you work hard those times do 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 um 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. 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. How do you have a love for? If you have to walk, you would go get it. If you have to beg someone, you would 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 have for me and you have for our team. And it pushed me through. It got me through those eight-hundredths and four-hundreds and one-hundredths at 5-30 in the morning. at 5.30 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 4 a.m. We're up here because of 2 a day, or 5 a day. 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 stronger. We were never satisfied, never finished, will 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 and acknowledging my basketball career,

but I'm 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, 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 if you guys can understand that, and I'm doing my job as a father. Thank you guys so much. I love you. If you play with the fear of failing,

you'll have the pressure on yourself to play, you know, to capitulate to that fear. If you play with the sense of I want to win, I want to win, then you have the fear of what happens if you don't. But if you find common ground in the middle, in the center, then it doesn't matter. You're unfazed by either, right? And that enables you to really just stay in the moment, stay connected to it, and not feel anything

other than what's in front of you. So I try to just be dead center. You start with what do you want your game to be, what would make your game most unstoppable or hard to deal with, and now you work backwards from there. And you start building it one piece at a time, one move at a time, one counter, at a time. Who would Shaq be if he had your work ethic? He'd be the greatest of all time. If Shaq had your work? He'd be the greatest of all time by the time. Sure. He'd be the first to tell you that. For sure. I mean, this guy was a force. Like, I have never seen. I mean, it was crazy.

You know, a guy at that size. Generally, guys at that size are a little timid and they don't want to be tall. They don't want to be big. Man, this dude was, he did not care. He did not care. He was mean. He was nasty. He was competitive. He was vindictive. I mean, he was Yeah, I wish he was in a gym. I would have had in 12 rings You had the work yet, but my God, yeah Way and be close. If you're lazy man, I don't want to talk to you. I'm going to deal with you. You don't make me feel dumber You know, you're gonna lower my level. I don't think so. You can go over there There's plenty of teams in here where you'll fit right in

I don't deal with people that don't commit at that level but then act as if they do. I don't deal with that. I don't. It's real shit. I mean, listen. So we used to getting this stuff all the time because it was like, you know, he would say, okay, Kobe's not throwing me the ball. Media would take it and run with it and all this stuff.

And I'm like, well, bro, if you were in shape, by the time I run down on a fast break and run back and then run down, you're still coming down the first time, bro? Like, what the hell do you want me to do? Right? So a lot of our contention came from that, came from that. And even though he was older, you were still confronting him. You didn't kill him. Oh, I didn't care.

Man, listen. From day one, bro. From day one. I knew for sure Rick Fox, my teammates, they all thought I was absolutely crazy the day me and Shaq got in the fist fight. After that day they were like, okay, Kobe, you're certifiable. Fist fight. Oh, yeah. Fist fight.

I'm not backing down. Listen, either you want to work my ass or we want to have a night. But, you know, there's a level of respect. And for Shack, too, by the way. I know he's told me that that day was a big turning point for him because it was like, you know, he's generally used to. talking trash and saying what he wants and nobody really stepping up and challenging him on that. And when he saw me challenge him on that, he was like, this kid's crazy.

All right, I can win with that. You know, and so that's kind of the beginning of our relationship, I think. That's probably never happened to him. That's probably not something that's common to him. No. I mean, it's seven feet off since you're three years old or something, right? There was all. This is all coming back to me right now.

It's also a game in Phoenix. my first year we were playing and he kept posting up but they kept fouling him so he kept going to the free throw line and kept missing him and so he threw the ball out to me I'm not throwing that back in there

so I kept shooting him right so we're getting the time out he's like hey hey uh hey I'm open I'm like okay and so we go out and same thing coming hey hey I'm open okay come back in

hey dude you got throwing me the ball I said, man, fuck that. Get it off the rebound if I miss, bro. You told them this. Your 18 years old, man, 18 years old. I must have been out of my damn mind. The story continues. The story continues.

So if you fail on Monday, the only way it's a failure on Monday is if you decide to not progress from that. Right. So to me, that's why failure is not existing. Because, you know, if I fail today, okay, I'm gonna learn something from that failure and I'm gonna try again on Tuesday. 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's the dream. It's not the destination, it's the journey.

Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. Like, success is getting what you want. Fulfillment is living what you're made for. Fulfillment and success, they're not even the same universe. People ask me all the time, what does it take to be happy? And I always tell them it's really simple. One word, progress. Progress equals happiness.

If you keep growing, you're going to feel alive. And if you keep growing, you're going to have more to give. It doesn't matter how many statues, Oscars they give you or Emmys, or how much money you have in the bank. We've all seen people have all those things and I get the phone call because they're depressed or somebody commits suicide in that area. It's really an inner game and I think that's what's missing for us today. Everybody's focusing on the outside world and hell there's a lot of things the outside world you'll never be able to control.

You can't control it. This, your mind, your emotions, your body, you have 100% control over what you do with these things and that's where the game is won. When the inner game, then you win the outer game. But a lot of people spent their life trying to win the outer game, they won and they're miserable. Someone can tell your whole life you're a piece of crap, but you can say screw you, read between the lines and make your life work. Someone tell your whole life you're beautiful, you're intelligent, you're the smartest person in the world and you don't believe it.

Because self-esteem doesn't come from what people say about you. Self-esteem is earned within yourself. It's esteem for yourself which only comes by doing things that are incredibly difficult and then your brain goes, this is who I am. You really got to figure out what you're made for and nobody knows in the beginning. So you start where you are and you do what's in front of you, do what's next, then you keep growing until you start to discover, hey, this is my real passion. So identity is the number one thing I work to change with people, to expand it.

Expand your own sense of who you really are and what you're capable of. And the mindset has to be destroy any limitation and move forward, move forward, move forward. I think passion is the genesis of genius. If you've got enough passion, you're going to find answers nobody else does. People run out of fuel, meaning they get tired, they get exhausted, they get burnt out, they get you know the law of familiarity, they around something so much they take it a little bit for granted. And I've managed to see something in myself that I found in every great leader that I've ever respected and that is I value intelligence immensely, but I know really smart people can't fight their way out of a paper bag pragmatically, right? What I see is the one common denominator of people that are successful over a lifetime is that the sustained hunger. Hunger is the number one factor. You need to be good at pattern recognition,

and that's what gets somebody strong at anything. I mean, look at, you know, why is Amazon doing so well? He realized one pattern was valued over anything else, convenience, right? If you look at Tom Brady, a friend of mine, he's got pattern recognition like nobody else at 43 years old. He's able to do things no one dream could be done. He's got more Super Bowl rings than any team. See, what do they see that none of us see? What's the pattern? Then you've got learned pattern utilization. It's one thing to see it.

It's nothing to use it. And then if you're good after a while, you get to pattern creation. It's like if you learn to play the piano, most people play other people's music. And there's a point you've learned so much that you're able to create. It really comes down to anyone can learn anything if it's important enough to you. So it's like my drive is not just for me. That wouldn't be enough because it's easy to meet your own needs.

It's not that difficult. But if you can find something, that you care about more than yourself, your daughter, your son, your family, your business, your mission, your community, whatever it is. That's really the secret to energy and vitality and strength and really learning. One of the things I want to do with people during this challenge is take things that seem so complex and make them so simple so you do it. Get it really simple, things you do right now to change your life.

You can go to experience it that day, and then you get momentum. Day one, day two, day three, day four. And all of a sudden, now what used to be hard to do is easy. to do. And I think for anyone, you got to understand anyone can learn anything if you can just break it down to its simple core. And that's what I try to do most. And I'm just not willing to settle for a life without passion and aliveness. That's just like there's so much to learn. There's so much to grow. There's so much to give. And I'm wired to grow and give. And I think anybody gets wired to grow and give is going to have a really fulfilling life. It doesn't matter what you choose to do. You're going to be alive. A year ago, people thought we were, you're going to be alive. A year ago, people thought we were, you're going to be. coming out of, you know, we've got vaccines now, and we're coming out of COVID, and it's going to be all over now. People are all cited. But now, after going through two years of this, there's a lot of people now that no longer have a compelling future. Like, you know, people talking about New Year's resolutions, most people don't even have one. Because it's like, they never followed through anyway, right? But at least they had something to look forward to.

They're starting to get into learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is when something is so bad over and over again, you start thinking the problem's permanent. No problem is permanent. Or you start thinking the problem's pervasive because I haven't handled my finances, my whole world's over, or because my relationship's bad, my whole world's over. Your life is bigger than that. My goal right now is to shake that up for people.

People need a new perspective, and you can't do it by just sitting and thinking. You've got to move your body. You've got to change your energy and your focus. But if I get you into a higher state of being, mentally, emotionally, physically, then all of a sudden you start remembering who you are and you start coming up with answers

that you never even thought were possible. The idea of remembering who you are is something incredibly powerful. There was a Batman cartoon where he gets amnesia and he gets put in like a camp basically, a work camp and he can't get out. And he feels stuck and weak and, you know, afraid. And then something happens, I don't remember what triggers his memory. And he remembers that he's Batman. Just in remembering that he's Batman,

He then takes the actions to fight his way out and look, I know it's a cartoon, but that has always resonated with me. And whenever I'm feeling anxious about something, I always tell myself, remember who you are. But you're really talking about the most important concept and lasting change, identity. We all define ourselves in certain ways. So you start where you are and you do what's in front of you, do what's next. Then you keep growing until you start to discover, hey, this is my real passion. And it can change. People go for five, six, seven years, and then they usually question their business, their career, their body, their relationships. And then one of two things happens. They change direction and feel renewed. Or they go, no, I got a great deal here. What the hell is wrong with me? And they recommit and they get stronger. But that's life. And if you don't grow, I don't get damn how much you got going for you're going to be miserable.

I think as early on I realized that, you know, one of the things you have to understand about life is everything changes and everything ends. And that kind of sounds heavy on the front end, but it's a truth. If everything changes and everything ends, number one, it should make you appreciate what you have right now. And then my view is what's next is always better. If I make it so, it's my job to make it so. And I think that's how we have to navigate. But most of us, most of us have been conditioned not to,

to take a risk. People ask me all the time, what does it take to be happy? And I always tell them it's really simple. One word, progress.