Zero Points: How LOSING Created Kobe Bryant (Why Losing Can Be A GOOD Thing)

Read this, this story, this, this article from Kobe from the Players Tribune. It's from December 15, 2014. It's called Zero. You guys might have heard this story before, but I thought this was really well written and it, it kind of goes with the exact point I'm trying to make right here. On Sunday night, Kobe Bryant passed Michael Jordan on the NBA's all time scoring list, moving into third place behind Karl Malone and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. After the game, Kobe sat down and wrote down his thoughts on the historic moment for the players tribute. And this is where it starts. Zero. That's the number of points I scored the entire summer while playing in the Philadelphia Sunny Hill Futures League when I was 12 years old. I didn't score. Not a free throw, not an accidental layup, not even a lucky throw the ball up. Oops. It went in the basket. My father, Joe Jellybean Pryant and my uncle John Chubby Cox were future league legends in their day. My father has a 610 point forward and my uncle has a 64 point guard. I was putting my family to shame. I considered maybe just giving up basketball and just focusing on soccer. Here's where my respect and admiration for MJ was forged. I learned that he had been cut from his high school team as a freshman. I learned he had no he. I learned he knew what it felt like to be embarrassed, to feel like a failure. But he used those emotions to fuel him, make him stronger. He didn't quit. So I decided to take on my challenge the same way he did. I would channel my failure as fuel to keep my competitive fire burning. I became obsessed with proving myself to my family and more importantly to myself that I can do this. It became an obsession. I learned everything about the game. The history, the players, the fundamentals. I wasn't just determined to never have a summer of zero again. I was driven to inflict the same sense of failure on my competition as they unknowingly inflicted on me. My killer instinct to score was born. 24 years later. I passed my muse. What a journey this has been. Setting this mark is a huge honor. I I'm aware of father times curfew. He has sent me to my room to brush my teeth before he tucks me in. But I wouldn't be me if I didn't walk to the bathroom slowly. I wouldn't be me if I didn't act as someone miss as if someone misplaced the toothpaste. I wouldn't be me if I didn't brush every tooth twice. Brush My tongue three times, floss until my gums bleed, and rinse with mouthwash until the inside of my mouth burns and then goes numb. I would not be the kid that bounced back after zero, and I would not be honoring the man that inspired me to challenge everything. Thank you all for your love and support. It is much appreciated, even if the villain in me refuses to acknowledge it all the time. Much love. Mamba out. We get a really great look inside. A turning point in Kobe Bryant's career as a basketball player. So he goes back to 12 years old, playing in, you know, one of the most legendary summer leagues in the country, where, you know, he's expected to go in like his father's a legend in the league, his uncle's a legend. Both those guys went on to be professional players. And all of a sudden, you know, Kobe comes in there and scores zero points in an entire summer. And there we find the value of competition, okay? Because we recognize that obviously, if Kobe scored zero points that summer, it was probably a pretty competitive league. He's playing as other really, really good players because of that. He's in a position where he has a pretty bad, to say the least, experience in that summer league. But the thing that you understand is that although obviously it's not ideal to score zero points, what he gained from that summer changed the rest of his life. Because, as he said, you know, I'll read it back. It became an obsession. I learned everything about the game. The history, the players, the fundamentals. I wasn't just determined to never have a summer of zero again. I was driven to inflict the same sense of failure on my competition as they unknowingly inflicted on me. My killer instinct score was born. So let's say Kobe looks at that league, okay, and he says, you know what? I think I'm not going to play. You know, these guys are really good. Maybe in a couple more years when I'm. When I'm better, maybe I'll do it then. Kobe doesn't have that experience of scoring 0 points in the summer. Is his drive to be as good as he was? Does he? Does. Is that. Is that the same anymore? Does he still have that drive to be as good as he became because he has to wake up, look in the mirror, and say, hey, I was zero points. How am I going to make sure that doesn't happen to me again? How am I going to make sure that. Take it a step further. I now. And the guy who's holding other players to zero points because he had that bad experience where he lost, the competitor in him was born. Okay, so the first thing you guys understand is that a lot of players are going to try and shy away from situations where, you know, they know that they're going to lose. They know that there's going to be other players who are better than them there, and they think that that's because, oh, well, what's the point of going if I can't compete, if I can't win? It's this story right here where Kobe goes to the summer league, gets held to zero points, and because of that, it fuels the fire in him. It gives him that drive to become the player that he became. And he wouldn't have had that had he not been willing to go out and compete and score zero points in a summer.