What It Takes To Be Great: Kobe Bryant

Have you ever wondered what it takes to be absolutely great at something? Well, this week Kobe Bryant offered a masterclass, the six steps to have the greatness mindset that he has now. If you don't know what happened earlier this week, an NBA player named Gordon Hayward was in a horrific injury six minutes into the very first game of the season. And it was one of those injuries where his leg was going this way and his ankle was going this way. He's out for the entire season now. You don't have to know anything about basketball for this to mean something to you. Because back in 2013, Kobe Bryant had a third degree tear in his Achilles tendon and had to go through months and months of terrible recovery in order to get back to playing basketball. And for some, those types of injuries could be season ending, they could be career ending, and they could be life changing. Some athletes never recover from an injury like that, but some athletes come back better than they ever were. And so you might ask yourself, why is that? And I'm going to take you through the process. But first I'm going to read you the post that he had to Gordon Hayward.

He says, be sad, be mad, be frustrated, Scream, cry, sulk. When you wake up, you will think that it was just a nightmare, only to realize that it's all too real. You will be angry and wish for that day back the game, back that playback. But reality gives you nothing back, nor should you. Time to move on and focus on doing everything in your power to prepare for surgery. Ask all the questions to be sure that you understand fully the procedure so that you may visualize it in your subconscious while being operated on and better the chance of its success. Then focus on the recovery process day by day by day. It's a long journey, but if you focus on the many milestones along the way, you will find beauty and the struggle of doing the simple things prior to this injury that were taken for granted. This will also mean that when you return, you will have a new perspective. You will be so appreciative of being able to stand, walk and run that you will train harder than you ever have. You will see the belief within you grow with each mini milestone and you will come back a better player for it. Best of luck to you on this journey, my brother.

So there's six parts in this post that I want to talk about. Number one, be human. Be sad, be mad.

Be pissed off.

Cry and sulk. Allow yourself to feel the human emotions that you need to. Because all too often something will happen and we try to forget about it. And we don't allow ourselves to actually experience the emotions that we should as human. So the first thing he says is, be human. Allow yourself to feel those emotions. The second thing that he says is it's time to move on. He says, you'll want that playback. You want that day back, that game back. But you can never get it back. You can never change the past. So after something happens and you allow yourself to feel the emotions, get over it. Because you can't change the past. The only thing that you can change is this present moment. And by changing your attitude and your work ethic in this present moment, it will then change your future and make your future better. Number three, he says to visualize what you want. He says, be sure to fully understand the surgery. So that you can visualize it in your subconscious, which gives you a better chance of actually having success throughout the surgery. And this is a big one, because most people don't think about visualization in their process to success. But there's two things that you need to know about visualization and why it's important. The first reason why is because it actually makes it very clear to you. When you visualize every day what it is that you want. But it also makes it very clear the path to get there, to achieve what you want. So that's the first thing about visualization. The second part about visualization is it.

Actually makes you to want.