The Mamba Mentality: How I Play

by Kobe Bryant

One of the qualities that has made Kobe so successful, and always will, is his attention to detail. He always used to tell us: if you want to be a better player, you have to prepare, prepare, and prepare some more.

Kobe knew that to be the best you need a different approach from everyone else.

When everyone else was thinking it was time for bed, his mind was telling him it’s time to get ahead of the competition.

And leadership is a tough thing to master, especially when you know a championship is beyond the reach of your personnel.

What I mean by that is: if I wanted to implement something new into my game, I’d see it and try incorporating it immediately. I wasn’t scared of missing, looking bad, or being embarrassed. That’s because I always kept the end result, the long game, in my mind. I always focused on the fact that I had to try something to get it, and once I got it, I’d have another tool in my arsenal. If the price was a lot of work and a few missed shots, I was OK with that.

At the same time, starting early helped me balance basketball and life. When my kids woke up in the morning I was there, and they wouldn’t even know I had just finished at the gym. At night, I’d be able to put them to bed, then go work out again during my own time, not theirs.

I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my game, but I also wasn’t willing to sacrifice my family time. So I decided to sacrifice sleep, and that was that.

The key, though, is being aware of how you’re feeling and how you need to be feeling. It all starts with awareness.

If you really want to be great at something, you have to truly care about it. If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it. A lot of people say they want to be great, but they’re not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness. They have other concerns, whether important or not, and they spread themselves out. That’s totally fine. After all, greatness is not for everybody.

The message was that if you want to win championships, you have to let people focus on what they do best while you focus on what you do best.

To learn what would work and for who, I started doing homework and watched how they behaved. I learned their histories and listened to what their goals were. I learned what made them feel secure and where their greatest doubts lay. Once I understood them, I could help bring the best out of them by touching the right nerve at the right time.

The mindset isn’t about seeking a result—it’s more about the process of getting to that result. It’s about the journey and the approach. It’s a way of life. I do think that it’s important, in all endeavors, to have that mentality.

I hated the feeling of being uncomfortable.

Over the course of 20 seasons, I suffered my fair share of serious injuries. The first thing I always thought about in those situations was, “What do I need to do to get back to 100 percent?”