THE HARD WAY IS THE RIGHT WAY

Anyone who truly knows me knows I’m a sports fan, but I love the Laker’s more than anything else in sports. I loved basketball though my greaters abilities were in football. My wife would say I always choose the difficult way. I’d say I wasn’t wise enough to know better. Anyway, it’s only fitting I start this blog with a post about one of the two elements of Angela Lee Duckworth defines as Grit, perseverance, as presented by the person I call the gift and the curse, Kobe Bryant. He accomplished more in basketball than all but a few, but he seemed so content later in his career because he sought the fulfillment of developing young basketball players into men, coaching his daughter and spending time with family.

Kobe always took the difficult route. And I admire him because he relished the work of getting better. He understood that the accomplishment vs fulfillment, and that accomplishment doesn’t mean more than the fulfillment of impact.

1. In his speech after his final game with the Lakers Kobe Bryant said, “I’m more proud of the fact that…not about the championships, but about the down years because, we didn’t run. We played through all that stuff and, we got our championships and, we did it the right way.” He’s one of the greatest players of all time, and he has the most missed shots in NBA history. In other words, he was courageous.
2. “My brain cannot process failure. It will not process failure. Because if I sit there and have to face myself and tell myself, You’re a failure, I think that’s almost worse than death.”
3. “Everybody has an opinion on who’s the best, everybody has different opinions. I started to realized maybe that’s not the important thing. Maybe the important thing is how do we as a team grow? How do I help my teammates get better? As I got older still, it became more about how are you inspiring others to find themselves?” Goal setting inspired Kobe’s perseverance.
4. “You go for it, you do all you can, you continue to try, you continue to improve, you continue to evolve…I learn leadership lessons just from walking in the park and, just observing nature, and the sun’s relationship with nature, and the relationship with the moon and, the sun understanding when to be present and when to go away. As a teammate, if the sun’s out all day long , you’re going to sunburn a hell of a lot of people. So if I’m playing this game and, I’m on top of my guys for 48 minutes, dude, you’re gonna sunburn every teammate there. So there are times for the sun to be present and, there are times for it to go away.”
5. “I came back from the achilles and, I was fine. And then the next year, I fractured my knee. It’s like, uggg, here we go again. I come back from that, next year I tear my shoulder…here we go again. But, If I looked at those things in totality it’d be depressing. But if I look at it as just the facts, then it happened. Nothing you can do about it. It happened. Now what are you gonna do? …Whatever moments occur, good, bad, or indifferent, I can use those moments to propel me forward. I can use them as fuel to help me be a better player.”
6. “Attention to detail for the action you’re performing at the time you’re performing it.”
7. “Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.”
8. “It’s not about the number of hours you practice. It’s about the number of hours your mind is present during the practice.”

PERSEVERANCE PREVAILS WHEN PASSION FAILS

When you’d rather be doing something other than the present task, it’s perseverance that allows you to be mentally present. Drives you when passion won’t.