Kobe Bryant is known to be one of the greatest basketball players of all time, He won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, The 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP.
Although I don’t quite follow him or even play basketball for that matter, I stumbled upon the greatness of Kobe Bryant in one of his motivation videos from YouTube.
I was really motivated when he shared his effort and sacrifices on being the best basketball player of all time. For some reason, I can really feel and relate on what he shared, it brings me back to the time when I was very ambitious on doing competitions.
He shared that he trains very hard and very diligently, he wakes up early every day in the morning to train, he sacrifices on going out with his friends, and many other things!
In short, he really did all his best to be the best basketball player!
He also shared about one unique thing about him, that is The Mamba Mentality.
While only the true legend himself can really describe The Mamba Mentality, in this post I would like to share a little bit about my findings on his Mamba Mentality.
Based on his book The Mamba Mentality: How I Play he shared that there are 5 Pillars of The Mamba Mentality, that is:
- Be Passionate
- Be Obsessive
- Be Relentless
- Be Resilient
- Be Fearless
Let’s look into each of those pillars, one by one!
“Just watching Kobe Bryant, you could see his passion for the game”
— Larry Nance Jr
Basketball was Kobe’s life, and he didn’t feel good about himself if he wasn’t giving it everything he had to be the greatest Kobe he could be.
“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.”
— Kobe Bryant
By being passionate, it can take you to the greatest level and give you the drives on putting all the work that you can!
Kobe was very obsessive with winning basketball game, he always tries to work harder than everybody else in the game to become the best.
“People just don’t understand how obsessed I am with winning.”
— Kobe Bryant
By being obsessive, it can take us a step further in the game, and can make up the energy to wake up earlier, work harder, and aim for the best!
Kobe was a very relentless person, he shows his strength in many sacrifices that he made.
“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.”
— Kobe Bryant
By being relentless, we won’t try hesitating even a bit to sacrifice on many things in order to get the things we want!
Kobe has his share of criticism regarding his basketball career, either it’s from players, coaches, journalists, and fans alike. But he had a strong resilience that not only withstand criticism, but also expands to being able to prove the doubters wrong.
“Everything negative; pressure, challenges, is an opportunity for me to rise”
— Kobe Bryant
By being resilient, we can eliminate all the worries and take all the challenges in making us better!
“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.”
— Kobe Bryant
By being fearless, it puts your mindset into thinking that failing and being down upon is a totally fine thing!
From his Mamba Mentality, we can learn to apply the 5 Pillars of The Mamba Mentality.
Kobe also shared his summarize on what The Mamba Mentality is,
“To sum up what Mamba Mentality is, it means to be able to constantly try to be the best version of yourself. That is what the Mentality is. It’s a constant quest to try to better today than you were yesterday.”
— Kobe Bryant
I hope we all can learn from his Mamba Mentality, and try to apply it to our own life so we could become the best version of ourselves!
