What a wild day. For anyone over the age of 30 or so they know that Kobe Bryant was probably one of the most followed sports stars with a cult following: Lebron, Jordan and maybe Curry for a moment in time really compared. Even though there are super stars still in the league, Kobe was a worldwide spectacle and people in Asia, Europe etc. all knew who he was. It takes a lot to be shocked and for the first time since the presidential election people are shook.
Lives Are Not Equal: If you’re looking for clear proof that lives are not equal you can look at the reactions today. Despite over 2,000 people infected and 56 dying from a new virus, the entire world is focused on one man and his family. That is the definition of influence if we’ve ever seen it.
This is a general theme we’ve had here for years. A single ultra successful person generates more value than a larger number of unsuccessful people. Yes we realize that doesn’t “read nice” but it’s also true. If you reach a point of influence your choices/mannerisms impact the world a lot more. The average person does not have a ripple effect on the world and a super-star in any industry (even sports in this case) can cause a small ripple to occur. Your life-long objective is to become successful enough to have at least a small ripple on the world when you’re gone
Human Behavior Won’t Change: Unfortunately, we doubt this changes human behavior as most won’t learn from it. Instead they will lash out at people who say anything remotely wrong about him. The real lesson should be immense respect for life itself. You can become a billionaire (Steve Jobs was an example) and die within the next few years. If you’re wasting your time trying to tear other people down, you’ve spent a large amount of time wasting your own life (which could be cut off tomorrow).
Human behavior is sadly predictable despite the answers being firmly placed in front of everyone. If you focus on yourself and improving your life (and anyone around you), you’ll exceed your expectations. This is simply how it works. Put tons of effort in focused on improving yourself.
Some Simple Lessons: While the chances of a reader being a 6’6” athletic individual with a near 40” vertical leap is next to none, a lot of his mannerisms can be mimicked. As many of you know we bet quite a bit on basketball and boxing as they are the two sports we follow close enough to be educated on the topic. When you look at Kobe’s life he actually spent insane amounts of hours in the gym and working out. You didn’t see him mentioned in parties or benders like you have seen with other NBA stars. Quite similar to Lebron James in that manner, didn’t show up drunk to games like a Charles Barkley or JR Smith.
The main lesson you can take from someone with genetics completely unrelated to you? Find what you’re good at and become obsessed with it. That’s the real conclusion here. No one cares about people who are mediocre and no one cares about people who are lazy. You can be talented and lazy and you’ll be absolutely curb stomped by people who are talented and grinding every day. Kobe Bryant was simply the latter. Videos would surface of him running up sand dunes and taking hundreds of shots before and after practice… This doesn’t’ even include their maintenance regimens to stay in tip top shape. Playing through broken fingers and other injuries were the norm when it was an important game.
If you are talented in something and have the slightest chance at making it big, you should stop everything and focus on that talent. This is not negotiable as the difference between being number 1 and number 10 is miniscule and changes your life by a wide margin.
Another important lesson here is that you’re going to have a ton of haters on the way. Even though we are focused on Kobe here we can’t help but think about the 2019 NBA finals when people quite literally cheered when Kevin Durant ruptured his Achilles. That was one of the grossest displays we’ve ever seen (from a sports event) and here we are in 2020 and suddenly Kobe’s haters have nothing to say. It seems that people have some sort of interest in seeing people suffer and only go quiet when the person dies. Pretty sad state of affairs in the USA, but it’s how it works now. Remember that all of your haters (while certainly smaller compared to Kobe), have horrible lives and will unlikely ever make it in life anyway. Best to ignore.
Health is by far the most important asset you have. Another interesting thing about Kobe is he never seemed to “let himself go” and was in shape despite retiring a few years ago. The vast majority of sports stars end up gaining tons of weight a losing their physique. He wasn’t in this camp and had (what appeared to be) great respect for health. You definitely cannot do much about a helicopter crash.
Some Quick Final Thoughts: There is no way anyone could have predicted this so we’re keeping the post short. It is big enough for us to write on since we’ve followed the sport for quite some time. Kobe Bryant unlike a lot of pro athletes actually reached his potential (our opinion). Arguing about the best players of all time is less relevant and the more important item is that he didn’t “squander” his talent like a lot of other professional athletes (overweight NBA stars or stories similar to Shawn Kemp… Many are probably too young to know who he was). Don’t squander your talent, work as hard as you can on something you can become great at and remember that everything can be taken away from you tomorrow. Don’t spend a single second worried about what other people think (vast majority are hoping you’ll fail) and stay focused on your present and future.
