Kobe Bryant Quotes

Everyting negative - pressure, challenges - is all an opportunity for me to rise.

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.

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.

I have self-doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I'm like, 'My back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don't have it. I just want to chill.' We all have self-doubt. You don't deny it, but you also don't capitulate to it. You embrace it.

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.

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.

You have to work hard in the dark to shine in the light

you can manipulate an opponent’s strength and use it against them.

Heroes come and go, but legends are forever.

Those times when you get up early and you work hard; those times when you stay up late and you work hard; those times when you don’t feel like working, you’re too tired, you don’t want to push yourself, but you do it anyway; that is actually the dream. That’s the dream. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.

The only aspect that can’t change, though, is that obsession.

Good coaches tell you where the fish are, great coaches teach you how to find them.

If you want to be a better player, you have to prepare, prepare, and prepare some more.

Rest at the end, not in the middle

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

Some people, after all, enjoy looking at a watch; others are happier figuring out how the watch works.

One of the main takeaways was that you have to work hard in the dark to shine in the light. Meaning: It takes a lot of work to be successful, and people will celebrate that success, will celebrate that flash and

A lot of people say they want to be great, but they’re not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness.

There isn’t a move that’s a new move.” The basketball star Kobe Bryant has admitted that all of his moves on the court were stolen from watching tapes of his heroes. But initially, when Bryant stole a lot of those moves, he realized he couldn’t completely pull them off because he didn’t have the same body type as the guys he was thieving from. He had to adapt the moves to make them his own.

From the beginning, I wanted to be the best. I had a constant craving, a yearning, to improve and be the best. I never needed any external forces to motivate me.

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.

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

What separates great players from all-time great players is their ability to self-assess, diagnose weaknesses, and turn those flaws into strengths.

May you always remember to enjoy the road, especially when it’s a hard one.

After all, greatness is not for everybody

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

Good coaches, however, teach you how to think and arm you with the fundamental tools necessary to execute properly.

My parents are my backbone. Still are. They're the only group that will support you if you score zero or you score 40.”  – Kobe Bryant

I never felt outside pressure. I knew what I wanted to accomplish, and I knew how much work it took to achieve those goals. I then put in the work and trusted in it. Besides, the expectations I placed on myself were higher than what anyone expected from me.

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. For him, that was rebounding, running the floor, and blocking shots.

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.

One of the main takeaways was that you have to work hard in the dark to shine in the light. Meaning:

No, I’m just being real. Women don’t leave rich, powerful men. Even when the whole world knows about their man’s sexual indiscretions, they stay. Hillary didn’t leave Bill. Camille is standing by Cosby and Kobe Bryant appeased his wife with a four million dollar diamond ring. I don’t care how smart the woman is or whether she has her own money. The majority of women don’t leave.

Have a good time. Life is too short to get bogged down and be discouraged. You have to keep moving. You have to keep going. Put one foot in front of the other, smile and just keep on rolling.

You have to dance beautifully in the box that you're comfortable dancing in. My box was to be extremely ambitious within the sport of basketball. Your box is different than mine. Everybody has their own. It's your job to try to perfect it and make it as beautiful of a canvas as you can make it. And if you have done that, then you have lived a successful life. You have lived with Mamba Mentality.

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.

If you're afraid to fail, then you're probably going to fail. Pain doesn't telle you when you ought to stop. Pain is the little voice in your head that tries to hold you back beacuse it knows if you continue you will change" -

The only way I was able to pick up details on the court, to be aware of the minutiae on the hardwood, was by training my mind to do that off the court and focusing on every detail in my daily life. By reading, by paying attention in class and in practice, by working, I strengthened my focus. By doing all of that, I strengthened my ability to be present and not have a wandering mind.

Simply put, good coaches make sure you know how to use both hands, how to make proper reads, how to understand the game. Good coaches tell you where the fish are, great coaches teach you how to find them. That’s the same at every level.

Summer #28: 2020 What are we talking about in 2020? Kobe Bryant, Covid-19, social distancing, Zoom, TikTok, Navarro cheerleading, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, and… The presidential election. A country divided. Opinions on both sides. It’s everywhere: on the news, on the late-night shows, in the papers, online, online, online,

I think the definition of greatness is to inspire the people next to you.

The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great at whatever they want to do.

Walk until the darkness is a memory and you become the sun on the next traveler's horizon.

Everything negative — pressure, challenges — is all an opportunity for me to rise.” ~ Kobe Bryant

The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think it’s accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.

Kobe beef is not named after Kobe Bryant. Do not make this mistake.

The hullabaloo passed, but days later an even bigger bombshell hit the Staples Center: Kobe Bryant was engaged. To be married. To another person. With a pulse. Really.

To do that, despite the injury, I had to maintain control and dictate where I was going to go with the ball and how I was going to play. I had to, even on one ankle, keep the advantage in my court and never let the defense force me to do something I didn’t want to do. That was the key here, and that’s the key always.

As a kid, I would work tirelessly on adding elements to my game. I would see something I liked in person or on film, go practice it immediately, practice it more the next day, and then go out and use it. By the time I reached the league, I had a short learning curve. I could see something, download it, and have it down pat.

Happiness is such a beautiful journey. It has its ups and downs, whether it’s in marriage or whether it’s in a career. Things are never perfect, but through love, you continue to persevere, and you move through them, you move through them. And then through that storm, a beautiful sun emerges, and inevitably, another storm comes. And guess what? You ride that one out too. So, I think love is a sort of determination, a persistence to go through the good times and the bad times with someone or something you truly love.

You think Kobe Bryant just said all of a sudden, “Man I’m just really, really in shape, and now I can score 30 points a night without getting tired”? No way. You get that way by never quitting, by pushing through precisely when you are tired. That’s the irony of this game: You become capable of the grind by surviving the grind.

Somebody says I can't do something, and I want to go out and do it on purpose and do it in an unbelievable way.

My mind can handle the grind, but my body knows it’s time to say goodbye,

WHEN YOU LOVE MAKE EVERY MOMENT AN EXPERIENCE THE HEART CAN HOLD ONTO.

You have to enter every activity, every single time, with a want and need to do it to the best of your ability.

I see a lot of myself in him. No doubt about it.” —NBA legend Michael Jordan

I, Kobe Bryant, have decided to skip college and take my talent to the NBA. I knew that I was not going to be stopped. So at the age of eighteen, this was my life. Right? So, you can't possibly become better than me because you're not spending the time on it that I do. Even if you wanna spend the time on it, you can't because you have other things. You have other responsibilities that are taking you away from it. So, I already won.

If you're afraid to fail, then you're probably going to fail. Pain doesn't tell you when you ought to stop. Pain is the little voice in your head that tries to hold you back because it knows if you continue you will change.

I have ‘like minds.’ You know, I’ve been fortunate to play in Los Angeles, where there are a lot of people like me. Actors. Musicians. Businessmen. Obsessives. People who feel like God put them on earth to do whatever it is that they do. Now, do we have time to build great relationships? Do we have time to build great friendships? No. Do we have time to socialize and to hang out aimlessly? No. Do we want to do that? No. We want to work. I enjoy working.

Obsess to find ways to win. Work ethic separates the great from the good." "Be so focused on your own ambitions that no one can distract you from achieving them." "Have a maniacal work ethic. You want to overprepare so that luck becomes a product of design." "Stay hungry. Dominate each day with ambition unknown to humankind." "Goals motivate you. Bad habits corrode you." "Operate with love. It fuels the desire to become great." "Be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Growth comes at the end of discomfort." "Don't wait for opportunity. Create it. Seize it. Shape it." "Learn every aspect of your craft and substance will follow." "Find your killer instinct. Impose your will. But also realize you are part of a team.

Happiness is such a beautiful journey. It has its ups and downs, whether it’s in marriage or whether it’s in a career. Things are never perfect, but through love, you continue to persevere, and you move through them. And then through that storm, a beautiful sun emerges, and inevitably, another storm comes. And guess what? You ride that one out too. So, I think love is a sort of determination, a persistence to go through the good times and the bad times with someone or something you truly love

the time Bryant moved into the NBA, in the 1996 draft, he was chosen as a Guard with the Lakers. After two years of strong performances, he was listed in the 1988 All-Star Game, and became the youngest player to be included in the All-Star team at the tender age of just 19. This

Every team needs either a confrontational star player or coach. In San Antonio, Gregg Popovich was that guy and Tim Duncan was not. In Golden State, Draymond Green is the confrontational one; Steve Kerr is not. For us, Phil was not that type of person, so I provided that force. You always have to have that balance and counterbalance, and Phil and I were perfectly suited for each other in that way.

And a fan. The beauty I see in the arc of a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar skyhook or a Kobe Bryant pull-up jumper with the game on the line. Twenty thousand people in the arena all hoping and praying for the same thing to happen like a giant group meditation, the expansion of time when the lightning-fast sprinting slows down into an infinite second. Like a Jimi Hendrix solo or a realized moment by a hundred-year hermetic Himalayan cave monk, all is in the now as electric happiness surges. With all this evil in our world, the cruel violence and prejudices we bring, I can always count on basketball to lift me up. Nothing more reliable on earth than a box score. The personal travails of my tattered heart rise and fall, but the poetry of movement on the hardwood has never failed me, even in the worst of times.

Why do you think I’m the best player in the world? Because I never ever get bored with the basics.

I, Kobe Bryant, have decided to skip college and take my talent to the NBA. I knew that I was not going to be stopped. So at the age of eighteen, this was my life. Right? So, you can't possibly become better than me because you're not spending the time on it that I do. Even if you wanna spend the time on it, you can't because you have other things. You have other responsibilities that are taking you away from it. So, I already won.

When you make a choice and say, "Come hell or high water, I'm going to be this," then you should not be surprised when you are that. You should not be something that's... that feels intoxicating or out-of-character because you had seen this moment for so long. That played in your mind for so long that when that moment comes, it's like, "Of course it's here," because it's been here the whole time because it's been up here the whole time. That's what it feels like, at least for me.

Roland Lazenby in his Bryant biography: “In the third quarter

PRESIÓN Nunca sentí presión externa. Yo sabía lo que quería conseguir y el gran trabajo que tenía que hacer para lograr estas metas. Así que hacía el trabajo y confiaba en él. Además, las expectativas que yo tenía de mí mismo eran mayores que las de todos los demás.

YO IBA A DOMINAR No importaba a quién me enfrentara. Esa era la mentalidad con la que iba a todos los partidos.

No matter what happens, the storm eventually ends and when the storm does end, you want to make sure you’re ready.

El dolor en un área de tu cuerpo a menudo proviene de un desequilibrio en otra parte. Con eso en mente, es importante tratar la causa y no el efecto.

Rest @ the end, not in the middLe.

I never wanted to experience the still-familiar feeling of defeat again.

Fear of Failure: The great basketball player Kobe Bryant once said, “If you fail on Monday, the only way it’s a failure is if you decide to not progress from that. To me, that’s why failure does not exist. If I fail today, I’m going to learn something from that failure. I’m going to try again.

Coaches are teachers. Some coaches—lesser coaches—try telling you things. Good coaches, however, teach you how to think and arm you with the fundamental tools necessary to execute properly. Simply put, good coaches make sure you know how to use both hands, how to make proper reads, how to understand the game. Good coaches tell you where the fish are, great coaches teach you how to find them. That’s the same at every level.

Kobe Bryant once said that amazing things come from hard work and perseverance, and I believed him.

Michael Jordan and Phil Knight certainly shared a competitive nature that bordered on insanity. If you think Jordan and Kobe are competitive, go meet Phil Knight. He's a no bullshit competitor. It's, 'You play for me or I can't stand you, I will kill you.' That's Phil Knight, full stop. And he's not shy about it.

He was wearing white Adidas boxing shoes and long black satin shorts and another of his endless supply of “Black Mamba” T-shirts, this one with Kobe Bryant’s likeness on it. In comparison, I was the one who looked like the thug, in a Red Sox T-shirt cut to the shoulders and baggy gray sweatpants and sneakers to match. “Good news for you,” Hawk said, watching me move from side to side in front of the bag, “is that your workout clothes won’t never go out of fashion, on account of never having been in no fashion in the first place.” “You planning to review my workout along with my functional attire?” I said. “Don’t require much planning. You been letting your elbow fly out from underneath your shoulder lately when you throw your hook.” “You’re just pointing that out now?” “Been workin’ up to it, I know how sensitive you are ’bout what’s left of your form.

Every negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.” ~ Kobe Bryant

Joey complained because his mom wouldn’t fork out two hundred bucks for a pair of Kobe Bryant Slam-Dunk high-tops.

An unusual illustration of this false paradigm comes from a 2009 New York Times article called "The No-Stats All-Star" about Shane Battier, formerly of the NBA championship team Miami Heat. Battier was considered by many inside the NBA as, at best, a replaceable cog in the machine of his team. When you google Battier you get lots of shots of the back of his head, seemingly mucking up the shot as the camera tries to focus on all-stars like Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant. Interestingly, nearly every team he played on had the magical ability to win. When he was on the court, his teammates got better, and his opponents got worse. It was said, "Battier seems to help the team in all sorts of subtle, hard-to-measure ways, with a weird combination of obvious weaknesses and nearly invisible strengths. They call him Lego, because when he's on the court, all the pieces fit together."5 Battier's definitive strength of quietly assisting his team wasn't a power position, so despite his amazing talent he wasn't thought of as an "all-star." If you aren't putting points up on the board, racing up the curve, or leaping from one tall curve to the next, by Western cultural norms, you are second best, a polite euphemism for "loser.

Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant aren’t friends,” Henry said seriously, and placed a pretzel carefully on his tongue. He looked at his now empty glass despondently. “No? Why not?” I asked, refilling his Sprite. “Giants don’t make good friends.” “Are you talking about Shaq or Kobe? They’re both pretty big.” I tried not to laugh because Henry wasn’t laughing. “Giants don’t like when someone is bigger than they are.” “I don’t know about that. Look at me and Axel. We’re both pretty big.” “Who’s the biggest?” Henry asked. “I am,” I said firmly, and at the same time Axel thumped his chest. Henry looked at me owlishly, as if I had just proven his point. Axel started to laugh, and I laughed with him, but Henry didn’t laugh at all. He just wrapped his swollen lips around his straw and drank his Sprite like he was dying of thirst. I waited until Axel turned his attention to Stormy, who had stopped to flirt as she waited tables. “Henry? Are you having problems with a giant?” I touched my lip and looked pointedly at his mouth. “The Giants won the World Series in 2012,” he said softly. “In 2010 too. They’re very popular right now.” I wasn’t sure if there was a hidden message in the popularity of the Giants or if Henry just wanted to change the subject. I tried again, using a different approach. “You know the story of David and Goliath, right? David’s just a little guy, Goliath’s a huge warrior. David ends up killing him with just a sling-shot and Goliath’s own sword.” “Your name is David,” Henry said, his eyes on the game. “It is. Do you need me to slay a giant for you?” “The Giants’ bench is deep.” I narrowed my eyes at Henry. He didn’t look away from the television. It was like conversing with Yoda. Or R2D2.

George Mumford, a Newton-based mindfulness teacher, one such moment took place in 1993, at the Omega Institute, a holistic learning center in Rhinebeck, New York. The center was hosting a retreat devoted to mindfulness meditation, the clear-your-head habit in which participants sit quietly and focus on their breathing. Leading the session: meditation megastar Jon Kabat-Zinn. Originally trained as a molecular biologist at MIT, Kabat-Zinn had gone on to revolutionize the meditation world in the 1970s by creating a more secularized version of the practice, one focused less on Buddhism and more on stress reduction and other health benefits. After dinner one night, Kabat-Zinn was giving a talk about his work, clicking through a slide show to give the audience something to look at. At one point he displayed a slide of Mumford. Mumford had been a star high school basketball player who’d subsequently hit hard times as a heroin addict, Kabat-Zinn explained. By the early 1980s, however, he’d embraced meditation and gotten sober. Now Mumford taught meditation to prison inmates and other unlikely students. Kabat-Zinn explained how they were able to relate to Mumford because of his tough upbringing, his openness about his addiction — and because, like many inmates, he’s African-American. Kabat-Zinn’s description of Mumford didn’t seem to affect most Omega visitors, but one participant immediately took notice: June Jackson, whose husband had just coached the Chicago Bulls to their third consecutive NBA championship. Phil Jackson had spent years studying Buddhism and Native American spirituality and was a devoted meditator. Yet his efforts to get Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and their teammates to embrace mindfulness was meeting with only limited success. “June took one look at George and said, ‘He could totally connect with Phil’s players,’ ’’ Kabat-Zinn recalls. So he provided an introduction. Soon Mumford was in Chicago, gathering some of the world’s most famous athletes in a darkened room and telling them to focus on their breathing. Mumford spent the next five years working with the Bulls, frequently sitting behind the bench, as they won three more championships. In 1999 Mumford followed Phil Jackson to the Los Angeles Lakers, where he helped turn Kobe Bryant into an outspoken adherent of meditation. Last year, as Jackson began rebuilding the moribund New York Knicks as president, Mumford signed on for a third tour of duty. He won’t speak about the specific work he’s doing in New York, but it surely involves helping a new team adjust to Jackson’s sensibilities, his controversial triangle offense, and the particular stress that comes with compiling the worst record in the NBA. Late one April afternoon just as the NBA playoffs are beginning, Mumford is sitting at a table in O’Hara’s, a Newton pub. Sober for more than 30 years, he sips Perrier. It’s Marathon Monday, and as police begin allowing traffic back onto Commonwealth Avenue, early finishers surround us, un-showered and drinking beer. No one recognizes Mumford, but that’s hardly unusual. While most NBA fans are aware that Jackson is serious about meditation — his nickname is the Zen Master — few outside his locker rooms can name the consultant he employs. And Mumford hasn’t done much to change that. He has no office and does no marketing, and his recently launched website, mindfulathlete.org, is mired deep in search-engine results. Mumford has worked with teams that have won six championships, but, one friend jokes, he remains the world’s most famous completely unknown meditation teacher. That may soon change. This month, Mumford published his first book, The Mindful Athlete, which is part memoir and part instruction guide, and he has agreed to give a series of talks and book signings

Si realmente quieres ser bueno en algo, ese algo te tiene que importar de verdad. Si quieres ser grande en un área determinada, tienes que obsesionarte con ella. Son muchos los que dicen que quieren ser grandes, pero no están dispuestos a hacer los sacrificios necesarios para conseguir esa grandeza. Tienen otras preocupaciones, más o menos importantes, y se dispersan. Y está bien. Después de todo, la grandeza no es para todo el mundo.

You Want First Place Come Play With Me, You Want Second Place Go Somewhere Else.

Those times when you get up early and you work hard. Those times you stay up late and you work hard. Those times when you don’t feel like working. You’re too tired. You don’t want to push yourself, but you do it anyway. That is actually the dream.

We are obsessive. We wouldn’t want to be doing anything other than what we are doing. That’s where obsession comes in – when you care about something 24 hours a day.

Sometimes you need your ego. If you can control it correctly, it can be the difference between excellence and greatness.

Estaban obsesionados con sus respectivos oficios, y eso hacía más fácil que yo confiara en ellos.

El dolor en un área de tu cuerpo a menudo proviene de un desequilibrio en otra parte.

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A few years ago, Kobe [Bryant, duh] fractured the fourth metacarpal bone in his right hand. He missed the first fifteen games of the season; he used the opportunity to learn to shoot jump shots with his left, which he has been known to do in games. While it was healing, the ring finger, the one adjacent to the break, spend a lot of time taped to his pinkie. In the end, Kobe discovered, his four fingers were no longer evenly spaced; now they were separated, two and two. As a result, his touch on the ball was different, his shooting percentage went down. Studying the film he noticed that his shots were rotating slightly to the right. To correct the flaw, Kobe went to the gym over the summer and made one hundred thousand shots. that's one hundred thousand made, not taken. He doesn't practice taking shots, he explains. He practices making them. If you're clear on the difference between the two ideas, you can start drawing a bead on Kobe Bryant who may well be one of the most misunderstood figures in sports today. Scito Hoc Super Omnia by Mike Sager for Esquire Magazine Nov 2007

In the wake of Kobe Bryant’s death in January 2020, journalist Gayle King asked his friend and fellow basketball star Lisa Leslie, in a televised interview, how to reconcile Bryant’s legacy in sports with the stain of his 2003 sexual assault charges.15 In response, rapper Snoop Dogg took to social media, calling King a “dog-haired bitch” and threatening “back off, before we come get you.”16 Rebuke was swift. And, in little more than a week, Snoop had apologized for “just being disrespectful.”17

Learn the basics and do them over and over and over and over and over again.”- Kobe Bryant

I read that Kobe Bryant never stopped practicing until he’d made at least four hundred baskets a day. I decided I’d sink five hundred daily,

Il punto non è essere Kobe Bryant. Il punto è diventare il Kobe Bryant di sé stessi.

Everyone wanted to be like Michael Jordan. Mike did not want to be like anyone else.

Kobe sabía que para ser el mejor necesitas un enfoque distinto al de los demás.

with