Lessons from Kobe Bryant
I heard this incredible story when I was walking my dogs the other day.
I was in the middle of a podcast binge with Kyle Kingsbury, and in this particular episode, he was chatting to Alan Stein Jr, a world-renowned performance coach that has worked with the likes of Kevin Durant and some of the highest performers in the NBA.
But it was the story of Kobe Bryant that really struck me.
In 2007, Kobe Bryant was arguably the best player in the game.
Jordan was retired, Lebron was on the come up, so Kobe was on the mantle at this point in time.
There was always an urban legend about how crazy his training sessions were, so when Alan was invited to a three-day mini-camp hosted by Kobe, he jumped at the opportunity and asked if he could watch one of his private workouts.
The invitation was graciously accepted, and they agreed to meet at 4 am the next morning.
Alan got there at 330am and was shocked to see the gym lights were already on, with an orchestra of balls bouncing and sneakers squeaking inside.
He sat in the stands and noticed Kobe was breaking a hard sweat, even before his scheduled workout.
There had to be a secret sauce that he could then take and use with his own clients.
For the first 45 minutes, Alan was shocked
Kobe was doing the most basic footwork and ball drills
Over, and over again.
While he was doing it at an unparalleled precision and efficiency, these were the same drills you’d see in primary school training sessions.
Alan approached him later in the day,
“Kobe I don’t understand, you’re the best player in the game, why are the drills you’re doing so basic?”
Kobe replied, “Why do you think I’m the best in the world…
I never get bored with the basics…”
Chills
There’s a huge lesson to be learnt in this story.
Just because something is basic, doesn’t mean it’s easy,
They’re not synonyms.
We live in this world that is okay to skip steps and circumvent the path to get the shiny object of success.
In the marketing space, the “guru’s” and “experts” prey on the fact that business is hard, and that we all want to get out of the trenches…
They’ll tell you that;
You need to be on this platform
Post at this time
Run Ads
Automate this
Give away that
Because they’re so desperate for clients within their own business, these marketers will sell the dream, with no due diligence on your foundations, and a little afterthought for what will transpire after.
They’ll charge you for the privilege with zero accountability to the result.
What they fail to tell you…
The tangible growth is in the basics — no matter what pretty bow they try and wrap around them.
I’m a firm believer there are universal patterns across all the modalities of our life — whether it’s marketing, business, health, fitness, relationships, list anything and I promise you there is a common thread.
It’s the daily recommitment to the basics that produce the long lasting results.
There’s no other way to the top of the ladder than by climbing rung by rung,
But, try and skip a step, and you can easily fall the way to the bottom.
Food for thought
Zac
Ps. I created The M0 Method to address this EXACT problem [you can download the free guide here]
Every marketing strategy needs to be built on the foundations of Market, Offer, and Presence — if there’s a misalignment across those three pillars, then it creates a massive deficit in your business.
Even if you have a successful business, the amount of growth lost in the missed opportunity and what falls through the cracks will make your head spin.
Also, here is a link to the episode I was talking about, well worth a listen [the Kobe story is at around the 13 minute mark]