#273 Kobe Bryant (Mamba Mentality)

What I learned from rereading The Mamba Mentality: How I Play by Kobe Bryant. ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- Episode outline: 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. 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 and they spread themselves out. That's totally fine. After all, greatness is not for everybody. Greatness isn't easy to achieve. It requires a lot of time. You can't achieve greatness by walking a straight line. Respect to those who do achieve greatness and respect to those who are chasing that elusive feeling. May you find the power in understanding the journey of others to help create your own. He dedicates a lot of time in this book to the importance of learning from and studying the great people that came before you. Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant by Roland Lazenby (Founders #272) His dissection of the game was at another level. In my entire career, I’ve never seen a player as dedicated to being the best. His determination is unparalleled. He unquestionably worked harder than anyone else I have ever played with. Kobe knew that to be the best you need a different approach from everyone else. If I wanted to implement something new into my game, I'd see it and try incorporating it immediately. I wasn't scared of looking bad or being embarrassed. I had a constant craving, a yearning, to improve and be the best. I never needed any external forces to motivate me. If something has worked for other greats before you, and if something is working for you, why change it up and embrace some new fad? Stick with what works, even if it's unpopular. Kobe mentions reading: Jackie Robinson’s autobiography Reading is forced meditation. I never thought about my daily preparation. It wasn't a matter of whether it was an option or not. It was, if I want to play, this is what I have to do, so l'd just show up and do it. I always found that short 15 minute cat naps gave me all the energy I would need for peak performance. Your routine can change but your obsession can not. You can find an edge by doing things your competitors are not doing. I revere the players who made the game what it is, and cherish the chances I had to pick their brains. Anything that I was seeing or going to see, any type of defense or offense or player or team—they had already encountered years before. I talked with them to learn how to deal with those challenges. I devoured Bill Russel’s autobiography. There were a lot of valuable lessons in there. If you wanna win championships, you have to let people focus on what they do best, while you focus on what you do best. You train an animal. You teach a person —Sol Price: Retail Revolutionary & Social Innovator by Robert E. Price (Founders #107) In our first year together, he (Tex Winter) and I would rewatch every single game together. Preseason, regular season, playoffs. That's a lot of basketball. As I learned time and again, success in business often rests on a minute reading of the regulations that impact your business. —Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys by Joe Coulombe. (Founders #188) Coach K is really intense. He and I approach winning and losing the same way in that winning is the goal, and losing is, well, losing isn't even on the table. Coach K in The Redeem Team documentary: Understand the responsibility. I know I’m not going to fucking lose. I am not going to fucking lose. Not when I’m wearing this (team USA jersey) and not at this time in my career. You’re going to have to fucking shoot me. That’s how I want you to play. These greats won't hang around you if you don't display the same passion as they do. They won't share their time and memories with you if you don't display the same effort and drive for excellence that they did. I was accepted so quickly because everyone saw how hard I worked. They saw how badly I wanted to fulfill my destiny. The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen. (Founders #255) It is to the point where if you know the basics, you have an advantage on the majority of players. “There are two things in business that matter, and you can learn this in two minutes- you don’t have to go to business school for two years: high gross margins and cash flow. All companies that go out of business do so for the same reason – they run out of money.” —Don Valentine I felt that my destiny was already written. I felt I knew that my future was undeniable and no one, not a person or a play, could derail it. This is the goal. This is my goal: For almost a decade he did nothing but address weaknesses and add to his game. Now his skill set is completely fleshed out. His game has no weaknesses. He's a nightmare to go up against, and he's worked to achieve that status. That's the money right there: That thirst and quest for information and improvement. Driven From Within by Michael Jordan and Mark Vancil. (Founders #213) ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00David Senra?

  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. 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, and they spread themselves out. That's totally fine. After all, greatness isn't for everybody. What I'm saying is greatness isn't easy to achieve. It requires a lot of time, a lot of sacrifices. It requires a lot of tough choices. It requires your loved ones to sacrifice too. So you have to have an understanding circle of family and friends. People don't always understand just how much effort from how many people goes into one person

• 0:44David Senra?

  chasing a dream to be great. There's a fine balance between obsessing about your craft and being there for your family. It's akin to walking a tightrope. Your legs are shaky, and you're trying to find your center. Whenever you lean too far in one direction, you correct your course and end up overleaning in the other direction. So you correct by leaning the other way again. That's the dance. You can't achieve greatness by walking a straight line. Respect to those who do achieve greatness and respect to those who are chasing that elusive feeling. That is an excerpt from the book that we talked about today, which is "The Mamba Mentality: How I Play",

• 1:28David Senra?

  by Kobe Bryant. Okay, so let's start with the dedication that Kobe wrote right at the very beginning of the book. And this is really a great way to think about all the books that you and I talk about. And Kobe says, "This book is dedicated to the next generation of great athletes. May you find the power in understanding the journey of others to help create your own. Just make it better than this one." And so that is a main theme that Kobe repeats probably a dozen times in this book. He dedicates an unbelievable amount of a book that does not take... This book is mostly like a picture book. You can read the whole thing in a day. And he dedicates a lot of time in this book to the importance of learning from and studying the great people that came before you. So I want to go to the foreword. It's written by Kobe's teammate, Paul Gasol.

• 2:12David Senra?

  They won two championships together. And he talks about, hey, I was traded to the Lakers in 2008 and my life changed. And it says, "It was past 1 a.m. when I finally got to my room. And shortly after, I heard someone knocking on my door. It was Kobe. The message was clear. There was no time to waste. The moment was now. Let's go get ourselves a ring." His mindset was unmistakable. It was all about winning. And so I've heard Paul talk in other interviews that are like, oh, you know, people thought that working and playing with Kobe Bryant was really difficult. And it's like, it wasn't difficult. And I think he mentions this in this actual foreword as well. But he's like, if you just understood that he cared about one thing and one thing only. He cared about winning. So then that gives his teammates an understanding of why he is the way he is or why he's doing what he does. So it says, "The message was clear. There's no time to waste. It's all about winning."

• 2:57David Senra?

  One of the qualities that has made Kobe so successful and always will is his attention to detail. This is exactly what Tex Winter told us. Just finished reading that 600-page biography of Kobe Bryant. It's the last episode. If you haven't listened to it yet, but Tex talks about that. He's like, listen, I coached Michael Jordan. I coached Kobe. One thing they both had in common is their insane attention to detail. Back to the book. He always used to tell us, "If you want to be a better player, you have to prepare, prepare, and prepare some more." His dissection of the game was at another level. "In my entire career, I've never seen a player as dedicated to being the best. His determination is unparalleled. He unquestionably worked harder than anyone else I have ever played with." And this is one of the reasons why Kobe knew that to be the best, you need a different

• 3:42David Senra?

  approach from everyone else. "I remember a time when we got together as a team to have our annual dinner right before the playoffs. I was sitting next to him, and as we were getting ready to leave, he told me he was going to the gym to get a workout in. As much as I was very aware of the amount of extra time he put in outside of our regular work hours, it always shocked me at how disciplined he could be even during a relaxed situation." Paul, not Paul, Phil Jackson writes the introduction to this book. And he mentioned that as well, that, you know, the coaching staff would usually get, would show up at the arena, maybe like 8, 8:30 in the morning. And by the time that he gets there, Kobe's already taking a nap because he had already worked out on his own. Several hours before practice started. Back to this night at dinner. When everyone else was thinking it was time for bed, his mind was telling him it was time to get ahead of the competition.

• 4:27David Senra?

  Over the years, a lot of people have wondered, oh, this is what I was just mentioning to you a minute ago. Over the years, a lot of people have wondered how difficult it must have been to play with Kobe. It really wasn't. All you had to do was understand where he was coming from, what he was about, and how badly he wanted to win. He would challenge players and coaches to match his intensity, his desire to bring the very best every single day, not just at games, but at practices too. And so that idea that he challenged players and coaches to match his intensity, that is mentioned when Kobe is like a kid in Italy playing. He's maybe eight years old, 11 years old. It's mentioned by his high school coach, and it's again mentioned in the NBA as well. In fact, I just watched the Redeem Team documentary on Netflix about the 2008 USA Men's Basketball

• 5:12David Senra?

  Olympic Team, and they said the exact same thing. In fact, Coach K said that exact same thing. So it says Kobe wanted to find out what you were made of, and if he could count on you to help him win, plain and simple. And then he closes this section out saying, enjoy this magnificent book, which reflects some of what I've shared here with you, the qualities of an extraordinary person. I have no doubt that you will be inspired. And then just a few things from Phil Jackson's introduction. The note I left myself on this page is easy to play, difficult to master, internal drive and learn from history, internal drive and learn from history. I have probably half a dozen notes that I left to myself throughout different pages of the book that are very similar to those words. So Phil says, it's one thing to have talent, but another to have the drive to learn the nuances.

• 5:54David Senra?

  James Naismith is credited with having said, basketball is an easy game to play, but a difficult game to master. Kobe came into the NBA with a desire and talent to become one of the greatest players of all time. His level of success came entirely from within. And then the first example, many Kobe constantly trying to find out what great people that came before him knew. He calls up, winds up having a conversation with Jerry West. Jerry West then relays this conversation to Phil Jackson. I received a call from Jerry West, who wanted to relay a conversation he had had with Kobe. Kobe had called him to ask him how he and Elgin Baylor had both been able to score 30-plus points a game while sharing the ball on the same team back in the 1960s. So Kobe's saying, hey, I gotta play with Shaq at this point in his career.

• 6:39David Senra?

  We're both prolific scorers. How can I do this? Well, maybe Jerry West has an idea, because he went through this exact same experience, but he did that 40 years ago. And now we get into Kobe's own words. And what he's saying here is, hey, listen, I had a short learning curve because I downloaded useful information all the time. So he says, if I wanted to implement something new into my game, I'd see it and I tried incorporating it immediately. I wasn't scared of looking bad or being embarrassed. 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. I would work tirelessly on adding elements to my game. I'd see something I liked in person or on film and go practice it immediately.

• 7:21David Senra?

  I'd practice it more the next day and then I'd 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. And then he goes right into this theme that's repeated over and over again. The very best people, they all have this incessant internal drive. From the very 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. And so a part of this book is actual tactics. In this case, he's talking about the workouts he did. But there's one paragraph that the main theme is here is that time is the best filter. And so Kobe says, over the years, my routine might have changed some, but my philosophy never did. If something had worked for other greats before you, and if something is working for

• 8:06David Senra?

  you, why change it up and embrace some new fad? Stick with what works, even if it's unpopular. So in this book and in the biography I covered last week, Kobe talks about the importance of reading when he's going through difficult times. He picks up Jackie Robinson's biography and realizes, or autobiography, realizes, hey, what I'm dealing with, it just pales in comparison to what Jackie had to go through. And so he'll talk about the importance of reading biographies and autobiographies as well. But he's talking about in general that you should train your mind. And one way to do that is reading. I didn't just train my body, I trained my mind too. By reading, by paying attention, by working, I strengthened my focus. I strengthened my ability to be present and not have a wandering mind. That's the biggest. Somebody had said one time like what reading was, and it's like forced meditation.

• 8:48David Senra?

  I have to go back and find that exact quote, but that has been my experience with it as well. It's like you can't, you know this because when you're reading, if your mind wanders, you're not, it's impossible to do two things at once. And so I like this idea of like getting better at reading as a way to not have a wandering mind. Just as important as reading was cultivating relationships with the greats who've come before me. Those guys taught me the lessons that gave me an edge over my competition. That's why I think it's so important to have those mentors, those north stars who you can learn from and look up to. And so several pages later, he picks up with that exact same theme. On this page is a picture of him and Michael Jordan talking on the court together. He says, "I asked a ton of questions. I was curious. I wanted to improve, to learn, and to fill my head with the history of the game.

• 9:31David Senra?

  No matter who I was with, a coach, a Hall of Famer, a teammate, and no matter what the situation, game, practice, or vacation, I would fire away with question after question." This is Kobe on "Just Doing It." "I never thought about my daily preparation. It wasn't a matter of whether it was an option or not. It was if I want to play, this is what I have to do, so I just show up and do it." And he talks about his grueling schedule, and the one way that he dealt with a grueling schedule was that he would listen to his body. If he was tired, he would just take naps. Every day, he'd take sometimes several naps a day, and they could be short naps, they could be 15, 20 minutes. So he says, "Sometimes as part of that, I'd be so tired that I need a quick nap at some point during the day, whether before practice, or a game, or on the bus, or on the trainer's table. If I was tired, I would doze off.

• 10:15David Senra?

  I always found that short 15-minute cat naps gave me all the energy I would need for peak performance." And this is just a fantastic line. It's about the fact that your routine is going to change. It can change, and it will change, but your obsession cannot. So he says, "The only aspect that can't change is that obsession. You have to enter every activity, every single time, with a want and a need to do it to the best of your ability." This is fantastic. This is the idea that you can find an edge by doing things that your competitors are not doing. Kobe took tap dancing lessons so he could strengthen his ankles. "I realized at this point that I needed to be proactive about strengthening my ankles. After researching the matter, it became apparent that tap dancing was going to be

• 10:57David Senra?

  the best way to build up my ankle strength while simultaneously improving my foot speed and rhythm. So I hired an instructor and started going to the studio. I worked on that all summer, and I benefited from it for the rest of my career." So then this is a section of the book where every page it's dedicated to one person, one historically great person that he studied, he wanted to be developing a relationship with, and that he would learn from. This is the main theme of the book. And also, if you think about why he wrote the book, because he wanted, unfortunately, you know, didn't know he was going to pass away so young, he was going to play this role for generations of players going forward. And it's depressing that he doesn't get the opportunity to do so. So the first person he talks about is his mentor, Jerry West, who was the one that

• 11:41David Senra?

  drafted him and brought him to the Lakers. He was there for a lot of my early big moments in my career. I specifically remember riding with Jerry in a Lexus to my first workout. At the time, I was thinking, I'm sitting next to Jerry West, to the Jerry West. I asked him a ton of questions about moments. You see that theme, asking questions, this relentless search for useful information for his career. It's a main lesson to learn from Kobe Bryant, right? I asked him a ton of questions about moments and games in his career. Honestly, I don't know whether he was intrigued or annoyed, but he answered them all. I learned shortly thereafter that Jerry is one of those guys who shoots it straight with people he respects. If he really cares about you, he's going to tell you things that you don't want to hear. And he always shot it straight with me. It's been a beautiful

• 12:25David Senra?

  relationship. Then he talks about developing a relationship with Magic Johnson and learning from him. I revere the players who made the game what it is and cherish the chances I had to pick their brains. Anything that I was seeing or going to see, any type of defense or offense or player or team, they had already encountered years before. I talked with them to learn how to deal with these challenges. After all, why reinvent the wheel when you can just talk to the wheels that were created before? He did the exact same thing when he developed a relationship with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And this part was rather surprising, way before they were friends or knew each other. He says, "I remember writing a book report on Kareem in 7th grade. In researching the paper, I learned everything about him, from his days at Power Memorial to UCLA, to Milwaukee,

• 13:10David Senra?

  and then LA. He had a really interesting story. At another point in time, I watched a tape he had put out about playing in the post and used some of the drills that I learned from it. So when he joined our staff, I talked to him a lot about historical happenings. We talked about playing with Oscar, fighting against those Celtic teams, playing, plays that they ran in LA under Pat Riley. We talked a lot." And he wouldn't just learn from basketball players. This is what he learned from Muhammad Ali. I learned a lot from studying and watching Muhammad. One of the main takeaways was that you have to work hard in the dark to shine in the light. I'm going to interrupt this paragraph because I think the maxim there that you've heard me repeat over and over again, that's so important for you and I to internalize, is "The public praises people for what they practice in private."

• 13:54David Senra?

  "The public praises people for what they practice in private." That's exactly what Muhammad Ali did, exactly what Kobe did. He's going to talk about that morning, more here. "You have to work hard in the dark to shine in light," meaning it takes a lot of work to be successful and people will celebrate that success, and people will celebrate that success. They'll celebrate the flash and the hype, but behind that hype is dedication, focus, and seriousness, all of which outsiders will never see. "If you stop being dedicated to the craft, the commercials and contracts will fade away." Muhammad was also great at game planning. One of his strategies that I emulated was the rope-a-dope. A lot of people know that as a catchphrase, but I appreciate the psychology behind it, the idea that you can manipulate an opponent's strengths and use it against them. That's a really brilliant concept and one I used often.

• 14:39David Senra?

  He also talks about reading Bill Russel's autobiography and then seeking him out, building a relationship with him. One of the main lessons he's going to learn here, I think that's applicable to all kinds of teams, is if you want to win, you focus everyone on your team on what they do best. So Kobe says, "I knew there was a reason Bill Russel had more rings than fingers. Years ago, I picked up an autobiography of his and devoured it. There were a lot of valuable lessons in there. There was one anecdote that Bill shared that stuck with me. He recounts how people always said he wasn't a good ball handler. Just, they just didn't know how to, they just didn't know how to handle and shoot the ball. He said, "Sure, he could do all of those things, but why would he lead the fast break when Bob Cousy was playing with him? Why would he shoot jumpers when Sam Jones was on his wing?" The message was that if you want to win championships, you have to let people focus

• 15:24David Senra?

  on what they do best while you focus on what you do best. For him, that was rebounding, running the floor, and blocking shots. I thought that that teaching was simple yet profound. It was an insight I had never heard from anyone else before. Pretty much as soon as I read that, I reached out to Bill and started a relationship and mentorship that opened up my world. Something that jumps out if you read hundreds of biographies of entrepreneurs and people that are leading companies, they talk about the fact that in many ways, a large part or maybe the entire part of their job is teaching. Sol Price has this great maxim, this is episode 107, if you haven't listened to that yet, that you train an animal and that you teach a person. Jim Sinigal, the founder of Costco, says, "If you're not spending 90% of your job teaching, you're not doing your job."

• 16:08David Senra?

  Or, sorry, "If you're not spending 90% of your time teaching, you're not doing your job." So, just a few sentences on that. Coaches or 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. So then he has a page dedicated to Tex Winter. He doesn't call Tex this in this book, but he did in the other biography I read on Kobe, where he says, "Tex Winter is my personal Yoda. I like that idea, have a personal Yoda." And so Kobe says, "Tex Winter was a basketball genius. I learned an incalculable amount from him. Tex taught the process of the game. He taught the pure craft of it.

• 16:52David Senra?

  He focused on the detail, the flow, and the nuances of the game. He was able to bring the littlest details of life, or to life, and show their ultimate importance. He was also exceedingly patient. In our first year together, he and I would re-watch," this is wild, "in our first year together, he and I would re-watch every single game together, preseason, regular season, playoffs. That's a lot of basketball. That's also detail, teaching, and patience. That's Tex. He had a great mind and a great mind for basketball. Coaches like him are rare, and I'm blessed I got a chance to study with him." This is actually a really smart idea. This is, a form of this idea has come up multiple times in the book. For whatever reason, the one that like stuck in my mind and the one I reference constantly

• 17:37David Senra?

  is all the way back on Founder's number 188. I read the autobiography of the founder of Trader Joe's, and he says, "As I learned time and time again, success in business often rests on a minute reading of the regulations that impact your business." This is Kobe's version of that same idea. Read the regulations that govern your industry. Reading is fundamental. I made a point of reading the referee's handbook. One of the rules I gleaned from that was that each referee has a designated slot where he's supposed to be on the floor. If the ball, for instance, is in place W, referees X, Y, and Z each have an area of the court assigned to them. When they do that, it creates dead zones, areas on the floor where they cannot see certain things. I learned where these zones were, and I took advantage of them.

• 18:20David Senra?

  I would get away with holes, travels, and all sorts of minor violations simply because I took the time to understand the official's limitations. This is Kobe on the importance of keeping it real. I took that approach with the media. As I became more experienced, I realized, no matter what, people are gonna like you or not like you. So be authentic and let them like you or not like you for who you actually are. At that point, I started keeping all my answers blunt and straightforward. I would mix in some humor and sarcasm, too. I think fans and reporters came to appreciate that. They came to appreciate the real me. And that's what, one thing I like about the books is like the way that these, especially in an autobiography at the end of an entrepreneur's life, they talk in a way they were probably not talking while they were building their business and like they were worried about

• 19:04David Senra?

  this or like you see this like some interviews people give where they may be like being counseled by like PR people. And that kind of relates to this next section because I had seen a bunch of interviews with Coach K, the legendary coach at Duke. You know, he's a, he's a, he's a supreme winner. But when I heard him talk in this documentary on the Redeem Team, I was shocked, but I shouldn't have been. Because when you have super competitive people like him, there's no way you could win as much as he did if he wasn't super competitive. It's, it's not surprising that you would hear the way they use language and try to motivate and just how serious, again, they're taking what's fundamentally a game, basketball, and treating it like a professional. So they take it extremely serious. And at their point, it's like, hey, we're fighting against other nations. And so that'll make sense in a minute. I'm gonna read you this note I took while I was watching the documentary.

• 19:49David Senra?

  It's gonna be a quote from Coach K, but first, here's Kobe on why he admired Coach K. He says, "I gained a lot of respect for him as he recruited me when I was in high school. I would have attended Duke if I had gone to college. Getting to play for him over a decade later with Team USA was fulfilling. A few things about him stood out. For one, he was really intense, which I could appreciate." I was like, ooh, okay, that's exactly what I thought of when I saw him in the documentary. Again, I didn't know him well, only, you know, maybe heard one, one or two interviews with him, that kind of thing. Most of all, his competitive spirit resonated with me. We're going to get there in a minute. So he just said, hey, he's really intense. I like that. His competitive spirit, like that too. He and I approach winning and losing the same way. In that winning is the goal and losing is, well, losing isn't even on the table.

• 20:34David Senra?

  So when I read that, I had watched the documentary, then read this book. I had read this book for the first time, like, I think 2018, a couple of years ago. So this is the second time I read Mom of Metal, okay? So I watched the documentary, took all these notes, that stuck out to me. And then I'm rereading this book, I'm like, oh, this is exactly what stuck out to me. So they're talking about the fact that, hey, you know, we're playing for pride here. The United States lost in basketball, like, we are supposed to dominate in basketball. In 2004, we lost. We cannot and will not let that happen again in 2008. That's why they assembled the team they did, and that's why they're doing the documentary and everything. And so, listen to a direct quote from Coach K, and he's talking to a room full of people like Kobe, LeBron, all these other professional basketball players. This is what he says. "Understand the responsibility.

• 21:19David Senra?

  I know I'm not going to fucking lose. I am not going to fucking lose. Not when I'm wearing this," and he points to the Team USA jersey, "and not at this time in my career. You're going to have to fucking shoot me. That is how I want you to play." And the team loved that. They loved his intensity and his fierce competitive spirit and his absolute refusal to even consider coming out with anything else than a gold medal. Later on in the book, he gives advice, he's like, "Listen, I'm telling you, I'm reading the autobiographies of greats, I'm seeking them out, I'm trying to build relationships with them." He's like, "Don't even bother unless you bring it." Like, they know real recognizes real, and they're not going to waste their very valuable

• 22:03David Senra?

  and precious time if you come out lollygagging and you're not giving it your all. He says, "Listen, these OGs, these greats, won't hang around you if you don't display the same passion as they do. They won't share their time and memories with you if you don't display the same effort and drive for excellence that they did. I was accepted so quickly because everyone saw how hard I worked. They saw how badly I wanted to fulfill my destiny." And what came to mind when I read that is the book I covered back on episode 255, which is The Fish That Ate The Whale. You have the OG, the original founder of the largest banana company, this guy named Andrew Preston, right? He's like four decades, maybe five decades older from this young newcomer who's, you

• 22:46David Senra?

  know, the biography, The Fish That Ate The Whale is a biography of Sam Zemurray. And so Andrew Preston had built this fabulous, like fabulous, successful company, right? From nothing. He meets a young, let's say Andrew Preston's maybe 50, right? And Sam Zemurray's like 18. Preston had heard about him. He's like, hey, who's this new kid? That's like, he could tell. He's like, he could tell like the level of dedication that Sam was applying to his business, even though it was smaller then, was the same level of dedication that Andrew applied to his. So he sought him out. He's like, no, I want to know who this, they call him the big Russian, who the big Russian is. Winds up talking to him. Once he talked to me, he's like, oh, this is another me. And then he partnered with them. And so that's the exact same thing that Kobe's saying here is like, listen, they're not going to share their memories.

• 23:28David Senra?

  They're not going to waste their very valuable time unless you display the same kind of effort and drive for excellence as they did. Andrew Preston was a formidable founder. He realized, oh, this is another formidable founder. He's just younger. Let's go back to this idea that's repeated over and over again. This is another laugh myself. The drive is always internal. If you need someone else to motivate you, you're in trouble. Kobe says, 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 else expected of me. And then remember Kobe's writing this at the, when his career, he wrote the book, the career is over. He's talking about the changes.

• 24:12David Senra?

  He's like obsessed with fundamentals and he's realizing a lot of the people are coming up are, they don't even actually even understand the importance of fundamentals. And this has been my experience too, talking to a bunch of other entrepreneurs. Like, so I said, the same with founders. A lot of them don't know the fundamentals. Don Valentine, quote, that's the founder of Sequoia. I'm going to read that to you after I read this part for Kobe. Says, it's weird, actually. Fundamentals aren't really fundamentals anymore. A lot of the players don't understand the game or the importance of footwork, spacing, et cetera. It's to the point where if you know the basics, you have an advantage over the majority of players. That is important. We need to repeat that. It is to the point where if you know the basics, you have an advantage on the majority of players.

• 24:56David Senra?

  It's impossible for me to read that paragraph and not think of what Don Valentine, the founder of Sequoia, in typical like no bullshit fashion, right? "There are two things in business that matter and you can learn this in two minutes. You don't have to go to business school for two years. High gross margins and cash flow. All companies that go out of business do so for the same reason. They run out of money." And then we get to Kobe's version of an event that I talked about that was in, written in that 600-page biography of his life where he shoots these airballs very early in his career. And so he says, "This was a critical period for my development. At the end of my first season in the NBA, we had made it to the semifinals up against Utah.

• 25:38David Senra?

  But in the deciding fifth game, I let four, I let fly four airballs and we lost our chance at the title. Those shots let me know what I needed to work on the most. My strength. In that game, my nerves were not the problem. I just wasn't strong enough to get the ball there. My legs were spaghetti. They couldn't handle that long of a season. How did I respond to that? By getting on an intense weight training program. By the start of the next season, my legs and arms were stronger and I was ready to get it on. In the immediate aftermath, I was never concerned by how the franchise or fans would react. I knew I would put in the work, which is what I did. In fact, as soon as we landed, I went to the Pacific Palisades High School gym and shot all night long. I went back the next day and worked. And I worked and worked and worked and worked.

• 26:22David Senra?

  In my mind, it was never a matter of, oh, I'll never get another shot at this. I felt that my destiny was already written. I felt, I knew that my future was undeniable and no one, not a person or a play, could derail it." And so the way I summarize that section for myself, for my own notes, is something that's repeated over and over again in the book. Identify your weaknesses and then fix them. And if you do that over a long enough period of time, the score will take care of itself. Then Kobe talks about it's human nature that once you succeed at something, you kind of let your foot off the gas a little bit, you give in, you're like, oh, I can relax now. And again, me and you have talked about this over and over again, the maxim is if you go to sleep on a win, you'll wake up with a loss. For some people, it might be hard to stay sharp once you've reached the pinnacle. Not for me.

• 27:07David Senra?

  It was never enough. I always wanted to be better. I always wanted more. I cannot really explain it other than I love the game, but had a very short memory. That's a fantastic way to think about it. I love the game and I had a very short memory. That fueled me. And then the last part of the book is him just talking about all the different players. He named some of these people. I'm omitting the names because the names aren't important, but the ideas are. So it said, and this is to me, and this is what I wrote for myself. This is the goal. This is my goal. For almost a decade, he did nothing but address weaknesses and add to his game. Now his skill set is completely flushed out. His game has no weaknesses. He's a nightmare to go up against. And he's worked to achieve that status. I love that so much, I have to read it again.

• 27:51David Senra?

  Again, I'm talking, really talking to myself here. For almost a decade, he did nothing but address weaknesses and add to his game. Now his skill set is completely flushed out. His game has no weaknesses. He's a nightmare to go up against. And he's worked to achieve that status. And then he gets into the entrepreneurial emotional roller coaster. He says emotions are a major component of basketball. It's a component of anything that's difficult to do in life. Euphoria and terror are inevitable. This is my note. Euphoria and terror are inevitable. You have to find ways to stay centered. The game is full of ebbs and flows, the good, the bad, and everything in between. With all that was going on around me, I had to figure out how to steal my mind and keep calm and centered. That's not to say my emotions did not spike or drop here or there, but I was aware enough to recalibrate and bring them back level before things spiraled.

• 28:35David Senra?

  I could do that. I could do that in a way others couldn't, and that was key for me. And then Kobe talks about another player that has traits that you and I can emulate. Again, the, uh, no names. The idea is important, not the names. He is a constant learner. This past year, when he was 29 years old, he came to Orange County. That's where Kobe lived. And we would work out for a few hours at 5:00 a.m. At that age, most guys in the league think they know it all. He wanted to work on his post game, on his footwork in the post. He realized that this was the next step in his evolution and the key to his longevity. This is, uh, I double underlined this section here. That's the money right there. That thirst and quest for information and improvement. So we spent quite a bit of time working on that. And I saw him some, use some of those lessons we worked on in game action as soon as the season started.

• 29:20David Senra?

  Again, that's the money right there. That thirst and quest for information and improvement.

• 29:26David Senra?

  And then I'll close on this idea that we learned from Michael Jordan's autobiography. You should have an uncompromised dedication to excellence. Winning championships is everything. It's really one of the greatest joys on the planet. That feeling drove me to always want more. When I got one ring, I wanted two. When I got two, I wanted three. I think that drives stem from being part of a rebuilding process. After struggling for a few years and working and working to reach that pinnacle. Once I reached it, I wanted to achieve more. I never wanted to experience that still familiar feeling of defeat again. The agony of defeat is as low as the joy of winning is high. However, this is the uncompromised part. However, they're the exact same to me.

• 30:08David Senra?

  I'm at the gym at the same time after losing 50 games as I am after winning a championship. It doesn't change for me. And that is where I'll leave it. I highly recommend you buy the book. Like I said, it's, yeah, you could read it in a day. The pictures are beautiful. The ideas in here are really important. If you buy the book using the links in the show notes, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. I've had the highlights from this book, and I've just inputted more because I had new highlights, the second time around, but I've had highlights from this book in my Readwise app for years. Readwise constantly reminding me of the stuff I read. Entrepreneurs read a lot. Readwise helps not just entrepreneurs, but a ton of other people remember what they read. If you want a two, or excuse me, if you want a free two-month trial, this is the app I use.

• 30:53David Senra?

  I love it. I talk about it all the time. If you want to see if it's for you, if maybe you like it as well, readwise.io/founders. That is 273 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.