Follow Your Passion first um when I retired from the game and I sat there asking kind of all the wrong questions you know what's the biggest industry I can get into and it's all the wrong stuff and you got to sit there and ask yourself okay what am I truly passionate about what do I enjoy doing and when you feel that way honestly I mean you feel like you have never worked a day in your life it's the most fun thing in the world you get up in the morning excited about what you're doing and
you got to be really honest with yourself about it if you wake up in the morning and you're dreading going to work dude do something else do something else and those are hard decisions to make but when you make those decisions it's a very liberating experience and you find out that the rewards will [Music] come I think the best way to prove your your value is to work is to learn is to absorb uh to be a sponge you always want to outwork your potential as hard as you believe you can work you can work
harder than that and that's what I tried to do when I first came in the league but you know basketball is such a direct competition sport that me coming in at 177 I hated when like my teammates would say you know I get hit with an elbow right Shaq would hit me with an elbow in practice and like you know you know Nick Van XEL would come up and say are you okay but what M are you okay the hell's wrong with you you know so like I I always had that extra chip on my
shoulder so like every day in practice for me was really trying to annihilate everybody that was that I was playing against cuz I wanted to prove you don't need to babysit me like I I'm fine you know and uh and so it's always um that competitive nature the work ethic and curiosity cuz I asked a lot of questions playing with Byron Scott I asked him a lot of questions Eddie Jones who was great at chasing guards off the screens and I didn't understand how to do that I would sit with him before practice after practice
magic all the Laker greats I would always sit down and just ask them questions about certain games that I studied growing up what actually happened there what did you feel there [Music] why we were playing against the Lakers time and we were out here in La so the game was at 7:00 I like you know what I'm going to come to the stable Center cuz we're playing this when Lakers at kobian Shack okay this is this is like the championship Lakers you know I'm going to get there at 3:00 I want to make sure I
make 400 ma shots before I go back into the room and then I sit in the own and I get ready for the game so you know get in the car get to the gym get there and as I'm walking onto the court who do I see I see Kobe Bryant already working out so once I set my foot across that line I started working out and so I worked out for a good hour hour and a half and when I came off after I was done I sat down and of course I still heard
the ball bouncing I look down I'm like this guy's this guy's still working out he's he was working out like it looks like he was in a dead sweat when I got here and he's still going and it's not like his moves are nonchalant or lazy he's doing like game moves you know um I sit there and I unlace my shoes I'm like I want to see how long this goes I sit out there and watch another 25 minutes and he got done I like okay I think I've seen enough go play you know come
back get the sauna get ready for the game that game he drops 40 on us okay and after the game is over I'm like I I have to ask this guy I I have to understand like why why he he works like that so after game was I'm like hey coob like why why were you in a gym for so long he's like cuz I saw you come in and I I I wanted you to know that it doesn't matter how hard you work that I'm willing to work harder than [Music] you if your job
is to try to be the best basketball player you can be right to do that you have to practice you have to train right you want to train as much as you can as often as you can so if you get up at 10:00 in the morning train at 11:00 right 12: say 12:00 train at 12:00 train for 2 hours 12:00 to 2: um you have to let your body recover so you eat recover whatever you get back out you train start training again at 6:00 train from 6:00 to 8:00 right and now you go
home you shower you eat dinner you go to bed you wake up we do it again right those are two sessions right now imagine you wake up at 3:00 you train at 4:00 you go 4:00 to 6:00 come home breakfast relax so so now you're back at it again 9 to 11 right relax and now all of a sudden you're back at it again 2 to 4 and now you're back at it again you know 7 to n look how much more training I have done by simply starting at 4: right so now you do
that and as the years go on the separation that you have with your competitors and your peers just grows larger and larger and larger and larger and larger and by a year five or six doesn't matter what kind of work they do in a summer they're never going to catch up cuz they're 5 years behind right so it makes sense to get up and start your day early because you can get more working if I start earlier I can train more hours and I know the other guys aren't doing it because I know what their
training schedule is right so I know if I do this consistently over time it's the gap's just going to widen and widen and widen and widen why and they won't be able to get that back MH so to me it was just common sense and like thinking how can I get an advantage oh start earlier yeah let's do that how do you how do you develop that or where do you what do you learn that from well I I think it's just you know it's just a matter of what's important to you mhm what's important
to you for for whatever reason you know I I felt like um I didn't feel good about myself if I wasn't doing everything I could to be the best version of myself if I felt like I left anything on the table um it would eat away at me I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror so the reason why I can retire now and be completely comfortable about it because I know that I've done everything I could to be the best basketball player I could be [Music] this has been absolutely beautiful you guys
I can't believe it's come to an end um you guys will always be in my heart and uh what can I say Mamba [Applause] [Music] Out My Philosophy was a very simple one I um you know Rudy was one of my favorite films growing up after watching that film I come to understand if I could work that hard every day um being blessed with the physical tools that I have um what would my career be and I made a promise to myself from that day that I was going to work that hard every single day
so that when I do retire I have no regrets and that was the most important thing for me is to leave no stone unturned get better every single day and if I live that way then over time you know I'd have something that was beautiful but that was my philosophy it seems like a pretty simple one but you know if you live your life to just get better every single day and do that for 20 years I mean what do you have and once you have the passion and thing that you're passionate about now you
can look at other people or other entities or other things or work B and you can draw things from that to help you be better at what you do um by looking for those common denominators Johnny wanted to know how do I prepare how do I prepare how do I study how do I view the game how do you build your game and you know my response is much like the way he builds products you think sequentially yeah you look at this the the end result of what you want to create but in order to
create that there's so many other little things that go into this massive or device it's no different than building my basketball game you start with what do you want your game to be what would make your game most Unstoppable or hard to deal with and now you work backwards from there and you start building it one piece at a time one move at a time one counter at a time you just got to put one foot in front of the other and you know sometimes I think uh you know even for myself it's it's easy
to become distracted a a little bit start trying to look at the final what the final pitch is going to look like and you know when you do that you can you can easily become frustrated with where you are at the moment so um you know my advice is just to focus on each day and you know you have a plan in place of how you want to improve and how you want to get better and you stick to that plan and and Trust the fact that you know every day that you you know um
stick to the plan it'll get you to your end result the passion came from the love for the game you know I I loved everything about it like the smell of the ball you know the smell of like brand new sneakers and like the sound the ball makes when it hits the ground ball going through the net like all those things I I love and so the passion comes from that cuz once you have that love you just want to be a part of this thing all the time you know like basketball is help me
be a better person a better friend a better father well because there's life lessons that are within the game like communication like unselfishness um like attention to detail and um empathy and compassion like all those things are in the game and uh as an athlete if we are aware of those things um it helps us become better human human beings where did you get your Killer Instinct from well yeah I think a lot of it um had to do with um isolation growing up over there and being the only uh African-American kid not being able
to speak the language I gravitated towards the game and in that game you find a lot of um you find solace in the game and then when you play with kids that might not um accept you because you're an outsider but yet when we come to play the game that's my chance to to to get Vengeance on them for not accepting me in there and that's where it kind of started developing and and throughout the course of my life it's always been that it's always been the outsider and having to come and improve you know
or or to seek some sort of Vengeance what I point taking things using things in your life that that are scars using those moments as a weapon you know using basketball as kind of like a vehicle through which to express yourself right so at that moment for us to face the Celtics again it's not about the Celtics it's not about your opponent it's about you it's about you taking your inner struggles and channeling that through the game right as a way to to unleash right so now it became a matter of how do I express
that to them how do I get them to that point where they figure this out for themselves cuz I can't say Hey listen I need you to play harder so what' you do well I had to share my story I had to open up to them and let them know I've dealt with things this is the things that I use this is how I go about Focus this is how I deal with adversity this is how I deal with you know arguing with my wife the day of the game and showing up to the game
is still having that Focus to be able to play like I used those things to open up with them and then in turn they were able to to take those stories and and make them their [Music] own what I try to do is just try to be still and understand that things come and go emotions come and go the important thing is to accept them all to embrace them all and then you can choose to do with them what you want versus being controlled by emotion you know a lot of times I've seen players even
myself you know when I was younger being consumed by a particular fear um and to the point where you're saying okay no it's it's not good to feel fear I shouldn't be nervous in the situation like not and it does nothing but grow versus stepping back and saying yeah I I am nervous about the situation yeah I am fearful about the situation well what am I afraid of and then you kind of unpack it and then it gives you ability to look at it for really what it is which is nothing more than your imagination
running its course you know when you're going into the league you're going with a lot of guys that were you know same age same age you know same class as you were going in were you sizing those guys at the same exact way as you did in high school I did but you know in the NBA it was actually easier because what I found in the NBA is a lot of guys played for financial stability and when they came to the NBA they got that Financial stability so therefore the passion and the work ethic and
the obsessiveness was gone so I'm looking at that I'm like Oh my this going to be like taking candy from a baby and I wonder Mike wins all these [ __ ] championships this is crazy you know what I'm saying and like and then you had the players that had that passion but weren't willing to commit their entire lives to doing that right it's a choice right you have other things you have family you have all these other things that you have to do the game can't really be your number one priority and so I
just looking at that like man I'm this is going to be fun it's just a matter of what's important to you and what's important to you for for whatever reason you know I I felt like um I didn't feel good about myself if I wasn't doing everything I could to be the best version of myself if I felt like I left anything on the table um it would eat away at me I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror right so the reason why I can retire now and be completely comfortable about it
because I know that I've done everything I could to be the best basketball player I could be and so that's where it comes from for me you can't leave any stone unturned I'm not one that really believe in Failure I believe you have setbacks and you know you have to learn from those you have to learn what are those landmines that can be avoided the next time what are those pitfalls you have to learn from that stuff and um so you not welcome those things it's a part of life but are you prepared to like
really fail at something totally new like what if you're just VC then I'm evvc you know and then I work at it and then I'm not a evvc the next year you know whenever it happens listen I my first year in league on national TV at 18 years old I shot five straight air balls in the playoffs in front of millions of people yeah I think my tow is pretty high yeah yeah I think I'm all [Music] right there's a quote from one of my English teachers at La Marian named uh Mr Fisk he had
a great quote that said rest at the end not in the middle and that's something I always live by you know not going to rest I'm going to keep on pushing now there a lot of answers that I don't have even questions that I don't don't have but I'm just going to keep going I'm just going to keep going and I'll figure these things out as we go right and you just continue to build that way so that I try to live by that all the [Music] time you know I look at this incredible career
you've had and you're still just what 23 mhm do you appreciate it at this young and age or do you have to be a little bit older to step back and say wow what an unbelievable ride this has been what a what an extraordinary opportunity and blessing I've had had in my life that's something that I do now yes um it's something that I've been able to do at the end of last season kind of step back and just enjoy the moment and more so after September 11th uh not just the game of basketball but
just just little things going to the store and you know or going to the movies or something like that I've been able to kind of just sit back and just enjoy life enjoy the moment that's really the most important thing is enjoy the moment and to to to get baled down to be discouraged or um you have to keep moving you have to keep going put one foot in front of the other smile and just keep on ruing what I've learned is to to to always keep going always you know there's been times particularly early
in my career where he just feels like this is the end um but what I've come to find out is that you know no matter what happens the storm eventually ends and when the storm does and you want to make sure that you're ready you have to dance beautifully in the box that you are comfortable dancing in right so like everybody's box is different my box was to be extremely ambitious within the sport of basketball your box it's different than mine right every kid here has their own box but doesn't mean that your box isn't
as beautiful as mind right 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 mble mentality I mean it's just it's it's a it's an obsessiveness that comes along with it you want things to be as perfect as they can be understanding that nothing is ever perfect but the challenge is try to get them as perfect as they can be and what can you do
it's in your control so control what you can I can watch film all day long it's going to help me get better yes yes we're not on this stage just because of Talent OR ability we're up here because of 4:00 a.m. we're up here because of two a days or five a days we're up here because we had a dream and let nothing stand in our way if anything tried to bring us down we used it to make us stronger we were never satisfied never finished we never be retired my high school English teacher Mr
Fisk he had this beautiful quote and and it read rest at the end not in the middle and I took that to heart I believe there's time for resting at the end but for me that time is not now thank you for this tremendous honor and acknowledging my basketball career but I'm far from done my next dream is to be honored one day for inspiring the next generation of athletes to have a dream sacrifice for it and never ever rest in the middle I come back to America in the summertime I'm playing in the summer
league and I don't score a point the whole summer not one point the entire summer not one point not a free throw not a layup not a still nothing zero points the whole Su I remember crying about it being upset about it my father just gave me a hug and said listen sign don't worry about we're going to love you if you score zero or 50 you know wow now that is the most important thing that you can say to a child because from there I was like okay that gives me all the confidence in
the world to fail I have the security there but the hell with that I'm scoring 60 let's go right and from there I just went to work I knew that I was not going to be stopped so at the age of 18 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 want to spend the time on it you can't cuz you have other things you have other responsibilities that are taking you away from it so I already won
you remember your first big EXP n not really I I'm not really a big um I wasn't a big like you know I got to got get this car or whatever um I was just all about the game the game just completely consumed me that's how that's that was my focus 100% of the time and the the whole idea is that you know when I started playing the game everything was about trying to be the best when this you know when as many championships as you can y y y y you get older you start
to understand that really it's about the Next Generation that these championships do come and go right and they'll be other people that win championships but the most important thing you can do is to pay everything that you've learned forward to to the Next Generation to come and that's truly how you create something that lasts forever going through this time made me ask a lot of questions um and really try to figure out what's important in life with uh you know everything that I've kind of been holding uh as significant the Championships and the endorsements and
um maybe that's not the most important thing cuz I lost sight of what is the most important thing and that's family w [Music]
