18x NBA All-Star, 11x All-NBA First Team, 5x NBA Champion, 2x NBA Finals MVP, 2008 NBA MVP, and 4th in NBA All-Time Points Leaderboard: Kobe Bean Bryant. One of the greatest to ever play the world-renowned sport of basketball.
Kobe was one of the toughest competitive athletes on the planet. Coming straight out of Lower Merion High School into the NBA, it didn’t take him much time to blast off into greatness. As a young guard for the Los Angeles Lakers, he didn’t fear anything or anyone including the great Michael Jordan. Kobe consistently maintained a mental edge that elevated him above the entire league for many years. Something he later referred to as the Mamba Mentality.
A constant quest to be the best version of one’s self.
-Kobe Bryant
Kobe used this mantra to motivate him to become a basketball legend. The greatest part about it is that he even used it outside of basketball and acquired an Oscar after his NBA career. Mamba Mentality is a lifestyle that aims to achieve maximum success and satisfaction using these five pillars;
- Fearlessness
- Relentlessness
- Passion
- Obsessiveness
- Resilience
The greatest thing about the Mamba Mentality is that anyone can use it for anything they want. It is the blueprint for success for much more than just basketball and I can break it down and show you how to utilize it properly.
Fearlessness
Their constant battle with fear stops many people from being their best selves. I covered how one should approach fear in my article The Only Two Ways To Look At Fear.
To achieve greatness you have to overcome fear. You can never cower over your opponent or be afraid to take the next step in your progression. Being fearless means you have to face those scary obstacles and never even hesitate for the sake of your success.
Kobe never backed down from anyone when he first came into the league. When he addressed the great Michael Jordan as “Mike” people would correct him and say, “Nah, that’s Black Jesus.” to which he would simply reply, “Black Jesus? His name is f****** Mike! I’m going to call him Mike.” He showed no fear towards Jordan even while other NBA legends looked at him as a “god”, Kobe just looked at him as another competitor on his list.
Kobe’s fearlessness to challenge and approach any obstacle in his way is how he became as successful as he was. Put that same fearlessness into anything you want and believe that you are unstoppable, you can also achieve much success as well.
Relentlessness
Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop. You can never give up when it comes to your success. You have to be relentless no matter what the circumstances. If you truly want something, you have to go get it. Never let your foot off that gas pedal.
Kobe was always working and preparing for basketball 24/7. He continued to train and continued to learn to obtain greatness. He beat every team that has beaten him in the past and achieved every trophy and accolade he sought to achieve and more.
Because he was so relentless, Kobe was deemed the greatest Laker ever and brought them 5 NBA Championships. He never let injuries, outside noise, or any controversies ever knock him off his game, because he wanted it that bad.
If you truly want it you will fight for it no matter how difficult it gets. It’s like that old quote says,
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
As cliche as that might sound, I truly live by that quote, and it’s gotten me passed a lot of tough times.
Passion
How can you truly be successful at something you don’t even love doing? To have true success you have to have a strong passion for whatever it is you’re doing, and I say you have to love it I mean you have to love everything about it!
Kobe Bryant loved basketball. He chose to go to the gym and put up shows for hours a day over hanging out and partying with his peers. It brought him peace and enjoyment then socializing with his friends. Kobe also loved to watch and study the greats in his free time. Whenever someone wanted to talk basketball, Kobe was there. That’s passion!
Without a genuine love for what you do, are you truly successful? The ability to make a job or task feel less like a job and more like your favorite hobby is a very important key to success.
Obsessiveness
To truly be the master of your craft, you have to be willing to learn everything there is to know about said craft. You have to want it more than life itself. Spend countless hours studying and practicing to be nearly flawless at it. Whatever it is you want to be successful at you have to be obsessed over it.
Kobe was always in the gym. Sure it was his passion to play basketball, but it was also his obsession. He would watch footage of all of his opponents and teammates to learn every way he could get the advantage over everyone. He even took his studies outside of basketball to better prepare himself for the sport.
In the 2001 NBA Finals, Philidelphia Sixers’ guard, Allen Iverson, gave Kobe 48 points in Game 1. Kobe upset at his defensive performance, stayed up half the night reading every article and watching hours of footage on Iverson just to find an advantage over him. The Lakers then beat the Sixers in 4 straight games to win the championship holding Iverson to 23 points while Kobe had 31 in Game 2.
If it wasn’t for Kobe’s obsession, who knows what the outcome of that series would be? I’m not saying you have to take it to the extreme that Kobe did, but a little bit of an obsession to learn the ins and outs of whatever it is you are working on will indeed make a significant difference in your success.
Resilience
Faiure in inevitable. No matter how much you train, practice, or try you will eventually run into an obstacle of some sort. The key isn’t to avoid failure, but to embrace it! You have to be resilient and learn from that failure to come back stronger and more prepared the next go around.
Kobe didn’t win every game or even every NBA Finals appearance. He lost to the Detroit Pistons and the Lakers rivals, the Boston Celtics for the championship trophy. Kobe didn’t let those losses keep him down though, nor did he try to forget about them either. He took what he learned from them, got back in the gym, and worked himself to exhaustion. He eventually won 2 straight NBA Finals after those losses one of them against the same Boston Celtics team that beat him before.
Kobe’s resilience helped him achieve those two championships and seek his revenge on the Celtics. He never backed down and figured out how to get around those obstacles. To be great you have to know when to spring back up after a hard fall. If you stay on the ground or forget how you got there in the first place you will never be able to stay up. You need to embrace failure for what it is, recover from it, and learn from it so you can conquer it the next time.
Despite the fear, finish the job.
-Kobe Bryant
Mamba Mentality is the best mentality to live by if you are a competitive athlete of course, but it works for pretty much anything competitive and other things as well. It’s to prove to yourself that you can do anything you put your mind to for your satisfaction. I for one have been using it for over 10 years now whether it’s for work, school, or any of my competitive hobbies. It is a great code to live by if you want the absolute best for yourself and want to reach your full potential.
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