Transcription
Growing up in Italy, when I first moved over there, you know, I spoke Italian and didn't have any friends. I had the game of basketball, and through sport and playing soccer, I was able to make friends and build connections.
There was a lot of time spent alone. When I came back to the States, I wasn't the most athletic kid. I couldn't compete with these kids; they're doing windmills and dunking backwards, and I'm happy to like, tap the backboard. You know, so I had to look at it from a long-term perspective. I wasn't gonna give up on the game, so I had to say, "Okay, this year I'm gonna get better at them." Make sure this and so forth.
And then patiently, I was able to catch them. It's the consistency of the work. Monday, get better. Tuesday, get better. Wednesday, get better, right? And you do that over a period of time, not like one month or two months. I mean, it's three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten years, and then you get to read one.
Go, "Yup." Something comes to something that you love. But you really love it, you'll go through fire for it. You know, you're going through ups and downs with it, and you'll just keep at it because you love it so much. You make game-winning shots, and it's awesome. You come back the next day and miss a game-winning shot, and it's misery. And then the next day comes, and you're back playing again.
You understand that life has a cyclical nature where it's, you know, what you're doing on Monday is fantastic. Within Tuesday is a bad day, but guess what? There's Wednesday. Every day is just constant improvement, constant curiosity, constantly getting better. The results don't really matter. Look at how do you deal with the inner challenges, the kind of the self-negotiation that takes place inside our own heads?
You start talking to yourself, saying, "Man, he's really sorry." End up doing too much. And that's, you just gotta say, "You know what? I'm not negotiating. The deal was already made. I set out at the beginning of the summer. I said, 'This is a training plan I'm doing.' I signed that contract with myself. I'm doing it."
And a lot of times, I've seen players, myself being consumed by a particular fear. To the point where you're saying, "Okay, nice. It's not good to feel fear. I shouldn't be nervous in this situation right now." It does nothing but grow. The notion is come and go. The important thing is to accept them all, to embrace the woman, and then you can choose to do it then in which you want versus being controlled by emotion. Don't hide from them. You've got to be able to look at it and deal with it head-on.
Madison Square Garden lit up in the Lakers uniform color was purple and gold to honor Kobe Bryant, Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others. It's okay to feel. There's going to be love no matter what, and that doesn't just mean fast onions, anything you.