Transcription
Tired don't mean nothing. Tired is only in the mind. You tell yourself you're tired, you're going to be tired. I don't get tired. I'm going to beat you. I'm going to let you know I beat you, and I'm going to want you to reconsider your professional life choice.
My father who raised me, his thing was, "Son, you may not be the best, but leave everything on the floor. You put 120%. I'm just asking you to do 120." Like every day when you come here, 120. You got to want it so bad. You got to give all of yourself to get it. You got to be obsessive. Cuz I didn't grow up with things being handed to me. I had to work hard. I had to dedicate myself, and I had to be determined. And I was. The bottom line is that if you're talking about beating everybody else on the planet to a thing, what you're actually talking about is what are you prepared to sacrifice psychologically, physically, existentially, relationally, socially, in terms of your self-esteem, your confidence, everything, right? All of that. That pain you feel, that's a pain at success. You must be willing to shoulder that pain to get success. Success is something that's a very lonely path in this world cuz few are willing to make that down payment of pain, that futurement of success, a better life. Very few are.
So if you want to be the top, you got to move different. There wasn't a lot of smiley faces with me out there. There wasn't a lot of smiley faces with Michael Jordan. There weren't a lot of smiley faces with Kobe Bryant. There weren't a lot of smiley faces with Tiger Woods. Even when I watch sports today and see these guys on the range like they're all buddies, and and I'm like, that's not the killer instinct. That's just not—I don't think Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson were trying to be friends with anybody. I think they were going out there on a mission, and if there was someone in their way, they had to crush them.
There's never any doubts in my mind because I'm the best in the world. Even though a lot of you don't like to hear it, I just—it's fact. I'm the best. You know what I mean? I sometimes I don't want to believe it myself, but it's the truth. I'm the best. You can love me, you can hate me. I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to win.
At the end of the day, even Alexander, one of his famous quotes is, "I have met the enemy. It is I." Right? And although that is one element of an enemy, that's great. We need that. Michael had it. Brady had it. Kobe had it. But there's a crazy psychologically, you can call it, you know, psycho competitor that they're constantly in the search of recruiting their next enemy. It's like, you know, life is boring if I don't have my next target. You know, I'm I'm almost, you know, bad for myself if I don't have the next target, the next enemy. And if I choose it the right way, then I'm able to bring out a side of me I've never seen before.
Success is the only revenge. As you expand, they shrink into irrelevance. As you get louder, no one can hear them. You don't beat them, you cast a shadow so big no one can see them to begin with. And that's what it comes down to. Like what are you willing to sacrifice at the end of the day? You know, people don't understand the level of sacrifice it's going to take. And there's been moments where I realize that I compete because I want to win. I love winning. I love being the best in the world. I've sat many times trying to find the balance of what I want within all this. If I was losing, I wouldn't be competing. I'm here to win.
It is hard. It's hard when you're young to wake up in the off season at 6:00 a.m. to go train and work out knowing that all your friends are sleeping in and eating pancakes. It's hard when you're on your way to practice way down with all your gear and it's 90° out, and all the other kids are at the pool or at the beach. No matter who you are, there are bumps and hits and bruises along the way. And my advice is to prepare yourself because success and achievement come from overcoming adversity. When the rest of the world says no to you, you say yes to yourself. You say yes. I believe. You say yes. I can do it. You say yes. Nothing can stop me.
If you want to be a great player, if you play every single day, 2, 3 hours, every single day over a course of a year, how much better you getting? Most kids will play maybe, you know, an hour and a half, two days a week. It's not going to get it done. You have to be obsessive. You have to be obsessive. You have to be addicted. You have to be disciplined. The key there is you. Everyone else is looking for other individuals to do stuff for you. Stop looking for help from everybody else. Okay? It starts and it ends with you. Your identity starts and ends with you. Every day is an opportunity based on your choices on how you look at things. The choices you make every day. That is what you are in the mirror today. From the captain to the cashier, there is more in you. Stay-at-home father, stay-at-home mother, lawyer, doctor, hygienist, author. I don't know who you are, where you're from, but there's more in you that becomes a part of who you are, that changes how you think, that changes how you move, that changes how you behave. If you could become an executor, if you could execute, I'm talking about learn it. I'm talking about putting it deep within. Now, you hear it. You have to realize that there's always work to do, and you want to be the hardest working person in whatever you do, when you put yourself in position to be successful. Muhammad Ali said, "Suffer now and live the rest of your life a champion." Because he knew that the training wasn't killing him. The training was making him. It was forging him in fire. I got to trust that nothing out there can stop who I am inside. You got to stand on your faith. You got to stand on your strength. You got to stand on who you are. I will rise again, and I will push. I will be the victorious one. I will conquer.
Listen to me. If you work forward, if you're willing to put in that sweat, that blood, and those tears, baby, I'm telling you, you can have what you want, be what you want, do what you want. Are you hear me? Don't give up. Don't give in. You hang in there. You hang in there. Because if you quit right now, you ain't going to never see it. You ain't going to never get it. But if you hold on, baby. But if you hold on, if you hold on, everything you dreamed of, everything you envision, everything you work for, it's coming. If you work hard, you can't have it. It ain't nothing you can't have. You deserve it. It ain't nothing you can't have if you're willing to work for it.
Look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, how much more can you take? What tried to kill you only made you stronger. So what are you waiting for? You have greatness within you. Everybody's great. When they're not tired is when they're tired, that's when the real champions come out. That's where that real dog comes out. It's where I think the real truth comes out because I think there are a lot of people who are very talented who can make it there. There are very few people who can deal with the pressure and the stress that happens when we're there. I feel I'm the best ever. It's not bragging or [ __ ]. The proof is in the pudding. In my mind, I'm always the best. I am the greatest fighter of all times. And when I hit you with a hard right hand, you will fall. You got to win tomorrow. You got to win right now. If you're passionate about what you're doing, keep going. Keep believing. Reach for the stars. Everything is always impossible until someone does it. Maybe it has never been done before. That's perfectly fine with me. But I'm going to do it. Never say never. Because limits like fears are often just an illusion. Hungry dogs run faster, and let the fat dogs eat.
If you look at the greats in any walk of life, the greats do things when they don't always want to. And that's the separation. It means you have to be more disciplined than not disciplined. I wanted to be the best I could be. Period. I was waiting for you to smile at some of the compliments. You didn't. Smiling doesn't win you gold medals. [Applause] I'm too fast. I'm too skillful. And I'm going to show everybody out there watching this show and the whole world, and the world will bow and admit that I am the greatest of all times when you see what I do to George F. I believe that whatever I put my mind to and if I was willing to make sacrifices and I was dedicated that I could achieve absolutely anything. I'm the best ever. I'm the most brutal and vicious and most ruthless champion they've ever been. There's no one can stop me. I'd like to take this chance to apologize to absolutely nobody. Maybe someone's—you don't like me because I'm—maybe I'm too good. You win some, you lose some. But you live—you live to fight another day. And I've always believed like I'm the Michael Jordan of this industry. When I'm on the air, I'm the one that will make you want to hear from me. I don't care who I'm on the air with. I don't care who it is. It does not matter to me. By the time I finish speaking, I am the one that you're going to want to listen to. That's my attitude. [Music]
If this requires 100%, and you give me 99, I might want to fire you because I'm not—I'm about getting the job done. It's about the results. And I think that, you know, unfortunately, when we look at our generation today, not enough people preach about that because I think that we live in a society where people have become masters at pointing the finger at other people as to reasons why things don't get done. I think there's too much explanation that goes on. But the bottom line is you ain't getting it done. And if you're not getting it done, I need somebody that can get it done. I am of the belief that if you truly, truly adopt that belief in your soul, then you walk to work every day not looking for excuses. You're looking for a way for the job to get done. And in most instances, you are going to be successful than not. You want to go with status quo, you're you're you're perfectly, you know, fine with flowing along just to get along, safe, secure, whatever. But when you're trying to win, you're constantly looking to get better.
My philosophy is very, very simple. When it comes to my family, particularly, you know, me being a dad, if they're hungry, it's because I'm starving. I don't eat until they eat. I don't not comfortable until they're comfortable. I don't have unless they have. That's the mentality, and that's the mentality that I strictly get from my mother. And so for me, you know, having that kind of mentality, but what comes with that? What comes with that is a certain work ethic that you have to put forth. And it's a willingness to sacrifice. Am I the most disciplined person in the world? No. Am I the most meticulous person in the world like some people would believe? No. I'm meticulous enough, and I'm disciplined enough. But I think the key thing is is that the bottom line is everything to me. And whatever the bottom line requires is what I'm going to do. If the bottom line requires an excessive level of discipline, I'm going to do it. But to me, it's whatever the moment or the situation demands, and it's—I'm a bottom lines oriented kind of person. You don't assume that opportunities are waiting for you. You know, obstacles are standing at every door. And so that challenge that you have to embrace and you have to deal with, that's hard to deal with when you have achieved. You don't work hard to play hard. You work hard to have the ability to play when you want to. That's a good point. There's a difference. You handle your responsibilities first. And when you work hard and you have that sense of pride, it goes right out the window if you utilize your efforts in the wrong fashion, but when you do what's right and it's based off of that effort that you put in, then you feel good about it because you took care of your responsibilities, then you can go play.
And I was not always confident. There's no doubt about that. I've always had my insecurities. What I firmly believed in was it as it pertained to me was that I always worked hard. I was never lazy. Um, I was always somebody that believed in hard work. Betting on yourself is believing in you. Knowing who you are, what you're worth, having an idea about it anyway, and willing to work towards that to validate that reality. That's betting on yourself. It's your job. And if you can't do it, you scratch, claw, and even die trying.
We make excuses every day. All of us as human beings. On far more occasions than not, I have to speak on the issue of accountability as it pertains to the entire sports world. And when it comes to the issue of accountability, I get all of that from Mom. It happened with ESPN when my contract wasn't renewed back in 2008. I was sitting up there. I was—I felt betrayed. I felt ticked off. My mother let me lick my wounds for a couple of days. And then she said, "What could you have done better? You sure you didn't do anything?" And I thought about all this stuff. I'm like, "What is she talking about? This is just not true. This is not right. I work hard. I do this. I do that." And then I started thinking about it. Yeah, I was a pain in the ass. I did kind of complain a little bit too much. But the biggest thing that I remember doing is that I always came to the bosses with problems. I never came to them with solutions. It was always about the problem, never the solution. And I learned when I sat back and reflected on the mistakes that I had made in my career at the time, I learned that no boss wants to talk to anybody that doesn't have solutions. Instead of working around the clock trying to figure out what somebody else wants from you, good or bad, there are moments that crystallizes it for you in your mind. Pay attention, and you'll see what they are, and you'll know what to do accordingly. That is what I believe makes me the best. It's my commitment to excellence for the collective whole.