If you are someone who knows nothing about basketball, I am still willing to bet that you at the very least do know who Michael Jordan is. And if you are someone vaguely familiar with basketball, then I am sure you know at least one more name—Kobe Bryant.
Also known as Black Mamba to the legions of his fans around the world, Bryant is easily one of the five best players to ever play the game. And there are many who would also include him in the greatest of all time (GOAT) discussion against Jordan.
As with any great player in any sport, there are many great stories, tales, and myths built around Kobe as well, none more popular than ‘Mamba Mentality’. Depending on who you ask, Mamba Mentality ascribes to either being relentless in one’s drive to win (if you ask a fan) or being so determined to win that you lose sight of everything else including your team and their goals (if you ask a critic).
Bryant was as hard-nosed a player that has ever played the game, and he won bucket loads of individual and team laurels before hanging up his boots last year. And luckily, all that free time has resulted in this legend taking out time for some slam poetry on late night talk shows and producing some insightful shorts about the ballers of today.
And recently, it seems he also held class as a visiting ‘professor’ in some classroom OR taught a bunch of suits something about winning in life, as evidenced
Mamba mentality. @kobebryant #DontOverthinkIt
A post shared This is a fascinating revelation for me, a pickup baller, who played competitively for a very short time in his life and at a much lower level than Bryant. In the clip, Bryant is revealing the key difference between the thought process of an elite level athlete and those in the lower rungs or of lower emotional and physical ability.
An elite athlete at the top of his game makes a hundred split second decisions in a game and many of those decisions are not going to his or her way. The key to moving forward though, the Mamba way, is to not overthink it, Bryant implies.
The minute an elite athlete starts (over)thinking about the decisions that did not work out, he is done. He has to stay in the moment, forget about the failures, and take responsibility for the decision that he has to make NOW.
Now, I am definitely not an elite level athlete. Nor am I an entrepreneur, and even after a decade of covering founders around the world, I hate to imply that I can tell them how to go about their business.
But I find Bryant’s ideology fascinating and cannot help think of its parallels in the startup world. Any young entrepreneur, especially in the growth stage of his startup, would find that he or she has to take many important decisions day in and day out, and that not many of them would work out positively eventually. And for sure, there will be a bunch of people (read outsiders, mentors, investors) who will remind him of what he or she did wrong.
But it is the founder’s responsibility to take decisions, for himself and for his team, and live Here is hoping Bryant does more classes like these and more clips leak out. It is almost making me forget that I called him a ball hog most his playing career.