you make a choice say you've come hell or high water I'm going to beat this then you should not be surprised when you are that and I gave my soul to this game cuz there's nothing more I could give nothing I'm telling you it goes by fast if you don't give it your own but I regret [Music] I love what I do it's as simple as that what does the love feel like for you what does love feel like I think I described it as a beautiful journey has its ups and downs things are never
perfect but through love you continue to persevere from a neutral to that storm beautiful Sun emerges and inevitably another storm comes and guess what you ride that one out too so I think love is a certain determination and persistence to go through the good times and the bad times with the someone or something that you're truly loved I had a summer where I played basketball when I was like 10 or 11 years old and I scored not a free-throw not a nothing not a lucky shot not a breakaway layup zero points and I remember crying
about it and being upset about it and my father's gave me a hug and said listen whether you score zero or score 60 I'm gonna love you no matter what 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 feel I have the security there but the hell with that I'm scoring 60 there's a choice that we have to make as people as individuals if you want to be great at something it's a choice that you
have to mention we all can be masters at our group but you have to make a choice and what I mean by that is inherent sacrifices that come along with that I had a purpose I wanted to be one of the best basketball players to ever play and anything else that was outside of that Lane so everything I saw whether it was TV shows whether it was books I read people I talked to everything was done to try to learn how to become a better basketball player everything so when you have that point of view
then literally the world becomes your library the Mamba mentality simply means trying to be the best version of yourself that's what the mentality means it means every day you're trying to become better it's a constant quest is an infinite quest I want to be one of the best basketball players who ever played okay how do I get there every decision I made in my life was centered around the process of helping me eventually get there like you're always going after always going to have to always going after and if there's a challenge that ensues oh
good I want to see how I stack up to that so I had that purpose once I had that purpose every decision that I made was centered around that purpose I think the best way to fool your are you is to work is to learn is to absorb to be a sponge always want to outwork your potential as hard as you believes you can work and to work harder than that to go after you go after what I've learned is to always keep going always there's been times particularly early in my career where you just
feels like this is the end but what I've come to find out is that no matter what happens the storm eventually is when a storm does and you want to make sure that you're ready and I gave my soul to this game and not have to teach nothing more to give nothing you guys know that you know if you do the work you work hard enough dreams come true you know that we all know that but hopefully what you get is the understanding that those times when you get up early and you work hard most
times when you stay up late and you work hard those times where you don't feel like working you're too tired you don't want to push yourself but you do it anyway that is actually the dream that's the dream it's not the destination [Applause] every kid every person has the ability to put one foot in front of the other right so like if you're saying okay I'm gonna climb Mount Everest at the bottom of the mountain and you look up you're going I'm not gonna climb Mount Everest right but if you break it down into sections
you just one foot in front of the other one step at a time next thing you know you're at the top of the mountain it's like as a kid I said I want to be the best ever alright and now you go through your life and everything you do try to be the best ever be the best ever be the best ever as you get older you start understanding that those things are very superficial things and everybody has a different opinion about it no matter what you do I can win twenty championships there's always an
opinion and who's the best everybody has different opinions and so I started really kind of understanding maybe that's not the important thing maybe the important thing is to how do we as a team grown how do I help my teammates be better so that was the first change for me and then as I got older still it became more about how are you inspiring others learning to find themselves that is deal to the championship how do you use your passion and use that to inspire somebody else to create their passion and then how can they
pass that on to the next person that is true success the lesson I cherished the most is how important it is to love what you do always seek out things you love and always work hard once you find it you can't stop limine dreams but you can stop it from becoming a reality your mind can handle the girl bottles tower say goodbye nestled to you a smile so gave you hard [Music] this is what we talk about all the time you know you have a bump in the road you fall you get back up can
you go after begin right that's that's what we do [Music] you