Kobe Bryant at USC | Mamba Mentality | With David Belasco

please welcome our guests kobe bryant's [Applause] like me Thank You Man man if I knew College was gonna be like this I would have took my butt to school welcome thanks for being here thanks for coming to USC checking it out for maybe your three daughters are on their way here yeah one for sure one for sure of other ones like she's obsessed about going to UConn so what we have to try to figure that out she's obsessed with you come by the time she's old enough USC women's basketball will be where UConn is now

all right that's what I'm talking about that'll make my wife extremely have both of our babies homes speaking at last over the weekend Arica good boy Wally when she hit the winning shot both in the final and the semi-final yelled mama meant mentality was the head was that easy for you to listen to well I mean I love watching great players do phenomenal things you know and it's always it always makes me feel good that what I've done throughout my career has inspired the next generation you know but you know my daughter just like sent

me after the games cause you know we probably stayed home because we're at the game we went to the game to see you kind of and you know after she says that she's like maybe we should've just stayed home great performance it was such a clutch shot both of them um today as I mentioned we want to focus on like three things primarily when we talk about mindset and mentality we certainly want to talk about your competitive philosophy we want to talk about leadership and then some of the lessons through basketball we're on a strict

time schedule we're gonna get you out here by 1:30 some students will ask questions at the end but let's remind what we dive right in all right see let's start with dear basketball which began as a poem you know almost a love letter to basketball can you tell us the origin of that of that writing and how it went from a written poem to a movie well I mean was thinking about how was going how was I going to announce now to walk away from the game and for the most part you know as athletes

we tend to think about that in terms of communicating that to the public or to fans and I realized I hadn't really had a chance to speak to the game itself and and so I decided that was going to be my focus and once I had that focus the words came pretty quickly actually wrote two drafts within about 30 minutes the first one was more confrontational in nature because it felt like I felt like the game was trying to tell me you need me and you can't you can't walk away from this you know this

is who you are and so the first tone was more confrontational is like no I can I can walk away from you I can do something without you you know and then like in every argument you kind of calm down and you started seeing all the beautiful things that you've learned from the game which is the second draft you know you guys here now but I wanted to make sure it's visual so it's easy to say tell the game I love you so much but instead I wanted to paint a picture with that so if

a kid is rolling his dad's stinky tube socks up chances are you loved the game enough to do that you know so it's trying to say things visually and unfortunate enough Glen Keane was believed in the vision and John Williams believed in a vision and returned it into an animated film and give us a little bit of what's it like to be nominated and to win an Academy Award you know you talk about being a kid and rolling up and playing basketball your whole life when you were a kid did you ever dream hip hearing

and the Oscar goes to no no I grew up in Italy okay so late I don't even know Oscars was the same I had no idea you know and so when the nominations came on we were nominated it was like oh that's that's pretty that's pretty crazy that's pretty insane and then to actually win it I remember winning and just looking at my wife to go on you know what okay all right this happened all right all right and I remember after we wanted we got in the car and you know it was like a

late night right so y'all hanging out and stuff it's like 4:00 in the morning you know in the car going back and I look at my wife and I go I got followed [ __ ] up we're gonna talk about by the studios and what project you have coming but you're right you've set a pretty high it's a little bit I don't know what the hell you do what we're Glen Keane and John Williams I saw downhill after that's like you know it's uh but no it's been a fantastic experience has been wonderful but even

more important than that it was I got a lot of funny looks my last year what people said okay what are you gonna do when you retire and I say well I'm gonna be a storyteller okay that's cute what is that you know I tell stories okay all right but so when you retire you gonna go through different stages you're gonna be depressed the first week the second week and they would tell me this all the time and so I felt like the domination was it was it was a validation that this thing is real

and I can do this I do have talent other than dribbling and shooting the basketball I can actually write yeah and so I think that was the most important thing that is a great lesson no matter what you do there's other talents that you have a nurtured yet that are sort of waiting there for you let's talk about you know focus on basketball since that was the predominant part of your life when did you start playing basketball and at what age did it become your primary focus um you know I was I think was just

born to play man I started playing it like two years old and my father wasn't one of these fathers that was like you're gonna play basketball and you know he wasn't one of those guys it was just kind of I was just around the game a lot and I gravitated to the ball and I was completely geeking out about like the smell of the ball and like the way it sounds when it hits concrete versus how it hits a parquet floor and like the sound of the Nets and the different material of the Nets and

you know there's certain basketball groups like in high school gyms and in college gyms the sits slightly above the lower part of the backboard and there's like I was geeking out if I got into a gym we'll just like the NBA with the lower stanchion of the backboard and the hoop were completely parallel with each other and I got like little [ __ ] like that would freak me out like ah so to answer your question I was born to do this thing then and and I did it non-stop all day long from the age

of 2 to when I retired man and it's interesting from the from the movie and probably you say it is as though you know when you fall in love with something truly fall in love and you don't really have a choice it chooses you right and then you sort of become you know indebted to that so it's interesting to see it come out as a love letter because no one probably would assume that that would be the way you would express it sure well no I mean it's it's that's the trick isn't it it's finding

what you love to do if we talk about hard work all the time this night you know man if you had to get up every single morning remind yourself how hard you need to work probably to choose a different profession you know because that shouldn't be there is I wake up in the morning excited to get to it you know if I'm not training I'm missing it I'm not watching the game about I miss it you know there's no place I'd rather be and if you have that feeling then you're truly doing with God has

put you in his herb to do great advice and then you see who you left you went to from high school we didn't leave high school you graduate high school you went directly to the NBA you were so young you're 17 that your parents had to sign your first NBA contract here so right here you're the youngest person not only on the team but in the league we've got a bunch of graduating students who are probably going to their first full-time job do you have any advice for students entering an organization and being the youngest

person not in the room but in the whole company well I mean in business it's a little different you know it's it's I think the best way to prove your value this to work is to learn is to absorb to be a sponge you always want to outwork your potential as hard as you believe you can work you can work harder than that and that's what I try to do when I first came and lead but you know basketball is such a direct competition sport that me coming in at 17 I hated when like my

teammates would say you know I did hit with an elbow right Shaq with hit me with an elbow in practice and like you know Nick Van Exel will come up and say are you okay wow are you okay hell's wrong with you you know it's so like I always had that extra chip on my shoulder so like every day I practice for me was really trying to annihilate everybody that was that I was playing against because I wanted to prove you don't need to babysit me like I'm fine you know and and so as always

that competitive nature the work ethic and curiosity because I asked a lot of questions you know playing with barns God I asked him a lot of questions Eddie Jones who was great at chasing cars off the screens and I didn't understand how to do that I would sit with him before practice after practice magic James Worthy Kurt Rambis Kareem Abdul all the Laker grades I would always sit down and just asking questions about certain games that I've studied growing up what actually happened there what did you feel there and why you know bird tough to

defend why cuz you look slow as [ __ ] to me I'm like I'm missing something so like tell me what I'm missing you know what I mean and so I would always ask questions and try to learn as much as I could right no I just different generation you guys probably never seen a bird play we just I've seen Larry Bird play hey everybody's seen Larry Bird that's that's not a high enough percentage we got we got some work to do they are you know they are 18 for the time but I just thought

that could be the greatest meme to send to Boston this afternoon well my kids have never seen Jordan play so and they don't know AZ they don't know we're let's let's dive into your your mindset because I really think that you have so many things that translate beyond sports when we talk about mindset and beliefs we talk about limiting beliefs as sort of being the ceiling of your potential you know how you think about yourself whether positively or negatively that's probably what your potential is how do you stretch your beliefs and make sure you are

continually continually pushing the boundaries of your comfort zone and your capabilities I just dream my dream they have dreams and dreams is they should be pure I think a lot of times we're born into this world we actually wound up going backwards and it seems like the more we mature the more responsible our dreams become and the more governors we put on ourselves and our ability to dream and to reimagine and it's always a fight for his parents and for you guys to make sure that your dreams always stay pure so it's not a matter

of pushing beyond the limitations and expectations it's really a matter of protecting your dreams protecting your imagination that's really the key and when you do that then the world just seems limitless and when you when you set your dreams a lot of times especially in business and entrepreneurship you have a big vision and people will instantly start asking you how you'll do it and so what we tell people is like you know don't get caught up with the how because if you know every step to accomplish your dream you haven't really dream big enough you

shouldn't know every step of the way and you'll have a tendency to walk it back and so I would say yeah be unrealistic in your dreams as well let's talk about one game in particular we're not going to cover basketball highlights because we'd be here for months but let's talk about one game that how that sort of shatters the notion of what some people might think as possible in 2006 against the Toronto Raptors you scored 81 points which is second only to Wilt Chamberlain's hundred points no one has really come close to your total since

people have it in the 60s including you he went 28 of 46 shooting 18 to 20 18 of 20 free throws you scored 55 in the second half and 28 of your team's final 31 points there's the score book above us that shows that the score book and the answer to the trivia question who was the second leading scorer of that game is smoosh Parker it's so good so we have four he had hit 13 good 13 it was something that if you were watching it it just kept building lately I know why I had

to score you won tough days man I was tough if you do look at that lineup you do understand it see that's yeah I'm not getting but at the time at the time the owner of the Lakers Jerry Buss said it was like watching a miracle happen and for those of us watching on TV or were there it really was one of those things you just couldn't believe was possible did you do during the game did you have to sort of like reset your beliefs I know Lamar Odom was saying you can't get 60 you

can't get 70 or did you just let it flow and whatever happen happen or were you really like gunning for numbers no I you know I always dreamed as a kid that you know it was possible to score 80 or 90 100 I was just like you know had a dream you know like sometimes we lay down in bed and you visualize things you just kind of you know just that's how that's at least how I would go to sleep I lay down that imagine playing for the Lakers and I'll imagine with the uniforms looks

like I'll imagine we would be playing you know the smell of the arena and all sort of stuff and I would see myself you know getting hot you know score ten straight points and then but in the dream like why would you ever interrupt that like you're not gonna have a dream and be like okay the new missus is next six but it's not gonna happen so you just keep dreaming a dream in a dream and then before I go to sleep I'm I got a hundred and twenty points no and so so when you

grow up downloading that into your brain over and over and over and then you know that summer I made a thousand shot today a thousand right that's on top of weight training and my conditioning I made a thousand shots and it weren't just shots it was shots that you saw in that game there were specific shots I mean it's coming out of the corner going to the pinch post footwork in the post coming off the screen it was very specific so when you download that into your system and you go out on the court and

you're just executing things that you've done thousands of times before and you have that dream then that becomes possible yeah everything's been not choreographed but it's been practiced so many times that it's second nature there's why reinvent it like I don't understand that you go out and play the game and you're just trying to create something news no no this is what I do this is what I do extremely well you're gonna have to stop me from doing that and if you do stop me from doing that I have a counter to that done you

know years later you uh you watched a replay of that game and you live-tweeted what you were thinking and I thought that the students would like to see some of your tweets from IDC they don't remember this is awesome so it says watching the game now I missed easy shots I could have had a hundred down fourteen I'm heating up at this point I wouldn't pass a kidney stone and then lastly should have been a comedian man what the hell and then lastly I knew I should have got a fresh haircut for this game [Laughter]

yeah yeah but missing two free throws is kind of ridiculous though like you make all those shots and you missed two free throws you know it's kind of it's so it's it happens yeah let's let's talk about mindset and philosophy because we tell students that it's very important that you have a personal philosophy in your basketball career did you have an articulated competitive philosophy something short that meant something to you that really stood for what you what you played my philosophy was a very simple one I am and this is where I think film plays

a big part of my life Rudy was one of my favorite films growing up if you guys haven't seen Rudy I suggest you go you watch Rudy the reason why there's a temperature it's no problem it's not a name so you I think the USC football program is done okay but after watching that film I come to understand if I could work that hard every day with the being blessed with the physical tools that I have with my career being and I made a promise to myself from that day that I was going to work

that hard every single day so that when I do retire I have no regrets and that was the most important thing for me is leave no stone unturned get better every single day and if I live that way then over time you know I'd have something that was beautiful but that was my philosophy it seems like a pretty simple one but you know if you lived your life to just get better every single day and do that for 20 years I mean what do you have right did you uh you know you seemed at peace

both before and during the game pregame I you know we watched you during the anthem you seemed to go to a place you know were you generating calm focused confidence do you have a mindfulness or meditative practice that you use while you play yeah well Phil introduced meditation to us when he came it's our team in 99 mm and it was something that I instantly gravitated to because I could see the effects you I used to watch you know studying the games the Bulls teams and you know watching their demeanor watching their composure you know

playing in a tough place like Utah doing the finals and being down 17 but everybody was like this you couldn't tell if they were down 17 or up 20 or a tie game and never changed and I was wondering why the hell that is and that's why I started doing more research and when til came I immediately gravitated to it then found myself accepted the challenge of finding what that space is and for the 81 point game and to be honest I was wasn't even thinking about the game my knee was hurting so much I

didn't know then but you know how to flap a joint of cartilage stuck in my joint line and so my mom was really trying to go to a place where I don't feel that pain and game started and because of that I was just in a different space you know I wasn't worried about what was to come I was worried about what just happened I was just here and when you're just there in the moment playing plays right in front of you your focus is heightened because nothing else matters and that's the space I've tried

to get to it's a perfect definition of mindfulness in the present moment without judgment and not for nutrition though cuz I did have a pepperoni pizza the night before the game full disclosure also had a plain quarter pounder with cheese before the game so to be young dinner of Champions exactly you wouldn't eat that now yeah nutrition didn't come till later so you talk about practice I wanna I want to underscore that you know Allen Iverson who was a phenomenal player with the 76ers famously ranted about you know when asked by a reporter about missing

practice and he just went you know practice we're talking about practice I mean it's pressed it's not a game and it was classic he went on forbidden you know the Iverson approach is not the Kobe Bryant approach you you really focused on practice tell us what you brought to practice and how you sort of made that standard for the rest of your team well I mean here's what I practice was important me not from the justice standpoint that I enjoy playing like I enjoyed being there I enjoy getting better but as a leader of a

team it's also your responsibility to elevate the rest of the guys and what people will tend to get stuck on a lot as saying okay the way to make players better there's the pass on the ball when they're open that's a very trivial way to look at things but you have to do is you have to get them emotionally to want to be better you want you have to get them to an emotional space where they wake up every morning driven to be the best version of themselves right how do you do that and in

practice for me it was a chance to drive them to challenge them right if their and this is where you have to know your teammates because if it's late just had a back to back and we had practice to next day and you show up and guys don't feel like going through the motions don't feel like practicing it's important to know each and every one of them individually personally because then you know it nerve to touch some guys it's like okay come on let's you know we can do this that'll get them going are the

guys know you got to figure out what button to push you know pal was always Spain about tell them how they lost in a gold medal to us and how they're gonna lose again I'm gonna beat your ass in practice just like I beat you in a gold medal game all that all you take that you hate that but that's what practice what you have to drive them you absolutely have to and if practice is more intense and harder than a game seven we'll be in a game seven will be easy but if it's not

then that's when teams start folding and capitulating you know you actually it's a perfect segue to you know how to create a high performance culture with coaches and team leaders you know everybody sort of got to be on that page of helping you become the best version of yourself speaking of that we have someone who'd like to ask you a question from Seattle please roll this question hi this is Pete Carroll from the Seahawks joining in with Professor Belasco's class and with one of the all-time greats Kobe Bryant I'm thrilled to be part of this

night but I just have one simple question really Kobe you have been one of the all-time great competitors that have ever played in in any sport and I'm real curious to know what it was like for you with all of the grit and all of the makeup that you had to be such a great competitor what was it like for you to play with people that that weren't as gritty as you were how did you deal with that how did you set your expectations knowing that that you were so far out there and and how

did you deal with the players that she played with you know when knowing that they they were still kind of somewhere on the spectrum but but you're on the top of it good question that's a great question um my response might sound a little tough but I just I tell him my burial you know it's you know tolerance for that and the kind of culture that the Laker organization stood for when in Championships is not tolerated you're gonna show up to play and you're gonna allow the gags with the scrimmage through this drill I'm going

to beat you I'm going to let you know I beat you I'm gonna want you to reconsider your professional life choice for the most part people will say okay that doesn't make a great teammate well I'm not gonna be a great teammate I'm here to help you win championships so it's a difference and you know fortunately for us for me you know we had an organization that it was Championships or nothing and they were really good about identifying that and bringing players in here that had a competitive streak and you know getting rid of the

ones that did not if I got a fight to get you in the gym that's a problem that's a problem you want players that are gym rats players at wannabe in the gym that wanna work and then from there you build on top of that but if you're lazy man I don't wanna talk to you I want to deal with you you don't make me feel Dumber you know you're gonna lower my level I don't think so you can go over there there's plenty of teams in here where you'll fit right in that's what you

mentioned at the time they were right down the hall from us how is your heart they were you you mentioned the organization and we're talking about leadership not just on the floor and the players within a basketball franchise the players you know they were accountable to we out to each other to the coach the coach reports to the GM the GM reports to ownership let's let's look at leadership from both the players perspective in the organization so to help us with that please welcome the president and the controlling owner of Los Angeles Lakers Genie bus

[Laughter] oh it's so good to have had me to call upstairs yeah I see welcome to USC campus I when I heard that you were going to be here I had to to stop by and welcome you and tell you thank you for inspiring another generation and I'm sure everybody's enjoying having you here today thank you thank you it was family there but the speaking of that so can you you share the relationship between Coby and the bus family with your dad and you your brothers and what he's meant to the franchise in your family

for us you know Kobe was drafted at 17 and I'll never forget meeting him he was a eager young man and he I'll never forget our weight or we went to lunch and our waiter Kobe asked him if he spoke Spanish and the waiter said yes I do and Kobe said I'm going to learn Spanish and I thought that was so odd for somebody so young to give himself a challenge like that and now you speak beautiful Spanish Italian you do your press conferences in both languages so you know the idea that we had a

franchise player in this this young kid was a gift for our family and you know the idea that you have been a Laker for 20 years throughout your entire career that meant a lot to my father doctor bas that you were a Laker for life anywhere thank you so what what changes it we're talking about leadership and I want you both to sort of two answers what changes did you notice in Coby from coming in at 18 to maturing becoming sort of the leader not just sort of Shaq and Kobe but what what changes did

you notice over time in him when you have a your star player who is the first one at the gym and the last one to leave it sets the bar for everybody else he made my job so much easier because of his leadership I don't think people he ever really gets the credit for the amount of work that he puts in because he made it look effortless and you know sometimes you know his teammates would get a little frustrated with you because you did set the bar so high but that's that's what made the Lakers

great for your tenure as a Laker and we miss you and most in most you know as Kobe said the Lakers play for world championships they'll play for division championships or conference championships they play to win it all and from 1997 when Kobe came in the league through 2012 the Lakers were in the playoffs all but one year the last few years of Kobe's run they're a young team and they weren't and they were out of playoff contention how does your attitude and leadership deal with changing goals you know I know it's good to say

that you want to win the championship everywhere but it probably wasn't really a realistic one so how do you would adjust how do you adjust as a team leader and then how what conversations does ownership have with the coaches teenie geenie so sweet she saw me worked so hard for so many years and the last few years her and Rob who was at the time my agent called me and said listen we are so sorry for what happened to this team we're sorry that we don't have seriously it's like we don't we're sorry we don't

have a team around you I can contend for a championship ya know it's it's so we could make a few calls and get you on a contending team that's all because we just feel horrible about seeing you go on out there and Chicago remember this and and I said they're not listed I said you know we don't each other for a very long time up now I'm questioning myself because I'm wondering what about me makes you think I would jump ship we don't do that because you'll do that we couldn't take losing and and and

how angry you think that's probably what it is yeah I'll put the tea tables maybe morning a few tables it's no bad for tomorrow when would we lost to the Celtics in 2008 you and Phil Jackson used to say it's worse to lose in the finals than to not make the playoffs at all and losing especially to the Celtics was that much more difficult but you just took that right from the court and went to the Olympics and led the team to a gold medal so you just you took that and then then you were

on a mission to get back into the finals and win and and you did and we played it's fat but to me it's family it's not like the Lakers I've been a Laker fan since five years old man I could I know the Laker history always from Minneapolis I'll always wear this today and so it's in my blood and this family her father believing in me and standing by me and also stuff like I'm not I don't go anywhere like this is home to me you know we work through the stuff together and like you

know as a leader I'll be able to take the good with the bad man you can't just cuz the ship sink and all of a sudden I might jump off a swim to another [ __ ] like that you don't do that right you can win championships in front of everybody then you can miss the playoffs in front of everybody you gotta be able to take boats out [Laughter] or or signed with Golden State but dealing there weren't losing that's acknowledge acknowledge it's it's the opposite view it's the opposite you know it's it's hard to

stand and that's why in the jersey retirement ceremony I said I talked about that it might have been easier for you to leave and you know you didn't in that you know if you're doing something that's so easy then you might want to reconsider what you're doing like I don't like I can't you know Durant's been a friend of mine for a very very long time yeah I mean I know he's been a friend of mine for a long time so as a bride all those guys would I make the same decision no but that's

their decision that's their choice I would have stayed but is what it is yeah people have to do what's right for them you know I mean it's not a judgment it's just a fact so it is what it is so Jeannie you mentioned the retirement ceremony and it was unique one because it came very early he'd only been retired for a year and you know as people know Kobe switched numbers from 8 to 24 during his career why did you decide to retire two jerseys in both numbers well it that was a kind of a

debate that we had internally and really the the whole idea of retiring a number for a player is that you know no one else can ever wear that number again because you will always think of the former player great in that number and so we knew that no one was ever going to wear eight or 24 for the Los Angeles Lakers ever again but if you took the body of work of Kobe wearing number eight and Kobe wearing number 24 both of those players would qualify to be on the wall and he just happened to

be one who had such an amazing career he deserved to be up there twice I am so grateful that that genie was able to come here I know you've got another a commitment that you have to go to with it I'm gonna say this off the record would you ever come back and talk about your businesses with our students at some point let's let's thank Gd bus for coming by so much GD bus you can see why Kobe you know some of these Kobe Jordan phenomenal players probably not coaches well I do coach my daughter's

do okay i do i do of course my coach my daughter's team this use uh it's a sixth grade basketball team we run a triangle offense we do we do and and and you know you can't tell kids scores there I made it too young for that right the first teach of how to scorch to earth right so you you gotta teach them fundamentally how to pass with your left hand how to make left-handed layups how the dribble appropriately out of proper spacing and you know all the basics first and then when they get to

seventeen eighteen minutes you know Jack Aris all right so let's just make a note for admission seven years let's put her on the radar I play we've got a couple more minutes and I'm gonna have students ask you some questions but I want to want to dive into your businesses now that you're sort of transition from basketball it's interesting cuz most athletes and retired athletes focus their business efforts around building their own brand their personal brand and certainly you know you have a brand you have a shoe but you've chosen to do something else something

that's that's more bold something that you really haven't done before can you tell us why you're doing this why you're going into a creative endeavor like granite II Studios because I love doing it it's that simple you know you have to sit in the hash yourself what is truly gonna get you up in the morning what's gonna keep you up at night and when you find what that answer is you stay true to that you know I've built a brand for the last 20-some years personal brand which is great but that is not where our

focus is going to be for the next 50 years it's what we are doing now are we taking a big risk yeah but I think that if we focus on one thing and do that one thing exceptionally well we won't fail at that one thing so sometimes you got to put the other stuff to bed and focus on what you believe is is the core of the company and that always starts from what you love to do the most so let's focus on on granite II Bryant style partners is a primarily a venture fund invest

in early stage and growth stage companies your partner Jeff style very experienced investor you has had some wins already with some great companies but I want to spend some time on granite because I think that's where most of your your creativity is expressed we talked about setting limits and artificial limits and beliefs on ourselves granitic Studios what does the word granite II mean it means greater than infinity and I just took those words and then made a new word um and the whole idea is that you know when I started playing the game everything was

about trying to be the best when this men you know when his many championships as you can jot yada yada yada you get older you start to understand that really it's about the next generation that these Championships do come and go right and there'll be other people that win championships but the most important thing you can do is to pay everything that you've learned forward to the next generation to come and that's truly how you create something that lasts forever right and so the fundamental belief of the company is create forever now how do you

do that and that's how you create something that's greater than infinity inspire one who inspires the next conspires the next and on and on you go and that's the foundation of it all that's great and Grammy Studios sort of two different areas content production and publishing right can you tell us on the content side tell us about detail with Kobe Bryant and is it puny Pete and Friends Beauty Pete and Friends so well detail will launch that April 12 on ESPN Plus and what I observed a lot of my career is how players study film

because now has become like you watch Game film you see what you do right you see which would be wrong okay let's do more of that let's do less of that right but the way I grew up from Texas winner Phil Jackson the way film was broken down it was broken down to the smallest detail was broken down to the right angle he's broken down to foot placement timing looking at the posture of a teammate you know what could he be thinking what could he be feeling same thing with the opposition you know you watch

the feed watch players going to the timeouts who's talking to who who's not talking you start looking at every little thing and so watching the game for me would take like five hours and that attention to detail is what's missing so I felt like if I can put that in a show I have the next generation the eleven year old kids hope you are watching the game at that level what are they gonna be when they're 25 you know what level would they be at then and it's a passion of mine to get that thing

going like I said April 12th would be the first episode it's so interesting you know we learned so many things when were younger and then we never really turned back to learn how to learn and so this is a tool to learn how to learn and learn how to become great and then what about puny Pete and friends puny P is like this is sy to create like a sports version of the peanut gang which is like the funniest thing it's awesome there's these little kids this kid named QEP and God bless his heart no

matter how hard he tries he can never seem to get [ __ ] right but he tries he tries and tries and tries and it's a podcast and what I wanted to do with the podcast is you know typically you hear a person talking and in the podcast almost becomes white noise because you cut it hear somebody talking and then you're gonna did you pay attention but what I wanted to do is take it back to you know where there was no TV and sports was telecast in radio so we have these two characters Clarke

and Kimberley spice and they're the announcers so they're our vision into the world and so they want to grow up to be the greatest announcers ever right and so they're commentating on what it is that we see and have these kids that are out there playing all these sports baseball football basketball it's really about the relationship between them all and about the power of dreams and success and failures it's a series about their journey but it's it's a it's fun it's podcast right pocket yes and on the on the publishing side I've heard they have

like nine different novels yeah in in development can you tell us what ROM they're in and what role do you play in generating the characters in the content spying and it's all sports and fantasy so you know having kids if I try to tell my daughters you have to work hard and also stuff like they just kind of look at me like yeah dad yeah we get it we get it and it just kind of going one ear out the other so I've had to start trying to figure out how to seed that into stories

and the content in the short stories stories I can read to them at no bedtime and then that's when the messages would sink in because they pay attention to a character more so than they would pay attention to what the hell I'm saying you know but I trick them because I wrote the story ha ha ha and so that's what this is where this whole idea kind of started and from there we you know I started kind of outlining different characters and creating an entire world that centered around sports and fantasy and magic and the

first novel series that will release his car role of a wizard and it's a it's a magical coach that comes in to teach these kids the magic that's within them and use fundamentals of the game and the emotion within each character and how they navigate those emotions to reach their full potential those are universal themes it sounds like you're you're sort of using the Disney model you're building a studio in Orange County getting Hollywood talent to come down there and join you well we need we need great writers editors does anybody in here in this

room that fits that pendejo we're in Costa Mesa so anybody that loves sports and love story and loves fantasy so it's got a home for you you know we just happen to have the number one cinema school in the world probably the most storied athletic heritage in all of college sports great business school great engineering so I think there'll be plenty of people that will probably be joining you at granite II awesome and I'd like to before I turn over to students to ask questions I I really find it fascinating that you have you know

sort of immersed yourself in something that has you know very different than professional sports it hasn't really been done before and that I hope you feed your creative side through granite II like you fed your competitive side through sports just wish you all the best thank you thank you let's start off with some students you can stand up stand up tell them who you are got about six or seven for you hey Toby I mean on behalf of everyone thank you so much for being here today my name is Sarah Hughes I'm a master's student

in the Entrepreneurship program I played on the beach volleyball team as an undergrad and now I play professionally for Team USA my question for you is what did you know and learn at the end of your career that you wish you knew at the beginning understanding empathy and compassion because as a young kid when I came in the league it was like I'm driving this way and either you're gonna be on the train or be on the track but there was no such thing as understanding that people have lives outside of the game we rich

apparently I did not but like if I understood at an early age and I'm it helps me as a leader to communicate better I came to understand that later and getting to know people on a personal level whether their fears where their insecurities where their dreams and ambitions desires those sorts of things you come to understand that about a person then you can help them reach the best version of themselves so I wish I'd known that earlier thank you oh thank you [Laughter] so Kofi how you doing I'm Jordan mcLaughlin I'm a senior here working

on my master's in communication management I played on the USC basketball team here my question for you is I'm preparing for the NBA Draft right now so what recommend what recommendations do you have for someone on picking an agent don't cuz it's a dying business I hope there are no agents in here it's finally agent not kidding you know I was very fortunate because Rob was the kind of agent that worked in collaboration with his players so my advice to you is find an agent that's going to collaborate with you not point you here points

you there all right work behind the scenes in the shadows without your knowing what the hell's going on right an agent that's going to have you be a part of the meetings right have you in that room discuss with you not just pop a contract in front of you but actually walk you through clause by clause what it is that you're signing are getting into and get your feedback on it so if you could find an agent like that man you're you're doing well man appreciate you got it good luck [Laughter] hi my name is

Waverly I'm a senior majoring in international Asians and global business um and I really enjoyed hearing about your different projects and new businesses and I was wondering if you've had to tone down your competitiveness in your approach in the new work environment um yeah yeah more than a little bit no well bat like I said basketball it's different because it's such a direct competition what we do now there isn't because the competitiveness that I bring to work every day is really helping people in a sense be competitive with themselves right if you're if you're animating

something or or you're writing a screenplay or you're composing a piece of music is that the best you can do alright don't ask me don't say okay do you approve don't ask me I'm not the musician I'm not the composer you know all right so the competitiveness is more from an individual perspective are you is this the best you can do and the answer is yes then off we go so it's different thank you so much yeah it's very welcome [Laughter] hi Kobe my name is vittorio Eric I'm a Jew my owner came to watch

don't play by the way volleyball and she were sitting right there she was like oh my god they hit that ball so hard that's the first time watching you guys plays though thanks for coming you're always welcome my question for you is players like Kevin Love and demar derozan are coming forward sharing their stories about mental health what is your take on this and why is it important that elite athletes join in on this universal conversation well that's a great question I think it's important for athletes to own what it is that they're going through

it's awareness and I think a lot of times we try to tell children tell young athletes in particular that you have those thoughts and those feelings that's weakness that's bad you shouldn't be feeling that which then causes them to feel some type of way about themselves and they carry that around with them for the rest of their lives and I think the most important thing is for us to be aware of what's going on in here not that it's bad good and different but it's awareness and once you're aware of it then you can choose

to walk hand-in-hand with it or you can choose to fight it but you're making that decision if you just can constantly bury that in the distance then it starts festering and it comes up in different ways and manifests itself in different ways so I think it's unbelievable with tomorrow and what Kevin are doing and hope to see more of it thank you hey are you it fantastic I'm Satori I'm a dance major here at USC I'll be the first graduating class and I'm a junior now so of course I have to ask a lot of

times dancers and athletes find themselves at odds with each other even though their craft sort of demand the same thing from them so I have to know how do you see dance and other art forms and athletics in alignment with one another well there was a there was a year played Indiana Pacers in the finals I rolled my ankle really bad Jalen Rose stepped under me on purpose he admits it now finally broke my ankle really really bad I came back finished the series but I couldn't touch a basketball till mid-september which was driving me

crazy I couldn't train but I looked at this was like the tenth time I rolled my ankle and in one season so I'm looking at that I'm saying okay I got to address that and so being that I couldn't get on the basketball court what I did was I took tap-dancing lessons no kidding I took tap and tap was like the best training for me in the world because it strengthened my feet it changed my rhythm and my approach to the game I was able to change speeds when I came back the following season you

know I think dancers put way more trainer in their body than athletes do and I think there's a lot that can be learned from that my daughter took ballet for several years and I was sit there in the class right and I didn't know what I was going to into his I don't know anything about ballet ready but I'm sitting there in the class and I'm watching her and watching to get the first position the second position I'm sorry I'm learning the structure and the rules that go along with that and as athletes there's a

lot to be learned from that because if you simply go out there and perform and play yeah you'll be great every now and then but if you play with the structure if you understand the rules that come along with that the discipline that comes along with that then you reach another level but you guys have my respect if other people don't see that there it is that's on by the way I was a horrible tap dancer by the way my mentality didn't translate to that [ __ ] man I wasn't gonna coffee good man are

you doing good someone name was Malik I'm a senior studying communication I'll be earning my master's at communication management on the football team so I was just wondering um what is the most important thing that I can take away from football that would translate into my life after sports well I mean it's different for everyone you know I think for me it was the the discipline the teamwork I mean I think team works the most important thing in a sense of you know sports is a place where you can have so many different ethnicities people

from different religious beliefs political beliefs which are grounded with one focus but achieving one thing right so being able to put those things to the side to accomplish a goal and that's one of the strongest lessons I think you should take from team sports thank you for good luck [Laughter] are you doing I'm captain Corbin Pierce I'm a active-duty reconnaissance marine right and also a father so I have a last question of a family question for you off the court now how do you inspire and foster that vision of greatness in a child you talked

a little bit about your this storage you tell him I'm in town it's very different than what they see every day in social media and so on no yeah I try to get my kids to see the beauty in the process so when it got old enough I used to take him with me to workouts and it used to be over there kicking a soccer ball around or whatever but they would see it's not there sitting there and watching upset but they would see you know they know I'd get up at 4 o'clock in the

morning they know I'm training again you know and there's film deer basketball I mean they were there with me as I was writing it and going through the animation process going through step by step I think the important thing that we can do as parents is to lead by example but also encourage our children to think incrementally not to say okay I want to be like you know Jonna for example my daughter who plays basketball now you said that your teach gotta play by so I made sure like okay I want to be better than

you am i I poo you know I'm just you know was the start we'll start with 15 minutes a day right until 15 minutes a day we just stood right in front of the hoop and just shot right under the hoop we didn't move around we didn't do any dribble in just 15 minutes a day just shoot here right and you do that for a month and a half and then next month you step back the next month you step back again and then you start working on dribbling right so I think through actionable things

is how we teach our children because we could sit there and tell them tell them tell them tell them win I you know we're kicking it listen right but it through sports you can teach them how to think things incrementally because that's the way they behave and it becomes a part of their process in sports it'll become a part of their process in life as well thank you it's already talked thank you yeah amazing questions imagining you training your daughter to play basketball I sort of thought of a Karate Kid mr. Miyagi well just do

that legs off just do this one thing for a month so for a month his daughters just shooting like three foot bunnies for that's way the rim that's it you know it's been a great time I told you we and speaking of Corbin's last quench question about parenting and Baba mentality I want you to share why we promise to get you out of here and what you have to do today what's your other obligation okay I don't like being second in carpool one no I'm joking but I'm really not no so you know my schedule

is always the same I get up super early you know I write I work out I take the kids to school and I go to the office who work more and then every day I'm there in carpool to pick up my baby from school and and so I I mean I don't miss that I don't miss it competitively sometimes when I pull up and there's a car in front of them like so now you here before me like I'm here 50 minutes before like what the hell yeah yeah good always can be AG imagine if

you know cutting you off at carpool just like you dodging in the last minute cut you mom yes always competing some way against yourself I was just annoying annoying well at USC we compete as well we compete for the best students the best entrepreneurs the best dancers the best athletes the best engineers the best guest speakers we really try and bring everybody here yeah it's sort of interesting because because he went directly from high school to the pros you technically he has eligibility left does so so I thought I would bring a great representative from

USC to help thank you please welcome the head football coach clay Helton clay you would be the prettiest white out on the face of the planet Toby thank you so much thank you for what you've done for the city of Los Angeles for what you have done for this Trojan family today I'm going to tell you the greatest gift you can give somebody is your time and you gave your time today into your mindset I've always thought that you were one of the most fierce competitors in the history of any game today I now know

that you are the fiercest competitor and we taught these young people that to be great you have to welcome competition it's something that is innate in all the great people and no matter what field you're in and we'd like to thank you from our Trojan family to you and we'd like to make you an honorary Trojan all right about that thank you yeah thank you appreciate you being you buddy thank you thank you thank you stay up here say students last the questions get up here for a quick picture this will show off the guns

nicely right here this will be nice students who ask the questions come on up really quickly guys thank you for coming today it's been a great day at USC it's great to be a Trojan have a great week fight on thank you thank you Colby