In this episode, we will unpack lessons from Kobe Bryant.

5 National Basketball Association (NBA) championships, 2 NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards and 2 scoring championships are among his achievements. He played 19 years for the Los Angeles Lakers. He is 3rd on the all-time scorers' list in the NBA. He was known as the 'Black Mamba' for his mesmerising movements on the NBA court. He is known for his hard work ethic, indomitable will and ability to come back from failure. His name is Kobe Bryant and here are some lessons we can learn from him.

Know Your Outcome From The Beginning

When Kobe Bryant decided to join the NBA, he was drafted to the Charlotte Hornets in 1996. However, he traded a month later because he knew his outcome. Kobe knew from early on what he wanted to achieve in his career. He envisioned gold, previous greats and being a high scorer in a team called the Los Angeles Lakers. Kobe was about to make millions but forwent that in order to go to the Lakers. Had he stayed with the Hornets he may have never won a single title. A teammate told the story of Kobe when he joined LA. He said, "I am going to win about four or five championships. I will be one of the greatest scorers and players to have ever played the game." Kobe ended up achieving what he did because he knew his outcome from the very beginning.

Knowing your outcome is important as you will be able to know what you will and will not do. If you know who you are, then you know who you are not. Stephen Covey calls this principle beginning with the end in mind. Very few people will invest in a company that does not have a clear outcome to achieve. So why do people invest time in themselves if they do not know their outcome? With no vision, the people perish, but when there is a vision - when the outcome is known from the beginning - there will be direction and achievement. Know your outcome from the very beginning.

Only Consistent Action Over A Long Period of Time Will Yield Positive Results

Kobe Bryant was known as the fiercest and hardest working man in the league at one point. He would wake up at 4 am and go to the gym. He would begin with a rigorous cardio workout and then start shooting hoops. He would not stop shooting until he made 500 shots. His other teammates would join him at 7 am and they would practice until the afternoon, have lunch and carry on the practice until they stopped in the evening. Kobe would carry working until the evening when his other teammates had left. This mindset is very impressive but it is even more astounding given how long he carried this work ethic. Kobe played in the NBA for over 19 years where his consistency of action ended up in strong results, awards and honours. A result worth noting is that he is the 3rd highest scoring player in NBA history; a feat you can't achieve without consistency of effort - over a long time.

A work colleague of mine told me that there are no good or bad consultants. There are only those who are prepared, and those who are not prepared. There are those who fluctuate in performance and there are those who are the most consistent. Only the most consistent people go on to achieve great feats. In a world where almost everything is instant (coffee, tea, food and social media posts) there can be a temptation to not stick with a course of action long enough to yield results. Study history and those around you; you will find that those who are legitimately at the top, have the consistency of effort on their resume. Only consistent action over a long period of time will yield strong results.

Keep Working Until The End

Kobe Bryant is not without failures and setbacks. Black Mamba has been in seven finals and lost two of them. He has been the subject of scrutiny in the NBA by being accused of being a harsh critic and not being able to win without a strong ally, Shaquille O'Neal. Kobe has been faced with legal action and faced divorce amidst accusations of adultery. Towards the end of his career, plagued by injury and poor performances, he was scrutinised for being an old man who did not want to let go.

When faced with winning, he would not stop until the deal was closed. When on the way to winning an NBA championship. In a championship series, you have to win four games to clinch the title. When he was up 2-0, a reporter asked why he was not smiling. "The job is not finished. Is the job finished? I don't think so," he replied. This display showed that there was no place for complacency. In his very last game, where he would retire after 19 years in the league, he scored 63 points - which is way above the average. Whether faced with failure or success, he didn't have time to stop working to win - he kept going until the end.

Only 50% of businesses that start make it after 10 years. Now, making it doesn't mean that you are making any money, it means that you are breaking even. Even after 10 years, there is no guarantee that you will succeed. Lehman Brothers was a global financial services company that had been around for over a century. Lehman Brothers made over a trillion dollars in revenue over this time but they folded due to the lack of focus in the face of failure or successes. When you are faced with failure, keep working to win. When on the brink of success, do not get complacent but rather keep working until the job is done. Keep working until the end.

In Kobe's last game in the NBA, he scored 63 points in one of his best performances.