I saw this story from Robert Horry, one of the greatest clutch shooters in basketball. Don’t know it’s true, but I think it is.

When I got traded to the Lakers in ’97, Kobe Bryant was just a rookie. The dude couldn’t shoot threes. We would play this shooting game every day after practice. It was me, Kobe, Brian Shaw, Mitch Richmond and Kurt Rambis. Kobe would lose every time. We would get to practice the next day and sure enough, Kobe would already be there shooting nothing but threes. Like clockwork, at the end of practice he’d say, “Let’s play the game! I’m ready for you.” And we would beat his ass again.

He would never stop. It was incredible. He practiced until one day, a couple months later, he finally won. If you literally said, “Kobe, I bet you can’t make five in a row by dropping the ball and kicking it in from half court,” that motherfucker would go out there and practice it until he could do it. And that’s what people don’t understand when they talk about champions — when they talk about a winner’s mentality. Kobe’s dedication to the game is unreal.

In case you think this isn’t true, listen to Kobe in this interview.

Why I like this

To compete against others, you have to work harder. I tell kids I coach that it isn’t enough to get better in sports, but you have to get better faster than others are getting better. That takes work, it takes setbacks, it takes failures. It takes effort to overcome those to get better.

You might not have the raw talent to be one of the best every in your area, but you can be really, really good, and you can compete with many others.

The modern world, with jobs being remote, companies hiring everywhere, more tech people wanting jobs, you need to compete well, which means work.

Work to improve.

Why I don’t like this

I do think that Kobe worked in a very narrow domain, playing his sport. His sport didn’t change much, and he just needed to improve his skills, while knowing how to work against others. He was competing in a narrower space, against many knowns.

For many of us, our world is more complex, with many more dimensions of new technologies, unknown demands or desires from employers (or potential employers), and an every growing set of things that appear in our industry.

Driving to continue to be better is good, but you’ll never get to be amazing in everything in tech, or even one platform. Keep some balance and remember there are other important things in your life. Not so important you shouldn’t improve, but important enough to require some of your time.