 What I had to do was work on the basics and the fundamentals. Well, they relied on athleticism and their natural ability. And because I stick to the fundamentals, it just caught up to me. I'd always heard this urban legend of how insanely intense Kobe's individual workouts were. Well, when I found myself on his camp staff, I figured this is my chance. This is my shot. So my earliest opportunity, I walked up to Kobe and asked if I could watch one of his private workouts. He was incredibly gracious. He smiled and he said, sure, man, no problem. I'm going to Mark IV. What a professional courtesy. I didn't say anything to Kobe and I didn't say anything to his trainer. I just sat down to watch. And for the first 45 minutes, I was shocked. For the first 45 minutes, I watched the best player in the world do the most basic footwork in offensive moves. Kobe was doing stuff that I had routinely taught to middle school-aged players. And don't get it twisted. This was Kobe Bryant. So he was doing everything with an unparalleled level of intensity and was doing everything with surgical precision. But the stuff he was doing was incredibly basic. His workout went on for a couple more hours. And when it was over once again, I did not say anything to him. I did not say anything to his trainer. I just quietly left. But my curiosity kept nipping away and it eventually overwhelmed me to the point that I had to know. So later that day at camp, I went up to Kobe again and said, I don't understand. You're the best player in the world. Why are you doing such basic drills? And he flashed that million-dollar smile. He gave me a very friendly wink. But he said in a very serious tone, why do you think I'm the best player in the world? Because I never get bored with the basics. I never get bored with the basics. I had a summer where I played basketball when I was like 10 or 11 years old. And a very prominent summer league in Philadelphia called the Son He'll Be. My father played my uncle play and they were like all-time greats and stuff. And here I come playing and I don't score one point the entire summer. 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 just gave me a hug and said, listen, whether you score zero or score 60, I'm gonna love you no matter what. Wow. That's the most important thing that you can say to a child. Because from there I was like, okay, it gives me all the confidence in the world to fail. Right, and from there I just went to work. All right, what I want to work on first. All right, shooting. All right, let's knock this out. Let's focus on this half a year, six months, nothing to shoot. All right, after that, all right, creating your own shot when you focus. So I started creating a menu of things. When I came back the next summer, I was a little bit better. And then the next summer I came back I was a little better. And the summer came back, the next summer I was a little better. I scored. It wasn't much, but I scored. And this is 12, 13. 12, 13. And then 14 came around, back half at 13, 14 years old. And then I was just killing everyone. And it happened in two years. And I wasn't expecting it to happen in two years, but it did because what I had to do was work on the basics and the fundamentals. Well, they relied on their athleticism and their natural ability. And because I stick to the fundamentals, it just caught up to them. And then my body, my knees stopped hurting, I grew into my frame. And then your athleticism, once you have the fundamentals, the hard work, the mindset, and you tack on the athleticism, it's game over. Then it was game over. Kobe Bryant, the best player on the planet, and someone that has truly mastered his craft, said that his entire secret is that he never got bored with the basics. And as obvious as that may be to you all right now, that was a life-changing moment for me. See, in that moment, I finally realized that just because something is basic, it doesn't mean that it's easy. Those are not synonyms, and yet people mistakenly use those words as if they're interchangeable. Just because it's basic, it doesn't mean it's easy. If it was easy, everyone else would be doing it. And you all know that we live in a world that tells us unconsciously that it's okay to skip steps. Tells us we should always be looking for a shortcut or a hack. Tells us we should constantly be chasing what's new and what's shiny and what's flashy and what's sexy. But I'm here to tell you when you do those things, you are making a huge mistake. And that's because of the basics work. They always have and they always will. Extraordinary accomplishments come from doing ordinary things for extraordinary periods of time. But when I was younger, my action showed that I was more impatient. I thought there was some shortcut I didn't know about. I would see the guys on stages being like, this is what we do, we do the basics, we do a lot of it. I was like, they're just trying to hold the secrets back. And I'm here to tell you that that is not true. Working out and doing reps is not extraordinary. If you saw one set of a workout from me at the gym, you wouldn't think, oh, this guy is amazing. It's the fact that you do it for 20 straight years. Nothing about that is extraordinary. It's the dedication to doing it over and over and over and over again, despite feeling like there's better opportunities, despite people approaching you with new and exciting things, but saying that you're committed to the original vision you had and that, not the action itself, but your commitment to the action is what makes someone extraordinary, not the thing itself. And to me, that made being extraordinary possible.