Reject Average.

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]You don't go through life just saying, "You know what? I'm okay being average."

[00:00:05]Average sucks. It does. When you're winning, you're not as good as you think you are.

[00:00:11]>> [music] >> When you're losing, you're not as bad as you think you are. Normal people get normal results.

[00:00:16]Weird people get weird results. You literally can't do what everyone else does and not expect to get what everyone else has. By doing what everyone else does, you [music] guarantee average results. If you want to be really great at something, you kind of have to be out of your mind, but you also have to have an iron will.

[00:00:33]>> Yeah. You don't want to work out every day.

[00:00:36]>> Yeah. There's going to be days you just want to eat cake and sleep.

[00:00:39]>> Yeah. But if you want to [music] get past the guy who eats cake and sleeps, you don't eat cake and you don't sleep.

[00:00:46]>> Yeah. I have [music] to ask this guy. I got I have to understand like why why he he works like that. Right. So after the game was I'm like, "Hey, Kobe, like why why were you in the gym for so long?" He's like, "Cuz I saw you come in. And I I don't want it you to know that it doesn't matter how hard you work that I'm willing to work harder than you."

[00:01:05]>> If you want some kind of a good outcome, you're going to have to work hard for it. And if you And if you don't work hard for something, you're not going to get an outcome that's really worth much.

[00:01:15]So, first rule, in order to pick something up, you have to put something down. Through this through through discipline, through self-discipline, through repetition, through tons of repetition of the same thing that you don't want to do, you develop armor for your mind. You know, when you're when you're going through something [music] really challenging, how do you show up within it?

[00:01:36]Do you choose to become a victim of complaining [music] >> [snorts] >> and misery and shitty, or do you find meaning in how you show up in the suffering, you know? You only got one life, guys.

[00:01:47]Again, if you work [music] it right, you only need one.

[00:01:51]You give it all you have, you're going to get max potential back.

[00:01:55]And then who knows what come. So, do you care about what people are thinking when they're not trying to go where you're trying to go? It was you. So, you better figure out who you are on this journey.

[00:02:08]And those few people who don't Many people don't like you? So, be it. But, you first have to figure out you because a lot of people die with a lot of untapped potential because they're trying to be somebody that they're [music] not. Yeah. So, I was able to figure out my own potential by figuring out me.

[00:02:26]Your dreams [music] are up to you.

[00:02:29]I encourage you to always be curious, >> [music] >> always seek out things you love, and always work hard once you find it. Don't let what in the what you can't do in the moment interfere with what [music] you know you can do. The discipline. The discipline is the most difficult thing, >> [music] >> not only in the sports, but in the life.

[00:02:50]The truth is, I had to work very hard to make it look easy. I spent years whining, swearing, sorry, throwing my rackets before I learned to keep my cool. Once you learn how to work, the work [music] itself is self-reinforcing and you enjoy it. It's everything else that you didn't know you're going to have to sacrifice so that you could get back to working.

[00:03:11]Right now in life, your family is looking for that one guy right now. They're looking for that one guy who's strong, who's that pillar for the family in hard times. Make sure they look around. They look around and find you.

[00:03:25]Be the guy [music] who embraces the ugly, the miserable.

[00:03:31]Be the guy who embraces hard work, the grind. Don't be afraid of being hurt.

[00:03:36]Don't be afraid of sacrificing some [music] blood. You be that warrior in that garden, all right? And you stand strong.

[00:03:43]You be a [music] strong man.

[00:03:45]You be a good man. And you just let the world rage around you. That most men live lives of quiet desperation. It's one of my favorite quotes ever, because it's true. And I've been that guy. Oh my god. You just You're just in this world where you just can't wait to just run away. But, the only way I could be this person now is if I took that chance when I was 21, when I was dead broke and >> [music] >> had my cars repossessed and all that stuff. That's the only way you [music] you ever get where you want to go. You have to You have to take a path that's dangerous.

[00:04:18]>> [music] >> And most people want to take the safe path. The safe path leaves you stuck in quiet desperation almost every time.

[00:04:26]It's hell. Out of 100 men that go [music] into war, 10 shouldn't even be there.

[00:04:31]80 of them are just targets.

[00:04:33]10 >> [music] >> do most of or nine do most of fighting.

[00:04:37]One is a warrior. And it's a true quote to life.

[00:04:41]I saw it going through train. I saw it everywhere I went. There's so [music] many people who just show up to life that shouldn't even be around.

[00:04:49]And there's [music] few people do all the work. I wanted to be part of that nine. And I'm And I'm working towards >> [music] >> being that one. People see the trophies, but not the training ground. Everybody wants the view, but no one wants to climb. You're a man.

[00:05:02]You are a man.

[00:05:03]>> [music] >> Stand up and be a man. Make the hard decisions.

[00:05:08]Make the sacrifices.

[00:05:10]Make the unpopular decisions. And become comfortable in your own skin.

[00:05:16]And if you are not a person that you are comfortable being alone with, that is the one person in this universe that you have full power, full right, and full responsibility to change.

[00:05:28][music] You're too scared to show up and you sit back at home wondering what if and everything else. No one in hell is going to call you in an opportunity, cuz you weren't present. The winners always show up. They're willing to lose in order to gain.

[00:05:41]Big mental thing there, guys. This [music] body, as great as you are, as sharp as you make the arsenal, it can't do anything if you don't have confidence in yourself. We all fall down in life.

[00:05:51]The question is who gets back up? You go after and you give it all you have. If you lose, at least you tried, man. I failed is 10 times more of a man than someone said what if? Cuz what if never went to the arena? I love fear and the reason why behind every fear is a person you want to be. Fear is self-imposed, meaning it doesn't exist. You create it, you can destroy it, too. It's an intangible. If you face your fears, guys, you will realize it's not that big. And once you face it, you go, "Oh my god, man, I spent all this time running from it. It was so small. If I just faced it, my god, not only did I face it, I beat it back." Energy is never lost, transferred. That negative energy, that fear, is destroyed. It comes back as confidence. You're like, "What else am I What else am I capable of? What else am I holding my back from that I'm capable of more? What am I running from I don't need to? What else can I overcome?"

[00:06:39]You face your fears, you become the person you want to be. You run from your fears, >> [music] >> you're not living. Your life. You should be a monster. He said, "You should be a monster, you should be ruthlessly ambitious, [music] and then learn how to control it."

[00:06:55]And it's that old expression, it's [music] better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.

[00:07:01]I had to stop thinking normal. I had to stop thinking normal. I can no longer be a common man walking around doing common things. Everything you do, you may have some support, you may not, but it's on you.

[00:07:13]You have to make the decision whether you want to be a badass or whether you want to just want to be mediocre.

[00:07:20]>> It's grind season, [music] homie. It's not about today, it's about the future.

[00:07:24]You do the work now. Do the work now, and all of this that you could ever want to do for your family, your kids, your loved ones, it's all going to be on a whole 'nother stratosphere. Life isn't fair at all.

[00:07:38]At all.

[00:07:40]So, what are you going to do about it? I knew that no one was coming back to help me.

[00:07:44]No one's going to miracle me to be somebody special. My dad, my mom, all my situations were on me now.

[00:07:52]It's only on me. So, mentality is the only thing that gets us through life.

[00:07:57]I was an underdog. We are all underdogs in life. Even the baddest person in the world should think that way. So, you should always have I've never arrived mentality. And the can't hurt me mentality, it doesn't matter where you come from, the sewer or wherever you think you're from, when I got out of the sewer, I got to the road and looked around and said, "Can't hurt me."

[00:08:17]Nothing should be able to hurt you. If you believe that, it starts to become true. It's time to stay focused. [music] It's time to decide clubs, partying, trying to fit in, and socialize, [music] rub elbows with everybody so people can stop calling you weird.

[00:08:34]>> [music] >> Why are you so antisocial?

[00:08:37]Because I'm trying to get it.

[00:08:38]>> [music] >> Why are you staying on the basketball court so much? Because I'm trying to get it. [music] Why are you out there practicing in the hot sun when ain't nobody else out there? Because I'm trying to get it.

[00:08:49][music] Why are you not clubbing like every time I text you and invite you to go do something fun and cool, you're always studying? Because [music] I'm trying to get it.

[00:08:58]Let me tell you something, homie. These women ain't going nowhere. These [music] clubs, these parties, all they going nowhere. The more weird you are is a reflection of how committed you are [music] to focusing on your molding and shaping and developing your ideas and your craft, so that when it's time for you to make your rounds, >> [music] >> you going to fly. You don't start things and not finish them.

[00:09:21]You don't quit.

[00:09:23]There's nothing that comes out of quitting besides knowing that you didn't finish.

[00:09:27]We finish everything. [music] You start it, finish it. If you're going to do it, do it to try and be the best.

[00:09:34]Not be better than other people, be the best for you. The life you want is on the other side of a few hard conversations and you're living a life you hate because you're too afraid to have them. For anyone who needs a reminder, no one is [music] going to hate on you for doing worse than them. Rest at the end, not in the middle.

[00:09:52]And that's something I always live by.

[00:09:54]Yeah.

[00:09:55]Not going to rest. I'm going to keep on pushing now. There are a lot of answers that I don't have. Even questions that I don't have. But I'm just going to keep going. Just going to keep going and I'll figure these things out as I go, right?

[00:10:07]And you just continue to build that way.

[00:10:09]>> [music] >> So that I try to live by that all the time. Admit it. You aren't like them.

[00:10:13]You're not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food [music] sometimes.

[00:10:23]But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact. And that is everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you.

[00:10:39]And you can change it. You can influence it. You can You can build your own things that other people can use.

[00:10:45]>> [music] >> And the minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will You know, if you push in, something will pop out the other side that you can You can change it. You can mold it.

[00:10:56]Nothing's permanent. That's why I'm always big on you have to keep what you want to be in the front of your mind.

[00:11:03]Because you're going to always lose it within the suffering. And suffering people ask me say suffering is not just physical, man. There's so many forms of suffering out here it's not even funny.

[00:11:14]And most of them are not physical.

[00:11:17]Most of them are psychological. Imagine that you're in a movie.

[00:11:20]And imagine the movie begins now.

[00:11:23]And you're the hero of the movie. Yeah.

[00:11:25]What would that guy do? Yeah.

[00:11:29]What would that guy do right now? Yeah.

[00:11:31]Because you are. Purpose. We're all looking for this goal and purpose. Is it this? Is it that? Is it making money? It Is it my family? Purpose is you.

[00:11:41]We forget that. [music] Every day I wake up and I don't want to do some I'm like, "Okay, man, do you want to be it today?

[00:11:47]Do you want to feel like a little Do you want to walk around all day knowing that you could, but you didn't?" If you don't change what you're doing and how you do it, >> [music] >> nothing else will change. If you don't fail, you're not even trying. I'll say it again. [music] If you don't fail, you're not even trying. My wife told me this great expression, >> [music] >> "To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did."

[00:12:11][music] Unchosen suffering is going to happen in life. Mhm.

[00:12:15]Your parents are going to pass away, loved ones are going to die, your relationships are going to break down, [music] your body is going to fail you, you're going to become ill or sick or destitute. Things are going to happen that you have no control over. Mhm. And the only way that you can prepare yourself for unchosen suffering is with chosen suffering. Right. [music] You can elect to put yourself into a position to become a stronger alloy of whatever the metal is that you're made of. Mhm.

[00:12:38]And by purposefully choosing difficult things, you will arm yourself against that situation.

[00:12:45]>> Mhm. It's still going to suck. Mhm. But think about how much more fragile you would be if you hadn't overcome all of this stuff. I don't look at failure as failure.

[00:12:52]>> [music] >> I look at failure as your first, second, third, fourth, fifth attempt.

[00:12:58]I look at them as attempts.

[00:13:00]I don't look at anything as failure.

[00:13:01]>> [music] >> Cuz when you're going to try to do some Not trying is failure. We're all trying to improve ourselves. No one's perfect.

[00:13:08]>> Nope. This is I'm not perfect now, I never will be, you're not, and you never will be, but you're better than you were yesterday, and you're going to be better tomorrow. Patience.

[00:13:18]The thing that goes beyond hustle and hard work.

[00:13:21]The discipline [music] of patience. The thing that goes beyond hustle and hard work. Right? Because we all talk about hustle, we talk about working hard, we talk about grinding, this, [music] that, and the third, but nobody talks to you about patience.

[00:13:36]Nobody speaks about that [music] patience. Because in the patience, that's where you going to make it or you going [music] to break, the discipline of patience, right? Because when you're not patient, you can make a lot of mistakes, man.

[00:13:50]Like I told you, the quote said, "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap.

[00:13:54]You judge each day by the seeds that you sow." [music] Right? When you sow a seed, you got to be what? Hope. You got to be patient.

[00:14:02]This is intentional. [music] Intentionally act like the person you want to become. Because when you intentionally act like the person you want to become, >> [music] >> your brain sees you taking those actions, so your brain starts to change the way it relates to you.

[00:14:17]When your brain [music] sees you high-fiving yourself in the mirror, it starts to go, "Oh, wait a minute.

[00:14:27]Steven loves himself. Steven's cheering for [music] himself. We don't beat Steven up." Well, life took me somewhere unexpected and unprepared. Um, it's about 6° out here, and I'm underdressed, [music] but guess what? No one gives a Sometimes life can really hijack your mind. When that happens to you, your goals, your ambitions, everything is out the window. In life, we all go through different things. Sometimes [music] your girlfriend or boyfriend breaks up with you. Guess what? Go over it. They no longer want you. Maybe you failed a test in school. You worked your ass off.

[00:14:56]Guess what? You failed the test. Get over it. Move past it. Learn to not let life hijack your brain. At work, you've been working your ass off for that new promotion. You don't get it. Someone [music] else does. Guess what? Get over it. Life will hijack your mind if you let it. Don't allow all these things to [music] make you a lesser person. You must own your mind. Don't let life own yours.

[00:15:18]>> [music] >> Sunrise, sun goes down.

[00:15:21]So, that means there is a up, there is a down.

[00:15:24]Since we are born, we have inhaled 50% of our times, [music] we have exhaled 50% of of our times. Always the exchange between left and right, up and down, [music] bright and dark, in and out, success and failure.

[00:15:44]It's just that this world is not propagating failure to you.

[00:15:48]It is propagating [music] success to you. So, our our mind is looking for success. When your alarm clock goes off at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, your mind says, "No." You just say, "This is what we do."

[00:16:01]Normal people get normal results.

[00:16:02][music] Weird people get weird results. You literally can't do what everyone else does and not expect to get what everyone else has. By doing what everyone else does, you guarantee average results.

[00:16:14]Every day.

[00:16:16]Do what you're supposed [music] to do.

[00:16:18]And don't expect some incredible results in one day or two days or 10 days.

[00:16:25]Worthwhile things take 100 [music] days. The magic you are looking for is in the work you're avoiding. You get up. You don't want to go run, you go run. You don't want to go swim, you go swim. You don't want to make your bed, you make your bed. At the end of every day, you look yourself in the mirror and you ask yourself, "Did I get better today?"

[00:16:43]If the answer is yes, and you do that for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, how much better are you going to be? And that's basketball, that's whether it's football, it doesn't matter. Are you getting better every single day? That's the question. If you had to create a human, what would you put them through to make them tough?

[00:17:01]It probably wouldn't be a really chill life. And you realize through hard work, you can do you can outwork anybody. No matter how badass they are.

[00:17:11]But that's the part people don't want to dive into. Nothing changes in the winner's mind. Do you understand that?

[00:17:18]You have to be obsessed. You have to be mission-focused. [music] You have to be driven by something greater than what average people are driven by.

[00:17:26]>> You got to start diving into those things that you are afraid of.

[00:17:29]You don't gain confidence by going to the spot that makes you feel good.

[00:17:34]It could be a false reality.

[00:17:36]>> You want to reach your goal?

[00:17:37]>> [music] >> How to reach the goal the quickest? Be focused with your energy.

[00:17:41]Meaning, be focused with the mind.

[00:17:43]Don't lose the goal from the mind.

[00:17:45][music] Whatever you do from the moment of waking up until the evening, whatever you do, keep the goal in the mind. This is the quickest way of making [music] this goal become real. It's just going to take time, dude.

[00:17:59]Uh you know, success is the reality of achievement, brother, is it takes way longer than we think. It's way harder than we think. But people understand that they live for themselves, not knowing that you have the [music] power within yourself to change millions of lives by facing life, by facing yourself.

[00:18:20]And through that, I I would die never knowing that I had the power to change [music] millions of lives. To be exceptional means that you are the exception. It means that you are not normal. And so it's normal for normal people to find you abnormal if you do things that are not normal. Don't let people who have mediocre goals deter you from taking actions that make you [music] great. We are in control of our momentum. If you are in a terrible place right now, if your life sucks right now, and you're waiting around for things to get better, that's not what you should be doing.

[00:18:57]That's not how it works.

[00:18:59]You need to take action. That most of the limitations [music] we have do not exist in reality, they exist only in your own mind. And one of the [music] starting points of great achievement is to start questioning those self-limiting beliefs and throw them off and act [music] as if they did not exist. No matter how big your dreams, you're going to die.

[00:19:20]Everyone will move on.

[00:19:22]Do what you want. It sucks to not be liked, [music] but it sucks more to not be yourself.

[00:19:28]Ease is a greater threat to progress than hardship. You see, the underdog story is the realest story there is.

[00:19:39]Cuz when you come from nothing, you appreciate everything.

[00:19:43]You hustle different. You love different, and you lead different. If you aren't naturally tired at night and excited in the morning, then you probably haven't found something meaningful to work on. You are not stressed from doing too much. You are stressed from doing too little of what you care about.

[00:19:58]>> [music] >> Stay humble.

[00:20:00]Never forget where you came from.

[00:20:03]Stay hungry.

[00:20:04]Keep that fire in your soul.

[00:20:07]And stay true. Always be real with yourself and the world. Because the world don't need no more copies.

[00:20:13]>> [music] >> It need originals, and trust me, ain't nobody else who can do what you do like you [music] do.

[00:20:20]For the first 20-some years of my life, it was just darkness.

[00:20:24]But if you are able to get up every morning, have no passion, no drive, no motivation, and still get up with THAT KIND OF FIRE, you will be successful in life. I guarantee you that. People give up right before they [music] get what they've always wanted to get. People quit and they give up, and I [music] will not be the person who quit before I got what I wanted or what I needed or what I felt I was supposed to have.

[00:20:52]>> [music] >> You got to do it alone. You got to do it broke.

[00:20:56]You got to do it scared. You got to do it when you don't know what's going to happen. You got to do it when you don't feel like it. You got to do it even when you're nervous. You got to do it even when you don't have the answers cuz you'll figure it out as you go. You know, that's the secret to manhood.

[00:21:09]>> dangerous person in the world is a man that is broken [music] and alone.

[00:21:12]You're You're racing against no one but yourself. When you compare yourself to other people, you are losing the race.

[00:21:19]>> [music] >> It like this race is you against you, man. Worry about yourself, worry about what you're doing, and worry about where you're going, only where you're going to be your best self.