Latest / NO FILTER / KOBE BRYANT_S LAST GREAT INTERVIEW On How To FIND PURPOSE In LIFE _ Kobe Bryant _ Jay Shetty(M4A_128K)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: To say, Okay, it's okay to fail because you're going
- 0:02Speaker 1: to be loved no matter what. I had to look
- 0:04Speaker 1: at it from a long term because I wasn't going
- 0:06Speaker 1: to give up on the game. So I had to say, Okay,
- 0:09Speaker 1: this year, we're gonna get better at that. Next year this,
- 0:12Speaker 1: and then so forth and so on, and then patiently
- 0:15Speaker 1: I was able to catch me.
- 0:19Speaker 2: The first question I want to ask you because so
- 0:20Speaker 2: much of your content right now that you're creating here
- 0:23Speaker 2: a Grantity is aimed at helping young people, at helping children,
- 0:27Speaker 2: and as a father of four girls, I wanted to
- 0:29Speaker 2: ask you, what's the biggest thing you've learned about yourself
- 0:33Speaker 2: by being a father?
- 0:35Speaker 1: You know, it's amazing, Like when you become a parent,
- 0:39Speaker 1: things become much more, you know, life becomes you know,
- 0:43Speaker 1: lines things up for you a little differently, right Like
- 0:46Speaker 1: before you have kids, me and my wife who can
- 0:48Speaker 1: travel any time, you know, there's work, and you know
- 0:52Speaker 1: it's become very you have a very clear focus. When
- 0:55Speaker 1: you have children becomes about them. It's not about you
- 0:58Speaker 1: guys anymore, right, And so that shift to a big one,
- 1:02Speaker 1: you know, it's one of kind of selfishness together and
- 1:07Speaker 1: then to being absolutely selfless in doing anything you can
- 1:10Speaker 1: for your kids. And so what I'm trying to do
- 1:12Speaker 1: is create content to teach them first and foremost. That's
- 1:15Speaker 1: why I started this whole thing, is just reading stories
- 1:18Speaker 1: to them that I felt like didn't exist. You know,
- 1:20Speaker 1: our kids are athletes, and they love reading about princesses
- 1:25Speaker 1: and all these fairy tales. And you know, they get
- 1:28Speaker 1: a little sick and tired about the band saving the
- 1:30Speaker 1: princess every time, and you know, the same old stuff,
- 1:33Speaker 1: the magical winds and all that. My kids are athletes, man,
- 1:36Speaker 1: they want to learn about soccer balls and basketballs and
- 1:39Speaker 1: volleyballs and you know magic that comes from that.
- 1:42Speaker 2: Yeah. And I love that you're encouraging young people to
- 1:45Speaker 2: think more imaginatively about sports.
- 1:46Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:47Speaker 2: And I think that's where you go a step deeper.
- 1:49Speaker 2: You know. For me observing you and learning about you
- 1:52Speaker 2: and hearing you speak and other interviews and everything, what
- 1:54Speaker 2: I'm fascinated by is that you've dealt with things in
- 1:57Speaker 2: life pretty head on. You've always gone at it. What
- 2:00Speaker 2: took you a while? What was something in your life
- 2:01Speaker 2: that you were shy about originally or that took your
- 2:04Speaker 2: while to go ahead on with But then finally you
- 2:06Speaker 2: got there and you figured it out.
- 2:08Speaker 1: Writing Deer Basketball that was a hard jump, you know,
- 2:12Speaker 1: because I i'd written before I started writing, probably about
- 2:16Speaker 1: seventeen years ago, until practicing every day. A lot of
- 2:19Speaker 1: things that out that I wrote were ads, and so
- 2:22Speaker 1: you write an ad, you nobody looks up and who
- 2:24Speaker 1: wrote the ad? Right, you can kind of there's a
- 2:26Speaker 1: certain anonymity that comes along with that, right, But writing
- 2:30Speaker 1: Dear Basketball was different. You know, it's putting it out
- 2:33Speaker 1: there for the world to see. It's trying to create
- 2:35Speaker 1: a short film, and I didn't know if I could
- 2:38Speaker 1: do it, man. And you know, it was my daughter
- 2:41Speaker 1: who kind of put things in perspective for me. Gianna
- 2:43Speaker 1: she's now thirteen, and she was like, well, you always
- 2:46Speaker 1: tell us to go for it. So yeah, she put
- 2:52Speaker 1: me on a spot. She was like, you're gonna talk
- 2:53Speaker 1: about it, You're gonna be about it, basically, and you
- 2:55Speaker 1: know that that gave me the final push.
- 2:57Speaker 2: I love that when you started writing seventeen years ago,
- 3:00Speaker 2: did you envision that one day you would move into
- 3:03Speaker 2: this storytelling or was it just something you enjoyed it with?
- 3:06Speaker 1: No, man, it's just something I enjoyed, and I enjoyed
- 3:09Speaker 1: writing ads. It was something funny about trying to distill
- 3:12Speaker 1: a message down into thirty seconds or a minute depending
- 3:16Speaker 1: on the budget, you know what I mean, trying to
- 3:17Speaker 1: say something important, trying to speak to the you know,
- 3:22Speaker 1: brand attributes, but also speak to something that's greater and
- 3:26Speaker 1: that has a stronger message, stronger philosophical message, and how
- 3:29Speaker 1: do you connect those dots. So putting that puzzle together
- 3:31Speaker 1: was something that was really intriguing. But like, you know,
- 3:34Speaker 1: I never thought I'd be writing novels or movies and
- 3:37Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. Never.
- 3:39Speaker 2: Man, I love that. Man, I love it how everything
- 3:41Speaker 2: evolves naturally. And actually hearing you say that, it reminds me.
- 3:43Speaker 2: So my vision when I was sharing earlier became very
- 3:45Speaker 2: clearly making wisdom go viral. And I was like, how
- 3:48Speaker 2: do I take these teachings that are like so sacred
- 3:52Speaker 2: they're hidden away in these books, and how do I
- 3:55Speaker 2: make them really relevant and accessible and practical to the
- 3:57Speaker 2: whole world? Because I know that anyone can access to them.
- 4:00Speaker 2: They're universal, right, these these teachers can apply to anyone,
- 4:03Speaker 2: But sometimes they're just hidden away. Sure, and a young
- 4:05Speaker 2: person doesn't know how to find them. So that inspires
- 4:08Speaker 2: me hearing that.
- 4:08Speaker 1: It's beautiful too, because especially in today's in today's world,
- 4:13Speaker 1: there's so much clutter, you know, it becomes harder for
- 4:16Speaker 1: kids to try to weave through a lot of the
- 4:18Speaker 1: crap that's out there to find stuff that's actually beneficial
- 4:22Speaker 1: to them.
- 4:22Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. I think you reminded me. I think
- 4:24Speaker 2: Io Wilson said we're drowning in information, starving for wisdom,
- 4:30Speaker 2: right especially, And that's why I think your work is
- 4:32Speaker 2: cutting through because I think what you've managed to do
- 4:34Speaker 2: with your new work is that you're finding ways to
- 4:37Speaker 2: connect with what people care about, but you're taking it
- 4:39Speaker 2: a step deeper. Yeah right, you're not just settling for that.
- 4:42Speaker 2: Let's talk about sports. It's not just about sports life.
- 4:45Speaker 1: Right, It's about the metaphor that sports has for life.
- 4:47Speaker 1: I mean, you know, sports is the greatest, greatest metaphor
- 4:49Speaker 1: we have in terms of dealing with life, because you know,
- 4:52Speaker 1: even if you listen to music, music would give you guidance,
- 4:56Speaker 1: right that you can then meditate on and think about
- 4:59Speaker 1: how you would apply in sports. You have to apply
- 5:02Speaker 1: it in the here and now. I mean, your face
- 5:04Speaker 1: with challenges moment to moment your face with pressures and
- 5:07Speaker 1: anxiety and communication or the lack thereof, and all this
- 5:11Speaker 1: other stuff. Like it's in the moment, so you have
- 5:13Speaker 1: to live it, and when you practice those things, you
- 5:15Speaker 1: become better at it. But I just feel like in
- 5:17Speaker 1: this day and age, our children have become less imaginative
- 5:22Speaker 1: about how the problem solve, and parents and coaches have
- 5:25Speaker 1: become more directive in trying to mandate or give orders
- 5:30Speaker 1: or teach kids how to think and teach kids how
- 5:32Speaker 1: to behave versus and tell them how to behave versus
- 5:35Speaker 1: teaching them how to behave. And so that's why I'm
- 5:37Speaker 1: creating these stories and creating this content.
- 5:39Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. I think it's so true when
- 5:40Speaker 2: you treat people as kids, then they always be kids, right,
- 5:44Speaker 2: even when they grow up. And for you, it's really
- 5:46Speaker 2: powerful because you've talked about this before where your father
- 5:48Speaker 2: said to you, like, whether you score zero or sixty, yeah,
- 5:52Speaker 2: like I love you. Yeah, tell me what that statement
- 5:54Speaker 2: meant to you at that time, and how did it
- 5:56Speaker 2: actually motivate you to continue scoring sixty rather than go, oh,
- 6:00Speaker 2: I'm alright at zero.
- 6:01Speaker 1: Well it did more than that, right, So, like the
- 6:03Speaker 1: basketball stuff speaks for itself in terms of what that
- 6:07Speaker 1: comment may did for me, in terms of giving me
- 6:10Speaker 1: stability and giving me confidence to say, Okay, it's okay
- 6:15Speaker 1: to fail because you're going to be loved no matter what.
- 6:18Speaker 1: And that doesn't just mean basketball. That means anything in life.
- 6:22Speaker 1: That means writing, that means being an entrepreneur, that means
- 6:28Speaker 1: having a confidence to go for it. And I've seen
- 6:32Speaker 1: too many parents through the exact opposite, and it terrifies children,
- 6:36Speaker 1: and children become paralyzed by their own fear because they
- 6:40Speaker 1: don't have that security blanket of love and comfort.
- 6:44Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, How have you been able to in your
- 6:46Speaker 2: life see past the cloud of emotion to actually execute
- 6:52Speaker 2: on things? Because I think what we were speaking about earlier,
- 6:54Speaker 2: this challenge that young people afterday everyone has today have
- 6:56Speaker 2: just so much information, so much cloud of emotions, so
- 7:00Speaker 2: many feelings, so much childhood baggage that you're bringing, Like,
- 7:03Speaker 2: how have you always cut through that and execute them?
- 7:06Speaker 1: You Know? What I try to do is just try
- 7:08Speaker 1: to be still and understand that things come and go,
- 7:13Speaker 1: emotions come and go. The important thing is to accept
- 7:17Speaker 1: them all, to embrace them all, and then you can
- 7:21Speaker 1: choose to do with them what you want versus being
- 7:25Speaker 1: controlled by emotion. You know, a lot of times I've
- 7:29Speaker 1: seen players, even myself, you know, when I was younger,
- 7:32Speaker 1: being consumed by a particular fear and to the point
- 7:36Speaker 1: where you're saying, Okay, nah, it's not good to feel fear.
- 7:38Speaker 1: I shouldn't be nervous in this situation like that, and
- 7:41Speaker 1: it does nothing but grow, versus stepping back and saying, yeah,
- 7:45Speaker 1: I am nervous about the situation. Yeah, I am fearful
- 7:47Speaker 1: about the situation. Well what am I afraid of? And
- 7:49Speaker 1: then you kind of unpack it, and then it gives
- 7:52Speaker 1: your ability to look at it for really what it is,
- 7:54Speaker 1: which is nothing more than your imagination running its course.
- 7:58Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, absolutely that, because what you're saying is
- 8:01Speaker 2: that when you're dealing with something, it's almost like, how
- 8:03Speaker 2: can I get to the root of it? Yeah, because
- 8:04Speaker 2: sometimes what we're dealing with, like you're saying, it's an
- 8:06Speaker 2: imagination and illusion, it's not really.
- 8:08Speaker 1: It's not really a thing. You know, Like you think
- 8:11Speaker 1: about game winning shots and or game winning free throws
- 8:14Speaker 1: and people go to the free thrown and you're nervous
- 8:16Speaker 1: about it, Well, what are you really nervous about it.
- 8:18Speaker 1: If you unpack that, Okay, you're nervous that you're going
- 8:20Speaker 1: to miss the shot, all right, So you missed the shot,
- 8:22Speaker 1: then what happens. People are going to be embarrassed. You're
- 8:25Speaker 1: going to be embarrassed because thousands of people, millions people
- 8:27Speaker 1: say you missed a shot, all right, and then what
- 8:29Speaker 1: people are going to talk bad about you? Okay? Right?
- 8:32Speaker 1: And so you're looking at it and go are those
- 8:34Speaker 1: things even important? You know what I mean? If that
- 8:37Speaker 1: that is my fear? Like what is you're worried about
- 8:39Speaker 1: letting your teammates down? Okay? Have you let them down before? Oh?
- 8:42Speaker 1: I'm sure? And practice and things of that nature, right,
- 8:44Speaker 1: they're still there, you know. And so when you're able
- 8:47Speaker 1: to unpack it, you kind of look at it for
- 8:48Speaker 1: what it is, which is really nothing.
- 8:50Speaker 2: Yeah. I love that breaking it down. I think that's
- 8:52Speaker 2: so important. I think everyone who's listening and watching right now,
- 8:54Speaker 2: Next time you're facing a fear, next time you're going
- 8:56Speaker 2: again something, do that, like, literally unpack it. Don't you
- 9:00Speaker 2: settle for your first answer, because the first answer is
- 9:02Speaker 2: really the right one.
- 9:03Speaker 1: Don't hide from it. You know, you got to be
- 9:05Speaker 1: able to look at it and you know, and and
- 9:08Speaker 1: deal with it head on.
- 9:10Speaker 2: Yeah. I love that man. And you talk about that
- 9:12Speaker 2: because you talk about you know, when you talk about
- 9:14Speaker 2: missing five throws and you talk about getting over yourself. Yeah, right,
- 9:19Speaker 2: like getting over yourself. How did you get that mentality
- 9:22Speaker 2: of just being like I need to get over this,
- 9:24Speaker 2: like I need to get over myself?
- 9:25Speaker 1: You know, trial and error. You know, you grow up
- 9:28Speaker 1: and you make game winning shots and it's awesome, and
- 9:30Speaker 1: you come back the next day and miss a game
- 9:31Speaker 1: winning shot and it's misery. And then the next day
- 9:34Speaker 1: comes and you're back playing again. And you understand that
- 9:36Speaker 1: life has this cyclical nature where it's you know, what
- 9:39Speaker 1: you do on Monday, it's fantastic, but then Tuesday is
- 9:42Speaker 1: a bad day. But guess what, there's Wednesday. So are
- 9:44Speaker 1: we just supposed to live our lives like this the
- 9:46Speaker 1: whole time, you know, versus just staying like this and
- 9:49Speaker 1: understanding that it's really just a journey of evolution every
- 9:52Speaker 1: day it's just constant improvement, constant curiosity, constantly getting better.
- 9:56Speaker 1: The results don't really matter. It's figuring out that matters.
- 10:02Speaker 2: Yeah, And we all get obsessed about the results that
- 10:05Speaker 2: we get obsessed about like the output, not the input
- 10:08Speaker 2: of not figuring it out and not like changing things
- 10:10Speaker 2: what you said, trial and error, like the experimenting. We
- 10:13Speaker 2: forget to do that.
- 10:14Speaker 1: It's unfortunate, man. Like I've seen a lot of players,
- 10:16Speaker 1: especially now, you know in youth basketball, deal with that.
- 10:20Speaker 1: You have players that are like bigger and faster and stronger,
- 10:24Speaker 1: and you know, their coaches or just coaching them for results.
- 10:27Speaker 1: You know, we're just going to use your size that
- 10:29Speaker 1: because you're bigger than every other twelve year old out
- 10:31Speaker 1: there to dominate today. But they're not growing right, so
- 10:35Speaker 1: they're just based on that result. But they're not focused
- 10:37Speaker 1: on growing this young child into becoming a better athlete
- 10:42Speaker 1: and through that teaching them how to become a more
- 10:45Speaker 1: well rounded person. And we're missing that.
- 10:48Speaker 2: Yeah, see what you've said that Just I want to
- 10:50Speaker 2: ask you this, And I'm not saying because I you know,
- 10:53Speaker 2: like you know yourself best and you know how you've
- 10:54Speaker 2: got this, So I'm asking it from a place of
- 10:56Speaker 2: humility of learning. When I look at you, I'm like,
- 11:00Speaker 2: you know, your superpower isn't just your work ethic. Your
- 11:02Speaker 2: superpower isn't just like figuring things out. Your superpower is
- 11:05Speaker 2: like you think strategically, Like, that's a very strategic thought
- 11:08Speaker 2: of saying, this person could be this in the future
- 11:13Speaker 2: if they were developed as a whole individual rather than
- 11:15Speaker 2: just like let's use them for the short term. And
- 11:18Speaker 2: where did you develop that from? That ability to see beyond,
- 11:21Speaker 2: to think deeper, to reflect deeper, Where did that come from?
- 11:24Speaker 1: Well? I had to do that because you know, I
- 11:26Speaker 1: grew up growing up in Italy. When I first moved
- 11:29Speaker 1: over there, it was you know, I didn't speak Italian,
- 11:32Speaker 1: I didn't have any friends. You know, I had the
- 11:34Speaker 1: game of basketball, and through sport and playing soccer, I
- 11:36Speaker 1: was able to make friends and build connections. But it
- 11:39Speaker 1: was a lot of time spent alone. And when I
- 11:42Speaker 1: came back to the States, I wasn't the most athletic kid.
- 11:45Speaker 1: You know. I was really strawny, like really really skinny,
- 11:48Speaker 1: and had like major knee issues because I was growing.
- 11:51Speaker 1: So I was the dorky kid with hot socks and
- 11:53Speaker 1: big oldknee pets. Fashionable now, it's fashionable now and then,
- 11:57Speaker 1: but then and so I had to look long term
- 12:01Speaker 1: because in the here and now, I couldn't compete with
- 12:03Speaker 1: these kids. I mean, there's kids that were like twelve
- 12:06Speaker 1: years old with beards, like, kid, what I was supposed
- 12:10Speaker 1: to do with that? Like they're doing windmills and dunking
- 12:12Speaker 1: backwards and I'm happy to like tap the backboard, you know.
- 12:15Speaker 1: So I had to look at it from a long
- 12:17Speaker 1: term because I wasn't going to give up on the game.
- 12:20Speaker 1: So I had to say, Okay, this year, I'm gonna
- 12:22Speaker 1: get better at that. Next year, this and then so
- 12:25Speaker 1: forth and so on, and then patiently I was able
- 12:27Speaker 1: to catch them.
- 12:28Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I love hearing that because I think so
- 12:31Speaker 2: many of us kind of you believe, like when you
- 12:33Speaker 2: see people like yourself, it's like it's so easy as
- 12:36Speaker 2: an excuse to ourselves to just ah, you're destined for it, right,
- 12:38Speaker 2: you were made kind of like that, you know, Like
- 12:42Speaker 2: you know, but when you talk about saying, oh, actually,
- 12:44Speaker 2: when I started it, I didn't have the physicality that
- 12:48Speaker 2: meant that I was going to make it. Like you
- 12:49Speaker 2: have to figure it out, and I love.
- 12:50Speaker 1: To figure it out. Man. It's just piece by piece,
- 12:52Speaker 1: and it's the consistency of the work, which I feel
- 12:55Speaker 1: like a lot of parents are missing today because we're
- 12:58Speaker 1: not teaching that to our kids, to say like kids
- 13:00Speaker 1: don't want to do the work, but in reality, it's
- 13:02Speaker 1: when we're failing them because we're not leading them the
- 13:06Speaker 1: right way and teaching them you know, how to fish,
- 13:08Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And so like the consistency
- 13:11Speaker 1: of work Monday get better, Tuesday get better, Wednesday get better. Right,
- 13:16Speaker 1: and you do that over a period of time, you know,
- 13:18Speaker 1: not like one month or two months. I mean it's three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
- 13:23Speaker 1: ten years, and then you know you can get to
- 13:25Speaker 1: where you want to go.
- 13:26Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was Bill gatesho was talking about that.
- 13:29Speaker 2: He talks about how like we we overestimate what we
- 13:31Speaker 2: can do in one year and underestimate what we can
- 13:33Speaker 2: do in ten years, no doubt, Right, it's like that. Yeah,
- 13:37Speaker 2: Like I think everyone thinks about it, like what can
- 13:38Speaker 2: I do right now? Like how can I make it happen?
- 13:40Speaker 2: But like with you, I think people always ask you also,
- 13:42Speaker 2: like you know, how do you deal with losing your failure?
- 13:44Speaker 2: What I'm intrigued by is how someone like you deals
- 13:47Speaker 2: with winning, because you've won again and again, and like
- 13:51Speaker 2: I was saying earlier, you you know you want obviously
- 13:53Speaker 2: we know you want in basketball big as an athlete.
- 13:56Speaker 2: But you're winning now even in the work you're doing
- 13:58Speaker 2: here as a storyteller, as a producer. Right, it's amazing
- 14:00Speaker 2: to see so many incredible awards coming through. How have
- 14:04Speaker 2: you dealt with winning? Like when you win, what goes
- 14:07Speaker 2: through your mind to help you to continue with.
- 14:10Speaker 1: Well, it's a little different. Like in basketball, it was
- 14:12Speaker 1: different because I expected to win. You know, I expected
- 14:17Speaker 1: us to win championships. I expected us to win five.
- 14:20Speaker 1: Quite honestly, I expected us to win eight. And so
- 14:24Speaker 1: when you have that vision in sports, it's a direct competition,
- 14:26Speaker 1: like I know how hard they're working, I know how
- 14:28Speaker 1: hard we're working. I know what their strategy is, I
- 14:31Speaker 1: know what our is it. You know. So it's a
- 14:33Speaker 1: little different. So when we win in the NBA, it
- 14:35Speaker 1: was like, yeah, we expected to do that, but now
- 14:38Speaker 1: we're going to come back and we're going to do
- 14:40Speaker 1: it again, you know. And so it's that constant like
- 14:42Speaker 1: all right, you're training, you win one championship, I'm back
- 14:45Speaker 1: in the gym the next day working getting ready for
- 14:46Speaker 1: the next one. Now it's different because it's not about
- 14:51Speaker 1: the awards. You know, you just wound up trying to
- 14:52Speaker 1: create something that's that's going to inspire someone that hopefully
- 14:58Speaker 1: you know, through that inspiration and they can inspire somebody else.
- 15:01Speaker 1: And what I've come to learn as my career went
- 15:03Speaker 1: on is that's more significant than any championship is how
- 15:06Speaker 1: do you connect with somebody that can then connect with
- 15:08Speaker 1: another and then whether the awards come or not, you know,
- 15:12Speaker 1: that's for you know, you know, the Academy word body
- 15:20Speaker 1: to decide, but you know, like for us, it's just
- 15:22Speaker 1: to try to create things.
- 15:24Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I guess now that's what shifted that Now
- 15:27Speaker 2: the intention isn't even expecting to win, it's expecting to
- 15:30Speaker 2: change lives, right, Like your content is really about making
- 15:33Speaker 2: a difference in an impact on young people's shows, sure,
- 15:36Speaker 2: which which I think is like the biggest way of winning.
- 15:39Speaker 1: I think.
- 15:39Speaker 2: So.
- 15:39Speaker 1: I mean, you know, if you're looking at sixty two
- 15:41Speaker 1: percent of young children are dropping out of sports sixty
- 15:44Speaker 1: two and they cite the fact that it's not fun anymore.
- 15:48Speaker 1: But what is that telling? I mean, that's telling us
- 15:50Speaker 1: us as grown ups are getting in the way, get
- 15:52Speaker 1: out the way. Let these kids be imaginative, which you know,
- 15:55Speaker 1: like in our stories is important that Yeah, there's a
- 15:57Speaker 1: fantasy nature to it, right, but it's rooted in reality. Right.
- 16:03Speaker 1: When we have fire breathing winged horses and things of
- 16:07Speaker 1: that nature, those are actual drills that are taking place.
- 16:10Speaker 1: We don't have fire drink, you know, fire breathing winged
- 16:13Speaker 1: horses actually performing at but we do have ball machines
- 16:16Speaker 1: that are spitting balls at tennis players, right. And so
- 16:20Speaker 1: all of our all of our stories are all anchored
- 16:23Speaker 1: in an element of truth so that children feel like
- 16:26Speaker 1: when they are doing these drills with these ball machines,
- 16:28Speaker 1: they can envision maybe it's a fire breathing winged horse. Yeah, yeah,
- 16:34Speaker 1: they can envision gusts throwing fireballs at them, yeah and uh.
- 16:37Speaker 1: And even the plays like when they you know in
- 16:40Speaker 1: the Wizard art series, when the basket is opening up
- 16:42Speaker 1: and shrinking. These are things that we experience as athletes,
- 16:46Speaker 1: like some days I feel like I can't make a shot.
- 16:48Speaker 1: Man in the basket feels like the size of a
- 16:49Speaker 1: key hole, you know. In other days it looks like
- 16:53Speaker 1: a swimming pool. Yeah, you know, that's magic. And so
- 16:57Speaker 1: we we we root our magic in reality so that
- 17:00Speaker 1: when kids experience these things, particularly the failure side of it,
- 17:03Speaker 1: they can connect it to one of our stories and say, Okay,
- 17:07Speaker 1: I've seen this before, I know how to deal with this.
- 17:09Speaker 2: Yeah, that's beautiful, man. I love that that analogy of
- 17:12Speaker 2: like feeling the basket bigger or smaller, and I'll be
- 17:15Speaker 2: able to vision that. I can vision it right now,
- 17:17Speaker 2: You're so right, like some days it looks huge, And
- 17:19Speaker 2: I love that. That's such a great way of thinking
- 17:21Speaker 2: about it. And I guess so much of this is
- 17:22Speaker 2: from your real life vision. Oh yeah, yeah, this is
- 17:25Speaker 2: like some days experience.
- 17:27Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 17:28Speaker 2: But I love that because it's also giving them the
- 17:30Speaker 2: permission to say, like, be imaginative about this, right, yes,
- 17:33Speaker 2: And that obviously gives so much. I think when we imagine,
- 17:38Speaker 2: it changes the reality of oh, I'm just sitting out
- 17:40Speaker 2: here taking shots, yes, right, which can get boring and tiring,
- 17:44Speaker 2: becomes mechanical. Mechanical. That's always to like.
- 17:47Speaker 1: Our job is to try to inspire the creativity inside
- 17:50Speaker 1: of our children so that they can think through how
- 17:54Speaker 1: to problem solve situation. So like you know, when I
- 17:56Speaker 1: coach my daughter's team, it's not about giving them answers.
- 18:00Speaker 1: It's about asking them questions and getting them to process
- 18:03Speaker 1: things right when the game is being played. I'm not
- 18:06Speaker 1: sitting there giving them answers or barking out things on
- 18:08Speaker 1: a sideline. I sit down and I'm quiet. My assistant
- 18:11Speaker 1: coach sits there and she's quiet, and the kids figure
- 18:13Speaker 1: things out for themselves or they don't, and then they
- 18:16Speaker 1: come back and there's always questions, and then you kind
- 18:18Speaker 1: of ask them more questions and you help them figure
- 18:20Speaker 1: it out. But then you see their level of excitement
- 18:22Speaker 1: the practice every day increase because it's something, it's a
- 18:25Speaker 1: process that they are owning. Right. They're not coming to
- 18:28Speaker 1: get orders barked at them every day. They're coming for
- 18:32Speaker 1: for for kind of their personal quest to get better.
- 18:36Speaker 2: Yeah, and how does how do you do its feel
- 18:39Speaker 2: about you coaching? I guess that style makes them feel comfortable,
- 18:41Speaker 2: but how have you been able to manage that with
- 18:43Speaker 2: the pressure of you being there?
- 18:45Speaker 1: No, it's no pressure, because you know, it's it's their
- 18:48Speaker 1: process to own. Like I have knowledge, information that I've
- 18:51Speaker 1: that I've gained, you know, through playing, so like the
- 18:53Speaker 1: little details of things I can teach at a high level,
- 18:57Speaker 1: but ultimately it's it's it's them.
- 19:00Speaker 2: Yeah, you seem you seem very still and detached about it.
- 19:03Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's it's you know, the kids love
- 19:06Speaker 1: playing basketball, and so that's the anchor of it all.
- 19:09Speaker 1: They come and they play and they learn and they
- 19:10Speaker 1: have fun and you know, and they compete and you know,
- 19:13Speaker 1: they challenge themselves and one another and you know, just
- 19:18Speaker 1: get better every day.
- 19:19Speaker 2: Yeah, how have you seen that with? Obviously with Legacy
- 19:22Speaker 2: and the Queen, you chose tennis. Yeah, like what was
- 19:24Speaker 2: the what was the choice of sports about? I'm intrigued
- 19:27Speaker 2: by the why tennis?
- 19:28Speaker 1: Yeah. So, like the first novel we did was was
- 19:30Speaker 1: the Wizard R Series. It was important that for that
- 19:32Speaker 1: to be basketball because I wanted the first story to
- 19:34Speaker 1: be one of empathy and compassion and in team sports,
- 19:38Speaker 1: if you don't have that, you can't win, right, And
- 19:40Speaker 1: so it was important to tell the tale of a
- 19:42Speaker 1: basketball team dealing with their own personal fears and have
- 19:47Speaker 1: those fears and insecurities lead to empathy and compassion for others. Right.
- 19:52Speaker 1: And with the second story, I wanted to look more
- 19:55Speaker 1: internal individually and and look at how do you deal
- 19:59Speaker 1: with the inner challenges, the kind of the self negotiation
- 20:02Speaker 1: that takes place inside of our own heads. And there
- 20:05Speaker 1: was no sport better than that than tennis. There's golf,
- 20:09Speaker 1: but tennis you have more movement, which to me symbolizes
- 20:12Speaker 1: life in general, because life is there's a lot going on. Right.
- 20:16Speaker 1: There's the elements in tennis that you have to deal
- 20:18Speaker 1: with as you deal with in golf, maybe not to
- 20:20Speaker 1: the same extent, but they're still there. And then there's
- 20:23Speaker 1: the confrontation with the person across the net from you, yes, right,
- 20:26Speaker 1: as well as the strengths and weaknesses in your own
- 20:29Speaker 1: movements and how you feel in your own body. And
- 20:32Speaker 1: because of that, it was important for this story to
- 20:34Speaker 1: be a tennis story.
- 20:36Speaker 2: I love that. That makes complete sense. And give me
- 20:38Speaker 2: an example of that self negotiation. I love that word
- 20:41Speaker 2: and I get that. Can you expand on that a
- 20:44Speaker 2: bit of it?
- 20:44Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, you know, you're out running on the track,
- 20:48Speaker 1: working out, and you start talking to yourself saying, man,
- 20:52Speaker 1: my knee is really sore right now. Maybe I'm doing
- 20:56Speaker 1: too much. Man, I need to back off. You know, Man,
- 21:00Speaker 1: my lungs are burning, and maybe I can just slow
- 21:03Speaker 1: down here. I'll do like an extra two sets tomorrow.
- 21:06Speaker 1: You know it'll be okay. Right. That sort of stuff
- 21:09Speaker 1: like that stuff's dangerous and that's you just got to say,
- 21:12Speaker 1: you know, what I'm not negotiating with myself. The deal
- 21:16Speaker 1: was already made. The deal was made when I set
- 21:18Speaker 1: out at the beginning of the summer and said, this
- 21:19Speaker 1: is the training plan I'm doing. I signed that contract
- 21:23Speaker 1: with myself. I'm doing it. You know, throughout that process,
- 21:27Speaker 1: you'll start talking to yourself like, man, I gotta I
- 21:29Speaker 1: think I need to maybe if we know.
- 21:33Speaker 2: It's not negotiable. Negotiable. Yeah, and for you, empathy and
- 21:38Speaker 2: compassion with things that you've been through, like that was
- 21:40Speaker 2: that was personally inspired work. When did it come to
- 21:43Speaker 2: your awareness that empathy was something missing for you and
- 21:48Speaker 2: that you wanted to develop it.
- 21:50Speaker 1: I had a teammate that that spoke to me and say, hey, Cole,
- 21:55Speaker 1: you know I just want to feel like as a teammate,
- 21:57Speaker 1: you need me. I was like, well, duh, I can't.
- 22:02Speaker 1: I can't, you know, like that was my media reaction,
- 22:05Speaker 1: like dude, yeah, of course. But I had to kind
- 22:08Speaker 1: of think about really what he was saying and where
- 22:11Speaker 1: that was coming from for him and his story and
- 22:14Speaker 1: his journey and what that meant to him. And that
- 22:17Speaker 1: opened my eyes to there's a bigger game being played.
- 22:19Speaker 1: It's not just basketball, but it's the emotions of each
- 22:22Speaker 1: individual and the backstory that they're carrying with them, the
- 22:26Speaker 1: baggage that they're carrying with them. And if I really
- 22:28Speaker 1: want to be a champion and be a great teammate,
- 22:30Speaker 1: I have to understand what those mean to help them
- 22:33Speaker 1: become better and in turn help me.
- 22:36Speaker 2: Yeah, and do you think this content is going to
- 22:39Speaker 2: help all the content you're creating here at Granady? Is
- 22:42Speaker 2: that for you to help build better bonds between parents
- 22:44Speaker 2: and kids? Like are you hoping that the podcast, for example,
- 22:47Speaker 2: like kids are going to listen to on the way
- 22:48Speaker 2: to school or on the way back. Like how are
- 22:50Speaker 2: you imagining people consuming the world?
- 22:52Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean I imagine it in different ways, you know,
- 22:56Speaker 1: but like ultimately people always figure out a way to
- 22:58Speaker 1: do it that's comfortable for them. But like you know,
- 23:01Speaker 1: which is why and everything that we do we try
- 23:04Speaker 1: to create the highest quality of product, right, Like you know,
- 23:07Speaker 1: people will sit down and tell me, they'll say, okay, well,
- 23:09Speaker 1: audio books very small percentage of people listen to audio books.
- 23:14Speaker 1: We don't really have to invest too much in doing
- 23:15Speaker 1: audio books. And what excuse me, no, because that one
- 23:21Speaker 1: person just listens to audio books, that one family enjoys audiobooks.
- 23:25Speaker 1: They have to get the best experience that I could
- 23:26Speaker 1: possibly give them. So that means using a London orchestra.
- 23:30Speaker 1: That means doing full symphonies, that means having Felicia for
- 23:32Speaker 1: Shod read the stories like, it means everything the books themselves.
- 23:37Speaker 2: I got this all time.
- 23:37Speaker 1: There's no money in making books, man, nobody makes money
- 23:40Speaker 1: in books. And I'm sorry, you want to make a
- 23:42Speaker 1: book with using what material? You want? You know what?
- 23:45Speaker 1: Like you know, I'm like, uh yeah, because children matter
- 23:50Speaker 1: so like I don't know how they're going to I
- 23:52Speaker 1: imagine how they're going to be consuming content. But ultimately
- 23:56Speaker 1: it's my responsibility and our responsibility studio to make every
- 23:59Speaker 1: single thing that we put out the highest quality possible. Yeah.
- 24:03Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I can imagine. I can imagine parents listening
- 24:06Speaker 2: to it on the way to school. I can imagine
- 24:08Speaker 2: listening on the way back or on the way to practice. Sure,
- 24:11Speaker 2: things like that. I think it's cool.
- 24:12Speaker 1: I think it's well The Punies for sure. Like the Punies.
- 24:14Speaker 1: I was like, you know, when I first made The Punies,
- 24:17Speaker 1: we're going to release it in the summer. I think
- 24:19Speaker 1: we released it in August. Uh and uh, I think
- 24:23Speaker 1: I think it was August around the same time, but
- 24:24Speaker 1: my mind, I was saying, Okay, parents are going to
- 24:26Speaker 1: listen to this every Saturday morning because I know I'm
- 24:29Speaker 1: in the car driving my kids to soccer games and
- 24:32Speaker 1: like your volleyball games and stuff. So parents can listen
- 24:35Speaker 1: to this with their kids in the cars they're driving
- 24:36Speaker 1: the sporting events. Like that was kind of what I
- 24:38Speaker 1: had on my mind. And then when it came out,
- 24:41Speaker 1: it's like, you know, teachers were using it more so
- 24:43Speaker 1: than anybody in classrooms and doing like classroom reports on
- 24:47Speaker 1: the punies and and also the stuff.
- 24:49Speaker 2: So yeah, never know, it seems that you study life
- 24:53Speaker 2: a lot, right, Like when you're talking about all of
- 24:55Speaker 2: this imagination which stems from your own work, like for example,
- 24:59Speaker 2: like when you're dealing with empathy and combassion, it's reflected
- 25:01Speaker 2: in the content when you're going for these visualizations. What
- 25:04Speaker 2: could this look like? It goes in the content. You
- 25:07Speaker 2: study life a lot. What currently are you studying and
- 25:10Speaker 2: what kind of gets your imagination really growing right now?
- 25:13Speaker 2: Like what keeps that moving for you?
- 25:16Speaker 1: You know, there's a certain element of truth and everything
- 25:20Speaker 1: you know, and you know the creativity generally comes from
- 25:24Speaker 1: personal experiences first, and then you kind of look on
- 25:28Speaker 1: a broad kind of on a broader scope of Okay,
- 25:31Speaker 1: how do you take something extremely personal and then channel
- 25:35Speaker 1: it in a way for masses to understand or get
- 25:39Speaker 1: their arms around sort of thing. But it always starts
- 25:41Speaker 1: in the element of truth, and then you start unpacking
- 25:44Speaker 1: that by sitting in thought and figuring out like character
- 25:49Speaker 1: and you know who is this person and you know
- 25:51Speaker 1: who's his family? And then that's when I start getting
- 25:53Speaker 1: in trouble, you know, because it's like the questions don't end,
- 25:58Speaker 1: you know, so I have like books and books and
- 26:00Speaker 1: books and books and books and books and books and
- 26:01Speaker 1: books and books of backstory because it's not good enough
- 26:04Speaker 1: just to say the characters this way, yea, why are
- 26:07Speaker 1: they that way? Well? The parents, well, where do the
- 26:09Speaker 1: parents come from? And where's the dad come from? Why
- 26:11Speaker 1: are they raising a kid this way? And then you know,
- 26:13Speaker 1: what does it have to do with the economy that's
- 26:14Speaker 1: around them? And then and just one thing leads to
- 26:17Speaker 1: the next, and then you're just writing all kinds of stuff.
- 26:21Speaker 1: It's crazy.
- 26:21Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome, because I think so many of us
- 26:23Speaker 2: get you know, in our lives, we get stuck with
- 26:25Speaker 2: imagination because you kind of get into that autopilot mode
- 26:29Speaker 2: doing the same thing every day, same routine, same drive
- 26:32Speaker 2: to work. And it's like, I feel that what you're
- 26:35Speaker 2: sharing is that's easy for anyone to do. It's not like, oh,
- 26:38Speaker 2: because you're Gonta be Bryan, you don't feel that everyone
- 26:40Speaker 2: gets into that You're able to find these creative outlets.
- 26:44Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, like creativity is in everything, you know,
- 26:47Speaker 1: Like even then, consistently, what I found is creativity a
- 26:51Speaker 1: lot of time comes from structure.
- 26:54Speaker 2: I agree that.
- 26:56Speaker 1: You have those parameters in the structure, then within that
- 26:58Speaker 1: you can be creative. But like if you don't have
- 27:00Speaker 1: the structure, you're just aimlessly doing stuff. Just yes, you
- 27:04Speaker 1: know where you're going, you know. So like having a
- 27:07Speaker 1: clear structure of understanding. Okay, this morning I'm going to
- 27:10Speaker 1: Like when I was writing, it wasn't our series an
- 27:13Speaker 1: outlining legacy. Are come in in the morning seven am
- 27:16Speaker 1: and I'm there. I'm writing backstory from seven to twelve.
- 27:22Speaker 1: Then go pick up my kids, and then I come
- 27:23Speaker 1: right back and I'm writing again. So like within that structure,
- 27:27Speaker 1: my mind when I go to sleep is already like
- 27:30Speaker 1: planning of what the next day is going to be,
- 27:32Speaker 1: because I know you know what it is I have
- 27:34Speaker 1: to do. It's that consistency in structure.
- 27:36Speaker 2: Yeah, I can agree with you more. I'm writing my
- 27:38Speaker 2: first book right now and a lot of people have
- 27:40Speaker 2: been asking me, like Jay, and I'm like that I
- 27:42Speaker 2: have a very scheduled focus on writing and Peo'll be like, well,
- 27:45Speaker 2: how do you find inspiration at that time? What if
- 27:47Speaker 2: you're not inspired at that time? And I'm like, no,
- 27:49Speaker 2: the structure helps spontaneity. Yeah, why, it's that consistency that
- 27:53Speaker 2: breeds creativity.
- 27:53Speaker 1: Well that's the thing too, is like people think like
- 27:56Speaker 1: it's you're just kind of just kind of, you know,
- 27:59Speaker 1: mulling long and all of a sudden, aha, you know,
- 28:03Speaker 1: like the show that we have on ESPN now called
- 28:05Speaker 1: Detail Basketball, you know, sports breakdown show that came to
- 28:11Speaker 1: me when I was walking around with my wife shopping
- 28:15Speaker 1: and I look at a piece of fabric and I'm like, wow,
- 28:17Speaker 1: this is really the detail and this thing is oh
- 28:20Speaker 1: my detail is the name of the show. And then
- 28:22Speaker 1: everything came from there. But I had been thinking about
- 28:25Speaker 1: a show like that for like a year, you know,
- 28:28Speaker 1: and I couldn't I couldn't shake it loose. I'm like,
- 28:31Speaker 1: I gotta find a sports show that I'm going to do,
- 28:34Speaker 1: but it needs to can't just be basketball focused. Has
- 28:36Speaker 1: to be broader, and I want to hear from the
- 28:38Speaker 1: best minds in the world here from Peyton Manning. I
- 28:40Speaker 1: want to hear from what is it? What is it?
- 28:42Speaker 1: For like a year and then all of a sudden boom,
- 28:44Speaker 1: you know, and so people think it just comes out
- 28:46Speaker 1: of nowhere. You got to like obsess over for a
- 28:48Speaker 1: while and then it kind of pops loose.
- 28:50Speaker 2: Absolutely, you had to plant the seed well before to
- 28:53Speaker 2: see the fruit.
- 28:54Speaker 1: And you gotta water it all the time, like you
- 28:56Speaker 1: gotta sit down and watch and watch other shows that
- 28:58Speaker 1: are out there, and like, you know, and then ultimately
- 29:01Speaker 1: you just find you know, like when the answer comes
- 29:04Speaker 1: to you, it's like, my god, I could have thought
- 29:05Speaker 1: it out on the first day. I remember John Williams
- 29:08Speaker 1: told me that you say he's SI, He'll sit for
- 29:10Speaker 1: like two months to try to figure out what the
- 29:13Speaker 1: melody is. Yeah, and he'll just be playing. He'll be
- 29:17Speaker 1: at this piano all day, He'll say. The only day
- 29:19Speaker 1: he'll take off his Sunday because his wife forces to
- 29:21Speaker 1: take Sundays off and he'll just be sitting here writing, writing, right,
- 29:25Speaker 1: and then it just comes and he's like, I seriously
- 29:29Speaker 1: could have thought of that on the first day, Like
- 29:31Speaker 1: why it's just so simple?
- 29:35Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And that's what people don't realize as well,
- 29:37Speaker 2: Like when you go out there, you're shopping with your
- 29:38Speaker 2: wife and you see the detail and you're like, Okay,
- 29:40Speaker 2: that's the show, and then you go back into consistency
- 29:43Speaker 2: to create it. Yeah, it's like, you know, it wasn't
- 29:45Speaker 2: just like oh now I thought of I'm just going
- 29:46Speaker 2: to throw that idea. It's like, now I'm going back
- 29:48Speaker 2: to the drawing board, have the name.
- 29:50Speaker 1: Now I try to What I try to do is
- 29:53Speaker 1: shoot the idea down and figure out everything that's wrong
- 29:56Speaker 1: with the idea. Okay, right, this show won't work because
- 30:00Speaker 1: like detail for examples, like this show won't work because
- 30:02Speaker 1: it's not for fans. It's for the one percent athlete.
- 30:07Speaker 1: Yeah all right, well will it be successful people connect
- 30:10Speaker 1: to it? Like, you know, you start unpacking every little thing.
- 30:12Speaker 1: How will we shoot it? Can I even get Peyton
- 30:14Speaker 1: Manning to do it? Can I get you know, and
- 30:17Speaker 1: you start shooting them down? Same thing with the novels
- 30:19Speaker 1: like characters and plots and stories. Does this make any sense? No,
- 30:23Speaker 1: here's why. And I felt like that really helps me.
- 30:28Speaker 2: Yeah. I like that approach a lot actually, because I
- 30:30Speaker 2: think sometimes, especially right now in the world, we go
- 30:32Speaker 2: to the wishful thinking side. You have the positive vision
- 30:35Speaker 2: and you're like, oh, this is how it's going to
- 30:37Speaker 2: turn out, right, and then you ignore the bad stuff. Yeah,
- 30:40Speaker 2: or you ignore the kind of like the potholes or
- 30:42Speaker 2: the loopholes because you're just like, oh no, I don't
- 30:44Speaker 2: want to focus on the negativity. But actually what you're
- 30:47Speaker 2: saying is if you're aware of it, of those no unknowns,
- 30:50Speaker 2: then you can actually break them down yourself.
- 30:52Speaker 1: Well. Yeah, it's just like the same thing for any
- 30:54Speaker 1: great movie. You have to have the antagonists. Yes, you know,
- 30:59Speaker 1: a strong villain. This character will really drive the narrative along.
- 31:03Speaker 1: If you don't have that, you have nothing from which
- 31:05Speaker 1: your hero has to bounce off of. You know, that
- 31:08Speaker 1: villain could be you know, maleficent, they could be something
- 31:12Speaker 1: inside of you, it could be whatever. But you have
- 31:15Speaker 1: to have that clear antagonist that's driving a narrative forward.
- 31:17Speaker 1: And so in this sense is the same thing you
- 31:20Speaker 1: pick apart the negative and from that you can then
- 31:23Speaker 1: move yes, move forward.
- 31:25Speaker 2: Absolutely. What I'm loving here right now is that all
- 31:29Speaker 2: I'm hearing is like COVID is storyteller, Like I'm loving it.
- 31:31Speaker 2: Like what I feel is like what I'm hearing about
- 31:34Speaker 2: is your obsession and obsessiveness with stories. And it's not
- 31:39Speaker 2: just like you know, I'm sharing this, It's like you've
- 31:42Speaker 2: really studied stories, like you've really broken them down and
- 31:45Speaker 2: understood it. Where tell me about where that obsession comes
- 31:49Speaker 2: from general, like how you find obsessiveness and how you've
- 31:51Speaker 2: applied that to story.
- 31:53Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, obsessiveness comes from something that you love,
- 31:56Speaker 1: like you really love it. You'll go through fire for it,
- 31:58Speaker 1: you know, you'll go through the ups and downs with it,
- 32:00Speaker 1: and you'll just keep at it because you love it
- 32:02Speaker 1: so much, you know. And story for me started a
- 32:06Speaker 1: long time ago. I mean, I had a great English
- 32:07Speaker 1: teacher at Little mary In High School named Jane Mastriano,
- 32:11Speaker 1: and she explained to me the artist storytelling my sophomore year,
- 32:14Speaker 1: and that's where I started falling in love with it
- 32:16Speaker 1: and understanding story structure. You know, how to develop compelling
- 32:21Speaker 1: characters and how this thing, how stories are the driving force,
- 32:26Speaker 1: whether they're inspirational informational that really changed society. Yeah.
- 32:31Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah. We're defined by the stories we tell us
- 32:33Speaker 2: to whether personally or outside. Absolutely absolutely. And it seems
- 32:38Speaker 2: that you just mentioned that it just shows the role
- 32:39Speaker 2: of teachers. And now when you find that teachers are
- 32:42Speaker 2: using the work you're creating to teach.
- 32:44Speaker 1: That must be amazing comes full circle. Yeah, you know,
- 32:47Speaker 1: and uh, you know, it's a it's a it's a
- 32:50Speaker 1: pretty cool feeling. Man. Like I like growing up, when
- 32:52Speaker 1: I was a high school man, I didn't read much
- 32:54Speaker 1: at all. Yeah, you know, because basketball was my thing. Now,
- 32:57Speaker 1: if you give me a basketball book or like a
- 32:59Speaker 1: sports book or like a sports psych book, or I'm
- 33:02Speaker 1: devouring there, you know what I mean, because it was
- 33:04Speaker 1: a clear focus for me, which kind of gets me
- 33:06Speaker 1: into this market a little bit too, because like for
- 33:08Speaker 1: our active children that love being outdoors and playing all
- 33:12Speaker 1: the time, they're not reading, No, but they're missing out
- 33:15Speaker 1: on so much by not reading. But they will read
- 33:19Speaker 1: if there's something that they feel like speaks to them.
- 33:22Speaker 1: So true, you know. And so now I think we
- 33:25Speaker 1: get more readers in the world because of it, hopefully
- 33:28Speaker 1: so true.
- 33:28Speaker 2: No, I think so I agree with you, like for me,
- 33:30Speaker 2: and this is why everyone's different. And I think there's
- 33:32Speaker 2: such a need for what you're doing because when I
- 33:34Speaker 2: was growing up, I never enjoyed fiction, and so I
- 33:38Speaker 2: thought I didn't like reading because all the books that
- 33:40Speaker 2: the school suggested were fiction book And then when I
- 33:42Speaker 2: was fourteen, my dad handed me an autobiography and a
- 33:45Speaker 2: biography and I devoured it. I mean I started reading
- 33:48Speaker 2: because I was like, I want to hear about real
- 33:50Speaker 2: people who break and who develop and who learn and
- 33:53Speaker 2: grow and like have been through failure, and like I
- 33:55Speaker 2: want to hear about rags to riches and I want
- 33:57Speaker 2: to hear about like I want to hear about real
- 33:59Speaker 2: people who went through real pain.
- 34:00Speaker 1: That's right.
- 34:01Speaker 2: But I grew up believing that I didn't like reading,
- 34:04Speaker 2: and I think that's you're so right. I think there's
- 34:06Speaker 2: a lot of kids out there who think they don't
- 34:08Speaker 2: like reading, or they think reading is boring.
- 34:10Speaker 1: It's a problem because like what I found in the industry,
- 34:12Speaker 1: which is why we self publish, because a lot of
- 34:16Speaker 1: publishers want to publish the same type of story, you know,
- 34:19Speaker 1: the same type of plots, same looking characters, not a
- 34:26Speaker 1: lot of diverse characters out there at all. And so
- 34:30Speaker 1: we said, you know what, we're gonna have to do
- 34:31Speaker 1: this on our own. This way, we don't have anybody
- 34:33Speaker 1: in our way telling us what the market wants to hear.
- 34:35Speaker 1: I don't care about that. We write stories that come
- 34:37Speaker 1: from the heart, and our characters are going to look
- 34:40Speaker 1: like my daughters. Because my daughters don't have characters out
- 34:43Speaker 1: there that look like them.
- 34:43Speaker 2: It's great.
- 34:44Speaker 1: So they're going to look like my kids, and and
- 34:48Speaker 1: we're gonna go from there.
- 34:49Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think what you've just raised there
- 34:50Speaker 2: about diversity and representations huge.
- 34:52Speaker 1: It's huge, man, huge, because I don't see it. And
- 34:55Speaker 1: like you know, so books is just the first thing.
- 34:59Speaker 1: Publishing is the first thing. Now if we look at animation,
- 35:01Speaker 1: animation is even worse. It's even worse, you know, in
- 35:05Speaker 1: terms of developing characters, diverse characters, but even beyond that,
- 35:09Speaker 1: the animators themselves. There's no diversity in that industry, right none.
- 35:15Speaker 1: And I'm talking not just racial diversity, but gender diversity
- 35:18Speaker 1: as well. And so there's there are a lot of
- 35:20Speaker 1: things that we need to take on that we are
- 35:22Speaker 1: taking on and hope to make the world in the
- 35:25Speaker 1: industry a better place because of it.
- 35:26Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I fully agree with that. I'm a British
- 35:29Speaker 2: Indian right, born and raised in London and never seen
- 35:31Speaker 2: any character that look anywhere.
- 35:34Speaker 1: Right because they think, you know, the mass market, they're
- 35:37Speaker 1: not gonna it's not gonna piel a mass market. So
- 35:39Speaker 1: we're not gonna do that.
- 35:40Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Wait what what? Yeah? And and everything's spreading
- 35:44Speaker 2: so fast now and everything is global now yeah, right,
- 35:47Speaker 2: nearly all content is global now and most global markets
- 35:50Speaker 2: are growing everywhere. So the need for people, especially young people,
- 35:54Speaker 2: being able to see themselves in characters and and even
- 35:57Speaker 2: and it's it's not And I think it's a deeper
- 35:58Speaker 2: point that you're making. You want to be able to
- 36:00Speaker 2: see your story in someone, right, even just beyond like
- 36:04Speaker 2: color and background, it's like your story, your experience of life.
- 36:08Speaker 1: We made their basketball. We got a lot of pushback
- 36:10Speaker 1: from people like I took it to some very prominent
- 36:14Speaker 1: studios at first, and they all said, yeah no, because
- 36:20Speaker 1: you said basketball is too sports specific. Nobody's going to
- 36:24Speaker 1: connect with this sort of thing, because you know, there's
- 36:26Speaker 1: a lot of people out there who don't watch basketball.
- 36:28Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, that's not the point. It's not
- 36:31Speaker 1: the point. And so it was really a case study.
- 36:33Speaker 1: Even with our novels, everybody's like sports novels, nobody's going
- 36:36Speaker 1: to read that. It's too much of a niche market.
- 36:38Speaker 1: Niche market. I'm like, sports is bigger than that, man.
- 36:42Speaker 1: And so we made their basketball to really prove a
- 36:44Speaker 1: point that you don't have to watch basketball at all
- 36:48Speaker 1: to connect to the journey of a dream. Yes, you know,
- 36:53Speaker 1: and once we saw that connection, was kind of kind
- 36:56Speaker 1: of validated our point of view.
- 36:58Speaker 2: I think that's a massive point of view for anyone
- 37:00Speaker 2: who's listening to watching right now, who thinks because Kobe
- 37:02Speaker 2: Brant wants to do something, it just happened. It just
- 37:04Speaker 2: shows you have to do yourself somethings because not everyone's
- 37:06Speaker 2: going to believe.
- 37:07Speaker 1: In you, certainly not, certainly not. And what you'll see is,
- 37:11Speaker 1: you know, once you start doing it, and now people
- 37:13Speaker 1: want to come and jump in. But I'm like, you know,
- 37:16Speaker 1: you kind of forced us to go about this ourselves.
- 37:18Speaker 1: So I think we're just going to build it from
- 37:21Speaker 1: the ground up ourselves. Thank you, they saved you. Yeah,
- 37:26Speaker 1: thank you appreciate it because if you had signed on,
- 37:28Speaker 1: you know, we just kind of going with the flow totally.
- 37:31Speaker 2: Yeah, you can be grateful to this. Yeah, absolutely, no,
- 37:34Speaker 2: I agree. It was the same with this podcast. Funny enough,
- 37:36Speaker 2: when we launched, a lot of people were a lot
- 37:39Speaker 2: of people were considering whether it was you know, gonna
- 37:41Speaker 2: like you know you do social videos, like is it
- 37:43Speaker 2: going to work on a podcast, and there were a
- 37:44Speaker 2: lot of people that were not sure. And then like
- 37:46Speaker 2: we launched some of the biggest podcasts in the world
- 37:48Speaker 2: and in the health category, which is which is my World?
- 37:50Speaker 2: And that was just like everyone's like, oh interesting, But
- 37:53Speaker 2: I'm like, thank you, like, thank you so much for
- 37:55Speaker 2: saying no, and you didn't think it was going to work,
- 37:57Speaker 2: because now I figured out myself and what you said,
- 38:00Speaker 2: it actually builds confidence and validation.
- 38:02Speaker 1: And yeah, Oprah told me this when I first decided
- 38:05Speaker 1: to build the studio and I was asking how Harpo
- 38:08Speaker 1: came to be and she said, well, when she was
- 38:11Speaker 1: doing her her deal for the Oprah Winfrey Show, she
- 38:15Speaker 1: was re upping her deal and actually the first contract
- 38:18Speaker 1: she and she said, well, don't pay me upfront, just
- 38:22Speaker 1: I want to own a percentage of the show. And
- 38:25Speaker 1: so they gave it to her. And now at the
- 38:27Speaker 1: time there weren't any black women hosting the daytime talk show, right,
- 38:31Speaker 1: so it was really new and uh she said, you know, Kobe,
- 38:34Speaker 1: if they believed that the show was going to be successful,
- 38:37Speaker 1: they wouldn't have give me given me that they would
- 38:41Speaker 1: up in their mind they're thinking, oh, we got to steal.
- 38:43Speaker 1: We don't have to pay her. We can take this
- 38:45Speaker 1: money and move it over here. This is great. You know,
- 38:48Speaker 1: it's going to be a flop or be succesed. I
- 38:50Speaker 1: don't know. At least we get diversity on TV. It's fine,
- 38:52Speaker 1: and all of a sudden is oh, oh oh, oh trouble.
- 38:58Speaker 1: You shouldn't have given it Pandora's body, right, So now
- 39:01Speaker 1: you come back for the next day and it's like, Ian,
- 39:04Speaker 1: I had to give me some more ownership. You're like,
- 39:06Speaker 1: dang it here. And then ultimately she you know, came
- 39:09Speaker 1: to only one hundred percent show.
- 39:11Speaker 2: Yeah, which is amazing. Wow, that's a great story. Yeah,
- 39:13Speaker 2: that's fascinating, I think because sometimes when you think that,
- 39:16Speaker 2: you're like, oh, they like me, that's what they're giving it.
- 39:17Speaker 1: No, no, don't like me. Please, here's an idea. It's terrible.
- 39:22Speaker 1: I just need you to buy in just a little bit.
- 39:25Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that is awesome. How are you encouraging
- 39:29Speaker 2: You've shared so many stories of like your teacher who
- 39:31Speaker 2: taught you about storytelling and writing earlier on you just
- 39:33Speaker 2: shared Oprah's example, like you've had so many incredible mentors
- 39:36Speaker 2: in your life. We all know about that. How are
- 39:38Speaker 2: you encouraging young people to find the right mentors? And
- 39:41Speaker 2: how can they find the right mentors even through your work?
- 39:44Speaker 2: I guess your work is somewhat mentorship.
- 39:46Speaker 1: We try to be, you know, And I think the
- 39:49Speaker 1: important thing is research. You know, on the hall here
- 39:52Speaker 1: in the office, I have a hall that I call
- 39:54Speaker 1: muse Hall. We have all the portraits of some of
- 39:57Speaker 1: our muses here from j Rolling into you know, Steve
- 40:01Speaker 1: Job and so forth and so on, and I think
- 40:04Speaker 1: it's important to research them. And it's like putting fuel
- 40:08Speaker 1: in the fire every day. You know, it's constant inspiration
- 40:11Speaker 1: when you read about them, what they were able to accomplish,
- 40:13Speaker 1: how they went about accomplishing it. It's just constantly, you know,
- 40:18Speaker 1: feeding that flame and learning. And the best way to
- 40:22Speaker 1: do that is to learn from the people who have
- 40:24Speaker 1: done it.
- 40:24Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, that just made me so happy. I have
- 40:27Speaker 2: a gallery wall in my home if we were recording
- 40:29Speaker 2: this at my place in Hollywood, Like I have a
- 40:31Speaker 2: gallery Ward Steve Jobs is right there, right, and and
- 40:34Speaker 2: and Einstein's there, and Martin Luther King's there, and there's
- 40:37Speaker 2: a few other people, and it's for me. It's the
- 40:38Speaker 2: same thing. It's like sometimes I'm sitting there and I'll
- 40:40Speaker 2: be like, well, what would that person do? Like how
- 40:42Speaker 2: would they have dealt with this challenge? And you're so right.
- 40:44Speaker 2: I think you can be mentored by people who aren't alive.
- 40:48Speaker 1: Because their stories still live, which brings us to the
- 40:51Speaker 1: importance of storytelling. Their stories still live. These muses are here.
- 40:55Speaker 1: It's important to learn from them, and if anything, it
- 40:59Speaker 1: helps you remember that they are human just like us.
- 41:02Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 41:03Speaker 1: These great things that get accomplished can be accomplished by
- 41:06Speaker 1: others and beyond. You know, building Walt Disney Company is
- 41:11Speaker 1: not something that you know, people look at and scoff
- 41:13Speaker 1: that and go, oh, it can't be done. Well why not?
- 41:16Speaker 1: Why not?
- 41:17Speaker 2: Yeah? And the more action you take, the more you
- 41:19Speaker 2: think is possible.
- 41:20Speaker 1: Yeah, because you realize they are people just like us.
- 41:22Speaker 1: They made mistakes just like us, and they kept going
- 41:26Speaker 1: and we can do the same.
- 41:28Speaker 2: Absolutely, Man well, I could talk to you for hours.
- 41:31Speaker 2: That you're a busy man and you've got loads of
- 41:32Speaker 2: things to do. So we end every interview with what
- 41:34Speaker 2: we call the final five quick fire rapid fire around,
- 41:37Speaker 2: which means you have to answer in one word or
- 41:39Speaker 2: one sentence maximum, got it, So this is easy for you.
- 41:42Speaker 2: So the first question is what brings you the most
- 41:45Speaker 2: joy right now?
- 41:48Speaker 1: Family?
- 41:49Speaker 2: Beautiful? Second, what do you want your girls to think
- 41:51Speaker 2: when they hear your name?
- 41:54Speaker 1: Daddy?
- 41:55Speaker 2: Nice? Number three? Your favorite animated film, Pinocchio. Nice. I
- 42:01Speaker 2: was not expected that.
- 42:02Speaker 1: It's the greatest. Yeah, they mean they were in a
- 42:05Speaker 1: zone when they made that film.
- 42:06Speaker 2: Absolutely. Question number four. The book that's had the biggest impact.
- 42:09Speaker 1: On you, The Alchemist?
- 42:13Speaker 2: Oh nice? Okay, great? Question number five, your one message
- 42:17Speaker 2: to all storytellers would be.
- 42:20Speaker 1: Create from truth.
- 42:22Speaker 2: It's beautiful, man, Kobe, thank you so much. This has
- 42:25Speaker 2: been an honor man. Thank you such a beautiful conversation.
- 42:28Speaker 2: Thank you for sharing so many gems, so many wisdom pieces,
- 42:31Speaker 2: and anyone who's out there right now, I've got the
- 42:33Speaker 2: copy of the book right here, Legacy and the Queen.
- 42:36Speaker 2: You can go grab it and you can also listen
- 42:38Speaker 2: to the podcast The punies as well right now, so
- 42:40Speaker 2: you can go and download that. We'll put the links
- 42:42Speaker 2: to both of them in the comments section, and in
- 42:44Speaker 2: this podcast you can go directly there. Kby, thank you
- 42:47Speaker 2: so much for allowing us into your space. Man, this
- 42:49Speaker 2: is really special.
- 42:50Speaker 1: Thank you.
- 42:50Speaker 2: I remember this. Thank you man. If you want even
- 42:53Speaker 2: more videos just like this one, click on the boxes
- 42:56Speaker 2: over here. And if you want to continue seeing these
- 42:59Speaker 2: kinds of stories, you can subscribe by clicking the link
- 43:03Speaker 2: right here,