Am I Working Hard Enough

On The No Chill podcast with Gilbert Arenas, Chris Paul said that when he first arrived to play with the Houston Rockets, one of the coaches told him, "One of the things that you are going to have to work on is being able to deal with somebody that doesn't care as much as you care."

Chris Paul says that he loves the game and studies the game, so it is hard for him to play with people who don't care about winning and who won't put in the work that it takes to be a winner.

Gilbert Arenas said, "Everybody wants to be a winner, but they don't want to deal with what it takes to be a winner. Everybody talks about Mamba Mentality, but they don't like it when it's in your face. Mamba Mentality is ruthless."

If you want to have Mamba Mentality, you have to come early, stay late, watch film, and compete.

Gilbert also said that a lot of people don't like playing with winners because winners hold you accountable. They will tell you what they like and what they don't like, and if you are not mentally ready to be held accountable, of course you won't want that.

Chris Paul said that he realized that some people are wired differently. He said (paraphrasing), 

"I'm wired differently. I expect to win. I fell in love with the hard work. When people ask what I do differently, I say nothing - I just fell in love with the repetition and the boringness of it. To go in the gym and shoot 1,000 shots - people's arm will fall off shooting that many shots. Kobe just didn't it on the regular, so it became normal."

If you want to have Mamba Mentality and if you want to be a winner, you have to understand what that really means. It means getting in the gym every day. It means shooting until your arms fall off. It means doing the same, boring drills over and over again until it is automatic.

It means knowing that most people will say that they want to be a winner, but most people aren't willing to do the work. It means finding like-minded, hard-working, and dedicated people like you who will push you.

It means doing whatever it takes.