I don’t care if you’re the best guy on the team or the last guy off the

bench, your willingness to show up, work hard, and listen says more about
you than you can imagine. After a loss, after a rough game, when your
body is aching from a tough workout, when you have personal
problems . . . showing up says you have the mental grit to move forward,
that you’re prepared to improve and you’re able to set aside distractions
and negativity. That is the sign of an extraordinary leader.
1. You don’t have to love the work, you just have to crave the results.
I get calls from athletes and agents and GMs in every sport, at every
level, asking for help with conditioning, training, performance. We spend
some time talking, I listen to their concerns and goals, and I devise a plan
that will get them where they want to be. You’d be surprised by how many
guys come in, hear the plan . . . their eyes roll back in their heads and they
say, “Ummm . . . too much, good-bye.” They want to play but they don’t
want to do the work. And in most cases, they’re saying good-bye to their
careers shortly after.
If you don’t crave that end result, if you don’t want it more than you’ve
ever wanted anything, you’ll never make the mental commitment to do the
physical work. Training is hard; excellence is harder. You don’t have to
love it. You just have to believe it’s worth it in the end.
Guys such as Michael and Kobe and Dwyane were born with
extraordinary ability, but they know the truth: It’s not enough to get to the
top. You have to fight to stay there. Sometimes when I’m training Kobe,
he’ll stop for a moment, glare at me, and say, “What we got left?” I tell
him, and we get back to work. We always get back to work . . . because he
craves the end result.
Do the work because you want to do it, because you have the healthy
body and opportunity to do it, not because you have to do it. People always
say you have to “love” what you do. I disagree. You have to love the end
result. You have to be addicted to the greatness of finally getting what you
worked for, no matter how hard and tedious the work was. Ultimately it’s
the work that makes the end result so much sweeter.