What Kobe Bryant taught me about competition
Kobe's confidence didn't come from talent. It came from a strategic plan to create an advantage that could never be closed. That lesson resonated with me.
Growing up, one of my idols was the late, great Kobe Bryant. He had it all, the confidence, the skills, the style, the swagger.
At first, I admired him purely for his skills on the court. Over time, as I studied him closely, his speeches, interviews, and the unique way he approached life. I began to realise there was something deeper. Kobe's mindset was unlike any other, he was a true savant on and off the court, and there is no doubt in my mind he would have went on to achieve incredible things.
One thing that stood our from very early on, which I later applied to aspects of my own life (see next post) was that hard work alone isn't enough. You also need to understand what everyone else is doing, so you can do something different to stand out. An analogy in my investing world is that you need to know what the market thinks to identify where the market is wrong.
The 4am advantage - this goes beyond just working hard
In an interview, Kobe was asked about his confidence and whether he knew he was going to be the best. His answer was simple but powerful.
He explained that early on, he observed most players showed up at the gym around 7 or 8am. So he decided he would start at 4am. He knew that by doing this, he would gain three extra hours every single day, and that over the years, this would create an advantage that could not be closed.
"If I am better than you to begin with, and I continue to work harder than you, how do you ever expect to catch up?"
While many interpreted this simply as ‘working hard’ to me, it was more than that. His confidence came from having a thoughtful, strategic plan to create an insurmountable advantage, and following through on it.
It was not just about working hard. That didn't matter if others worked harder, or if you worked so hard and inefficiently that you burned out. It was about working smart. He knew early on that he just had to do a little more than others (or in his case, a lot more), consistently over a long period of time, and this process would ultimately pay off.
The lesson
Kobe's approach taught me something crucial: success is not always about hard work in isolation. It's also about understanding what others are doing and then doing something different, or something more.
This doesn't just apply to sport. It applies to careers, to investing, to anything where you're competing against other people for a limited number of spots.
The key is thinking critically and always asking yourself - What everyone else is doing? Can I do anything differently? and then finding a strategic edge. Not a shortcut, an edge. Something that compounds over time and creates separation that can't easily be closed.
Hard work is still 80-90% of the driver of success. This strategic thinking makes up the final 10% that helps you stand out. But without the fundamentals, it's meaningless.
This mindset has propelled me forward in various aspects of life, especially in financial markets, where having a unique perspective is crucial to staying ahead of both the market and competitors.
But one of the most impactful places I applied it was in how I approached getting hired — which I'll cover in this post:
