You're Never Too Good For This

In 2007 Nike flew out elite basketball trainer Alan Stein Jr. to work the first ever Kobe Bryant Skills Academy in Los Angelos. They brought in all the top high school and college guards, but what caught his attention was Kobe himself. Having always heard stories about Kobe’s intense work ethic, Stein saw this as his chance to observe it firsthand…

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So, he approached Kobe and asked if he could watch one of his private workouts. Kobe graciously agreed and told him to meet at the gym at 4 a.m. the next morning. Determined to impress, Stein set his alarm for 3 a.m., hoping to beat Kobe to the gym. But when he arrived at 3:30 a.m., to his surprise, the gym lights were already on. Kobe was not only there—he was drenched in sweat, working through his warm-up.

Stein sat down to watch, expecting to witness something extraordinary. What shocked him was that for the first 45 minutes, Kobe worked on the most basic footwork and fundamental moves—drills that Stein himself had taught to middle schoolers. But what separated Kobe was the level of intensity and precision he brought to each repetition.

Later that day, Stein’s curiosity got the best of him. He approached Kobe and asked why, as the best player in the world, he focused on such basic drills. Kobe smiled and responded, “Why do you think I’m the best player in the world? Because I never get bored with the basics.”

What Kobe understood that many other players did not, is that there is no secret to greatness. It’s like In Kung Fu Panda, when Po opens the dragon scroll only to find that it’s completely blank.

The secret is that there is no secret. There are no unrevealed basketball drills that you can do or magic water that you can drink to suddenly become great. The “secret” is that the greats:

1. Do the obvious thing with a non-obvious intensity

2. And do it for a long time

As former NBA player Kenny Smith put it, “Champions do daily, what everybody else do occasionally.”

Maybe the best way to build muscle and lose fat isn’t to do a bunch of fancy exercises to ‘confuse’ your muscles. Maybe it’s to go to the gym consistently, use progressive overload, and maintain a balanced diet.

Maybe the best way to be more creative isn’t to buy the newest writing tool or chase the latest productivity hack. Maybe it’s to feed your mind with high-quality content, give yourself space to think and make connections, block off time to write and edit, and then hit publish.

Maybe the best way to build a profitable online business isn’t to listen to another business podcast or attend your seventh mastermind summit. Maybe it’s to solve a problem, create an offer, find one customer, and repeat.

Maybe the things we’ve been told all our lives: Wake up before the sun, make your bed, no phone in the morning, say ‘please and thank you’, be grateful, exercise for at least 60 minutes a day, be the hardest worker in the room, love your family, give before you ask, stay focused, be humble, and on and on….. are actually the things we should be doing consistently.

Maybe greatness isn’t an event, it’s a journey. Maybe greatness isn’t instantaneous, it’s earned through doing ordinary things with extraordinary effort for long periods of time.

Maybe the secret to being great is as Steph Smith wrote, just to be good, repeatably.

Whenever I get impatient or feel like I’m not making enough progress, I always go back to two things:

1. Where am I going?

2. What actions do I need to take to get there?

Maybe it is as simple as waking up each day and answering those two questions.

I recently watched a video of Ryan Holiday writing his latest book Right Thing, Right Now. It took him two years to go from idea to published. TWO YEARS (!!)

Noah Kagan had the idea for Million Dollar Weekend ten years ago. He started working on the book in 2020 and it took him four years to finish it. When I joined the marketing team for the book in September 2023, he had already been planning the launch for eight months in advance.

Expand your time horizon. “Play in decades” isn’t just a cliche. The best in the game really do play long-term games with long-term people.

If Kobe Bryant, at the peak of his career, was still doing basic footwork drills—maybe we all can learn from that. Instead of chasing shiny new strategies, we should double down on the fundamentals that actually drive results.

Ordinary things done with extraordinary effort for long periods of time.

See you next Sunday,

Jay “Just be good, repeatably” Yang

Ps. Speaking of the fundamentals, one of the most “basic drills” you can do to improve your writing is to reverse-engineer the writing that you admire.

I’ve spent the last 3 years creating templates out of the top social content that captured my attention (over 125 of them!)

And soon? You can get access to them to fine-tune your writing like the top digital writers.

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Jay’s Finds

Some of the best content I found on the internet this week…

• Writing A #1 New York Times Bestseller (From Start To Finish)

• How This 21 Year Old Made $164,743 With A 2 Hour Work Week

• Morgan Housel: Get Rich, Stay Rich

Top Tweets of The Week

Genius. Decrease the time between feedback loops to bring awareness to your habits.

Just because something isn’t your fault, doesn’t mean it’s not your responsibility. Never give the remote control to your feelings away to anyone else.

Pebble more.

Take more risks while you can afford to.

Cool!!

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