This content explores the journey of storytelling, creativity, and personal growth, emphasizing the importance of authenticity, long-term vision, and the power of imagination rooted in truth, particularly for inspiring young people.
Mind Map
انقر للتوسيع
انقر لاستعراض خريطة الذهن التفاعلية الكاملة
to say okay it's okay to fail because
you're gonna be loved no matter what
i had to look at it from a long term
because i wasn't gonna give up on the game
game
right so i had to say okay this year i'm
gonna get better at that
next year this and so forth and so on
and then
the first question i want to ask you
because so much of your content right
now that you're creating here at granity
is aimed at helping young people aimed
at helping children
and as a father of four girls i wanted
to ask you what's the biggest thing
you've learned about yourself
by being a father uh you know it's
amazing like when you become a parent
things become much more you know life becomes
becomes
you know yeah it lines things up for you
a little differently
right like before you have kids me and
my wife we can travel anytime
you know there's work and you know you
become very uh
you have a very clear focus when you
have children it becomes about them it's
not about you guys anymore
right and so that shift it's a big one
you know it's one of
kind of a selfishness together
and then to being absolutely selfless
and doing anything you can for your kids
and so what i'm trying to do is create
content to teach them
first and foremost that's why i started
this whole thing it's just reading
stories to them that i felt like didn't exist
exist
you know our kids are athletes and
they love reading about princesses and
all these fairy tales and
you know they get a little sick and
tired about the man saving the princess
every time and
you know the same old stuff magical
wines and all that my kids are athletes man
man
they want to learn about soccer balls
and basketballs and volleyballs and
you know magic that comes from that yeah
and i love that you're encouraging young
people to think more imaginatively about
sports yeah
and i think that's where you go a step
deeper you know for me
observing you and learning about you and
hearing you speak in other interviews
and everything what i'm fascinated by is that
that
you've dealt with things in life pretty
head-on right you've always gone at it
what took you a while what was something
in your life that you were shy about
originally or
that took you a while to go head-on with
but then finally you got there and you
figured it out
uh writing dear basketball that was a
hard jump
you know because i had written before i
mean i started writing
probably about 17 years ago so
practicing every day
a lot of things that i wrote were were
ads and so
you write an ad nobody looks up at who
wrote the ad right you can kind of
there's a certain
uh anonymity that comes along with that right
right
but right there basketball was different
you know it's putting it out there for
the world to see it's trying to create a
short film
and i didn't know if i could do it man
and uh
you know it was my daughter who kind of
put things in perspective for me gianna
she's now
13 and she was like well you always tell
us to go for it so
so
yeah she put me on the spot she was like
you're gonna talk about it you're gonna
be about it basically and you know and
that that gave me the final push
i love that when you started writing 17
years ago did you envision that one day
you would move into this storytelling no
was it just something you enjoyed
no man it was something i enjoyed and i
enjoyed writing ads it was something
funny about trying to
distill a message down into 30 seconds
or a minute depending on the budget you
know what i mean
trying to say something important um
trying to speak to the you know brand
attributes but also speak to something
that's greater and
that has a stronger message stronger
philosophical message and how do you
connect those dots
so putting that puzzle together was
something that was really intriguing
yeah but like
you know i never thought i'd be writing
novels or movies and
that sort of stuff never man i love that
man i love it how everything evolves
naturally and actually hearing you say that
that
it reminds me so my vision when i was
sharing earlier became very clearly
making wisdom go viral
and i was like how do i take these teachings
teachings
that are like so sacred they're hidden
away in these books
and how do i make them really relevant
and accessible and practical to the
whole world
because i know that anyone can access
them they're universal right these
these teachers can apply to anyone but
sometimes they're just hidden away sure
and a young person doesn't know how to
find them so that inspires me hearing
them that's beautiful too because
especially in today's um in today's
world there's so much clutter
you know it becomes harder for kids to
try to weave through
a lot of the crap that's out there to
find uh stuff that's actually beneficial
to them
yeah it was i think you reminded me i
think eo wilson said
we're drowning in information starving
for wisdom
for sure especially that's why i think
your work is cutting through because i
think what you've managed to do with
your new work is that
you're finding ways to connect with what
people care about but you're taking it a
step deeper
yeah right you're not you're not just
settling for like let's talk about
sports it's not just about sports
for life right it's about the metaphor
that sports has for life i mean you know
sports is the greatest greatest metaphor
we have
in terms of dealing with life because
you know even if you listen to music
music will give you guidance right that
you can then
meditate on and think about how you
would apply it in sports you have to
apply it
in the here and now i mean you're faced
with challenges moment to moment you're
faced with pressures and anxiety and
communication or the lack thereof and
also their stuff like it's in the moment
so you have to live it
and when you practice those things you
become better at it but i just feel like
in this day and age
our children have become less imaginative
imaginative
about how to problem solve and parents
and coaches have become more directive
in trying to mandate or give orders or
teach kids how to think and teach kids
how to behave versus
and tell them how they behave versus
teaching them how to behave and so
that's why i'm creating these stories
and creating this content yeah i love
that i think it's so true when you treat
people as
kids then they always be kids right even
when they grow up
and for you it was really powerful
because you've talked about this before
where your father said to you like
whether you scored zero or 60 yeah like
i love you
yeah tell me what that statement meant
to you at that time and and how did it
actually motivate you to continue
scoring 60
rather than go oh i'm all right it's
zero well it did more than that
right so like the basketball stuff
speaks for itself
in terms of what that comment made you
know did for me
in terms of giving me stability and
giving me
confidence to say okay it's okay to fail
because you're going to be loved no
matter what and that
that doesn't just mean basketball that
means anything in life
that means writing that means being an entrepreneur
entrepreneur
that means um having the confidence to
go for it
and um i've seen too many parents do the
exact opposite
and it terrifies children and children
become paralyzed by their own fear
because they don't have that security
blanket of love and comfort
yeah absolutely how have you been able
to in your life
see past the cloud of emotion
to actually execute on things because i
think what we were speaking about
earlier this
challenge that young people have today
everyone has today of just so much information
information
so much cloud of emotion so many
feelings so much childhood baggage that
you're bringing like how have you always
cut through that
and execute them you know i what i try
to do is just try to be still
and understand that things come and go
emotions come and go the important thing
is to
accept them all to embrace them all
and then you can choose to do with them
which you want
versus being controlled by emotion
you know a lot of times i've seen
players even myself you know when i was younger
younger
being consumed by a particular fear um
and to the point where you're saying
okay nah it's not good to feel fear
i shouldn't be nervous in a situation
like not and it does nothing but grow
versus stepping back and saying yeah i
am nervous about the situation
yeah i am fearful about the situation
well what am i afraid of and then you
kind of
unpack it and then it gives you the
ability to look at it for really what it
is which is
nothing more than your imagination
running its course you know
yeah absolutely yeah i love that because
what you're saying is that when you're
dealing with something it's almost like
how can i get to the root of it
yeah because sometimes what we're
dealing with like you're saying it's an
imagination an illusion it's not really
it's not it's not really a thing you
know like you think about game-winning
shots and
or game-winning free throws and people
go to the free-throw line and you're
nervous about it well what are you
really nervous about if you unpack that okay
okay
you're nervous that you're gonna miss
the shot all right so you missed the
shot then what happens people are gonna be
be
embarrassed you're going to be
embarrassed because thousands of people
millions people see you missed a shot
all right and then what people are going
to talk bad about you okay
right and so you're looking at you go
are those things even important
you know what i mean if that that is my
fear like what is you worried about
letting your teammates down
okay have you let them down before well
i'm sure and practice and things of that
nature right they're still there
yeah you know and so when you're able to
unpack it you kind of look at it for
what it is which is really nothing
yeah i love that breaking it down i
think that's so important i think
everyone who's listening and watching right
right
now next time you're facing a fear next
time you're going against something do
that like literally
unpack it don't just settle for your
first answer because
the first answer is really the right one
don't hide from it you know you got to
be able to look at it
and you know and and and deal with it head-on
head-on
yeah i love that man and and you talk
about that because you talk about
you know when you talk about missing uh
five throws and you talk about
uh getting over yourself yeah right like
getting over yourself how did you get
that mentality of just being like
i need to get over this like i need to
get over myself you know trial and error
you know you grow up and you make game
winning shots and it's awesome you come
back the next day and miss a game when
it's shot and it's misery
and then the next day comes and you're
back playing again and you understand
that life has this cyclical nature where it's
it's
you know what you do on monday it's
fantastic but then tuesday's a bad day
but guess what there's wednesday
so we just supposed to live our lives
like this the whole time you know
versus just staying like this and
understanding that it's really just a
journey of
evolution every day it's just constant
improvement constant curiosity
constantly getting better
the results don't really matter uh it's the
the
figuring out that matters yeah and we
all get obsessed about the results
yeah like we get obsessed about like the
output yeah not the input of not
figuring it out and not like changing
things what you said trial and error
like the experimenting
yeah we forget to do that it's
unfortunate man like i've seen a lot of players
players
um especially now you know in youth
basketball dealing with that
um you have players that are like bigger
and faster and stronger
and you know their coaches are just
coaching them for results
you know we're just going to use your
size that because you're bigger than
every other 12 year old out there
to dominate today and but they're not growing
growing
right so they're just based on that
result but they're not focused on growing
growing
this young child yeah into becoming a
better athlete and through that
teaching them how to become a more
well-rounded person
and we're missing that yeah see what
you've said there just
i want to ask you this and i'm not
saying because i you know like you know
yourself best and you know how you've
got there so i'm asking it from a place
of humility of
learning when i look at you i'm like you
know your superpower isn't just your
work ethic
your superpower isn't just like figuring
things out your superpowers like you
think strategically like that's a very strategic
strategic
thought of saying this person
could be this in the future if they were
developed as a whole individual
right rather than just like let's use
them for the short term right and
where did you develop that from that
ability to see beyond to think deeper to
to reflect deeper where did that come
from well i had to do that because
you know i grew up growing up in italy
when i first moved over there it was
you know i didn't speak italian i didn't
have any friends
you know i had the game of basketball
and through sport and playing soccer i
was able to make friends and build connections
connections
but it was a lot of time spent alone and
and when i came back to the states i
wasn't the most athletic kid
you know i was really scrawny like
really really skinny and had
like major knee issues because i was
growing so i was the dorky kid with hot
socks and
big old knee pads it's fashionable now
it's fashionable now it wasn't then
and so um i had to look long term
because in the here and now i couldn't
compete with these kids i mean there was
kids that were like
12 years old with beards like i can't i can't
can't
what am i supposed to do with that like
they're doing windmills and dunking
backwards and i'm happy to like tap the
backboard you know so
i had to look at it from a long term
because i wasn't going to give up on the game
game
right so i had to say okay this year i'm
going to get better at that
next year this and then so forth and so
on and then
patiently i was able to catch him yeah
that's i love hearing that
because i think so many of us kind of
you believe like when when you see
people like yourself it's like
it's so easy as an excuse to ourselves
oh you're destined
for it right you were made for me it's
kind of like that kind of you know like
oh yeah you know but but when you talk
about saying oh actually when i started
i didn't have the
physicality that meant that i was gonna
make it like you had to figure it out
and i love it figure it out man it's
just piece by piece and it's the
consistency of the work which
i feel like a lot of parents are missing
today because we're not teaching that to
our kids we tend to say like kids don't
want to do the work but in reality it's
when we're failing them because we're
not leading them
the right way and teaching them yeah you
know how to fish you know what i mean
and so like the consistency of work monday
monday
get better tuesday get better wednesday
get better right and you do that over a
period of
time you know not like one month or two
months i mean it's
three four five six seven eight nine ten years
years
and then you you know you can get to
where you want to go yeah i think it was
bill gates who's talking about that he
talks about how like we
we overestimate what we can do in one
year and underestimate what we can do in
ten years no doubt
right like it's like that yeah like i
think everyone thinks about like what
can i do right now like how can i make
it happen but like
with you i think people always ask you
also like you know how do you deal with
losing or failure what i'm intrigued by
is how someone like you deals with
winning because you've won
again and again and like i was saying
earlier you you know you want obviously
we know
you won in basketball big as an athlete
but you you're winning now even in the
work you're doing here as a storyteller
as a producer right it's amazing to see
so many incredible awards coming through
how have you dealt with
winning like when you win what goes
through your mind
to help you to continue well it's a
little different like in basketball it
was different because
i expected to win you know like i
expected us to win championships i
expected us to win five quite honestly i
expected us to win eight
um and so when you have that vision in
sports it's a direct competition like i
know how hard they're working i know how
hard we're working i know what
their strategy is i know what r is it
you know so it's a little different so
we went in the nba it was like
yeah we expected to do that but now we
we're going to come back and
we're going to do it again you know and
so it's that constant like all right
you're churning you win one championship
i'm back in the gym the next day working
getting ready for the next one
now uh it's different because it's not
about the awards you know you just wind
up trying to create something that's
that's going to inspire someone that hopefully
hopefully
you know through that inspiration they
can inspire somebody else and what i've
come to learn as my career went on is
that's more significant than any championship
championship
is how do you connect with somebody that
can then connect with another
and then with whether the awards come or
not you know that's
for you know um you know
the academy of the word uh um
body to decide but you know like for us
it's just to try to create things
yeah well i guess now that's what
shifted that now the intention isn't
even expecting to win it's expecting to
change lives
right right like your content is really
about making a difference and an impact
on young people sure
i'm sure which i which i think is like
the biggest way of winning
i think so i mean you know we're looking
at 62 percent of young children are
dropping out of sports
62 and they cite the fact that it's not
fun anymore
well what does that tell them i mean
that's telling us us as grownups are
getting in the way
get out the way let these kids be
imaginative which you know like in our
stories it's important that yeah there's
a fantasy
nature to it right but it's rooted in reality
reality
right when we have uh fire-breathing
winged horses and things of that nature
those are actual drills that are taking
place right now we don't have fire drink
you know
fire breathing winged horses actually
performing that but we do have ball machines
machines
that are spitting balls at tennis
players right and so
all of our all of our stories are all anchored
anchored
in an element of truth so that children
feel like when they are
doing these drills with these bald
machines they can envision maybe it's a
fire breathing winged horse
yeah to keep them excited yeah yeah they
can envision gus throwing fireballs at them
them
yeah yeah and uh even the plays like
when the you know
in the wizard art series when the basket
is opening up and shrinking
these are things that we experience as
athletes like some days i feel like i
can't make a
shot man in the basket feels like the
size of a keyhole yeah
you know and other days it looks like a
swimming pool
yeah you know yeah that's magic and so
we we
root our magic in reality so that when
kids experience these things
particularly the failure side of it they
can connect it to one of our stories and
say okay
i've seen this before i know how to deal
with this yeah that's beautiful man i
love that that analogy of like
feeling the basket bigger or smaller and
then be able to vision that i can vision
it right now
like yeah it's all right like some days
it looks huge and i love that that's
such a great way of thinking about it
and i guess so much of this is from your
real life
vision oh yeah yeah this is like some
days i've experienced this yeah
but i love that because it's also giving
them the permission to say like be
imaginative about this right yes and and
that obviously gives so much
i think when we imagine it changes the
reality of oh i'm just sitting out here
taking shots
yes right which can get boring and
tiring comes mechanical
mechanical that's the only way to get
kind of cool like our job is to try to
inspire the creativity inside of our children
children
so that they can think through how to
problem-solve situations so like
you know when i coach my daughter's team
it's not about giving them answers
it's about asking them questions and
getting them to process things
right when the game is being played i'm
not sitting there giving them answers or
barking out things on the sideline i sit
down and i'm quiet
my assistant coach sits there and she's
quiet and the kids figure things out for
themselves or they don't
and then they come back and there's
always questions and then you kind of
ask them more questions and you help
them figure it out
but then you see their level of
excitement the practice every day increase
increase
because it's something it's a process
that they are owning right they're not
coming to get orders barked at them
every day they're coming
for for for kind of their personal quest
to get better yeah and how did you how
do you
feel about you coaching i guess that
style makes them feel comfortable but
how have you been able to
manage that with the pressure of you
being there no it's no pressure because
you know it's their process to own like
i i have knowledge information that i've gained
gained
you know through playing so like the
little details of things i can teach at
a high level
uh but ultimately it's it's it's them
yeah you seem you seem very still and
detached about it
yeah yeah i mean it's it's you know the
kids love playing basketball so that's
the anchor of it all
they come and they play and they learn
and they have fun and you know and they compete
compete
and you know they challenge themselves
and one another and
um you know they just get better every day
day
yeah how have you seen that with
obviously with legacy and the queen you
you chose tennis yeah like what was the
what was the choice of sports about i'm
intrigued by the
why tennis yeah so like the first novel
we did was the wizard series it was
important that for that to be basketball
because i wanted the first story to be
one of empathy and compassion
and in team sports if you don't have
that you can't win
right and so it was important to tell
the tale of a basketball team
uh dealing with their own personal fears
and have those fears and insecurities
lead to empathy and compassion for
others right with the second story i
wanted to look more
internal individually and and look at
how do you deal with the inner
challenges the kind of the self
negotiation that takes place inside of
our own heads
and there was no sport better than that
than tennis there's golf
uh but tennis you have more movement
which to me
symbolizes life in general because life
is there's a lot going on
right there's the elements in tennis
that you have to deal with as you deal
with in golf maybe not to the same
extent but they're still there
and then there's the confrontation with
the person across the net from you
yes right as well as the strengths and
weaknesses in your own movements
and how you feel in your own body and
because of that it was important for
this story to be a tennis story um i
love that that that makes complete sense and
and
give me an example of that self
negotiation i love that word and
yeah i get that can you expand on that a
bit yeah like you know
you're you're you're out running on the track
track
working out and you start talking to
yourself saying man
my knee is really sore right now maybe i'm
i'm
maybe i'm doing too much sounds like me
maybe i need to back off
you know man my lungs are burning am i maybe
maybe
i can just slow down here i'll do like
an extra two sets tomorrow
you know it'll be okay yeah right that
sort of stuff yes
like that stuff's dangerous yes and
that's you just gotta say you know what
i'm not negotiating with myself yeah the
deal was already made the deal was made
when i set out at the beginning of the
summer and said this is the
training plan i'm doing i sign that
contract with myself
i'm doing it you know throughout the
that process you'll start talking to
yourself like man i gotta
i think i need to maybe if we nope
no it's non-negotiable negotiable
yeah yeah i love that and for you
empathy and compassion were things that
you'd been through like that was that
was personally inspired work
yeah when did it come to your awareness that
that
empathy was something missing for you
and that you wanted to develop it
um i had a teammate that that
spoke to me and said hey cole you know i
just want to feel like as a teammate
you need me i was like
well duh i can't i can't you know
like that was my immediate reaction like
dude yeah of course
but i had to kind of think about really
what he was saying and where that was
coming from
for him and his story and his journey
and what that meant to him
and that opened my eyes that there's a
bigger game being played it's not just
basketball but it's the emotions of each individual
individual
and the backstory that they're carrying
with them the baggage that they're
carrying with them and if i really want
to be a champion and be a great teammate
i have to understand what those mean to
help them become better
and in turn help me yeah and do
do you think this content is going to
help all the content you're creating
here at granity is that for you to help
build better bonds between parents and kids
kids
like are you hoping that the podcast for
example like kids are going to listen to
on the way to school or on the way back
or like how are you imagining
people consuming the work yeah i mean i
imagine it in
in different ways you know but like
ultimately people always figure out a
way to do it that's comfortable for them
but like
you know which is why um in everything
that we do we try to create the highest
quality of product
right like you know people will sit down
and tell me they'll say okay well audio books
books
very small percentage of people listen
to audio books we don't really have to
invest too much in doing audio books and
what excuse me no because that one
person just listens to audio books that
one family enjoys audiobooks they have
to get the best experience that i could
possibly give them so that means
using a london orchestra that means
doing full symphonies that means having
felicia rashad read the stories like
it means everything the books themselves
i got this all the time there's no money
in making books man nobody makes money
in books and
i'm sorry you want to make a book with
using what material
you want you know you know i'm like uh
yeah because
children matter so like i don't know how
they're going i i
imagine how they're going to be
consuming content um
but ultimately it's my responsibility
and our responsibility studio to make
every single thing that we put out
the highest quality possible yeah yeah
no i can imagine i can imagine
parents listening to it on the way to
school yeah i can imagine listening on
the way back or on the way to practice
sure sure things like that like i think
it's cool i think it's well the puny's
for sure like the puny's i was like you know
know
when i first made the puny's we're going
to release it in the summer i think we
released it in august
um and uh i think i think it was august
around the same time
but my mind i was saying okay parents
are going to listen to this every
saturday morning
because i know i'm in the car driving my
kids to soccer games and like
you know volleyball games and stuff so
parents can listen to this with their
kids in the cars they're driving the
sporting events like that was kind of
what i had in my mind
and then when it came out it's like you
know teachers were using it
more so than anybody in classrooms and
doing like classroom reports on the
punys and
and all sorts of stuff so yeah never know
know
it's it seems that you study life a lot
right like when you're talking about all
of this imagination which stems from
your own
work like for example like when you're
dealing with empathy and compassion it's
reflected in the content when you're
going through these visualizations of
what could this look like it goes on the content
content
you study life a lot what currently are
you studying
and what kind of gets your imagination
really growing right now like what keeps
that moving for you
uh you know certain there's a certain
element of truth
and everything you know and um you know
the creativity
generally comes from personal
experiences first
and then you kind of look on a broad
kind of on a broader scope of okay how
do you take something extremely personal
and then channel it in a way for
masses to understand and get their arms
around sort of thing
but it always starts in the element of
truth and then you start unpacking that
by sitting in thought and figuring out like
like
character and you know who is this person
person
and you know who's his family and then
that's when i start getting in trouble
you know because it's like the questions
don't end yeah you know so i have like
books and books and books and books and
books and books and books and books and
books of backstory
because it's not good enough just to say
the characters this way yeah
why are they that way yes for the
parents well where do their parents come from
from
you know where's the dad come from why
are they raising a kid this way and then
you know what does it have to do with
the economy that's around them and then
and just one thing leads to the next and
then you're just writing all kinds of stuff
stuff
it's crazy yeah that's awesome because i
think so many of us get you know in our
lives we get stuck with imagination
because you kind of get into that
autopilot mode yeah doing the same thing
every day same routine same drive to work
work
yeah and it's like i feel that what
you're sharing is
that's easy for anyone to do it's not
like oh because you could be brian you
don't feel that everyone gets into that true
true
you're able to find these creative
outlets yeah well you know like creativity
creativity
is in everything you know like even in
consistent like what i found is
is creativity a lot of time comes from structure
structure
i agree i'm just saying you said that
when you have those parameters and the
structure then within that you can be
creative but like if you don't have the
structure you're just aimlessly doing stuff
stuff
yes you know where are you going you
know so like having a clear structure of
understanding okay
this morning i'm gonna like when i was
writing a wizard series and outlining legacy
legacy
i come in in the morning 7 a.m and i'm there
there
i'm writing backstory from seven to 12
then go pick up my kids and then i come
right back and i'm writing again so like
within that structure
you know my mind when i go to sleep is
already like
planning of what the next day is going
to be because i know
you know what it is i have to do it's
that consistency and structure
yeah i can agree with you more i'm
writing my first book right now oh wow
and a lot of people have been asking me
like jay and and i'm like that i have a
very scheduled
focus on writing and they'll be like how
do you find inspiration at that time
what if you're not inspired at that time
and i'm like no the structure helps
spontaneity yeah
right it's that consistency that breeds
creativity well that's the thing too is like
like
you know people think like it's you're
just kind of just kind of
you know mulling along and all of a
sudden aha
you know like the show that we have on
espn now called detail yeah uh basketball
basketball
you know sports breakdown show um
that came to me when i was walking
around with my wife
shopping yeah and i look at a piece of
fabric and i'm like wow this is really
the detail
and this thing is oh my detail this name
of the show
and then everything came from there but
i had been thinking about
a show like that for like a year yeah
you know and
i couldn't i couldn't shake it loose i'm
like what i got
i gotta find a sports show that i'm
gonna do but it needs to can't just be
basketball focus has to be broader
and i want to hear from the best minds
in the world hear from peyton manning i
want to hear from
what is it what is it for like a year
and then all of a sudden boom
you know and so people think it just
comes out of nowhere yeah you gotta like
obsess over for a while and then it kind
of pops loose
absolutely you had to plant the seed
well before yeah
to see the fruit yeah and you gotta
water it all the time man like you gotta
sit down and watch and watch other shows
that are out there and like
you know and then ultimately you just
find you know like
when the answer comes to you it's like
my god i could have thought it on the first
first
day i remember john williams told me
that he said he said he'll sit
for like two months to try to figure out
what the melody is
yeah and he'll just be playing he'll
he'll be at his piano all day he'll say
the only day he'll take off at sunday
because his wife forces him to take
sundays off
and he'll just be sitting there riding
right right and then it just comes
yeah and he's like i seriously could
have thought of that on the first day
like why
it's just so simple yeah absolutely and
that's what people don't realize is well
like when you go out then you're
shopping with your wife and you see
the detail and you're like okay that's
the show and then you go back into
consistency to create it
yeah it's like you know it wasn't just
like oh now i thought of i'm just gonna
throw that idea
like now i'm going back to the drawing
board have the name now
do it around i try to what i try to do
is shoot the idea down
and figure out everything that's wrong
with the idea ooh okay
right this show won't work because like
detail for example like this show won't
work because it's not for
fans it's for the one percent athlete yeah
yeah
all right well will would it be
successful people connect to it like you
know you start
unpacking every little thing how would
we shoot it can i even get peyton
manning to do it could i get
you know and uh you start shooting them
down same thing with the novels like
characters and plots and stories
i felt like that really helps me yeah i
like that approach a lot actually
because i think sometimes especially
right now in the world we go to the
wishful thinking side like you have the
positive vision and you're like oh this
is how it's going to turn out right
and then you ignore the bad stuff yeah
or you ignore the kind of like the
potholes or the loopholes because you're
just like
oh no i don't want to focus on the
negativity yeah but actually what you're
saying is
if you're aware of it of those known
unknowns then you can actually break
them down yourself well yeah
it's just like the same thing for any
great movie you have to have
the antagonist yes you know a strong
villainous character will really drive
the narrative along if you don't have
that you have nothing from which your
hero has to bounce off of
you know that that villain could be you
know maleficent
it could be something inside of you it
could be whatever but you have to have
that clear antagonist that's driving a
narrative forward and
so in this sense it's the same thing you
pick apart the negative and from that
you can then move yes move forward
absolutely what i'm loving here right
now is that
all i'm hearing is like kobe the
storyteller like i'm loving it like
what i feel is like what i'm hearing
about is your obsession and obsessiveness
obsessiveness
yeah with stories and it's not just
like you know i i'm saying this it's
like you've really studied stories like
you've really broken them down and
understood it where tell me about where
that obsession comes from in general how
you find obsessiveness and how you've
applied that to story
yeah obsessiveness just comes from
something that you love like you really
love it you'll go through fire for it
you know you'll go through the ups and
downs with it and you'll just keep at it
because you love it so much you know
um and story for me started a long time
ago i had a great english teacher at
lower marion high school
uh named jay mastriano and she explained
to me the art of story telling my
sophomore year
and that's where i started falling in
love with it and understanding story structure
structure
you know how to develop compelling
characters and how this thing how stories
stories
um are the driving force whether they're
inspirational informational
that really change society yeah
absolutely yeah we're defined by the
stories we tell ourselves
whether personally or or outside
absolutely absolutely
and and it seems like you just mentioned
that it just shows the role of teachers
and now when you find that teachers are
using the work you're creating to teach
that must be amazing comes full circle
yeah you know and
uh you know it's a it's a it's a
pretty cool feeling man like i like
growing up when i was in high school man
i didn't read much at all
yeah you know because basketball was my
thing now if you give me a basketball book
book
or like a sports book or like a sports
psych book or i'm devouring that
you know what i mean because it was a
clear focus for me which kind of gets me
into this market a little bit too
because like for our active
children that love being outdoors and
playing all the time they're not reading
no but they're missing out on so much by
not reading
but they will read if there's something
that they feel like
speaks to them so true you know and so
now i think we get
more readers in the world because of it
hopefully so true no i think so i agree
with you like for me and and this is why
everyone's different and i think there's
such a need for what you're doing because
because
when i was growing up i never enjoyed fiction
fiction
and so i thought i didn't like reading
because all the books that the school
suggested were fiction books right
and then when i was 14 my dad handed me
an autobiography and a biography
and i devoured it and then i started
reading because i want to hear about
real people right
who break and who develop and who learn
and grow and like have been through
failure and like i want to hear about
rags to riches and i want to hear about
like i want to hear about real people
who went through real pain that's right
but i grew up believing that i didn't
like reading right and i think that's
you're so right i think there's a lot of
kids out there who think they don't like reading
reading
or they think reading is boring it's a
problem because like what i found in the
industry which is why we self
um publish because a lot of publishers
want to publish the same type of story
you know the same type of uh plots
uh same looking characters
not a lot of diverse characters out
there at all and
uh so we said you know what we're gonna
have to do this on our own this way we
don't have anybody in our way telling
us what the market wants to hear i don't
care about that we write stories that
come from the heart
and our characters are going to look
like my daughters because my daughters
don't have characters out there that
look like them it's a great book so
yeah they're going to look like my kids
and uh and we're gonna go from there
yeah i think i think what you've just
raised there about diversity and
representation is huge
it's huge man huge because i don't see
it man and like you know it
so books is just the first thing
publishing is the first thing now if we
look at animation
is even worse it's even worse you know
in terms of developing characters
um diverse characters but even beyond
that the animators themselves
there's no diversity in that industry right
right
none and i'm talking not just racial
diversity but gender diversity as well
and so there's there are a lot of things
that we need to take on that we are
taking on
and uh hope to make the world and the
industry a better place because of it
yeah no i i fully agree with that i'm a
british indian right born and raised in
london in it never seen any character
anywhere right because they think you
know the mass market
they're not going to it's not going to
appeal to the mass market so we're not
going to do that yeah exactly
wait what what yeah and
and everything's spreading so fast now
and everything's global now yeah right
nearly all content is is global now and
most global markets are growing
everywhere so the need
for people especially young people being
able to see themselves in characters
and and even and it's it's not and i
think it's a deeper point that you're
making is you want to be able to see
your story in someone right
right even just beyond like color and
background it's like your story your
experience of life when we made your basketball
basketball
we got a lot of pushback from people
like i i took it to
some very prominent studios at first and
they all said
yeah no um because you said basketball
is too sport specific
nobody's gonna connect with this sort of
thing because you know there's a lot of
people out there who don't watch basketball
basketball
and i'm like well that's not the point
yeah that's not yet it's not the point
and so it was really a case study even
with our novels everybody was like
sports novels nobody's going to read
that it's too too much of a niche market
in each market
i'm like sports is bigger than that man
and so we made their basketball to
really prove a point
that you don't have to watch basketball
at all
to connect to the journey of a dream
yes you know and uh once we saw that
connection was kind of
kind of validated our point of view i
think that's a massive point of view and
for anyone who's listening or watching
right now who thinks
because kobe bryant wants to do
something it just happens it just shows
you have to do it yourself sometimes
because not everyone's gonna believe in
you certainly not right
certainly not and what you'll see is you
know once you start doing it
and now people want to come and jump in
but i'm like you know
you kind of forced us to go about this
ourselves so
i think we're just going to build it
from the ground up ourselves but yeah
thank you
exactly they saved you yeah right thank
you appreciate it because if you guys
signed on you know we just
get kind of going with the flow totally
yeah you can be grateful to this yeah
yeah yeah absolutely no i agree it was
the same with this podcast funny enough
when we launched
a lot of people were a lot of people
were considering whether it was
you know gonna like you know you do
social videos like is it gonna work on a
podcast and there were a lot of people
that were not sure
and then like we launched some of the
biggest podcasts in the world in in the
health category which is which is my
world and i was just like everyone's
just like oh interesting but i'm like
thank you
yeah like thank you so much for saying
no and you didn't think it was going to work
work
because now i figured out myself yes and
what you said it actually builds confidence
confidence
and validation yeah oprah told me this
when i
first decided to uh build the studio and
i was asking how harpo came to be
and she said well when she was doing her
her deal
for the oprah winfrey show she was
reupping her deal
and uh actually the first contract she
made she uh she said well
don't pay me up front just i want to own
a percentage of the show
and so they gave it to her now at the
time there weren't any black women
hosting a daytime talk show no right so
it was really new
and uh and she said you know kobe if
they believed that the show was going to
be successful
they wouldn't have given me giving me that
that
they wouldn't they win them in their
mind they're thinking oh we gotta steal
we don't have to pay her we can take
this money and move it over here
this is great you know it's going to be
a flop or we succeed i don't know at
least we get diversity on tv
it's fine and all of a sudden it's oh oh oh
oh
oh oh trouble we shouldn't have given it away
away
opened up pandora's box right so now you
come back for the next deal and it's like
like
you gotta have to give me some more
ownership yeah like dang it
here and then ultimately she you know
came to only 100 of her show yeah
which is amazing wow that's a great
story yeah that's fascinating i think
because sometimes when you think that
you're like oh they like me that's what
they're giving it no
yeah no don't like me please here's an
idea it's terrible yeah i just need you
to buy in just a little bit
yeah i love that that is awesome how are
you encouraging
you've shared so many stories of like
your teacher who taught you about
storytelling and writing early on you
just shared
oprah's example like you've had so many
incredible mentors in your life we all
know about that
how are you encouraging young people to
find the right mentors
and how can they find the right mentors
even through your work i guess your work
is somewhat mentorship
yeah we try to be you know and i think
the important thing is research
you know in the hall here in the office
i have a hall that i call muse hall
we have all the portraits of some of our
muses here from
jk rowling to you know steve jobs and so
forth and so on
i think it's important to research them
and it's like putting
you know fuel in the fire every day you
know there's constant inspiration when
you read about them what they were able
to accomplish how they went about
accomplishing it
it's just constantly you know feeding
that flame
and learning and the best way to do that
is to learn from the people who have
done it
yes yeah that just made me so happy i
have a gallery wall in my home
if we were recording this at my place in
hollywood like i have a gallery award
steve jobs is right there yeah yeah
right and
and and einstein's there martin luther
king's there and there's a few other
people and it's
for me it's the same thing it's like
sometimes i'm sitting there and i'll be
like what would that person do like how
would they have dealt with this challenge
challenge
right and you're so right i think you
can be mentored by people who aren't alive
alive
100 because their stories still live
which brings us to the importance of
storytelling yeah
their stories still live these muses are
here it's important to learn from them
and uh and if anything it helps you
remember that they are human just like
us yeah these great things that get
accomplished can be accomplished yeah by others
others
and beyond you know building walt disney
company is not something that you know
people look at and scoff at and go oh it
can't be done
well why not why not yeah and the more
action you take the more you think is possible
possible
yeah because you realize there are
people just like us they make mistakes
just like us
and they kept going and uh we can do the same
same
absolutely man well i could talk to you
for hours but you're a busy man and
you've got loads of things to do so we end
end
every interview with what we call the
final five quickfire rapid fire round
which means
you have to answer in one word or one
sentence maximum got it
so this is easy for you so the first
question is what brings you the most joy
right now
family beautiful second what do you want
your girls to think when they hear your name
name
daddy nice number three your favorite
animated film
pinocchio oh nice i was not expecting that
that
it's the greatest yeah they made me they
were in a zone when they made that film
absolutely question number four the book
the alchemist oh nice okay great
question number five your one message to
all storytellers would be
create from truth it's beautiful man
kobe thank you so much this has been an
honor man thank you such a beautiful conversation
conversation
thank you for sharing so many gems so
many wisdom pieces and
anyone who's out there right now i've
got the copy of the book right here
legacy and the queen
you can go grab it and you can also
listen to the podcast the punys as well
right now so you can go and download that
that
we'll put the links to both of them in
the comments section and in this podcast
so you can go directly there kobe thank
you so much for
allowing us into your space man this is
really special thank you i remember this
thank you man thank you
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