On January 26, 2020, tears streamed down my face upon hearing the news of Kobe Bryant’s tragic death in a helicopter crash.
What made Kobe so special to me (and many others)?1
Three things stand out:
The moments of glory that he gifted to fans - my favorite being the 2010 Laker championship over the Celtics
His love for his family, particularly his daughters
His dedication to greatness i.e. the Mamba Mentality
For this week’s reflection, I wanted to focus on one element of the Mamba Mentality - preparing the mind:
“My mental preparation varied based on my headspace…The key is to be aware of how you are feeling and how you need to be feeling…it all starts with awareness.”
-Kobe Bryant
Kobe was as focused on his mental preparation as he was on his physical conditioning. If he needed to be calm before a game, he would sit in silence. If he needed to get hype, he would listen to the theme music from the movie Halloween (it’s a surprisingly good pump-up song and he was an assassin on the court). He also had several pre-game rituals that allowed him to get in the right mindset.
How can this element of the Mamba Mentality be applied more broadly to leadership?
Organizational psychology research reinforces the point that state of mind directly affects our performance.2 I boil down state of mind to two primary factors: a) how we prepare our mind and b) how we emotionally react to unexpected situations. These two factors are not created equal. In fact, by spending time preparing the mind, we are better equipped to respond to the unknowns.
As we gear up for the unknowns of another year, it is worth investing time into preparing the mind. A practical approach to doing this involves three steps:
Acknowledge your state of mind: Take the time to notice how you are feeling about the upcoming year. You can do this through writing in a journal, going on a walk and thinking or sitting in silence. If you are like me and can have trouble naming your state of mind, consider referencing this chart. Last year, one senior executive I worked with acknowledged feeling angry about what he sensed would be another year of chaotic fire drills and emergencies.
Identify your desired mental shift: Based on what you notice in the first step and your desired performance in the next year, think about what mental shift you may need to make. Continuing with the example above, this senior executive decided to focus on shifting from a “five-alarm pacesetting” mentality to a more sequenced, composed approach with himself and his team. He realized that while he couldn’t control the unexpected issues that came his way, he could control how he reacted to them and as a result, the morale of his team.
Commit to actions to help make this shift: Think through a couple simple actions you can take that will help you make the desired shift. Put in place the accountability you need from yourself (e.g. automatic reminders in your phone) or others (quick daily text messages or calls) to ensure you follow through on these actions. For the executive I mentioned above, he decided on two routines - 1) spending 10 minutes each morning for reflection usually focused on identifying his own state of mind and then re-grounding himself in his three “most important priorities” for the year; and 2) dedicating 30 minutes each month to discuss with his team how they were doing in terms of shifting from “crisis management” mindset to a “sequenced and composed” mindset.
A few questions that I considered for this reflection:
How am I feeling going into 2022? (Try to focus on specific emotions - “I feel _________ followed by sad, angry, scared, joy or creative”3)
What do I need to mentally prepare for 2022? (If you are still feeling burnt out, I suggest going back to last week’s post on “Re-charging”)
What one shift in my mindset do I want to make in 2022?
How will I make sure that I sustain this shift in mindset not just for this year but for as long as it serves me well in my life?
For others, Kobe invokes anger and disgust, a feeling which I also share given the disturbing account of sexual assault of a young woman in Eagle, CO. While his public actions in the years that followed this event reflect remorse, I continue to harbor this sense of anger and disgust, especially as a father of a daughter. The best I can do to reconcile this feeling with my feeling of admiration for him is to acknowledge that both can be true.
“How Your State of Mind Affects Performance” by Alexander Caillet, Jeremy Hirshberg and Stefano Petti in Harvard Business Review
I’ve taken this language from one of my favorite books - Diana Chapman and Jim Dethmer’s 15 Commitments to Conscious Leadership