🦉 Kobe Bryant and Brock Purdy are "nothing special"
Hard work can overcome talent
Hey, folks. It’s me, Joseph Kim. Thanks for subscribing to GameMakers.
I’m going to try to better structure GameMakers’ newsletter content moving forward. If successful, here is what a typical weekly schedule will look like:
💡Monday Philosophy: A discussion about a business philosophy, lesson learned, or idea for consideration and potential debate.
📈 Wednesday Marketwire: Weekly review of game performance and markets.
🎙️ Friday Interview: Discussions with people working on interesting things in the games industry.
If you have any feedback on the content here, let me know! I’m currently considering changing things up to make this useful both for you, the reader, and me.
A big focus at my company recently is writing things down. We have not been great at thinking more clearly about issues and have, too often, rehashed old issues with only verbal history.
A friend of mine recently shared this Paul Graham tweet with me:
I’m sure many of you are also familiar with the Jeff Bezos practice at Amazon to eliminate PowerPoint presentations in favor of 6-page memos:
We don’t do PowerPoint (or any other slide-oriented) presentations at Amazon. Instead, we write narratively structured six-page memos.
Well, folks, this new weekly newsletter output is my attempt to write a bit more to help clarify my own thoughts on various topics while creating more content for this newsletter!
I hope you will find it useful and will hopefully be useful to you in your game development pursuits.
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💡Kobe Bryant and Brock Purdy are "nothing special"
What can someone who isn’t supremely physically or mentally gifted achieve?
According to Kobe Bryant’s former trainer, the former head athletic trainer for the LA Lakers for over 30 years, he suggests:
“There’s really nothing special about Kobe Bryant.”
So what made Kobe Bryant special, if not supreme talent? Why is Kobe considered to be one of the all-time greats?
“He works harder than anyone else.”
“He was more competitive than anyone I ever met.”
Too often, we think in terms of limitations or the short term. We often overestimate the impact of natural ability and underestimate the impact of hard work.
In the NFL, Brock Purdy, the San Francisco 49er’s starting quarterback, is often overlooked or called a “system quarterback” because he does not have the natural physical ability of other NFL quarterbacks.
The most obvious comparison to Brock Purdy is Lamar Jackson, a true physical freak of nature who can physically do things no one else can do.
Who is the better quarterback?
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The point isn’t so much about determining whether Lamar Jackson or Brock Purdy is the better quarterback, but that someone like Brock Purdy is even in the conversation with Lamar Jackson is shocking for many people.
But is Brock truly not physically special or talented? Well, hear for yourself a very familiar message below:
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I’ve never been the biggest, the fastest or the strongest or any of that. I’ve always had to fight for what I get and work for what I get.
Getting drafted last, people overlook you. All you need is an opportunity.
Oftentimes, in life, we start with a bad hand or find ourselves in a situation where we are completely outmatched.
We may not have the physical or mental gifts of someone else. We may not have the same access to resources or talent.
In The Parable of the Talents from the bible (I’m not Christian, but I study a lot of different religions), a man going on a journey entrusts his property to his servants:
Before leaving on his journey, the man gives one servant five talents, another two talents, and another one talent according to their ability.
The servant who received five talents and the one who received two both invested the money and doubled it.
The servant who received one talent, fearing his master's response if he lost the money, hides it in the ground.
Upon the master's return, he praises and rewards the first two servants for their good and faithful service, inviting them to share in his happiness.
The servant who hid the talent is reprimanded for being wicked and lazy. His talent is taken away and given to the one who has ten talents.
The parable concludes with the lesson that those who use their talents will be given more, while those who do not will lose even what they have. It is often interpreted as an encouragement to use God-given gifts and opportunities responsibly and with effort.
So what will you do?
We get what we get in life.
Now, what can we make of it?
Many people believe people can’t change. They believe that people are basically who they are after a certain age.
Hence, while technology can change and improve exponentially, people often change very little, if at all.
In my own experience, I believe that most people do not change. And while we all have the capacity to change, few of us have the will or the motivation to do the hard work and the hard things required to make big changes in our lives.
One of the primary motivating factors for me to start a game studio in India was to test this thesis.
Can I find enough people who are motivated to work hard, to learn and grow, and thereby overcome other world-class studios in the world who out-talent and out-resource us today?
I am, and our game studio today is, and has been, “nothing special.”
But we’re searching and hoping to find our White Tiger. Can I find the next Kobe Bryant or Brock Purdy of game development?
Don’t let a lack of talent deter you from achieving something great. I’m unsure if we’ll succeed, but I will do everything possible to try.
Hard work makes up for a lot!
Kobe's an inspiration, for sure. He also studied the game like no other!