Kobe Bryant leveraged the Black Mamba alter ego to separate his play on the court from the chaos of his real life. Other athletes have also used this tool to maximize their performance and disassociate from their fears. In this deep dive, I pull out my favorite highlights from “The Alter Ego Effect”, a book by Todd Herman. This is no substitute for the book, but a simple distillation of some of what I thought were the most important parts and how they relate to the athletes we studied.

In the episode, we learn why people create alter egos, which athletes have used them successfully, and how you can create one to dominate your field of play.

Early in Kobe’s career, he was asked what he would ask Michael Jordan about basketball. He answered “I’d ask him how to incorporate math into the game”.

I couldn’t think of anyone better to ask about what that question means than today’s guest, Cory Jez. Cory has worked in sports analytics in basketball as the director of analytics for the Utah Jazz, in soccer as the Director of Sports Science and Analytics at FC Austin, and now in golf at TourIQ a company he founded where he is providing analytics insights for Professional golfers on the PGA Tour.

In this episode, we dive into how analytics are used to help teams and individuals win, what the biggest misconceptions about analytics are, and how anyone, like us, can benefit from applying analytics to our own domain.

The approach to winning is different for everyone. For Kobe, it was taking control of the game and making his impact known. For today’s guest, it was about selfless, often overlooked contributions that made everyone around him better. While his individual stat lines didn’t always turn heads, something special happened with every team that he was on. They started winning more and more. This eventually culminated in 10 playoff appearances and 2 NBA Championships over a 13 season NBA career.

This is part 3 of of the 3 part series studying the keys to Kobe Bryant’s success on the basketball court. It is a deep dive into sports performance and sports psychology. In this episode, we dive into the unfair advantages Kobe had while growing up. What uncontrollable forces shaped who he became as an athlete? We also explore what the downside to his success was.

This is part 2 of of the 3 part series studying the keys to Kobe Bryant’s success on the basketball court. This is another deep analysis into sports performance and sports psychology. In this episode we break down the mental tools that he uses to cultivate one of the strongest minds in sports. We go in depth into how he views himself on his journey towards greatness.

This is part 1 of of the 3 part podcast series studying the keys to Kobe Bryant’s success on the basketball court. In this episode we dive deep into his philosophy and approach to learning. The ability to learn is a fundamental building block for success. The faster that we learn, the faster we can get compounding returns from our efforts. These are key elements of sports performance and sports psychology.