If You’re Not Going To Devote All Of Yourself To It, Why Do It At All

**Matthew Gottesman** (0:02)
Welcome to The Niche Is You. My name is Matt Gottesman, at Matt Gottesman on Instagram, and this is my daily podcast, where I create short, quick hitting episodes to help you uncomplicate life, creativity, and the pursuit of your highest self. There's only main character energy here. Now let's get into it.
Welcome to episode 819 If you're not going to devote all of yourself to it, why do it at all? If you're not going to devote all of yourself to it, why do it at all? Now I slightly switched this up from the quote that I gave you the day that I believe Jalen Brunson was saying that Kobe Bryant once told him, which is if you're not going to be your best at it, then why do it at all? And the reason I chose to vote is because the best, and I do believe it, it's like the best at anything in your life, right? And I didn't want it to just be about like from a competitive standpoint, because it's not about a competitive, it's about devotion. It's about, can you give yourself, all of yourself to the things that matter? And if you can't, why would you even do it at all? And this goes for everything in your life, right? Everything. And it's like, if you can't devote all of yourself to your craft, then maybe it's the wrong craft. If you can't devote all of yourself to the job, maybe it's the wrong job. If you can't devote yourself, all of yourself to the relationship, your best work comes from the relationships, whether it's friendship or your partner and spouse, right? Your best work comes from your relationships. Say, if you can't devote all of yourself to it, why are you even in the relationship? Why are you even in the work, in the craft, in that job?
And devotion says, I'm so deeply committed to this because it matters, and I can feel it in my soul. That's what I'm talking about. And so, when Kobe Bryant used to tell people that, I don't know if it was a direct quote, or at least how he said it to Jalen Brunson when Jalen had met him many years ago, but it so stands true. It's like, if you're not trying to constantly be in the work, understanding how that actually, what that means for you, and how you get better at it. And it puts you, I've said this in the previous episodes, it puts you in such a different state, both mentally, but also spiritually, emotionally, also financially, physically, all the things. You know, it just, you play a different game. And you also meet all the parts of yourself in each of these areas of your life. And when you are devoted to your craft, you see your perspective, and you trust your talents, and you gain your confidence. And when you are devoted to your relationship, you are constantly devoted to your evolution and your growth, your personal development and your character building. So in this episode, I want to talk about why Kobe Bryant's standard wasn't about being the best, it was about full devotion. How half devotion is more expensive than full devotion ever will be. Half devotion. Oh, I like the job, you know, it pays really well, so I'm just going to do it. Yeah, but that's not living. At least in my opinion, I don't want to tell anybody what that is and isn't, but in my opinion, that's not living, you know. Imagine now working in the thing that you can't not do, you have to do it. I also want to talk about why we half step things that actually matter to us and what's underneath that pattern. I'm gonna talk about the areas of your life that deserve full devotion and the cost of giving them less. The areas of your life that deserve full devotion, the cost of giving them less. Think about that. I got these great talents over here, but I'm gonna just do this job over here. Think about, that's almost like selling yourself short, or the relationship. Oh, well, I'm just too busy. You see this sometimes at marriages. It's like, nah, that's your first mate. That is your teammate. You are running. One is running the point. The other one is a shooting guard or a center. Sorry for always the basketball analogy. It was just one of my favorite sports growing up. It's just so analogous to everything. It's like, that's your running mate. I wanna run. Let's run. We need to run our race, right?
And so if you're not giving full devotion, what's that cost of giving less? I just wanna talk about what full devotion actually looks like in practice. And the question, you have to ask yourself about every commitment in your life right now. So let's jump into it. There's that story I said of Jalen Brunson. He told me about Kobe Bryant once said to him, if you're not gonna be the, and again, I think this was like a, it was in a passing one of the videos, said, if you're not going to be the best at something, why do it at all? So when I heard that, I sat with it for a while, because it's not just about like this competitive line that you would expect from Kobe. It's not about competition. And as I was sitting with it deeper, it's like, he's not really talking about being the best. He's talking about devotion. He was asking a question that most people I think are afraid to ask themselves, which is, if you're not going to fully commit to this thing, why is it in your life? Think about that. If you're not going to fully commit to this thing, this experience, this passion of yours, this path, this person, why is it in your life? Why are you half-stepping your marriage? Why are you half-stepping your health? Why are you half-stepping your craft? Why are you half-stepping your relationship with God? If you're not going to be fully devoted to it, why is it taking up space in your life?