I’m curious, what’s your reaction to the following quote from the late Kobe Bryant?

“If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it. A lot of people say they want to be great, but they’re not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness. They have other concerns, whether important or not, and they spread themselves out. That’s totally fine. After all, greatness is not for everybody.”

For most of my life, I’ve found inspiration in this kind of “Mamba Mentality” and lived in quiet fear of ever being viewed as someone who wasn’t fully committed to “greatness.”

But lately, my perspective has been shifting.

One catalyst was a conversation with my friend Randy. He’s the Director of Sports Medicine at the University of Illinois and has worked with hundreds of elite athletes over the past two decades. Knowing this, I asked him a question that felt important to me as a parent: What’s the single best piece of advice you’d give my son Grady—a high school freshman with college basketball aspirations?

His answer surprised me:

“Build a multi-room life.”

Elaborating further, he invited me to think of life like a house. The more your identity is built around a single “room,” he explained, the more fragile it becomes when that room gets shaken. A stronger life has multiple connected rooms and a solid foundation—so when one area falters, the whole person remains standing. Psychologist Brad Stulberg calls this idea “self-complexity” (which you can read about here). 

The more I reflect on this analogy, the more it resonates with me.

But it also creates a tension in me. After all, this isn’t how my childhood heroes lived (MJ, Tiger, etc.) or how we typically celebrate success in our culture. As Wright Thompson explores in The Cost of These Dreams, we tend to glorify people who go “all in” on a single room. But greatness isn’t cheap, and the bill often comes due in ways we don’t expect.

Morgan Housel captures this tension well in Same As Ever, in a chapter titled “Casualties of Perfection”:

“Not maximizing your potential is actually the sweet spot in a world where perfecting one skill compromises another. The more perfect you try to become, the more vulnerable you generally are.”

For most of my life, I would have dismissed such ideas as excuses—things people say when they can’t, or won’t, chase greatness.

But now that I’m a 42-year-old father thinking carefully about what I actually want for my five children, I have a different perspective. For them, I don’t think I’d choose obsessive, singular ambition. I’d choose self-complexity.

Which raises an uncomfortable question:

If that’s what I want for them…why wouldn’t I want the same for myself?

If you’ve got thoughts on this topic, I’m open for business. 

Thoughts from fellow travelers

My last newsletter prompted some enjoyable and thought-provoking dialogues about our 2026 reading plans. More than one person shared a desire to read more than they have in recent years and asked for advice on how to make that happen.

I’m no expert—but based on my experience, here are a few simple suggestions:

• Read first thing in the morning. If I don’t do it then, it usually doesn’t happen. Reading before bed sounds nice, but for me it’s a reliable path to sleep.

• Consistency matters more than intensity. Ten minutes a day doesn’t feel like much, but it’s enough to get through at least ten books a year.

• Choose books carefully. Even as a committed reader, if I’m not enjoying a book it quickly starts to feel like a chore—and chores are easy to avoid.

I’m curious, what advice would you add to this list?

Carry on fellow travelers, we’ll talk soon.