If you’re my age, Michael Jordan is the greatest NBA player of all time, and there isn’t even a debate. I know there is a strong debate for Kobe vs. MJ, but don’t even come at me if you want to debate MJ vs. LeBron. I refuse to debate it.
Michael Jordan is the greatest player of all time for a lot of statistical reasons, but the older I get, the more I think his mindset is what truly separates him from everyone else. Every year, more stories come out about the way he thought, competed, prepared, obsessed, pushed people, and demanded greatness from himself, and honestly, that’s the part of his legacy that puts him permanently at number one for me.
One of my favorite stories about Jordan, as told by former NHL player Jeremy Roenick, tells an incredible story about how they played 36 holes of golf one morning, the same day as Jordan was set to play a night game. Roenick assumed that there was no way he would have a good game that night, but he was wrong. Jordan scored 52 points after 36 holes.
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There are stories of him making up stories about the guys he was playing against, just so he could get his mind right before a game.
After a game in which Jordan had an off-night offensively, Jordan told his teammates that opposing player LaBradford Smith said to him after the game, “Nice game, Mike.” The Bulls played against Smith the next day, and Jordan told all of his teammates that he was offended that Smith would say this to him. Jordan went out and scored 36 points in the first half as revenge against Smith. Years later, Smith was quoted as saying, “I never said a thing to Mike.”
But one of my favorite Jordan stories is about how he swindled his teammates out of $1,000 in cash for a bet. When the Chicago Bulls private jet touched down in an unnamed city one day, Jordan hung back on the flight and approached the flight attendant. He asked, “Is there a way to ensure a particular bag gets dropped off the carousel first?” The flight attendant was sort of confused, “Yes, I think we can make that happen if you wish.”
Jordan handed the woman a few hundred-dollar bills and said, “Just make sure that the bag labeled #23 is the very first bag that arrives.”
Jordan then went to the area where their bags were arriving and started betting his teammates $1,000 that his bag would be first. Like the competitive beings they all were, they started throwing down the bet. A few seconds later, Jordan’s bag comes off first, he wins the bet, and walks away.
The moral of the story is this: you weren’t going to beat Jordan because he was always going to find a way to beat you. His mindset was like no other, his competitive fire was unlike anyone else, and he was always thinking about ways to win at whatever game was being played, even if it meant bending the rules slightly.
The question I have for you is, are you willing to do whatever it takes to win? Is your competitive spirit burning bright enough on a daily basis for you to achieve your goals? Are you just psycho enough to ensure that nothing comes between you and success?
If not, you may struggle to get to where you want to go.
The funny thing is that when most people hear stories like this about Jordan, they immediately focus on how insane he was, how obsessive he was, or how over the top his competitiveness became. What they miss entirely is that greatness at that level almost always requires a level of obsession that normal people would consider unhealthy. You do not accidentally become the greatest basketball player on Earth. You do not accidentally build billion-dollar companies, win championships, dominate industries, or completely separate yourself from everyone else around you.
Somewhere along the way, the wiring has to become different. Your relationship with winning, preparation, pressure, discipline, and competition starts operating on an entirely different frequency than the average person around you.
Most people say they want to be successful, but very few people are actually willing to live the lifestyle that often comes attached to extraordinary success. They want the outcome without the obsession. They want the confidence without the repetitions. They want the recognition without the sacrifice.
Then they watch people like Jordan and convince themselves that he was simply born different, while completely ignoring the fact that his edge came from constantly manufacturing motivation, constantly sharpening his mindset, and constantly finding ways to compete at a higher level than everyone around him. Jordan did not just play basketball games.
Jordan turned everything in life literally into a competition.
I think that is the part people should pay attention to the most. The world is filled with talented people. Every company has talented people. Every city has talented people. Every friend group has talented people talking about the things they “could” do someday.
The separator is almost never talent alone. The separator is usually intensity. Consistency. Obsession. Competitive stamina.
The ability to stay locked in while everyone else gets distracted, emotional, tired, insecure, or complacent. Jordan’s real superpower was probably the fact that his internal fire never seemed to shut off.
That does not mean you need to become a psychopath screaming at your coworkers while inventing fake grudges against people at dinner parties, but I do think there is a lesson in all of this. If your goals matter deeply to you, there has to be a level of intensity attached to them that separates you from people who are merely interested.
Interested people dabble. Interested people make excuses. Interested people wait for motivation.
Obsessed people keep finding ways to move forward long after everyone else mentally checked out.