"What am I afraid of?" - Kobe Bryant once explained how confronting emotions unlocked his greatness

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"What am I afraid of?" - Kobe Bryant once explained how confronting emotions unlocked his greatness originally appeared on Basketball Network.

No one mastered the mental aspect of the game more than Kobe Bryant did during his storied 20-year career in the NBA. But like everyone else, the Black Mamba initially viewed fear and nervousness as signs of weakness.

The five-time champion once revealed that after adjusting the way he approached fear and nervousness, his mentality turned out to be sharper, which ultimately translated to his performance on the court.

"What am I afraid of? And then you unpack it...and it gives you the ability to look at it for what it really is -- which is nothing more than your imagination running its course," said Bryant in his appearance on the "On Purpose" podcast in 2019.

Instead of viewing emotions as weakness, Kobe learned, as time went on, that feelings are transient and not permanent states. In fact, the Los Angeles Lakers legend said that if anything, these emotions were informative because it gave him the ability to see what was it that he needed to work on and in response to that, deal with it instead of simply shoving them away.

For Bryant, shoving away emotions was never the answer because he believed that it'll only come back stronger to the point that it can overwhelm one's mind. The key was always to respond to it and that starts with accepting emotions for what it is, being calm in the midst of vulnerability and then finding a solution for how to deal with them. Once Kobe mastered that process, his fortitude was unstoppable.

"What I try to do is just try to be still and understand that things come and go. Emotions come and go. The important thing is to accept them all, to embrace them all. And then you can choose what to do with them, versus being controlled by them," Bryant added.

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It wasn't that the Hall of Famer figured out how to handle his emotions and weaknesses in an instant. It took a lot of experiences for Bryant to do that, like going through that embarrassing time when he airballed four shots in the 1997 Western Conference semifinals against the Utah Jazz or even losing to the Boston Celtics in the 2008 NBA Finals, to name a few.

Instead of letting his down years cause trauma and fear in his brain, Bryant conquered it by handling his emotions right and taking action. He did so by locking himself up in the gym after those airballs against Utah or making it a point to get stronger in the summer of 2008 in order to bounce back after being sent home by the Celtics. The response wouldn't have been possible if Kobe had never accepted his emotions for what it was when the moment happened.

That's what led to the plethora of achievements that he collected over the years on and off the basketball court. This is why he's an inspiration to many and why his moniker "Mamba Mentality" has grown into a global phenomenon.

That mentality can be applied to anything in life, not just basketball or sports.

If you work hard and love what you do, success is inevitable.