When I was in high school, I met Kobe Bryant at a friend's restaurant in Toronto. In my recollection, the conversation left me with two questions: who would I need to become to pursue a goal, and what would I be willing to give up? This is the lesson I took from the encounter, rather than a verbatim account of his words.
Look beyond the desired result
It is easy to want the outcome of a demanding pursuit while overlooking its ordinary days. The useful question is what the work requires repeatedly: practice, preparation, feedback and the ability to continue when progress is less visible.
Translate that into specific behaviours. For a founder, it might mean having difficult customer conversations, learning to delegate or returning to a problem after an unsuccessful attempt.
Make the trade-off explicit
Every serious commitment uses time and attention that could go elsewhere. Naming that cost is more honest than assuming discipline will make it disappear. It also creates space to decide that a particular goal is not worth its current demands.
Sacrifice is not automatically admirable. Health, relationships and responsibilities are not obstacles to dismiss for a motivational story. A sustainable version of the goal may require a different pace or a narrower scope.
Practise the identity through action
Choose a behaviour that belongs to the person you want to become and make it repeatable. Review the actual work rather than relying on a declaration about who you are.
The encounter stayed with me because it made the goal less abstract. Wanting the result was only the beginning. The more useful decision was whether I wanted to live the process that could lead toward it.