He shared the secret to success over that last stretch of basketball before this COVID-19 hiatus. He has shared it many times this season. Have you been listening?

LeBron James has tried to draw attention to the concept for many years now, actually. This season being the first time James has achieved this level of success in a Lakers uniform, it serves as another opportunity to educate and inspire. It absolutely applies to why the Lakers have been so good, so fast, despite a new roster, coaching staff and system.

And what James has brought to the Lakers is the same as what he has brought to life. He’s the rare person from whom so much was expected and yet even more was delivered.

“Personally, I want to continue to have a growth mindset with however the game is changing,” James said, referring to his long-range shooting after the Lakers beat Philadelphia, “being able to change my game while also still being true to who I am at the same time—and not have any weaknesses.”

Here is what James said after the Lakers’ next victory over Milwaukee:

“We learn from every game that we’ve played this year, both wins and losses. You’ve got to have a growth mindset and you’ve got to be able to grow in losses and be able to grow in wins as well—and see things that you could’ve done better, things that you did well that you can apply to the next game and things of that nature. It’s always a growth mindset for our ballclub.”

Just to be triple-clear, this is how James put it after his maestro performance in the Lakers’ victory over the Clippers on March 8:

“Just keeping the main thing the main thing. And that’s how I take care of my body, how I take care of my game, how I can take care of my mind. I want to try to continue to get better, even if it’s physically and if I lose a step here. But when your mind is sharp and you have a big basketball IQ, you can always cover for those things.”

At a time when James has played 58,378 regular-season and playoff NBA minutes—already more than current Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame finalists Kobe Bryant (57,278), Tim Duncan (56,738) and Kevin Garnett (55,701)—James is still striving for self-improvement.

The growth-mindset approach, detailed by psychologist Carol Dweck in her writings, boils down to why some people shy away from challenges whereas others embrace them. For all his natural gifts, James believes in becoming more invested and persistent when his gifts aren’t enough.

If you believe your abilities can be developed by those challenges—if you refuse to adopt a fixed mindset in the face of setbacks—you understand why James continually harks back to being just “a kid from Akron.”

He had to believe he could be more.