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Motivation Quote by Joel Embiid

"It’s about how you respond. Everybody goes through stuff"

About this Quote

Resilience is the closest thing modern sports has to a shared religion, and Embiid distills it into two blunt sentences that read like a locker-room mantra and a public-facing boundary. "It's about how you respond" doesn’t romanticize adversity; it reframes it as a test of agency. The syntax matters: not "what happened" or "what you deserve", but "how you respond" - a pivot from victimhood to self-authorship. In a media ecosystem that feeds on origin stories and trauma arcs, it’s also a subtle refusal to be reduced to hardship as content.

"Everybody goes through stuff" is the disarming second beat. Calling it "stuff" is strategic understatement: it flattens the hierarchy of suffering and dodges the melodrama fans and commentators often project onto athletes. Embiid, whose career has been punctuated by injuries, postseason scrutiny, and the pressures of being a franchise centerpiece, uses casual language to universalize without turning confessional. It’s empathy without oversharing.

The subtext is cultural as much as personal. Athletes are expected to be both superhuman performers and relatable brands. Embiid threads that needle by offering a principle rather than a diary entry: you don’t get access to my pain, but you can take the lesson. It’s a line built for headlines because it sounds simple, yet it quietly asserts control over narrative - the response is his, not ours to script.

Quote Details

TopicResilience
SourceInterview comments about setbacks/injuries (approx. 2018–2021; widely quoted in NBA features)
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Embiid, Joel. (2026, January 30). It’s about how you respond. Everybody goes through stuff. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-about-how-you-respond-everybody-goes-through-184800/

Chicago Style
Embiid, Joel. "It’s about how you respond. Everybody goes through stuff." FixQuotes. January 30, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-about-how-you-respond-everybody-goes-through-184800/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It’s about how you respond. Everybody goes through stuff." FixQuotes, 30 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-about-how-you-respond-everybody-goes-through-184800/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.

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Joel Embiid on Resilience: Its About How You Respond
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About the Author

Joel Embiid

Joel Embiid (born March 16, 1994) is a Athlete from Cameroon.

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