Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - Tim Grover: The Best Are Looking To Get Better-089

Episode Date: March 9, 2019

Are you a cooler, a closer, a cleaner? On this episode of Inside Look, Bedros Keuilian interviews Tim Grover: a legendary resource for some of the world’s greatest athletes including Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Together they discuss what it means to be a cleaner, and how the best never think they are good enough. Watch or listen now to discover the secrets to unlocking a Jordan-esque mindest.   “You need to constantly re-win your stripes” - Bedros Keuilian   Here’s what you’ll discover: 2:22 - How you can make a difference in your dream industry, even if the odds are stacked against you 8:52 - Tim explains the cleaner mentality, and what it takes to call yourself a cleaner 14:22 - The difference between “working out” someone and “training” someone, and how it applies to more than just fitness 25:24 - Why you should always be thinking “what's next”; and why you always need to be better 45:22 - The cleaners in the entrepreneurial world, and what you can learn from them   “Friends tell you what you want to hear, allies tell you what you have to hear” – Tim Grover   Follow us on Instagram: @bedroskeuilian / @akashawnthomas Buy Man Up and get Bedros’s High Performance Leadership Course for FREE: https://manup.com/   Make sure to review us on iTunes: http://bit.ly/theempireshow

People run from pressure. Pressure is a privilege. This has got to be one of my favorite episodes ever. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of The Empire Show, an inside look with the author of my favorite book, Relentless. He was the trainer for Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, and he's created a word called a cleaner. And when I first heard it, I had no idea what a cleaner was, but after reading it, I quickly discovered that my gosh, I may very well be a cleaner. Let's welcome Mr. Tim Grover.

How are you, very much pleasure to meet you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you for coming out to Southern California. That was a tough sell. That was a really, really tough sell. Why don't you tell everybody what you're about to fly back into in Chicago? It is going to be 50 below in Chicago in a few days. Minus 50. Minus 50. And for the record, it's about 72 and sunny here in Southern California.

So I have a feeling you're going to be at the Ritz Carlton for the next few days. So, Tim, you obviously, man, there's no shortage of people who speak so highly of you. I mean, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Dwayne, Wade, you name it. How do you even become the trainer to these amazing NBA athletes? Well, before we go there, the first thing I want to do is you're the first person I've done a podcast with that actually owns a piece of highway. Oh, you saw a sign? I saw that.

I was like, this, you know, I'm always looking for different experiences, something that's unique, and I can finally say I did a podcast or I met an individual that owns a piece of highway. We do. See? That's special. 11 miles of it, to be exact. 11 miles.

There you go. 11 miles. Yes, sir. I look for the unique things in there. That was, that's outstanding. Well, thank you, sir. Thank you. It's high praises.

Yes. So what you have to do to get with these kind of individuals is everybody wants to start there. It doesn't start there. It starts many, many years ago, knowing exactly what you wanted to do. I was fortunate enough when I went to college. I have a master's degree in exercise, science, and kinesiology. So what I wanted to do was when I told my parents, this is what I wanted to. I said, I was going to train professional athletes.

And everybody says, what are you going to study? I said, I'm studying kinesiology, exercise. I said, oh, you're going to be a gym teacher. I said, no, I'm going to train professional athletes. You know, we're going back into the 80s. You know, I'm a couple of months older than you are. Sure, a couple months. You know, so I kept telling myself, this is where I want to do.

This is where I want to do. I had a big passion and I always love sports, the passion and action behind the sports. So I was like, okay, but I wasn't good enough to be a professional. I knew that. I knew I was not going to make any money playing basketball. That was my sport. Sure. but I still wanted to be involved in it.

At the highest level. At the highest level. Still, how can you make a difference and still work and be in the same mindset as these individuals? So what I did was I finished off my degree. I went to work at a local health club. My hourly rate was $3.25. As a personal trainer? They won't even hire me as a personal trainer.

When I came into the health club, you had to work. work. Here's a word for you fitness people out there for young guys that you might have not heard. The Nautilus room. The Nautilus room. Yeah, where you had all the equipment in there was just Nautilus. So you had to go in there and everybody who came in, joined the health club. They got a free session of how to use the Nautilus equipment. There were 12 pieces there. And you went there. I was that individual with a master's degree. With a master's degree teaching these people. But I was like, it was one of the best things that happened to me because what it did was you go to college, you learn everything from a book,

but you don't really get a chance to apply it and to actually use it. So now it gave me a chance in this environment to actually learn how to use everything. With real people. With real people. And I suppose that's probably a good thing that you weren't working with athletes throughout at the gate because the last thing you want to do is get your hands wet with athletes.

Right, exactly. And here's the thing. Everybody wants to go there, but they forget that you've got to do all that other stuff first. Nobody wants to do that. People come in, they apply for a job. They've never worked in the industry. First thing they check off, managerial position. Managerial position. Well, what have you done over here? So I learned my craft. I worked with every possible individual in there. Anybody that wanted to lose weight, gain weight, had injury, any kid that wanted to perform better. and learned everything, I learned how to apply everything, learn how to do everything. The word kind of spread that, hey, there's an actual individual. He's just not doing training. He's doing more like movement stuff. He's making people better as recreational tennis players, as recreational basketball players and so forth. And I made a lot of mistakes during the time.

I would write programs out, and I'm like, this isn't going to work. And that allowed me to have the trust in myself to know when the opportunity came. And I didn't say if, when the opportunity came. What made you so confident that the opportunity was going to come? You would say when and not if? There was no other option for me. I was going to make it happen. I wasn't relying on somebody else to say, oh, figure this out.

Let me make a contact here. You do find your resources in different places, but still the onus is on you. So what I did was I sent out, when I was confident enough in my ability, I sent out a letter to every single. single player in the Bulls organization. There's 15 players, but there's a mistake I made. All right. I only sent out 14 letters.

And this was when you had to handwrite the letters, go to the post office stamp. There was no emails back then. I sent out 14 letters. Who was the 15th? I did not send out one letter to Michael Jordan. Why? In my mind, I was like,

he's already the best at what he does. Why would somebody who's as great as they are need help? Wow. I got one reply back from the one person I did not send a letter to. Oh, shit. The one person I did not send a letter to. He contacted the team athletic trainer. He contacted a team physician and said, hey, find out who this guy is and what he's about.

So there's a lesson over there. There's a reason why individuals that are so successful, business, sports, athletics, whatever you want to do. the best of the best are always looking to get better. They're never satisfied. They're always looking for that competitive advantage. No matter how much they've won, they want to win more. One of the greatest things that I said, now I know you understood the book,

you did not call yourself a cleaner. Okay, and we'll get into it later about what a cleaner actually is. Cleaners don't recognize themselves as cleaners because they're never completely satisfied with what they've done. they've never played a perfect game. They've never had a perfect anything.

There's always, they could figure out something that it just didn't go right. He used to tell people about a story about Michael Jordan and his statute. After every basketball game, there's a stat sheet, you know, how many points you scored, how many rebounds, assists, all that other stuff. He used to give that to Michael, Mike's and never bring me that stat sheet again. He goes, this is all I want to see on the stat sheet. I want to see how many turnovers I had. how many miss free throws

and how many fouls I had he goes I'm supposed to score points I'm supposed to get rebounds I'm supposed to make my teammates better I'm supposed to play defense I don't need to see a stat of things I'm supposed to do I need to see a stat of the things I'm not supposed to do

how many people because you've coached the best or you've trained the best how many of the athletes that you've come across in your time have had that mindset versus wanting to see all the pads on the back of how well they scored and how they rebounded. How many, there's less than that I've dealt with and I've talked to, I'd say there's less than 20. Less than 20.

There's less than 20. I'm talking about it in all the sports that I've had to actually had a conversation with, not all these athletes, you know, the Michaels, the Kobies, the Wade's. I've actually had a chance to work with those individuals, you know, personally for years and years. but through them, I got a chance to meet so many other people. I'm not just talking about like a one-off. I'm talking about being for years, you know, like a Wayne Gretzky, and, you know, Derek Jeter, you know, Roger Federer,

to see those individuals, to put them in a room, and if they all spoke exactly the same way, and you didn't know who was speaking, they're talking about the same thing over and over again. tell you all the points and all the games they won, but they can tell you every opportunity that they didn't capitalize or the game they should have won and they made a mistake. That's what sticks with those individuals. Like Tom Brady, I give you a great example.

The Super Bowl is coming up. All right. Last year, the only memory he has is about dropping that pass. Right. What an opportunity and he dropped that pass. He dropped that pass. Forget about the numbers he put up. He put up record numbers for a quarterback in a Super Bowl game as a loss.

He doesn't care about that. He's not talking about that. He's talking about the things that didn't happen. So would you say these are people who are like super achievers? They're just unreasonable expectations. Like, how do you define this cleaner mentality? Like, what the fuck makes someone so relentlessly focused on the things that they failed at versus the, I mean, the things that they're so amazing. at that less than one-tenth of one percent of the population can achieve.

You know what I always tell? Something happened. We all have that ability. This is not something you're born with. I love how people say, y'all, this person is born with that. You're not born with that. You know, when you're born, the doctor doesn't say, this kid is going to be relentless, this one's going to be a winner, this one's going to do this. No, they're like, everyone has the same opportunities. Now, what happens is through your childhood, and he may be even later in life, something happens to you. There's some kind of decision you have to make. There's some kind of obstacle that came in your way,

something that you had to deal with. And how you dealt with that situation pretty much determines how everything else is going to go. Did somebody handle that for you, or did you own up to it and say, I'm going to take care of this? and I think how you hand and I don't think I know those individuals if you look at all their stories

every individual that's been successful you know Bill Gates Jeff Basel's all that other stuff if you look at everything that they've done some kind of something happened in their life early on in their life

that put that in this relentless mindset to just be an overachiever set unrealistic goals because they saw something, and they did not want to go back in that direction. So when something happens, you have two options. You can either curl up and just say, eh, you know, make excuses after excuses,

or you can own up to it and turn around and figure out how to do it. You gave a perfect example about the building, well, before this building. You could be woe with me. I spent seven figures here. What the hell am I going to do? Blame everybody else, okay? And your wife came up with the idea. guys came up with a concept, look what happened.

Yep. It doesn't happen right away. People want it to happen right away. Yeah. All right. It doesn't happen right away. All right. It's only a failure when you decide it's a failure.

Not when somebody else tells you it's a failure. So Tim, I'm curious because I imagine that if you're someone who's training like the, not even the tip of the spear, I'm talking the razor's edge in a particular sport here, like the NBA, you probably see common denominators. from the sport that can be translated into entrepreneurship and business. Sure. And since this is a entrepreneurship and business podcast, if I were to say, all right, Tim, what talents, ability, skill sets, habits, belief systems do the viewers and listeners of this show

need to adopt to even begin to think or operate like a cleaner? Well, the first thing you got to do. You know, we have 13 traits in here of, quote, unquote, the most competitive cleaner cleaner individuals out there. One thing you have to do is you have to know exactly who you are. So many times you're not living your life. You're living what somebody else wants you to live. You're trying to make them happy.

You become the person they want you to be. I always said somewhere down the lines, a lot of individuals, somebody takes their identity or you give them your identity. And now you've become the way they want you to be. these individuals know exactly who they are, and they're that way all the time. You know, people always say, listen, one of my biggest faults is I'm the same person all the time. No matter what the circumstances is, what the situation is, I'm going to give you the straight answer, whether you like it or you don't like it.

Don't ask the question. And these individuals know exactly who they are. They're the most competitive individuals out there in everything they do. You know, people always say, you know, I love when people get on podcasts and, you know, these different shows, and they tell you the same thing over and over again. You got to get up early. You got to outwork the competition. You got to work harder.

You got to do these things. We all know that. We all know that. If that's all it took, then we, we're going to. We'd all be super, super successful. All right, it takes way more than that. It takes the mindset to put those things into place. If you're going to get up earlier than everybody else,

are you using that time productively? Are you doing what you're supposed to be doing? You know, I get people, I always tell people, I've never worked out an individual. I've trained individuals. There's a big difference between working out somebody and training somebody. I can take anybody into a gym. and work them out, get their heart rate up, you know, get them doing these motions and literally

10 minutes later, they're pouring in sweat. All right, man, I had a great workout. Yeah, you had a great workout. But now did you train? Did you actually train in your sport? Did you train yourself physically? Did you train yourself mentally to give you that competitive edge in what you need to do it in? And that's what these individuals do. Everything they do is focus. It could be even in their personal life is focused to give them that competitive advantage. And they surround themselves with, not with friends, they surround themselves with allies. And the difference between friends and allies is friends tell you what you want to hear. Allies tell you what you need to hear. And there's a huge difference. That's a massive difference. I've never heard that

differentiation put like that before. So before we even dive into what the definition of a cleaner is, This is why I keep teasing it along. I want to you share, if you don't mind, one of my favorite stories that you give from your book, where Michael Jordan had some kind of stomach virus, and I imagine any other athlete in any other environment would have probably said, I'm out. I'm out of this game.

What he did and what his response was. Oh, it was like, listen, it wasn't an option. It was actually against the Utah Jazz, and this was in the finals, in the finals, and everybody calls it the flu game, I was actually there. He wasn't. He didn't have the flu. He had food poisoning. I remember the whole story about... Now, you kind of implied in the book that there might have been some tampering with his food. I did. I did. Listen, I didn't make the pizza. I didn't make the pizza myself. But this was like,

we're up late. He couldn't sleep. Big game. So we're sitting in myself, a few other of his closest friends. We're sitting in the room. And this was in Park City, Utah. This was before Park City, Utah was Park City, Utah. Sure. Yeah. And the only thing we could find to eat at that place, the room service, they had closed down. So the only thing we could find, I could find one pizza place open. So I said, I said, Michael, this is all we got.

He goes, order me a pizza. So I order the pizza. Now, we had already been in Utah for a little while, even though he was under an alias. 30 minutes later, there's a knock on the door. I opened the door, there's five guys to deliver one pizza. I'm like, all right. all right and you know they're trying to look at the room i said i take the pizza i pay them and i put it down and i and i already got a bad feeling about this i said mike i said i told him

i said michael i'm not really sure about this he goes man i'm starving there's eight of us in the room he's the only one that ate oh he smokes the next literally three hours later he's curled up in a ball he's like just he goes man i'm so sick you know he's just he's throwing up he's got the shivers He's got everything that's going on. We get the team doctor in. The team doctor's like, you know, I don't know. We give him a couple of medicines and so forth. It's just making things even worse.

And they're talking about he needs to, you know, if you can't play, if you can't play tomorrow, we understand. So Michael just turned his head and just look. I didn't say that. This was a team doctor that said that. He goes, if you just looked at him, he said, I need him to leave the room. Wow. Doctor left the room.

He just said, hey, hey, listen, let me just sit here. We know what time we got to leave, what time I got to get dressed. He goes, I will figure this out. I will figure this. Not only for himself, these are the things about cleaners and about the superior competitive individuals in business, in sports. And I say, not only do they have an obligation to themselves, they know they have an obligation to others.

So Michael always said, listen, not only do I have an obligation to go out and play this basketball game and play it to the best of my ability, there's millions of people watching, the people that have spent money that are going to be coming to this game, this might be the only chance to get a chance to ever see me play. So his obligation to himself is so strong that it passes on to everybody else.

not only am I responsible for my actions here, but there's so many other people that I'm responsible for. I have to put out the best product out there. And there was no way that he was not going to play. Now, remember, it's amazing when you see athletes that are not up to their full capacity, and they always play their best. Why is it? Because they have to block out all the distractions, and now you have a sense in height. of your mindset.

Your focus becomes a little bit more, becomes a little bit more intense. You learn to block out the crowd. You get into that zone. It's like going into a business meeting and you're walking in there and you come out of it. Man, I don't know how I close that deal. You can't remember, but you know you were just so totally

locked in, so laser focus. You can't see anything else around you. Is this ability to compartmentalize everything else is happening around you and to just do it? what you must do in the moment to win? Exactly. It is.

It's like to be able, you know how they say, everyone says just block it out. Some people don't have the ability to block it out. So what happens is, what happens is when you tell somebody don't think. First thing they do is start thinking. Think about that. First thing you tell them, block it out. Well, if they're blocking it out, it's already too late. It's already too late.

The preparation, we've had this podcast on the books for over a month now. Yeah. Okay. I guarantee it. your preparation didn't start this morning all right this is the third time reading your book see that's what I'm trying to say

there there are no secrets out there okay you know what's going to happen you know the preparation guys don't make those great tennis shots they don't make those golf puts they don't make those basketball shots the baseball you know the your closers that doesn't happen then it's happened months years before that

that allows you to be able to be laser focused, to be able to block things out, to be able to get into the zone. You know what the questions is. You've read the book three times. You know, hey, this is a pot. And it's just not with this podcast.

You do it with all your podcasts. This is not like, oh, I have a special guest coming in. I need to do it with this individual. This is what you do. And you don't know any other way. Yeah. Let me give you an example on that. And our audience knows that I like to go fully transparent.

And I think you'll appreciate this as well. this morning, it's a Monday, by the way, it's a Monday, and this morning I got a text message that one of our key team members, and we don't have any employees in this building, because employees clock in a little late, clock out a little early, and do the bare minimum. Employees are unified in the mission and vision and play to win. And so our team, one of our key team members this morning, I had to give the order to can him. And it's probably happening right now as we're doing this. Even talking about it, I have zero feelings and emotions about it because I'm so, I'm so,

compartmentalized. And I've said this before. If my wife were to open that door and say, I'm divorcing you, this podcast would still go on. And her and I have had that conversation before. Now, I also realize this could be detrimental. This, I also say this is a dark side to me. And I call it my monster. Don't let my monster come out because it'll fuck you up. And if I am relentlessly focused on the franchise, it will grow. If I'm relentlessly focused on anything, it will grow. What is it about that ability to compartmentalize and go to this dark side? Because you do talk There is a darkness in it. Everybody has it.

Where does it come from? Your greatest competitor. We all have it. That's a thing. It's already inside of you. But what happens is people spend so much energy keeping it down and fighting it. It's who you are. It's a part of you.

You can't just accept the good. People only like to accept the good part of them. There's a whole, there's so many other pieces to you. You have to accept. all of it and know how to use all of it. Okay, your dark side is one of the most powerful tools

that's out there. First, you've got to recognize what it is, all right, then can you control it? A lot of individuals can't control it. If you can recognize what it is, you can control it. It will take you to places you just can't get

to it. I love to use the people I do podcasts with as an example because this is real life. Yeah. All right. You told me today, you just closed your 800th franchise. All right.

If you never tapped into your dark side, you'd be at 100. Yeah. You'd be at 100. And you know what? I guarantee if I'm standing here next year, you will not be at 800. Not even close. Not even close.

Not even close. That you know what you're. a dark side is, you've omitted it to it. This is the second time we've met. And you've already told me some things that other people would never share, but that's who you are. You're

transparent, and people need to be more transparent. I rather be, and I know you said it's okay to use the language, I rather be the asshole that tells you the truth instead of the motherfucker that always

lies to you. Amen. Amen. One of my other favorite parts in here that you talk about, and it says you brought up controlling that dark side, controlling, I think the word you used was to bring 48 minutes of controlled rage to the court. And I think it was Duane Wade you were talking about, right? Yeah. Can you tell us that story in the note that you had in your pocket? Yeah, so there's a championship game.

He's got some issues with his knee. So I come in, we look at his knee. I said, hey, listen, this is what we're going to do. All right, there's a little structural thing here that we're going to, have to deal with during the offseason. We can't think about it right now. We're going to do some things, do some exercises, do some mobility stuff. I'll give you some stuff to do during the game when you go in and everything you're supposed to do. I said, stop thinking about the knee. I said, don't even worry about, don't even worry about the knee. All right, the knee is going to be fine.

It's going to hold up. You've trusted me this long. I said, I've never lied to you. I've never led you down in a wrong dress. I said, nothing's going to happen to this knee. And I looked at me. I said, do you trust me on that? He goes, if you tell me this thing is structurally fine, none's going to happen, I'm going to go out there and do what I need to do. I had a note in my pocket that I wanted to give to him. I put him through some exercises, I put him through some different things, and then I was like, I don't need to give it to him. He's got it. I can already see after we did our little routine, after we did our thing, I looked at it, and I talked about this little click you see and I said, and sometimes you can

go too far. You can take a person, give them, you can give them too much information. And you've got to know when to stop. And that's the difference between a boss and a leader. A leader gives you enough information to say, hey, you figure, I'm giving you this. Now you got enough to figure out yourself. I don't want to give you too much. I'm not dictating the whole situation. I saw I had just giving him enough, go out there and do what you do. For 48 minutes, the guy was, I mean, it was just like it was unbelievable. end result championship and result

but you have to have that trust in those individuals when you're building your franchises people have a trust in your product okay because they see the work that you've put in the dedication that you have the belief the system that you've put

in the place to succeed so they have that so now they're willing to take that they're willing to take that next step if you haven't done that people aren't willing to take that. People aren't willing to take that next step. But remember, you're only as good as the next franchisee

that you're doing. Dway didn't care about what I did for Michael. All right. Kobe didn't care what I did for Michael. What are you going to do for me? Yeah, that's great. You did a great job with that individual, but now can you apply this to me?

You can have, yeah, you have, 700 franchises that are kicking ass. All right. That's 701. Right. What are you doing? That's great, but I'm not them. Yep. I'm me. What are you going to do for me?

Because I have to run my business a little bit different, different environment. You're going to give me the base principles. But hey, what else? Are you going to be there for me? If these things you give me aren't working out, are you going to be there for me to help me there? That's an incredible way of really defining that. You're right, because every morning when I wake up and we sold a new location,

a new franchise territory, I remind myself and I've taught our operations team that I introduced you to to remind themselves that you're going to have to rewin your stripes today and re-prove to yourself. To me, it's like Groundhog Day. Every time I fill up that conference room with new franchisees, I have to reprove to them who I am and what I'm going to do for them and what they need to do for themselves. All the time. All the time. Each year, when I work with my individual,

forget about what I did last year, forget about what I did that game before. They want to raise their game, I have to raise the game. After every championship I've ever been a part of, the celebration that you see my guys doing out on the court, the hug they give me or the handshake, the first words out of their mouth is, what's next? Yeah. Because in their mind, if I come back as good as I came back,

this year when I won the championship, I'm not going to be here next year. Yeah. I have to be better. I have to be better. Does that put an unnecessary amount of pressure on you as their trainer? It's the only way I would want it. Really? It's the only way.

People run. Says the cleaner. People run from pressure. Pressure is a privilege. Everybody should be so thankful if somebody puts you in an opportunity where you're under pressure and you get a chance to thrive. That means they believe in you. That means you have, they see something in you that they don't see in somebody else. Don't run from pressure. Embrace it. Embrace the pressure. Embrace the stress. Everything that people tell you is bad for you.

You know, they tell you, you know, your dark side is bad for you. Pressure is bad for you. Stress is bad for you. If you have no pressure, you have no stress in your life, you don't have a life. All right, that's what fuels you. That's what keeps you going. That's what keeps you going when nothing else will. Everybody's always looking for external motivation and so forth. If you have your own added pressure and you have your own stress that you deal with, that nobody else is putting on you, that you put on yourself, that you put on yourself, okay,

it's what lights your own fire. It's what keeps you going. You need that pressure. the greatest things, some of the most beautiful things in life that we buy, that people love to have, are made through pressure.

Yeah. You know, diamonds are made through pressure. All right? Greatness is made through. You've got to put that pressure on. I said the only difference between pressure and stress is stress is pressure that you decide not to deal with.

If you deal with a pressure situation every single day, they'll never really convert into stress. But you have other people that thrive, they only thrive under the highest stressful situations. You know, you were talking about earlier about, I'm sorry, I forgot, there was a military individual that. Oh, Ray Care, the Navy SEAL. Yeah, the Navy SEAL.

Yeah. You talk about stress. He only thrives under stress. That's it. Yeah. That's, without that, they don't know what to do. Yeah. And those individuals thrive under the most.

Talk about going into an environment, unknown environment, not being able to see, not being able to hear, but now you've got to go find a target. Yeah. Nuts. That's stress. They've got guns and machine guns they don't want to kill you. Yeah.

And there's people that are waiting for you. Yeah. It's not just a game where we're going to outscore each other. Right. It's just like, it's completely, it's completely, different. So every time you think you're under a pressure, stressful situation because you have to meet a deadline,

you better think about what other people, what real, real stress really is. Yeah. Yeah. So with that, I think it's really important to shift gears here. Coolers, closers, cleaners. Why don't you lay out the definition of our three characters here? All right.

So coolers, closers, and cleaners. The easiest way I like to define this for people is just if you look at the book, we have good great and unstoppable. A cooler is an individual that's good at what they do. All right, and every company needs some coolers. They're the individuals. You tell them what to do. They're going to do exactly what you tell them to do. If you tell them, I need to make, you need to make 15 phone calls today or this, they're going to make 15 phone calls. They're not going to make 16, even though

they may have an extra hour. Excuse me. You tell them to show up at 9 o'clock. They're going to show up at 8.59, and when they clock out, they are clocked out. Good. You know, you give them something to do, they're going to give you a result that's satisfactory. It's not going to be over the top. It's not going to be extraordinary. It's going to be good. All right? And a lot of people accept those individuals. Then you have closers. Closers are individuals that are great at what they do as long as a lot of variables are thrown at them. So they can follow a plan. They're going to deliver you the end result over and over again as long as a lot of variables are thrown at them. When a lot of variables

are thrown at them, then they start to blame. You didn't train me right or the weather had a problem. They find external things to blame. Okay. A cleaner is an individual that's going to get you that end result. You've gotten the end result 800 times as of today. over and over again, no matter what circumstance is thrown at them. They are going to figure it out. They are going to figure it out. The biggest difference between a closer and a cleaner is, you know how all they say, trust your instincts?

Yeah. Closers trust their instincts. Cleaners, their instincts trust them. Give me an example of that. All right. There's a story in the book. All right. Michael Jordan, this is the big shot that everybody gets to know against Cleveland with Craig Elo.

So Doug Collins is a coach during that time. So there's about eight seconds left on a clock, maybe even less than that. So Doug, they call a timeout. Doug draws this elaborate play. Scotty, you go over here. Michael, you want you over here, that and so forth. So they break out of the huddle. And Michael looks at everybody.

He says, hey, man, give me the ball and get the fuck out the way. If I'm going to win this game, it's going to be on me. If I'm going to lose this game, it's going to be on me. I'm not leaving it to anybody else. So the work that he put in, his instincts at that moment trusted him, said, hey, this is going to be the outcome. He already knew what the outcome was going to be. But if he left the outcome to somebody else, then he didn't know what the outcome was going to be. I'm going to make sure this outcome.

outcome one way or the other is going to be what it should be. And that's what you do. That's when you know your instincts trust you. I'll give you an example. I always like to get everyone, you know, I talk a lot about sports, but then I go back to the business world and I like to use individuals like yourself that have brought me in. When you did going back to your building, all right? you bought a building

you like this is not your wife or whoever it was not it was in the right decision you decide to buy this building the first building you bought you trusted your instincts this building your instincts trusted you and now what's happened you're already growing out of this space you know it's funny you say that too as you were telling this story

about trusting your instincts versus your instincts trusting you that's exactly the storyline that was running through my head I trusted my instincts because I got pragmatic okay we've got the money if we buy that building in Chino which is now BK Strength because all of you watching and listening to this you guys know my my my private gym BK Strength what you don't know is that was my million dollar mistake as I was telling Tim here because I bought that building to be our

franchise headquarters but it's across the street from the men's prison and so my wife and I decided that we really want our franchise new franchisees to have this as their experience but I bought it because I trusted my instincts that well we'll grow into it it's a our first commercial building, I'll play it safe, when in reality, when I let my monster come out, and I was like, I need this $3.5 million building. We're going to empty out all bank accounts. And I remember telling my team here, who's right here in this room, I said, guys, I'm the richest broke person in Chino Hills right now because on paper I had assets, but I was broke. We emptied

my sons and daughters college fund, which we decided not to replenish because we said they're not going to college since then, but we emptied their college fund to have the down payment for this building that we're in right now. And it's funny is because my instincts trusted me. But I couldn't verbalize that until you said that at that moment. And that's what that's the difference. You know, I give you another example, coolers, closers, cleaners. Coolers love to read stories. They have more self-help books on their desk than any individual that you know. And they follow every social media guru out there, ones that have done absolutely. nothing, but they could recite what they do, everything that's going on, they could tell

you every quote in the book, everything's going on. So they just love to read stories. There's no action behind what they do. They just love to read, read, read, read, read. It's like an individual that becomes so educated that they're so smart that they don't know what to do now. Too smart for their own good. Yeah, they don't know what to do. Then you have your closers. Closers love to tell stories. They're the storytellers. They love to tell you how great they are. All right. And if things didn't work out how they blame everybody else.

Cleaners, they have the ability to change the story. Everybody in this room, everybody that's listening to this podcast, you all have the ability to change your story. But in order to change your story, you've got to put something on the line.

And I love how this is flowing so well, because in order for you to change your story, what did you put on the line? Every single dollar, everything you had. You put it on the line. And what did it do? It changed your story. Yeah, it sure did.

It's funny that you say it this way. You're bringing so much clarity into the last two years because when you make a decision like that, then you go, shit, I got to go head down into the trenches and not look up. And it's been just the last few months that I've been looking up. And it's because we get the Inc. 5,000 recognition again, and the entrepreneur 500, I look up.

And I, okay, we've got to go to the gala. That means we've done something right. Right. But the gala means nothing to me because now I've got to go and do it again. Because next year, if I'm not on that list, who's buying a franchise? Exactly. Right? That's how my industry works. Yes, that's exactly how your industry works.

And, you know, when you look at those individuals that have the ability to change the ability to change the story, that's why I said, it's in all of us. We all have the ability to change that story. But what are you willing to put on the line? And it has to be something that's substantial to you. So I've got a question here. We're going to go a little personal here, Mr. Grover. I know your story because I've read your book and I'm a big fan. And it's funny, I have a unique privilege where I get to interview people that I admire and look up to.

And so I also see myself as the voice of the fans. you've got the immigrant edge. Like, you guys immigrated to the United States and your family, right? How old were you when you guys came? Four. You were four years old. You were four, I was six.

And you didn't, I mean, you came from a third world country. I came from India. India, right? And it's not like, it's not a westernized country, especially then. No, yeah. Right? Yes. Why Chicago, what was the turning point for you?

What gave you this edge? You know, everyone loves to tell these. stories about how, you know, they had a, their childhood wasn't fulfilling and, you know, their parents. I had great parents. I had absolutely wonderful parents. I saw them work grind every single day. So what happened was when it's very rare that parents from India go against their parents' wishes. My dad told his mom that I'm not staying here. I'm not going to be in the family business. I want a better life for myself, for my wife, for our boys.

He packed up. We first moved to London, England. So my mom was a nurse practitioner. So it was easier for her to get a job over there. My dad kind of stayed back, got everything settled. Then we moved to England. Then in the states here, in the early late 60s, early 70s, there was a huge shortage of nurses, huge shortage of nurses. All right.

And they actually contacted the hospitals where my mom was working at and they're saying, listen, we're looking for nurses here in the state. Chicago is one of the places. And, you know, the money is so much, the money is so much better. Yeah. All right. So my dad saw another opportunity. You know, my dad's actually a professor, a PhD of biology. But his education, when he came to the states, it didn't transfer over. So they did not allow him to, they did not allow him to teach here. But the nurses, you could take a test, get board, you could get board certified. So my mom came here. My dad, my brother and I, we stayed back in London while my mom came here, got herself established, found a job, found a place, everything in it.

Then my dad brought my brother and I over here. How long after? Two years after. Two years after. Yeah, my mom was there. So basically from the age of two to four, my dad raised me by himself. Then we came over here. I remember getting in the cab,

no matter how many times I tell this story, it gets to me. My dad telling the cab driver, stop. Stop. Like, stop? Like, we're in the middle of nowhere. No money. This is as far as I can.

go. What did your dad tell you and your brother? We got out of the cap. Now this was when he had two heavy suitcases. Now this is when his suitcases didn't have wheels. Wheels, no wheels. No wheels. Okay, this is not, no backpacks, no nothing. There's the old-fashioned suitcases. I actually

have pictures of them. So he's just telling me, he goes, listen guys, we're in a new country. I want you guys to see the site, see the tour, see everything that's going on. So my dad's picking up these two suitcases with his two boys, walk a little bit, suitcases get heavy, put down oh look at this building look at that he made a game out of it yeah he made a game out of it

yeah we got to the destination my mom didn't even know we were coming my mom didn't no cell phones back then no emails you know no you couldn't leave a message you know it wasn't like you could leave there was no there was no answering machines so she didn't even know we were coming so she was still at work we're over there he got the job done he changed the story for all of us you have vivid memories of certain things no matter how old you are how young you are that sticks with you so you can see what they did and how hard they worked to get listen

we didn't have everything we wanted but we had everything we needed yeah all right and see them build from nothing I mean I'm talking about nothing nothing to see to go to everything that they done to put two kids to put two kids through college, being able to buy their own place, take us for family vacations, do all these, do all these different things.

And I was like, if they could do that, why can't anybody else? And this is what you said. It's about that, it's that immigrant edge. It's about coming to somewhere different and proving yourself. I would say this is, I was like, different doesn't mean less than. It doesn't mean less than, but you know what different does? Different scares people. It does.

It really scares people. It scares not only other individuals around you, for a lot of times it scares yourself. So you become, you put yourself in an inferior place when it's actually that different mindset, being difference, is what separates you from everybody else. You look at individuals. We spend our whole.

whole lives trying to fit into a certain group. Make sure we have the right kind of friends. Make sure we go to the right school. You're in the right fraternity, right sorority. And who are the individuals we admire the most? The ones that stand out. Yeah. The ones that stand out.

We work our ass off, don't we? Trying to blend in only to admire the ones who stand out. It's crazy. Yeah. You can look at the six championships. All right. The five Super Bowls at Tom. Brady has won, the five championships that Kobe has won, all the matches that Serena Williams

has won, all these things. All right? There's not a single individual that I know could name every individual on that team, but they can name the individuals that stood out. They can name the individuals that stood out. Whether you're a sports fan or not, whether you're a business entrepreneur or not, you know the individuals that changed the world. Well said. I want to end with this question for you because I want our audience who's watching and listening to this episode of the inside look to follow

and learn from the folks that you're about to mention here. And what I'm going to ask is, who are the cleaners in the entrepreneurial world? Like business men and women that you know have done it, they're moving the needle, they're doing things differently, they're standing out. They would be the Michael Jordans, the Kobe's, the Dwayne Wade's of entrepreneurship. Who are they? You know what? I'm going to make this real simple for you guys.

All right, one thing you should know about, I'm not an ass kisser. I don't do it. I don't tell it like it is. For all the people that are watching this podcast, and I hope there's millions of you, you want to find an individual in the business, who's changed the things, who's going to continue to change things,

who's gone through the same struggles that you going through, that you have gone through, who's got the same thoughts of not being good enough, being told you're never going to be successful, you're never going to mount the shit. I can throw out the names that everybody else would want you to think about. They're going to throw you, yo, the Jeff Bezos, you know, the Warren Buffetts, all these.

individuals out there. You know who the individual is? Right here. Wow, thank you. I didn't expect that. Right here. Look what you built. Look what you had to overcome. You still have the demons in your head that you have to fight every single day. We all have thoughts about quitting. No matter what you've built, you're never satisfied. You always want more. You're raising a family. last time you spoke tell me about this dog that you adopted cookie

yeah all right yeah okay what did I tell you about an individual all right bring something that can't take care of itself that needed me you brought it into your family

you just came on this show and just said what did you just say complete opposite of what everybody else tells you and I want people when I say pay attention just don't listen to this podcast, just don't hear it. I want you to listen to it and hear it. He just said, my kids aren't going to college. How many parents out there don't give their kids that option?

But now, there's a reason behind it. It's just not a decision to say they're just not going. There's a whole thought process between that they've learned, that they've expected, that they've gauged to say, this is not the right decision for our kids. We are going to go in a different direction. Remember what I told you, know exactly who you are. When you're following individuals, the first thing you need to do is make sure you know exactly who you are.

He knows exactly who he is. Thank you. That's a great compliment that I was not expecting. I appreciate that. Tim, if someone wants to learn more about you, follow you, learn from your products, your coaching systems, where do they get this information from? Our website is timgrover.com. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Attack Athletics.

Listen to this podcast. Listen, there's very few people out there. There's very few individuals that have the ability to actually help an individual through their different experiences, through their different things that they've gone through. Most people love to tell you about other people's battles. All right. The one thing that's great about myself and Badra is over here, we're not talking about our successes. Yeah, it's great to hear these stories.

We want you to change your lives. We want you to have better for yourself. We want you to have better for your families. We're just two examples of two individuals. We're both having to be in the fitness industry. took different paths and succeeded what other people think is success.

In our minds, we have so much more to do. And I guarantee it if we leave this earth and the only thing I'm known for is for training these athletes and the only thing he's known for is the franchises, the fitbody boot camps, we didn't do our jobs. Amen to that.

Thank you so much for joining us. Yes, sir. Folks, what a great episode. Like I told you, I've got goosebumps right now. It's not often that I get to stand here and interview someone who I look up to that I've learned from. And the stories that we talked about, the stories that Tim shared, that's only 10% of what's in this book. You would be doing yourself a disservice. You would be doing your business, your team, a disservice if you didn't get everyone a copy of this book.

Relentless, go get it. And thank you so much for joining us. Hey, thanks so much for being here for today's Empire Podcast Show. We would love for you to do a quick little favor for us. Just go to iTunes and give us a five-star rating. Leave a comment. Share it with your friends. And if you're interested in growing your business faster, go to bedroskulian.com forward slash empire.

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