The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 114 - Winning Will Cost You More Than You Expect: Tim Grover

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

‘Showing up is half the battle’, how often have you heard this phrase these days? According to Tim Grover, trainer to some of the most iconic athletes ever, showing up is NONE of the battle. Tim believes that people are too willing to take the easy route in life, but in reality winning will cost you everything and require you to make the hardest decisions. However, if you think the price of winning is too high, Tim says that the bill of regret is even higher and can take generations to pay off. Listen to the full episode here - https://g2ul0.app.link/ERRIcylDEAb Watch the episodes on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Tim: https://timgrover.com/ https://www.instagram.com/timgrover/?hl=en

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. One of the things you said, which I found really thought-provoking, and it kind of bucked the trend in chapter 12 of your book, is when someone says showing up is half the battle, you're looking at an individual who is already losing the battle.

People say that all the time, showing up is half the battle. Showing up is none of the battle. You showed up. I showed up. What, are we supposed to not do the podcast and go have a drink? Showing up is none of the battle. People want accolades and rewards for doing things that they're supposed to do. People want to get acknowledged for things that you're supposed to show up.

You're supposed to practice. You're supposed to show up. You're supposed to practice. You're supposed to perform. You're supposed to get results. Now, people have a hard time understanding now the difference between feedback and criticism. It's exactly the same thing. It's just how you hear it. In order to get anything in life and get anywhere, you must show up.

If you think showing up is winning, you've already lost the battle. You've already lost the battle. People want to get a medal for doing the easy things. People show up every single day. People show up every single day and are dealing with circumstances that are beyond your imagination. They still show up every single day and are dealing with circumstances that are beyond your imagination. They still show up. I love to give examples to individuals that just happened.

We're sitting in a completely different location of where this podcast was originally supposed to be done in. Showing up and you were congratulating yourself for, hey, showing up is half the battle. You'd have been like, oh, well, we showed up here. We won. He's like, all right, no. We actually showed up and we got thrown out. Now we got to go show up somewhere else and make this thing all work again.

And people will come back and say, oh, you know what? You showed up. Don't worry about it. You won that battle today. No. Do you know that story? So we landed in LA and we got to the hotel

and the hotel had offered us a certain room in the penthouse suite, but we felt we could replicate the aesthetic we need to make the show successful. We're looking for somewhere where it feels like you are in my, because we've recorded in the UK, in my house. Sure. So it needs to feel at home because of the nature of the conversation we're having.

It needs to be dark. Yeah, right? So we got to the hotel. They're like, well, you can have, you know, the penthouse suite. There's one day it's booked for. So for three of the episodes, the set will change. And I was like, we don't want that set to change. So they said, well, there's a meeting room. We'll give it to you completely free at the back we can't do it in a

meeting room they showed us six or seven rooms they took us around every room in the hotel no so although the podcast was two days away and we had 20 odd guests coming sure we as a team because again our religion is to care about the details looked for somewhere else we went on viewing so we found this place, insanely expensive place, as you've seen. But we've always believed in those details. We always believe it really matters. And then Jack and the team and Berta, to their credit,

have built this whole entire set, which nobody can see, in the next 24 hours, running back and forth from Target. We don't have to do that. But we, because we've, as you said earlier, we've seen the outcome of that suffering now. And once you've tasted it, you can't unsee it, right? You can't unsee it.

You just can't. You can't. You know, people always said, you know, you can't forget what you've seen. You can't unlearn what you've learned. You can't unlearn what you've learned. You can't unlearn it. You can learn from it and learn other things on top of it, but you're never going to unlearn those things. You're never going to be able to unsee the things that you've seen. And that's when people just don't understand.

They can't. They can't see and understand your level of craziness. They can't see your level of obsession. And then once those things no longer matter for you, then you know it's time to move on to another endeavor, which you've already have in your previous thing. You know, when you talked earlier about relationships, we talked about the relationships of those around you and how that can be impacted you. We talked about at the very start of this conversation about our dark sides. One of the ways we sometimes see the consequences

of our dark sides is in our romantic relationships. One of the ways we see the consequences of our obsession is in our romantic relationships. So tell me from a both a personal perspective as Tim, the impact that your dark side and obsession and your desire to win and be great has had on your relationships and those that you've coached and you've worked with. From a personal standpoint, I will say this, winning will cost you everything, but will reward you with so much more.

It's going to cost you everything. And every decision I've made, I knew what the consequences was. I knew what the cost was going to be. It may have not been at that particular moment, but I knew down the line, if I go do this decision, if I go work with this individual, or I decide to do this now, somewhere down the line, this is what it's going to cost. This is what it's going to cost me. I tell the story in the book where my daughter came up to me when she was like five years old and says, Daddy, why do you travel so much? And so I said, sweetheart, this is how I take care of the family. This is how I provide for you.

This is how I take care of mom. This is how I put a roof over the head. This is how I put food on the table. She goes, Daddy, if I eat less, will you stay home more? At age five, I was packing for a trip. Now, if this was a fairy tale, I'd have unpacked my bag, I'd have grabbed her hand, we'd have went out for ice cream. I kept packing.

Now, I'm not telling anybody out there that's a decision they should make. But that was my decision. And then many years later I sat down with my daughter and I said hey I want to talk to you and I wanted to discuss with her why dad is the way he is and before I could even start

she goes dad I understand she goes I understand she goes I can see what you provided for mom and I I could see the sacrifices you made for us was it important for you to hear that yes very important and I just never knew when the right time was and then then one day I just said, this is the day. This is the day. She goes, you taught me how to make the toughest decisions in life. She goes, not only taught me, you showed me. You told me how to be independent, when to be dependent, when to be independent.

So sometimes when you think you're making the wrong decision or you have to making the toughest decision because you're thinking about somebody else and the consequences, if you think the price of winning is too high, wait till you get the bill from regret. And that bill from regret is generational. And there's a lot of people listening to this, that that bill has been passed on from generation to generation, and you are holding that bill right now. And somebody in one of your generations has to pay that bill off in order for the generation to move on. And the only way that bill gets paid off is you got to be willing to make the hardest decisions.

The other side of that story is I would often fly. My family was in Chicago. I was doing work on the West Coast. So when she had a school play, when she had a volleyball game, I would fly from the West Coast, land in Chicago, watch her performance for 45 minutes to an hour, and get on the plane that same night and be back for my client the next day. And there was a lot of times where I didn't even get a chance to speak to her. She just knew I was in the audience because it was the only flight to get back. Those are the parts nobody remembers.

Everybody remembers the one event you don't show up for. And I guaranteed every individual who's won at multiple things, who's been successful at many things over and over again, at some point in your career, some point in your life, you forgot a very important date, you missed an event, you just did.

But nobody wants to talk about it because people are going to judge you on that one thing.