The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - The Man Who Coached Michael Jordan AND Kobe Bryant To WIN!: Tim Grover

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

Tim Grover is the performance expert who helped to raise the game of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant to the legendary levels everyone knows them for. Taking over Michael Jordan’s personal performance team when he was in his early twenties, he’s been working with the world’s top athletes for over three decades. No one knows more about winning than Tim. No one knows more about fitness than Tim. No one knows more about mentality than Tim. But Tim also knows about our hidden insecurities, the ones that drive us and we need to use to our advantage. Tim’s new book, Winning, opens the lid on what it was like to work with two of the greatest basketball players of all time. It is every bit as awe-inspiring as you would expect because none of Michael, Kobe, or Tim was interested in being anything except No. 1. Follow Tim: Twitter - https://twitter.com/attackathletics Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/timgrover Tim's book - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Winning-Unforgiving-Greatness-Tim-Grover/dp/1398501905/ Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

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 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. Kobe Bryant was not interested in winning championships. He was obsessed. Kobe Bryant was not interested in winning championships. Back-to-back title! NBA champion! He was obsessed. He was the trainer for Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan. The book is Relentless, Tim Rover. What is your dark side? After every semester of anatomy class, you have dead bodies.

My dad's job was to dispose of those bodies. You have to cut off their legs. You have to cut off their head. I saw him do that when I was four years old. It doesn't get any darker than that. If I spoke to some of your clients and I asked them, what was Tim good at for you? What would they say to me? Elevating them to another level. Very few people understand what winning does to an individual's mental health. Winning doesn't make you heartless, but it teaches you to use your heart less. Every decision I've made, I knew what the cost was going to be. If you think the price of winning is too high, wait till you get the bill from regret. So without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO USA edition.

I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. Tim, I read in your book, Winning, The Unforgiving Race to Greatness, chapter 12. And I don't usually start with people's books. I want to usually start somewhere else. But in chapter 12, you talk about this concept of the dark side and the darker side. We're going right there, huh? Yeah. And the reason I want to go right there is because I actually think it's the start for many people. It is the start. So tell me about your dark side and where and what it came from. This is a very unique story. So my father, both my parents are of Indian descent. So they came over to the States when I was four. My mother came over first. She was a nurse practitioner and my dad was a professor in India.

So when he came over from India to the UK, he was still a professor over there. When he came from the UK to the United States, they said that his education would not transfer, that he wasn't qualified enough to teach at a university level in the States. So my dad said, okay, well, what job do you have available? So they had a job back then.

It was called a degreaser. A degreaser is an individual, doesn't, this job does not exist anymore. After every quarter or every semester of anatomy class, you have cadavers. Cadavers? Cadavers, dead bodies. My dad's job was to dispose of those bodies. Now, this is a man that was called a doctor back in the old country. Now, when you dispose of these cadavers,

it's not a garbage truck that comes and picks them up. You have to dismantle them. You have to cut off their legs. You have to cut off their legs. You have to cut off their arms. You have to cut off their head. And you throw them in a furnace. I saw him do that when I was four years old. My parents couldn't afford babysitters. My mom worked at night. My dad worked during the day. So when you were off from school, guess what?

You can't disturb mom because she's worked 16 hours that night. You go to work with your dad. My dad said, he goes, son, never let your pride get in the way of doing what's necessary and providing for the people you love. It doesn't get any darker than that. You still feel it today? Very. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him and the things that he did. Both of them.

Never complained. Went to work every single day. As you were telling me that story, what was the emotion? You know what people talk about? Sacrifice. That others did for them. Very few get to actually witness it and remember.

There's certain memories that people have when you go way back in age and they can't even remember. I have vivid memories of those things and how not only did they mold him, how they molded my brother, the effects it had on both of us, positive and negative. And I understand how to use that darkness in the most positive way, just like my dad did. Because to him, that darkness was a new beginning.

He didn't look at it as an individual who, like, I'm so accomplished back over here. He was just grateful and thankful to be in the United States and have a new opportunity and a new beginning for his family. And I always say this, and this is why when we talk about the dark and the darkness and the dark side and all that other stuff, people forget this. I always say this. When does a new day start? It starts at midnight. Is it dark outside at midnight? Yes.

So if a new day and a new beginning starts in the dark every day, that's when your new beginnings start. But so many people are afraid to go to that place. And I tell them, you have to visit that place because if that place comes visit you, it will never leave. If you go visit the darkness that you've been running from,

you'll have the opportunity to leave a better person. You'll have a better understanding of yourself. You'll have a better understanding of your purpose. But if you don't take that trip and the darkness comes visit you, it's a guest that will never leave. That dark side, you referenced it, did good and bad things for you. Negatives and positives.

What are the negatives? It hardened me. It really, it hardened me. It hardened me to the point where I had a hard time communicating with other individuals. I had a hard time understanding things that were so easy for me

to deal with. The hardships, the trials and tribulations. And I would see other people complain about things. And I'm like, what are you complaining about? I don't, I was just like, I couldn't relate to it. I just, I just couldn't relate to it. I didn't have much compassion for that, for those, for those individuals. And you talk in the book that often you're visited at night by a presence in the early hours of the morning. Every night there's an individual that comes visit you. You know, everybody has these grandioso dreams and these daydreams about success and money and fame and power. And I always say,

winning never visits you in your daydreams. It sees you in your nightmares. The things that come visit you in your daydreams, it sees you in your nightmares. The things that you come visit you in your nightmares, those things are real. Those are the things that you have to deal with. Those are the monsters underneath the bed. Those are the skeletons in the closet. Those are the things that you've put away. And some of the stuff that you've put away and you don't want to deal with is some of the best part of you. How many times have you heard this? People always say, you know, always show up positive. You know, always bring your positivity.

Well, that means you only bring half of you. That means you're not accepting the other half. You got to bring the light. You got to bring the half. You got to bring the light. You got to bring the dark. You got to bring the good. You got to bring the bad. You have to have conversations with those skeletons in your closets.

They know you better than you know yourself. In order to stand out, in order to fight, many times you have to become that monster. But most individuals, when they become that monster, they don't know how to control it. And they let the monster control them. So it's a learning process. And all those years that you run from that monster

underneath your bed, you're actually being taught, you run from that monster underneath your bed, you're actually being taught, can you control that monster or is that monster going to control you? And then once you recognize that part of that monster or all that monster is you, that's when you can actually start fulfilling your dreams and living the life that you're meant to live. How did that monster manifest itself in your behavior? Outside of you said about you struggle

to be compassionate with other people, you struggle to have empathy for their struggles. Was there other things that you, where that monster would rear its ugly head or take control of you? You know what? When the monster took over, it wasn't for bad things. It allowed me to deal with, you know, how mean kids could be, the different, the different bully, the bullyingness in school that every kid goes to, whether it's physical or mental, you know, the teasing, all that other stuff, that monster allowed me to get, gave me that strength to not to lash out back at those individuals and just say hey continue trust yourself continue on this continue on this path all right and don't worry about trying to prove those individuals

wrong you and I will prove ourselves right when you you talk about, and this is what I was trying to gauge when I was listening to your audio book, you talk about these at 2am realizing you're not alone. And I wasn't sure if you were being literal or figurative. I wasn't sure if you literally felt the presence of spirits or someone else in your room, or it was a figurative way to talk about the thoughts that were in your mind? It's both. It's both. When you get out of bed or you want to get out of bed, there's all these individuals that are lined up next to that bed.

There's fear. There's doubt. There's compassion. There's fear, there's doubt, there's compassion, there's hatred, there's excellence, there's sorrowness, there's excuses, and they all have their hands out. Literally. Literally. And then you get to choose every single day who gets a vote. It's your decision. It's your decision. And most times, many individuals make their decisions with their feelings.

And when you have to make those decisions with your mind. Every single morning, if you can't get out of your beds and you choose not to win, you listen to your feelings. If you chose to get out of bed and you said, there's a win for me, that's your mind. And each one of those individuals, you decide who gets a vote. And some days, not all the popular things are going to get a vote. Success may not get a vote.

Winning may not get a vote. But you've made that decision that now this thing gets a vote. I must be ready to deal with it. Every single day, there's something different. There also has to be something different about yourself. And I said this in winning, different scares people. When you're different, it scares people. When the world is different, it scares people.

Everything different scares people, but it attracts the right emotions. It attracts the right feelings. It attracts the right thoughts. It attracts the right feelings. It attracts the right thoughts. And it attracts the right people. Because the people that are willing to not judge you and understand and know that these things are real, they are real. They will tell you, I understand. With both books that I've written, people were like,

I thought I was the only one. Because this is not, it's not accepted to talk about these things. Because people put you in this land of you're crazy. And anytime anybody's told me I'm crazy, I've always thanked them for that. Because it gave me the ability to see and do things that other people can't do and acknowledge things that other people won't acknowledge. It seems to be a bit of a paradox that sometimes our dark side, whatever that might be, it could be being bullied in school and the consequences that had or, you know, as you say in the book as well, being overweight and being bullied for that, or some trauma or whatever you've had in your life. It seems to be a paradox that our dark side can both be the driving force of our life and also the cause of so much pain. So it can be the thing to put us in pain. And then also the thing that drives us out of pain, if that makes sense. It makes 100%. Well, you look at it, it's for a lot of individual,

the physical pain that they put themselves through is actually their pleasure. My athletes, at the highest level of their training, it is the most uncomfortable state they put themselves through every single day. And people are just like, I'm just not going to, I'm not going to do that. They see people that run the ultra marathons, it's people that take these, these ice baths. It's, you know, it's, it's all, it's all out there. Now that doesn't mean if you do those things, you're going to, you're going to excel in other aspects of your life, but it does raise your level of understanding that nothing great is going to

come without you having to deal with what I call adversity and pain tolerance. You must be able to deal with that. And the more understanding you have of what's causing you the pain and how you've dealt with it is going to determine how successful you will be in whatever you choose in life. You know, you'll have individuals who will become from a broken family. And you could have two children that come from the broken family and one individual will not live up to their potential. And they'll say, it's because I came from a broken family. And then you have the other individuals, same environment, same household, same everything, would do great things, not only for themselves, for humanity, for this world.

And what's their answer? Because I came from a broken family. They both understood how to use the pain. One used it to excel. The other used it to deny. Having done this podcast for the amount of time that I've done it, what you've articulated there about that broken home scenario is the thing I've always played around with, which is a trauma causes an adverse response, typically. Greatness or despair. Yes.

And I've always tried to figure out what a trauma is going to do, but it's been impossible for me. But in your case, it led you to be great in what you do and what you achieved in your life and the people you worked with. So tell me about how you went from that traumatic early upbringing that created that dark side in you to being a sports enhancement specialist. That's how you, that's how you prefer. Yes. That was my official title when I was, when my main job was to train professional athletes. So I didn't want, I never wanted to consider myself and label myself as a trainer because I did more than that. So I actually came up with that title myself. So I played college basketball myself. I had these dreams of playing professional basketball. Wasn't good enough,

okay? But I was like, what can I do to make sure this doesn't happen to other individuals? And I was like, you know what? I started to study the body really, really closely, which goes all the way back to when I was four years old. So not only did I have to study the body from an what an individual goes through, not only from a physical standpoint. I understood what was going on in their head. If they hurt their ankle, hip, back, all that stuff. I knew. So not only was I able to train them from a physical standpoint, I was able to train them from a psychological standpoint. I know what you're going through.

I know the barriers that you have to go through because it's so much easier to get an individual back from a physical injury, but it's that mental scar that stays with them. How, what do you have to do to make them forget about that mental scar? And that's where my, that's where my niche came in. Like, okay, I need you to go out there and play and play at the highest level and not worry about what happened six months ago, nine months ago, six weeks ago. So when it became sports enhancement, the enhancement part, the sports was the

physical, the enhancement part was the mental. If I spoke to some of your clients that knew you best, Michael Jordan, Kobe, and all these others, and I know you work now with a lot of CEOs and a lot of business leaders, et cetera. And I asked them, what is Tim good at? What was Tim good at for you? What would they say to me?

Elevating. Elevating them to another level. Holistically. Holistically. elevating elevating them to another level holistically holistically just being able because when somebody comes up to me and they said I want to be something

and I look at it well somebody's already done that I need more you can't come to me and just say, I want to be, everyone says, I want to be the world's best tennis player. I want to be the world's best basketball player. I want to be the world's greatest podcaster. That's already been done.

There's another level. You're not thinking big enough. My individuals come to me and say, listen, I have these dreams. I have these thoughts. And the first thing I tell them, your dreams and thoughts better be so big that they better scare you. They better scare you. Why? Because you're not thinking big enough then. You don't want it. It has to be something that nobody else has thought about before or done before.

The process it takes to be number one and stay at number one, you have no idea. You have an idea because you've been there. Everybody wants to sit in your seat until they have to sit in your seat. Very few people understand what winning and success does to an individual's mental health. Everybody thinks the more you win, the more successful you are. It just makes

everything so much easier. And they don't understand the pressures that these individuals put on themselves to continue to perform at the highest level, to have their businesses win over and over again. When you reach a million followers on your social media. It's a different level of pressure than an individual who isn't winning all the time or hasn't been successful at the highest level, who's not being critiqued about every decision they make, about what they wear, about what they say, where they go. And that's a whole different level of mental health that success brings

that a lot of people just don't understand michael jordan i uh i watched the last dance documentary i saw you in there as well um really i've got to be honest i didn't really know much about m before that. And it went from me watching that documentary, getting obsessed with him, to hanging a picture on the wall in my office back in London, very soon after, a neon sign in my office in London, just of that silhouette, for many, many reasons. But as I read through your story,

and a lot of my listeners won't know about this, I feel obliged because I know the question they'll be asking is, how on earth did you go from a college graduate that was you know earning three dollars an hour as a trainer in a gym to becoming the trainer of or the sports enhancement specialist for michael jordan who many see as one of the greatest if not the greatest sporting athletes of all time. What happened in that gap? Well, when I started to go to college, I didn't know what I wanted to do. And, you know, again, being of Indian descent and having both parents in the medical field, you get to choose two options as a career.

One being a doctor, and this is back in the 80s. Second being a doctor. That's it. And I told my parents, I do not want to go. I don't want to be a doctor. They said, well, what do you want to do? I said, I want to train professional athletes. I knew this very early.

I knew this very, very, very, very early because when I was a freshman in college, there was a class. It was the first time it was being offered at the school. It was called kinesiology, which is movement of the muscles and body and basically movement of humans. And I took and kind of picked up a book and I started, I said, you know what,

this is for me. So when people kept telling me, well, why are you going to take this class? Why everybody said, oh, you know, most people that take these courses end up being in the health industry, whether it be studying science, working in administrations in colleges or being health educators. And I just like, no, there's, there's something more out there for me. There's something, there's something more out there for me. And then when we, we'd have our basketball practices in college and so forth, and I was like, all we're doing is just, we're just running, running. We're doing stuff without a purpose. This can't be right. This can't be right.

And we had an individual that would come in and work our team out. I was just like, this doesn't just, this doesn't feel right. So I really took study to this. I really wanted to understand this. Later on, I graduated with a master's degree. Parents were like, you know, well, you got this. You can't stay at home. Got to go get a job. Master's degree in? Master's degree in exercise science. All right. And I took a job at a local health club. The minimum wage back then was $3.35. I took the job. I took the job. They did not allow, I was the most qualified individual they had on their training staff,

but they still wouldn't allow me to train because I had to do the six month probation period. So I said, okay, no problem. So what I did was I worked in the exercise rooms. I basically cleaned the equipment, opened up the gyms, did different stuff like that. And then after six months passed by, they said, okay, you have to take this exam. And if you pass the exam, we'll allow you to be a trainer. Well, the funny funny part about is when I looked at the exam, it was the exam I actually wrote as one of my projects for school. And this health club was using the exam I actually wrote to certify their trainers. Fucking hell. Crazy. So I looked at this exam. I gave all the answers. I gave it to them and they scored and they said,

you got a hundred percent. You're able to qualify as a trainer. I said, thank you. I said, where'd you guys get that from? They said, you know, oh, you know what? We got it from a, from a university. I said, which university? And they said, University of Illinois, Chicago. I said, yeah. I said, you should really follow up and see who developed that exam. So they came back later on and they said, you wrote this? I said, yes, I'm the one who developed that exam. So they came back later on and said, you wrote this? I said, yes, I'm the one that wrote this exam. I'm the one that wrote this exam. So I became the trainer over there.

And in a very short period of time, I became the highest grossing trainer they had in there. But what was great about it is, and I talked about this in the book, school taught me what to think. All the education, all the books, everything. I knew exactly what to think. But when you start dealing with humans who are able to communicate and who have their own thoughts and have their own beliefs and have their own feelings, have their own emotions, have their own ideas. I was like, there's a whole part of my education that's missing here. My schooling taught me what to think. Now I need to learn how to think.

There's a big difference between the two. And once I started training individuals, understanding how different people adapted to the different ways of communicating, different times of working out, different words, different facial expressions, different levels of silence, that's when I really started to manifest my trade and understand the results with all the different type of individuals. And these weren't just athletes. These was everybody who wanted to just get into shape, lose weight, get stronger, jump higher, run a little faster, play better tennis, whatever it may be.

But I'm sitting here and I'm like, I'm only using maybe 10% of what I've learned in school. There's got to be more. And there was a small article in the local newspaper that said Michael Jordan was tired of taking the physical abuse from the Detroit Pistons and wanted to get stronger. I'm like, okay.

So I said, you know what? Now back then, remember, there's no cell phones, no emails. You just, there's no way of direct messaging, social media. There's no way of direct messaging anybody. So I said, I'm going to write letters. There's 15 players on a basketball team. I'm going to write 14 letters. The one person I'm not going to write a letter to is Michael Jordan. He's the best. Why would he work with an individual that's never worked with a professional athlete? So I wrote 14 letters explaining my background, what I do, what my training philosophy is. And back then you put a stamp in it, you go to the post office, you put them in the mail and they get delivered to the player's training facility, and they get thrown in the locker as fan mail. Whether the player decides to open it up or not, that's up to them.

Well, obviously, somebody opened up one of the letters, and Michael saw it in somebody else's locker, pulled the letter out, read it, and gave it to the team physician and the athletic trainer during that time and said, hey, find out what this is about. I have to pause you there just to highlight the fact that most people would not send those letters. I'm not most. There's nothing about me that qualifies as most. There's nothing that qualifies me as average. Because you know what? What's the worst thing that could have possibly happened?

I'd be in the exact same situation I was in. I wasn't going to be any worse. If I didn't take that initiative, I didn't take that action, I was in a worse situation. In hindsight. Yeah. But it's so, it's so interesting because that, those moments riddled my story where I sent,

the first one was just sending emails to, at night at 18 years old to say, saying people, will you invest in my company at 18 after dropping out of university? And I, I talk about this and this is why I paused you because it happened when I was 16, happened when I was 18, happened when I was 24. And those were pivotal moments in my life. And as you say, if I rolled the dice and got a bad hand, I was in the same place. But it was free to, it was like free to roll. In your case, it cost you a couple of stamps to roll. And it baffles my mind that, you know, the people, the young people that listen to this podcast that are trapped in the situation they're in aren't just rolling the fucking dice every day to see if they can get a michael jordan the best of the best they're always looking for a competitive edge they're always looking for that that point

oh oh one percent thing that can make them better. I had a conversation, and this individual I've never worked with, but he was at an event that I was speaking at also, and he spoke before me, Michael Phelps. Oh, yeah. For anybody that doesn't know Michael Phelps, maybe the most accomplished Olympic swimmer of all time. Yes.

So Michael said that he trained every single day he was he was he was at the pinnacle of his career and he said it's not like i can go ahead and i can knock off three seconds he goes i train every single day so I can shave 0.001 second. He goes, that's my ultimate goal. After three, four months of getting ready for my next race or years, whatever it is, I need to shave 0.0001 off my time. And everybody he surrounded himself with, that was their job.

Marginal gains, as we call it, that 1%, that 0.1%. And I heard you talk about this with Kobe in the book and your other athletes, that trying to find that edge. And Kobe was one of those people that, in the book that you talk about, really trying to find that edge. And Kobe was one of those people that in the book that you talk about really trying to find that edge as well in his career.

I'm really compelled by the concept of marginal gains because I feel like it's been my religion for my life and my team here, he and me talk about this so much that they're sick of it, which is like, how do we make what we're doing here or my businesses, but let's just focus on what we see here 1% better. So whether it means

putting these little things up to stop the reflection in there whether it means you know the effort they went to to put these things up like that is my religion and when i when you sat down here i said this podcast has been going for about a year and we're number one and that is purely based on the fact that we believe the one percent will change our trajectory in an invisible way in the moment but in in a profound way over time. Yes. How important are those marginal gains to the athletes that you've worked with and in the work you do with them still today? It's everything. It's everything. And it's in the details. You know, you just described all these little things and somebody coming on, it doesn't matter. You know, a great example was

like, you know what, when we handed you the book, you're like, this cover is so much better than the other one. Switch it. It's the little attention to the little things that people, everyone thinks they won't notice. You hear this all the time. Don't sweat the small stuff. The one percenters, the.01, they sweat every single detail.

Because the one thing they let slip, somebody is going to use that to their advantage. Somebody is going to make a big deal out of it. And they're going to feel like they left something out. You know, everyone says, don't worry about the things that you can't control. Well, these individuals, they want to control everything they can control so the uncontrollable becomes more manageable to them. So if they pay attention to every single detail obsessively over and over and over again. That when the uncontrollable happens, they can have a better chance of controlling it.

There's a big thing that we used to use with Kobe all the time is I used to ask individuals, if you're interested in taking your business or your basketball game, your football skills, your podcast, and this, we'd have a room of thousands and thousands of people stand up and everybody would stand up and they'd give this big rounding clap

and all this other stuff. If you're interested in taking it to number one. If you're interested, yes. To the next level, for some people, it may not be number one, whatever it is, everybody claps up. And then I say, sit back down. Then I would ask them, I said, all right, if you're obsessed with taking your business, your sport, whatever it is, to another level. Stand up. And everybody would stand up again. Well, I would say, well, which one is it?

Which one is it? You can't be interested and you can't be obsessed. Interested is a hobby. Kobe Bryant was not interested in winning championships. He was obsessed. And obsession comes in the small details that nobody pays attention to. And I have a saying, right? Interested people watch obsessed people change the world. Kobe was interested in those small details that nobody else was interested in paying attention to. What were those small details for him?

Everyone talks about maximizing their time. Kobe and I were interested in maximizing his focus. When you maximize your focus, it gave us more, it gave us more time. The, having everything laid out for him so he wouldn't have to worry about the, what shoes he, what shoes he had to wear, where, where the, where the tickets had to go for friends, for the friends and family. We would come around and in the different arenas, I would walk the floors while he was getting dressed and I would tell him where the ball doesn't bounce as well. Because on a basketball court, it's made out of wood,

all right, and they're portable floors. And everybody knows in certain arenas, they're dead spots. You force the player into that area, if the ball is going to bounce there, it's not going to bounce as high, which gives the team the advantage. And a lot of times when they would move those pieces around. So we would walk around, bounce the ball, that spot, that spot, that spot, that spot. So we'd get an advantage of the details that nobody else would pay attention to that if we went in that area, we know, stay away from that area. Or if we know we can't dribble on that particular spot. And there was one time there was a game where Kobe was, before the game,

he was shooting free throws. And he was like, something isn't right. So he called one of the maintenance guys over. He goes, are you sure this basket is right? And the guy said, yeah. He goes, well, I want you to check it for me. He measured it. It was an eighth of an inch off. When you're that obsessed, when you pay that much attention to the details. You know, it's no different than what you said about the lighting and the microphones and the team. I've never seen, I've done quite a few podcasts.

We're very selective in who we want to sit down with. And this is the first time I've seen this many individuals. It's funny, we were having a conversation yesterday and I've been thinking about it for the last two days since we had the conversation. The conversation is, should we hire someone full-time to look at the data and analytics of the episodes when they go out?

So we can, if we put an episode out and the title thumbnail is wrong, we can know within 24 hours if we need to change it. Like we know in this conversation, which part in hindsight from looking at the data, people found most interesting

because they pull it back and watch it again. And it's all of these insights which are there, but we want to be the team that is the team that cares enough about that, about those tiny details, because that is our religion, as we say. That is where we believe we'll find all the gains. That's where the separation is. The separation is in the details. It's in the details. The separation in the clothes you wear is in the details. The shoes, the car that you drive, the house, your education. It doesn't matter whether you go to the most expensive university or you drop out of the university.

It's the details you pay attention to in your studies, in whatever your career choice is. Those are the things that matter. You pay attention to the details in your family. Pay attention to the details in your kids. You pay attention to the details of what makes your significant other happy, how they react to certain things. It's people get comfortable with not having to manage the details. Having worked with a man like Kobe and seeing what he strived for, his focus on legacy,

his obsession with his sports and his craft and his obsession, as many have said, of being better than Michael Jordan, he's no longer with us, tragically. But having seen a man striving for that greatness in his life and for that legacy, and having seen how that story ended, and now being able to look back on the fullness of his life,

what was he missing? And the reason I ask this question is because sometimes I reflect on my own striving and think, is there something in hindsight, having lived a life where I achieved those things, where I reached the top in my industry in business or in podcasting, wherever it might be, or as an investor, that I'm going to realize in hindsight and go, do you know what? Fuck. Legacy might not have mattered as much as I thought it did. It might not have mattered as much as relationships or friendships or something else. I always say this, the most driven individuals,

they live a life for many years and certain times without balance. Everybody strives for balance, balance, balance. And in order to be that obsessed with something over and over again. So if you say something that was missing, but it was actually a gift, was his lack of balance. You know, there were times, now, you can't be the best at something and try to balance everything else around your life.

There is going to be times where things are going to be out of balance. It just is. You know, so many individuals talk about that you need more balance, you need more balance, you need more balance. You don't find balance, you create it. And it's different for every individual out there. What the balance I've created may be completely different than the balance you've created. And there's certain times in your life

that the scales are definitely going to be weighing towards one side more than the other. In early part of Kobe's career, it was about basketball and winning, about basketball and winning. And towards the end of his career, and he played for 20 years, it became more or less about winning. It was still about basketball and it became more focused, became more on spending time with the family. But you have to surround yourself with people, and this is very important to the listeners. You have to surround yourself with people when your life is unbalanced, with individuals

that would be selfish for you. They understand your obsession. They understand your drive. They understand your attention to detail. I guarantee it almost, I don't know your whole team, but I guarantee it almost everyone on your team, at some point, every single day, they become selfish for another individual so that individual can perform and do their task at the highest level.

That's how you get closer to balance. You want to get closer to balance? Don't continue to add stuff. Get closer to balance by deleting the unessentials. Delete the unessentials. Delete the unessentials. The most successful people and the success, when I talk about success, I'm not just talking about from a financial standpoint.

Whatever success means to you and whatever success means to you in your life, they've learned how to disconnect. They've learned how to delete the unessentials because you spend so much time being obsessed and paying attention to the details that you don't have time. You don't have focus for the unessentials. The most successful people have the smallest circles. When people hear that, there'll be young kids that listen and they'll, they might stop talking to their family. They might stop calling their girlfriend and they might say, do you know what? It's because I just need to be obsessed. And they might compromise things in their life that lead them to despair and unhappiness

and those kinds of things. And I always wonder with these individuals that you've worked with that are at the highest level, that are obsessed, do they prioritize happiness as the goal, as the ultimate goal, or is winning the goal at all costs? And in your view, does sometimes they go too far?

Should happiness be the goal? I can't make that decision for those individuals. My job, if happiness, happiness could be winning for them. All right. But you don't find happiness, you create it. You're not going to find winning. You have to create, you have to create winning habits. I sit here, sat here with a lady who became the number one YouTuber in the world. And she had 15 million subscribers. And she was talking about her obsession. She would get these spreadsheets. This was before the analytics. She'd write down how the video done in each like hour, two hours, whatever. She was obsessed. She becomes the biggest in the world. And in the process of getting there, she realized that this was, she was completely burnt out, miserable, depressed. And she'd been like dragged by this

obsession to a place that made her depressed. And eventually in 2019, she just, she quits YouTube. And that's what I think sometimes with our darkness, it drags us in a way that in a less conscious way to a place that might make us unhappy. It does. You know, listen, winning does not always equate to, winning does not always us in a way that in a less conscious way to a place that might make us unhappy it does you know listen winning does not always equate that winning does not always equate to happiness it just it just doesn't for i've had a lot of individuals that have come to me and just said this is too intense i'll give you a great example you know everyone kobe's known for mama mentality you know that was that was his thing mama mentality i've seen mama first of all mama mentality. That was his thing, mama mentality. I've seen mama, first of all,

mama mentality is not a mentality, it's a lifestyle. That's the first thing I tell an individual. And once I tell them about the lifestyle, I've seen mama mentality destroy more careers than I've seen it help. Too intense, too hot. People want the flame, but they don't want to touch the fire.

Are you willing to put aside the things that aren't as important to you at this particular moment? And I'm not telling you kids, listen, don't separate yourself from your family. But there's a lot of times that your family doesn't see the same things that you see and the same things that you believe in. They've had a certain way of doing things. My family, very supportive, very supportive. But to them, success was working for a institution that you got a paycheck every single two weeks.

You got health insurance. You got paid vacation. You got a 401k. That was their definition of success and happiness. To me, none of that would have made me happy. So when you talk about creating happiness, are you creating happiness that you've created or somebody else has created for you? Are you writing your story of happiness

or did somebody else write your story of happiness and hand it to you and say, here, this is how you become happy? One of the things I think I've struggled with in my life is knowing if something is something I want or if it's scratching an insecurity I have. So insecurity, as you know, is one of the greatest motivators in the world.

Then it can turn into an obsession. So if you were bullied in school, you might want to become famous because that in your view is acceptance, right? So you see face, you strive. And then the minute you get a taste of fame, maybe because you start a YouTube channel, you triple down because people are clapping for you. And this is everything that didn't happen when you were a kid. This is, it's filling that void. But is that happiness or am i just using external validation to cover a wound in me and i see this in great people all the time i always try and get to the bottom of the pain or as we talked about the darkness the the pain the trauma or whatever that's actually driving them and i i guess my conclusion has been that you just need to be conscious of of that when you

talked about you know that insecurity that that darkness that need for for to be conscious of that. When you talked about, you know, that insecurity, that darkness, that need to be validated, is it controlling you or are you controlling it? You know, the one thing that, listen, there was a point where as obsessed as Michael was with basketball, all right, he never let the sport control him. He never let that sport control him. He was like, there are certain things within this game.

Yes, I have to follow these rules. I have to do things, but there are certain things that I still have to be in charge of my life. I still have to be in charge of who I am. I still have to be in charge of my life. I still have to be in charge of who I am. I still have to be in charge of my brand. And then what happens is when you let external things and you start playing for the wrong reason, a lot of individuals play always, and this is thing in sports now, everyone talks about building their brand, building their brand.

All right. And if you follow the people who have had the greatest success building their brand, is they just outperform individuals. They put a better product out there. Do your job better than anybody else and your brand will build itself. So when people look for that happiness factor, is your foundation and your fundamental principles so strong that if this thing was to go away, could you still create happiness and success all over again? If your foundation and principles are extremely strong,

no matter what endeavor it is. You look at the most successful people in business and everything else, they've gone to do multiple things that have allowed them to create different levels of happiness within that confined circle. You know, Michael had basketball. Then he had the shoe brand. Now he's got other, now he's got other, other endeavors. He's involved in, you know, a lot of philanthropy things. The competitive nature doesn't stop. And everybody thinks you can only be happy with one, one certain aspect in your, in your life, in your life. You can create be happy with one certain aspect in your life. You can create happiness in multiple things in your life. And if it gets to the point where it is burning you out,

that means it's time for you for, that you are no longer obsessed with that thing anymore. And it's time for you to become obsessed with something else. And it could be this stage in your life where your success and your happiness is now, listen, I just want to create happiness for myself and for the individuals around me. And on that point of balance, was Michael ever direct with you about the sacrifice you would have to make to come on that journey with him? The first thing he told me was you better keep up.

And what did he mean by that? What he meant by that is not as a trainer, keep up in life. Because this ride, we don't know which direction it's going to go in. We don't know if it's going up, down, sideways, but be ready for anything this throws at us. Interestingly, that's what you knew he meant. One of the reasons I get along so well with all my clients, professionally, business-wise, socially, or everybody,

because they know I'm just as messed up as they are. And I don't judge them. My daughter always says, she goes, Dad, you have no weird R. She goes, nothing to you is weird. Nothing to you. And when I see something, I just say, interesting. I want to know what that person is doing

and why they're doing it and what's fueling that desire. And also what are they using that desire? What are they going to fuel it with, with other individuals? One of the stories I tell years when I first started work, when I started, first started working with MJ, and this is, a lot of your listeners will be too young to remember this, but the recording devices back then was called a Betamax. Videotape, you stuck in. So what I would do is I'd have to be at the basketball games very early.

I'd make sure everything was prepped and he was ready to go. And we were always the last individuals to leave. I'd rewatch the game. I would count his steps. There was no Fitbit back then. There was no tracking measurements or so forth. Well, I needed, in my thought, and this went back to my process of not what to think, how to think, is, well, how can I prepare him for his next workout in the morning if I don't know how much physical activity and the differences between the right

and left side. So I would literally count, this is how many steps he took left. This is how many steps he took right. This is how many times he took backward. This is how many times he landed on his right foot. This is how many times he landed on his left foot. So I'd have all this data. So the next morning when I would get up, I'd be able to plan, okay, you know what, MJ, this side, you used your left leg 60% more than you used your right leg, but you used your right hand more than you use your left. Okay, so this is what we're going to do from a workout standpoint. Now, this is what we're going to do from a training standpoint, because one side is going to need different training than the other the right thing to do.

I just knew it was right. I just knew it was right. And now they use this methodology all the time. So interesting. I was thinking about that because it's really interesting when you said that, that there was no books out there. And it tends to be the case with pioneers and innovators and people that think from first principles

that they do it before the books are published. And once the books are published, it's probably too late. Yeah. People are using math. Stuff we were doing with him 30 years ago, people are just now using them. Was that music to his ears when he knew that his sports enhancement specialist

was going to such a degree of detail? Did you know that that was proving to him that you cared and you were as obsessed as he was? Yes. You know, he gave me one of the best compliments that you can ever get at the highest level. When somebody else would say, hey, I want to hire Tim. He goes, I don't pay Tim to train me. He goes, I pay him not to train anybody else. That is a big compliment.

Yeah. He ultimately introduced you to somebody else when he retired and stepped out of the game after 15 years of you working together, which was Kobe. And I found it really intriguing that when he introduced you to Kobe, he lovingly used the word asshole

when he introduced you to Kobe. So he said like, I'm not using Tim anymore. So no, Kobe, you can work with him. Why did he use the word asshole? You know what? As individuals become more successful, everybody around them becomes yes people. Nobody wanted to say no to Michael Jordan.

Oh, I was that individual. We had many times, we had very heated, short arguments. There were like three words, which I won't say because it'll offend a lot of your listeners. But that was the end of the conversation. I said, MJ, you hired me to do a job at the highest level. I said, you cannot do a job at the highest level without accountability. I said, once the accountability is broken between us, then it's time for you to find another individual.

So he held me accountable. I held him accountable, and when somebody says you better keep up, as a person's star starts to grow, the accountability has a tendency to get less, because now you don't pay attention to the details as much, because you feel like I've achieved it, I've gotten there. It's a lot easier. Staying on the top is not the same thing as reaching the top. Many individuals can reach the top, but very few individuals stay at the top because the accountability among their team and among themselves starts to deteriorate once they've reached the top.

And what does that deterioration in accountability look like? What are the signs of it? I give you a great example. When people perform at the highest level in business, sometimes a boss or the person above them, the CEO, whatever, is like, you know what, man, their numbers are so good. We're not going to hold them accountable for CEO, whatever, you know what, man, their numbers are so good. We're going to let them, we're not going to hold them accountable for this, this, and this. You know, they're still performing. They may not be performing at the highest level,

but they're still performing at a top level. So now you have that little crack. And that little crack gets a little bigger, and a little bigger, and a little bigger. Michael, in the last dance, said something. He goes, I never asked any of my teammates to do anything that I didn't do. You're talking about the greatest to ever play the game. He didn't have to have anybody else hold him accountable.

He was, I'm not going to ask you to do anything that I'm not going to do myself. So as individuals, once they've reached that pinnacle and they get their arms out and they start looking down and say, I finally reached the top of this mountaintop, those are all the right things to do. Don't exhale. Because the air is so much thinner up on the top than it is on the climb to the top. And if you exhale, the next breath you have to catch will not have the same

effect. You'll have to catch multiple breaths over and over and over again. That's why you see some of these individuals that retire from a sport, they come back. Or you see a CEO of a company, leave a company, take a year off, and now they become a CEO of another company. They can't exhale. In chapter five of your book, you speak to some of these things that Michael would do to his teammates.

One of them is he would mock his teammates into dedication. You see this in The Last Dance where he's cracking his teammates into dedication right you see this in the last dance where he's cracking jokes at them but you know that the jokes there's these aren't jokes there's intention behind the jokes yes he's trying to get them to run faster or to train harder or whatever can you give me a window into what you saw in terms of the way that michael would treat his teammates in order to get the best out of him. That some might consider to be, in the modern day and age, where we're very soft, especially in the business world, toxic. It worked for him.

And it was the only way he knew how. And a lot of people may consider things toxic when they initially start out. But then when you see the end result, or when your career's over with, or when you're with a different organization, you look at it and say, you know what, I really missed that. I give an example of flowers. When you gift roses or you're gifted roses or any types of flowers, they cut the thorns off because the thorns are prickly and so forth. Well, when you cut the thorns off a rose, you decrease its lifespan. So a lot of individuals that have

been thorns in your life have actually allowed you to propel to places that you would never be able to propel before. And you don't miss it until that thorn is no longer there. So when Michael was constantly pushing his players, getting them to L, everybody knew he was not coming down to their level. He didn't expect everybody to come up to his level, but he knew there was another level for each individual. And he just wanted you to perform at the highest level.

And he wanted you to have a taste of winning, not just once, but numerous times over and over again. And he had to be genuine to who he was. One of the things that I talk about in my other book, Relentless, one of the 13, I said, you know exactly who you are. He knew exactly who he was. He knew who he can communicate with and say certain things. And he knew when not to say certain things and have another individual talk to that person. But when he spoke, everybody, everybody listens there. If you watch practices, everybody would come into the practice and they'd be laughing and kind of joking and having a, having a good time so forth. And as soon as that whistle was blown, silence. And Michael always said, I practiced so hard and we all need to practice so hard so the games become easier.

Do you think he used those thorns as well as a bit of a filter in terms of filtering out the teammates that he didn't think were good enough? Yes. I won't say they were good enough as one that he didn't think were good enough? Yes. I won't say they were good enough. It was one that he could trust in certain situations. Trust, interesting. The thorns were more for trust. How can I keep poking you?

How many times can I keep poking you and see are you going to come back? Are you going to come back? What's your adversity tolerance? Because there's going to be certain situations that can I trust you? Can I trust you in that situation? And if you look throughout his career, there's very few people when the game was on the line that he would trust to pass the ball to and say, hey, this is what's going to happen. Very, very few. And all those individuals that he did that with

at some point in their career stood up to him and challenged him. Isn't that interesting? It's almost a bit of a paradox, the fact that we trust those most. And this sounds, from everything I've read, like much of the reason why he trusted you was because he knew you had put truth

at the front of everything you do. And to be honest, I think I've probably said this to my team before, but the people that are A, most valuable in my circle are those that are, do you have a voice and are willing to give it to me despite my success. Yeah.

Those are the ones you want to keep around, right? You look at, yeah, definitely keep those individuals around. I just, it's too easy. Too many times we let people off the hook. I can't let an individual off the hook because it's too easy. Think about the time that you left, you let individual off the hook because it's too easy. Think about the time that you left, you let somebody off the hook. How'd it turn out for you?

Badly. The first example that came to mind was someone who I hired to lead one of our countries for our company. And their behavior was not up to standard. And I procrastinated on it for too long for almost for more than a year and it cost me every day when I say cost I mean it was a seven figure cost to our company and eventually I had to make the decision that I should have made at the start right I should have but for some reason I was for reasons I now clearly understand I was avoiding

the decision and letting the person off the hook. How many years ago was that? I think now it'd be four years ago. All right. If that same situation happened now, how quickly would you respond? Oh, so fast. All right.

Yeah. So? So quickly. And I have subsequently. And when I do respond in that way, I recite that story to the people around me. I go, four years ago, this happened. And it's my single biggest regret in business because I procrastinated on making a decision I knew I story to the people around me. I go, four years ago, this happened. And it's my single biggest regret in business

because I procrastinated on making a decision I knew I had to make. I let the person off the hook. So this is why today, four years later, we're making this decision as soon as we possibly can. Winning doesn't make you heartless, but it teaches you to use your heart less. Four years ago, you were using your heart.

Yeah. Now, you'd use your heart. You still have a heart, but you'd use it less. And my brain more. Exactly. Yeah. Mind over feelings. And when we're faced with those tough decisions for me what i learned in hindsight is it felt like difficulty in the moment that's why part of the reason i

procrastinated on the decision but in hindsight it caused so much more difficulty in the long term so it's really that like ballot the the wisdom I got from it is, you know, tough decision today, or you can make the same decision, but in a year's time when it becomes, when the cost and the implications of the decision are even greater, and it's had a time to drag you or pull you down or to make you lose games, whatever it might be, or lose money in business. And so that decisiveness and putting mind over matter is something that I've definitely developed as a CEO. 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 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 to 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. 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 details 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 this 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 carry out the details looked for somewhere else

we went on viewings and we found this place insanely expensive place as you've seen but uh but we we've always believed in those details we always believe it really matters and then jack and the team and burter to their credit have built this whole entire set which nobody can see in in the next 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 it 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 of obsession and then once you 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 when you we talked earlier about, 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 I was, 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 all more?

At age five. I was packing for a trip. Now, if this was a fairy tale, I'd have unpacked my bag, I had to grab their hand we had to 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 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 understand. She goes, I could 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 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. Because 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 I had to, 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. 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. Tim, thank you. My pleasure. Honestly, you've sent me on a, you know, my job is to sit here asking questions, but my brain has been running for many, many reasons. I feel like I need to go and sit down upstairs and just reflect on a lot of things you've said. Speaking to you today was,

it will remain one of the biggest honors I've had on this podcast because you're a very, very special proposition. Thank you. We have a closing tradition on this podcast where we asked guests

to leave a question for the next guest. And I don't get to see the question until i open the book so what is one mistake you've made that you've been scared to address or reconcile every mistake i've made i've reconciled i've owned up to it whether they accept it or not people have asked me to apologize for things I shouldn't have apologized for. If people had to make a mistake,

I would say that would be one of the, a few times I apologized for things I should have not apologized for. Thank you. You're welcome. you