The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 429: Tim Grover - The Language Of Motivation, Confidence, & Winning (MJ & Kobe's Personal Trainer)

Episode Date: July 25, 2021

Text LEARNERS to 44222 for more... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12    https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Tim Grover is the CEO of ATTACK Athletics, Inc., founded in 1989. World-renowned for his legendary work with elite champions including Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and hundreds of other NFL, MLB, NBA, and Olympic athletes. He is the preeminent authority on the science and art of mental and physical dominance and achieving excellence. He's also the bestselling author of W1NNING & RELENTLESS. Notes:  Cleaners have the ability to achieve the end result over and over. Cleaners know who they are, they know the difference between criticism and feedback, they take control of their story. They know that there is always more to do. The Language of Winning & Motivation - 'In the language of winning, there is no talk of motivation. "Motivation is entry-level, the temporary rush you get from eating too much frosting. Motivation is for those who haven't decided whether to commit to their goals, or how much time, effort, and life they're willing to invest to achieve them." The Dark Side turns your anger into controlled rage. High performers know how to control and use their dark side to be in control. It's not evit. It's what's unique to you. The vocabulary test  Tim gives his -- "Describe winning in one word." Some of the answers he receives: Glorious, Euphoric, Success, Domination, Achievement. Not bad. The answers he receives from champions:  Uncivilized. Hard. Nasty. Unpolished. Dirty. Rough. From Kobe? Everything. "WINNING isn't heartless, but you'll use your heart less." Your mind must be stronger than your feelings. "Your feelings keep you in bed." "You can't buy a map to the top. If you could, everyone would be up there. They're not. The steps to Winning are infinite, and constantly shifting." "Winning requires you to learn, question what you learned, and then learn more." How to push through when you feel bad? "You have to capture little wins. The joy of the wins cannot be attained if you only work when you feel like it." "You have to crave the end result so bad that the work is irrelevant." Do Hard Things - Doing hard things creates trust in oneself. Doing the hard work others aren't willing to do builds confidence. The phrase "fake it til you make it" - "I hate that phrase. It's so easy to do this on social media and you end up not even knowing who you are. Those people are too worried about how others perceive them." His favorite Kobe story - "He's so coachable." He was always asking questions and listening to learn more. "And he always held himself accountable." "Confidence is the ultimate drug. And winning is the dealer." "The greats always bet on themselves." High performers always seem to be the ones reaching out for a coach... Always trying to get better. The average performers don't think they need a coach. Winning makes you different. And different scares people. Michael Jordan started lifting weights on game days and people thought he was nuts. Knowing what to think versus knowing how to think -- You need to be able to have confidence, challenge other people's thoughts and preconceptions. Don't copy others. Learn and create your own point of view. Your own ideas based on what you've learned. "You can have sight (copy others), but no vision. You need to have a vision." Winning is a test with no correct answers. "Winning is not a marathon. It's a sprint with no finish line." You don't have the luxury of time. Most people manage time. Don't manage time, manage focus. Career/Life advice: Do everything to figure out what you want to do. No job is beneath you. There is no shortcut.

Confidence is the ultimate drug and winning is the dealer. Every single day, if you just get those little wins, when you listen to a coach that has a different thought process than you do or has an idea that you may not agree with, but you're like, you know what? That actually makes a lot of sense. You're investing in yourself. The greats always, always bet on themselves,

and they always invest in themselves. Welcome to The Learning Leader Show, presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text, learners to 4-4-222. To become part of Mindful Monday, you along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how my book, Welcome to Management, will help you become a more effective leader. Text, learners to 44222. Now on to tonight's featured leader, the great Tim Grover. He was the personal trainer for Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, and many others.

He's the best-selling author of multiple books, including Relentless and Most Recently, winning. We discuss the language of winning and Tim's possibly surprising take on motivation. And then the one quality that all winners must possess, followed up by the difference between knowing what to think versus knowing how to think and why it's vital for you to understand the differences. Ladies and gentlemen, you're going to love this one. And it's the great Tim Grover. All right, Tim, to get us started with a bang, I love studying excellence and understanding the commonalities among people who sustain excellence over an extended period of time. So I think based on reading one of your other books called Relentless, you would call these people

cleaners. Yes. And you write that cleaners have the ability to achieve the end result. over and over. What are some of the other common themes slash characteristics of cleaners? Well, obviously one that you just said, they have an ability to achieve that end result over and over again, but it's the other traits that they have that allow them to do that. And, you know, one of them is they know exactly who they are. They know who they are. They don't let other people identify their personalities, their traits, how they feel, how they feel about things, what they have to

sacrifice. They don't look for other individuals to validate what they're doing. They understand the difference between criticism and feedback. These are the same individuals that also they have the ability to change their story. They don't let other people write their story for them. They're constantly changing. So yeah, they do gather. information from you know from your podcast from other individuals podcast and they know what to take and what to lead what to leave behind if something doesn't work for them they're like okay this isn't for me but this may help this may help somebody else another another important trait that these individuals have is they know that when they get that

end result there's always more to do. do, you know, and they know they have to do it better that next time. You know, it's what you said earlier about achieving multiple successes over and over again. They know how to have success at success. And in order to do that, they know they have to come back better for the next win. Each win, each championship, each goal, each, you know, whatever it is, you know, from a business standpoint, if you reach certain amount of numbers, you know, every quarter or however you measure, is they know that the next quarter that they have to put in a bigger effort to achieve what they passed what they did before.

What do you think about celebration? So I want to ask, this is personal, but I've also recognized it in some of the athletes that you've worked with. I remember thinking if you would ask me five years ago or six or seven years ago, maybe, you're going to get a professional book deal from one of the big publishers. I probably said, well, I'm going to celebrate for a week. we're going to go nuts. And now that's happened twice. And I've gotten kind of bottles of champagne sent to me and other things. And we still haven't really celebrated. I mean, we had a book launch party, but that was really kind of a promotional event. And my next one's getting ready to come out in a few months. And maybe we'll do the same. But there hasn't really been a celebration. It's like on to the next thing. What about like this? And I know you're right about like there's no balance. So I am curious to kind of dive deep here. What about when you do accomplish something big? When there is a win, this, this, I guess, dichotomy between celebrating and being happy in that moment versus having this weird mindset that I think I identify with of, okay, what's next?

Okay, what's next? Like, what do you think about that? Well, you know what? This is what I always say. Celebrate hard, but don't celebrate long. We're here for a good time, not a long time, as my friend Bobby Cooner's told me. Yes, exactly. You come in, you do what you're supposed to do.

You not, listen, it's important for you to acknowledge your achievements. It's important for others to, others to acknowledge them. But understand, all right, that's, it's wonderful. You got a book deal. It was a success. Now you got another book deal. All right. That book deal actually puts more pressure on the individual.

That's why that person thinks it's what's next. It says, okay, now that I got this book deal. How do I make this, how do I get this book? to as many people's hands as possible. How can I convey this information to all those individuals? So you've had your little celebration about wonderful. I got a book deal.

Now when we talk about what's next, it's not like you're already moving to the next project, but a lot of individuals do. They'll be like, okay, I got an advance from my book. Great. I wrote the book. Now let's go on. To individuals like yourself and to me,

what next is how can you match? Can you maximize what you've done? Can you maximize the knowledge in that book? Can you maximize the sales in that book? Can you maximize how many people you can influence with that book? And those are different celebrations that always, that they're all little ones that sometimes never get into really the big one. Maybe somebody else has a big celebration,

but you're already thinking about what else can I do again. After you did your first book, you're like, this is great. Now, if I'm going to write a second book, I have to do it better than I did the first one. You won your first championship. Well, I got to do the second one better than I did the next one. So it's that constant pressure that you put on yourself because the pressure you put on yourself is always greater than the pressure. Other people are always going to put on you. and that's how when other people put pressure on you, it doesn't bother you.

Yeah. I want to talk about the language of winning. So to start about, start with that, what do you think of people who need to be, quote, pumped up or motivate themselves and others by yelling, let's do this or you got this or those who announced on social media, quote, crushed it or killed it. Like what? Talk to me about the language of winning and what you think. think of those types of individuals? Well, you know what? It's fun. To me, motivation is entry level.

All right. It's for individuals that don't know what they want to do. They don't know what their goals are. They don't know what they want to achieve. They're looking for something to motivate them to figure out what they want to do. Certain individuals, motivation, they're way beyond that. They're looking to elevate themselves. They're looking to elevate whatever they're doing. They're looking to elevate the individuals around them. And when, you know, in the book of winning, we talk. about the language of winning and when I asked all the individuals I deal with from an athletic standpoint from a business standpoint I told them to describe winning in one word and you would figure you know a lot of individuals would say you know oh it's euphoric

it's happy it makes me feel good you know it's wonderful but these individuals the answers they came up was like man this is it's uncivilized it's hard it's nasty it's It's dirty. It's unpolished. It's unforgiving. It's unapologetic. And I said elaborate on that. There's like, well, the moments you spend in order to get to that celebration.

And that celebration may be 30 seconds, five minutes a day, whatever it may be, all the other times that you spend just trying to get to that day, that's what winning's about. It's about being uncivilized. It's hard. It's nasty. That's the language people don't want to understand. Because if you don't understand that language, you're never going to stay in that,

you're never going to stay inside that race. These individuals don't need to get pumped up. They don't need to tell other people that they crushed it. Other people will tell them they crushed it. They'll be like, yeah, you know, they let the other people be their cheerleaders. They let the other people acknowledge their accomplishments. Those are the individuals that they got that internal fire, that's always lit.

They don't need anybody else to determine how much that flame is gonna burn. They do it. Motivation is like you give control to somebody else of how you work at, how much hard you're gonna work on that particular day. To me, this is what it's about, all right? You can do great things on the days

you're quote unquote motivated. What do you do on the rest of those days? What can you do on the rest of those days? And the language of winning, if you literally need motivation every day, and what if you don't get it every day? What if you don't have it for the month? So those days are just, they're just gone by. What can you do in those days where you're not feeling your best?

You're tired. All right. You're like, I don't want to do this. You know, people that, you know, obviously you work out, I work out. We have some of our best workouts. I'm like, man, I really don't want to be in this gym. I really don't want to be here. Or you have your best thoughts when you're writing something.

You're just like, man, I'm having a moment here. I can't think of anything. I can't think of anything. If you keep telling yourself that over and over again, you'll never come to it. If you just kind of say, you know what, let me just walk away here for a second. But you don't let your mind rest. And then all these ideas kind of start popping in. and you're like, man, the day I didn't feel like doing anything is one of my most productive, one of my most productive days.

What advice do you give to people who have those off days where they, because I, from a, from a workout perspective, I have had those all the time, right? Where you wake up, you feel bad. And you're like, but I remember the days before when I felt bad and I showed up anyway. And when I got home after the workout, man, I felt good. Like, wow, what a start to the day. Because I woke up not feeling like doing it. or felt bad, did it anyway, pushed through it and felt so good. You know, and so I don't know if it's a nature versus nurture.

I don't think it's that. What advice do you give to the people who are like, Tim, sometimes I'm not feeling it. And so I just don't do it. But you're telling me I need to do it. What are some things those people could do could put into place right now to push through that initial, I'm not really feeling it and go forward anyway? Well, you know what? you have to gather those wins every single day.

That's what I'm saying. No matter how small there are, there are wins available to you every single minute, every single opportunity you have a chance to win. Winning is everywhere. So capture those little wins, even when you don't, even though when you don't feel like it, I've been working out almost my whole life. I still don't enjoy it. You know, it would be.

You enjoy having done it probably. I know I was like it. I enjoy having done it. I enjoy the results. I enjoy the way it makes me, I enjoy the way it makes me feel. I enjoy being able to go into my closet and being able to pick out anything I have and be able to fit to be able to fit in it. All right. So if I show the joy of those wins cannot be achieved and cannot be attained on a regular basis if I only do things on the day that I feel that I feel good. All right. That's the difference between what I said about motivation and elevation.

Yeah, we have to do things every day that we don't want to do. You know, create the end result so much that the work is irrelevant. You know, everyone says, you know, I love 100% about what I do. No, you don't. There's not a single individual out there that loves 100% of what they do. You know, you go on a list. You know, you said, I think it was your brother that won the, that was in the NFL, correct? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm sure he played, I think he said 11 years. Yeah. I guarantee maybe for the first year he enjoyed practice. Then after that, it's just, yeah, but you have, but you have to do it. Yeah. You have, people are saying, oh, I love the process. I know Michael, I know Michael Jordan.

I know Kobe, Wade, all the. athletes that I've worked with, they didn't enjoy seeing me. They didn't enjoy the wind sprints at practice. They didn't enjoy the three-hour film sessions. They didn't enjoy any of that stuff. But they crave the end results so much that that work became irrelevant. They knew they had to do that as part of the process. You know, in order to sustain health physically and mentally, all right, you got to take care

of yourself. It's part of being selfish. People always say, you know, you have to give to others, which is true. You know, when you have success, you want to give to others. You want to teach others. You want to be able to touch others. But if you're not selfish with yourself and you don't have the ability to take care of yourself, how the hell are you going to take care of anybody else?

And the days you don't have that I don't want, I don't want to do it. I don't feel like doing this. Those are the days that you got to say, hey, I got to say, hey, I got to do it. to do this for myself. I have to do this for myself. Yeah, I was talking with my friend Liam Murray recently about this, a good, another quality individual and leader who chooses to do hard things. And this is the topic of our conversation of choosing to do the hard things first. And part of the joy of actually doing and having done that work is the fact that you know, most people don't want to and aren't willing to. And so you get some satisfaction out of that.

in itself and then knowing the results that will most likely come because you you are willing to do it and so in a way i sense that mj and kobe and d way these guys that you've personally worked with for a long time did you sense that from them this this joy in the fact that i know others aren't either willing or able to do what i'm willing and able to do every single day yeah exactly It's so important because you know what, that gives them the ability to have trust in themselves in moments when everybody else is fatigued, when they're fatigued, when they're just like everybody's worn on, say, hey, listen, I've put in, not only if I put in more work, I've put in smarter work than everybody and everybody else. So while they're no longer physically able to

do what they need to do or mentally they're being drained, because of what I did, my constant preparation over and over again, the consistency of years and years of doing things that other individuals wouldn't do or didn't do consistently allowed me to create the separation of where I am now and where they and where they are. And it's about doing the fundamentals. It's about doing the thing. It's about the rituals. It's about having a routine that actually enhances your abilities. actually moves you forward instead of just having a routine that just is in place just to be stagnant. Yeah. What do you think about the phrase, fake it until you make it? Yeah. I hate that phrase.

And the reason I say that now is with social media now, it's so easy to portray something that you're not. All right. And it's so easy to portray success and to show things, whether it's the watches and the cars and the houses and all this, all this, all this other stuff. But what happens is you start to believe, you literally start to believe that stuff in your mind. And at some point when I said earlier about, you know how you need to know exactly who you are. At that point, when a real opportunity comes and you need to know exactly who you are,

you're not going to know who that person is because you haven't you haven't met that person in so long you haven't had a conversation with that individual in years the only the only persona you have is that fake person you know with social media you know the fake has become the new real i always tell individuals i said you know pull out your phone and look at look at look at one of your social media pages look at your facebook profile or look at your instagram profile or you know, TikTok or whatever it may be. None of you look that good. None of you look that. None of you looked that good. I mean, I've literally met people that said, oh, I followed you. I'm so-and-so, and then somebody go, listen. And I'll pull up the instant.

And I was like, that's not even the same person. So now if you start to live in those, if you start to live those filters, you start to believe that stuff. And that the reason you fake it to you make it is, or people love to use that, that is because they're so worried about how everybody else perceives them. They're worried about how that person conveys their happiness. What looks successful to those individuals. There's so many individuals out there that, listen, have, they don't care about the big cars. They don't care about the blings.

They don't care about the big, big houses. and have accumulated so much joy and wealth that they just don't show it off. They may donate millions of dollars to different charitable contributions. Or to them, their life of success and happiness is having a job that they can go to nine to five. All right. They got an apartment. They got a transportation. All right.

And their time is spent raising their kids. playing in a charity softball, playing in a softball league every Sunday or whatever it may be, that's their definition of happiness. That's their definition of success. They're not trying to fake it because everybody else says you need to have all these things. One of the things you've written, and just so you know, Tim, you could probably tell, but I've read your book winning and just pulled out a ton of quotes. We won't get to all of them, but I'm going to keep asking you to expand on some of them because I love this stuff.

So one of the things that you wrote is winning isn't heartless, but you'll use your heart less. Yes. Please say more. So you know what? As you start to win, all right, over and over again, or you get closer to winning, your mind has to be stronger than your feelings. It really, really does. You know, for individuals, you know, when we talked about earlier about people that can't get motivated, They can't get out of bed to do certain things.

They can't, whether it's workout or whatever, whatever it may be, you know, put in the extra hours to make those phone calls. All right. What's keeping you in bed? It's your feelings that are keeping you in bed. All right. It's your feelings that are keeping you. Your mind tells you to get up.

Your mind says, hey, get up. You know, I use the old adage that a lot of people use. I said, listen, if you're fortunate enough to open up your, your eyes and put your feet on the ground, it's a great day. The rest of it is up to you. You know, I don't know what the mortality rate is on a daily basis, but I'm sure there's a lot of people that don't get that opportunity. That don't get that opportunity. So if you've gotten that opportunity, now the rest is up to you. So your mind is telling you, hey, listen, get, get up. Let's get moving. Yeah, we do have to deal with stuff.

Feelings make you overthink everything. They make you overanalyzed stuff. They're like, okay, well, this could have been, this should have been. So to me, what is overthinking? Overtinking is creating problems that don't even exist. You start to overanalyze. You start to overthink, and then what happens is you end up getting paralyzed. All right, your mind makes decisions.

It makes decisions. All right, this is where I need to get done. This is what I have to do. You don't over, you don't overthink. All right. When we're all going to have disappointments, we're all going to have disappointments. You're going to have when you're in that unforgiving race to winning, you're going to fail more than you're going to succeed. Feelings, you hold on to those failures. You hold on to those negative thoughts. You hold on to, man, things could have been better. All right, your mind handles disappointment and failure.

It handles them, and we all have it. You know, it's between that same individual who had something happened to them in their lifetime. and their feelings hold on to them and they use that as a crutch for the rest of their lives. While you have that other individual whose mindset who's mindset who's mindset, who's same failure as a how can I do it better? Let me use this as a learning process. Let me get that. Let me figure out how my mind can handle this disappointment and take me farther and not be in the same place where I'm at. I feel like you're talking about the dark side.

And you said before, the dark side turns your anger into controlled rage. Now you're in control. So what's, yeah, can you share more about the dark side and using that as fuel? Sure. To me, everyone has a dark side. And I was telling the visit this is not, it's not evil. It's not about anything that's bad or, you know, it's, it's not vampires. It's not Star Wars.

It's not evil stuff. Your dark side is something that's unique to you. It is what fuels you and what keeps you going when nothing else will. That's what the dark side is. When you have to roll, when you're in the worst possible situation, it tells you to keep going. It tells you to keep going. It does not allow you to give up. And it is a great example for individuals.

Now, if you're raised in a broken home, whether you're raised with one parent, no parents, whatever it may be, and individually use that as an excuse the rest of their lives. They'll be like, you know what, I didn't have a stable family, I didn't have this, I didn't have this, I didn't have a father, I didn't have a mother, whatever, whatever it may be. And then you have another individual who's same circumstances, maybe in a different location, whatever it is, and uses that same thing and says, watch me. Watch me. And that's that internal fuel. That's that ability to deal with the monsters underneath your bed. That's the ability to deal with your secrets, your fears, your insecurities. That's what it is.

And, you know, Kobe, like he even created the mama mentality. which was his dark side. That was his dark side. And we all have this alter ego. We all have this individual, but we're afraid to bring it out. We're afraid to use it because we're worried about being judged. You've got to be able to control it first.

You've got to be able to control and understand what it is. What fuels you when nothing else will? What disappointment did you have in your life? Or what victory did you have that you want more? or off. That's that internal fire. That's what keeps you going when you literally your own cheerleader. You become your own cheerleader. You become your own hype person. You don't need somebody else to tell you you crushed it. You don't need to tell somebody to say, go get it. It's already internal. You're dealing with the voices that we all have in here and you're understanding it and you're getting them to play the tune that you wanted to play. This, you bring up Kobe. So Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant are my two favorite athletes of all time still. And you personally worked with both of them, among others.

What, Tim, what is one of your all-time favorite Kobe stories that will share his excellence, his mindset that really illustrates his, the embodiment of Kobe Bryant? Well, there's a lot of them. Obviously, everybody knows his. his work ethic and what he was, what he was able to do. But what the one thing I would say about Kobe, he was so coachable.

He was so, he was so, so coachable. I give, I give this, I share this story quite often is on the, on the chat, oh, the chat on his one two, four championship against, against the Boston, against the Boston Celtics, if I, if I remember this right. they had just lost game six.

Right. And, you know, he had, he had meetings with the coaches. He had meetings with his players. He did all these, all these different things. And then I met him later. And then he came in. He sat down and we were just talking. He goes, Matt, he goes, I threw everything at him but the kitchen sink.

And I just looked at him. I said, well, why did you save the sink? All right. Now, a lot of the athletes would have came. back and taken in that as criticism or as insult and would have defended like what would have happened. They would have made excuses. And he just kind of gave me that mom McLaren said, you're absolutely right.

He goes, you're absolutely right. So they have the ability to hold themselves so accountable. And they have the shortest memories. They had, you know, that's why they don't worry about. taking that big shot. They don't worry about that moment. Most people are worried about what's going to happen if they make it, if they're going to miss it. They're like, you know, why should I worry about a shot I've never taken? Why should I worry about a shot that I've never taken? And they are so well prepared. He was so well prepared that thinking was a distraction to him. And what do I mean by that?

Well, it takes years and years to think, not to be able to think. No, it takes years and years of preparation. So much prep that on game day, you just let it go. You just let it go. Because if you're thinking, yeah, if you're thinking, you're not in the moment. You know, you've heard this, you know, obviously being in, being around professional sports and playing it yourself or, you know, you'll have coaches all time to tell you, just go out them play, don't think. Well, what's the first thing you do? You start thinking. You start thinking,

but you have to have years and years of thinking and preparation not to be able to think. He put in the work like no other. And I think that that prep, all of the work is what then led to this immense confidence. The confidence led to winning and the winning led to more confidence in this belief. And then it also sounds like it allowed him to take ownership of the situation when it didn't go well, to be coachable, to fix it, and to have an open mind to say, I've surrounded myself with people intentionally, whether it's coaches, whether it's you, right? Some of his teammates to have an open mind and to listen. One of the things you write in your book is winning requires you to learn, question what you learned, and then learn more.

And, you know, so it obviously goes along with my show. It's called The Learning Leader Show. It's all about the fact that my favorite leaders were the ones who always were on a mission to learn more. Always were on a mission to believe I have an opinion. I know what I think as of right now. But my mind is open. And if there are better ways to approach this, I'm going to constantly seek out the better ways. And I sense that's MJ, that's Kobe.

That's the type of people that you're working with on a regular basis. Like I said, they're the most coachable individuals. My business clients, my professional athletes, the best of the best are the most coachable individuals. And you know what you said earlier about confidence. Listen, in the book, I say they're winning. Confidence is the ultimate drug and winning is the dealer. The more you win, that's why I said every single day, if you just get those little wins,

you know, like for the people that you said, I don't want to work out today. I don't want to do this. Well, when you go out and do it on those days, your confidence gets. gets even better. All right. And at those are the times where you got to bet on yourselves. You got to bet on yourselves. And each little workout, in each little time you do something that you don't want,

you don't want to do. When you listen to a coach that has a different thought process than you do or has an idea that you may not agree with, but you were like, you know what? That actually makes a lot of sense. You're investing in yourself. The greats always, always bet on themselves. They always invest in themselves. You know, there's a big story that comes out every single year

that how these athletes invest seven figures into, you know, into their bodies and how they prepare and all them. To me, it's like, duh, shouldn't everybody be doing that? This is your tool. This is, if your agent or yourself doesn't set aside a stipend and say, hey, this is your money to keep you healthy, to keep you going, to maximize your ability. I mean, Michael did that back in the late 80s. And Kobe did it for so many years.

Wade did. I know LeBron does it on a consistent basis. One of my new clients, Russell Wilson, he invests in himself. Those results don't come by accident. They don't come by accident. You know, you have your greatest business people, you know, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, you know, all these people that you see, Branson, when you see these individuals, they surround themselves with people that they've invested in, that have invested in themselves. They understand that they have to be selfish and they need the people around them to be selfish for them. Say more about that.

I know this is a big big thing you talk about. because when you hear that we're selfish, doesn't sound good to a lot of people. Doesn't sound good. And that's exactly it. It's just the word. It's just the word that selfish itself doesn't sound good. But, you know, we give it so many other meanings.

Listen, you get an individual that says, I don't understand when you say selfish, why is it selfish to take care of yourself? Why is that a bad thing? I've never understood that. Take care of yourself first. You must lead yourself before you can. lead anybody else. Yes. And then the more you take care of yourself, the more you can give to

others. People are selfish all the time. It's funny. Okay. So, Ryan, let's, I do this all the time. I'm not a meditation person. That's, it's not for me. All right. But it's funny. When you have an individual and they say, listen, I'm going to meditate for the next hour. They put it in their schedule. This is meditation. Everybody says, oh, my God, you know, that's wonderful. You're taking care of yourself, you're doing something that you should do. All right. And I'm sitting in my office and I tell everybody, hey, don't bother me for the next hour. Now all of a sudden, I'm selfish.

What's the difference? What is the difference? You know, what's the difference between selfish and me time? What's the difference between selfish and a man cave? What's the difference between selfish and Girls Night Out? All right. It's all, you have to take care of yourself. have to invest in yourself.

The more you take care of yourself, the more you can invest in others. Now, if it's always about you, that's selfish. That is selfish. You know what's interesting, Tim, and I would be curious to, I bet this is with you times a thousand, but the people who reach out to me asking for some sort of like one-on-one executive coaching, usually high, high-level leaders, as I get to know them, the ones who are proactively reaching out, I almost finished the kind of the introductory phase. of those conversations, which usually lasts a few hours, I finish them and say,

dude, you're already like at the top of your game. You have high levels of awareness. You're so coachable. You're performing at incredibly high levels. I don't think you need it. And they're like, no, I absolutely do. And the ones who need it don't reach out. And the ones who are already performing at these amazing levels, they're always the ones who are reaching out saying, no, no, I need feedback. I need more. And to me, that's, That's inspiring. Like, that is an inspiring thing to see that these high performers are the ones who are reaching out almost 100% of the time. I bet you see something similar.

They're looking to get that, not 1%. They're looking to get that 0.001%. That's, that's what they're, that's what they're, that's what they're looking for. Because they've had so much success. So they know they can't, they're not going to get a 20% gain or whatever. They're just looking for that little advantage to stay. ahead of everybody of everybody else and including keeping themselves ahead of their previous self yeah yes exactly you know it was funny I used to tell we trained a lot of in the facility we had a lot of athletes you know in

the mid range and I used to tell them I was like you need this more than those guys all right I said Kobe's going to get his money he's going to get his start up all right my Michael's going to get it. Dwayne's going to get it. LeBron's going to get these people. It's the middle of the pack individuals. I said, this is what's helping you consistently succeed. And those, I had more, I had more issues with my middle road individuals than I did with my high performers.

My high performance, I never had to tell them to show up on time. I never had to tell them to stay late. I never had to tell them, you know, put in the work. You know, I never had to tell them, you know, hey, do everything with a purpose. These, they just knew. They were so self-aware and so confident in being able to point out their own mistakes and their own insolk. And I never had to raise my voice with these individuals. That was the one thing.

I never, you know, you see motivational speakers and they're yelling at the top of their lungs and their veins are sticking out and the forehead is about to bust. Look at you right with your highest performance. When have you had to raise your voice with them? Never. Yeah. You just you don't. You have like a normal conversation with those individuals.

One of the things you write about is the fact that winning makes you different and different scarce people. Yes, it does. One of the things that you did that I remember when this news came out was the fact that Michael Jordan started lifting weights on game days. and people thought both of you and him were absolutely nuts. Share more about me, whether it's that story or just the fact that sometimes winning makes you different and that can be scary for other people. Well, you know what it is. It goes back to, you know, how the grades can get that 0.001% better. So I looked at the schedule.

I looked at a basketball schedule offseason and in season. All right. And I have a little bit of knowledge about working out. So I used to be like, okay, well, if we only work out on these particular day, on these particular days, the scale is going to be just like motivation. It's going to be up and down. It's going to be like that sugar high, constantly up and down. We're never going to be able to make any progress. We're never going to be able to maintain any consistency.

And there's going to be times in his during the season. If we don't lift, his strength will be up and that'll be down. Now, I know if your strength is up, your strength is down, your chances of getting. getting injury, injured are so much, are so much greater. Plus, I want to be able to have his strength at a consistent basis. So he has the same elevation on his shot. He has the same release point. So all those things, I was like, hey, I even approached him.

I explained this to him. I said, hey, MJ, we have to lift on game days. And this is why. This is why we have to lift on game days. And he had the same thing. You know, everybody said, oh, you know, first of all, basketball players shouldn't be lifting because, you know, it makes you bulky.

It's going to throw it's going to throw off your shot. And I was like, well, it's going to make you less athletic. I'm like, working out makes you less athletic. That's, that's a new, that's a new one. So I said, and then he had the same concern. He goes, well, what about recovery time? I said, we will do this early in the morning. I said, we will do this before shoot around.

I said, there'll be the done first thing in the morning. You'll have plenty of time. You'll have plenty of time to recover. And I said, I said, now, when we first start this, yeah, is it going, are there going to be some adverse effects? I said yes, but the adverse effects will not stay for long. And the gains will be so much more beneficial. And he believed in it.

We went and gave it a shot and the results are history. And then now you see athletes, a lot of athletes train on, train on game day. They have a routine that they do. Tom Brady's one. LeBron is one. James Harden is one. Kobe had had one. You know, Russell Wilson, all these individuals, these top, they have a routine on game day in order to wake everything up, not only physically but mentally.

I love the stories about how Michael would help Kobe. Sometimes Kobe would call our text them at random times of the entire clock. And you said that Michael got a lot of joy out of passing it on to his understudy. And one of the things that stemmed off of that story that you told in your book is the fact that you tell corporate clients, well, when you know what to think you're ready to compete, when you know how to think you're ready to win. Yes. Can you share more about this difference between knowing what to think versus knowing how to think? Well, it's funny. Our whole education system, our whole education system goes on, you know, what to think.

What to think. Everything is about what to think, what to think, what to think. All right, I've always known all the, look at the world has changed so much in these last, you know, I don't know, you can say 10 years, decades, whatever, whatever you want, whatever you want to say. All these individuals, you know, in the tech spaces and, you know, the financial spaces, all this stuff, those were concepts that came up on their own. That was, there was no book that was written about those things. things, that was their ability to be like, hey, yeah, this is where everybody's telling me what to think, but I have the ability to know how to think. And how to think means trusting your instincts, knowing what to take and what to leave behind, not always following the pattern that everybody else does. That's why in our book, there are no five steps to this. There's no 10 steps to this.

All right, because those steps are different for each individual. And the people that know how to think, know how to maneuver those steps, even when you cannot see those steps. What are some ways, someone's cocking their head, it's sideways going, huh, okay, that was good in school. I got good grades. And I think I was taught what to think. Maybe I'm lacking there.

Like, what are some things that you tell people to help them with the, how to think part, not just what to think part. Well, it kind of like, it goes into like being able to have confidence in your abilities, trusting what you know, not what you see all the time. And here's the thing, challenging other people's perceptions and thoughts and ideas of things and not copying everything they do. You know, there's so many social media individuals out here that, you know, they're these experts and what do they do they always tell you what to think over and over and over and over again and you start to emulate you try to you try to copy these you try to copy these

individuals and having the ability to say hey you know what that doesn't that doesn't that doesn't work that doesn't work for me and not having listen what it starts off real real early where your parents want you to do certain things a certain way and you had to respect them because you're under you're under their roof if they're paying your bills or whatever whatever it may be but they're brought up a certain way my parents were brought up very structured to them it was like get an education go to college get a job that gets your paycheck every single two weeks that you have benefits you have vacations because they were the what to think in the they were the what to think individuals For myself, it was like, that just doesn't, that does that doesn't work for me.

It's just like, that's a life that's not going to be, that's not my definition of success. It was their definition of success. So my ability of what, how to think was like, okay, I want to have the freedom to work my own hours. And being my own hours is not working less hours. I know I was going to end up working more hours, but not having to answer to other individuals. other individuals, being able to come up with creative ways to work out individuals, being able to come up with my ideas and my perceptions on what needs to be done. We all have that ability. We all have that ability and we end up losing it because everything we do,

everyone else is telling us what to do, what to do, what to do. One of the two biggest criticisms I get from the two books is They don't tell you what to do. Exactly. Exactly. They are not going to tell you what to do. Remember, winning is a test with no correct answers. You have to figure those answers out. You have to know what those answers are going to be.

You know, everyone is going to tell you, the people that tell you you're off and you're crazy, take that as a compliment because no one who's done anything great has thought like everybody else. You know, we don't want, normal is not a good thing. Average is not a good thing. So when somebody gives you that compliment and says you're a little bit different, you're a little bit off. That means you are doing something they can't understand. And when they can't understand something, that's your ability on how to think.

Tim, it makes me think of, I sent my first draft of my first book to executive editor at McGrawl Hill, Casey Ebro, and she's, Casey's the best. She's been so helpful on everything I've worked on. And she said, Ryan, we've had a lot of phone calls and Zoom calls leading up to this. And so many of them, you shared this unique perspective and point of view. And on this first draft, I see you quoting other people a lot more than sharing your point of view. Take that stuff out and replace it with the things you've told me because I've learned some things I haven't heard before. Yes.

Why don't you have that? I'm like, that is such great feedback. And she's so good at her job. I'm told, I've told this before how grateful I am. But it's, I think that is the what to think versus how to think. That's an example of it for me where I was like,

you've done the work. Now you kind of have to have some of the guts and the confidence to put it out there. Yes. And that is shifting from just regurgitating and quoting and saying, well, yeah, you've interviewed and you've read all this stuff. That's fine. That's already out there.

What we'd like for you as the author of this is to take all that information in, synthesize it, understand it, and then share it from your unique perspective, from your ideas. And I think that's a, it was a great lesson in leadership for me because that's what I think we want in leaders, for them to have, to do the work to be able to then do that and get that result. Yes, you know, listen, what happens. So it was funny, what she kind of said to you, you had.

this vision. All right, but when you were writing stuff down, all right, you could, you, you only had sight. You were like, oh, let me quote these people. Let me quote these people. And then she brought your vision back into it. And when you only have sight, sight is, sight is exactly of what to think. You see something. Okay, no, no, no, there's a percept. You can look at, and the people that know how to think can look at, they can look at a piece of artwork or look at something and see things that you don't have you you'll that you'll never notice or they'll notice different points here and so forth so what she did is you gave you that ability again and say hey listen don't tell don't tell these people what to think tell them how to think of what you what your perceptions are what your

ideas your thoughts are how to how what success and winning means to you winning is not a marathon it's a sprint with no finish line you hear the marathon analogy used all the all the time and you go against that it's not a marathon it's a sprint with no finish line say more about that well you know what listen i've never ran a marathon i have no plans of running a marathon but in different life in life it is a it is a marathon with a lot of sprints in there all right and if you look at the top marathon runners in the world they're running a sub five-minute mile even close to like under 440 sometimes. Get on a treadmill and try to run one mile at a five minute pace.

It's a sprint. It is a sprint. And you know, I know there's a lot of people out there that says, you know, you have a luxury of time. I don't believe that. All right, because at time, anytime you're lacking somebody else is going to pass, somebody else is going to pass you up. And to me, how do you you end up staying in that marathon with constant sprints all the time? Well, most people manage time. Because, you know, they're trying to say, okay, I'm going to run a marathon and I'm going to do it in X amount of time if they haven't read a marathon. I want to do it in under, you know, six hours,

eight hours, whatever it may be. And you have those other individuals that they're so focused on the finish line, they're not worried about the time. Those individuals are managing focus. They're not managing time. People that manage time all the time, time creates distractions. You're constantly looking at your watch. I got to go do this. I got to do this. What does focus do? When you focus on something, it blocks everything out. It blocks all the distractions out. So when we talk about, you know, winning is not a marathon. It's a sprint with no finish line. If you can manage focus, instead of managing time, you'll be able to sprint more. more often in the marathon of life than only if you're managing time.

Because if you manage time, it's going to be like, okay, I have this much time to complete something. If you've ever crammed for a test, all right, you had so much focus during that time that time became irrelevant. You didn't even know what was going on. You know, time tells you to stop. You're like, okay, it's five o'clock, I'm done. all right focus tells you there's more there's more to do those are those individuals that you know

they don't come in and say well what's my workout time today do i am i working out for an hour and i'm working out for this they don't care they don't they don't know the difference between whether they've been in the gym for 20 minutes or they've been in the gym for three three hours because they've been managing focus during that whole time and focus comes from within you time Time is external. Time is out here. It's external. It's on your watch. It's on your phone or so forth. Focus is within yourself. Tim, I would imagine that wrapping up here, I would imagine that you, people who are earlier in their career are constantly reaching out to you for advice, seeking knowledge, wanting to do either what you've done or in some way, shape or form, leave a dent in the world. And so I'm curious, what are some general pieces of life slash career advice you'd give to somebody a bit earlier in their career for those who want to sustain excellence? Well, this is what I always said. I said, do everything. Experience everything, feel everything. All right, do everything until you know what you want to do.

What do you at the very beginning of your career? I am curious, like that like right after college, what would you do? I went to work at a local health club. I finished with a master's degree. in exercise science. I went to work at a local health club. The minimum wage back then was $3.35. Wow. That was the minimum wage. So imagine going into finishing off a master's degree. And my parents were like, listen, you can't sit at home. You got to go do something. And the only job available was being a fitness attendant, not even a trainer, a fitness attendant. So I came in, I cleaned up the equipment, opened up the room, made sure everything was organized, pick up the towels, and did all those things.

But I was fortunate enough, I always knew what I wanted to do. I was like, all right, I want to train professional athletes. That's what I wanted to do. But I had to do everything and experience everything and feel it in order to be able to train professional athletes. So whatever you want it, whatever your thing is, do it all, experience it all. Don't think any job is beneath you because what you, the experience you get from there is going to be invaluable. And don't look for the easy way out.

Everybody always, you know, I hate when people come up to me, they say, what's the one thing? Boy, I wish it was that simple. It's not. And everybody's always looking for the, always looking for the shortcut. There is no shortcut. As you progress in winning, you have more knowledge. You may know how to make things a little bit easier to navigate, but still, the shortcut is not available.

The book is called Winning, the Unforgiving Race to Greatness, a part of Tim's winning series. I highly recommend it. However, I will say, be prepared to be challenged. Do not pick this, buy this book, or read it if you're not willing to challenge yourself and be challenged by Tim's words. Fantastic job doing it, man. And thank you so much for being here today on the Learning Leader Show.

And I'd love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. I would love to. Listen, please, anything, we want to help you put this podcast out. Send us everything that you have. We'll promote it on our thing, you know, send us, send us whatever you want us to post out there. We'll make sure it goes out there. What the information you're providing out there.

and the experience that you have and the individuals that you've talked to, knowledge is everywhere. These are all wins. You just have to go out, pay attention, be in the moment and find it, and have access to individuals like yourself. Man, thank you. It means a lot, Tim. I appreciate it.

I've been following your work for a long time. And so it's a really cool honor for me to get a chance to talk with you. And please send us a copy of your new book. I will. I will. Thanks so much. All right. Take care.

Okay. Bye. Bye. I love the intensity of Tim Grover. You could tell why he would be a phenomenal personal trainer to some of the greatest performers in history. And one of the key takeaways, as I'm reviewing my notes, is he said, those great performers were obsessed with learning. Winning requires you to learn, question what you've learned, and then learn some more. and that statement really aligns well with the learning leader show.

And I'm obsessed with trying to better understand people and their stories and distill that excellence to the component parts so that we can work to implement it for ourselves. Next, when he said, you must lead yourself first. Some might say that's selfish. I personally disagree. The more you take care of yourself, the more you can take care and lead others.

You must lead yourself first. And then what to think versus how to think. All of us as leaders, we need to do the work so that we can trust our instincts when we find ourselves in pressurized moments. The preparation, the repetition, the consistency, see. That's how we learn how to think versus what to think. I want to tell you once again, thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two,

hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Tim Grover. It will help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that, and because you continue to write reviews on Apple Podcast, hopefully rating the show five stars. You continue to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talking to you. Can we?