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May 2 - May 29, 2020
People wanted to talk about “Cleaners,” my name for the ultimate competitors and achievers who refuse to be satisfied with just trying or merely giving it “their best”; they recognized themselves in those individuals who don’t just do a job, they define the job—champions like Michael Jordan, Kobe, Dwyane Wade, and many others in every walk of life.
Cooler, Closer, Cleaner . . . good, great, unstoppable.
The whole point of this book is that in order to be successful, to truly have what you want in your life, you must stop waiting be told what to do and how to do it. Your goals, your decisions, your commitment. If you can’t see the end result, how can anyone else see it for you? I can’t give you a ten-step process or a checklist for accomplishing your goals; no one can do that for you, nor should you ask them to. What I am giving you is insight into the mentality and guts of those who have found unparalleled success by trusting their own instincts to get to where they want to be.
Don’t think. You already know what you have to do, and you know how to do it. What’s stopping you?
Being the best means engineering your life so you never stop until you get what you want, and then you keep going until you get what’s next. And then you go for even more. Relentless.
It’s time to stop listening to what everyone else says about you, telling you what to do, how to act, how you should feel. Let them judge you by your results, and nothing else; it’s none of their business how you get where you’re going. If you’re relentless, there is no halfway, no could or should or maybe. Don’t tell me the glass is half-full or half-empty; you either have something in that glass or you don’t. Decide. Commit. Act. Succeed. Repeat.
Being relentless means demanding more of yourself than anyone else could ever demand of you, knowing that every time you stop, you can still do more. You must do more.
Success is about dealing with reality, facing your demons and addictions, and not putting a smiley face on everything you do.
From this point, your strategy is to make everyone else get on your level; you’re not going down to theirs. You’re not competing with anyone else, ever again. They’re going to have to compete with you. From now on, the end result is all that matters.
We never saw obstacles or problems, we only saw situations in need of solutions.
“In order to have what you really want, you must first be who you really are.”
Being relentless means never being satisfied. It means creating new goals every time you reach your personal best. If you’re good, it means you don’t stop until you’re great. If you’re great, it means you fight until you’re unstoppable. It means becoming a Cleaner.
Greatness makes you a legend; being the best makes you an icon. If you want to be great, deliver the unexpected. If you want to be the best, deliver a miracle.
He never sees problems, only situations to resolve, and when he finds the solution, he doesn’t waste time explaining it. He just says, “I got this.” And when it’s over and he gets the results, all the others just stand there, shaking their heads in disbelief, wondering how he did it.
THE RELENTLESS 13 When You’re a Cleaner . . . #1. You keep pushing yourself harder when everyone else has had enough. #1. You get into the Zone, you shut out everything else, and control the uncontrollable. #1. You know exactly who you are. #1. You have a dark side that refuses to be taught to be good. #1. You’re not intimidated by pressure, you thrive on it. #1. When everyone is hitting the “In Case of Emergency” button, they’re all looking for you. #1. You don’t compete with anyone, you find your opponent’s weakness and you attack. #1. You make decisions, not suggestions; you know the answer
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but let’s be honest: you train like a pro by committing to work at the highest level of intensity, every moment, in everything you do, constantly working on your body, your skills, your preparation, leaving no detail to chance.
The fact is, you can’t train your body—or excel at anything—before you train your mind. You can’t commit to excellence until your mind is ready to take you there. Teach the mind to train the body. Physical dominance can make you great. Mental dominance is what ultimately makes you unstoppable.
Do. The. Work. Every day, you have to do something you don’t want to do. Every day. Challenge yourself to be uncomfortable, push past the apathy and laziness and fear.
Otherwise, the next day you’re going to have two things you don’t want to do, then three and four and five, and pretty soon, you can’t even get back to the first thing. And then all you can do is beat yourself up for the mess you’ve created, and now you’ve got a mental barrier to go along with the physical barriers.
Bottom line if you want success of any kind: you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
So we go back to the fundamentals. We’re going to walk, we’re going to move your shoulder, we’re going to take everything one step at a time. Small moves to rebuild your confidence. The small moves eventually add up to big changes. Every two or three days, we’re going a little farther out on the limb, trying a little more, making progress.
Ask yourself where you are now, and where you want to be instead. Ask yourself what you’re willing to do to get there. Then make a plan to get there. Act on it.
People refuse to work out or control their diets because it’s not comfortable for them.
But what does that actually mean? You’re not giving him anything he can use. He’s looking for someone to tell him what he’s doing wrong because he thinks he’s relaxing and clearly he’s not.
Players always ask me what they should think about at the free throw line, something to make them forget the pressure, block out the crowd and the noise and all the distractions. First of all, I can’t give you a made-up thought, it has to be something internal that means something to you. But ideally, I want you thinking about nothing.
That, by definition, is the Zone. No fear, no intrusion. Total concentration. You’re not thinking, because thinking turns your thoughts on to everything, and the Zone is about the opposite, turning your thoughts off to everything except the task at hand.
Instead of dictating the outcome of the event, they’re letting the event dictate the outcome to them. Instead of feeling steady and steely, they start feeling unsure and worried. They lose their cool confidence, they start feeling emotional, and make no mistake about this: emotions make you weak.
The fastest way to tumble out of the Zone is to allow emotions to drive your actions.
The only exception to the emotions rule is anger: controlled anger is a deadly weapon, in the right hands.
But the difference between Cleaners and everyone else is their ability to control those feelings, instead of allowing those feelings to control them.
We take all those powerful natural instincts, those instantaneous gut reactions, we chalk them up to bad behavior and do everything possible to shut them down. What a waste. All that natural energy, drive, intuition, action . . . reduced to a time-out in the corner. From the time you’re a toddler to the time you’re an adult, you’ve been taught to be “good.” What’s wrong with the way you were?
Born relentless, taught to relent.
But if we’re talking about being elite, if you want to be unstoppable, you have to learn to put aside everything you’ve been taught, all the restrictions and limitations, the negativity and doubt. If that sounds complicated and confusing, let me make it simple: You have to stop thinking.
Whether you’re playing a sport or running a business, it’s the same concept. You don’t need to schedule a meeting to discuss a decision; you just make the decision.
Instead of playing his own game, he’s playing the other guy’s game. Reacting instead of acting. Overthinking. Overanalyzing. That’s how you lose the natural ability that made you great in the first place.
Like all Cleaners, he didn’t study the competition, he made the competition study him.
Stop waiting to be taught something you already know.
Oprah once said, “Every right decision I’ve ever made has come from my gut, and every wrong decision I’ve ever made was a result of me not listening.”
“In order to have what you really want, you must first be who you really are.”
Stop thinking. Stop waiting. You already know what to do.
Cleaner Law: control your dark side, don’t let it control you.
Stress keeps you sharp, it challenges you in ways you never imagined and forces you to solve issues and manage situations that send weaker people running for cover. You can’t succeed without it. Your level of success is defined by how well you embrace it and manage it.
If you’re a Cleaner, you know that feeling, and you’ve likely been in that kind of situation when everyone else is freaking out and you just know what to do. You don’t even know how you know, you just know. I’m not talking about “winging it” or making it up as you go. I’m talking about being so prepared, with so many options and so much experience, that you’re truly ready for anything.
Being relentless means having the courage to say, “I’m going for this, and if I’m wrong, I’ll make a change and I’ll still be fine.”
He feels no pressure when he screws up and has no problem admitting when he’s wrong and shouldering the blame:
Have the confidence to say when you’ve screwed up, and people will respect you for it.
At some point, whether you’re in the boardroom or the locker room or anywhere else you want to excel, someone is going to point in your direction and say, “You.” It may be an opportunity that lasts a minute, maybe ten minutes, maybe a week or a month. But what you do in that time is going to determine what you’re going to do for a long time after.
Make a choice, or a choice will be made for you.
Figure out what you do, then do it. And do it better than anyone else.
If you want to be elite, you have to earn it. Every day, everything you do. Earn it. Prove it. Sacrifice.
