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March 31 - April 13, 2017
You don’t wait to be told, you don’t waver from your goal. When it’s time to act, you act, instinctively and without hesitation.
To be the best, whether in sports or business or any other aspect of life, it’s never enough to just get to the top; you have to stay there, and then you have to climb higher, because there’s always someone right behind you trying to catch up. Most people are willing to settle for “good enough.” But if you want to be unstoppable, those words mean nothing to 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.
But if you don’t make a choice, the choice will be made for you.
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.
If you think old, you become old.
“In order to have what you really want, you must first be who you really are.”
That’s your name on the jersey. Remind them who you are. Go get what’s yours.
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.
A Cleaner’s attitude can be summed up in three words: I own this.
Cleaners are rule-breakers when they have to be; they only care about the end result.
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 while everyone
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Physical dominance can make you great. Mental dominance is what ultimately makes you unstoppable.
You will never have a more powerful training tool than this: get your mind strong, so your body can follow.
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.
Bottom line if you want success of any kind: you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
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.
A Cooler gets everyone cranked up and emotional before the game. A Closer gets himself cranked up and emotional before the game. A Cleaner never gets cranked up or emotional; he stays cool and calm and saves it all for game time.
Again: emotions make you weak. The fastest way to tumble out of the Zone is to allow emotions to drive your actions.
A Cleaner thinks, If I’m feeling nervous, how the fuck are they feeling? They have to deal with me.
A Cooler thinks about what he’s supposed to think about. A Closer thinks, analyzes, and eventually he acts. A Cleaner doesn’t think at all, he just knows.
When you become too focused on what’s going on around you, you lose touch with what’s going on deep inside you.
Like all Cleaners, he didn’t study the competition, he made the competition study him.
The greats never stop learning. Instinct and talent without technique just makes you reckless, like a teenager driving a powerful, high-performance vehicle. Instinct is raw clay that can be shaped into a masterpiece, if you develop skills that match your talent. That can only come from learning everything there is to know about what you do.
When you’re great, you trust your instincts. When you’re unstoppable, your instincts trust you.
A Cooler tries to fight his dark side and loses. A Closer acknowledges his dark side but isn’t able to control it. A Cleaner harnesses his dark side into raw, controlled power.
Because when you’re used to winning, you want to keep on winning at everything.
Staying safe means being limited, and you can’t be limited if you’re going to be relentless.
Cleaner Law: control your dark side, don’t let it control you.
A Cleaner doesn’t want to give up the thing you disapprove of. To him, it’s not a weakness, it’s his strength, his choice. Weakness would mean giving up what he craved because he was afraid of getting caught.
A Cooler is never in a situation where he has to be “clutch.” A Closer is “clutch” in high-pressure situations. A Cleaner is always “clutch.”
There is no clutch gene. There’s your predatory instinct that tells you to attack and finish the fight, and there’s the readiness to know how and when to do that. Preparation + opportunity. That’s it.
But being relentless means constantly working for that result, not just when drama is on the line. Clutch is about the last minute. Relentless is about every minute.
To a Cleaner, relaxing is something weaker people do because they can’t handle pressure.
A Cleaner controls the pressure he feels, and he never looks to anyone else to help him control it.
I tell my guys, “Pressure, pressure, pressure.” Most people run from stress. I run to it. 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.
But if you want to be successful, to have that place in the sun, then you have to leave the shade.
A Cooler waits for you to tell him the plan. A Closer works on the plan, studies it, memorizes it, and knows exactly what he has to do. A Cleaner doesn’t want a specific plan; he wants every possible option available to him at all times.
If you’re willing to listen to what I’m asking you, tell me what I need to know, and follow what I say, you’re going to have some improvement.
But there’s a difference between confidence and cockiness: confidence means recognizing something isn’t working and having the flexibility and knowledge to make adjustments; cockiness is the inability to admit when something isn’t working, and repeating the same mistakes over and over because you stubbornly can’t admit you’re wrong.
When what you’re doing isn’t working, find someone who can make it work. And then let him do it.
A Cooler takes no risks. A Closer takes risks when he can prepare in advance and knows the consequences of failing are minimal.
Nothing feels risky to a Cleaner; whatever happens, he’ll know what to do.
That’s the trademark of a dangerous competitor: he doesn’t have to know what’s coming because whatever you show him, he’s ready. No fear of failure.
You want to know a true sign of a Cleaner? He feels no pressure when he screws up and has no problem admitting when he’s wrong and shouldering the blame: When a Cooler makes a mistake, he’ll give you a lot of excuses but no solutions. When a Closer makes a mistake, he finds someone else to blame. When a Cleaner makes a mistake, he can look you in the eye and say, “I fucked up.”
Two things you can’t let anyone take from you: you can’t let them take away your reputation, and you can’t let them take away your balls. That means accepting the pressure of taking responsibility for everything you say and do.
A Cooler does a good job and waits for a pat on the back. A Closer does a good job and pats himself on the back. A Cleaner just does a good job, that’s his job.
