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Don’t think. You already know what you have to do, and you know how to do it. What’s stopping you?
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.
Decide. Commit. Act. Succeed. Repeat.
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.
“Forget about trying, because if you’re just trying, then losing is still an option.
Being relentless means never being satisfied. It means creating new goals every time you reach your personal best.
Cleaners have a dark side, and a zone you can’t enter. They get what they want, but they pay for it in solitude. Excellence is lonely.
Most people are afraid to climb that high, because if they fail, the fall will kill them. Cleaners are willing to die trying.
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 while everyone else is still asking questions. #1. You don’t have to love the work, but you’re addicted to the results. #1. You’d rather be feared than liked. #1. You trust very few people, and those you trust better never let you down. #1. You don’t recognize failure; you know there’s more than one
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You can’t commit to excellence until your mind is ready to take you there. Teach the mind to train the body.
if you have to ask whether you can handle it, you can’t.
Do. The. Work. Every day, you have to do something you don’t want to do.
Challenge yourself to be uncomfortable, push past the apathy and laziness and fear.
here’s the truth: no trainer or coach or expert can make you good or great or unstoppable if you’re not going to do the work, if you’re waiting for someone to make it happen for you. It’s on you.
Bottom line if you want success of any kind: you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
If you do what you always do, over and over, you’re always going to get the same result. My goal is to make it so challenging in the gym that everything that happens outside the gym seems easy.
Do the work before you need it, so you know what you’re capable of doing
A Cleaner operates out of pure desire for that result because he knows he must execute or fail. There is no other way.
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 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.
Again: emotions make you weak.
The fastest way to tumble out of the Zone is to allow emotions to...
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The only exception to the emotions rule is anger: controlled anger is a deadly weapon, in the right hands.
Emotions pull your focus and reveal that you’ve lost control,
Even Michael used to say he had butterflies before a big game. “Get ’em all going in the same direction,” I’d tell him. They’re not going away, but now you’re controlling how you feel about them, instead of allowing them to make you feel nervous. Energy instead of emotion. Big difference.
A Cleaner thinks, If I’m feeling nervous, how the fuck are they feeling? They have to deal with me.
I want you in a routine, and I don’t want that routine to vary, whether it’s a meaningless preseason exhibition or the championship game of the Finals. Do what you do every day, so you never ha...
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the minute you start telling yourself and everyone else, “Whoa, big game tomorrow, don’t mess with me,” you’ve become emotional. That’s the worst thing you can do.
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.
in the part of you that you don’t show anyone else, the part that refuses to be taught, refuses to conform and behave. That’s the dark side of your instinct. You cannot be great without it.
When you become too focused on what’s going on around you, you lose touch with what’s going on deep inside you.
Lots of people start things; few are able to finish. Why? They don’t trust themselves to get to the end. They start thinking about everything that could go wrong, second-guessing their choices, listening to others instead of listening to themselves. Anyone can have a great idea . . . it’s what you do with the thought that defines you.
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.
Deep inside you, there’s an undeniable force driving your actions, the part of you that refuses to be ordinary, the piece that stays raw and untamed.
Jekyll. I know conventional wisdom gives you every reason to stay out of trouble, resist temptation, and live a clean and virtuous life. But being conventional is for those content to be ordinary,
The dark side is your fuel, your energy. It excites you, keeps you on the edge, recharges you, fills your tank. It’s your one escape, the only thing that takes your mind somewhere else and allows you to blow off steam for a brief time.
The ability to show up at the gym every day and do what no one else is willing to do, that comes from the dark side. The drive to get to the top and stay up there, year after year? Dark side.
At some point in his life, something challenged him and made him survive, and the result was his total confidence that whatever happened to him, his instincts would cover his ass and he’d be okay. And somehow he always is.
But the bottom line is that he doesn’t give a damn what you think about him or his dark side or anything else, because the only pressure he feels is whatever he puts on himself, and as you’ll see, he can’t ever get enough of it.
Clutch is about the last minute. Relentless is about every minute.
Never, ever, do you go through a day thinking, “That was relaxing.” To a Cleaner, relaxing is something weaker people do because they can’t handle pressure.
A Cleaner doesn’t respond to external pressure, he puts the pressure back on the guy trying to get under his skin by refusing to acknowledge him. Remember, you don’t compete with anyone, you make them compete with you.
Not everyone gets the opportunity to be stressed by the potential to achieve exceptional things. But you have to keep that pressure turned up all the time, not just when you need to take it up a notch.
Cleaners never feel external pressure; they only believe what’s inside them. You can criticize, analyze, demonize a Cleaner, but he’s still only going to feel pressure from within.
He knows what he’s doing right, and what he’s doing wrong. He does not care what you think.
Wounds heal, scars don’t; those are your combat medals.
“Go get some on ya.” Go get dirty.
