Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable (Tim Grover Winning Series)

by Tim S. Grover

You don’t have to love the hard work; you just have to crave the end result.

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.

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.

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.

Cleaners do the hardest things first, just to show there’s no task too big. They might not be happy about it, they don’t ever love it, but they’re always thinking about the destination, not the bumpy road that takes them there. They do whatever they have to because they know it’s necessary, and you usually don’t have to tell them twice. More likely, while everyone else is slumped over in complete exhaustion, they’ll want to do it all again, and then they’ll say the second time was the best.

Bottom line if you want success of any kind: you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Every time you think you can’t, you have to do it anyway. That last mile, the last set, the last five minutes on the clock. You have to play the last game of the season with the same intensity as you played the first. When your body is screaming and depleted and telling you, “No way, asshole,” you work harder and tell yourself, “Do it. Now.”

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.

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.

You can’t control or anticipate every obstacle that might block your path. You can only control your response, and your ability to navigate the unpredictable. Whatever happens, you have the smarts and skills to figure it out and arrive at the outcome you wanted in the first place. And when I say “figure it out,” I don’t mean thinking about it for a week and asking everyone you know what they think. I mean immediately, instinctively, hearing that voice inside saying, “This way!” And you go.

Create your own pressure to succeed, don’t allow others to create it for you. Have the confidence to trust that you can handle anything.

Have the confidence to say when you’ve screwed up, and people will respect you for it. If you did it, own it. If you said it, stand by it. Not just the mistakes, but all your decisions and choices. That’s your reputation. Make it count. If you want your opinions to have value, you have to be willing to put them out there and mean what you say. 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.

When you’re the guy at the top, it’s on you to pull everyone else up there with you, or everything you’ve built comes crashing down.

What the hell is “inner drive”? Inner drive is nothing more than thought without action, internal wanderings that never hit the pavement to go anywhere. Completely worthless until those thoughts become external and convert to action. What good is the drive on the inside? Where are the results? People who preach inner drive are dreamers with a lot of ideas and a lot of talk, and zero production. They tell you everything they’re going to do, and then they do nothing. That’s inner drive.

But my favorite: the timeless debate over whether some invisible glass is half-full or half-empty. This is a concept invented by someone suffering from the complete inability to make decisions. Half-full or half-empty? You have something in the glass or you don’t. If you like what’s there, add more. If you don’t, pour it out and start over. Otherwise, you’re just staring at this nonexistent glass thinking, “Damn, there’s no way to decide.” Bullshit. Of course there’s a way to decide, you just don’t want to commit to a decision. As soon as someone starts with the half-full/half-empty analysis, you know you’re in for a long debate about nothing, with someone who can’t or won’t make a choice. To me it’s the equivalent of a guy standing in the middle of a busy intersection crying, “I don’t know!” while everyone around him screams, “Get out of the street!”

Trust yourself. Decide. Every minute, every hour, every day that you sit around trying to figure out what to do, someone else is already doing it. While you’re trying to choose whether to go left or right, this way or that way, someone else is already there. While you’re paralyzed from overthinking and overanalyzing your next move, someone else went with his gut and beat you to it. Make a choice, or a choice will be made for you.

Good things come to those who wait. No, good things come to those who work. I understand the value of not rushing into things—you want to be quick, not careless—but you still have to work toward a result, not just sit back and wait for something to happen. You can’t wait. The decision you don’t make on Monday will still be waiting for you on Tuesday, and by then two new decisions will have to be dealt with, and if you still don’t make those decisions, you’ll have three more on Wednesday. Pretty soon, you’re so overwhelmed by everything you still haven’t dealt with that you become completely paralyzed and can’t do anything.

Meanwhile, as you sit back doing nothing because you’re afraid to make a mistake, someone else is out there making all kinds of mistakes, learning from them, and getting to where you wanted to be. And probably laughing at your weakness.

You can’t rely on others to jump up and make your dreams happen. They have their own dreams, they’re not worrying about yours. People might be willing to help if they can, but ultimately, it’s on you. Get the best people around you, know your strengths and weaknesses, and trust others to do what they do best. But in the end, it’s still your responsibility. Make a plan, and execute.

You must know someone like this: He can do everything. This week he’s a blogger and a songwriter and a motivator, last week he was teaching tennis two nights a week and working as a sushi chef. And on the weekends he’s rebuilding a 1955 Maserati. You listen to him and feel as if you’ve never done a thing in your life. Until you listen more closely and discover that like a lot of people, this is someone dabbling in a lot of things and succeeding at none. I listen to those people and think, “As far as I can tell, the only thing you’re good at is keeping busy.” I want to hear someone say, “I do this.” Ask Kobe what he does, and he says, “I give out numbers.” Numbers? “Yep, I gave them eighty-one, I gave them a triple double, I gave those guys sixty-one. . . .” People love to comment on how he doesn’t pass enough, but his job is to score points and give out those numbers, and that’s what he does.

After every game, I used to ask Michael one question: Five, six, or seven? As in, what time are we hitting the gym tomorrow morning? And he’d snap back a time, and that was it. Especially after a loss, when there wasn’t a whole lot else to say. No discussion, no debate, no lame attempt to convince me he needed the morning off. You good? I’m good. See you in the morning. And the next morning at whatever time he’d decided, he’d awaken to find me standing outside his door. No matter what had happened the night before—good game, bad game, soreness, fatigue—he was up working out every morning while most of the other guys slept. Interesting how the guy with the most talent and success spent more time working out than anyone else.

It all comes back to this, no matter what you do in life: Are you willing to make the decision to succeed? Are you going to stand by that decision or quit when it gets hard? Will you choose to keep working when everyone else tells you to quit? Pain comes in all sorts of disguises—physical, mental, emotional. Do you need to be pain-free? Or can you push past it and stand by your commitment and decision to go further? It’s your choice. The outcome is on you.

It doesn’t matter what you get handed, it’s what you do after you receive it that affords you the privilege of saying, “I did this on my own.” If you get that gift and decide you’re all set, you stand no chance—zero—of ever understanding greatness or excellence. Now you’re the opposite of unstoppable. You stopped all on your own.

You cannot understand what it means to be relentless until you have struggled to possess something that’s just out of your reach. Over and over, as soon as you touch it, it moves farther away. But something inside you—that killer instinct—makes you keep going, reaching, until you finally grab it and fight with all your might to keep holding on. Anyone can take what’s sitting right in front of him. Only when you’re truly relentless can you understand the determination to keep pursuing a target that never stops moving.

No question, those who are gifted get to the top faster than anyone else. So what? Is that your excuse for not reaching as high? The challenge is staying there, and most people don’t have the balls to put in the work. If you want to be elite, you have to earn it. Every day, everything you do. Earn it. Prove it. Sacrifice.

People who start at the top never understand what they missed at the bottom. The guy who started by sorting the mail, or cleaning the restaurant late at night, or fixing the equipment at the gym, that’s the guy who knows how things get done. After he’s eventually worked his way up through the ranks, he knows how everything works, why it works, what to do when it stops working. That’s the guy who will have longevity and value and impact, because he knows what it took to get to the top. You can’t claim you ran a marathon if you started at the seventeenth mile.

Anyone can start something. Few can finish. Priorities change if you don’t constantly protect and defend them. You stop caring about keeping up with the competition, unless you mean the competition to have more stuff than the next guy, and instead of being addicted to building your career and your legacy, you become addicted to building bigger houses and more garages and adding more names to the party list. And pretty soon, you’re just part of a long list of nobodies with declining talent who bumbled themselves out of a job. Part of the commitment to hard work is knowing what you have to give up to do the work . . . learning to control whatever pulls you away from your mission. You start having a little success, people notice you, it feels good . . . and maybe you start feeling a little satisfied and privileged. Trust me: privilege is a poison unless you know how to manage it.

Cleaner Law: When you’re going through a world of pain, you never hide. You show up to work ready to go, you face adversity and your critics and those who judge you, you step into the Zone and perform at that top level when everyone is expecting you to falter. That’s being a professional.

Do the work. There is no privilege greater than the pressure to excel, and no greater reward than earning the respect and fear of others who can only stand in awe of your results.

Fear and respect: let them know you were there by your actions, not your words or emotions. You don’t have to be loud to be the focus of attention. Think of the Godfather, world-class Cleaner and the quietest guy in the room, surrounded by everyone else waiting to see what he would do or say, and he never had to say a word to get his message across.

The loudest guy in the room is the one with the most to prove, and no way to prove it. A Cleaner has no need to announce his presence; you’ll know he’s there by the way he carries himself, always cool and confident. He’s never the blowhard telling you how great he is; he’s the quiet guy focused on results, because results are all that matter. A thief doesn’t walk into a crowded store screaming, “I’m stealing!” He comes in quietly, subtly executing his plan before anyone notices. And he’s long gone by the time you notice your watch is missing.

You can’t get to the top without stepping on some people, but a Cleaner knows where to step without leaving footprints, because you never know when you may need those people again. Being feared doesn’t mean being a jerk. I want you to carry yourself so you can be respected, not exposed as an insecure jackass who big-times others so he can feel better about himself.

Cleaner Law: surround yourself with those who want you to succeed, who recognize what it takes to be successful. People who don’t pursue their own dreams probably won’t encourage you to pursue yours; they’ll tell you every negative thing they tell themselves.

Failure is what happens when you decide you failed. Until then, you’re still always looking for ways to get to where you want to be.

When someone else says you’ve failed, what they really mean is “If that were me, I would feel like a failure.” Well, that guy’s not you, and he’s obviously not a Cleaner, because Cleaners don’t recognize failure.

You learn, and you adapt. When everyone else is talking about how you “failed,” you show up like a professional, remap your course, and get back to work. That’s the progression of good-great-unstoppable. No one starts at unstoppable. You fuck up, you figure it out, you trust yourself.

A Cleaner never sees failure because to him it’s never over. If something doesn’t go as planned, he instinctively looks for options to make things work a different way. He doesn’t feel embarrassed or ashamed, he doesn’t blame anyone else, and he doesn’t care what anyone else says about his situation. It’s never the end, it’s never over.

You take what everyone else sees as a negative and turn it to your advantage. You don’t sulk, you don’t curl up and die, you glare at it and think, if it’s not going to happen this way, it’s sure as hell going to happen that way. And you tell anyone who doubts you, “I got this.” Just don’t expect everyone else to understand or agree with your new plan. Most people are either content to stay with the safe thing, or they’re too scared to leave a bad thing, and they’ll put all that fear and doubt on you. They anticipate failure; you anticipate opportunity.

A Cleaner knows when to walk away, and which direction to walk. Never running, always walking; he leaves smoothly and on his own terms. He can lose a battle because he’s still planning to win the war. Lose a game, but win the season. Lose a season, come back and win the next three. Lose a job, start a new business. No one else is getting the last word on whether he succeeded.

There’s always more work to do. And more to prove. Always more to prove. Let everyone else celebrate. You’re still not satisfied. If you won in six, you’re disappointed you didn’t win in five. If you benched 195, why not 200? If you made a deal for a million dollars, you’ll keep wondering if you could have done it for $1.2 million. Never satisfied.

If you want to find the Cleaner at a victory party, look for the guy standing off to the side by himself, watching everyone else. He’s happy for them because they can go home feeling that their work is complete. But his is always just beginning. He’s already thinking about the next move, the next risk, the next kill.

Winning is an addiction. The great Vince Lombardi once said, “Winning is a habit,” which is also true, but I think it’s a habit that inevitably becomes the addiction. You can’t understand it until you taste it, and then you can spend a lifetime craving more. You feel it in your gut, in the dull ache of your dark side begging for it. When you’re alone in the Zone, you know nothing except the unwavering hunger for success. Every choice you make, every sacrifice, every moment you spent alone preparing and learning and dreaming . . . it’s all to feed that addiction.

Every dream you imagine, everything you see and hear and feel in your sleep, that’s not a fantasy, that’s your deep instinct telling you it can all be real. Follow those visions and dreams and desires, and believe what you know. Only you can turn those dreams into reality. Never stop until you do.

The greatest battles you will ever fight are with yourself, and you must always be your toughest opponent. Always demand more of yourself than others demand of you. Be honest with yourself, and you’ll be able to meet every challenge with confidence and the deep belief that you are prepared for anything. Life can be complicated; the truth is not. I truly believe I have zero limitations. You should believe the same about yourself. Listen to your instincts. They’re telling you the truth.