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

by Tim S. Grover

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.

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.

Believe this: Everything you need to be great is already inside you. All your ambitions and secrets, your darkest dreams . . . they’re waiting for you to just let go. What’s stopping you? Most people give up because everyone has told them what they can’t do, and it’s easier to stay safe in the comfort zone. So they sit on the fence, unable to decide, unable to act. But if you don’t make a choice, the choice will be made for you.

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.

don’t care how good you think you are, or how great others think you are—you can improve, and you will. 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.

You don’t tell anyone how you’re going to handle the situation, you just handle it. Everyone else is panicking and choking, and you say, ‘No problem.’ You step on the other guy’s throat, and you finish the fight.

“In order to have what you really want, you must first be who you really are.”

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. They never stop working, physically or mentally, because it gives them too much time to think about what they’ve had to endure and sacrifice to get to the top. Most people are afraid to climb that high, because if they fail, the fall will kill them. Cleaners are willing to die trying. They don’t worry about hitting the ceiling or the floor. There is no ceiling. There’s no floor either.

here’s the most important thing about a Cleaner, the one thing that defines and separates him from any other competitor: He’s addicted to the exquisite rush of success. His lust for it is so powerful, the craving is so intense, that he’ll alter his entire life to get it. And it’s still never enough. As soon as he feels it, tastes it, holds it . . . the moment is over and he craves more.

Physical dominance can make you great. Mental dominance is what ultimately makes you unstoppable.

to know what you have to do for yourself. 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.”

Don’t tell me about a workout that’s “easy” and done in the “comfort of your home.” Any workouts involving the words easy and comfort aren’t workouts. They’re insults. You can work out at home, but if whatever you’re doing makes you feel “comfort,” something is very wrong.

I know it’s not easy, but you can’t stay in your comfort zone and expect results. Challenge yourself.

if you’re in an office and you see the boss becoming unhinged, what does that say to everyone else? Cleaners show emotion if it’s the only way to get everyone else where they need to be. But never because the Cleaner has lost control of his feelings.

as Kobe says, you know you’re in the Zone but you can’t think about it, because thinking is a distraction.