Speaker 1: Today. It's great to have Tim Grover on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Tim is the CEO of Attack Athletics, Inc. Which he
Speaker 1: founded in nineteen eighty nine, and author of the international
Speaker 1: bestseller Relentless From Good to Great to Unstoppable. World renowned
Speaker 1: for his work with Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Reid,
Speaker 1: and thousands of athletes and business professionals, he appears around
Speaker 1: the world as a keynote speaker and consultant to business leaders, athletes,
Speaker 1: and elite achievers in every field. His latest book is
Speaker 1: called Winning, The Unforgivable Race to Greatness. Tim, thanks for
Speaker 1: being on the Psychology Podcast today. This is an honor.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. When I wrote this book Winning,
Speaker 1: I was like okay, and I was I don't know
Speaker 1: if the publicist or the book published or reached out
Speaker 1: to you guys, or you reached out to them. And
Speaker 1: I was like, seriously, they want, they want they want
Speaker 1: to talk to me about this. Of course, I was like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: the mind game, you know it's all about uh you know,
Speaker 1: what would you say is like in the percentages and
Speaker 1: all the work you've done that and I know there's
Speaker 1: the physical game, but early in your career, did you
Speaker 1: really try to get into the mind of the competitors,
Speaker 1: do you're you know? Yes, you know. And one thing
Speaker 1: when I said, you know, Michael Jordan was my first client,
Speaker 1: first professional client, i should say, and you know, he
Speaker 1: would always say how important the minds, that the mind was.
Speaker 1: So the part of our training was always to not
Speaker 1: only train the physical, but once I got to know
Speaker 1: him better and knew what how to get him to
Speaker 1: do certain things, and how what his thought process was
Speaker 1: and how he felt about winning and working and doing
Speaker 1: all these things, and we incorporated a lot of that
Speaker 1: stuff into into his into his training. I love that. Well,
Speaker 1: let's start. Let's start with your with your childhood. Get
Speaker 1: we're jumping the gun a little bit here. I want
Speaker 1: I want you to tell me a little about your
Speaker 1: upbringing because from what I've read, you said you came
Speaker 1: to this country with your parents and you witnessed the
Speaker 1: sacrifice and the determination that they invested in your family.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that. Where did
Speaker 1: you come from? And tell me a little about your parents,
Speaker 1: especially your father. Seems like a really interesting cat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, both both my parents, both my parents
Speaker 1: are from India, so what happened was I have an
Speaker 1: older brother. He was born in India, and then we
Speaker 1: all packed up and moved to the UK, and I
Speaker 1: was born in the UK, and then when I was four.
Speaker 1: My mom actually left when I was about i'd say
Speaker 1: about two or three, about three years old. She came
Speaker 1: down to the States because she was a nurse practitioner
Speaker 1: and there was a high demand for nurses in the
Speaker 1: in the States, so she was able to establish herself here.
Speaker 1: So basically, my dad raised my brother and I for
Speaker 1: almost two years, and though when she was established, he
Speaker 1: brought we came over with him. And the interesting part
Speaker 1: about that whole story was, I remember my dad, we
Speaker 1: got in a cab, we landed, We landed at O'Hare,
Speaker 1: and I remember getting in a cab headed to the
Speaker 1: address my mom gave and my and you know, with
Speaker 1: some pretty big suitcases because we kind of came. We
Speaker 1: came with everything, and my dad telling the cab driver
Speaker 1: to stop and we weren't in the like, okay, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm four, I don't know what's going I don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on. And he told the cab driver to
Speaker 1: stop and let us out right here. And we were
Speaker 1: still a good three miles from our destination. And my
Speaker 1: dad just made a game out of it. And you know,
Speaker 1: he's my dad was a slight individual, not not very
Speaker 1: not very heavy, not very tall, and back then, remember
Speaker 1: the luggage didn't have wheels. So he kind of made
Speaker 1: a game out of it, saying that, hey, listen, you know,
Speaker 1: I want you guys to see what America is about
Speaker 1: and see what this great city is, and kind of
Speaker 1: made it like a tourist thing. And you know, we'd
Speaker 1: moved the suitcases a little bit and then stop as
Speaker 1: we got tired of those suitcases, as as we got tired,
Speaker 1: and come to find out the reason he told the
Speaker 1: cab driver to stop because that was all the money
Speaker 1: he had in his pocket. He didn't he didn't have
Speaker 1: He didn't have any more money for the cab driver
Speaker 1: to go to go any farther. And he told you
Speaker 1: this later on in life. Yeah, he told me this later,
Speaker 1: told me this later on, and I just you know,
Speaker 1: I said, Dad, I got to ask you. So he goes,
Speaker 1: he goes, let me tell you what happened. He goes, Listen,
Speaker 1: this is exactly what happened. Was I had I had
Speaker 1: no I had no more money, and my dad is
Speaker 1: a was a reaccomplished professor of medicine in back in India.
Speaker 1: But his education, they said, did not transfer to the
Speaker 1: teachings in the States. So he said, okay, so he
Speaker 1: goes what kind of job can you what kind of
Speaker 1: job can I get? And he ended up getting a
Speaker 1: job at the University at Northwestern what they called it
Speaker 1: was called a degreaser. That was the that was the
Speaker 1: title and a degreaser's job description. His after you have
Speaker 1: anatomy classes, you know, you have to you have to
Speaker 1: dispose of the cadavers. And you know we're talking we're
Speaker 1: talking back in the late sixties, early or late late sixties.
Speaker 1: So his job was and then for people that don't
Speaker 1: know the menace and the aspect of it, the cadavers
Speaker 1: are extremely heavy because you know, with their fluids in
Speaker 1: them and all the femalbehyde and all the other stuff
Speaker 1: that they use, the chemicals they used to back then.
Speaker 1: So when you have to dispose them, you just can't
Speaker 1: put them in a garbage You have to literally considerate them.
Speaker 1: So his job was to dismantle the cadavers and throw
Speaker 1: them into the and throw them into the furnace and
Speaker 1: keep off the furnace. Now, the interesting part about that
Speaker 1: whole story is we couldn't afford babysitters, and my mom
Speaker 1: worked that night. My dad worked at the daytime. So
Speaker 1: when we were all from school, you know, obviously regulations
Speaker 1: weren't like they were now. My dad would take us,
Speaker 1: my brother and I, he would take us to work
Speaker 1: with him, and so I got to visually see what
Speaker 1: he was doing, and he said, no matter what happens,
Speaker 1: you have to be able to provide for your family.
Speaker 1: It was this is not the ideal situation for me,
Speaker 1: but this is what I need to do to provide
Speaker 1: with my family. And there's certain things, no matter how
Speaker 1: young you are, that just stick with you. You know, people,
Speaker 1: you may not have other memories, and you'll know more
Speaker 1: about this than I will. You know, I don't know
Speaker 1: how that all works, but you you may not have
Speaker 1: other memories of what happened when you were younger, but
Speaker 1: there's certain moments that you just you just don't forget. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're called mnemonic memories, okay, mn E m O And
Speaker 1: I see. Yeah, so sounds that you have quite a
Speaker 1: bit of these memonic memories, and they really shaped your
Speaker 1: values and your whole your whole system even put into
Speaker 1: place eventually with your your your business. Yeah, well exactly.
Speaker 1: I always said, there's watching my parents do what they do,
Speaker 1: how they made time for us, how they sacrificed, how
Speaker 1: hard they how hard they worked. You know, we didn't
Speaker 1: have we didn't have everything, but we had everything we
Speaker 1: needed and it just kind of that's that's stuck with
Speaker 1: That stuck with me. You know, people talk about seeing
Speaker 1: their parents go from from nothing to actually making something.
Speaker 1: I had two parents that did that. That changed the
Speaker 1: system of how the culture was, you know, to for
Speaker 1: my dad to be the first individual to say, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm not staying in India, you know, to tell his
Speaker 1: mom I'm leaving and be the first one. People always
Speaker 1: call me a rebel for for what I did. Well,
Speaker 1: I always tell my dad, well, look where I learned
Speaker 1: it from. I watched you do it. I may ask
Speaker 1: is he still alive? He is not, he passed. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be it's going on three years now. Yeah, my condolences,
Speaker 1: thank you. Yeah, is your mom still alive? Yes? My
Speaker 1: mom is still alive. Yes, And I mean she must
Speaker 1: be so proud of what you've become and I mean,
Speaker 1: did she get like tickets to the Bulls games? You know.
Speaker 1: So here's the crazy part about that about that story.
Speaker 1: So coming back coming from the Indian culture, you have
Speaker 1: two career choices back then, doctor being one and a
Speaker 1: doctor being number two. You know, later on they was like, okay,
Speaker 1: if you want to be a lawyer, you can be
Speaker 1: a lawyer. Then they then they opened up more to
Speaker 1: engineering and you know, different things. But back then that
Speaker 1: that that was. That was it. So when I went
Speaker 1: to college, like any other college individual, I kind of
Speaker 1: had an idea what I wanted to do. And my
Speaker 1: parents always said, you know, he's he's going to medical school.
Speaker 1: I told my dad, I said, I don't want to
Speaker 1: go to medical school. He goes, well, what do you
Speaker 1: want to do? I said, I want to train professional athletes?
Speaker 1: And he was like, what is that? He goes where
Speaker 1: we go? I don't even know what. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what that means because obvious time in those years,
Speaker 1: training was not it hadn't involved like it has now
Speaker 1: where you have a bunch of you have a lot
Speaker 1: of professional athletes that have their own trainers and do
Speaker 1: you know, have their own consultants. And so forth. So
Speaker 1: this was ground This was groundbreaking for me. And he goes,
Speaker 1: I'll let you pursue that, but you have to do
Speaker 1: one thing for me. I said, what's that. He goes,
Speaker 1: you must take the interest exam for medical school. I said,
Speaker 1: no problem, I said, I will take that. So this
Speaker 1: is how key my dad, my dad was when I
Speaker 1: first took the exam, I totally bombed it on purpose,
Speaker 1: on purpose, and and I got the scores I showed
Speaker 1: my dad. My dad goes, yeah, nice try. He goes,
Speaker 1: I've already signed you up for the next test. He goes,
Speaker 1: I knew you were going to I knew you were
Speaker 1: going to do this. And then I scored fairly high
Speaker 1: on the next one. I did get accepted into different,
Speaker 1: uh different schools, but I still chose not not to go.
Speaker 1: I still chose not to go in even you know,
Speaker 1: you said, my mom and dads they're proud, but they
Speaker 1: were so accustomed to you. You go to work, you
Speaker 1: have paid vacation, you have insurance, you have a four
Speaker 1: to oh one k. So for them, that's that's that
Speaker 1: was success for them in their mind, to know you
Speaker 1: have something steady, you have income coming in that's how
Speaker 1: you take care of your family. With me, it's I
Speaker 1: don't even know where the next check is coming in,
Speaker 1: and I like it that way. That's what my that's
Speaker 1: what my win is, That's what my chase is, to
Speaker 1: constantly figure out what's next? Where can I where? What
Speaker 1: other arenas can I win? In Sure, you said in
Speaker 1: your book that you were the fat kid when you
Speaker 1: were young, and can you tell me what what changed
Speaker 1: from being the fat kid? Like how did you work
Speaker 1: from that into a pretty good basketball player until you
Speaker 1: had an injury. I know that you had an injury
Speaker 1: that kind of put a stop to it, But but
Speaker 1: what happened in between those two things? Well, so if
Speaker 1: you've if you've been involved with an Indian family, they
Speaker 1: love to eat. And when you go to another Indian family,
Speaker 1: they make sure you eat. So if you visit two
Speaker 1: or three Indian families over a weekend, every you have
Speaker 1: to eat in every single place. Otherwise it's it's disrespectful.
Speaker 1: And being an Indian back then, food wasn't as plentiful,
Speaker 1: so it was something that my parents wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure we had enough of. And and I ate I definitely,
Speaker 1: I definitely ate the transition came when I went to
Speaker 1: high school. So when I started it, when I started,
Speaker 1: and when I started in high school, my transition for
Speaker 1: the high school that I wanted to go to, the
Speaker 1: commute was over an hour away, and that it wasn't
Speaker 1: a drive. That was taking two buses, taking a bus,
Speaker 1: taking a train, taking another train, and then taking another bus,
Speaker 1: another bus to school. So going to school, making the basketball,
Speaker 1: making the basketball team, having to do my studies come
Speaker 1: back on public transportation again kind of limited the amount
Speaker 1: of free time I had and the amount of food
Speaker 1: that was a food that was available to me. Because
Speaker 1: your grades could not slip, your grades, your grades could
Speaker 1: not could not slip. And I really enjoyed playing basketball,
Speaker 1: so I got into this. I always kind of worked out,
Speaker 1: but I got into this nice workout. I got into
Speaker 1: this nice workout regiment. And in order to be able
Speaker 1: to be a player on the team and not just
Speaker 1: sit down, I had to I had to drop I
Speaker 1: just ended up dropping weight. And I had one of
Speaker 1: those coaches. Oh I never fore he ran us? Boy
Speaker 1: did he run us? You have a You have to
Speaker 1: work out so much, you just you're too tired. But
Speaker 1: you just forget me. Just like I don't even want
Speaker 1: to lift anything in my line. I don't. That was
Speaker 1: that was his philosophy. What position did you play well?
Speaker 1: I played point guard. I used to I used to
Speaker 1: be six feet but through some injuries, now I'm probably
Speaker 1: close on them. I say five to eleven. Now I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you something I don't tell many people
Speaker 1: on this podcast, but I think you'll get a kick
Speaker 1: out of it. So I grew up with Kobe Bryant
Speaker 1: and was on the basketball team with I was the
Speaker 1: center in middle school at Balikinwood Middle School, and I
Speaker 1: didn't I've never grown beyond I thought. I thought I
Speaker 1: was gonna be NBA. I thought like all this stuff,
Speaker 1: you know. I I never grew ever again. And then
Speaker 1: I eventually got cut from the freshman team in high school.
Speaker 1: Even though Kobe actually was kind enough, he was the
Speaker 1: he he signed, you know, to let me try out
Speaker 1: for the team, and he encouraged me. I didn't get accepted.
Speaker 1: So I changed into a whole different realm of being
Speaker 1: a nerd. But I think you get I thought you'd
Speaker 1: get a kick out of that story. That that is awesome,
Speaker 1: that is so funny. Yeah, we had I didn't even
Speaker 1: know we had that in common. Yeah, yeah, now now
Speaker 1: you know, Bryan, But I got to see him play
Speaker 1: quite a bit exactly exactly. And you, well, you you
Speaker 1: contributed to his success even yes, I was fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to be able to do that. But I always say,
Speaker 1: and you know, like from a psychology standpoint, the greater
Speaker 1: the athlete is, or the greater the individualist, the greater
Speaker 1: the more successful the CEOs, the more successful the teacher is,
Speaker 1: the more coachable they are, the more they're willing to learn,
Speaker 1: the more they're willing to explore things because they know
Speaker 1: that that chase to win over and over again requires
Speaker 1: you to be different, requires you to have more knowledge,
Speaker 1: more ability, the ability not only to think for yourself,
Speaker 1: but to understand what others others are telling you. And
Speaker 1: the top of the top individuals I've worked with athletic
Speaker 1: and business wise, they are the most coachable people out there.
Speaker 1: They understand what works for them, what doesn't work for them.
Speaker 1: They know exactly what they need, they don't know what
Speaker 1: they need. It's the middle of the road individuals that
Speaker 1: are constantly want to have discussions with you and want
Speaker 1: to do things only their way. Such a good point.
Speaker 1: I've noticed that too, just in my own coaching of
Speaker 1: personal coaching. But yeah, I ge you go. You look
Speaker 1: at the very few teams, professional teams, corporations have trouble
Speaker 1: with the high high achievers. They don't. It's always the
Speaker 1: ones in the middle or the ones in the lower
Speaker 1: that end up causing more distractions than any than anybody else.
Speaker 1: So you like to you like to work with people
Speaker 1: who are already at the top, Like, I feel like
Speaker 1: that's your preference, Is that right? I enjoy I enjoy
Speaker 1: that because the challenge for me, the win for me,
Speaker 1: is to take somebody who's already so elite at what
Speaker 1: they do and increase that ability. You know, you can
Speaker 1: take it. You can take an athlete, you can take
Speaker 1: a business and if they're in mediocrity or average, you
Speaker 1: can show pretty good gains in that. But to take
Speaker 1: an individual who's already or company or CEO that's so
Speaker 1: elite at what they do and just to be able
Speaker 1: to show that not even one percent, it's that point
Speaker 1: all one percent gain in their abilities in their thought process,
Speaker 1: the way they achieve things. That's the constant cha, that's
Speaker 1: the conscience challenge for me because I really enjoy the details.
Speaker 1: And you know, the most successful people you that you
Speaker 1: deal with, you hear this adage where he says, don't
Speaker 1: sweat the small stuff. They sweat everything because the one
Speaker 1: detail that's not important. Now you say, oh it's not important,
Speaker 1: maybe the most important to them. Yeah. Uh Well, there's
Speaker 1: a sort of there's sort of like a winning mentality.
Speaker 1: And you know, do you ever find there are some
Speaker 1: people with a victimhood mentality that holds them back from
Speaker 1: reaching higher levels of greatness? Like have you or worked
Speaker 1: with someone or seen someone who like everything is like
Speaker 1: a like every little setback is like a big you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're a huge victim of some big, large thing.
Speaker 1: And then and you see that holding them back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then I usually tell them it's the you have
Speaker 1: two choices during that during that thing, you can either
Speaker 1: be have the victim mentality or you can have the
Speaker 1: victory mentality. No victory, I get it, Just which one?
Speaker 1: Which one you want? Which one you want to choose?
Speaker 1: The victim one is it's easy because it's easy to
Speaker 1: blame circumstances issues or you know, I wasn't. I didn't
Speaker 1: have this when I was growing up. I wasn't able.
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to do this. I wasn't able to
Speaker 1: do that because there's more people aligned with that information
Speaker 1: more because there's more there's more support in the in
Speaker 1: the in the in the victim category. Because most people
Speaker 1: will tell you it's okay, you'll get another chance, you'll
Speaker 1: get so forth. What I always tell my athletes is,
Speaker 1: if somebody tells you it's going to be okay, are
Speaker 1: you just settling for okay? Because that's what the victim
Speaker 1: mentality will sell for. They'll settle for okay. The highest achievers,
Speaker 1: they don't want anything to be okay. They don't want
Speaker 1: anything to be fine. They're only accepting great, unstoppable, the
Speaker 1: winning mentality, the winning mentality, and that's how they keep
Speaker 1: thinking and processing information. So they never understand the victim
Speaker 1: of the victim's mentality, victims mentality because they don't want
Speaker 1: to be They don't want to be in the middle.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of comfort from others and from yourself
Speaker 1: when that comes with the thinking or acting like you
Speaker 1: are the victim. You're always looking for somebody else to
Speaker 1: help you. You're always looking for somebody to pull you along,
Speaker 1: looking for somebody else to do the work for you,
Speaker 1: and to the point it's even like somebody to do
Speaker 1: the actual thinking for you. M yeah, I definitely as
Speaker 1: we go along today, I would definitely unpack more of
Speaker 1: the victory mentality because I think that could even be
Speaker 1: like the title of this podcast episode. I always think
Speaker 1: in terms of like that's a I got a title
Speaker 1: for this one. I think it's that would be a
Speaker 1: good title. So are you an oly child? By the way, No,
Speaker 1: I have an older brother, older brother. I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: is he in his sports at all? No, Well, he's
Speaker 1: into sports, he's into watching he's into watching sports. But
Speaker 1: he chose to say fraud. He's he's had he's worked
Speaker 1: for the federal government for I don't know how many
Speaker 1: years he's I've lost coum. So he has a stable job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: paycheck every two the paycheck every two weeks. Well, he's
Speaker 1: got the pay vacation, he's got the sick time, he's
Speaker 1: got the four to one K, he's got the retirement plan.
Speaker 1: Isn't He's the opposite of you? One hundred percent, complete,
Speaker 1: complete opposite. That's amazing. Well, you two weren't identical twins,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Okay, So I want to This is
Speaker 1: what I want to know is around nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: before we get to your work with Michael Jordan and
Speaker 1: then that whole career. What I want to understand is
Speaker 1: your vision as a young man of helping professional athletes.
Speaker 1: Tell me about this vision you had and how did
Speaker 1: you get this vision? I mean, like, talk me through
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, talk me through nineteen eighty seven. I
Speaker 1: want to know, like the do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: Talk me through the years right before you know the
Speaker 1: Pistons in eighty nine inspired you. Yeah, so I fished.
Speaker 1: You know, I finished my education is I have a
Speaker 1: master's degree in exercise science, so a bachelor's degree in kinesiology,
Speaker 1: which is all related to exercise and working out in
Speaker 1: body movements and so forth. I had. I knew on
Speaker 1: my education taught me what to think. This was the book,
Speaker 1: this is what you do here it is and this
Speaker 1: is this is how you go along. But I had
Speaker 1: no experience. I really I didn't have an experience. So
Speaker 1: what I did was, once you finished school, there's no
Speaker 1: way my dad's gonna let me just sit around the house.
Speaker 1: You got you got, you gotta do something. You gotta
Speaker 1: find a job. You gotta find a job. So I
Speaker 1: took a job, and I didn't want The university actually
Speaker 1: offered me a position, you know, nice pay and everything,
Speaker 1: but I was like, this is not what I want,
Speaker 1: This is not what I want to do. So I
Speaker 1: passed on that and I took a job at a
Speaker 1: local health club. The minimum wage there back then was
Speaker 1: three dollars and thirty five cents. Three dollars in thirty
Speaker 1: five with a master's degree. Wow. So I took the
Speaker 1: job because I knew what to think because my school
Speaker 1: told me what to think, I didn't know how to think.
Speaker 1: So what I meant by what I mean by that,
Speaker 1: and we talk about this and winning quite a bit,
Speaker 1: is I knew everything from a science standpoint of what athletes,
Speaker 1: how they should move, what they should do, but I
Speaker 1: didn't know how to implement my own stuff into it,
Speaker 1: my own thoughts, my own my own ideas. So that
Speaker 1: was one of the reasons I took that job in
Speaker 1: a in a health club so I could become Even
Speaker 1: though I had the education, I still had to pass
Speaker 1: the test and wait my turn to become a trainer there.
Speaker 1: That when I became a trainer. There, I started to
Speaker 1: work with individuals and I really started to get the
Speaker 1: really get results and started to do things that weren't
Speaker 1: that other individuals hadn't hadn't seen, or they were accustomed to.
Speaker 1: And then from there I made a transit, you know,
Speaker 1: I started working Most of the individuals I started training
Speaker 1: were men. That I ended up working with a woman
Speaker 1: who had just uh, who had just had a baby.
Speaker 1: I ended up getting her in great shape, so that
Speaker 1: I became the post you know, I became the post
Speaker 1: nail guy. Hey, this is the person you need to hire.
Speaker 1: So each transition allowed me to give me the ability
Speaker 1: of how to think and do things differently. And then
Speaker 1: I saw this article in the paper where how Michael
Speaker 1: was tired of taking the physical abuse from the Detroit Pistons.
Speaker 1: So I was like, oh, you know what, I'm sure
Speaker 1: they'll find some as you know, there's an opening here.
Speaker 1: So what I did was I wrote fourteen letters. There's
Speaker 1: fifteen there's fifteen players on a basketball team, twelve active.
Speaker 1: Three they used to they used to be on the
Speaker 1: on the injured list. And I wrote fourteen letters. Back then,
Speaker 1: I remember no emails, no cell phones, none of that
Speaker 1: none of that stuff, no social media, and I sent
Speaker 1: the letters, put them in the mailbox. The only person
Speaker 1: I didn't write a letter to was Michael Jordan because
Speaker 1: I was just like, he's so talented, he's so good.
Speaker 1: Why does he Why is he going to work out
Speaker 1: with somebody that's never worked out with a professional athlete.
Speaker 1: He found this letter in somebody else's locker, pull the
Speaker 1: letter out and told the athletic trainer and the team
Speaker 1: doctor at that time, find out what this guy's about.
Speaker 1: Find out what this guy's about. So the staff reached
Speaker 1: out to me. We went back and forth for three months.
Speaker 1: They put me, They put me through more extensive testing
Speaker 1: in those three months than I did in my time
Speaker 1: in college. And they didn't tell me who I was
Speaker 1: going to be, who was interested in working with me. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm thinking, I don't know who it is.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking it's one of the lower end players, and
Speaker 1: they just he needs some special attention. They want to
Speaker 1: bring them along. So after three months, they say, hey,
Speaker 1: we want you to here's the address. We want you
Speaker 1: to meet the client at this particular location. Okay, it
Speaker 1: was his house, you know, back then, it was a house.
Speaker 1: It was still a nice house. But it didn't have
Speaker 1: security gates, it didn't have the number twenty three on it.
Speaker 1: You just can walk up to it and you rang
Speaker 1: the door. You rang the doorbell. So I walk up
Speaker 1: to it, I ring the doorbell, and Michael Jordan opens
Speaker 1: up the door, and indeed the laugh. Michael's ever answered
Speaker 1: the door for by himself, for himself. How did you feel? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, unfortunately I was. I'm not a starstruck person.
Speaker 1: I was not I was not a star starck and
Speaker 1: his It's so much easier to find information on Michael
Speaker 1: than it was any of the other players because he
Speaker 1: was constantly in the paper. Who's constantly in magazines, he
Speaker 1: was constantly on TV on interviews, so whether you want
Speaker 1: to study him or not, it was kind of always
Speaker 1: in your face. So just by watching that, I was
Speaker 1: kind of like, Okay, I know what's what he needs,
Speaker 1: what he needs to play, how he can excel himself
Speaker 1: even more So, we sat down and we went back
Speaker 1: and fourth with a bunch of questions for about almost
Speaker 1: forty forty five minutes, and he just said, this doesn't
Speaker 1: sound right, and I said, this doesn't get any writer.
Speaker 1: I said, give me thirty days and see what I see.
Speaker 1: Let's see what happens. And thirty days turned into fift
Speaker 1: into fifteen years. Wow, he was twenty six years old
Speaker 1: at the time. I just I just did the Google
Speaker 1: the goal Google search. So really, young man. Actually, there's
Speaker 1: a part of the story. I think it's really kind
Speaker 1: of cool. You realized when you first met you realized
Speaker 1: that you were not you were wearing what Converse shoes
Speaker 1: And that's a that's who. That's a no. No, that's
Speaker 1: a serious nose, especially since he won. The two shoe
Speaker 1: companies he wanted to do to wear was Adidas and
Speaker 1: or Converse, and both of them said, no, we're not
Speaker 1: going to invest in you because we don't think so
Speaker 1: you're gonna you're going to be one of those players.
Speaker 1: So Nike was actually his third choice. So they even
Speaker 1: something funny about that. So when I had the shoes
Speaker 1: on it, when Michael Jordan opened up the door, I'm
Speaker 1: literally trying to take the shoes while I'm looking at him.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to take the shoes off with my with
Speaker 1: my feet so he doesn't look down because I know.
Speaker 1: And I eventually did take the shoes off before I
Speaker 1: went in the house. He got big old holes in
Speaker 1: my socks. So I take the socks and I turned
Speaker 1: I turned him around, so the holes are actually on
Speaker 1: the bottom. So now you have the holes on the bottom,
Speaker 1: but you have the dirty socks. Yeah, the dirty part
Speaker 1: on the top. I'm like, well, you know what, if
Speaker 1: he's looking at my socks, then he's not understanding what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. He's not understanding what I'm trying to put
Speaker 1: put in front of him. So I need him to notice.
Speaker 1: I need him to notice me from the neck up,
Speaker 1: not from the neck down. Yeah. And do you think
Speaker 1: he ever he ever saw those those shoes, Oh, lady,
Speaker 1: when I when I left the house, he looked at
Speaker 1: the sho he did look at the shoes. You looked
Speaker 1: at the shoes down and he goes, never again, Are
Speaker 1: you serious? Yeah, he said, never again. I got you, Hilario,
Speaker 1: that's absolutely larious. That's a great story. Now he said,
Speaker 1: of you, he said quote, he said, he's this is
Speaker 1: him referring to you. Tim Grover is the biggest asshole
Speaker 1: you ever meet. But he knows his stuff. You said,
Speaker 1: you really can't ask for a better compliment from Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's and Michael Jordan's eyes, is being an asshole? Does
Speaker 1: that have kind of a maybe a different meaning, Like
Speaker 1: does that mean like you're kind of like you're a
Speaker 1: badass motherfucker? Like what what? What do you think he
Speaker 1: meant by that? Yeah, it means like you're really confident
Speaker 1: and you're really confident in your abilities. You know what
Speaker 1: you're you know what you're doing, you know what you're doing,
Speaker 1: and you're not all going to always be a yes person.
Speaker 1: You know, when you have these superson when you have
Speaker 1: these superstar athletes, you know, everyone around them becomes a
Speaker 1: yes person, a yes person, a yes person, and when
Speaker 1: you know, when you're the asshole, you you have to disagree,
Speaker 1: you have to say, no, this isn't right, this is
Speaker 1: what this is, this is what this is, how it
Speaker 1: needs to be, this is why we're doing this, And
Speaker 1: you know, have a nice friendly confrontation as friendly as
Speaker 1: you can get with him and not give in to
Speaker 1: what you know is right and be able to prove
Speaker 1: it that way. So when he said that, when he
Speaker 1: said he's the big, biggest asshole, meaning he's not a pushover,
Speaker 1: He's gonna he's gonna he's going to tell you exactly.
Speaker 1: He's not going to tell you what you want to hear.
Speaker 1: He's going to tell you what you need to hear.
Speaker 1: And most athletes and even CEOs and and you know,
Speaker 1: high performing individuals, they have a lot of friends. They
Speaker 1: don't need friends, they need allies. Because friends tell you
Speaker 1: what you what you want, what you want to hear.
Speaker 1: Allies tell you what you need to hear. And a
Speaker 1: lot of times your greatest allies aren't even in your
Speaker 1: friends circle, because they show up when they need to
Speaker 1: show up. They tell you what it is. They they
Speaker 1: can point out where the things are you get you
Speaker 1: may get labeled as an asshole or whatever. I always say,
Speaker 1: I'm that family member that nobody wants in the family,
Speaker 1: but everybody needs. Well, I mean I I do have
Speaker 1: some pretty close friends who keep it keep it real
Speaker 1: with me. So maybe you know what you're for, your for,
Speaker 1: your for You're fortunate that you're fortunate to have those individuals.
Speaker 1: And I would even put them in I wouldn't even
Speaker 1: call them friends, I would call them. I would call
Speaker 1: them out. Yeah. Interesting, because allies show up. Allies show
Speaker 1: up no matter what kind of mood you're in, what's
Speaker 1: going on in your what's going on in your what's
Speaker 1: going on in your life. They support you through the good,
Speaker 1: they support you through the bad, they support you through
Speaker 1: the indifferent. And not only do they support you, they
Speaker 1: counsel you and they educate you and figure out ways
Speaker 1: to make you better. They don't settle for what's okay
Speaker 1: or this is fine. They understand there's more. There's more
Speaker 1: to that, and that's why you have that long lasting
Speaker 1: friendship with those individuals. Yeah, I love that. Now you
Speaker 1: were there through the whole Bulls dynasty. I just can't
Speaker 1: you know, my my twelve year old self is like,
Speaker 1: you know, like going crazy right now because I think
Speaker 1: I grew up in Philadelphia, you know, but I'd like
Speaker 1: to think I was the biggest Bulls fan in the world,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, me and my friend Olvi, we'd go,
Speaker 1: we'd be like everything. You know. In fact, there's there's
Speaker 1: even this this funny story where I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: we followed the Bulls team bus afterwards because I wanted
Speaker 1: to meet Michael Jordan and and and Michael Jordan actually
Speaker 1: did you know he was like really right in front
Speaker 1: of me. And I was so concerned that my friend
Speaker 1: Alvi wasn't there to see it that I that I
Speaker 1: was like, wait, wait, wait here, my friend Alvi's got
Speaker 1: to meet you, and Michael's like, man, I can't wait
Speaker 1: here all day, brother or whatever. And it's so funny
Speaker 1: because I laughed with my friend about that, because I
Speaker 1: really cared about my friend. You know, maybe in that
Speaker 1: moment I should have been more an ally than a friend.
Speaker 1: I missed a chance. I missed a chance to talk
Speaker 1: to Michael Jordan. But anyway, you were there during this dynasty.
Speaker 1: You were front row seat. You were even like you
Speaker 1: know the whole like flu controversy. You were in that
Speaker 1: hotel room when they delivered the pizza. I mean you right,
Speaker 1: you even you got the pizza. Good thing you didn't
Speaker 1: eat the pizza. It's a good thing you didn't eat it. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know the homework on this, like I do. I
Speaker 1: do a lot of I do a lot of preparation
Speaker 1: for my guests, and I read, as Michael would say,
Speaker 1: evidently that's his work. Oh nice, nice, nice. I read
Speaker 1: every word of you, of your new book and watched
Speaker 1: interviews with you. So that is really interesting. There's so
Speaker 1: many different kinds of like little nuggets and stories. That
Speaker 1: wouldn't serve the psychology podcast, but just my twelve year
Speaker 1: old g itself, who's like, I want to know what
Speaker 1: it was like to be their front row seat. Can
Speaker 1: you just give me look an overall paint and overall
Speaker 1: impression of what it was like to be there during
Speaker 1: one of the most exciting winning moments in the history
Speaker 1: of sports. I mean, it's kind of it's kind of
Speaker 1: it's kind of undest describable. I mean, the things that
Speaker 1: you would just you taught from a psychological standpoint, Being
Speaker 1: able to watch one of the greatest athletes, if not
Speaker 1: the greatest athletes of our time, handle all these different
Speaker 1: different things and knowing what he had to go through,
Speaker 1: not only physically but mentally, and how he used everything
Speaker 1: as a learning process and as a fuel process. You know,
Speaker 1: in the book or man, I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: in the book where I've told his story, you know, Michael,
Speaker 1: they he was actually allowed to pull into the arena
Speaker 1: because of all the fanfare and all this other stuff.
Speaker 1: He would always stop. He would always pull the car
Speaker 1: outside because there were fans that were lined up all
Speaker 1: the way around the gate, and he would always say,
Speaker 1: never drove it. Never showed up in a dirty car,
Speaker 1: was impeccably dressed well, and he would literally get out
Speaker 1: of his car and wave to all the and wave
Speaker 1: to the people around them because it was like, this
Speaker 1: might be the only opportunity these individuals get a chance
Speaker 1: to see me. They may never be able to afford
Speaker 1: a ticket, never be able to afford a ticket in
Speaker 1: the game, right, and this is as close as if
Speaker 1: I can brighten up their moment for that moment, and
Speaker 1: to think about to have to understand that mentality going
Speaker 1: into every single game, you know, every game to him,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just a game, it was the game. It
Speaker 1: was the game. I mean the one thing I always said, Michael,
Speaker 1: every single game he played, whether it was preseason, playoffs,
Speaker 1: middle he always gave us aha moment you were like wow.
Speaker 1: He was just like and that for me, I got
Speaker 1: so spoiled. I would see those things so frequently that
Speaker 1: you kind of just get you kind of like you
Speaker 1: get used to it, you get kind of you kind
Speaker 1: of get spoiled, and you get spoiled from it. And
Speaker 1: then occasionally he would just do something that you were
Speaker 1: just like wow. But for me, it wasn't as enjoyable
Speaker 1: as a fan because I was watching with such intensity
Speaker 1: to see how he was moving, how you know, to
Speaker 1: watch the the way his ankle was positioned, the way
Speaker 1: his knee, how his hips were, how his fingers. I
Speaker 1: was paying attention to stuff that other individuals just wouldn't
Speaker 1: just wouldn't pay attention, wouldn't pay attention to. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of difficult to sit there and watch the watch
Speaker 1: the game as a fan and kind And then when
Speaker 1: somebody when he would do something excited, which was on
Speaker 1: a regular basis, the people in front of you would
Speaker 1: stand up. I'm like, sit down, sit down, I got,
Speaker 1: I got because when he scored, everybody collapse when he
Speaker 1: scores the basket. But I need to see from a
Speaker 1: performance standpoint, well when he scored the basket, did he
Speaker 1: pivot right or did he pivot left after the basket,
Speaker 1: because I need to have those calculations down because I
Speaker 1: can't determine tomorrow's workout until I have all I have
Speaker 1: all those d I have all those details towed. And
Speaker 1: you know, just to see the best way to describe
Speaker 1: it is, you weren't at a basketball game. You were
Speaker 1: at a performance. It was like you wered, It was
Speaker 1: like you were at a like a you know, a
Speaker 1: Broadway play or the opera or the theater or something,
Speaker 1: and you were coming to see this unbelievable person and
Speaker 1: this unbelievable performer do do his thing. And back then,
Speaker 1: if you looked at the court side seats, you know
Speaker 1: people they were they would literally dress up. On the weekends,
Speaker 1: they would literally dress up. If it's a night out
Speaker 1: of town, you would see you would see individuals in
Speaker 1: their business suits. You would see the young ladies dressed up,
Speaker 1: you know, in their in their in their gowns and
Speaker 1: their dresses and everything. It was like it was like
Speaker 1: literally going to a performance. I don't know the last
Speaker 1: time he went to a game, but this was the
Speaker 1: funniest part about it. At halftime, by the time the
Speaker 1: second half started, everybody was in their seats, everybody because
Speaker 1: they did not want to miss They did not want
Speaker 1: to miss a moment. Now you go to it. Now
Speaker 1: you go to arena, people are hanging out and they're
Speaker 1: well before the pandemic. They're hanging out in the tunnels.
Speaker 1: You know, they're waiting to use the bathroom, they're waiting
Speaker 1: to do all all this other stuff. Back then, everybody
Speaker 1: was in their seats because they just didn't know what
Speaker 1: was gonna go next, and the constant flash of you know,
Speaker 1: and before every game, they used to have this announcement
Speaker 1: that say no flash cameras please. Yeah right, yeah right,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. I went to some of those games, and
Speaker 1: I never went to a Chicag game, and I'm remissed
Speaker 1: about that. But when he came to play Philly, you
Speaker 1: know I was. I was there in the in the
Speaker 1: nosebleed sections watching Jordan. Yeah yeah, oh though they talk
Speaker 1: about an intense rivalry over there. Yeah yeah. Uh. Barkley, Yes,
Speaker 1: one of his favor one of his favorite, one of
Speaker 1: his favorite play, one of his favorite places to play. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: because you know, everybody compared him to Julius Irving, doctor
Speaker 1: J and doctor J Ban from Philly. So he was like,
Speaker 1: you know, this is like I have to pay respect
Speaker 1: to the man that they're compared that they're comparing to.
Speaker 1: Not only do I have to pay respect to that man,
Speaker 1: I have to I'll do what that man did on
Speaker 1: that court. And what Julius Irving did was very special. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very special for sure. Okay, let's talk about Kobe a
Speaker 1: little bit. Where did you first meet Kobe and I
Speaker 1: think it was like a fish store or something, a
Speaker 1: sushi store. Yes, So I started with him in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven. He had reached out to Michael and said, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm having I'm having severe issues with my knees. And
Speaker 1: he goes, I just don't know what to do. I've
Speaker 1: tried everything, and you know, I need I need some
Speaker 1: I need some help. Here he goes, I just can't
Speaker 1: continue at that. I can't continue to play with how
Speaker 1: how bad my knees are hurting. And Michael and I
Speaker 1: had already finished our work. He was he was in
Speaker 1: the retirement, and he just said, he goes, you know,
Speaker 1: give my guy a call, you know, give give girl
Speaker 1: a call. And what you described early that was that
Speaker 1: was what he told. Kobe was like, he said, well,
Speaker 1: tell me about tell me about Grover. He said, listen,
Speaker 1: Grover really knows his stuff, but he's the biggest asshole
Speaker 1: you'll you'll ever meet. Well, Kobe and MJ had the
Speaker 1: same mentality, so he kind of he kind of understood.
Speaker 1: So I flew out to California and right near the
Speaker 1: restaurant there was a you know, a little sushi place
Speaker 1: to go get something, go and get something eat. So
Speaker 1: I sit down there. I'm sitting in there with my
Speaker 1: family and we go down. We were eating something and
Speaker 1: here Lily Kobe Bryant comes walking in to pick up
Speaker 1: a takeout order, and I just and I looked, and
Speaker 1: I said, and I introduced. We had met before briefly,
Speaker 1: and he knew, he knew of me, and he member
Speaker 1: the face. So I introduced him. I introduced myself. Hey,
Speaker 1: and you know, welcome and all this other. But that
Speaker 1: was our that was our first meeting. And he go
Speaker 1: and he goes, when you read, when you read, he goes,
Speaker 1: let me know when you're ready to start. I said,
Speaker 1: we can start tonight if you want to. He goes,
Speaker 1: we'll start, We'll start tomorrow. We'll start tomorrow. I said,
Speaker 1: that's that's perfect. And this is a story that didn't
Speaker 1: make it into the book. So he said, I'll see
Speaker 1: you at three thirty. Right. Everybody else would have assumed
Speaker 1: it was three thirty pm. But just like you did
Speaker 1: your homework on me, I did my homework on him,
Speaker 1: and I knew it was three thirty am. And that
Speaker 1: was the test. That was that was Kobe testing me.
Speaker 1: That was Kobe testing me. If I and if I
Speaker 1: would have showed up at three thirty, he would have
Speaker 1: sent me home. Because one of the things in the
Speaker 1: interview that when word got out that we were working,
Speaker 1: we were working together, one of the reporters asked him
Speaker 1: and said, well, hey, you know, you hired MJ's train
Speaker 1: of how's you know, how's it going? He goes, He
Speaker 1: ain't done shit for me yet? I don't know, really, yeah,
Speaker 1: he goes, He goes, Yeah, I know what he's done
Speaker 1: for MJ. And when he's done for other individuals, but
Speaker 1: those that's for those individuals. What is he What has
Speaker 1: he done for me? And you know that's that's kind
Speaker 1: of like the psychology of the next win? All right,
Speaker 1: when you get that win, what what is that next
Speaker 1: win going to do for you? And how are you
Speaker 1: going to how are you going to get there? Just
Speaker 1: because you did it one way or you did it
Speaker 1: a different way or previous way for a different company
Speaker 1: or an individual, doesn't mean that's going to work for
Speaker 1: that individual. Yeah, you know, because the psychology of the
Speaker 1: the way they think, the way they the way they move,
Speaker 1: the way they interact is totally is totally different. And
Speaker 1: I was actually honored that he said that because I
Speaker 1: didn't want him to go off of what I did
Speaker 1: in the past. I wanted him to go off of
Speaker 1: the results that I got for him. Yeah, well you
Speaker 1: got him results. Yeah. Well tell me about the phone
Speaker 1: call you had with him one week before he died. Oh,
Speaker 1: this is this is this is a tough This was
Speaker 1: a little tough. So, you know, the All Star Game
Speaker 1: was going to be in Chicago, and we had he
Speaker 1: had already transitioned from from basketball into his life into
Speaker 1: his life of you know, entrepreneurship, author, scriptwriter. You know,
Speaker 1: he'd already won an oscar, won numerous awards for his
Speaker 1: children's series of his books, and he was, you know,
Speaker 1: he was fully invested in the business, the business world.
Speaker 1: So we texted back and forth, and you know, we
Speaker 1: always said we're going to see each other there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, his schedule was busy, I was busy,
Speaker 1: and it never kind of happened. But we made plans
Speaker 1: because he was going to come, he was going to
Speaker 1: come to ship, he was going to come to Chicago
Speaker 1: for some for some business during during office. We had
Speaker 1: made plans to get to get together and it never happened.
Speaker 1: It's unimaginable isn't it. Yeah, And even when I got
Speaker 1: the news, I was like this, you know, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: this is fake news, this is something else. And then
Speaker 1: other people reached out to me, and people that were
Speaker 1: close to him and you know, different people that was like, no,
Speaker 1: this is this is real, This is real, and it
Speaker 1: didn't literally probably three days later, that's when it kind
Speaker 1: of finally hit me, you know, because with him, you'd
Speaker 1: always be like, he's going to find a way to
Speaker 1: beat this. It's just this is right, it isn't true.
Speaker 1: And then three days later that's what it's like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really hit me hard, and it's still hard for
Speaker 1: me to talk about. It's still really difficult. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that we talk about in the
Speaker 1: book is I used to always tell him we don't
Speaker 1: have time. We don't have time, meaning, you know, we
Speaker 1: got to keep moving, We got to keep pushing forward,
Speaker 1: we got to keep being better than the next being
Speaker 1: better than the next person. And I sit back and
Speaker 1: I think to myself, boy, I wish I was wrong. Boy,
Speaker 1: I wish I was wrong. Did you did you talk
Speaker 1: to him on the phone? Did you get a chance
Speaker 1: to the week before? Yeah? Just it was very brief.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of the communications were text every
Speaker 1: now and then. But then I would tell him I
Speaker 1: would be like, just pick up the phone, because you know,
Speaker 1: people get distracted while they're texting. You can be doing
Speaker 1: something else. And plus it's so much easier when you
Speaker 1: just get the communication and real quick. I just you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, co KB, pick up the phone. I
Speaker 1: used to call him Bean, that's his middle name, to Bean,
Speaker 1: pick up the phone, all right. And he picked up
Speaker 1: the phone, and then you know, we chatted. We chatted
Speaker 1: for a little bit and said hey, listen and what
Speaker 1: you know in the line with books says what are
Speaker 1: you doing? He goes, man, I'm chasing that next win,
Speaker 1: just like you always always always chasing, always chasing the
Speaker 1: next win. Yeah, I have I have a real Uh.
Speaker 1: First of all, I just want to say I'm really
Speaker 1: sorry that you guys. You know, I'm sorry for everyone.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for his family. I'm sorry you guys never
Speaker 1: got a chance to have that meeting. I know it's
Speaker 1: really hard for you, and I really appreciate you talking
Speaker 1: about it with me. He touched so many people, you know,
Speaker 1: and even all of our high school friends. We were
Speaker 1: so upset. Yeah, whether you liked him or not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you had to respect what he did. You had to
Speaker 1: respect his mentality, you have to respect his work ethic,
Speaker 1: you have to respect his results. So this, like I
Speaker 1: said earlier, it's not yet. You don't have to like,
Speaker 1: you don't have to like these guys. You know, everybody
Speaker 1: has their favorites, and they have their fans and so forth.
Speaker 1: I mean, they look at you're in Philadelphia when he
Speaker 1: came back for that game, and they boot him like
Speaker 1: his home, like his hometown, you know, stuff like stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Stuff like that hurts. But he gave everyone
Speaker 1: something to respect about him. You know, people always say that,
Speaker 1: you know, you need to respect me, well you I
Speaker 1: always say, well, you need to give me something to respect.
Speaker 1: No one can say that he did not give each
Speaker 1: individual something to respect about him. Yeah, for sure. I
Speaker 1: want to read a quote that you that you said
Speaker 1: about winning. You said, I've seen winning in all its
Speaker 1: glorious generosity and all it's excruciating cruelty. One day it
Speaker 1: wears a halo, the next day it is fangs. So
Speaker 1: if you kind of sign up for the winning business,
Speaker 1: do you kind of have to also just accept that
Speaker 1: coming along for the ride, are going to be these
Speaker 1: these real lows of your of the quest. You know,
Speaker 1: there's going to be these moments where you feel like
Speaker 1: you're not winning at all. Even yes, that's why it's
Speaker 1: called the Unforgived. That's why the book is called the
Speaker 1: Unforgiving Race, because it's it's it's it is unforgiving. It's unforgiving.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody sees. One of the reasons I wrote
Speaker 1: this book is the highest achievers at the top, they
Speaker 1: cherish the halo moments, but they understand the win came
Speaker 1: when winning showed up with the fangs. That's what allowed
Speaker 1: them to achieve, what allowed them to enjoy rejoice in
Speaker 1: the win in the halo parts, and they understand, you
Speaker 1: have you don't have control over what winning is going
Speaker 1: to wear on that particular minute, that particular hour, that
Speaker 1: particular day. You must be ready and prepared for whatever
Speaker 1: it's going to throw at you. And it is going
Speaker 1: to throw everything at you. It's going to throw everything
Speaker 1: at you. And the individuals that can relish and understand
Speaker 1: both and know what it takes to deal with both aspects. Everything.
Speaker 1: You have your up, you have your down, you have
Speaker 1: your right side, you have your left side. A car
Speaker 1: has a gas, it has a break, there's a goal,
Speaker 1: there's a there, there's a there's a stop. So why
Speaker 1: shouldn't winning accept just one of those things. You have
Speaker 1: to accept it's going to show up with both of those.
Speaker 1: And when the pandemic came came through, it wore the
Speaker 1: fangs for a long time. Mm hmm sure. And that's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff with what you said earlier about
Speaker 1: the victim mentality, is that that the victim mentality is
Speaker 1: they don't know how, they don't know how to deal
Speaker 1: with the thanks. They're looking they want to get to
Speaker 1: the halo, but they've never dealt with the fangs. A
Speaker 1: lot of people learned how to deal with thangs this
Speaker 1: past year, that's for sure. It isn't so true, so true,
Speaker 1: And for a lot of people that was the first
Speaker 1: experience of the thanks, like real thanks for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this isn't this, This isn't baby teeth. These are these
Speaker 1: are like saber tooth tiger, like you go back into
Speaker 1: the back into the dinosaur days. It's that. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: coming in on like stuff that you can't even have met,
Speaker 1: you can't even see. Yeah, this is why I love
Speaker 1: the psychological literature on what's called post traumatic growth. I
Speaker 1: think you would really like that that work in the
Speaker 1: field of positive psychology. Are you Are you aware of
Speaker 1: the field of positive psychology? Do you what? I'm sorry?
Speaker 1: Are you aware of the field of positive psychology? Do you?
Speaker 1: Do you read any about this literature? Read? I read
Speaker 1: tons of it. I read tons of it. And what
Speaker 1: I did was, I mean, I use a lot of
Speaker 1: that stuff in my in my when I train my
Speaker 1: business individuals, when I trained when I train my when
Speaker 1: I trained my when I trained my athletes. But again,
Speaker 1: I have to integrate some of my own learn my
Speaker 1: own teachings, my own learning, my own education, what I've
Speaker 1: learned from my experiences, and fit and figure around the
Speaker 1: puzzle that has many many missing pieces. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: that's great. So what's the difference between competing and winning?
Speaker 1: So I always say this, Everyone everybody knows how to compete,
Speaker 1: you know, every everybody knows everyone knows how to compete,
Speaker 1: you know. So you compete for things all the time
Speaker 1: in your in your daily life. Everybody you're going for this,
Speaker 1: You're going for that, you can you can go. I'm
Speaker 1: a I'm a competitor. Everyone says I'm a competitor. Most
Speaker 1: individuals are a competitor. You don't do this part. You
Speaker 1: don't do this podcast just for fun. You're your competitives
Speaker 1: like I gotta. You know, there's other podcasts that are
Speaker 1: out there like this that are in my category. Listen,
Speaker 1: I gotta. I got to compete against them every single day,
Speaker 1: all right. But people stop at competition. They stop when
Speaker 1: they they stop at competing. And that's one of the
Speaker 1: big quotes that Michael excuse me that Kobe always all right,
Speaker 1: don't rest in the middle, rest at the end. Yeah, competitors,
Speaker 1: people that compete, they rest in the middle. People that
Speaker 1: win rest at the end. Briefly, Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: really profound. But you know, I do it is. It's
Speaker 1: good to love what you do when you're even if
Speaker 1: you want to win. I mean, I do love this podcast.
Speaker 1: I love I have an intrinsic love for it. I
Speaker 1: just happen to be the number one psychology podcast in
Speaker 1: the world. But you know, like that's just oh, you
Speaker 1: just don't happen. Yeah, there's something like that just doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: You can happen to slip and fall on some ice.
Speaker 1: You could happen to find some loose change on the ground,
Speaker 1: all right, You don't happen to fall into the number one.
Speaker 1: This is not a lottery. But let me ask you something,
Speaker 1: because I will, I want to think this through with you.
Speaker 1: I didn't My goal wasn't to win, and I'm very
Speaker 1: happy that it's done so well. Right, But I was
Speaker 1: driven by craft. I was driven by mastery, by wanting
Speaker 1: to engage in and with other psychologists and other intellectuals
Speaker 1: and people and really get into the science of psychology
Speaker 1: and every kind of direction. And then that kind of
Speaker 1: resonated with people. Well did not kind of it? Did
Speaker 1: you know? So it is winning, Winning doesn't always have
Speaker 1: to be the primary goal in order to win, right
Speaker 1: is that right? No, No, it's not. You know what
Speaker 1: I said. Listen, it's not about the glory. It's not
Speaker 1: about the payday. Winning is about the obstacles and challenges
Speaker 1: and the pains you go through to get to winning.
Speaker 1: And you know what, and you have to go through
Speaker 1: those things. Somebody else may get the win, right, somebody may,
Speaker 1: I'll somebody who doesn't work as hard as you do
Speaker 1: ends up getting the win, all right, Somebody who is
Speaker 1: as qualified for a job they end up getting. They
Speaker 1: end up they end up getting the win. So the
Speaker 1: winning is about going through the different obstacles. It's that
Speaker 1: it's not about the it's not about the glamor. It's
Speaker 1: about the grit. It's about grinding for something that you
Speaker 1: want to take form of the way you wanted to
Speaker 1: take form. And that's what you that's what you did.
Speaker 1: You said, hell, hey listen, I'm gonna put this podcast
Speaker 1: together and this is the different people I'm going to
Speaker 1: study and interview and educate myself in a different format.
Speaker 1: So what you were doing is you were grinding, but
Speaker 1: you knew what the form of your end result was
Speaker 1: to look. Like most people just grind, and what happens
Speaker 1: if you just constantly I hate this when people says, man,
Speaker 1: I'm grinding, I'm grinding, But what are you grinding for?
Speaker 1: Because if you const keep grinding something, what do you
Speaker 1: end up with? You end up with dust, you end
Speaker 1: up with nothing. Well, it's just like we've all bet,
Speaker 1: we've all bet to different parties, different events, and you've seen,
Speaker 1: you know, these fantastic ice ice sculptures. Well that if
Speaker 1: sculpture starts off as just a block that has no
Speaker 1: it's a square or a circle, or you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. And you chip away into those things.
Speaker 1: And once you chip away at those things, you can
Speaker 1: see what winning, what winning looks like. And then when
Speaker 1: you went through that whole process and the process was required.
Speaker 1: You know, there's an adage where people always say, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, you got to love the process. I disagree
Speaker 1: with that. The process is required, it's required. You can't
Speaker 1: get through wherever you need to get through without the process. Now,
Speaker 1: the end result, which is winning, that's not guaranteed, but
Speaker 1: you must do the process. You must and there's not's
Speaker 1: not a single individual I know that loved one hundred
Speaker 1: percent about every single process they had to do to
Speaker 1: get to that end, to get to that end result.
Speaker 1: But you still have to do it. You know when
Speaker 1: you played back listen, you played basketball. I played basketball.
Speaker 1: You have to do the wind spreads, you have to
Speaker 1: be in shape, you have to be able to run. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Those are not fun. No, no, they're not fun. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to read a quote of yours that I
Speaker 1: think relates to a lot of what you're saying. You said,
Speaker 1: you can be the kindest, most gentle person in the
Speaker 1: world and still be competitive in every way. This is
Speaker 1: about quiet desire. I actually really like that phrase quiet desire, hunger, adrenaline, pain, fatigue, envy, pressure,
Speaker 1: so much pressure. I think that relates to what you're saying,
Speaker 1: what I would like you did, just to think about it.
Speaker 1: You know, you didn't go through The pressure is up
Speaker 1: in here. You know, the pressure to win, the pressure
Speaker 1: to succeed. It's it's it's all mindset. It's up and
Speaker 1: it's up and here you know winning. And this book
Speaker 1: and what what I'm trying to pass isn't just about athletes.
Speaker 1: It's about all of us. It's the mental process of
Speaker 1: what you have to go through before you even get
Speaker 1: in the race. And you went through the whole process
Speaker 1: and understood of what it was going to take. Now
Speaker 1: then you said, you know what, Now I'm about to
Speaker 1: get in this unforgiving race, and this race is going
Speaker 1: to be unforgiving. I don't know if I'm gonna win.
Speaker 1: I have no idea if I'm not gonna win. But
Speaker 1: guess what if you never got in this race, you
Speaker 1: had no chance of winning. Yeah, my grandmama always you
Speaker 1: say nothing venture, nothing gained. But let me let me
Speaker 1: put you in something for a second, because I want
Speaker 1: to get your thoughts on this. Like, when I hear
Speaker 1: the word winning, I tend to think of something like
Speaker 1: a zero sum kind of thing, where like, in order
Speaker 1: for me to win, people have some other people have
Speaker 1: to lose. What if some people you know, what if
Speaker 1: some people's goal, you know, their their sense of winning
Speaker 1: is to like uplift as many people as possible, Like
Speaker 1: they're not in this like sports kind of mentality about winning.
Speaker 1: What could what could winning look like? You know, as
Speaker 1: you define it in other fields where it might not
Speaker 1: be so obvious that that word is. You know, like
Speaker 1: if you've started a nonprofit and you want to like
Speaker 1: your winning is helping kids in Africa, you know, like
Speaker 1: what does that look like? You know? Does it always
Speaker 1: have to be zero sum in some way that you're
Speaker 1: you're tearing down a competitor? Does that question make sense? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It does, it does. It does make sense. So that's
Speaker 1: the when you can uplift other individuals in a in
Speaker 1: a uh, in winning, that's the ultimate, that's the ultimate
Speaker 1: women And but in order to do that, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: in order to do that, you have to be a
Speaker 1: little bit selfish. And that's the part that people don't understand.
Speaker 1: You have to take care of self. You you know,
Speaker 1: if you look, if you look at selfish, all right,
Speaker 1: people look at that as a bad as a bad word,
Speaker 1: but they love to give different twists to it, you know,
Speaker 1: they love to give the you know, it's just like
Speaker 1: all right, me time, m hm hm right, that's selfish,
Speaker 1: all right, that's that's something you're doing for self all right.
Speaker 1: You know my man cave. That's like leave leave me,
Speaker 1: leave me alone. That's not you know, boys and girls
Speaker 1: night out, those things lead. When you explain people selfish
Speaker 1: in that way, it's acceptable. But when you in order
Speaker 1: to take care of others, in order to take care
Speaker 1: of your teammates, in order to take care of then
Speaker 1: the nonprofit, in order for other people to win, you
Speaker 1: got to take care of yourself. You got to be
Speaker 1: a little selfish on yourself, and that allows you to
Speaker 1: give more to other individuals. The more you have of
Speaker 1: yourself physically and mentally, the more ability you have to
Speaker 1: give others. And the way Kobe described winning was he
Speaker 1: said winning is everything. And what did he mean by that?
Speaker 1: How do you feel when you win? When you have
Speaker 1: the sensation of a win. You're like, Okay, even in
Speaker 1: a movie, you watch a movie or whatever, there's this
Speaker 1: U four feeling when your kids win. Same feeling when
Speaker 1: your family wins your same feeling when your friends win.
Speaker 1: Same feeling when your allies win. Same feeling when the
Speaker 1: kids that you are having the nonprofit for and you
Speaker 1: get to see them smile, their win is their win?
Speaker 1: Is your win? M You don't have to always tear
Speaker 1: down the individual the ind the individuals to get that win,
Speaker 1: but you have to understand that winning has a different
Speaker 1: language than what everybody else speaks. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for that clarification. I've been willing to ask you that question,
Speaker 1: so thanks for asking that. Can you tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit what you're up to these days? You know? What? What? What?
Speaker 1: What fires you up the most right now in your life?
Speaker 1: What you know? When we first wrote the book Relentless,
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff that we the media stuff
Speaker 1: different than we talked to was more sports was more
Speaker 1: sports related. What this book has done is being able
Speaker 1: to open up doors and being able to speak the
Speaker 1: individuals like yourself and get the word out of my lessons,
Speaker 1: my teachings. This is what I want this is what
Speaker 1: I want to do now. I want to be able
Speaker 1: to give what I saw and what I lived through
Speaker 1: and what I've experienced and what I've learned to other
Speaker 1: individuals and say, hey, it's not all about the sparkles,
Speaker 1: it's not all about the sprinkles. This is what it.
Speaker 1: This is what it. This is what it takes to
Speaker 1: get into the race to win. And your definition of
Speaker 1: winning could be completely different than anybody else's. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm still in the I'm still in the line. I
Speaker 1: still do consulting for a lot of professional athletes and
Speaker 1: a lot of organizations. I do consulting for tons of businesses,
Speaker 1: very high level CEOs, And to watch them win, yeah,
Speaker 1: excites me. I mean that was the biggest thing. To
Speaker 1: just see my athletes, what they went through for them
Speaker 1: to get that moment and it was just a brief
Speaker 1: moment of win. To watch other individuals to win to
Speaker 1: what I want to be able to see more people
Speaker 1: understand their definition of winning and what winning means, to
Speaker 1: what winning means to them, and it's different for every
Speaker 1: individual out there. It's beautiful. I feel like I feel
Speaker 1: like I see you Tim grogor You're you're you're you are,
Speaker 1: You're a tough guy. But there's also this, uh, this
Speaker 1: side of you that this this emotional, tender side of you.
Speaker 1: Dare I say that wants to help people realize their
Speaker 1: full potential and that makes you feel really inspired and
Speaker 1: uh and and good. So I see you. Thank you. Know,
Speaker 1: we get individuals all the time. So you know your
Speaker 1: talk or your book or something, you know it changed,
Speaker 1: It changed my life. And I was telling these in
Speaker 1: the I didn't change your life. You changed your life.
Speaker 1: You actually change. You took the action, You changed your
Speaker 1: thought process, you changed your mindset. You change your mind
Speaker 1: you pay change your mindset. We may have assisted in
Speaker 1: help and gave you some clarity, but none of my
Speaker 1: books tell you what to do right. You've been your
Speaker 1: whole life, people have been telling you what to do.
Speaker 1: Psychology is about doing what you do, what makes you successful,
Speaker 1: What lights your what lights your fire, what gives you
Speaker 1: clarity up in here and nobody can give you that.
Speaker 1: They can explain it, how other individuals do it, how
Speaker 1: this individual do it, how this individual did, But you
Speaker 1: still have to add. You can have you can build
Speaker 1: a whole cupcake, but you still have to add the
Speaker 1: frosting and the sprinkles in order to get that and
Speaker 1: to get that desired taste of winning that you want.
Speaker 1: Let's let's end there today, Tim Man, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for chatting with me today on the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: I truly wish you all the best in this book
Speaker 1: tour and with your with your business and helping others.
Speaker 1: You're not done helping. You're not not done helping people.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not Scott again. Thank you, listen, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. You have no idea this is This
Speaker 1: isn't an honor for me to do this. Not one
Speaker 1: because it's a completely different avenue that I'm accustomed to.
Speaker 1: And I won't even say two because you're not to
Speaker 1: your number one one to be a guest on the
Speaker 1: number one podcast in the world. Yeah, yeah, thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Tim. Thanks for listening to this episode of
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some
Speaker 1: way to something you heard, I encourage you to join
Speaker 1: in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. That's
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast dot com. Also, if you'd prefer a
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Speaker 1: new episodes, you can join us at patreon dot com.
Speaker 1: Slash Psych Podcast, thanks for being such a great supporter
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Speaker 1: on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.