The Diary of a CEOThe Man Who Coached Michael Jordan AND Kobe Bryant To WIN! Tim Grover
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
135 min read · 26,727 words- 0:00 – 1:27
Intro
- SBSteven Bartlett
Could you do me a quick favor? If you're listening to this, please hit the follow or subscribe button. It helps more than you know, and we invite subscribers in every month to watch the show in person.
- TGTim Grover
Kobe Bryant was not interested in winning championships. Back-to-back titles! NBA champions! He was obsessed. He was the trainer for Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan. The book is Relentless.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Tim Rover. What is your dark side?
- TGTim Grover
After every semester of anatomy class, you have dead bodies. My dad's job was to dispose of those bodies. You have to cut off their legs. You have to cut off their head. I saw him do that when I was four years old. It doesn't get any darker than that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If I spoke to some of your clients and I asked them, "What was Tim good at for you," what would they say to me?
- TGTim Grover
Elevating them to another level. Very few people understand what winning does to an individual's mental health. Winning doesn't make you heartless, but it teaches you to use your heart less. Every decision I've made, I knew what the cost was going to be. If you think the price of winning is too high, wait till you get the bill from regret.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO: USA Edition. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. (instrumental music)
- 1:27 – 17:44
Confronting and learning from your dark side
- SBSteven Bartlett
Tim, I read in your book, Winning: The Unforgiving Race to Greatness, chapter 12. And I don't usually start with people's books. I wanna, I wanna u- usually start somewhere else. But in chapter 12, you talk about this, this concept of the dark side and the darker side.
- TGTim Grover
Yeah, we're going right there, huh? (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. Yeah. And the reason I wanna go right there is because I actually think it's the start for many people. It's the start.
- TGTim Grover
It is the start.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So tell me about your dark side and where and what it came from.
- TGTim Grover
This is a very unique story. So my father, uh, both my parents are of Indian descent. So they came over to the States when I was four. My mother came over first. She was a nurse practitioner, and my dad was a professor in India. So when he came over from India to the UK, he was still a professor over there. When he came from the UK to the United States, they said that his education would not transfer, that he could not... He wasn't qualified enough to teach at the university level in the States. So my dad said, "Okay, well, what, what job do you have available?" So they had a job back then, it was called a degreaser. A degreaser is an individual, doesn't... This job does not exist anymore. After every quarter or every semester of anatomy class, you have cadavers.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Cadavers?
- TGTim Grover
Cadavers. Dead bodies. My dad's job was to dispose of those bodies. Now, this is a man that was called a doctor back in the old country. Now, when you dispose of these cadavers, it's not a garbage truck that comes and picks them up. You have to dismantle them. You have to cut off their legs, you have to cut off their arms, you have to cut off their head, and you throw them in a furnace. I saw him do that when I was four years old. My parents couldn't afford babysitters. My mom worked at night, my dad worked during the day. So when you were off from school, guess what? You can't disturb mom 'cause she's worked 16 hours that night. You go to s- work with your dad. My dad said, he goes, "Son, never let your pride get in the way of doing what's necessary and providing for the people you love." It doesn't get any darker than that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You still feel it today?
- TGTim Grover
Very. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him and the things that he did. Both of them. Never complained. Went to work every single day.
- SBSteven Bartlett
As you were telling me that story, what was the emotion?
- TGTim Grover
You know what? People talk about sacrifice that others did for them. Very few get to actually witness it and remember. There's certain memories that people have when you go way back in age and they can't even remember. I have vivid memories of those things and how not only did they mold him, how they molded my brother, the effects it had on both of us, positive and negative. And I understand how to use that darkness in the most positive way just like my dad did. Because to him, that darkness was a new beginning. He didn't look at it as an individual who, like, "I'm so accomplished back over here." He was just grateful and thankful to be in the United States and have a new opportunity and a new beginning for his family.And I always say this, and this is why when we talk about the dark and the darkness and the dark side and all that other stuff, people forget this. I always say this, "When does a new day start? It starts at midnight. Is it dark outside at midnight? Yes. So for a new day and a new beginning... starts in the dark every day, that's when your new beginnings start." But so many people are afraid to go to that place. And I tell them, "You have to visit that place 'cause if that place comes visits you, it will never leave. If you go visit the darkness that you've been running from, you'll have the opportunity to leave a better person. You'll have a better understanding of yourself. You'll have better understanding of your purpose. But if you don't take that trip, and the darkness comes visits you, it's a guest that will never leave."
- SBSteven Bartlett
T- that dark side, y- you referenced it, did good and bad things for you, negatives and positives.
- TGTim Grover
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What are the negatives?
- TGTim Grover
It hardened me. It- it- it re- it really... It- it hardened me. It hardened me to the point where I had a hard time communicating with other individuals. I had a hard time understanding things that were so easy for me to deal with, the hardships, the trials and tribulations, and I would see other people complain about things, and I'm like, "What are you complaining about?" I don't... I was just like, I couldn't relate to it. I ju- I- I just couldn't relate to it. I didn't have much compassion for that, for those ind- for those individuals.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And you talk in the book that, often, you're visited at night by a presence in the early hours of the morning.
- TGTim Grover
Every night, there's an individual that comes visits you. You know, everybody has, (laughs) everybody has these grand- grandioso dreams and these daydreams about success and money and fame and power, and I always say, (laughs) "Winning never visits you in your daydreams. It sees you in your nightmares." The things that you... come visit you in your nightmares, those things are real. Those are the things that you have to deal with. Those are the monsters underneath the bed. Those are the skeletons in the closet. Those are the things that you've put away. And some of the stuff that you've put away and you don't wanna deal with is some of the best part of you. How many times have you heard this? People always say, "You know, always show up positive, you know? Always bring your positivity." Well, that means you only bring half of you. That means you're not accepting the other half. You gotta bring the light. You gotta bring the dark. You gotta bring the good. You gotta bring the bad. You have to have conversations with those skeletons in your closets, they know you better than you know yourself, in order to stand out, in order to fight. Many times, you have to become that monster. But most individuals, when they become that monster, they don't know how to control it, and they let the monster control them. So it's a learning process. In all those years that you run from that monster underneath your bed, you're actually being taught, "Can you control that monster, or is that monster gonna control you?" And then once you recognize that part of that monster, or all that monster, is you, that's when you can actually start fulfilling your dreams and living the life that you're meant to live.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How did that mon- monster manifest itself in your behavior? Outside of, you said about you struggle to be compassionate with other people, you struggle to have empathy for their- their struggles, was there other things i- that you... where that monster would rear its ugly head or take control of you?
- TGTim Grover
You know what? When the monster took over, it wasn't for bad things. It allowed me to deal with, you know, how mean kids could be, the different- the different bully... the bullying that's in school that every kid goes through, whether it's physical or mental, you know, the teasing, all that other stuff. That monster allowed me to get... gave me that strength to n- not to lash out back at those individuals and just say, "Hey, continue trust yourself. Continue on this- continue on this path, all right? And don't worry about trying to prove those individuals wrong. You and I will prove ourselves right."
- SBSteven Bartlett
When you talk about... Okay, and this is what I was trying to gauge when I was listening to your audiobook, you talk about these... at 2:00 AM realizing you're not alone, and I wasn't sure if you were being literal or figurative. You were... I wasn't sure if you literally felt the presence of spirits or someone else in your room or you meant... or it was a figurative way to talk about the thoughts that were in your mind.
- TGTim Grover
It's both. It's both. When you get outta bed or you wanna get outta bed, there's all these individuals that are lined up next to that bed.There's fear, there's doubt, there's compassion, there's hatred, there's excellence, there's sorrowness, there's excuses. And they all have their hands out.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Literally-
- TGTim Grover
Literally.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... you see them.
- TGTim Grover
And then you get to choose every single day who gets a vote. It's your decision. It's your decision. And most times, many individuals make their decisions with their feelings. And when you have to make those decisions with your mind. Every single morning, if you can't get outta your beds and you choose not to win, you listen to your feelings. If you chose to get outta bed and you said, "There's a win for me," that's your mind. And each one of those individuals, you decide who gets a vote. And some days, not all the popular things are gonna get a vote. Success may not get a vote. Winning may not get a vote. But you've made that decision that now this thing gets a vote, I must be ready to deal with it. Every single day, there's something different. There also has to be something different about yourself. And I said this in Winning, different scares people. When you're different, it scares people. When the world is different, it scares people. Everything different scares people. But it attracts the right emotions, it attracts the right feelings, it attracts the right thoughts, and it attracts the right people. 'Cause the people that are willing to not judge you, and understand and know that these things are real, they are real, they will tell you, "I understand." With both books that I've written, people were like, "I thought I was the only one." Because this is not, it's not accepted to talk about these things. 'Cause people put you in this land of you're crazy. And anytime anybody's told me I'm crazy, I've always thanked them for that, 'cause it gave me the ability to see and do things that other people can't do, and acknowledge things that other people won't acknowledge.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It seems to be a bit of a, a paradox that sometimes our dark side, whatever that might be, it could be being bullied in school and the consequences that had or, you know, as you say in the book as well, being overweight and being bullied for that or some trauma-
- TGTim Grover
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... whatever you've had in your life. It seems to be a paradox that our dark side can both be the driving force of our life and also the cause of so much pain. So it can be the thing to put us in pain, and then also the thing that drives us out of pain, if that makes sense.
- TGTim Grover
It, it makes 100%. Well, y- you know, you look at it (laughs) i- it's, for a lot of individual, you know, the physical pain that they put themselves through is actually their pleasure. You know, my athletes, when they... the... at the highest level of their training, it is the most uncomfortable state they put themselves through every single day. And people are just like, "I'm just not gonna... I'm not gonna do that." It's the people that run the ultra marathons, it's people that take these, these ice baths, it's, you know, i- i- it's, it's all, it's all out there. Now that doesn't mean if you do those things you're gonna e- you're gonna excel in other aspects of your life, but it does raise your level of understanding that nothing great is going to come without you having to deal with what I call adversity and pain tolerance. You must be able to deal with that. And the more understanding you have of what's causing you the pain and how you've dealt with it is gonna determine how successful you will be in whatever you choose in life. You know, you have individuals who will be come from a broken family, and you could have two children that come from the broken family, and one individual will, will not live up to their potential. And they'll say, "It's because I came from a broken family." And then you have the other individual, same environment, same household, same everything, will do great things, not only for themselves, for humanity, for this world. And what's their answer? "Because I came from a broken family." They both understood how to use the pain. One used it to excel, the other used it to deny.
- 17:44 – 34:38
How did you go from a normal job to training Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant?
- TGTim Grover
- SBSteven Bartlett
Having done this podcast for the amount of, amount of time that I've done it, what you've articulated there about h- that broken home scenario, um, is the thing I've always played around with, which is, a trauma causes an adverse response, typically-
- TGTim Grover
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... greatness or despair.
- TGTim Grover
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And it's... And I've always tried to figure out what a trauma is going to do, but it's been impossible t- for me. But in your case, it led you to be great in what you do and what you achieved in your life and the people you worked with. So tell me about how you went from that traumatic early-...upbringing that created that dark side in you to being a sports enhancement specialist.
- TGTim Grover
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
That's how you, that's how you prefer to be-
- TGTim Grover
That, yes-
- SBSteven Bartlett
... described?
- TGTim Grover
...that was my official title when I was, when my main job was to train profess, to train professional athletes. So I didn't want, I never wanted to consider myself and label myself as a trainer, 'cause I did, I did more, I did more than that. So I actually came up with that ti, that title myself. So I played college basketball myself. I had these dreams of playing professional basketball. Wasn't, wasn't good enough, okay? But I was like, "What can I do to make sure this doesn't happen to other individuals?" And I was like, "You know what?" I started to study the body really, really closely, which goes all the way back to when I was four years old. So not only did I have to study the body from an external standpoint, I had to learn it from an in- internal sta, internal standpoint. Going through the different injuries that I suffered through my years of working out, training, playing allowed me to understand what an individual goes through, not only from a physical standpoint, I understood what was going on in their head. If they hurt their ankle, hip, back, all that stuff, I knew. So not only was I able to train them from a physical standpoint, I was able to train them from a psychological standpoint. I know what you're going through. I know the barriers that you have to go, that you have to go through. Because it's so much easier to get an individual back from a physical injury, but it's that mental scar that stays with them. How, what do you have to do to make them forget about that mental scar? And that's where my, that's where my niche came in. Like, "Okay, I need you to go out there and play, and play at the highest level and not worry about what happened six months ago, nine months ago, six weeks ago." So when it became sports enhancement, the enhancement part, the sports was the physical, the enhan, enhancement part was, was the mental.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If I speak to some of your clients that knew you best, Michael Jordan, Kobe, and all these others, and I know you work now with a lot of CEOs and a lot of business leaders, et cetera, and I ask them, "What is Tim good at? What was Tim good at for you?" What would they say to me?
- TGTim Grover
Elevating. Elevating them to another level.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Holistically.
- TGTim Grover
Holistically. Just being able, 'cause when somebody comes up to me and they said, "I wanna be something." And I look at it, "Well, somebody's already done that. I need more." You can't come to me and just say, "I wanna be..." Everyone says, "I wanna be the world's best tennis player. I wanna be the world's best basketball player. I wanna be the world's greatest pod, pod, podcaster." What? That's already been done. What? There's another level. You're not thinking big enough. My individuals come to me and say, "Listen, I have these dreams. I have these thoughts." And the first thing I tell them, "Your dreams and thoughts better be so big that they better scare you. They better scare you."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- TGTim Grover
'Cause you're not thinking big enough then. You don't want it. It has to be something that nobody else has thought about before or done before. The process it takes to be number one and stay at number one, you have no, you have, you have no idea. You have an idea 'cause you've been there.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- TGTim Grover
Everybody wants to sit in your seat until they have to sit in your seat. Very few people understand what winning and success does to an individual's mental health. Everybody thinks the more you win, the more successful you are. It just makes everything so much easier. And they don't understand the pressures that these individuals put on themselves to continue to perform at the highest level, to have their businesses win over and over again. When you get, reach a million followers on your social media, it's a different level of pressure than an individual who isn't winning all the time or hasn't been successful at the highest le, uh, at the highest level, who's not being critiqued about every decision they make, about what they wear, about what they say, where they go. And that's a whole different level of mental health that success brings that a lot of people just don't understand.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Michael Jordan. I, uh, I watched The Last Dance documentary.
- TGTim Grover
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I saw you in, uh, there as well. Um-Really, I gotta be honest, I didn't really know much about MJ before that. And it went from me watching that documentary, getting obsessed with him, to hanging a picture on the wall in my office back in London, um, very soon after, a, a neon sign in my office in London of, just of that silhouette, uh, for, for many, many reasons. But as I read through your story, and a lot of my listeners won't know about this, so I, and I, I, I feel obliged 'cause I know the question they'll be asking is how on earth did you go from a college graduate that was, you know, earning $3 an hour as a trainer in a gym-
- TGTim Grover
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... to becoming the trainer of, or the sports enhancement specialist for Michael Jordan, who many see as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, sporting athletes of all time. What happened in that gap?
- TGTim Grover
Hmm. (laughs) Well, when I started going to college, I didn't know what I wanted to do. And, you know, again, being of Indian descent and having both parents Indian, in the medical, in the medical field, you get to choose two options as a career. One, being a doctor, and this is back in the '80s. Second, being a doctor.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- TGTim Grover
That's it. And I told my parents, "I do not wanna go. I don't wanna be a doctor." They said, "Well, what do you wanna do?" I said, "I wanna train professional athletes." I knew this very early. I knew this very, ve- very, very early because when I was a freshman in college, there was a, uh, a class, it was the first time it was being offered at the school. It was called kinesiology, which is movement of the muscles and body and the, and basically movement, movement of humans. And I took and kind of picked up a book and I started, I said, "You know what? This is for me." So when people kept telling me, "Why, why are you gonna take this class? Why?" Everybody said, "Oh, you know, most people that take these courses end up being in the health industry, whether it be studying science, working in administrations in colleges or being, uh, health educators." And I just like, "No, there's, there's something more out there for me. There's, there's something, there's something more out there for me." And then when we, we'd have our basketball practices in college and so forth, and I was like, "All we're doing is just, we're just running, running. We're, we're doing stuff without a purpose. Th- This, this, this can't, this can't be, this can't be right. This can't be right." And we had an individual that would come in and work our team out. I was just like, "This doesn't just, this doesn't feel right." So I really took study to this. I really wanted to understand this. Later on, I graduated with a master's degree. Parents were like, you know, "Well, you got this. You can't stay at home. You gotta go get a job."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Master's degree in?
- TGTim Grover
Master's degree in exercise science. All right. And I took a job at a local health club. The minimum wage back then was $3.35. I took the job. I took the job. They did not allow... I was the most qualified individual they had on their training staff, but they still wouldn't allow me to train because I had to do the six-month probation period. So I said, "Okay, no problem." So what I did was I worked in the exercise rooms, I basically cleaned the, cleaned the equipment, opened up the gyms, did different, different, different stuff, different stuff like that. And then after six months passed by, they said, "Okay, you have to take this exam. And if you pass the exam, we'll allow you to be a trainer." Well, what... (laughs) The funny part about it is when I looked at the exam, it was the exam I actually wrote as one of my projects for school. And this, and this health club was using the exam I actually wrote to certify their trainers.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Fucking hell.
- 34:38 – 43:37
Attention to detail and what made you succeed
- TGTim Grover
- SBSteven Bartlett
Marginal gains, as we call it, that 1%, that 0.1%. And I, I, I heard you talk about this with, with Kobe in the book and your other ath- athletes, um, that, that trying to find that edge, and Kobe was one of those people that, uh y- in the book that you, you talk about really tryna find their edge as well, um, in his career. I'm really compelled by the, the concept of marginal gains, because I feel like it's been my religion for my life. And my team here know, hear me talk about this so much that they're sick of it, which was l- which is, like, how do we make what we're doing here, or my businesses, but let's just focus on what we see here, 1% better? So whether it means putting these little things up to stop the reflection in there, whether it means b- s- you know, the effort they went to to put these things up, like, that is my religion. And when I s- when you sat down here, I said this podcast has been going for about a year and we're number one, and that is purely based on the fact that we believe the 1% will change our trajectory in an invisible way in the moment, but in a profound way over time.
- TGTim Grover
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How important are those marginal gains to the athletes that you've worked with and in the work you do with them still today?
- TGTim Grover
It's everything. It's everything. And it's in the details. You know, you just described all these little things. And somebody might comment, "Ah, it doesn't matter." You know? I, a great example was, like, you know what? When we handed you the book, you're like, "This cover is so much better than the other one."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hm.
- TGTim Grover
"Switch it." It's the little attention to the little things that people, everyone thinks they won't notice. You hear this all the time, "Don't sweat the small stuff." The one percenters, the .01, they sweat every single detail. 'Cause the one thing they let slip, somebody is going to use that to their advantage. Somebody is going to make a big deal out of it, and they're gonna feel like they left something out. You know, everyone says, "Don't worry about the things that you can't control." Well, these individuals...They wanna control everything they can control so the uncontrollable becomes more manageable to them. So if they pay attention to every single detail obsessively, over and over and over again, then when the uncontrollable happens... they can have a better chance of controlling it. There's a big thing that we used to use with Kobe all the time, is I used to ask individuals, "If you're interested in taking your business or your basketball game, your football skills, your podcast," and this, we'd have a room of thousands and thousands of people, "stand up." And everybody would stand up, and they'd give this big, rounding clap and all this other stuff.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If you're interested in taking it to number one?
- TGTim Grover
If you're interested, yes. To, uh, the next level. For some people, it may not be number one. Whatever it is, everybody c- claps up. And then I say, "Sit back down." Then I would ask them. I said, "All right, if you're obsessed with taking your business, your sport, whatever it is, to another level, stand up." And everybody would stand up again. Well, I would say, "Well, which one is it?"
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- TGTim Grover
"Which one is it? You can't be interested and you can't be obsessed." Interested is a hobby. Kobe Bryant was not interested in winning championships. He was obsessed. And obsession comes in the small details that nobody pays attention to. And I have a saying, all right? "Interested people watch obsessed people change the world."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Kobe was interested in those small details that nobody else was interested in paying attention to. What were those small details for him?
- TGTim Grover
Everyone talks about maximizing their time. Kobe and I were interested in maximizing his focus. When you maximize your focus, it gave us more, it gave us more time. The having everything laid out for him so he wouldn't have to worry about the, what shoes he, what shoes he had to wear, where, where the ti- where the tickets had to go for friends and, for their friends and family. We would come around and, in the different arenas, I would walk the floors while he was getting dressed, and I would tell him where the ball doesn't bounce as well. 'Cause on a basketball court, it's made out of wood, all right? And they're, they're portable floors. And everybody knows, in certain arenas, there're dead spots. You force the player into that area. If the ball is gonna bounce there, it's not gonna, it's not gonna bounce as high, which gives the team, team the advantage. And a lot of times, when they would move those, they would move those pieces around. So we would walk around, bounce the ball, dead spot, dead spot, dead spot, dead spot. So we'd get an advantage of the details that nobody else would've paid attention to, that if we went into that area, we know, stay away from that area. Or if we know we can't dribble on that, that p- that particular spot. And there was one time, there was a, a game where Kobe was, before the game, he was shooting free throws. And he was like, "Something isn't, something isn't right." So he called, uh, one of the maintenance guys over. He goes, "Are you sure this basket is right?" And then the guy said, "Yeah." He goes, "Well, I want you to check it for me." He measured it. It was an eighth of an inch off. When you're that obsessed, when you pay that much attention to the, to the de- to the details. You know, it's no different than what you said about the lighting (laughs) and, and the microphones and the team. I've never seen... (laughs) I've done quite a few podcasts. Right? I'm very, we're very selective in who, who we wanna sit, we wanna sit down with. And this is the first time I've seen this many individuals.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- TGTim Grover
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's funny. We were having a conversation yesterday, and I've been thinking about it for the last two days since we had the conversation. The conversation is, should we hire someone full-time to look at the data and an- analytics of the episodes when they go out, so we can... if we put an episode out and the title or thumbnail is wrong, we can know within 24 hours if we need to change it? Like we, we know, uh, in this conversation which part in hind- in hindsight, from looking at the data, people found most interesting, because they pull it back and watch it again.
- TGTim Grover
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And it's all of these insights which are there, but we wanna be the team that is the team that cares enough about that, about those tiny details, 'cause that is our religion, as we say.
- TGTim Grover
Yep.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That is what, where we believe we'll find all the gains.
- TGTim Grover
That's where the separation is. The separation is in the details. It's in the details. The separation in the clothes you wear is in the details, the sh- the shoes, the car that you drive, the, the house, your e- your education. It doesn't matter whether you go to the most expensive university or you drop out of the university. It's the details you pay attention to in your studies, in whatever your career choice is. That, those are the things that matter. You pay attention to the details in y- in your family. You pay attention to the details in your kids. You pay attention to the details of what makes your significant other happy, how they react to certain things. It's people get comfortable with not having to manage the details.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(paper rustles) I had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast. As the seasons have begun to change, so has my diet. And, um, right now, I'm just gonna be completely honest with you, I'm starting to think a lot about slimming down a little bit, because over the last couple of-... probably the last four or five months, my diet's been pretty bad, um, and it started to show a little bit. Really over the last two months, I go to the gym about 80% of the time, so I track it with 10 of my friends in a WhatsApp group, in this tracker online that we all use together. We call it Fitness Blockchain. And I'm currently at 81%. Um, so 81% of the days I've done a workout in the last 150 days. Right? So I'm going to the gym about six times a week. That's been a little bit impacted by the Diary of a CEO Live tour, but I'm trying to stick to it. And so one of the things I'm doing now to reduce my calorie intake and trying to get back to being nutritionally complete in all I eat, is I'm having the Huel protein shake. Thank you, Huel, for making a product that I actually like. The salted caramel is my favorite. I've got the banana one here, which is the one my girlfriend likes, but for me, salted caramel is
- 43:37 – 48:03
What do successful people end up missing?
- SBSteven Bartlett
the one. Having worked with a man like Kobe, and seeing what he strived for, his, you know, his focus on legacy, his obsession with his sports and his craft, and his obsession, as many have said, of being better than Michael Jordan. He's no longer with us, tragically.
- TGTim Grover
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But having seen a man striving for that greatness in his life and for that legacy, and having seen how that story ended, and now being able to look back on the fullness of his life, what was he missing? And the reason I ask this question is because sometimes I reflect on my own striving and think, "Is there something in hindsight, having lived a life where I achieved those things, where I reached the top in, you know, my industry in business, or in podcasting, wherever it might be, or as an investor, that I'm gonna realize in hindsight and go, 'Do you know what? Fuck.' Legacy might not have mattered as much as I thought it did." It might not have mattered as much as relationships or friendships, or something else.
- TGTim Grover
I always say this, the most driven individuals, they live a life for many years and certain times without balance. Everybody strives for balance, balance, balance. And in order to be that obsessed with something over and over again... So if you say something that's, that was missing, but it was actually a gift, was his lack of balance. You know, there were time... Now, you can't be the best at something and try to balance everything else around your life. There is gonna be times where things are gonna be out of balance. It just is. Uh, uh, you know, so many individuals talk about that you need more balance, you need more balance, you need more balance. You don't find balance, you create it, and it's different for every individual out there. What, the balance I've created may be completely different than the balance you, you've cre- you've created. And there's certain times in your life that the scales are definitely gonna be weighing towards one side more than the other. In early part of Kobe's, Kobe's career, it was about, it was about basketball and winning. It was about basketball and winning. And towards the end of the, towards the end of his career, and you know, he played for 20 years, it became more less about winning. It was still about basketball, and it became more focused, became more on spending time with the family. But you have to surround yourself with people, and this is very important to the listeners, you have to surround yourself with people, when your life is unbalanced, with individuals that will be selfish for you. They understand your obsession. They understand your drive. They understand your attention to detail. No, I guarantee it, almost... I, I don't know your whole team, but I guarantee it, almost everyone on your team, at some point, every single day, it's they become selfish for another individual so that individual can perform and do their task at the highest level. That's how you get closer to balance. You wanna get closer to balance? Don't continue to add stuff. Get closer to balance by deleting the unessentials. Delete the unessentials. The most successful people... And the success, when I talk about success, I'm not just talking about from a financial standpoint. Whatever success means to you and whatever success means to you in your, uh, in your life, they've learned how to disconnect. They've learned how to delete the unessentials. Because you spend so much time being obsessed and paying attention to the details, that you don't have time, you don't have focus for the unessentials. The most successful people have the smallest circles.
- 48:03 – 51:44
Happiness or winning at all costs, what’s the goal?
- SBSteven Bartlett
When people hear that, there'll be young kids that listen, and they'll, they might stop talking to their family. They might stop calling their girlfriend, and they might say, "Do you know what? It's because I just need to be obsessed." And they might compromise things in their life that lead them to despair and unhappiness, and those kinds of things. And I always wonder with these individuals that you've worked with that are at the highest level, that are, that are obsessed, do they prioritize happiness as the goal, as the ultimate goal, or is winning the goal at all costs? And in your view, there's sometimes they go too far. Should happiness be the goal?
- TGTim Grover
I can't make that decision for those individuals. My job i- i- if happiness, happiness could be winning for them-... all right? But you don't find happiness, you create it. You're not gonna find winning, you have to create, you have to create winning habits.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I sit here, sat here with a lady who became the number one YouTuber in the world. And she had 15 million subscribers, and she was talking about her obsession. She would get these spreadsheets. This was before the analytics. She'd write down how the video done in each, like, hour, two hours, whatever. She was obsessed. She becomes the biggest in the world. And in the process of getting there, she realized that this was, she was completely burnt out, miserable, depressed. And she'd been, like, dragged by this obsession to a place that made her depressed. And eventually, in 2019, she just com-, she quits YouTube.
- TGTim Grover
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I, and that's what I think sometimes with our darkness, it drags us in a way that, in a less conscious way, to a place that might make us unhappy.
- TGTim Grover
It does. You know, listen, winning does not always equate to, winning does not always e- equate to happiness. It- it- it just, it just doesn't. For I've had a lot of individuals that have come to me and just said, "This is too intense." I'll give you a great example. You know, everyone, Kobe's known for Mamba mentality.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, yeah.
- TGTim Grover
You know, that was, that was his thing, Mamba mentality. I've seen Mamba ment- First of all, Mamba mentality is not a mentality, it's a lifestyle. That's the first thing I tell an individual. And once I tell them about the lifestyle, I've seen M- Mamba mentality destroy more careers than I've seen it help. Too intense, too hot. People want the flame, but they don't wanna touch the fire. Are you willing to put aside the things that aren't as impo- as, ar- aren't as important to you at this particular moment? And I'm not telling kids, "Listen, don't, don't separate yourself from, from your, your family." But there's a lot of times that your family doesn't see the same things that you see and the same things that you believe in. They've had a certain way of doi- of doing things. My family, very supportive, very supportive. But to them, success was working for a institution that you got a paycheck every single two weeks, you got health insurance, you got paid vacation, you got a 401 (k) . That was their definition of success and happiness. To me, none of that would've made me happy. So when you talk about creating happiness, are you creating happiness that you've, you've created or somebody else has created for you? Are you writing your story of happiness or did somebody else write your story of happiness and hand it to you and say, "Here, this is how you become happy?"
- 51:44 – 1:02:18
What sacrifices did you make during your career?
- SBSteven Bartlett
One of the things I think I've struggled with in my life is knowing if something is something I want or if it's scratching an insecurity I have. So insecurity, as you know, is one of the greatest motivators in the world. Then it can turn into an obsession. So if you're bullied in school, you might wanna become famous because that, in your view, is acceptance, right? So you see fa- so you strive, and then the minute you get a taste of fame, maybe because you start a YouTube channel, you triple down because people are clapping for you. And this is everything that didn't happen when you were a kid. This is, it's filling that void. But is that happiness or am I just using external validation to cover a wound in me? And I see this in great people all the time. I always try and get to the bottom of the pain or, as we talked about, the darkness, the pain, the trauma, whatever, that's actually driving them. And I, I th- I guess my conclusion has been that they, you just need to be conscious of, of that.
- TGTim Grover
When you talked about, you know, that insecurity, that, that darkness, that need for, for to be vali- to be validated, what's con- is it controlling you or are you controlling it? You know, the one thing that... Listen, there was a point where a- as obsessed as Michael was with basketball, all right, he never let the sport control him. Like he never let that sport control him. He, he was like, "The- there are certain things within this game, yes, I have to follow these rules, I have to do things, but there's certain things that I still have to be in charge of my life. I still have to be in charge of who I am. I still have to be in charge of, uh, of my brand." And then when, what happens is, when you let external things and you start playing for the w- for the wrong reason, a lot of individuals play always... And this is thing in, with, in sports now, everyone talks about building their brand, building their brand, all right? And if you follow the people who have had the greatest success building their brand is they just outperform individuals. They put a better product out there. Do your job better than anybody else and your brand will build i- itself. So when people look for that happiness factor, is your foundation and your fundamental principles so strong that if this thing was to go away, could you still create happiness and success all over again? If your foundation and principles are extremely strong, no matter what endeavor it is, you look at the most successful people in business and everything else, they've gone to do multiple things that have allowed them to create different levels of happiness within that confined circle. You know, Michael had basketball. Then he had......the shoe brand. Now he's got other, now he's got other, o- other en- endeavors. He's involved in, you know, a lot of philanthropy things. The competitive nature doe- doesn't stop. And everybody thinks you can only be happy with one, one certain aspect in your l- i- in your li- i- in your life. You can create happiness in multiple things in your life. And if it gets to the point where it is burning, it is burning you out, that means it's time for you, for ... That you are no longer obsessed with that thing anymore, and it's time for you to beco- become obsessed with something else. And it could be this stage in your life, where your success and your happiness is now, "Listen, I just wanna create happiness for myself and for the individuals arou- a- around me."
- SBSteven Bartlett
And on that point of balance, was Michael ever direct with you about the sacrifice you would have to make to come on that journey with him?
- TGTim Grover
The first thing he told me was, "You better keep up."
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what did he mean by that?
- TGTim Grover
What he meant by that is not as a trainer, keep up in life. 'Cause this ride, we don't know which direction it's gonna go in. We don't know if it's going up, down, sideways. But be ready for anything this throws at us.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Interestingly, that's what you knew he meant.
- TGTim Grover
One of the reasons I get along so well with all my clients, professionally, business-wise, socially, or everybody, 'cause they know I'm just as messed up as they are. And I don't judge them. My, (laughs) uh, my daughter always says, she goes, "Dad, you have no weirdar." She goes, "Nothing to you is weird. Nothing to you." And I always, when I see something, I just say, "Interesting." I wanna know how that, what that person is doing and why they're doing it, and what's fueling that desire, and also, what are they using that desire? What are they gonna fuel it with, with other individuals? One of the stories I tell, (laughs) y- y- years, when I first started work, when I started, first started working with, with, uh, MJ, and this is ... (laughs) A lot of your listeners will be too young to remember this, but the recording devices back then was called a Betamax.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- TGTim Grover
A videotape you stuck in. So what I would do is I'd have to be at the basketball games very early, make sure everything was prepped and he, he, he was, he was ready to go. And we were always the last individuals to leave. I'd re-watch the game. I would count his steps. There was no Fitbit back then. There was no, no tracking measurements or so forth. Well, I needed, in my thought, and this went back to my process of not what to think, how to think, is, well, how can I prepare him for his next workout in the morning if I don't know how much physical activity and the differences between the right and left side? So I would literally count, this is how many steps he took left, this is how many steps he took right, this is how many times he took backward, this is how many times he le- landed on his right foot, this is how many times he landed on his left foot. So I'd have all this data, so the next morning, when I would get up, I'd be able to plan, "Okay, you know what, MJ? This side, you used your l- y- you used your left leg 60% more than you used your right leg, but you used your right hand more than you used your left. Okay, so this is what we're gonna do from a workout standpoint. Now, this is what we're gonna do from a training standpoint, 'cause one side's gonna need different training than the other side is going to need." So we would have d- different exercises where he'd have 50 pounds in one hand and 10 in the other. Or there's a certain amount of reps on this exercise and certain amount of reps on this exercise, certain time spent over here, certain time spent over here. There was no books out there that told me this is, this was the right thing to do. I just knew it was right. I just kn- I just knew it was right. And now they use this methodology all the time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So interesting. I was thinking about that, 'cause it's really interesting when you said that, that there was no books out there. And tends to be the case with pioneers and innovators and people that think from first principles, that they, they do it before the books are published.
- TGTim Grover
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And once the books are published, it's probably too late.
- TGTim Grover
Yeah. People are using meth- Uh, uh, stuff we were doing with him 30 years ago, people are just now using them. Like ...
- SBSteven Bartlett
Was that music to his ears when he knew that his sports enhancement-
- TGTim Grover
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... specialist was going to such a degree of detail? Could you, did you know that, that, that was proving to him that you cared and you were as obsessed as he was?
- TGTim Grover
Yes. You know, he gave me one of the best compliments that you can ever get at the highest level. When somebody else would say, "Hey, I wanna hir- I wanna hire Tim," he goes, "I don't pay Tim to train me." He goes, "I pay him not to train anybody else."
- SBSteven Bartlett
That is a big compliment.
- TGTim Grover
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm. He ultimately introduced you to somebody else when he retired and stepped out of the game after s- ph- you know, 15 years of you working together, which was Kobe. And I found it really intriguing that when he introduced you to Kobe, (laughs) he lovingly used the word asshole.
- TGTim Grover
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) When he introduced you to Kobe. So he said like, "I'm not using Tim anymore, so, you know, Kobe, you can, uh, you can work with him." Why did he use the word asshole?
- TGTim Grover
(laughs) You know what? As indi- as individuals become more successful, everybody around them becomes yes people. Nobody wanted to say no to Michael Jordan.I was that individual. We had many times, we had very heated, short arguments. There were, like, three words, which I won't say 'cause it'll offe- it'll offend a lot of your listeners.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- TGTim Grover
But that was the end of the con- that was the end of the conversation. I said, "MJ, you hired me to do a job at the highest level." I said, "You cannot do a job at the highest level without accountability." I said, "Once the accountability is broken between us, then it's time for you to find another individual." So he held me accountable, I held him accountable. And when somebody says, "You better keep up," as a person's star starts to grow, the accountability has a tendency to get less, because now you don't pay attention to the details as mu- a- a- as much 'cause you've, you feel like, "I've achieved it. I've gotten there." It's a lo- it's a lot easier. Staying on the top is not the same thing as reaching the top. Many individuals can reach the top, but very few individuals stay at the top, because the accountability among their team and among themselves starts to deteriorate once they've reached the top.
- 1:02:18 – 1:04:28
Consistency and performing at the highest level
- TGTim Grover
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what does that deterioration in accountability look like? What are the signs of it?
- TGTim Grover
I'll give you a great example. When people perform at the highest level in business, sometimes a boss or the person above them, the CEO, whatever, they'll say, "Ah, you know what? Man, their numbers are so good. We're gonna let them s- we're not gonna hold them accountable for this, this and this. You know, they're still performing, they're not my, may not be performing at the highest level, but they're still performing at, at a top level." So now you have that little crack. And that little crack gets a little bigger, and a little bigger, and a little bigger. Michael, in The Last Dance, said something. He goes, "I never asked any of my teammates to do anything that I didn't do." You're talking about the greatest to ever play the game, he didn't have to have anybody else hold him accountable. He was, "I'm not gonna ask you to do anything that I'm not gonna do myself." So as individuals, once they've reached that pinnacle, and they get their arms out and they start looking down and say, "I finally reached the top of this mountaintop," those are all the right things to do. Don't exhale. Because the air is so much thinner up on the top than it is on the climb to the top. And if you exhale, the next breath you have to catch will not have the same effect. You'll have to catch multiple breaths over and over and over again. That's why you see some of these a- some of these individuals that retire from a sport, they come back. Or you see a CEO of a company leave a company, take a year off, and now they become a CEO of ano- o- of a, of ano- of another company. They can't exhale.
- 1:04:28 – 1:08:26
Getting the best out of teams
- SBSteven Bartlett
In chapter five of your book, you, you speak to some of these things that Michael would do to his, to his teammates. Um, one of them is, m- he would mock his teammates into dedication. Right? You see this in The Last Dance, where he's cracking jokes at them. But you know that the jokes, there's, these aren't jokes, there's intention behind the jokes.
- TGTim Grover
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
He's trying to get them to run faster or to train harder or whatever.
- TGTim Grover
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Can you give me a, a window into what you saw in terms of the way that Michael would treat his teammates in order to get the best out of him? That, some might consider to be, in the modern day and age where we're very soft, especially in the, the business world, toxic.
- TGTim Grover
It worked for him. And it was the only m- uh, the only way he kn- he knew how. And it's, a lot of people may consider things toxic when they initially start out. But then when you see the end result, or when your career's over with, or when you're with a different organization, you look at it and say, "You know what? I really miss that." I- I give an example of flowers. When you gift roses or you're gifted roses or any types of flowers, they cut the thorns off, because the thorns, you know, are prickly and so forth. Well, when you cut the thorns off a rose, you decrease its lifespan. So a lot of individuals that have been thorns in your life have actually allowed you to propel to places that you would never be able to propel before. And you don't miss it until those thorn is ni- or when that thorn is no longer there. So when Michael, who was constantly pushing his players, getting them to l- he, everybody knew he was not coming down to their level. He didn't expect everybody to come up to his level, but he knew there was another level for each indi- for each individual. And he just wanted you to perform at the highest level, and he wanted you to have a taste of winning, not just once, but numerous times, over and over again. And he had to be genuine to who he, who he was. The, one of the things that I talk about in my other book, Relentless, one of the 13, I said, "You know exactly who you are." He knew exactly who he was. He knew who he can communicate with.... and say certain things, and he knew when not to say certain things and have another individual talk to that person. But when he spoke, everybody, everybody listens. There, if you watch practices, everybody would come into the practice and they'd be laughin' and kinda jokin' and havin' a, havin' a good time, and so forth, and as soon as that whistle was blown, silence. And Michael always said, "I practiced so hard, and we all need to practice so hard so the games become easier."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you think he used those thorns as well as a bit of a filter, in terms of filtering out the teammates that he didn't think were-
- TGTim Grover
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... were good enough?
- TGTim Grover
Yes. I won't say they were good enough as one he, that he could trust in certain situations.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Trust, interesting.
- TGTim Grover
It was a, the th- the thorns were more for trust. How, how ca- a- can I keep pokin' you, or how many times can I keep pokin' you and see how you're gonna come back? Are you gonna come back? Or what, what, what's your adversity tolerance? 'Cause there's gonna be certain situations that can I tru- can I trust you? Can I trust you in that situation? And if you look throughout his career, there's very few people when the game was on the line that he would trust to pass the ball to and say, "Hey, this is what's gonna happen." Very, very few. And all those individuals that he did that with, at some point in their career, stood up to him and challenged him.
- 1:08:26 – 1:10:58
Keeping the right people around you
- SBSteven Bartlett
Isn't that interesting? It's almost a bit of a paradox, the, the fact that we trust those most, and this, this sounds, m- from everything I've read, like much of the reason why he trusted you was because he knew you would put truth at the, the front of everything you do. And to be honest, I think I've probably said this to my team before, but the, the people that are A, most valuable, um, in my circle, are those that are, do have a voice and are willing to give it to me despite my, um, de- s- despite my success.
- TGTim Grover
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Those are the ones you want, you wanna keep around, right?
- TGTim Grover
You look at... Yeah, I definitely keep those individual, ke- definitely keep those individuals around. I just, (sighs) it's too easy, too many times, we let people off the hook. I can't let an individual off the hook because it's too easy. Think about the time that you left, you let somebody off the hook. How'd it turn out for you?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Badly. The first example that came to mind was someone who I hired to lead one of our countries for our, for our company, and their behavior was not up to standard and I procrastinated on it for too long, for almo- for, for more than a year, and it cost me every day. When I say cost, I mean it was a seven-figure cost to our company. And eventually, I had to make the decision that I should've made at the start, right? I should've-
- TGTim Grover
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But a- for some reason, I was, uh, for the reasons I now clearly understand, I was avoiding the decision and letting the person off the hook.
- TGTim Grover
How many years ago was that?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, f- I think now it'd be four years ago.
- TGTim Grover
All right. If that same situation happened now, how quickly would you respond?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, so fast.
- TGTim Grover
All right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- TGTim Grover
So-
- SBSteven Bartlett
So quickly. And I have subsequently, and I, when I do respond in that way, I recite that story-
- TGTim Grover
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... to the, to the people around me. I go, "Four years ago, this happened, and it's my single biggest regret in business because I procrastinated on making a decision I knew I had to make. I let the person off the hook. So this is why today, four years later, we're making this decision as soon as we possibly can." (laughs)
- TGTim Grover
Winning doesn't make you heartless, but it teaches you to use your heart less. Four years ago, you were using your heart.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- TGTim Grover
Now, you'd use your heart, you still have a heart, but you'd use it less.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And my brain more. (laughs) Yeah.
- TGTim Grover
Exa- exactly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- TGTim Grover
Mind over feelings.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- 1:10:58 – 1:15:55
Showing up is not winning
- SBSteven Bartlett
And when we're faced with those tough decisions, for me, what I learnt in hindsight is it felt like difficulty in the moment. That's why part of the reason I procrastinated on the decision, but in hindsight, it caused so much more difficulty in the long term. So it's really that, like, bal- the, the wisdom I got from it is, you know, uh, tough decision today, or you can make the same decision but in a year's time when it becomes, when the cost and the implications of the decision are even greater and it's had a time to drag you or pull you down or to make you lose games, whatever it might be, or lose money in business. And so that decisiveness and putting h- mind over matter is something that I've, I've definitely developed as a CEO. One of the things you said, which I found really, um, thought-provoking and it kinda bucked the trend, in chapter 12 of your book is, "When someone says showing up is half the battle-"
- TGTim Grover
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
"... you're looking at an individual who is already losing the battle." People say that all the time, "Showing up is half the battle."
- TGTim Grover
Showing up is none of the battle. You showed up. I showed up. What're we supposed to, not do the podcast and go have a drink?
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- TGTim Grover
Ah. Showing up is none of the battle. People want accolades and rewards for doing thing that they're supposed to do. People wanna get acknowledged for things that you're suppo- you're supposed to show up. You guys are supposed to practice. You're supposed to perfor- you're supposed to get results. No, people, (laughs) people have a hard time understanding now the difference between feedback and criticism. It's exactly the same thing. It's just how you hear it. You, in order to get anything i- i- a- a- anything in life and to get anywhere, you must show up. If you think showing up is winning, you've already, you've already lost the battle. You've already lost the battle. People wanna get a medal for doing the, for doing the easy things. People show up every single day.People show up every single day and are dealing with circumstances that are beyond your imagination. They still show up. I- I- I love to give examples to individuals that just happened. We're sitting in a completely different location of where this podcast was originally supposed to be done in. Showing up, and you were congratulating yourself for, "Hey, showing up is half the battle." You'd have been like, "Oh, well, we showed up here. We won." But he's like, "All right, no, we actually showed up, and we got thrown out. Now we gotta go show up somewhere else and make this thing all work again." And people come back and says, "Oh, you know what? You showed up. Don't worry about it. You won that battle today." No.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you know that story? So we landed in LA and we got to the hotel. And the hotel, um, offered us a ce- had o- offered us a certain room in the pent- the penthouse suite where we felt we could replicate the aesthetic we need to make the show successful. We're looking for somewhere where it feels like you are in my h- 'Cause we recorded it in the UK in my house.
- TGTim Grover
Sure.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So it needs to feel like home because of the nature of the conversation we're having.
- TGTim Grover
Sure.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It needs to be dark.
- TGTim Grover
Details.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. Right? So we got to the hotel. They're like, "Well, you can have, you know, the- the penthouse suite. There's one day it's booked for, so for three of the episodes, the set will change." And I was like, "We don't want the set to change." So they said, "Well, there's a meeting room. We'll give it to you completely free at the back." We can't do it in a meeting room. They showed us six or seven rooms. They took us around every room in the hotel. No. So although the podcast was two days away and we had 20 odd guests coming-
- TGTim Grover
Sure.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... we, as a team, because again, our religion is to care about the details, looked for somewhere else. We went on viewings, and we found this place, insanely expensive place (laughs) as you've seen. But, uh, but we- we've always believed in those details. We always believe it really matters. And then Jack and the team and Berta, to their credit, have built this whole entire set, which nobody can see, in- in the next pr- in the next 24 hours, running back and forth from Target. We don't have to do that, but we beli- 'cause we've s- as you said earlier, we've seen the outcome of that suffering now. And once you've tasted it, you can't unsee it, right?
- TGTim Grover
You can't uns- You can't unsee it. You just can't. You can't. I- You know, people always said, you know, (laughs) yeah, "Y- you can't," (laughs) "you can't forget what you've seen. You can't unlearn what you've learned." You ju- you ca- you can't. You can- You ki- You can't unlearn it. You can learn from it and learn other things on top of it, but you're never gonna unlearn those things. You're never gonna un- be able to unsee the things that th- that you- that you've seen. And that's when people just don't under- they just don't understand that they- they can't. They can't see and understand your level of craziness. They can't see your level of- of obsession. And then once you- those things no longer matter for you, then you know it's time to move on to another endeavor, which you've already have in your previous thing.
- 1:15:55 – 1:21:44
The impact of your work on your family
- TGTim Grover
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know when you- when you- we talked earlier about relationships. We talked about the relationships of those around you and how that can be impacted. Yeah, we talked about, at the very start of this conversation, about our dark sides. One of the ways we sometimes see the consequences of our dark sides is in our romantic relationships. One of the ways we see the consequences of our obsession is in our romantic relationships.
- TGTim Grover
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So tell me, from a both a personal perspective as Tim, the impact that your dark side and obsession and your desire to win and be great has had on your relationships and those that you've coached and you've worked with.
- TGTim Grover
From a personal standpoint, I will say this, winning will cost you everything, but will reward you with so much more. It's gonna cost you everything. And I- Every decision I've made, I knew what the consequences was. I knew what the cost was going to be. It may have not been at that particular moment, but I knew down the line, if I go do this decision, if I go work with this individual, or I decide to do this now, somewhere down the line, this is what it's- this is what it's gonna cost- this is what it's gonna cost me. I tell the story in the i- in the book where my daughter came up to me when I was- when she was, like, five years old, and says, "Daddy, why do you travel so much?" And so I said, "Sweetheart, this is how I take care of the family. This is how I provide for you. This is how I take c- care of mom. This is how I put a roof over their head. This is how I put food on the table." She goes, "Daddy, if I eat less, will you stay home more?" At age five. I was packing for a trip. Now, if this was a fairytale, I'd have unpacked my bag, I'd have grabbed her hand, we'd have went out for ice cream. I kept packing. Now, I'm not telling anybody out there that's a decision they should make. But that was my decision. And then many years later, I sat down my daughter, and I said, "Hey, I wanna talk to you." And I wanted to discuss with her why Dad is the way he is. And before I could even start, she goes, "Dad, I understand." She goes, "I understand." She goes, "I could see what you provided for Mom and I. I could see the sacrifices you made for us."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Was it important for you to hear that?
- TGTim Grover
Yes, very important, and I just never knew when the right time was. And then one day, I just said, "This is the day."This is the day. She goes, "You taught me how to make the toughest decisions in life." She goes, "Not only taught me, you showed me. You told me how to be independent, when to be dependent, when to be independent." So sometimes when you think you're making the wrong decision or you're after making the toughest decision because you're thinking about somebody else and the consequences, if you think the price of winning is too high, wait till you get the bill from regret. And that bill from regret is generational. And there's a lot of people listening to this that that bill has been passed on from generation to generation, and you are holding that bill right now. And somebody in some, one of your generations has to pay that bill off in order for the generation to move on. And the only way that bill gets paid off is you gotta be willing to make the hardest decisions. The other side of that story is, I would often fly. My family was in Chicago. I was doing work on the West Coast. So when she had a school play, when she had a volleyball game, I would fly from the West Coast, land in Chicago, watch her performance for 45 minutes to an hour, and get on the plane that same night and be back for my client the next day. And there was a lot of times where I didn't even get a chance to speak to her. She just knew I was in the audience, 'cause I had to b- it was the only flight to get back. Those are the parts nobody remembers. Everybody remembers the one event you don't show up for. And I guaranteed, every individual who's won at multiple things, who's been successful at many things over and over again, at some point (laughs) in your career, some point in your life, you forgot a very important date, you missed an event. You just, you just did. But nobody wants to talk about it, because people are gonna judge you on that one thing.
- 1:21:44 – 1:24:04
Our last guest’s question
- SBSteven Bartlett
Tim, thank you.
- TGTim Grover
My pleasure.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Honestly, uh, you've sent me on a... You know, my job is to sit here asking questions, but my brain has been running for, for many, many reasons. I feel like I need to go and sit down upstairs and-
- TGTim Grover
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... just reflect on a lot of things you've said. It's, um, speaking to you today was, it will remain one of the biggest honors I've had on this podcast because you're a very, very, um, special proposition.
- TGTim Grover
Thank you.
- SBSteven Bartlett
We have a closing tradition on this, this podcast where we ask guests, uh, to a- leave a question for the next guest. And I don't get to see the question until I open the book, so-
- TGTim Grover
Okay.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is one mistake you've made that you've been scared to address or reconcile?
- TGTim Grover
Every mistake I've made, I've reconciled. I've owned up to it. Whether they accept it or not, people have asked me to apologize for things I shouldn't have apologized for. If people had to s- make a mistake, I would say that would be one of it. A lo- a few times I apologized for things I should have not apologized for.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Thank you.
- TGTim Grover
You're welcome.
- SBSteven Bartlett
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Episode duration: 1:24:04
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