Relentless
By Tim Grover
Below are my notes and key hi-lighted passages from Relentless by Tim Grover. (Italics = quotes from the book. Bold = my personal notes)
“You don’t wait to be told, you don’t waver from your goal. When it’s time to act, you act, instinctively and without hesitation. As you will read in these pages. Done. Next.”
“You can’t keep improving if you fear others will disapprove of what you’re doing.”
Fixed mindset vs Growth mindset
“Don’t tell me the glass is half full or half empty; you either have something in that glass or you don’t. Everything in this book is about raising your standard of excellence, going beyond what you already know and think, beyond what anyone has tried to teach you.”
“Success isn’t the same as talent. The world is full of incredibly talented people who never succeed at anything.”
If you want to be truly successful, you can’t be content with “pretty good.” You need to find that extra gear."
“Great teams lose because the leader doesn’t show up.”
“You don’t let your enemies set up shop in your head.”
“That is what champions do; they put people in place to get results and make everyone else around them look better.”
“Cleaners don’t do it for show, they don’t go through the motions. A true Cleaner never tells you what he’s doing or what he’s planning. You find out after the job is complete. And by the team you realize what they have accomplished, they are already moved on to the next challenge.”
“Cleaners have a dark side, and a zone you can’t enter. They get what they want, but they pay for it in solicitude. Excellence is lonely, because it gives them too much time to think about what they’ve had to endure and sacrifice to get to the top.”
“You can’t be unstoppable in your career and your relationships and your other interests, because achieving excellence in any one of those areas requires you to say - “I don’t give a damn about anything else.: If you’re trying to be a cleaner in business, you’ll probably sacrifice your personal relationships. If you’re a cleaner in sports, you likely won't excel in business. If you want to be a Cleaner parent, your career will take a hit. Cleaners sacrifice the rest to get what they want the most. Most people stress about that. A Cleaner never does.”
Excellence requires radical time management and a clearly defined priority system.
“Those who talk don’t know, and those who know don’t talk.”
“Bottom line if you want success of any kind: you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.”
“If you do what you always do, over and over you’re always going to get the same result.”
“I know it’s not easy, but you can’t stay in your comfort zone and expect results Challenge yourself. Don’t be afraid to be uncomfortable. We can’t help people committed to failure.”
“For all the time we spend working on our careers and talents - going to school, building a business, making money, training the body - it’s ultimately your mental focus and concentration, your ability to control your environment and the heartbeats of others that determines whether you succeed or fail.”
The power of the mind cannot be understated.
“Watch the true leaders. At game time, Love comes onto the court the way a CEO walks into a shareholders meeting. Shakes a few hands, says hello to the players and the refs, and gets down to business.”
Leadership presence - body language, eye contact, posture are all critical in many domains.
“The fastest way to tumble out of the zone is to allow emotions to drive your actions.”
“Tough challenge, to stop thinking about what others tell you to think. Your coach, your boss, your family, teammates, colleagues… they’re all experts on what you’re supposed to be doing, and they rarely hesitate to tell you. Some of the greatest athletes in any sport can’t fight the need to overthink.”
“When you become too focused on what’s going on around you, you lose touch with what’s going on deep inside you.”
“Lot’s of people start things; few are able to finish. Why? They don’t trust themselves to get to the end. They start thinking about everything that could go wrong, second-guessing their choices, listening to others instead of listening to themselves. Anyone can have a great idea… it’s what you do with the thought that defines you.”
“You don’t get to be the best at anything without blistering confidence and an impenetrable shell. You get there by taking huge risks that others won’t take, because you rely on your instincts to know which risks aren’t risks at all.”
“The trademark of a dangerous competitor: he doesn’t have to know what’s coming because whatever you show him, he’s ready. No fear of failure.”
“A great leader knows the best way to get people to raise their performance is to put them where they can truly excel, not just where you want them to excel.”
“The only way you can light other people on fire is to be lit yourself, from the inside. Professional, cool, focused.”
Leaders can’t give what they don’t have. If you want energy, you better bring energy.
“Every minute, every hour, every day that you sit around trying to figure out what to do, someone else is already doing it. While you’re trying to choose whether to go left or right, this way or that way, someone else is already there. While you’re paralyzed from overthinking and overanalyzing your next move, someone else went with his gut and beat you to it.”
“Most people don’t want to make decisions. They make suggestions, and they wait to see what everyone else thinks, so they can say “It was just a suggestion” They know the right answer, but can’t act because if something goes wrong, they’ll have to take responsibility and then they can’t blame anyone else.”
“Figure out what you do, then do it. And do it better than anyone else. And then let everything else you do build around that; stay with what you know. Being great at one thing doesn’t mean you can also run a restaurant or a car dealership or a line of sportswear. Bill Gates is not going to launch a line of sportswear. Most likely, neither should you.”
“People who start at the top never understand what they missed at the bottom. The guy who started by sorting the mail, or cleaning the restuarant late at night, or fixing the equipment in the gym, that’s the guy who knows how things get done. After he’s eventually worked his way up the ranks, he knows how everything works, why it works, what to do when it stops working. That’s the guy who will have longevity and value and impact, because he knows what it took to get to the top. You can’t claim you ran a marathon if you started at the seventeenth mile.”
Do not despise small beginnings.
On Michael Jordan: “He didn’t work on being flashy, he worked on being consistent, and he worked on it relentlessly. Cleaners don’t care about instant gratification; they invest in the long-term payoff.
Ask yourself honestly, what would you have to sacrifice to have what you really want? Your social life? Relationships? Credit cards? Free time? Sleep? Now answer this question: Why are you willing to sacrifice? If those two lists don’t match up, you don’t want it badly enough.”
“In anything you do, it takes no talent to work hard. You just have to want to do it. I could tell you so many stories about athletes blessed with incredible physical talent - size, power, pure athletic excellence - who end up playing sports only because that’s where their gifts direct them.”
Spend your career on the bench for the right team and you can walk away with a bonus and a nice ring. Good enough, if good enough is what you set out to achieve.”
“The loudest guy in the room is the one with the most to prove, and no way to prove it. A Cleaner has no need to announce his presence; you’ll know he’s there by the way he carries himself, alway's cool and confident.”
“When people start broadcasting what they’re going to do, and how great they’re going to be when they do it, it’s a sure sign they’re still trying to convince themselves. If you already know, you don’t have to talk about it. Talk never goes up in price, it’s always free, and you usually get what you pay for.”
“A cleaner never sees failure because to him it’s never over. If something doesn’t go as planned, he instinctively looks for options to make things work a different way. He doesn’t feel embarrassed or ashamed, he doesn't blame anyone else, and he doesn't care what anyone says about his situation. It’s never the end. It’s never over.”
“The greatest battles you will ever fight are with your self, and you must always be your toughest opponent.”