Why You NEED to be Selfish to WIN w/Tim Grover EP 1112

This is episode number 1112 with Tim Grover. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.

Thanks for spending some time with me today.

Now let the class begin. J.W. Lynn once said, you are so much stronger than you realize. Don't let anyone tell you that you're not, not even you. And Tim Fargo said, who you are tomorrow begins with what you do today. My guest today is Tim Grover, best known for his training with Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and thousands of athletes and business professionals. He's the CEO and founder of Attack Athletics, Inc. and author of the international bestseller, Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable. And his new book will inspire you. It's called Winning. the unforgiving race to Greatness. He appears around the world as a keynote speaker and consults to business leaders, athletes, and the highest achievers in every field. This is part two of our interview, so make sure to check out part one where we talked about the three greatest lessons Tim learned from Michael Jordan. The reason Kobe Bryant was Tim's most demanding clients, how to create balance in your life the right way and so much more. It's the previous episode right before this one. But in this episode, we discuss what happens when you acknowledge your self doubts out loud. The Three Biggest Lessons Tim Learned from Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade. How to Change youe Life by Adopting a Winning Mindset. Why youy Need to Rethink youg Idea of Selfishness. The Importance of Managing youg Focus Instead of youf Time. And so much more. Again, make sure to share this with someone that you think would be inspired by this message as well that would help uplift them and continue to support them in their dreams and goals. And subscribe to the School of Greatness on Apple Podcast or Spotify if this is your first time here, or if you haven't yet subscribed, click that subscribe button right now. And in just a moment, I'm gonna bring you the one and only Tim Grover. Kobe loved Team Hammer.

We talked about it before our interview. Yes. 'Cause I mentioned to him, my time with him was, you know, something I'll always remember. And I only had an hour and a half with the guy. You spent years with him. But before we did the interview, I was just like, Hey, I really wanna acknowledge you. This wasn't on film, but I was like, I wanna acknowledge you for All the Olympians that I know, friends of mine, they all say how amazing you were during the Olympics, how you'd show up and take photos with everyone. You were so generous and kind, and you would show up at the events and watch people and support all these athletes.

So many other events. So many. And here's the thing, USA Basketball, they.

Don'T stay- At the village.

The village. We were like way, way out, and he would like say, Hey, listen, I want to go see some. We literally had a schedule. This is what we're gonna go see, this is what we want to do. And he was at Every single one of those events. Every single one of those events.

It's crazy. And I mentioned I played with the USA handball team and he goes, no way. He goes, I played handball growing up in Italy. I love team handball. And so we were able to connect on that level, but he was, it's amazing to see what he's been able to create from that. And you spent so much time with him. What was that like when he was, he was doubting himself. What was that like when you would see him doubt himself? He would maybe never talk about it, but how did he overcome the doubt?

Well, one thing that you have to do when you have the doubt is you got to talk about it. You got to admit it's there.

Speak it.

Speak it. You got to admit it's there. And you have to either got to speak it to yourself or speak it to an individual that's not going to judge you for it, that isn't going to think you're weak, that isn't going to think that, hey, What is this person, why is this person doubting? So here's a story, championship number one, two, three, championship number four. So we had just lost, I would say we, but they had just lost to the Boston Celtics in game six.

What is this, 2008 or something?

2007, 2008, one of those years. After the game, he sits down and he has dinner with the coaches so they can go over the thing and they talk about his different-- then afterwards he'll socialize a little bit with his teammates to go over the game plan. And then after everything is done, he'll send me a text and I'd sit down and he was sitting there with me. And this is a great-- After they lost. This is after they lost.

The playoffs.

They didn't lose the playoffs. They lost the game. They lost game six. And they were going into-- they were going into-- they were going into game seven.

Got it.

All right. And they had a chance to, if they would have won game six, they would have won the championship. It would have been over. So he's sitting there and he looks at me and we start talking. He goes, Man, I threw everything at him but the kitchen sink. And I just looked at him, I said, why are you holding on to the sink?

Right.

I said, why are you holding on to the sink? I said, Are you doubting? Did you doubt yourself for the moment? I said, Did you save that sink for game seven? I said, if you were throwing the game in game six, what are you saving it for? And then we literally had a discussion about that moment of doubt, which was very rare to him. But it was the Lakers-Celtics rivalry. It was his first chance to win a championship without Shaq. So you hear all this stuff and no matter how many times you've won over and over again, winning has no loyalty. It doesn't recognize, it recognizes you briefly and then it turns his head and starts looking for the other individual. And remember, this was seven years now where he had won the last championship. Really? Yes, between championship three, between championship three, it was seven years.

That's a big drought for Kobe.

Right, and now how many people in that time would really start doubting, are you ever going to get there? Are you gonna ever get there?

Does he have it anymore? Can he do it? Do they have the tools?

Yes, and every athlete tells you this, oh, I don't pay attention to the media.

Oh, they read everything. They read everything, they watch every interview, and they hold on to that.

Yes, yes they do. Yes, they do. Every single, so you know, after all those years, you know, do you start to, you start, you're human. You start to think, man, maybe they're right.

Maybe I'm getting older, maybe. Yeah.

So now, hey, listen, everything that everybody else has been saying, everything that you've been holding inside, let's talk about this now.

So what did he say after the sync part?

He just gave me that bomb of glare, first of all. you know, that mom belonged because he knew I touched.

You had a button.

I, yeah, I, I, I, I, I touched a button that very few were afraid that didn't want, that didn't want, that didn't want to touch. And he didn't get, he didn't make any excuses. He, he, he didn't make any excuses. And I just said, look how close we are. I said, look how cool, look how close we are. I said, we're one victory away. Wow. After seven years.

Oh, man.

I said, after seven years, I said, did you ever doubt that you'd get here again? He said, absolutely not. I said, while we're here, let's not doubt that you're going to finish the job. Let's finish. Finish. I said, I can't finish a job for you. I cannot finish a job for you. I said, nobody that you met with at this table can finish a job for you. I said, if you doubting that you can't finish the job, then I'll go home tonight. I'll go home tonight. And Michael was a complete opposite. Michael, in that aspect, it was just like we were... So back then, the series were a little bit different. They changed the format. It was 2-3-2. All right, so you played two games at home, three games on the road, and then two, 'cause they wanted to minimize the travel. So Michael would tell you would be going into game six, if you won game six on the road, you were done. You won the championship. So Michael would literally tell all the team and the staff, pack one suit.

Yeah, it's crazy.

Pack for one day. He goes, Don't pack for two, pack for one.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

He talked about it in the Last Dance, I think, as well, yeah.

Yeah.

Six championships never needed a game seven.

Really?

They never needed a game seven. That's crazy.

Yeah.

All right.

Or we got no clothes.

Yeah.

Otherwise, we're naked.

We're gonna sell. Everybody's gonna say, the hell are these people? What the hell are these people doing?

Yeah.

And then you humiliate yourself. 'Cause you didn't go all out.

Exactly. And for a moment, listen, how many times in our lives have you really gone all in on something?

Very few.

And then when you do go, look at the results.

Pretty undeniable, yeah.

Yeah, look at the results.

So do you think when we have these moments of doubt, you're saying we should speak about it? And that day, Kobe was speaking about it with you.

Speak it to somebody who's not going to judge you. who understands, who's not just gonna give you the answer. It's okay. Everything's gonna be fine. There's another day. There's another game.

What does that do for us? By speaking the self-doubt.

Acknowledging it.

What does that do?

Well, when you acknowledge it, it's just like anybody. What do they say? What's the first thing? Doubt can become an addiction. Just like anything else.

It's like winning.

Yes. So what do people say the first thing when you become an addict? You got to talk about it. You got to admit it.

Speak the poison out of your body.

Yes.

Like get it out, talk about it. It becomes less scary. It doesn't have as much power over you if it's inside.

Yes. Get it out. What do you, because what I might think you're doubting may be completely different than something that you're doubting. I may see something and you're like, no, that's not it. Well, okay, let's talk about it. Let's talk about this a little more. Explain to me, explain to me what's going on here. What created that doubt? What created that doubt? And we know after seven years.

It.

Had finally gotten to the point where it was just like, and no one talked to him because Kobe wasn't going to talk to anybody about it. He's never going to talk to the media about it. He should talk to some individual that's like, Hey, okay, listen. Listen, I understand. I'm as obsessed and as crazy as you are, 'cause that's why you hired me.

Right.

That's why you hired me. I understand the winning mentality. I understand what's going on in, what's going on in under here. I understand the skeletons. I understand the demons. I get those things. Mine aren't the same as yours, but I have them. We all have them, and very few can admit them. So when you start admitting doubt, and you start to be able to talk about it, you take something that you've tried to bury in your closet.

That.

Needs to be addressed, but you're trying to hide it, you're trying to bury it, you're trying to put it away. And winning requires you to show up with all of you. It wants to show up the good, the bad, the fearful, the doubt, the anxiety, the ups, the downs. It needs to see all of you. Otherwise, it's never going to acknowledge you. It's not going to acknowledge you. And you can't win with just one thing. You have to win with all of you. All of it. All of it.

Wow. What was the greatest, three greatest lessons that Kobe taught you? We heard a competing accountability and winning at all levels for Michael. What about Kobe? The three, three big lessons he taught you?

Obsession? Extremely high threshold for physical and mental pain. Discomfort. And also winning. They all had that in common.

The winning mindset, the winning mentality.

Yes, what he called it, the mama mentality.

What is it? What is the mindset of winning? They both had that. Obviously, they both had a lot of things, but what is the mindset of winning when someone adopts that mentality? What does that do for them as opposed to the mindset of, well, whatever result I get is fine, or it's okay if I have this and I'm okay with that.

And so I look at it. I look at it three ways. So you have individuals. that compete. You know a lot of people that compete. We all know how to compete. Everybody knows how to compete. You don't forget how to compete. We just decide not to anymore. But a lot of people compete just to finish. They compete just to finish.

Just to compete, just for the act of doing it.

Just the act of, now I always say, if you're finishing that Whatever you're competing in allows you to win at something else. Allows you to say, Hey, listen, I.

Just broke through a barrier. Yeah, or if that's a win, like for me, I'm gonna be running in a marathon later this year, and I am not a distance runner. I'm doing it to overcome the challenge of long distance running. That's your win.

But I'm not gonna win the marathon. I'm not trying to. Right. All right. You're going, but your win is to finish. Absolutely. All right. But so a lot of people's win there is It's not to finish. It's just, I'm just gonna finish without a purpose. Then there's individuals that win, but they only win one time.

Yeah.

The hardest thing is doing it over and over. It's not easy to win.

Right.

But it's easy to win and then never win again. I mean, it's so hard to do it over and over consistently.

And then there's people that win at winning.

They win at winning.

Yes.

That is an art and a science probably combined.

Yes, because here's how it goes. You can't come back the same.

Once you win, you can't come back.

You can. Cannot come back the same. You have to come back different. You have to come back better. This is where I always says, listen, winning requires you to be different. And different scares people.

Absolutely.

It scares people. So after each championship, Every single athlete, high performance athlete that I've worked with, even in business, would come up to me and say, what's next? Because I need to feel this again. I need to feel this again.

The obsession.

Yes, I need to feel this again. So they know they have to come back. Something about them has to be better.

They have to continue to evolve and change.

How many teams do you know in professional sports that they bring the exact same team back. I mean, exact same team that win again. They don't. There's always a little change. There's always a little tweak here. There's a change over here. There's something that goes on over here. And every athlete who's won multiple titles over and over again, or even in different business people, you look at, you just had Tony here. Look, he's won for decades.

For decades. Four decades he's been doing this.

Yes.

He's always reinventing, always finding new coaches, always mastering some skill, learning, evolving.

It's just like you just have to just watch what these individuals do. Just watch, he's not still using the same format he used 20 years. Like you said, new coaches, new content, new technology, new everything. And it's available to us, but people like, oh, we did it once and we can do it the exact same way again. you can't. You can't. There's people that win at winning. And this is extremely important on how they do this. You said, well, how do you make sure you just don't go through this? We're all taught to manage time. Everyone tells you how to manage time. Make a list. This is what you do. And here it is. Have a little timer when it goes on and all this other stuff. And one of the things that I've teach all my clients from business standpoint, from an athletic standpoint, I was like, listen, don't manage time, manage focus. Ooh.

What does that look like?

Manage focus. So what happens is when you try to manage time, the clock is always against you. You're trying to finish off something and time goes by so quickly. Lilly, when you're in that moment, when you're so focused, when you're so focused, you don't know if you've been at it for 30 minutes or you've been at it for an hour.

Yeah, or weeks.

Or weeks, you just go. Time creates distractions. Lilly, time, if you're like managing time, you get all these distractions that are going there. What does focus do? It blocks them out. Right. So don't worry about managing time, manage your focus. Be in that moment when you're in that moment, and then you'll get so much more done during that time. All right? You know, time tells you to stop. All right? Focus tells you keep going. When you focus, what do you do? You just keep going. You just keep going. You just keep going.

That's why I love creating scenarios and environments without the use of my phone. It's like if you're going to a workout, leave your phone somewhere else where you need to focus. That's why I love having a trainer. I'm doing boxing right now with a great trainer here in LA. And when I'm with him for those two hours a week, it's like time is gone because I'm just in the moment. I can't think about anything else in my life. I'm not on my phone because I got boxing gloves on. I'm like, there's pain, there's stress. It's like you've got to use every part of your mind and your body for that hour. Yes. And Time goes away because I'm just focused.

And then you get individuals that go to a gym and they're on their phone the whole time in between sets. Right.

Or here's the thing.

They're getting on a bicycle or they're getting on a step machine, wherever they get on, they spend more time playing with the music. All right, what music do I gotta find the right genre and so forth. So what do you do? You're just like, I gotta do this for 20 minutes. I gotta do this for 20 minutes. Or I gotta do this for 40 minutes. You're not focused. In your mind, you're literally managing time. You think of how long this is gonna go in. And you go in and you get that hour, 50 or hour, 50 minutes, whatever it is, and it goes by like this. Exactly. Because you are so focused during that time.

If you're not focused, you're gonna hurt yourself.

You're going to not get the result. And not get the result. Exactly. And that's what people do. People settle for average when all you're doing out there is managing time. you're just putting average stuff out there. And it goes, all the stuff in the chapters that come in, I have everything listed number one, because they all tie in, they all tie in together. You know, managing focus instead of time ties into balance. Right. It ties into balance. And you know, this is about the unforgiving race. This is, everybody comes in and they see the work that you're putting out now.

They don't see eight years, a thousand plus episodes.

And that was your unforgiving race. And a lot of a part of it was unforgiving. You didn't come out the same. You came out different. And when you came out different, that difference scared a lot of people. And I'm sure during that journey, the people that were really close to you.

Are no longer- yeah, they gotta accept you. They gotta learn to accept you.

Yes.

Otherwise, they're not going to understand you and you're not going to have the time that you want to have with those people. And that's okay too.

That's okay.

You don't need to kick them out of your life necessarily, but you just may not be spending as much time with them if they're not understanding your mission, your intention, your focus, your own race.

And now you get called selfish. And you get called selfish. You get called selfish. Winning requires you to be selfish.

You need to be.

All right, what's wrong with taking care of self? I've never understood that. All right, what's wrong? All right, so you ask an individual to, hey, I meditate, not me, but I'm just saying an individual says, I meditate from 3:00 to 3:30. And they're like, oh, you know what? That's really healthy for you. That's so for. You're in a business atmosphere or somewhere and you say, Hey, listen, no calls. Leave me alone. I don't want to talk to anybody for the next 30 minutes. You're selfish. We love to give these words for me time. What's the difference between selfish and me time? You know, what's the difference? There is no difference. When you're taking something away from another individual, that they want your time, they want your energy, they want your focus, now all of a sudden you're selfish when you say no. All right? You work out every day, I work out every day. Is that selfish? No. To take care of ourselves? All right. meditation, self-improvement reading, all those things. You do those things alone, listening to podcasts, whatever. That's time to self. Why aren't people, why don't people consider those selfish?

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When you were training these top athletes? You know, Michael Jordan, Kobe and Dwyane are the, you know, three probably most successful, I'm assuming, that you've trained the biggest champions.

Yes. Well, I've had, you know, I've been fortunate enough, you know, Akim El-Ali is also a client of mine. If you're a basketball player, Charles Barkley has been a client of mine. Tracy McGrady has been a client of mine. great. He's been a client. I've had.

Charles needs you back as a trainer.

Yeah. Yeah.

So.

The one thing about Charles is in one of my introduction videos, he always just says, I've lost 30 pounds and he repeats it over and over again because he's lost those same 30 pounds over and over again. Yes. Over and over again. But you just.

How did you find me time when the greatest athletes are so demanding of your time? How were you able to do that, you know, while training them?

Well, you may have to cut down your me time. All right. But, you know, there were certain times that I didn't have to travel. Like, if it was, if they were traveling only for a night and coming back, I didn't take those trips. So that allowed me to do what I wanted to do. But, you know, there would be times when, when, I never worked for the organization. I always worked directly for the player.

Did you travel with the team?

I did not travel with the team.

They paid you to separate to go travel on your own.

The individuals. The client. Yeah. So this, you know, so people always talk about they get so surprised when an athlete invests seven figures. I was like, they need to.

They need to.

And people like, man, that's, I, I hear this, but that, that's so selfish of them.

They should be how they win. I, you know, I was, I don't know if you know Novak Djokovic.

I don't know him.

Novak was close friends with their buddies.

Yes.

I talked about it with Kobe that I knew him and he goes, that's my guy. I love Novak. I went to go watch Novak right before the pandemic here in Indian Wells, and I went to go watch a match. And afterwards, we hung out with him. He had a traveling gym, a pod. It was like an RV, a couple RVs that had, it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. It had, like, float tank and sauna and ice bath and meditation pot, all these things in there. Trainers with him, it was like, this is how I stay successful. I don't do it by just going to bed at night. I gotta stretch at night. I gotta do all the things to wind down, prepare myself for the next match tomorrow. And this is why by investing, I won't say how much he invested in that, but it was like he's putting a lot of money on his health, on his mindset, on his Trainers and it's why he's number one.

And like you said, not only is he successful, like you said, he's won. He's winning over and over and over again. Over and again. And that's what it takes. And people could be like, oh, that's selfish. No, it's not selfish. It's selfish not to. All right. So I always look at it this way.

Because if you're not obsessed, what are you? Right. If you're not gonna be obsessed about it, what are you doing?

So here's the thing, all right? People would call, I look at what you do, it would be selfish of you not to do it.

Right, not to serve the world at the highest level, not to be able to get this information and help people and be selfish.

Exactly, so if you don't take care.

Of self, if I'm not prepared and ready to go to these interviews, We're not going to get the best information. We're not going to help people.

That's how I look. So when I see a person who's like not at the top of their game or a CEO or a business person that's not functioning well, first thing I'm like, all right, maybe you need to be a little bit more, because not only do I need you, there's so many other people that are relying on you to be selfish. so you can produce at the highest level.

Yeah.

If I'm not selfish, we can't pay the team, we can't bring on more people and employ people, all these things, yeah.

Why is it such a bad, why is it such a bad, why is it such a bad word? Right. Why do people look at winning requires you to be selfish in all forms of life? If your goal is to say, I'm going to be the best parent, I'm going to raise these kids, I'm going to do this the way it is. If you want to talk about Tiger Woods' parents, if those parents weren't selfish with Tiger's time, what would have the world missed out on? People that didn't even know golf. Watch golf. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's selfish for you not to be at your best. It's selfish for you not to share your information. It's selfish for you not to be the most talented individual that you could possibly be. It's selfish for you not to share that talent with other individuals.

That's true. Side note, did you ever score a point against Kobe?

Yes. I did.

Really?

I did.

What was that? How many times? A few times. Is this when you're scoring, you're just shooting threes and they're not blocking it? Is that essentially, or did you drive and make a move and you're so Hibberting and shot fake.

So Kobe was coming off an ankle injury. I listen, I take my time.

One guy can't walk, another one can't move.

Hey, I take my time. I take it when I can. Listen, I've scored in every NBA arena.

That's cool. You mean you've made a basket? You've made a basket.

When nobody's around, I take the ball, I've scored in every NBA arena. me in every NBA. I've never scored in an NBA game. I've scored in every NBA arena. I've scored in every, every NBA arena. So, you know, Kobe, I was like, hey, man, you know, just kind of just, you know, I could see him limping around, and we're out there shooting on the bat, shooting on the court.

A little bit, and he's playing this fake defense.

And I kind of just go around him like, yes.

Wow.

I got no video to. Oh, no. Because, listen, no one's filming that.

Yeah.

No one's filming that.

And black then, you know, first of all, Michael, there was no social media. And then with Kobe, he was extremely, extremely private.

Yeah, don't tell anyone.

Yeah, in his early part of his career, then towards the end, he became, he was a little bit more open to sharing his family and, you know, and different things, but other than that, he was extremely, extremely private. How many times when you interviewed, did he tell you to turn the camera off?

Well, he didn't actually, which was fascinating. I felt like because I asked him beforehand, his whole team, I don't know, I feel like what I created with Kobe was a magical moment of this, you know, our experience with him. And because beforehand, his whole team was prepping me, we booked it the night before. They wanted to do the interview like a month out. And I was like, if we don't do this tomorrow morning, this isn't happening. Because I already know he's gonna be busy. Yes. So they reached out and I was like, we need to book this in the morning, first thing, or whenever tomorrow, I'll do it. anytime tomorrow. But if we do it a week out, it's not going to work. Yeah, he's gonna, you know, it's gonna fall through. So I had my moment, like the chance, just like you and his ankle is broken.

Right.

And the team was there. This is crazy. I got there, I think, around 6 30. The interview was at eight. And I'm on the first one there. Turn on the light. The assistant opens the door, lets me in, turn on the lights. We go find a place where I'm gonna go film. We go walk through. I don't know if you ever went to his office.

The Kobe Inc. Yeah.

Yeah, we walked through. There's a big opening first and then there's like these glass windows that go into another room. And I walked down there to look at the other room. Didn't like this setup anywhere. So I walked back. It's 6:30 a.m. Walked back. On the last office on the left in the glass windows, I see the lights are off and I see a shadow in the back. And for a second, I'm like, oh, that's Kobe back there. It's 6 30 a.m. and we walked past it and I talked to the assistant. I go, is that Kobe? And he goes, she goes, yeah, he's been here for over an hour.

Yeah.

He was up at 4 training with his daughter and he's the first one here.

Yeah.

And I go, this guy just won an Oscar. He's like, no reason to be here at 6 30. And he's not even on his phone or on his computer. He was just, like, dreaming or visualizing or something was happening. Like, he was just looking up at the ceiling. like this. And I was like, this guy's a freak, you know, as a machine. And we set up and we set up close to there, but he couldn't see where we were setting up. But he must have known that people were there. And so I'm there for an hour and a half thinking, is he gonna come out? Is something gonna happen? People are starting to come in now. It's getting closer to eight. The lights turn on in his office, probably 7 50. And someone goes in and has a conversation, but I don't see him. until three minutes before eight. Now his team is prepping me, everyone's there now, and they gave me a list of all these things I cannot ask him. I was like, Cool, no problem. And I know I had three minutes until we start because he had a hard out until, I think it was little Wayne. He was like there as well setting up another production to do an interview. It was like back to back whole day. I asked him these few questions before the interview just to build a connection with him and tell him, you know, I played handball and Olympics and this and this. For whatever reason, I said the same thing I said to you before this interview. Is there anything off limits?

And he said, no.

He said, I go, I've got this whole sheet. Your team told me not to ask. Like, I understand I shouldn't go here, here and here. Is there anything else off limits? He goes, ask me anything you want.

Yeah.

And take as long as you want. I was like, wow. So he gave me permission. Now, I didn't disrespect him and ask things, but he was, he was he was in the zone and so focused in that moment, which I was like, this is, this is cool, you know, to have him someone at that level to show he cares that much for someone he'd never met. Now, later I found out Candace Parker I had on the show recently, and I said, Hey, how did you hear about the show? Just curious, like, how did you hear it? She was a fan of the show. And she said, Kobe told me about it. I go, what? she goes, yeah, I would always bug Kobe and say, what are you reading? What are you listening to to help.

Like, improve my mind?

And she was like, oh, he mentioned your show or that I should listen to it and watch it. And I was like, what? So we, you know, we were supposed to have another interview that happened. I was telling you this before we got on here. And then the time we were gonna schedule it was when I had a big conference. So I was like, well, hopefully in the next few months, that conference was in September, and then in January, I guess, is when he passed, unfortunately. so I was always thinking I'd have many more times to interview him and sit down, but that time never happened. And I know that you spoke to him, I think a week before you talk about in your book, what was that conversation in that time like?

So we would go back and forth, you know, we text each other from time to time to say, Hey, you good? Yeah, I'm good. You good? No long conversations. What are you doing? He's always chasing the next win. That was the movie, the TV, that was his thing. And I said, He was busy, I was busy. We tried to get together and it was just like, Hey, all-star game is in Chicago. So he was going to be, I live in Chicago, he was going to be, he was going to come down there for the event and some business and some business stuff. And never happened. Yeah. And it never happened. And it was crazy. I know there's a lot of people out there that are in this space that tell you you have time. I always used to tell Kobe, I said, we don't have time. Every time we would work out, every time we would prepare, every time we would do something, I would just be like, this is urgency. Everything's urgency. We don't have time. Man, I wish I was wrong. Boy, I wish I was wrong. Because it, three days later, that's when it really affected me. I was sleeping, I was in the middle of the night, because you just would just think, this is not real. It's not real. And if you had a chance to meet him, you know, you got a chance to spend time, you got a chance to spend time with him. And you know what, I'll tell you, when they gave you that list, you know, it was a test with no right answers. That's what it was.

Yeah.

With a test with no right answers.

And.

You took it to a level that very few people got a chance to, very few people got a chance to see. But he had this very innate trust with people right away that he just knew.

Yeah.

I felt like he trusted, he was like right away it was like he was my best friend.

Yeah.

What it felt like.

There's something at the butt.

But if you lose that trust for a moment, he's like, I never speak to you again.

Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. You know, just like, hey, just like it takes a second to turn a champion, it takes one moment to turn a win into a loss, a champion into a loser. It's the same, he was the same way. He trusted you until you gave him a reason. Not to trust you.

Did you ever lose his trust?

Never.

That's good.

Never.

Did he ever doubt you at some point besides questioning why are we doing this? Did he ever say, oh, I don't like the way you treated me here or said this?

Never, never, not one moment. You know, I've had there are stories out there and people always ask me about this. So I said, well, there's a reason they're not out there. All right. I was blessed and privileged to see parts of their lives and spend time with them that nobody's seen.

Behind the scenes.

Yes, I mean even behind those scenes. Just you and him, you get a chance to experience things that very few people would ever get a chance to experience. And when somebody's that open with you, and they're allowing you into a space that very, very few see.

Yeah.

Maybe his wife only.

Yeah. And they have enough trust in you to call you up at three o'clock in the morning or whatever it is to say, hey, you know, meet me so and so. I just need, need to sit down and have a, have a con, have a conversation. And the one thing I always tell all my clients, everything, business, schools. Professionals, I don't judge. I don't judge. I need to know my job is to help you create wins over and over and over again. All right? That's my, I'm not here to judge. All right? And when you get across that point, I've written, this is a second, this is the second book I've written. And when I wrote the first one, there was no fear or doubt from any of them that I was gonna be, there was gonna be like a tell-all book.

Right, right.

I don't do that. I don't do that. There's certain parts of each individual, yourself, myself, that we share with very few people. And there's a reason we share that with very few people. And once that trust is broken, it's extreme. I don't think so. It can't be mended.

It might take years until you can build it again.

It just, it just is, you just can't.

How did that come about? Did Michael give you permission to work with Kobe? Did Kobe court you for years and say, when you're done with Michael, I.

Want to have you train me? So, I've never, you know, obviously, Kobe and I had, we had, we knew of each other because we kind of passed back and forth and we'd see each other. You knew you were training Michael. Yes. You know, and I would always, you know, every time I would approach, I'd say, listen, you know, through these years, Coby always, he had an individual he studied, he was working with and I just told him, I said, listen, if your trainer ever needs anything or just needs any information, I said, please have him reach out to me or vice versa. So in 2007, Coby reached out to Michael and said, listen, my knees are like, they are so bad. I don't know if I can play anymore. I don't know if I can play. I don't know if I can play anymore. and he said, listen, he goes, you have any suggestions? You have anything? He goes, listen, this is not my field. He goes, you know, I'm not using Grover anymore, you know, give him a shot. And so Kobe goes, well, how long.

Were you not working with Michael since that point?

It was, it was, it was a while. I mean, Michael was done in the, Michael was done in the early, late 90s, so it was Gotcha. Yeah. I mean, I was still working with other athletes, but not no, I was still working with Dwayne. I had started working with Dwayne during that time. So then he said, Hey, reach out to him. And he goes, well, he goes, well, I really, he goes, Tell me about Grover. And best endorsement I ever got. So he goes, Man, that guy really knows his stuff, but he's the biggest asshole you'll ever meet. Best compliment.

And he was like, Perfect, I need that.

Yeah.

He goes, that's perfect. He said, well, what do you mean by that? He goes, He's not gonna take your bullsh*t. He's not gonna treat you like you're this superstar. He's gonna hold you accountable. When you don't do something right, he's gonna call you out on it. And he goes, if you can't handle that, he goes, oh no, this is perfect for me.

They needed that.

Yeah, he goes, this is actually perfect. perfect for me because he had, like, you know, just like with the tennis player Djokovic, there's a lot of people around. All right. And what I described earlier, how do you get back to that win? Sometimes you have to delete a lot of the stuff that's going around because now it's not a cohesive team. Well, everybody, everybody's looking, everybody's saying, this is the way it should be done. This is how we do it. This is a and pieces start to fall in place. So I came in, I just said, listen, what's our goal? You know, everybody talks about these different, you know, they want to put their thoughts and they want to put everything on there. I said, and they, everyone makes this list. And I just put win at the top. Yes, it's it. That's, that's what we go win. that's all we're here for.

Otherwise, yeah.

That's what we're here for.

Whatever it takes.

I said, if he wins, we all win. I said, if he loses, guess what? We all lose and we will not be here. We will not be here. So let's, everybody, let's figure this thing out together. Let's put the pieces in place. You should be talking, because the team wasn't talking to each other. So I came in and I got everybody started talking, talk to each other.

His personal team.

Yeah.

It's just like, not the Lakers. Right. His personal.

They're not, they're not taught. They're not talking to each other. All right. Everybody's not, you know, I don't know what this person's doing. You don't know what this person's doing. I, I said, we need to get everybody on the set. We, after every treatment, every workout, everything that goes on, you should know what this person does. Everybody, everybody, everybody should know. And this was before, you know, we weren't, I wasn't going to require everybody to do a Google, you know, a spreadsheet or a Google Doc, all that. I was like, listen, we need to, every single day, get together on a phone, get a thing and say, hey, this is what I did. This is where I did. This is what I did. So, so we know. And then when I started to work, started to work with him, you know, I looked at what was going on with his, with his knees and I had some ideas. I had some thoughts. I said, okay, this is what you've been planning. These are the surgeries that you've had. I said, this is probably going to take, I said, probably take about eight weeks to alleviate this pain. And I put, I put a real specific program for him to say, this is what we're going to do. I kind of describe it in the book a little bit, and I said, this is what we're going to do. And he started to feel better and started to feel the knees started to come around, and he was able to play in the Olympics in 2008 during that time, and just took off some kind of gave a Ferrari or Lamborghini the necessary tune-up it really needed and the genuine parts that were necessary to get him playing again at the highest level. And, you know, he believed in me. But the one thing he always said was just like when a reporter asked him later, he goes, Hey, I heard you working out with Michael Jordan's guy, Tim Grover. He goes, what do you think about him? He goes, He ain't shit for me yet. He goes, I don't know. He goes, you, want to go ask Michael what he did for him, for he hasn't done anything for me. which was the perfect answer. Which was the perfect answer because too many people, when we talked about the three things about winning, the people that compete, the people that win once, and the people that win over and over again, you're only good as your last win.

True.

All right. You're only as good as your last win. That's it. So it wasn't, it was important to me to say, Hey, listen, yeah, what I did for Michael doesn't matter. Judge me by what I'm gonna, what I, what I, what I do, what I do for you. All right. And you and I are kind of similar in this, in this situation here. So when you got your first big interview, whoever that may be, I was like, well, oh, you can't do it again. Now you got your next one. oh, you can't do it again. Now you got your next, now you got your next one. So people always, oh, you did it with Michael, go do it with somebody else. All right. I'll go do it with Kobe. Oh, you did it with Kobe. Well, go do it with somebody else. All right, I'll go do it with Dwyane. Go do it with somebody. So it's just kind of like, yeah. All right, just to show you that this is not a fluke. And it's not, again, not to prove them, right? It's to prove yourself that, yes, you know, you can, that you just didn't fall into this. That all the years that you were in this unforgiving race to win. All the stairs that you climbed, all the stairs that you missed, all the people that doubted you. You finally got to say, hey, the way Kobe describes winning, winning is everything.

Yeah.

Winning is everything.

It's true. And what about Dwyane? What was the three big lessons from him? how long were you training Dwayne?

Oh, Dwayne. So the interesting story was there was some crossover between Kobe, Kobe and Dwayne, where I would literally have to get, I was literally flying from Orange County to Miami. To Miami.

Oh, man.

Because I was, during the playoffs, I was taking care of both. So it was, oh, my gosh.

That's intense.

Yeah, that, that was, I had, I had more frequent fly miles during that, during that. at that time and all the flight attendants knew who I was. Dwayne was a very quiet, huge family person. His kids were so, so important to him. They were very, very, very, very, very, very important. The time when I was dealing with him, he was going through an extremely bad divorce and there was a custody battle that was going on. So to be able to, with Kobe, I mean, with Dwyane, one of the things that I really learned from him was resiliency.

Wow.

Oh, like you're like with resilient, like how resilient he was with everything that was going on.

Because he had to be the leader of the team.

Yes.

Try to win, but also deal with a divorce, custody, kids, the emotions of it all, and then Focus when it mattered. That's so hard to do.

That is so, that is so hard to do. But you know what? The greatest individuals, they don't bring their personal stuff.

So hard to do.

It's, it's not easy. It's not easy. But they, they just, they just don't. Because you know why? The game gives them that, that, that, that square. It's an outlet. And it's like, hey, you can't touch, you can't touch me. You touched me in that space.

At least for those couple hours.

Right.

But then you got to deal with everything else after that.

Yes. And as, and that's whatever you have to deal with, it's still gonna, it's still gonna be there. Most people don't win because they let other distractions take them away from what's really, really, what's really, really important during that time. Those distractions are still going to be there. It doesn't matter. We talk, You know all these, you've talked to all these individuals that I've dealt with numerous of them. They're people, they have the same issues that you and I have. They have relationship problems.

They usually have more issues because they got the media, the attention, the drama, the gossip.

That they have to deal with.

So is it a compartmentalization of distractions is it something else like how how do the best do it?

Those distractions actually elevate their play, reallyally.

Yeah.

They actually every single time and so every single every single athlete I've ever worked with, every little C CO person, their distractions make them even more focused.

During their exercise, like the flu game with George.

Yeah right.

Yes, you did something locked in. what has happening?

You looked you look at the numbers with those individuals when there's a distraction, when they're going through something personal or something, their numbers actually go up. Their productivity actually goes, their productivity actually goes up. And the people, the other ones, their stuff actually goes, because now they have to, their level of focus is even at a higher level.

It's zoning more.

Yes. Yeah. Yes.

So resiliency is one for Dwayne. What's the other two, would you say? Two lessons?

Fun.

Seems like a fun dude.

Really?

You're a happy guy?

Yes. A really, really, really, really fun dude. All right. And the other thing was he had the shortest memory.

Wow.

Like if he missed a shot, it's like, okay. Yeah. Don't hold on. Don't hold on. Don't hold on. It's just like, how many contacts do people have in their phone from individuals you haven't heard from in 10-15 years? You just won't delete the contact. How much stuff do you have in it?

I've got thousands of contacts.

How many people, how much stuff do you individuals have in their closet that's never coming back in style? You're never gonna fit in it again. They just hold on to it.

They get rid of that stuff.

And people do the same thing. They have one bad game, or they have one bad report about them, or something says somebody says it changes their whole mood, it changes their whole ideas, it changes their whole complexity of themselves. Dwayne was just like, shortest memory.

Yeah, that's crazy.

And fun has a lot to do with that. And winning is fun, all right? Winning is fun. The road to get to that fun to win is not. It's challenging. It's challenging.

If you can make it fun, that's a bonus. Yeah, but you know what?

It's pain though. How do you make it fun? You gotta be able to laugh at yourself.

Yeah, exactly.

You laugh at yourself. Like, okay, I'm not supposed to be here. You're not supposed to be here. It's just like, you know, you're just like, yeah, you're right. I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to be sitting in LA talking to Lewis Howes. I'm not. All right.

This is, we met at the Grants event.

Yeah, I don't know how many years ago.

Yeah.

And I don't know how many four or five, whatever that was. Well, when you were lying down, I think it was on your sister's couch. Would you ever think about, I mean.

I think about it, but I didn't know if it would happen, when it would happen, how it's gonna happen, all these these things.

When you had that injury, that was like, you know, it's devastating. Is it done? All right.

And.

People say that person's in a dark place, but you know what? That's where a lot of the healing happens is when you're in that place by yourself, when you really get to understand who you are and what it takes when you have those by yourself on that sofa and you're sitting around and you just said, yeah, I could sit here all day, all night if I wanted to. But those voices started to talk to you and say, hey, this is more out there. That's when your brain really started to work. That's when the chemistry really started to come in. That's when the dopamine hit started to come in because you're like, this is no longer available to me, but there's so much more out there for me.

Absolutely, yeah. We've got a couple of final questions for you. This has been inspiring, But I want people to get the book, Winning the Unforgiving Race to Greatness. A lot of great praise around this from some of the top athletes, coaches in the world. It's going to inspire you a lot more lessons and stories. If you enjoyed this conversation, you're going to get a lot more in here as well about how to win and the Unforgiving Race to Greatness. Love the title. I'm not going to ask you who's the best basketball player, but who is the best athlete? Who was like, man, they were just freak athlete and anything they wanted to do, they could do it. That you trained, anyone you trained.

It doesn't have to be trained.

It doesn't have to be MJ or Kobe, but of all the people you trained, who was like, this person is the greatest athlete, athletically gifted, talented, not the best basketball player.

Right, right. Let's see.

I know you probably don't like answering that question. I don't ask that.

Yeah. It's tough, let me try to think. You gotta think about this one for a little bit.

Like their reaction time, their speed, their quickness, they could take on any sport, anything. I know they're all great athletes in lots of sports, but who is like, man, this person just doesn't love to win at everything, but they do win at everything, 'cause they're so good as an athlete.

Well, so here's the thing. The athlete that I'm thinking about, comes to my mind. From an athletic standpoint, he was literally off the charts. But he didn't win because he was so athletic. Really? Yes.

What do you mean? He didn't win because he was so athletic.

Because he relied on his athletic ability.

Gosh, you know what's funny? You know what's funny about this? There was a guy when I was, I was in eighth grade, He was going into freshman year. He was a senior. He was the freakiest athlete that I'd ever seen at that time. Now, I'm like a 13-year-old skinny white dude who could barely jump and all these things. And he had a 40-something inch vert. He was just chiseled, jacked, could shoot three so smooth. Unbelievable. I've just never seen a gifted athlete like this. 360 dunking easy, whatever he wanted to do, he could do it. But he wasn't a winner. Like he would buckle under pressure or he didn't believe in himself. And I was like, man, it doesn't matter how much of a great athlete you are if you don't have the ability to believe in yourself, overcome adversity, challenges and obstacles. And the flip side of that, if you're not the best athlete, but you have the mentality of a winner and you're willing to go harder and and overcome adversity and self-doubt, you can win.

Yes. Give me somebody with a little less talent and that everything that you, and more of whatever you mentioned, I would take that every single time. All my greatest, you know, my top individuals, they weren't the greatest athletes out there, but they were great athletes. They were great people. They were great competitors. All right. They were great givers. They were great, extremely coachable. They were great at winning. And they knew how to elevate everybody else around them, which is so important. Now, they didn't they all did it in different ways. It's easy to elevate yourself. It's easy to get the most out of yourself. All right?

It's so difficult to get the most of everyone else.

To get the most out of everyone else.

So this guy who was-- I can't give his name. I don't want to say his name. But the guy you were training, he was a better athlete than everyone else.

It was unbelievable.

But what was he not able to do? He wasn't coachable. He wasn't able to get the best out of everyone around him.

He was more concerned about the brand.

The way he looked or his-- Yes.

Yeah.

That is, that actual, yes, then winning. And winning, listen, winning is all consuming. It needs to be like, hey, I'm the only thing that matters right now. I'm the otherwise it's gonna turn its attention to somebody else.

Right.

And I'm the only thing and the.

Teams, the only thing that matters if it's a team sport.

Yeah.

Otherwise, well, you have to, you could score 100 points, but you might lose.

Right. And that's around elevating the elevating a team. what I've done with each one of my athletes, and I continue to do this, you know, you have your team goals, but I said, I want, what are your individual goals that are going to help obtain the team goals? And what are the individual goals that might be up here that are going to be best for you, but not best for the team?

Yeah.

You scored 60 a game. It's not going to be best for the team, right? 35 on average and 40-50 a couple of times.

Yeah, so I just said, now, where are we on this? Where are we on this? Because if you're over here on this, then we're not getting over here. And I said, if we're more over here, where we can get, we'll get, we'll get, because if you give just enough, you'll get so much more from these individuals here.

That's what we learned from Michael in the Last Dance and talking about that as well. Okay, a couple final questions. This is a question I asked everyone at the end called the Three Truths. So I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical scenario. It's the last day on earth, many years away from now. You get to live as old as you want to live, but for whatever reason, you've gotta take everything you've ever created. This book, this interview, it's all going to go with you to the next place. So no one has access to your words, content or anything you've ever said. Hypothetical. But you get to leave behind three lessons, three things you know to be true from all of your experiences in life. This is all we would have to remember you by these three principles, lessons, what I like to call truths. What would you say are those three truths for you?

Control your thoughts. control your emotions, you'll control the outcome.

It all comes down to being able to manage the bombs in your mind like you talked about and not reacting emotionally from these scenarios.

You're not your thoughts. Listen, because I've had some thoughts if I acted on them.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Emotions, listen, we all have them. But you don't have to react to every single emotion out there. And is it, I'm not telling you not to be emotional, but is it an emotion that is created by yourself or is it an emotion that somebody else created inside of you? Right. And then, you know, be happy, live your life, go out there and do things like you put out all this information. Knowledge is power, but only if you use it. Right. You know, from individuals that you hear.

From.

Don'T be so excited for the next episode if you haven't absorbed and learn from the episode before. Absolutely.

Yeah.

Well, everybody's always about what's next, what's next, what's next. Well, what's now?

Yeah. What's now? That's what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

What's, what's now?

I'm excited about this book, Winning the Unforgiving Race to Greatness. Tim, before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you for the way you've been showing up for the greatest athletes in the world for the last two, three decades. and how you've continued to improve and evolve yourself.

Thank you.

How you continue to take the information and distill it in ways that we can receive it and understand for our life so we can improve the quality of our life. And I acknowledge you for constantly overcoming the challenges that you might be facing in your life. We didn't get to talk about a lot of that stuff you personally going through, but for you to create, even when you might be struggling or going through your own stuff, is really inspiring. 'cause you're here to serve other people.

We all are. Of course. We all are. And the more people you serve, the better you feel about yourself. The more people, when I said winning is everything, the feeling that it gives when you see yourself win, when you see your family win, when you see your kids win, when you see others win, it's amazing. It's undescribable. It's undescribable. And I know Louis and you and I, it's very similar in this. When people come up to you, says, Man, your words, or your show, or whatever, your book, it changed my life. That's a special feeling.

Absolutely.

That's a special feeling. And I always tell individuals, you, know what? You changed your life. You took action. You took the time. You listened. We were a small part of it. Thank you. Thank you for acknowledging it. For sure. But just to have to be that powerful, to have somebody come up to you and just say that. And when you win, you change other people's lives. You change your life, you change other people's lives.

Absolutely. They can get the book, they can follow you on social media, Tim Grover everywhere on social media. Anywhere else we can go to support you besides getting the book online, our website.

Our website is Tim Grover, timgrover.com, my Instagram is @TimGrover.

Perfect, awesome. So make sure to connect with Tim over there and say hi to him, let him know the part of this episode you enjoyed the most. Lots of more information inside the book, so make sure to get a few copies for your friends as well. Final question for you. What's your definition of greatness?

No regrets. No regrets. I did everything. There you go. I may have not done it the best, but I did everything. I love it.

Tim, thank you, man.

Thank you, brother.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this. If you did, share it with a few friends right now. Text a few people. The link is lewishouse.com/1112 or you can copy and paste the link wherever you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or anywhere and share it with a few friends. Text them, post it in some groups, tag me on social media when you're on Instagram, and let me know that you're listening as well. And if you haven't listened part one yet, make sure to check out lewishouse.com/1111 to check out part one, what will inspire you as well. And please subscribe and leave a rating and review of the part you enjoyed the most in this interview. What was the part that inspired you? Please let us know in the review section on Apple Podcasts. And we like to share those in our newsletter as well to our entire audience every week. We pick a few people with reviews and share that to our audience. So please Let us know. We'd love to know what you enjoyed the most. If you want to be inspired every week through text messages sent to your phone to motivate you, keep you accountable on your goals and your dreams, then text the word podcast to 614-350-3960 and you'll get inspired every week messages sent to your phone from me. And I want to leave you with a quote from Robert W. Service who said, no man can be a failure if he thinks he's a success. if he thinks he is a winner, then he is. Again, I loved this series with Tim Grover. Make sure you check out the book. Know that you can create greatness inside of you. You can bring it out into the world, but you must be willing to be obsessed with your craft if you want to achieve at the highest levels. If you want to truly accomplish those big goals, you must be willing to dedicate that time. You must be willing to follow the practices and the philosophies that Tim talks about here from what he learned from Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and all these great athletes. So I hope you enjoyed this. And again, if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And you know what time it is? It's time to go out there and do something great.

Thank you.