Tim Grover on Winning [FUBCON Session]

Interview between host Ethan Butte (Real Estate Team OS) and Tim Grover discussing what defines high-performing and winning teams, how winning is a continual, often lonely pursuit rather than a single celebratory moment, and why the darker, difficult periods are necessary fuel for success. Practical takeaways include aligning team identity, tracking small wins (post-it notes), celebrating intensely but briefly, and using solitude/gym time to recharge.
Chapters
No matter where your business is today or where you want to take it, you'll get there faster and more profitably with an operating system. Welcome to Team os, your guide to starting, growing and optimizing real estate team. Here's your host, Ethan Butte.
Tim, thank you so much for sitting down with me. Really appreciate it.
Oh, it's an honor. Thank you so much. Glad we could make this happen.
I love the energy and the lessons that you're bringing to the market, to the world in general. And I've been talking with people all week because this is, you're bringing the closing keynote here and people are just really excited about these ideas. And I, as I said before, we hit record, have been personally wrestling with a lot of winning myself and it's been really, really good for me. And so my first question for you is what is a must have characteristic of a high performing team?
A characteristic of a high performing team is everybody's identity has to be the same. You can have different styles, a team needs different styles in an individual. But a high performing team, they have to assure that everyone has the same identity. And identity doesn't mean you have to be like everybody, be the same way as everybody else. But the mindset, the goals, the work ethic, the motivation level, all that has to be at the highest level for each one. And being at the highest level for each one doesn't mean I have to match yours. You have to match mine. And that's where a lot of people leadership, you have to perform at the highest level and that's different for each individual. And I always say at the end of the day a high performing team should be able to go home when they put their head on the pillow saying no, I gave everything I had today.
Is there a difference between a winning team and a high performing team?
Well, the results, A winning team gets results. We have a lot of people that perform, we have a lot of people that work hard. You know, people that say, you know, I'm out working the competition but are you getting the, are you getting the results? You know, I always say this, there's a lot of hardworking people out there that really don't win at anything. Are you working, are you working hard on the right things? Are you performing at the, are you performing at the maximum level? Do you understand that once you get that win that that line is going to move again? So just because you've crossed that line or you think, oh, there's there, there, there's the finish line and all of a sudden another especially in business, another obstacle comes in. So now what's happened? The finish line is just moved. Yeah. And now, all right, can you still, do you still have the vision to be able to say, okay, now the finish line is no longer there, it's over there. That's a difference between a winning team being able to adjust, adapt and overcome, than just a high performing team.
Yeah, totally fair. So one of my big impressions after reading winning was that winning is misunderstood. What you really turned me onto is how paradoxical it is. And for example, it'll pour your glass of champagne and then knock it over. Right. So just for folks that haven't, that aren't familiar or as excited or as clear on what I think you're saying in that book, characterize winning a little bit, just speak to it from a misunderstood perspective.
Well, everybody thinks winning is this glorious thing and it is. But that's the smallest part about winning. That's like the shortest lived part about it. Winning is actually the pursuit. It's the constant grind and understanding what you're grinding for, you know that it's going to be uncivilized. You know, it's not going to be fair. You know, it's going to get, you're going to get hurt. You may put in all this time and effort and as soon as you get to the finish line, somebody else wins. And if you can understand all those things, those are the things that makes winning great. Because you have to overcome those things consistently over and over and over again and understand there's going to be a part of loneliness in there. There's going to be times where you're going to doubt yourself. There's going to be times where you're going to be unsure. And if you don't experience those things, you're never going to win. And that's when most people stop. Because you know, in our world, we see all the celebrations, but we don't see everything. It comes along to get to that celebration. Just like throwing this, just throwing this event. You know, everybody sees the beautiful rooms, the lighting, the staging and all that other stuff. But in order to even be able to winning acknowledge us, it's everything we had to do before that. And all the things that, the obstacles that came in the way, that's what makes winning so great. That's what winning makes, that's what makes winning so special. And if you notice, I deal with a lot of professional athletes, high individual achievers like yourself. Appreciate you roping me into that group. But. Well, in order to pull off an event like this. You have to be. But that's the other sign of winning right there. It's a perfect example. Winners are constantly. No matter what they do, they're always saying, we could have done it better. I could have. We could have done this. We could have done it. We could have done that. So there's that moment of celebration, but then again there's a moment of, I want to do this again, but I want to. I want to. I want to do it better. I want to do it better. But what I was going to say is there's always a time where once you get that win, and everybody loves to celebrate together, or a true winner needs that moment to themselves. And you'll always see a professional athlete or a CEO just sitting in his. Sitting in their office, or an athlete holding the trophy alone, by themselves. Just that moment. They just need to say, the journey was worth it. It was worth it. But now what they're already doing is they're already thinking about next because everybody else is celebrating, and they know if they celebrate like them, they'll never see that win again.
Yeah. I love what you shared there. You conjured for me literally a vision of some of the most iconic championship photos, and it is that one person with that one trophy. You know, beyond, like, the shooting, champagne everywhere and all that. Like that moment. I can see that moment. Exactly. One of the other really interesting things that I did not think about that you laid out so well and clearly is the dark side and the negativity that are part of this process that I think a lot of people. I don't know if it's shame. I don't know if it's fear. I don't know if it's. I don't want to. I do experience these things, but I don't want to let anyone else in on that.
Yes.
All the things around the darker side of this, that is a necessary component. I'd love for you just to give a quick go at that.
You. If I could describe it in one word, you just said it. Perfect. It's necessary. It's necessary. It is such a major part of winning that people just don't understand. They don't want to talk about. I always say everyone thinks that the darkness or the dark times is just an illusion and it's a bad place. No, the illusion is thinking that it doesn't exist and only bad things happen. If you think about all the times where you were in those darkest moments when it was just you and your thoughts, what you did to get out of those things, that's what kept you going. That's when your superpower, when it's just you and your thoughts, there's no light around where you literally can't see, but you have to feel your way around and the person you have to trust is yourself. It makes you understand yourself better than anybody else. All the other times where people have said, you can't do this, this is a bad idea, this is so dumb, you're never going to be successful. All those things, all those things finally manifest as that energy to propel you into what it is. And here's the thing. If you don't use it when people get stuck in the darkness is because that stuff festers inside of them and they don't burn it. So it starts to eat. It starts. You have two choices. You can burn it as fuel or it will literally eat you alive inside. And that's what happens when people stay in there and they like, oh, man, this is such an a bad. I'm such in a bad place now. And you start to complain instead of figuring out some action to action to get out of it. I always say the darkness is a bridge to everything. It literally is a bridge to everything. It allows you to build that bridge to your success. It allows you to bridge that bridge, that outcome. Every fairy tale that you've read to your kids, it's all had a dark forest or a dark moment. And what happens during that moment determines pretty much everything.
Yeah. It's interesting. It reminded me that how much, how many characters now in popular culture are down that middle where we see the dark side and the light side. And that all came to mind as I was experiencing your ideas around it. And that acknowledgment, we need to welcome it into the conversation.
Yes.
And again, it's necessary.
It's not who you are. It's a part of you.
Correct.
That's all. Yeah, it's a part of you.
Yeah. I appreciate your acknowledging how much more challenging it is. Actually, I'm assigning this to you. It's not fair. I appreciate that you triggered for me dwelling in the idea of how challenging it is to know when I am winning or when Fidel is winning, or when anyone who doesn't have a clock and defined rules and a referee and a scoreboard and all these other things speak a little bit to that. Like, how do I know that I'm winning in a day or winning in a year or winning in a quarter? How can someone watching or listening to this. Because I felt like a Loser. Frankly, reading the book, and I'm like, but I'm not. I know that I'm not, but I don't know how to define it. Break that down a little bit.
For.
For someone who doesn't have that obvious scoreboard, how are you coaching people to create winning experiences for themselves where it's hard to define?
Well, so for some individuals, there are wins available to us every single day, as small as they may be, as big as they may. But a lot of times we're so busy with our heads down, and we're not in the moment we should be in one moment, but we're thinking about. We're thinking about something else. And a win literally comes, passes us right by. You could see an end. You may become. You may be crossing paths with an individual that you just made eye contact with and you said hello to or something like that. That individual may be a valuable asset in your business. It may be a valuable asset and you getting to the next level. So for a lot of individuals that are having a hard time figuring out what their wins are, I literally get them little posted notes. And I said, every time you get a win, I don't care how small it is, you just write it down, post it up in the mirror, and just continue to do that, and you'll start to stack your wins. Now you start looking at it a little differently. Now. Once you see those things written down, they go from being something that you need to see to being something that you under that you understand. But nobody can define winning for you. You have to define winning for yourself. So what other people may think is a win. All right, you're just like, yeah, you know, thank you. I appreciate the accolades. I appreciate the congratulations. But what you're seeing is that win is just a step. And it gets real hard for somebody to understand. You know, you should enjoy this. You should. But you're like, I have so many more infinite steps to climb. I have so many more infinite steps to go. And there's nothing. There's nothing. There's nothing wrong with that. You know, I always say this, Celebrate hard, but don't celebrate long. That's why I said there has to be joy in everything you do. Some people's moments of joy and happiness when they get their wins are much longer than other individuals. So just because you feel a certain way, it's not that you're not enjoying the moment. You're just already thinking about what's next. There's a great example of this is when Tom Brady won Super bowl probably number eight, I would think it was in Tampa. The whole. And this is. You can pull this up on YouTube. The whole team is celebrating. He's cleaning out his locker. He's literally cleaning out his locker. Yeah. Okay, this one's done. Hey, I'm glad you guys achieve it. But, you know, everybody could. Not everybody couldn't understand. Everybody couldn't understand it because his mind was already.
See you in the morning.
Yes. See you in the morning. So he had his moment of celebration, as short as an intense as it may be. It was his acknowledgment, and now he's already moved on to next. Is it a perfect way to live? Not really. But we're not here to judge anybody. If that's the way they stack their wins and that's the way they define winning, you know, for them, a definition of winning would be unapologetic. It's what we. When we started this thing about knocking the champagne glass over. So here you go. Winning just gave you the trophy. All right. And you raised your. And you raise your glass up. Now guess what? Start over. Wine glasses. Wine glasses. Or here's the bill. Yeah, sticking with the bill throws you.
The party, doesn't give you the address.
And sticks with the bill. Exactly. Yeah.
Man, this has been awesome. I so appreciate making time for this, because you need to head off to a closing keynote session here. Before I let you go, I would love to know what it looks like for you to rest, relax, and recharge.
Rest, relax, and recharge. You know what? It's funny. I recharge all the time. That's not an issue. I make time to recharge, and my time to recharge is actually at the gym. You know, I go into work. It's my time to myself. I try not to. Most of the time, I don't answer the phone unless it's extremely, extremely important. I'm not a person that listens to music. You know, I put headphones on. I don't want any disturbance. So it's my time to physically. To physically energize myself and to mentally recharge. And from a relaxing standpoint, my relaxation is when I do a keynote like this, and I have, like, that gentleman that came up and said, you know, I read your books. You changed my life. Those things, they recharge me. They relax me because they know that means my words have meaning. They're actually making a difference, and people are doing things better, doing better things in those life. You get those moments like that. They give you a calming effect for me. It's not pressure to say, oh, now I got to continue to do this. It's like, it validates what I'm doing. And most people, if they just, if you have an individual, just validate your success or validate what you've done for them, it gives you a calming feeling. It just really, you know, you're like, it's worth it and allows you to keep going.
Awesome. Well, continued success to you. You are making a difference, and I so appreciate you sharing these ideas in this context.
Awesome. Thank you.
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