Winning
The Unforgiving Race to Greatness
Tim S. Grover is the preeminent authority on the science and art of achieving physical and mental dominance. He has worked with THE most elite basketball players in history. In this book, he shares his fierce wisdom in the context of stories about Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant as he RELENTLESSLY makes the point that “Winning” (with a capital “W”) is, shall we say, not for the faint of heart. If you’re feeling inspired to feel the INTENSITY of an ALL IN human being, I think you’ll love it. As you’d expect, the book is packed with Big Ideas. Let’s get to work.
Big Ideas
- Winning in One WordIn a Single Word.
- The Winning 13Lucky #1 x 13.
- Put Those Hands DownWho Gets to Vote in Your Head?
- The “NO List”What’s on Yours?
- Fear vs. Doubt (Not the Same Thing)Not the Same Thing.
“In my thirty-plus years of working with the greatest competitors of our time, from Michael Jordan and Kobe and Dwayne Wade and Charles Barkley and countless others, to CEOs and elite achievers in all walks of life, I’ve seen Winning in all its glorious generosity, and all its excruciating cruelty. One day it wears a halo. The next day it has fangs.
You don’t get to decide which it will be.
You can only chase it, and if you’re willing to pay the price, you might catch it. Briefly. …
For more than thirty years, I’ve witnessed Winning at the highest level, and experienced losing at a level you can’t comprehend. I’ve seen winners lose and losers win. I’ve tasted both extremes. My chase continues.
So does yours.
Let me take you into the world of elite cutthroat competition, and show you how to navigate a road that can’t be found on any GPS. There is no map, no light, no pavement.
It’s the road to paradise, and it starts in hell.
You have been chosen. Not by others, but by yourself.
Welcome to Winning.”
~ Tim Grover from Winning
This is the second book by Tim Grover we’ve featured.
The first one is called Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable.
I thought THAT book was intense—until I read this one.
As per the introduction blurb up there, Tim Grover has worked with THE most elite basketball players in history. In this book, he shares his fierce wisdom in the context of stories about Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant as he RELENTLESSLY makes the point that “Winning” (with a capital “W”) is, shall we say, not for the faint of heart.
Don’t get this book unless you’re willing to go for an intense ride with an intense human being.
If you’re feeling inspired to feel the INTENSITY of an ALL IN human being, I think you’ll love it. (Get a copy here.)
As you’d expect, the book is packed with Big Ideas.
Let’s get to work.
Download MP3
Download PDFThere’s nothing normal about Winning. If you need normal, if you need to fit in, be prepared for a long stay in the middle of the pack. Winning requires you to be different, and different scares people.
Get the BookWinning in One Word
“You want to take the vocabulary test I give my clients? It’s short and simple.
Describe winning in one word.
That’s it. What does Winning feel like to you? What does it represent?
One word. Take a minute and jot down your first response. You can be honest, this is between you and you. I’m not giving out prizes here.
I’ve asked this of countless athletes and business professionals and other individuals I work with, and the responses are always revealing. Here are some of the most common answers:
Glorious. Euphoric. Success. Domination. Achievement. Power. Satisfaction. Triumph. Awesome. Amazing.
Not bad answers. If your answer was on that list, you fit right in with the majority. If that’s where you want to be.
Of course, anyone can fit in. Excellence stands out.
Let me share with you some of the answers I’ve heard from the greats. Not just in sports but from the business world as well.
Uncivilized. Hard. Nasty. Unpolished. Dirty. Rough. Unforgiving. Unapologetic. Uninhibited.
Kobe:‘Everything.’”
What’s YOUR one word answer to describe winning?
Seriously. What is it?
Did you come up with a warm and fuzzy word to capture the HIGHS of winning?
Glorious. Euphoric. Success. Domination. Achievement. Power. Satisfaction. Triumph. Awesome. Amazing.
If so, perfect. It’s time to rub all that feel-good goodness up against the REALITY of truly Winning at life by adding in the dark to go with that light...
Uncivilized. Hard. Nasty. Unpolished. Dirty. Rough. Unforgiving. Unapologetic. Uninhibited.
For the record... My answer is, as you might be able to guess, ARETÉ.
I thought of that ancient Greek word and the demanding Goddess who admonishes us to show up and GIVE OUR BEST—CLOSING THE GAP between who we’re capable of being and who we’re actually being—moment to moment to moment.
ALL DAY. EVERY DAY. Especially...TODAY.
P.S. While living with Areté is, unquestionably in my mind, HOW we win the ultimate game of life, the one-word answer I’m going to go with to describe the outcome of winning is... EUDAIMONIA.
To me, eudaimonia is that felt sense of KNOWING we left it ALL ON THE COURT. Experiencing that deep sense of eudaimonia, the ancient Greek and Stoic philosophers told us, is the summum bonumof life. The greatest good. The experience of winning the ultimate game.
And... Then... We have HEROIC.
The moment we live with ARETÉ we are, in my mind, HEROIC.
ARETÉ = EUDAIMONIA = HEROIC.
That’s my final answer. What’s yours?
Everything I’ve done with my clients has been the result of helping them close the gap between being the best, and being the best ever. Big difference between those two.
Winners have one fear, and it isn’t about losing. They can come back from a loss, they can find another way to win. They fear not having enough time. Not enough days, weeks, months, and years to complete their life’s work.
The Winning 13
“I asked you for your definition of Winning. Now I’m going to give you mine.
There are 13. If you read Relentless, you may recall that I like to use the number 13, because I don’t believe in luck. Neither does Winning. Winning believes in Winning. You may also recall that everything on my lists is ranked #1, because when you start ranking things, 1-2-3-4-etc., people think #1 is most important, #2 is less important, and everything else is just there to fill out the list. So we go with #1 for everything, and you can read them in any order.
This is what I know. Winning will cost you everything and reward you with more, if you’re willing to do the work. Don’t bother to roll up your sleeves, just rip the f*cking things off—and do what others won’t or can’t. They don’t matter anyway; you are in this alone.
Stop being afraid of what you’ll become. You should be more afraid of not becoming that.
If you can’t buy into this, if you believe you’re not ready or not deserving, if you’re not willing to commit to your own success, you’ve never won, and you probably won’t. Because winners all understand one thing: There’s a price to pay, and you must pay it.”
Has Grover’s intensity come through yet?
Yes. Every single page of the entire book is that intense.
Here are the THIRTEEN definitions of Winning—each gets its own chapter:
#1. WINNING makes you different, and different scares people.#1. WINNING wages war on the battlefield of your mind.#1. WINNING is the ultimate gamble on yourself.#1. WINNING isn’t heartless, but you’ll use your heart less.#1. WINNING belongs to them, and it’s your job to take it.#1. WINNING wants all of you; there is no balance.#1. WINNING is selfish.#1. WINNING takes you through hell. And if you quit, that’s where you’ll stay.#1. WINNING is a test with no correct answers.#1. WINNING knows all your secrets.#1. WINNING is not a marathon, it’s a sprint with no finish line.#1. WINNING is everything.
P.S. I LOVE (!) Grover’s use of lucky #13 to remove “luck” from the equation and assert agency in his life. Rather than my typical “champions do more” 11 reps instead of 10 reps, I’ve been having fun doing 13 reps with Grover’s perspective on luck in mind.
Having said that, I’m with Jim Collins on this one. In Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0, Collins tells us that luck does, in fact exist—in both the “good” and “bad” varieties. He tells us that great leaders know how to deal with both. Do you?
Here’s the short story on how to dominate both good and bad luck...
Know how to endure “bad” luck and use it to your advantage by a) remembering Rule #1 of a good Hero’s journey: It’s SUPPOSED TO BE CHALLENGING while b) executing your “the worse I feel/the bigger the challenge, the more committed I am to my protocol” algorithm as you forge antifragile confidence.
Know how to take advantage of “good” luck by showing up like a great running back who hits the hole in the line of scrimmage as you keep Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Leadership wisdom in mind:“Any man who has been successful, [Theodore] Roosevelt repeatedly said, has leapt at opportunities chance provides.”
You can’t win if you can’t gamble on yourself, and you can’t gamble if you don’t believe you can win. Winning requires you to set unrealistic goals, and expect to achieve them.
Fear shows up on its own. Doubt has to be invited. Fear heightens your awareness; it makes you alert. Doubt is the opposite; it slows you down and paralyzes your thinking. Fear is about playing to win. Doubt is playing not to lose.
Put Those Hands Down
“Weakness, laziness, frustration, negativity, anxiety. Every single morning you get to decide whether to give those things a vote. Do you listen to them? Our do you have the self-control to say: No. No discussion. Put your hand down, you don’t have a vote today.That’s what self-control is: deciding which part of you gets a vote. Some days, frustration might have something to say. Weakness might overpower you. You might give in to jealousy, or laziness, or fear. It happens. Everyone has lapses, we all lose control at some point. But not every day. The skeletons in your mental closet do not get a vote every day. Put those hands down.”
That’s from Chapter #1 (wink ;) on WINNING isn’t heartless, but you’ll use your heart less.
If you haven’t noticed yet, we have a CONSTANT debate going on in our head all day, every day.
Our DEMON vs. our DAIMON. Recall that the word “demon” is simply the diminutive of the word “daimon.” Which voice do YOU listen to? Obviously, the quality of your life will be determined by which voice you allow to vote the most.
I LOVE (!) Grover’s admonition here. Tell your whiney little voice to PUT ITS HAND DOWN. It doesn’t get a vote today.
Having said that... We WILL fall short of our standards in our relentless pursuit of excellence. Forgetting that fact is a great way to fall prey to the unhealthy perfectionism we talk about in Conquering Perfectionism 101.
We need to (relentlessly!) hold ourselves to (very!) high standards WHILE embracing the constraints of reality—starting with the fact that we will NEVER be perfect.
Another great mental toughness coach comes to mind: Stan Beecham. Beecham wrote a fantastic book called Elite Minds.
He tells us: “We must accept that every now and then, we will have a bad day. When I talk with elite athletes, I ask them the following question: ‘If you were the best athlete in the world at your event, how frequently would you have a bad day?’ Surprisingly, many great athletes believe they should get to a point where they no longer have any bad days (or failures). But in reality, the best and most self-aware of those athletes report that during the course of a 30-day month, they have somewhere between 3 and 6 bad days. They understand that having a bad day is simply part of the process. The ability to accept these fluctuations in performance allows athletes to remain fully engaged in their training and keep their goals high.
How you function during a good day does not define your character. It’s how you function during a bad day that is the true test... In order for you to reach your potential, you must know how you respond to poor performance. It is critical information you simply cannot move forward without.
If perfect is not the goal, what is? It’s simple: Do your best. That’s it. Each and every day, make it your intention to do the very best you can with what you have that day. As I said earlier, in your daily journal, give yourself a W [for Win] or an L [for Loss] for each day. If you did the best you could that day, you get a W. If you did not do your best, you get an L. The goal is to have six or fewer Ls in a month. And you never want to have two consecutive Ls in a month. It’s okay to have a bad day, but you must make yourself recover quickly and get back on track. Remember: The goal is not to be perfect. It’s to do your best and recover quickly from failure.”
That’s a REALLY powerful idea.
To recap... KNOW that you will NEVER have a month with ZERO (!) “bad” days. Embrace that fact. Then keep the number of off days you have per month to six or fewer.
And... Make TODAY a day you WIN.
We’re all flawed. Confident people don’t hide their flaws; they laugh at them, because they don’t care what you think. Those flaws work for them. They don’t have to work for you.
When someone tells you they never feel nervous, or they have no fears, they’re either lying, or their challenges aren’t big enough.
The “NO List”
“You have to master the art of NO.
‘No’ is a complete sentence, it requires no interpretation, and everyone around the globe understands what it means. They might not like what it means, but they understand it.
And every time you say yes, every time you say maybe or not right now when you really want to say no, Winning rolls its eyes and looks at someone else.
Why is it so hard to say no? I know, you want to help people, you want to be nice, you want to show that you can take on everything and make it all work. But Winning doesn’t need you to do any of those things. Winning needs you to Win.
I’ve had clients make a ‘NO List’ of things they are not going to do, a nonnegotiable reminder of things that aren’t a priority. Keep it on your phone, on your desk, tape it to the mirror, the refrigerator, and use it. Just making the list will give you a fresh perspective on what really matters, and what’s cluttering up your schedule and your life.
Stop adding. Start deleting.
Winning demands total focus.”
I’m typing this Note as part of a reboot week after DOMINATING the Areté book launch.
I’m creating eight new Notes this week (this is #6) as I say “NO!” to everything else and catch up on Philosopher stuff while clearing my brain after a big push that included a lot of travel.
Last week I spent time with hundreds of THE top commanding special forces officers at SOCOM chatting about resilience. The prior week I spent four hours with the commanding officer of the USS GEORGE H.W. BUSH, getting a tour of his aircraft carrier and learning about his leadership style while connecting with members of his crew.
Now... As part of the book launch, I’ve already done about 50 podcast interviews so far. One of the little exercises I’ve come back to more than any other is a quick way to get clarity on your protocol—you know, the one you need to execute ESPECIALLY when you don’t feel like it!
Here’s the exercise: Grab a piece of paper. Draw a line down the middle. On the upper left put “DO” and on the upper right put “DON’T.” Think back to a time in your life in which you were absolutely on fire. It could have been a day or a week or a month or a year or even a decade.
What were you DOING during that time? And, what were you NOT DOING? That’s the basis of your protocol we need to execute so your prior BEST becomes your new BASELINE.
Then I have people circle the ONE thing they know they could START DOING that would most significantly change their lives if they consistently dominated it. Then I have them circle the ONE thing they know would most positively change their lives if they STOPPED DOING it.
Then I tell them that the fastest way to change their lives isn’t to START doing “good” stuff per se. It’s to STOP DOING the stuff we KNOW is destroying our lives. So...
What’s on YOUR “NO List”? Get clarity. Get rid of the kryptonites. TODAY.
P.S. More broadly speaking, here are a couple gems on the power of “No.”
Gandhi once said: “A ‘No’ uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.”
In 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey tells us: “You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside. The enemy of the “best” is often the “good.””
You want an exercise on how to delete what you don’t need? Work with this: Everyone has this one muscle that’s essential to focusing, prioritizing, and ultimately winning. You can’t see it, you can’t show it off under your clothes. It’s internal: the IDGAF muscle. The medically correct term is the I Don’t Give a F*ck Muscle.
Fear vs. Doubt (Not the Same Thing)
“People don’t like to admit fear, because they think it will make them look weak or insecure or panicked. But insecurity and panic aren’t the same as fear. They align more with anxiety, and your doubts about your ability to manage the fear. Fear and doubt aren’t the same, and the difference is as distinct as Winning and Losing.
What do you fear? What are you afraid of that’s holding you back from what you really want?
I’m sure you realize that we’re not talking about spiders and tall buildings and clowns. We’re talking about the chaotic thoughts churning in your head at 2:00 a.m., when you so badly want to sleep but the noise in your mind won’t stop.
Whatever you fear, do you face those challenges with the confidence that you can manage the outcome? Or do you doubt your ability to handle what’s coming your way?
Fear versus doubt. Not the same thing.”
That’s a powerful passage. And, this is a really (!) powerful distinction: “Fear versus doubt. They’re not the same thing.”
First, let’s remind ourselves that fear is a normal, healthy emotion. As David Reynolds tells us in Constructive Living: “Anyone who says he isn’t afraid of anything is both stupid and lying.”
And, let’s remember that, as he says:“Fear is a healthy emotion. It produces caution, and caution helps keep us alive. Fear, like pain, is unpleasant for anyone, but the discomfort is an alarm that calls our attention to some problem facing us. It is good to be afraid at times.”
The question is, what do YOU do when you feel fear?
Do you APPROACH your challenges like the most Heroically flourishing among us with a “BRING IT ON!” mentality? Or, do you AVOID your challenges and wish they’d go away?
It’s time to flex our courage muscles as we demonstrate our willingness to act in the presence of fear. It’s time to forge our antifragile confidence—KNOWING we have what it takes to meet *any* and *all* of life’s inevitable challenges.
It’s time to WIN the ULTIMATE game of life.
Day 1. ALL IN. Let’s go, Hero!!
Whatever you dream for yourself, whatever you’re chasing, stay with it. Believe in it. Fight for it like your life depends on it, because it does. Winning is watching. It’s waiting for you at the finish line, with a message: Welcome. The race is over. The price has been paid. For now.
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