In this post you’ll learn a few lessons I learned from Tim Grover that you can apply today to your life and business.
In life and business the one thing that contributes the most for one’s success apart from knowledge and skills, is the way the inner workings of one’s mind are set up. We all know of people who although massively gifted, are not able to harness their talents to their own benefit. Examples of this are everywhere. From the streets of the main cities where countless painters and musicians show their art in the hopes of having enough money to be able to buy food for the day. There are also the ones who are great at school, but on the real world they display the results only a person with nothing great about them would. Those, instead of going to the world and making new discoveries for the advance of science, end up as teachers who live unfulfilled lives because the only reason why they teach is because it’s the least they can do to be able to survive on this highly competitive environment.
So, our talents and skills although important for success are obviously not the whole picture. The most important question now goes from: “what are my talents?” or “what am I good at?”, to “what else is there about success?”. This is one of the questions I learned the answer for by watching Tim Grover’s videos as well as by reading his book Relentless.
Lessons I Learned From Tim Grover
Tim Grover, the owner of the training facility Attack Athletics, was the personal trainer of many successful superstar athletes including Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, who has designed a mental framework for success in not only sports, but also business and life in general. Without taking long, below are 5 ideas I learned from Tim Grover.
1. Continuously look for a competitive edge
On the book Relentless, Tim Grover mentions over and over again the idea that the greatest of the competitors are always looking for a competitive edge. For a sports player, this would mean finding out a new form of training that for some reason is not available to the rest of the players on the team/league. For a business person, this could mean the search for that one thing, or set of things that not only puts the business in front of the competition, but also makes it hard for others to compete. This often goes by the name of Competitive advantage when you get an advantage that makes the competition lose ground/market share, or barriers to entry, when the competitive advantage somehow makes it difficult for new businesses to enter the market.
2. Commit to one thing
Committing to one thing and being excellent at it is another tip I got from Tim Grover. The reason for this is, as he teaches on the book, is that excellence in one area sometimes means mediocrity on another. As much as we would like to be able to be great at everything, this is not possible. The limited time we have each day is a major constraint for this goal, and for most things, like mastering a certain business or mastering a skill, require as much time as you can put into them. If you try to split your focus among many activities, for the activities in which there are lots of competition, chances are that you won’t be the best, since there will be someone who will be putting more hours than you.
3. Look for ways to be the best at what you do
This is related to the previous two ideas. When you look for a way to be not “Good” but “the best at what you do, you approach success at a whole new different level. Instead of relying on luck, you make your own luck. If you read the book(and I strongly advise you to), you’ll notice that a big part of the stories are about how the great always looked for new ways to improve, and for many, that way was to be trained by Tim Grover.
4. Look for the energy of the dark side
The dark side is one of those things that we all know deep down we have, but most of us fail to admit it. Tim Grover teaches us that even though the dark side of each one of us can lead us to do things that go against our best judgment, it can still serve as a source of energy for the goals we have. As he said once: “If you harness the fuel that’s from that dark side, whether it’s anger, whether it’s fear, and turn it into positive fuel it will help you really success at what you’re trying to do”.
He teaches us that by taking control of the part of us that we don’t let see the light of day, we can not only prevent it from destroying our lives, but also get from it a level of energy and confidence that we would probably not be able to get by the normal ways.
One example of “the dark side” is the incessant need for money, power and appreciation that athletes and a big part of businessman/woman usually have, and that pushes them to be the best version of themselves, although most of them will not admit it. The dark side is dark because it’s looked down by society and the urge that comes from trying to satisfy it is the core of that energy Tim was talking about.
5. Pay attention to detail
The last but certainly not the least important thing I learned was to pay attention to detail. On Relentless and on some videos, he talks about the way the best of players he trained had an elevated attention to detail. When you’re trying to be the best at what you do, details are often the one thing that set you apart from your competitors. In business this could mean paying extra attention to the costumer’s experience with your product, in the same way Jeff Bezos does with Amazon, as reported on the book The everything store.
Summary
There is much more into Tim Grover’s philosophy of success that can be described in a single blog post. So, if you’re interested in learning more about it, I strongly Advise you to read Tim Grover’s book Relentless.
.
It is all about knowledge and experience 😉
Leave a comment below