Commander Mark Divine speaks with Tim Grover about his drive for success as a first generation American, his career training elite athletes, and how we can all develop a winning attitude.
Tim S. Grover is the CEO of ATTACK Athletics, Inc., founded in 1989. World-renowned for his legendary work with elite champions and Hall of Famers, including Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and hundreds other NFL, MLB, NBA, and Olympic athletes, he is the preeminent authority on the science and art of physical and mental dominance and achieving excellence.
Author of the national bestseller RELENTLESS: From Good to Great to Unstoppable and his latest book, Winning: The Unforgiving Race to Greatness, creator of digital training platform The Relentless System, Tim appears around the world as a keynote speaker and consultant. He is a featured columnist at SI.com and Yahoo.com; he also appears on ESPN, FoxSports, and other media outlets.
Key Takeaways:
- Greatness is not an end goal. It is something to strive for every single day. After each win, start over and continue to strive for the next victory.
- It’s crucial to determine and address weaknesses and injury prone areas before focusing on building overall strength.
- You have enough haters! Don’t be one of them. The importance of being your own biggest fan cannot be stated enough.
- Fear is a natural and necessary part of life, but we can’t allow it to control us. We must trust ourselves and let go of doubt, so we can control fear and have better control of the outcome.
- Wisdom from Michael Jordan: If you get knocked down, don’t just stand back up. If you stand up before you have figured out why you fell, you haven’t learned anything. Figure out why you fell, then stand up. A changed person is less likely to repeat the same mistake.
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Tim Grover 0:03
It’s that chip that’s no longer on the shoulder. It’s internal. So no one is you know, people say, you know, you aware chip on your shoulder, well, how many chips on people’s shoulders have you knocked off, and your previous line of work you had to knock off. That was literally what you have to do. You have to literally find the other person who had the same chip and you have to knock it off. Well, those individual I tell you, the Dark Side teaches you to keep that chip on the inside, where nobody can touch it, but you nobody can knock it off. You understand how to use it, when to use it. That’s what this is, and we all have it.
Mark Divine 0:42
Hi, this is Mark Divine and welcome to the Mark Divine show. Here we dive in and discuss what makes the world’s most inspirational, compassionate and resilient people. So fearless. We talk in depth to people from all walks of life, martial artists grandmasters meditative monks, CEOs, military leaders, Stoic philosophers, prod survivors, and more. Each episode turns our guests experience into actionable insights where you can learn from and following us to lead a life filled with compassion and courage. We’re coming up in the new year. And with that comes the new launch of the Mark Divine brand. mid January is the target date, the podcast will have a new name. You’ve heard me say it earlier in the Mark Divine show, I look forward to even more incredible guests on the show, getting glimpses of their stories, insights, leadership, prowess, and resilience. Also, we’re launching a new weekly newsletter called divine inspiration, bringing out short reads on what has inspired us that week, ranging from the serious to the uplifting to the entertaining. Lastly, I’m watching a totally new web platform at Mark Divine calm. I’m super stoked about what’s ahead and hope you’ll continue to support our efforts. Now as we get closer to the New Year, we decided to replay one of our favorite episodes from 2021. What came to my mind right away was my discussion with Tim Grover in June. Tim is the CEO of attack athletics. He’s world renowned for his legendary work with elite champions and Hall of Famers, including Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Dwayne Wade. Michael Jordan said this about Tim, Tim Grover was by my side for 15 years knows more than anyone about building winners. And the late Kobe Bryant said this about Tim. Tim is the master of mental toughness, discovering what you’re capable of achieving, getting results you never imagined, reaching the highest level of success, and then going even higher. Tim is the author of the bestseller relentless, from good to great to unstoppable, and the creator of digital training platform, the relentless system, Tim earned his master’s degree in Exercise Science and his bachelor’s degree in kinesiology at the University of Illinois. Chicago, is a former NCAA division one basketball player at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and he was inducted in the UIC Hall of Fame. With Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. I was excited to share insights around peak performance coaching strategies and how to develop a winning mindset with Tim. So let’s dive in. I mentioned my guest today, Tim Grover, CEO of attack athletics. What a cool name. Tim’s new book is winning the unforgiving race to greatness. That’s a follow up from his earlier book, which I love the title also called Reading endless from good to great to unstoppable. Tim, thanks so much for being here. Appreciate you,
Tim Grover 3:21
man. It’s an honor. Thank you so much. I always like to start with
Mark Divine 3:23
kind of early childhood influences who, you know, how do you become who you are? And what were the big influences in your life that led you into this, you know, into athletics into basketball and into becoming a coach of the elite players?
Tim Grover 3:37
Well, you know, what, you know, everyone likes to give the standard answer. Well, for me, the standard answer is actually true. It was my parents, you know, both immigrant parents watching them, that work ethic and what they left behind, in India to come down here and start a new life with my brother and myself, and just to watch them compete and how they dealt with everything and all the adversity and being able to watch it, and actually see to individuals, learn from it, execute through it, the setbacks that they had to go through, and them putting me right in the middle of those things. So I get to experience and educate them instead of trying to hide me from what life and reality is really about. So they were the first two individuals that actually molded me and said, hey, you know, this is what you have to do. My mom was a nurse practitioner. And she came over to the United States, and got herself settled. My dad was a professor of anatomy, but when he came over, they weren’t allow him to teach here because they studied the education that he had back in India, then translated over here, sort of watch him take any odd and job at the hospital. So he could provide for us it sets a standard it sets a standard so you take an individual who’s so well established somewhere else, and then come somewhere else. And you know, pride and ego and all that stuff gets in the way. And he said, No, I’m going to figure out a way to win. And you get to see that on a regular regular basis. And I have some memories that even going to the age of four, just what they gave and what they did.
Mark Divine 5:17
That’s amazing. Yeah, and I love that because it really is true that you know, just how your parents are with you, or how you observe them is the biggest influence in terms of probably who you become in terms of the familiar part of it. Right? And the see the your parents come and struggle and strive and succeed. No left a huge imprint on you. It sounds like that’s neat. I had a quick question. Both your parents are Indian, but your last name is Grover have that come about?
Tim Grover 5:45
Grover is actually a very popular Indian name. So what happens is most of the indians that, you know, migrate from India, whether it’s to the UK or so forth. It’s a shortened version of a established colony in India. So there’s a lot of Grovers out there. I know it’s not first thing everybody thinks, Well, I don’t know how old you are my age. Everybody thinks everybody thinks of Sesame Street. You know, you know, they go to the Nair and the FAR, getting teased through that during school and everything, but it’s the only name I know, I’m not going to question any of them. They said you’re a Grover. And I said, all right. I’m a Grover.
Mark Divine 6:27
I’m a Grover. I love that I learned something new. I’m always used to these other longer kind of more esoteric Indian names. Yes,
Tim Grover 6:34
exactly. And I can’t pronounce them either. So it works out good.
Mark Divine 6:39
But you grew up 100% Here, but you didn’t spend any time in India.
Tim Grover 6:43
I spent my first four years were in the UK. And then I’ve been here. So this is all I really remember. I remember a little bit about England, but not a whole lot. But I’ve pretty much been here.
Mark Divine 6:57
So tell us about basketball. You were an elite basketball player yourself. How did you get into that? What was that like? And did you have any coach or anyone who influenced you significantly?
Tim Grover 7:07
No. So you know what it was, it’s like, we live there where there was a park outside. You know, he played the three sports shots or you play basketball, you play baseball, and you played football. If you were fortunate enough to be somewhere in a big park district. They used to freeze the baseball diamond, you could skate well, with football, you need numerous people to play, you need or at least one other person to throw fun to throw a football round. And footballs were more expensive than basketball, baseball, you can only throw a ball up in the air and catch it so much before you like it. That’s enough. And even if you have to hit it to yourself, you hit it, you got to go chase it with a basketball. You just need a $2 ball. And you can literally play by yourself. So that was the sport that I kind of gravitated to. I don’t know if it was the right choice being not being very tall. But it was something that really interests me. I know I could do it alone. I was pretty good at it. I was fortunate enough to play at a mid major division one college UIC very proud of my flames. I had to work extremely hard, just to be a part of that team. You know, there’s some individuals Listen, well, you know, people love to tell you these stories that oh, if they didn’t get injured, they were going to turn pro and all this other stuff. Not that wasn’t happening with me, that I was fortunate enough to play at that level. But when I got really interested in was the aspect of how the body moves, and how to become a better athlete and how to become how the human body performed. And basketball kind of pushed me into that because I always had to be in better shape. And I always had to have a stronger mindset than everyone else. Because their skill sets were so much better than mine.
Mark Divine 8:53
Their natural ability, you mean the natural skill sets?
Tim Grover 8:57
Yeah, I was able to shoot the ball, I was able to dribble but I wasn’t really, really super athletic. I was slightly above average. So the things that I had to be able to do in order to compete at that level was really hone on my skills, being able to everybody else got tired, continue to push a little bit harder, and have that winning mentality have that strong mindset to keep going when everybody else would quit.
Mark Divine 9:22
That interest in the body and movement that you explored on your own led you to get a master’s degree right and exercise science or exercise physiology. Yeah, exactly.
Tim Grover 9:31
So I was just like, you know, you go to college, nobody knows what they want to do that first year. So my first year there was a new program being offered it was called Kinesiology. I was a hell I can’t even spell kinesiology but my guidance counselor said this something that you might be interested I took a couple of courses and I said I really really like this. So I did my bachelor’s degree in kinesiology. I did my master’s degree in Exercise Science. And my parents were like, you know, well, what are you going to do with this? I’m sure you know that you When you have two Indian parents, you have two options as a career. Number one is the doctor. And number two is a doctor. That’s it. You know, I told my parents, I was not going to go to medical school. And they were like, well, what are you going to do? I said, Well, I want a trained professional athlete. So let paradigm, what does the What does that even mean? And I just said, Listen, I want to take athletes at the highest level and have them perform better. And both my parents were a little standoffish, but they were supportive that my dad said, I’ll let you pursue that. But you must take the entrance exam for medical school, you must do that. I said, Okay. So it was called the MCAT. So I took the MCAT totally bombed it the first time, on purpose, on purpose, and my dad was nice try, he was already registered you for the next test, because he knew I was going to do that. So I went and took the test again, I scored fairly well, I got into a few schools. I told them, I was like, listen, let me try this out. If this doesn’t work, I promise you, I will enter medical school. So what they gave me the ability to do, and I talked about this in the book winning is they were so accustomed, and a lot of people are accustomed to doing this. They’re always taught what to think what to think. Because listen, in the culture was, if you born in this culture, these are the professions This is what everybody was told this is what to think what to think what to think. They gave me the ability on how to think being able to take everything I learned, and have some my own individuality, my own instincts, my own thoughts on how I could figure out a way to make this into a career. So they gave me that opportunity to be able to do both of those things, and work on what I wanted to do. It took me a little while to break through. I literally when I graduated, I was like four or five years, I ended up working at a local health club. So this is a master’s degree leaving with a master’s degree. And the minimum wage back then was $3.35. Again, I had all this knowledge from a book standpoint, but I had no practical. I could look at a person. Yeah, you could do this. But I had, I didn’t know how to apply everything. So I got a chance to really apply my craft. And then I was fortunate enough in 1989 to get connected to my first professional client, believe it or not, which was Michael Jordan. Yeah. How
Mark Divine 12:18
did that happen? Tell us that story.
Tim Grover 12:20
So what I did was back then, you know, no emails, he didn’t have cell phones. So I decided to write 14 letters to 15 different players on the Chicago Bulls basketball team. The only person I didn’t write a letter to was Michael Jordan. I was like, he’s already the best. You know, he’s one of the top players, he’s not going to want to work out with anybody. So I was like, Okay, let’s go after somebody who can really benefit from my knowledge and let me grow with that individual. So Michael went into somebody else’s locker and saw the letter and gave it to the athletic trainer and to the team physician at that time and said, Hey, find out what this person’s about. So I got a call from them. And that was like, Hey, listen, we have a client plan that’s interested in using your services. They didn’t tell me who it was. They did not tell me who it was. So for three months, they question me, they gave me written exams, they brought me in to do evaluations, all kinds of stuff to make sure I knew what I was doing. So then they said one day, they’re like, Hey, listen, here’s the address of the individual we want you to go meet, we want you to go meet him, and talk to him and explain to him what you do and what your philosophies are. Still, I didn’t know who it was. So they gave me an address. I drove out there. And this was before the gated houses and all that other stuff where you can just walk up to Michael’s house and just ring the doorbell. So I go there, I ring the doorbell. And Michael Jordan opens up the door. Nice, like, okay, and then the funny part about this whole story is I’m wearing Converse gym shoes. And everybody knows that Michael is a big Nike guy. And then obviously now with the Jordan shoe and everything. So I’m like, alright, well, I’m talking to him. I’m trying to take off the shoes at the same time. So hopefully you didn’t feel I took off my shoes, went in there spoke to him for about 3040 minutes explained to him what I do, what my philosophies were. And he had asked, Have you ever trained a professional athlete? I said, Nope, you will be my first professional athlete. He goes everything you’re telling me just he goes, it doesn’t sound right. I said it doesn’t get any writer. I said give me 30 days, give me 30 days to prove what I know. And what I understand. And if you’re not happy with the results, I will leave 30 Days turned into 15 years.
Mark Divine 14:37
That’s amazing. And so what didn’t sound right to him, like what was it that you were doing or proposing to do that was different than what an NBA team was doing for their strengths and development in mental you know,
Tim Grover 14:47
I wanted to devise a program just for him. Not for 15 guys on the team. I said, here are the issues that you have. This is what you need to he got. He was like well, I want to get stronger. I want to get bigger, but I want to put on this weight. And I was just said, Well, how about if we address the areas that keep getting injured, you know, you’re very susceptible to ankle sprains, hamstring pull, or groin issues, I said, lesson dressing those things I said, if we address those things, you’ll automatically be more athletic, you’ll automatically be able to jump higher, you’ll automatically be able to run longer, you’ll automatically be able to shoot better, everything played better defense, I said, Let’s address those things first. And then we’ll talk about trying to add muscle and making you stronger. He was like, well, that no one’s ever told me that I said, Well, let’s take care of those things. First, let’s like make sure the body is working the way it’s supposed to be working. And then once we got those things in line, and what I was able to do was, I was able to tell him exactly how he was going to feel in 24 hours, 48 hours I wrote, I said, Michael, if we do this exercise, this is what you’re gonna feel if we do this, this and this. So the trust factor got to be really good, because everybody else wanted to come in, and just kind of bulk them up. And I was like, that’s not the way to go.
Mark Divine 16:05
That’s fascinating. I love that. And so first, the two key points that I’m completely aligned with, it makes so much sense, every individual body is different. And the way the athletes developed are different. So one size never fits all. And two is you got to take care of the underlying structural issues. You know, that’s the good, the great part, right, you got to take care of the issues. Because if you have dysfunctional movement patterns that lead to injury, then those movement patterns are systemic, right? There’s something in the whole system that’s causing that you might have one or two of those or three. But until you solve those, you’re never going to be able to move forward and really develop the next level. Right?
Tim Grover 16:40
Yeah, look at anybody, I don’t care what your business, you know, even this podcast, your foundation has to be so strong, right, you’re gonna have the most expensive mic, the nicest background in the world. And all this other stuff, if your foundation isn’t able to support everything that’s going on, and the way it moves and the way things happen, it’s never going to be successful, right. So your whole foundation principle is like, hey, let’s address these injuries. Let’s address the foundation that allows you to do all those things, not only physically, but also mentally. If we address those things, physically, you’ll have a better mental attitude, you’ll trust your body more, you’ll know if I go this way, I don’t have to worry about getting injured. If I land a particular way. I you know, you’ve been doing the work, you know, you can’t guarantee success, you can’t guarantee that an athlete is not going to get injured. But if you work on that foundation, you know, and in your line of work when you know with all the training that you did all the you know, the Navy Seal and all that training that you did, a lot of it was building that foundation, and all the physical stuff that you did build that foundation, not only physically, but allowed you to excel mentally. That’s right.
Mark Divine 17:54
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Tim Grover 20:26
yeah, I mean, obviously, Michael wind didn’t know a lot of stuff. He wanted to know a lot of stuff. And winning was so important to him. It was so so important to him. And his competitiveness. We saw that in the last test, and he just wanted to compete. But I said, this is huge difference between competing, and winning, I said, we all know how to compete every athlete. I shouldn’t even say every athlete, every individual knows how to compete. Very few know how to win. Very few individuals know how to win, there’s a different pattern to winning than there is to just competing, there’s people that compete people that compete. Just want to finish. I said, Michael, you just want to have a career and say, Yeah, my career is over with. I said, that’s what people that compete do, I send those individuals that when they win one time, I said, there’s individuals that win at win, let’s get the attitude of winning a win at all your wins, where we can constantly build on stuff. And knowing that every single day, you got to find a way to get a little bit better, you got to get a little closer to whatever your goal is, you got to know that no matter what you did, you gave more than 100%. You practice so hard, so the games become easier. One of the advantages that I had to get out of his mind, and every athlete that I’ve worked with a business person dealt with everybody looks for steps. Everybody looks for steps, you know, they’re like that, how many books have you seen out there and how many individuals take five steps to greatness 10 Steps to Success, those steps are infinite. Those steps are infinite. And they’re constantly changing. They’re constantly shifting, you don’t know if that step is stable, you don’t know if it’s unstable, you don’t know if it’s there, you don’t know if you step down on it, whether it’s going to be quicksand, sometimes you see it, sometimes you got to trust yourself. One of the things that was so important, I was like, there are no steps, there are no steps to winning, there are no steps to greatness, there are no steps to these things, those steps are constantly changing. And I gave him the example and I give this example, everybody, I don’t care what kind of shape you’re in, whether you’re an ultramarathon runner, or you’re a high intensity person, or you ride the bike or whatever, go run a flight of stairs. And I think is hard. I don’t care what kind of shape you’re in. So that’s why I love everybody likes to talk about these steps, what are the steps? And I said, get out of your head, there are no steps, those steps are constantly going to be shifting and understand. Once you get through whatever the steps are, there’s more steps to combat Yeah, always going to be constantly more steps to come. I
Mark Divine 23:05
love that. Yeah. So what you’re saying is focus on the inside instead of the external goal. Focus on the mindset and the attitude. And learning how to have a winning attitude or winning mindset is not about having to win every single game. Right? It’s about winning every day, winning every training session winning every moment where you’re on top, you’re learning, you’re growing, right? You’re not defeating yourself negatively. Right, those types of
Tim Grover 23:29
things. Listen, anybody just a great point, defeating yourself negatively how many people are out there that are already trying to defeat you negatively? That always trying to put stuff in your head and always telling you? You’re not good at this? Why are you working so hard? You don’t know why you’re going to go train again? Why do you want to do this? Look at when you first start? You’re going to do a podcast? Why are you doing a podcast? Everyone’s got a podcast, you’re not going to be successful at this. So if you’re constantly beating yourself up, along with everybody else beating yourself up, you literally have no chance. There’s enough people out there doing it for you. So why do it to yourself? Yeah, you
Mark Divine 24:05
got to be your biggest fan, your own biggest fan.
Tim Grover 24:08
When you want to win at something, no matter what it is. There’s a battlefield that constantly goes on in your mind constantly going on in your mind. You know, people are always telling you, oh, this is a terrible idea. You can’t win. This is going to cost you too much. Everything’s happening that when you become successful, you really start to go after those goals. What about the individuals that say, oh, you should take a day off? You work too hard. Okay. Or I love this one. You got this? What do you guys got what? What you have today, you may not have from an hour from now define to me. What is this? When I say you got it?
Mark Divine 24:46
That’s interesting. I love that. I say that all the time. And I’m like, it’s made me think what is it?
Tim Grover 24:51
Your podcast has a theme. So you don’t when people say when they go live? This is the theme of it. These are the guests that you have. This is what he talks about. He talks about the mind said this, he talked about the physical body talks about how you know how you take care of this. It has them. So that’s what you got most people when they say you got this, they got no definition of this.
Mark Divine 25:10
Okay? That’s interesting. What did you learn from Michael, that you don’t think you would have known? independently?
Tim Grover 25:17
Everybody tells you that when you lose, or you fall, you jump right back up. And what Michael and I, it was never that. I would ask him, I was like, you know what’s going on? He goes, if I jumped right back up, I’m gonna fall again, I’m gonna fail again. I need to stay down there for a little bit. I need to figure out why I got down here. Interesting. Why did I fall? Why did I fail? Once I figured that out. Then when I stand up, I’m a different person, because I just jumped back up on the exact same person that failed and fell and didn’t learn anything. Now, the same thing can knock me down again. So he goes, so every time I failed, every time I fell, I stood up differently. So I got knocked down and I lost, I stood up, I was smart. I got knocked down, fell again. This time I stood up, I was strong. I fell, got knocked down again. This time I stood up, I was more resilient. So every time he stood up, every time he lost every time he didn’t get that championship for the season, that didn’t go the way he wanted to. He was like, I have to come back. I have to stand up and be a different, better individual. So His thing was like, learn why you’re getting down there. Because if you bounce right back up, that’s more for the other person. That’s to show the other person Oh, you know, look at me, everything’s okay. It really isn’t. Okay. It takes more of an individual. Well, you talked about earlier about knowing yourself being your biggest fan. And being able to understand let me sit down here for a little bit, not worried about the crowd and not worry about what everybody else is thinking. So this one happened to me again,
Mark Divine 27:02
right? That’s great. We used to say in the seals that there’s winning and there’s learning. Yeah, there is no such thing as failure. There’s just winning and learning. And I love that as a kind of meta definition for resilience. Because resilience is when you get knocked down, which we all first to expect that you’re going to get knocked down. Yeah. Second, that when you get knocked down, you learn from it, so that you get stronger from it. I love that. That’s fascinating. You know, my experience is usually the knock downs. And especially you know, what happens after the knock down is really an emotional inside game, you’re dealing with some emotional issue, a confidence issue, childhood trauma issue, some sort of blockage, something’s blocking you emotionally. Was that your experience as well? And how did you become an emotional coach to them to your clients.
Tim Grover 27:50
So think about every bad decision that you’ve made.
Mark Divine 27:56
And there’s a lot of there would take me a long time.
Tim Grover 28:01
I competed computers would both be done, you and I both, we could have a 30 part series on that. Exactly. But most of those decisions have been made with your feelings, right? They’ve been made with your feelings, though I have a chapter in this book, especially for this because this it was very importantly, winning isn’t heartless, but you’ll use your heart less. Meaning you got your mind has to be stronger than your feelings. Your mind has to be stronger than your feelings. That’s how you get that mindset. Because you know, when your mind is stronger than your feelings, you’re going to upset a lot of people, you are going to upset a lot of people but those people that you didn’t upset, they understand they have that same mindset that you have. They know that when your mind is stronger than the feelings, whatever you’re telling them is usually the truth. And you figure the truth would lead to more action. What what does the truth do? It leads to more emotion. And what’s the first thing people ask and when you’re in a relationship with anybody, they said, Be honest with me, until you’re honest with those individuals, then they’re no longer your friends. So I always say this, you know, people say, Man, I have a hard time getting up in the morning and you know, just get going or whatever it is. Well, that’s your feelings. Your feelings are telling you to stay in your bed. Your mind is what gets you up. Your mind says get out of bed, go face, whatever the day is, you have the opportunity to be successful, you have an opportunity to win. So your mind tells you to get up. Your mind makes decisions. Your mind makes decisions. Feelings make you overthink things. And what happens when you overthink things. You just become paralyzed. You literally become paralyzed, you cannot move. So for people that are kind of stuck, they’re kind of like always in that emotional state. They’re in a constant flux of overthinking all the time overthinking, you know and you’re just training in your line of training what you did, you guys didn’t have time to overthink, none whatsoever. Your mind was so strong, you guys were so sharp, that you knew exactly what you were doing. And you knew exactly what your team was doing. And those decisions had to be made on a regular basis. Your mind lets you handle disappointment. Your mind lets you handle disappointment of failures. And what you said is, we’d be here all year talking about our disappointments and failures. But your mind allows you to handle them. You feelings, hold on to them forever. Right? Hold on, no one I’ve known about the greatest competitors in business or whatever. Then they get over stuff quick. They got the shortest memories, they get over stuff like now, they don’t forget. They never forget. But they don’t constantly think about it all the time. I used to tell my athletes all this. Listen, if you’re thinking you’re not in the moment, you’re not in the moment. But you’ve done years and years and years and years of training years and years of thinking not to be able to think in that moment. There’s people in sports you hear this all the time. Well, that person’s overthinking that person’s overthinking. Don’t think just go out and play. But what’s the first thing you tell an individual? When they tell them don’t think? No, they start thinking they start thinking? That’s exactly okay. Don’t think, but it takes years and years to be able to do this where you can actually know where your mind is stronger than your feelings, you are going to hurt people, you are going to disappoint individuals. But once you make your mind stronger, then you can help those individuals more.
Mark Divine 31:39
Right. Wow. Yeah, I agree. And it’s just bringing up a lot of parallels again to, as you alluded to, to seal missions, you know, SEAL training, people think that Navy SEALs don’t experience fear. And that’s bullshit. We do. Yeah, of course, we do. You know, when someone’s trying to kill you, you know, that’s pretty fearful thing. But the mind has, like you said through the relentless training, and the discipline, the ability to focus on the, you know, the right task at the right time. And also being able to get yourself automatically into that flow state, which can only happen when your mind is present. Yep, then Navy SEALs, essentially, they bypass it. So there’s a level of emotional control is not so much like you’re trying to squeeze that fear into a little box, that type of control. It’s more like you’re just kind of, you’re acknowledging it, but then you’re not focusing on it. And by not focusing on it, it just kind of goes away at board, suddenly, the energy that used to be fear is now giving you a lot of energy. It’s giving you some adrenaline rush and, and determination to win. Yeah. And so that’s the mind power. You’re right. And if you didn’t have that training, if you didn’t learn how to do that, then that fear will overwhelm you, it’ll shut you down.
Tim Grover 32:44
100%. And you know what, we talk about this, it’s funny, the mindset of the greatest athletes that I’ve dealt with the different CEOs, the entrepreneurs, and all that stuff is extremely similar to the training that that you went to, right? It’s exactly what you said, everybody, oh, I don’t have any fear. I you know, I’m fearless bullshit. You know, everybody has fear. But what they don’t have is, they don’t have doubt, right? They don’t have dots. So when you went into your missions, and you went into Yes, you were fearful, but you had no doubt that you were going to be successful, and you have no doubt of what the outcome was going to be. Right? Everybody experienced this fear, we’re built that way. But if we control that, and understand it, and use it properly, we can handle of what the outcome is going to be you have better control of what the outcome is going to be. Right, we’re all going to have fear. But the most successful individuals don’t have doubt of the outcome. I don’t know about us, when you guys jump into the water or jump out of the planes. It’s not natural to jump out of a perfectly good working aircraft. It’s just not, nobody tells us is a good idea. So there’s a fear factor of that. But there’s no doubt of what the outcome is going to be.
Mark Divine 34:02
Yeah, we used to say doubt is eliminated through action. Yeah. Right. And there’s action that you take internally, and then there’s the action you take as a team, and you just are moving forward toward the mission objective. And like you said, the doubt just goes away. If it ever comes back up again, you just take the next action, get the feedback loop, take the next action, get the feedback loop, take next action. You know, it’s an incredibly simple model, but it’s difficult for people to get it and then once they do, boom, right? There success just goes through the roof. I think yeah, people
Tim Grover 34:34
overcomplicate things, because when they overcomplicate things, it gives them multiple reasons to fail multiple reasons to fail,
Mark Divine 34:42
right? Keep it simple, Sally.
Tim Grover 34:45
Yes, exactly. I started spending so much time trusting everyone else. Trust yourself. Trust your training. trust what you know, trust what you studied. Trust your teammates, but you can’t do any of that stuff. If you don’t go back number one. You got to trust yourself. You got to believe in your life. How could you believe in any of your team members? If they didn’t believe in themselves first? Right? That makes it real, real difficult if you have to force so much of your energy into somebody else, that it takes you out of your flow state of what you said,
Mark Divine 35:18
right? Yeah, well said. Okay, we’re gonna take a short break here from the Mark Divine show to hear a short message from one of our partners. I recently received a question from a listener, she wanted to know if it was possible to avoid digestion problems by eating only healthy organic food. It’s a nice thought, but unfortunately, just not possible. You see your natural ability to digest food declines with age. This is because your body produces fewer enzymes, which are the proteins responsible for digesting food. Fewer enzymes means more difficulty digesting food. Even organic foods won’t provide enough enzymes to properly digest them. This is especially true if you cook your food because cooking kills the enzymes. This is why you may have digestive problems even after a healthy meal, your body just can’t produce enough enzymes to get the job done. This is where supplementing with high quality enzymes supplements can be a huge help to personally recommend mess times by by optimizers. It’s a best in class supplement loaded with full spectrum enzymes for digesting proteins, starches, sugars, fibers and fats. Taking mess designs daily helps top off your enzyme levels and replace the enzymes that your body is no longer producing, which means you’ll be able to eat all sorts of delicious foods and digest them quickly and effortlessly. After you start taking mess. You may notice that you no longer feel bloated after meals and that your belly feels flatter. And if you have a leaky gut mess science can reduce gut irritation and help you absorb even more nutrients. Verified buyer Mike sigue a mess signs a five star rating saying quote, It has definitely helped me address digestion and health issues and quote, listen, life’s too short to suffer from digestive problems. If you want freedom from your food, especially during the upcoming holiday season. Try mass signs risk free and experience for yourself the magic of high quality enzymes for an exclusive offer for my listeners go to Mass designs.com forward slash unbeatable that’s ma SSZY mes.com forward slash unbeatable use the code unbeatable 10 to get 10% off again, that link is masked simes.com For slash unbeatable use the code unbeatable 10. One zero. Thank you very much. And now back to the show. So speaking of great talent, what about how did you get to work with them? What was the experience like of working with the late and great, I might say Kobe Bryant?
Tim Grover 37:49
So I started with Kobe in 2007. He actually reached out to Michael and said, you know, MJ my knees are killing me. He goes, they’re just like, I don’t know if I could keep going. So Michael said, Hey, listen, I’m not using my guy anymore. Michael had already retired at that time. He said why don’t you give Grover a call. And Kobe said, Well, tell me about Grover, and he goes, he goes Grover really really knows his stuff. But he is the biggest asshole you’ll ever meet. That was one of the best compliments I ever got. Because he didn’t call me a absolutely call me the asshole number one, if you’re going to be known as something known be known as v not a so and then he said, Well, what do you mean, he’s going to tell you like this, he’s not going to sugarcoat anything. He’s not gonna lie to you. He’s not going to BS you. He’s going to tell you exactly what the issues are, what needs to be done, whether he can help you or not. And what he expects out, he goes, this is perfect for me. So then I started to work with Kobe during that summer got him ready for the season. And for the 2008 Olympics, he was just inducted into the Hall of Fame. still difficult for me to understand that he’s no longer with us. And one of the conversations I used to have with them all the time was, I used to tell him, I said Kobe, we don’t have time. We don’t have time. And boy, I wish I was wrong. Mm hmm. You have all these individuals and I’ll tell you take your time, you got plenty of time to do this. You got time to do that you had time to do that. Listen, you acknowledge at the beginning all the individuals that listen to your podcast and and you thank them for it and all that other stuff. Because they’re giving you something that’s so valuable, that giving your time. People that listen to this podcast, hopefully many people will listen to this podcast. They’re giving me something that’s extremely valuable. That’s their time. So I want to give them different lessons and different thoughts about this is how I won. This is how the most successful people want and it’s not easy. It’s not about the rainbows. It’s not about the confetti at the end. You know, we talked about Kobe, it’s about the grind. It’s about the grit and it’s about the grind. It’s not about the glamour about it. It’s about the pain. It’s about the heartaches. It’s about going through all those things to get to that moment of winning. And it’s just a moment because it’s so brief, because somebody else is looking for the next one, you have to start getting ready for the next one. So every time you win, and you get to that finish line, the start line is right there, right? Every time you finish a podcast, great, you get to exhale for a second. Now the start line is down for the next one. And then the next one, the next one, if you don’t think that way, you’ll be like that individual that had the greatest experience in life back in high school.
Mark Divine 40:34
Glory Days. Yes. That’s amazing. You talk about taking the ride with darker side. What do you mean by that?
Tim Grover 40:41
I say this, every individual idol. And when we talk about the dark side, the dark side, this isn’t about this isn’t Star Wars, this isn’t vampires, or any of that stuff. This is something because everybody wants to go there. This is about something that lights your fire, when nothing else will it keeps you going when nothing else will. And I give a great example about us. You have individuals that may have been raised in a broken home, they either had one parent, or they had no parents, you can have two individuals with identical stories. And one will use that as an excuse for the rest of their lives. They’ll say, you know, I came from a broken home, they literally have the victims mentality. And then you have the other individual who knows that, hey, that was a dark time for me. And they use that to say, Watch me, they use it as an internal fuel to go out there and get whatever they want to get. They want to continue to succeed, they want to continue to win, you know, they want to continue to prove themselves, right, it’s not worried about proving others wrong, it’s about proving themselves, right. So what the dark side is, it keeps you going when nothing else will, it’s that internal fire. It’s that mindset that nobody else can touch. It’s that chip that’s no longer on the shoulder, it’s internal. So no one has you know, people say, you know, you aware chip on your shoulder, well, how many chips on people’s shoulders have you knocked off, and your previous line of work you had to knock off. That was literally what you had to do, you have to literally find the other person who had the same chip, and you have to knock it off? Well, those individual I tell you that Darkseid teaches you to keep that chip on the inside, where nobody can touch it, but you nobody can knock it off. You understand how to use it, when to use it. That’s what this is. And we all have it. And it’s not about evil. It’s not about evil. It’s about trusting your instincts, knowing that you have a power inside of you, that is so special that’s so unique to you that if you learn to use it, you learn to control it. Mm hmm. You can do something very, very special.
Mark Divine 42:56
Yeah, I love that. So, so looking at the major obstacles and challenges of our lives. And we all have them because that’s the human experience and not turning your back on them. But embracing them for the lessons, I’ll tell you my dark side. It took me a while to figure this out. You know, my love my family. My mom and dad are awesome. They brought me to this world. And I had a great, great life. But you know, my dad was an alcoholic. And in his abuser, he used us. He relied in the bill to express himself. And so for a lot of years, you know, I never played the victim. I did the opposite. I was the overachiever. But I had a chip on my shoulder about that, right? Until I realized that. Wow, that helped shape me be the man I am today. Yeah, and I just needed to, you know, obviously Polish some of the qualities I wasn’t gonna grow up and be like him, but I could use that. It literally is why I was number one in my SEAL training. I mean, I thank my father for that. But they couldn’t do anything to hurt me. Yeah.
Tim Grover 43:50
So you said it better than me.
Mark Divine 43:53
I read your book. But that’s
Tim Grover 43:55
the thing you experienced. Now, you looked at another individual. I’m not going to try for this training. I’m not the medulla, you know, I didn’t have a support of my family. This is not about your life. This is my greatest fuel. Right? That’s what kept you going when like not when everybody else was failing, or to everybody else. That’s what really pushed you and got you to win. Number one is winning.
Mark Divine 44:17
Fascinating. How do we win without ego? And when the seals we said check our ego at the door, right? So how do you help athletes and your CEOs check their ego at the door?
Tim Grover 44:28
Well, here’s the thing with me, I go in a different direction of this. I have not known one individual that’s won numerous times over and over again, that doesn’t have an eagle. They all have an eagle. But how do you earn that ego? Did you earn that ego through your results from what you did over and over again? And does your ego benefit others around you or does it just benefit yourself? The ego that benefits yourself is the people that literally talk they tell you how great they are. They tell you about all The things that they accomplish, they got no track record of proving any of it, you know, so there’s a verbal Eagle, and there’s an eagle that you actually earn by producing the results over and over and over again. And once you have that eagle, it allows you to uplift use it, to tell other people that they can. But also, now, when you come in a team setting, what’s important about it is, you go back to, you know, your duties and all this other stuff. And I’m sure when you guys were in different teams, everybody had a certain order, like, you know, number one does this number two does this, you know, I’m sorry, I don’t, I don’t know the language. But you guys had to, everybody had to work together, everybody had to work together. In order to get the job done. Each individual, in order to be part of that team had to have a very strong ego, but they knew when to use it, and when not to use it. When I have individuals that play in professional sports and in different businesses and so forth, in Eagle allowing you to be successful. Is it allowing you to show that your actions lead to you being a better person? Does your success lead and your ego lead to the team winning? Or is it strictly about you? Yeah, I love that my thing is a little different on this, I think, because there has to be at a certain time in a team. If a team is not flowing, well, somebody’s ego has got to step up to take over for that individual. But that ego is earned. And it’s a way of getting respect from everybody else.
Mark Divine 46:36
Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, I think that’s what we meant by check your ego at the door is like, obviously, you have an ego, you bring it to the team. But once you step into the team room, you gotta check that at the door, you know, I’d look at ego just just now name for personality, there’s time to bring a big personality to the game. And there’s time to take a backseat when someone else has got the lead, right? When you
Tim Grover 46:55
say check it out, there’s a big difference between checking in at the door and leaving it at the door. Right? Right, checking in at the door means it’s still coming with you, right? It’s still a part of you. Now, if you leave your ego at the door, now you’re asking an individual to become something that they’re not right, you have the ability to check your ego, that’s you’re doing it, you’d like you’re okay, I’m doing this. When you leave your ego, that means somebody else is asking you to leave your ego. And they’re asking you to possibly, maybe leave the best part of yourself there. Because some individuals, the best part of them, is what’s lying in their ego. But the team is going to have to win just what you said, if all the team checks their ego at the door. It’s just like, when you go through your checklist, check, check, check, check. When is it a necessity? When is it not a necessity? You know, there’s certain equipment when you go through your different missions and so forth. There’s certain things you take to certain missions and you checked I this is my checklist. But when you go to a different mission, it’s a different checklist. Mm hmm. You know, you don’t bring the same equipment every single time. So you check your ego at the door. But then part of your team said, You know what, on this mission, we’re gonna need Marks Eagle. We’re gonna need it. So AMR make sure you bring more of your ego than the rest of this team. Because this is what you specialize in. Right? That’s awesome.
Mark Divine 48:15
Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you think is this really important to share about developing this winning mindset, and that unforgiving race to greatness, you know, a key theme or something that you’d love to share before we check out?
Tim Grover 48:28
First of all, it’s, it’s not easy. Everyone’s looking for the shortcut. And you hear all these cliches all the time, and those cliches actually slow you down instead of accelerating. And one that I like, I tell people all the time, get this out of your mind right now, when people say, you know, showing up is half the battle. No showing up is none of the battle. It’s none of the bad. You’re looking to get rewarded for doing something you’re supposed to do. You got to show up. Alright, showing up is none of the battle you have to show up to stop listening to all these cliches out there. Another one, you know, it’s not about the destination. It’s about the journey. But why the hell you taking the journey if you don’t know where you’re going? It’s both I know that takes a journey has a destination there like otherwise, what are you doing just aimlessly just out there just walking around, knowing your destination is human, take numerous journeys, but always know where your destination is. It’s just like, every winning is inside of us. We all have the ability to win every single day. There’s wins out there, and they accumulate to the next one. The next one and the next one. And everything that’s going on in the world. A lot of us have forgotten what a win looks like, or what it feels like. We don’t even recognize it anymore. But they’re inside of us. They’re in front of us. They’re around us understand What winning is for yourself? And then you’ll be able to see it so much more clearer.
Mark Divine 50:04
Who Yeah, love it. Tim. Your book is winning, unforgiving race to greatness. I’m sure that’s available wherever books are sold. How else can people find you?
Tim Grover 50:13
wherever books are sold? Yeah, wherever books are sold. Yes. Awesome.
Mark Divine 50:17
And how else can people find you either social media website? What else?
Tim Grover 50:21
Sure. Very simple website is Tim Grover calm. And my social media handle on Instagram is at Tim Grover.
Mark Divine 50:29
And what’s your mission right now? Are you working still with elite athletes? Are you really work focusing on corporate execs or
Tim Grover 50:34
I’m doing both. I’m doing a lot of consulting for professional organizations. And I do a lot of work with on the business side now. But what I want to do is one of my main things right now is to help people win. And people have to understand winning isn’t just about financial success. It can be from talking about just, you know, winning and whatever is important to you. Whether it’s raising your family, whether it’s being in a relationship, whether it’s your charitable endeavors, whether it’s uplifting your team, understanding what are the necessities, and the truth in order to see and get those wins,
Mark Divine 51:12
and love that. Well, thank you for doing what you do.
Tim Grover 51:14
Thank you. I appreciate you. Thank you for your time. Yeah, it’s
Mark Divine 51:17
been an awesome thank you for your time as well.
Well, that was an awesome episode, Tim’s words of wisdom are always appreciated. Thank you, Tim Grover. Show Notes and transcripts of this episode are up on our site at Markdivine.com. And the video of this episode is on our YouTube channel at Mark Divine.com/YouTube. I’m also Mark Divine on Twitter, and Instagram and Facebook is @realMarkdivine. If you want to reach me on LinkedIn. You can always find me there. Big thanks as always, to Jason Sanderson, our amazing producer, and Michele Czarnik, who writes our show notes and transcripts. It takes a village to put this podcast together. We’ll be moving to the new platform in the New Year podcast one exciting to work with them going forward. And I continue to appreciate the reviews we get for the show. So please continue to share and give us the Marks you think we deserve. We have one more show in 2021 coming up next week featuring my good friend, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. See you then.
