Relentless By Tim S. Grover
These are my personal book notes of Relentless by the author Tim S. Grover.
Let’s dive in.
Facts
- Author: Tim S. Grover
- Title: Relentless
- Subtitle: From Good To Great To Unstoppable
- First published: 2013
- Type: non-fiction
- Genre: self help
- Author’s website: timgrover.com
- Rating: 4/5
- Recommended: Yes
If you don’t make a choice, the choice will be made for you.
- Tim S. Grover
Table Of Contents Of The Book
- Don’t Think
- The Cleaner You Are, the Dirtier You Get
- When You’re a Cleaner…
- You keep pushing yourself harder when everyone else has had enough.
- You get into the Zone, shut out everything else, and control the uncontrollable.
- You know exactly who you are.
- You have a dark side that refuses to be taught to be good.
- You’re not intimidated by pressure, you thrive on it.
- When everyone is hitting the “In Case of Emergency” button, they’re all looking for you.
- You don’t compete with anyone, you find your opponent’s weakness and you attack.
- You make decisions, not suggestions; you know the answer while everyone else is still asking questions.
- You don’t have to love the work, but you’re addicted to the results.
- You’d rather be feared than liked.
- You trust very few people, and those you trust better never let you down.
- You don’t recognize failure; you know there’s more than one way to get what you want.
- You don’t celebrate your achievements because you always want more.
- Acknowledgments
- About Tim S. Grover and Shari Lesser Wenk
Key Concepts & Ideas
To be the best, whether in sports or business or any other aspect of life, it’s never enough to just get to the top; you have to stay there, and then you have to climb higher, because there’s always someone right behind you trying to catch up.
Most people are willing to settle for “good enough.”
But if you want to be unstoppable, those words mean nothing to you.
Being the best means engineering your life so you never stop until you get what you want, and then you keep going until you get what’s next.
And then you go for even more.
Cleaner: The most intense and driven competitor imaginable.
You refuse limitations.
You quietly and forcefully do whatever it takes to get what you want.
You understand the insatiable addiction to success; it defines your entire life.
It’s time to stop listening to what everyone else says about you, telling you what to do, how to act, how you should feel.
Let them judge you by your results, and nothing else; it’s none of their business how you get where you’re going.
If you’re relentless, there is no halfway, no could or should or maybe.
Don’t tell me the glass is half-full or half-empty; you either have something in that glass or you don’t.
Decide. Commit. Act. Succeed. Repeat.
Everything in this book is about raising your standard of excellence, going beyond what you already know and think, beyond what anyone has tried to teach you.
That’s how you become unstoppable - by placing no limits on yourself.
Not just in sports, but in everything you do.
I want you to want more and get everything you crave.
I don’t care how good you think you are, or how great others think you are - you can improve, and you will.
Being relentless means demanding more of yourself than anyone else could ever demand of you, knowing that every time you stop, you can still do more.
You must do more.
The minute your mind thinks, “Done,” your instincts say, “Next.”
Will you ever play basketball like any of those guys?
Probably not.
Can you learn from their work ethic and relentless drive and uncompromising focus on their goals?
Absolutely.
Can you improve your chances of success by learning about others who succeeded, and those who didn’t?
Of course.
If you want to be truly successful, you can’t be content with “pretty good.”
You need to find an extra gear.
It’s not science.
It’s raw animal instinct.
This book is about following those instincts, facing the truth, and getting rid of the excuses that stand between you and your goals, no matter how complex and unattainable they may seem, no matter how many people tell you it can’t be done.
It can be done.
Here’s the key:
I’m not going to tell you how to change.
People don’t change.
I want you to trust who you already are, and get to that zone where you can shut out all the noise, all the negativity and fear and distractions and lies, and achieve whatever you want, in whatever you do.
Success is about dealing with reality, facing your demons and addictions, and not putting a smiley face on everything you do.
If you’re aiming to be the best at what you do, you can’t worry about whether your actions will upset other people, or what they’ll think of you.
We’re taking all the emotion out of this, and doing whatever it takes to get to where you want to be.
Selfish?
Probably.
Egocentric?
Definitely.
If that’s a problem for you, read the book and see if you feel differently afterward.
From now on, the end result is all that matters.
Sometimes you need to step away and get back to that calm, cool place where you’re in total control.
Relentless is about achieving the impossible.
Relentless is about never being satisfied, always driving to be the best, and then getting even better.
It’s about finding the gear that gets you to the next level… even when the next level doesn’t yet exist.
It’s about facing your fears, getting rid of the poisons that guarantee you will fail.
Being feared and respected for your mental strength and toughness, not just your physical abilities.
In order to have what you really want, you must first be who you really are.
Being relentless means never being satisfied.
It means creating new goals every time you reach your personal best.
If you’re good, it means you don’t stop until you’re great.
If you’re great, it means you fight until you’re unstoppable.
Remember, it’s not about talent or brains or wealth.
It’s about the relentless instinctive drive to do whatever it takes - anything - to get to the top of where you want to be, and to stay there.
A Cleaner’s attitude can be summed up in three words: I own this.
Why?
What’s the upside?
Never satisfied and driven by an addiction to success that never relents?
Why put a value on being uncomfortable and alone?
Why would anyone crave more pressure, more stress, more intensity?
I’ll tell you why: because the reward is just so fucking good.
No matter what you want for yourself, whether your ambitions take you to the gym or the office or anywhere else you want to be, your ultimate power source will come from the neck up, not the neck down.
The fact is, you can’t train your body - or excel at anything - before you train your mind.
You can’t commit to excellence until your mind is ready to take you there.
Teach the mind to train the body.
Physical dominance can make you great.
Mental dominance is what ultimately makes you unstoppable.
You will never have a more powerful training tool than this: get your mind strong, so your body can follow.
The true measure of an individual is determined by what you can’t measure - the intangibles.
Anyone can measure weight, height, physical strength, speed… but you can’t measure commitment, persistence, or the instinctive power of the muscle in your chest, your heart.
That’s where your true works begins: understanding what you want to achieve and knowing what you’re willing to endure to get it.
Do. The. Work.
Every day, you have to do something you don’t want to do.
Every day.
Challenge yourself to be uncomfortable, push past the apathy and laziness and fear.
Yes, I know it’s uncomfortable.
I’m not telling you to love it.
I’m telling you to crave the result so intensely that the work is irrelevant.
Bottom line if you want success of any kind: you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
Every time you think you can’t, you have to do it anyway.
That last mile, the last set, the last five minutes on the clock.
You have to play the last game of the season with the same intensity as you played the first.
When your body is screaming and depleted and telling you, “No way, asshole,” you work harder and tell yourself, “Do it. Now.”
You control your body, it does not control you.
You shut out the fear and emotion and physical stress and you do the thing you dread.
You don’t go through the motions and watch the clock until it’s over.
You invest in what you started, pushing yourself again and again beyond where you’ve already been.
Few people know what they’re truly able to accomplish, and even fewer want to find out.
People are always asking me about the secrets and tricks I use to get results.
Sorry if this disappoints you: There are no secrets.
There are no tricks.
If anything, it’s the opposite:
Whether you’re a pro athlete or a guy running a business or driving a truck or going to school, it’s simple.
Ask yourself where you are now, and where you want to be instead.
Ask yourself what you’re willing to do to get there.
Then make a plan to get there. Act on it.
Any workouts involving the words easy and comfort aren’t workouts.
They’re insults.
You can work out at home, but if whatever you’re doing makes you feel “comfort,” something is very wrong.
People refuse to work out or control their diets because it’s not comfortable for them.
But how comfortable can it be to drag around all that extra weight and all the physical problems that go along with it?
Back pain, joint issues, shortness of breath, diabetes, heart problems… I’d estimate 85 percent of all physical discomfort comes from being overweight.
Explain to me:
If you can choose between being uncomfortable because you’re overweight and sick, or uncomfortable because you’re sweating at the gym three times a week, why do so many people choose the discomfort that leads to complete physical failure?
I know it’s not easy, but you can’t stay in your comfort zone and expect results.
Challenge yourself.
Don’t be afraid to be uncomfortable.
It’s ultimately your mental focus and concentration, your ability to control your environment and the heartbeats of others, that determines whether you succeed or fail.
Closing Thoughts
My book notes only cover small parts of the book.
So if you like what you read, please consider buying the book from the author.
Thank you for reading and stay awesome,
Tim for Online Business Dude
PS: Start Your Own, Profitable Online Business From Scratch, Step-by-Step, Today!