on the night that the Chicago Bulls were eliminated from the 1995 NBA playoffs by the Orlando Magic I sat with Michael in the darkened Arena until 3:00 a.m. he had just returned to basketball 2 months earlier following his first retirement and brief baseball career so much had happened in the last year dressed in a suit and tie he looked around the brand new Arena that had replaced the
legendary Chicago Stadium earlier that season and said I hate this [ __ ] building you built this [ __ ] building I said during that series some of the Orlando Magic players said that he didn't look like the old number 23 which he didn't he was wearing number 45 and he wasn't ready and I knew it better than anyone else his endurance his shot there just hadn't been enough time to
get him back to the level of Excellence that people had grown accustomed to predictably there was plenty of talk about how his baseball career had failed his basketball comeback had failed he had failed Michael Jordan was done they said and as usual they were wrong Michael Jordan is done when he says he's done not when you say he's done in fact you saying it usually ensures the
opposite at the end of that game he had a message for the Orlando Magic as all the players shook hands and left the court enjoy this win cuz it ain't going to happen again The Following Season he led the Bulls to an NBA record 72 wins swept the Orlando Magic in the playoffs and won the first of three more championship rings to go with the three rings he already won before he had
failed that was an excert from one of the two books I'm going to talk to you about today both were written by Tim Grover who was Michael Jordan's trainer uh for 15 years and he also trained Kobe Bryant in fact Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan both blurbed both of the books so the first book is called Relentless from good to Great to Unstoppable and the second one is called winning the
unforgiving race to Greatness so what I want to do is a little different than I normally do I've already done two episodes on uh Michael Jordan two episodes on Kobe Bryant this is just going to be uh stories that Tim Grover has about Michael and Kobe and then insight into their mentality for their like life history their biography for Jordan you can listen to episode 212 and
213 for Kobe it's episode 272 and 273 so I'm going to jump right into Relentless this is the updated version of the book I read the audio book or I listened to the audio book many years years ago and I decided hey I'm going to buy the paperback version and do a podcast on it and so the updated version he's talking about all the feedback he got from the
first version and the most common criticism he he got was it doesn't the book doesn't tell you what to do and this is what Tim Grover said about that that is 100% accurate why would anyone want to be told what to do the whole point of this book is that in order to be successful to truly have what you want in your life you must stop waiting to be told what to do and how to do it I
can't give you a 10-step process or a checklist what I am giving you is insight into the mentality of those who have found unparalleled success by trusting their own instincts and so there's a very old story that's very reminiscent of what he's talking about obviously he's talking about Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant some other people he trained as well but there was a this
story about back in Mozart's day and a man a young man was 21 years old and he asked moart he's like well how do you write a symphony and moart replied that you're too young to write a symphony and that young man said but you were writing Symphonies when you were 10 and I am 21 and Mozart's response was very much the point that Tim Grover is trying to teach
us right in the first chapter he's like yeah but I didn't go around asking people how to do it and so he talks about why he titled the book Relentless and he says the word Relentless is used to describe the most intense competitors and Achievers imaginable those who stop at nothing to get the end result and what popped to mind when I read that is of course Kobe and Michael are
Relentless but when I hear the word Relentless the first person that comes to my mind is now Kobe or Michael Jordan it's Jeff Bezos in fact to this day you might already know this but Jeff Bezos owns the domain relentless.com if you go in your browser and you type relentless.com it will forward to Amazon for for a brief moment he's he loved the word so much he was thinking about uh
naming Amazon relentless.com I've done I don't know eight podcasts six podcast something like that on Jeff Bezos and that's the word the one word I would choose to describe him one of the reasons I would heavily recommend getting the audiobook uh if you like audiobooks of Relentless is because it talks about a lot of things in this book that most people you know kind of omit
you'll see them in biographies but this idea the dark side the Dark Side of Michael Jordan and Kobe's personality is mentioned a lot in this book and so I just want to go into that a little bit here he says I understand how they think how they learn how they succeed and how they fail I understand what drives them to be relentless and it's not all pretty if you're aiming to be the best at what
you do you cannot worry about whether your actions will upset other people or what they'll think of you your strategy is to make everyone else get on your level you are not going down to theirs you're not competing with anyone else ever again they're going to have to compete with you and so that idea that hey I'm not going down to your level you have to rise to mine or you need to
leave it's something that Kobe and Michael repeat over and over again across decades it's something that their teammates mention over and over again it's something their competitors mention over and over again I I watched I rewatched the Last Dance over the last week I kind of keep that documentary playing over and over again most of the times I'm not even listening to it like
it's just on on the background if I'm reading or working or whatever but there was something that popped out this you know I don't know the 10th time I've watched this documentary or something like that maybe eth and he he's talking about why he was so hard in his teammates the fact that he came to Chicago he's like listen we were a terrible franchise I had to fail and
fail and fail and fail year after year after year after year I think it was seven or eight years before he won his first championship and then you come in here you know now you're you're joining a worldclass organization yet you didn't do any of the work to build it into a world class organization so you're I'm not coming down to your level you're going to rise to mine and he says
something he goes we were [ __ ] when I got here and we elevated to being a championship quality team there are certain standards that you have to live by you do not come [ __ ] footing around you have to come in and ready to play and so those are Michael Jordan's words and then Tim Grover's words on that is your strategy is to make everyone else get on your level you're not going down
to theirs you're not competing with anyone else ever again they're going to have to compete with you and then Tim Grover has a unique vantage point because he starts working out with Michael and training him way before Michael ever won his first championship and so he says Michael was the best because he was relentless about winning no matter how many times he won he
always wanted more and he was always willing to do whatever it took Michael never cared about achieving mere greatness he cared about being the best ever and then he immediately starts comparing people like Michael Kobe uh Pat Riley Phil Jackson bird and this is really a list of traits that Kobe and Jordan share he says these are the most driven individuals you'll ever know with
an unmatched genius for what they do they don't just perform a job they reinvent it so this idea you're going to see repeat over again they're the most driven they're the most competitive there is no one in their industry like them another trait they share they expect to succeed they expect to succeed and when they do they never celebrate for long because there's always more to
do another thing they take responsibility ility for everything so in addition to reading these two books I collect I'm I'm I think I've already said this I'm slightly obsessed with both Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant I collect stories about them all the time so in addition to reading both books I also I also have a bunch of these like stories saved on my phone there little
short videos and I watched this excellent interview one of the best I've watched all the Kobe Bryant interviews that I can find one of the best ones happened shortly before he passed away and it was actually with the Hall of Fame baseball player A-Rod I will leave it linked down below I highly recommend uh watching and listening to the whole thing I've probably watched it four or
five times in fact I'm supposed to meet A-Rod soon which is kind of cool I'm looking forward to that but this idea where they say Hey you know people like Michael and Kobe they take responsibility for everything there is so there's a fascinating exchange that happens in that interview between A-Rod and Kobe Bryant where Kobe says the following he says the people that I've
always had issues or problems with are people who don't demand Excellence for themselves I will not tolerate that because when the career is all said and done no one they're not going to be looking at you just a player on this team saying oh you didn't win a championship no they're going to be looking here meaning him as the leader of the team as the founder think about
the founder mentality right the everything is always the Founder's fault the founder has to take responsibility for everything and so back to what Kobe says he's like listen when the career is all said and done they're not going to be saying looking at you a player in this team saying you didn't win a championship no they're going to be looking here so it's my responsibility
to make sure I'm I'm holding everybody accountable and so that's what I think of when I get to this page and it says hey they take responsibility for everything more on traits they share they never stop working physically or mentally because it gives them too much time to think about what they've had to endure and sacrifice there's two examples of this and and you can
actually see it with your eyes uh when you're watching the Last Dance the first time is when he wins uh when Michael Jordan wins his first NBA title ever you know it's seven eight years of struggle really an entire lifetime of struggle and he's you know like just he's got his head there's this famous picture of him like with his head on the Larry O'Brien Trophy and you know he's he's happy but
he's like also very emotional what was fascinating about that is his teammates said that he had never up until that point they didn't even know if he was human that he had never showed them any uh other emotion other than anger and frustration and so they they make the point that do they didn't even know that was that he had that side to him and then there's an even more extreme
version of this cuz think about this like they never stop working physically or mentally because it gives them too much time to think about what they've had to endure and to sacrifice and the second title or excuse me it was his fourth title but it's the the the first NBA title that he wins after his father is murdered and it is visceral what happens it's this is
something that's also famous you can see it on YouTube it's in the Last Dance too but he's on the floor in locker room and he is just heaving and sobbing like you can hear the sobs but what I would do is when you watch it I would pay pay attention you just see his entire it's like his entire chest cavity he is shaking it is a complete emotional release and I think it goes back to the
fact that hey you never stop working because it will give you too much time to think about what they've had to endure in sacrifice and in sports unlik business like there is a Finish Line right and so he can stop and everything comes rushing through they're never in it for the money he knows what he's worth and he'll remind you if you make the mistake of forgetting it but the
money is secondary to what really drives him the most important thing the one thing that defines and separates him from any other competitor he's addicted to the Exquisite Rush of success and he'll alter his entire life to get it another trait that Kobe and Michael shared something that's mentioned over and over again is their just how strong their mentality is the fact that they
had control over their minds I'm going to read you something that's in Michael's autobiography which I covered all the way back on episode 2113 in one second but he says you can't excel at anything before you train your mind mental dominance is what ultimately makes you Unstoppable Michael talked about this in driven from within uh the book driven from within and he
says like your mind will play tricks on you so he says the mind will play tricks on you the mind was telling you that you couldn't go any further the mind was telling you how much it hurt the mind was telling you these things to keep you from reaching your goal but you have to see past that you have to turn it all off if you're ever going to get to where you want to be and I don't think that
part can be overlooked because your own mind can be your worst enemy it can actually stop you from even trying there's this great uh Speech uh talk Kobe Bryant was given I given I think he was doing it um on a tour in China and he says something that was fascinating to me uh and he says the greatest fear we face is ourselves it's not anything that's external or anything that's
superficial I think the greatest fear that you face is yourself because we all have dreams and it's very scary sometimes to accept the dream that you have and it's scarier still to say I want that it's scary because you're afraid that if you put your heart and soul into it and then you fail how are you going to feel about yourself so being Fearless means to put out there
and going for it no matter what go for it not for anybody else but for yourself this dedication to learning how to control your mind is something that's mentioned over and over again uh later in the book it says if one thing separated Michael from every other player It Was His stunning ability to block out everything and everyone else he was able to shut out everything
except his mission in the very last episode of The Last Dance it talks about this it says most people struggle to be present most people live in fear because we project the past into the future Michael is a Mystic he was never anywhere else his gift was that he was able to be completely present the big downfall of otherwise gifted players is thinking about failure he would say why
would I think about missing a shot I haven't taken yet and you see this even after they win the sixth and final championship in Chicago uh they were having this big celebration there's a bunch of Michael's in his hotel room with a bunch of reporters he's playing the piano he's smoking a cigar he's having a good time and then somebody asks him hey you got another one in you
and he just stops he goes it's the moment man it's the moment it's that Zen Buddhism [ __ ] get in the moment and stay there just stay in the moment until next October and then we'll know where the hell we are and so this idea of controlling your mind controlling your emotions not panicking not letting emotions blur judgment and staying in the present moment is repeated
throughout both books there's another example people like Kobe and Michael they feel the same excitement and anxiety and nerves before a big event just like you do the difference is they have the ability to control these feelings Michael used to say they had butterflies before a big game and I would tell them get them all going in the same direction they're not going
away but now you're controlling how you feel about them Michael would think if I'm feeling nervous how the [ __ ] are they feeling they have to deal with me that subtle reframing of a negative emotion into a positive one into actual fuel and so another thing that Michael and Kobe had in common from Tim Grover's perspective is the ability to keep it simple and to master the fun mentals and
so it says at some point you've made something simple into something complicated I get frequent calls from athletes who are completely overwhelmed by all the experts and trainers and nutritionists and coachers coaches everyone throwing so much of them that they lose the natural ability that made them great in the first place the boxer Leon Spinx once said when asked what he does for a living He said I knock
[ __ ] out that is it simple you don't mess with it you don't alter it you don't teach it to be something different and so there's a great story lat ler in the book that talks about like okay for Michael Jordan and Kobe you know if you're asking what they do it's like I win championships Kobe would also say I give them numbers and I need to tie this together so we're going to
come back to this I'm going to I'm going to jump ahead so I can just give you this part about Kobe and so Tim's talking about the fact that there's just a lot of people that are dabbling way too much and they're not focused and they're wondering why they're not they're not successful uh so he says there's a lot of people that are dabbling in a lot of things and Su and
succeeding at none I listen to those people and I think as far as I can tell the only thing you're good at is keeping busy I want to hear someone say I do this if you ask Kobe what he does he says I give out numbers numbers yeah I gave them 81 or I gave them a triple double or I gave those guys 61 points I want to make you excellent at this one thing when people talk about someone who
can do this you're going to be the first name on the list people get paid a fortune for being the expert at one thing anytime others need that one thing you're the only only one that they're calling and so one of my favorite books that I've ever done for the podcast I did all the way back on episode 191 it's actually written it's a book written by my friend Eric jensson it's called the
almano of Naval ravaan and Naval said something genius in that book because really talking about like the effect of like the Modern Age the fact that we're living in the age of infinite leverage and so it really affects everything what you're doing for work how to do it how to think about it really it's the book that I give out as a gift you know most
frequently in fact I bought four more copies like like last week or a week before but when I get to this point he's like you know I want somebody to be to be excellent in one thing and I think this is going to become even more and more important and nval says in that book being at the extreme of your craft is very important in the age of infinite leverage which is what we live in the
person that is the best in the world gets to do that for everyone and I've been taking nal's ideas that are in that book and trying to apply them with a Vengeance where it's like I'm just GNA Focus like I want to be the best in the world in studying condensing and clarifying how History's Greatest Founders thought and therefore I get to do that for everyone in the world and so
to illustrate this point Tim Grover tells a story where him and Michael Jordan went to they go and they they visit an FBI training facility and this is an excellent story because the idea behind it can be applied to everything right so they show up and it's a practice range for the most elite Sharpshooters in the world so snipers there's one guy out there alone
practicing his craft over and over and over again the target is 400 yards away four football fields he has to get in his truck drive to the Target set it up and drive back to where we're standing he gets his gun with the scope takes aim one shot then we get in the truck with him and drive back to the Target he hit it dead [ __ ] Center Michael asked him how many people use that target range
and he said just me he was alone working on this one shot over and over again so when people in the military need someone who can hit that kind of Target they call him no one knows what this guy does every day to be this good people just know that he can deliver results figure out what you do then do it and do it better than anyone else and then let everything else you do build around that
and that's something Michael talks about because now you know obviously he's one of the greatest if not the greatest basketball player of all time but if you look at what he's done in his he's one of the best entrepreneurs too and his whole point was like his game was his best endorsement he said my dedication to the game led to all this other stuff you know fact that he made I guess like
a billion or two billion dollars selling his NBA team the fact that he's got this crazy deal with Nike that he's been getting 5% royalty uh I think he's going to make something like $300 million this year and that only happens because he figured out what he did then did it better than anyone else and he let everything else that he did build around that and so now I want to go back to
this page where it's like hey you have to keep it simple at some point you made something simple into something complicated that Kobe and Michael would talk over and over again about the importance of fundamentals um and so there's this great story in that interview with A-Rod and Kobe and Kobe's talking about this you know this I think a year before the the helicopter
crash and he's like you know I'm I called Michael Jordan and he was talking about the fact that his 12-year-old daughter was playing basketball and he feels that they were being taught like just too much like too much fancy stuff like this is this is just crazy and so what he wanted to do he's like I just try to teach my kids you know the most basic stuff and then we just do the
basics and we do it over and over and over and over again and so he calls up Michael Jordan he's like listen man I'm having a hard time remembering like what I was learning when I was 12 years old you know what what kind like what was I what techniques were I learning to play basketball 12 years old because I think these kids now are just nowadays are
just doing too much uh and so Kobe asked him he's like what were you doing you know what were you learning about basketball at 12 and he goes and Michael goes dude I was playing baseball and Kobe's response to this was excellent he goes let that sink in for a second for all the people out there overtraining their kids at 12 and doing all this fancy stuff just let that sink in for a
second okay so back to traits that Michael and Kobe shared uh they both never stopped learning uh they put in all these hours of Works to create an Unstoppable internal resource that you can draw on in any situation and so one of my favorite examples of this is I read this like seven 600 or 700 Page biography of Kobe I did the same thing on of Michael too it's actually the same
author but Co in that it's episode 272 if you haven't heard yet but in that in that book uh one of Kobe's high school friends comes over and Kobe opens up this closet and it's a closet full of VHS VHS tapes of all of a closet full of Michael's games and they would just watch him over and over again in fact also in that book Kobe's high school girlfriend was asked like how what was
it like dating Kobe in high school he's like well I would just come over his house on Friday night and we'd watch Michael Jordan games so this idea that they just never stopped learning all those hours of work have created an Unstoppable internal internal resource that you can draw on in any situation Kobe and Michael both talk a lot about trusting their intuition um in fact they
quote Oprah I just did an oah episode a few weeks ago and she talked about this and the quote in this in this book is Oprah once said every right decision I've ever made has come from my gut and every wrong decision I've ever made was as a result of me not listening to that gut to that intuition you know Steve Jobs talked about this too in his biography written by Walter isacson he
says intuition is a very powerful thing more powerful than in in my opinion that has had a big impact on my work and so in addition to that they both seek out difficulty they want pressure and this is Tim Grover's interpretation of you know Michaels a legend at trash talk I got a bunch of stories about that that I'm going to that I've collected from the internet that are great uh I'll read
to and tell you about in a minute but I love this uh Tim says I always felt Michael's legendary trash talking wasn't meant for the other guy it was another way for him to heght the pressure that he put on himself because once you've told others how bad you're about to [ __ ] them up you're going to have to deliver on that promise pressure pressure pressure most people run from that most
people run from stress stress keeps you sharp it challenges you in ways you've never imagined and forces you to solve issues and manage situations that t that send weaker people running for cover so in that biography this giant biography of Michael Jordan I read for episode 212 I I remember this paragraph because I it came to my mind when I was reading uh
this book and it's describing Michael mostly he tested himself it seemed that he discovered the secret quite early in his competitive life the more pressure that he heaped on himself the greater his ability to rise to that occasion and I think one of the benefits is if you're holding yourself to a higher standard or putting more pressure yourself than the
external world ever could it makes dealing with expectations of the external World easier if you're even paying attention to them this is great another video I talk about over and over again is Kobe was interviewed by Ahad Rashad and he was asked like you know when you're struggling you win three championships then you have this drought you're trying to win more you know at
that point you didn't know you're going to win two more like were you are you ever worried about fans expectations and a mod like Kobe doesn't even let a mod finish the question he has this like what I call the Stanky face it's like oh like if you just disgusted at even that thought and he just shakes his head no and he goes um their expectations will never be higher than my
own and I think that is the exact right way to approach your craft and it's something that's repeated over and over again if you have that then you know you're you're indifferent to the opinions of other people it says over and over again you know Michael does not care what you think Kobe does not care what you think they're holding that there's nobody that can hold themselves
to a higher standard than them them themselves and when you do that you don't have any fear of holding yourself accountable because everybody's going to fail everybody's going to make mistakes mistakes and they say like when Kobe or Michael made a mistake they would just own up to it uh they said they would look you in the eye and they would say I [ __ ] up that's it confident simple
factual no explanation you made a mistake fine don't explain it to me in an hour the truth is one sentence and that Relentless pressure that they put on themselves I mean there's going to be a million stories they're going to put it on if if you have a Founder you have a leader that is that has Relentless pressure that's from an internal source that they're applying
to themselves chances are they are also going to apply relentlessly to their team and so there's a bunch of stories about uh about Michael doing that about Kobe doing that this is an example of Michael doing it for all his countless gifts as a player sensitivity to others was not among them he was driven to attack to dominate and to conquer in every way whatever he had to do he did
it and he expected the same from every individual around him and every day those teammates had to show up to face him in practice completely dreading what was ahead not because practices were hard but because they knew they had to deal with him and that legendary mouth every [ __ ] day just absolutely going after each other and every guy pushing and demanding challenging abusing and
finding every possible way to make them go harder once during the playoffs on the day after a grueling overtime game the team was ready to start practice until Michael looked around and noticed one guy was missing this is later in his career so this is the the the second three repeat that they're on because I think his name is Scott Burell I think he wor I think he only played for the
Bulls from like 96 to 98 or 97 to 98 and so it says Michael looked around and noticed one guy was missing where the hell is Burell He barked Scott Burell was in the training room is I don't even think he started they said he was a ptime player so it sounds like he he didn't play that much Michael storman there where poor Scott was on the table getting treatment for an alleged
hamstring issue Michael grabbed the table with Scott still on it and completely flipped it over I just played 48 [ __ ] minutes last night Michael Roar everything's killing me and you have a [ __ ] hamstring get your [ __ ] ass in the [ __ ] practice now get on my level or get the hell out of my way when you're the guy at the top it's on you to pull everyone else up
there with you or everything you've built comes crashing down Jordan demands Excellence of himself and he has no tolerance for those who can't or won't rise to that level think about Kobe talking to A-Rod he's like listen I the problem the the people I have problem with are people that don't demand Excellence for themselves the reason I said and recommend getting the audiobook
uh version of Relentless because I really do feels it's it's very motiv it can be I mean it was motivational for me uh because I have like a a fairly negative inner monologue and you know I kind of abuse myself in the way that uh Michael abuses himself and his teammates but what I what I liked about the book is like it didn't really hi hide the fact that you know a lot of these extreme
people seeking extreme achievement these these extreme winners do have this like dark side to them I don't think it's a prerequisite for extreme success I mean you think about John de Rockefeller butt one of the most successful companies in the world other the world has ever seen rather and you know people that worked for him said he would never raise his
voice he was never impolite now his competitors would would say you know he's he's gang as con the way he would dominate you know but he wasn't throwing things and yelling at people like this but uh so I you know it's not a free recite but it is something that appears over and over and over again and I do think it is uh definitely linked and this book does a good job of you know
just showing that dark side and usually people like a Michael or a Kobe or even a Steve Jobs uh I think the worst thing that you could do uh because they're so such domineering personalities is is back down from them it is the worst thing because they're just going to keep abusing you they're just going to realize you know this person's soft this person's weak I can basically have my
way with them and even somebody's not as talented they do respect strength and there's a story demonstrating this in the book it's also in the Last Dance where Steve Kerr you know is like I don't know half a foot shorter than Michael much smaller and yet Michael would love Steve because Steve actually would stand stand up to him and you know they're they're having this U scrimmage
in practice and kerr didn't appreciate something that Michael said and snap back at him I think I heard that he had pushed him or Kerr had pushed him or something like that Michael hauls off and punches him in the face and then Michael gets kicked out of practice and surprisingly Steve cerr said it was one of the best things that ever happened to me I needed to stand up and go back at
him and he was right because as soon as the practice ended Michael called him apologized and from that that point on Michael trusted Kerr and this is something that Jordan's teammates talked about a lot I have more examples of Jordan's teammates talking like that than I do of Kobes but I think it still applies to them they knew that this was not a like he was an unusual Talent um
you know even early in his career you have I saved uh screenshots and I look at them on my phone and it's uh Larry Bird and Magic Johnson had dominated you know the NBA in the 1980s now we're getting to the early '90s late 80s and they're realizing you know they're playing against the young Michael Jordan and Larry Bird said there's nobody like him Point Blank I've never seen nobody
plays like he plays this is before he won a championship before he won a championship Magic Johnson said Jordan is the most talented player in the NBA by far and what was fascinating is people knew that years years before he would be considered successful he was an individual successful individual player from the GetGo but you know it's all if you don't win championships Nothing Else
Matters and Bobby Knight is his legendary Coach and he's co coing uh Michael Jordan in the 1984 Olympics this is uh before this is before Jordan ever plays a game in the NBA and so the Portland Trailblazers who have the second pick in the draft that year uh they're going to call Bobby Knight and says before the 1984 NBA draft the Portland Trailblazers called Bobby
Knight who was coaching the US Olympic basketball team that summer which included Michael and asked him his opinion on whom they should take with this second pick in the draft everyone knew that he Houston Rockets are going to take hem alijan with the first pick but no one including Portland was sure whether Portland would take Sam Bowie or Michael Jordan Remember Sam Bowie for
later there's a hilarious Michael Jordan story with him uh so you know is should Portland take Sam or Michael Jordan with the second pick take Jordan said Bobby Knight Right Said Portland but we need a center then play him at Center Knight said and so Tim's interpretation of this was you have to look at your teammates and your employees and see what they can
do not what they can't this reminded me of a story from one of the Rockefeller biographies I read the fact that they said he would hire talented people as found not as needed he's like listen Talent is the best asset class it doesn't matter if I don't have a job opening or I don't have a position this guy's so talented if I can get him now I'll figure out what to do with them
later that's the equivalent of Bobby KN saying who cares if you need Center play him at Center this guy is gifted take him and usually people like this are so talented they don't even know how talented they are and so you run into a problem when you're so extraordinary at your C when your talent is so natural and your skill is so elevated it's hard to understand that not everyone like you
that not everyone is like you and can do what you do it's not a matter of they're trying more or working Harder They really just can't do it and if it's not handled right it will destroy your entire team or office or wherever you have Elite performers surrounded by less gifted colleagues that is exactly why Steve Jobs said that you cannot indulge B players he's like a players only want to
work with a players if you indulge B players you keep them around you're going to lose your a players you cannot indulge B players you're going to have a problem when you have Elite performers surrounded by less gifted colleagues one of my all-time favorite maxims that I learned from the history of Entrepreneurship comes from the founder of Four Seasons that Excellence
is the capacity take pain Tim writes one of the hardest decisions is to determine how much pain you can endure and how far you can push yourself everyone plays with pain there's always something going on Kobe has a finger that moves in all kinds of ways a finger isn't supposed to move a normal person would have it surgically repaired but that surgery would cost him 9 months of basketball
people like Kobe and Michael have a high tolerance for physical and mental pain there's this great quote in driven from within that Michael Jordan has and he's talking about he's talking about himself but he's using Tiger Woods as another example and he says look around and just about any person or entity achieving at a high level has the same kind of focus
the morning after Tiger Woods rallied to beat Phil Molson at the before championship in 2005 he was in the gym by 6:30 a.m. to work out no lights no cameras no Glitz or glamour uncompromised so this idea of you have to be uncompromised is something that Jordan repeated over and over again in that book the best way to summarize his mentality on that is you have to be
uncompromised in your this is him speaking you have to be uncompromised in your level of commitment to whatever you were doing or it can disappear just as fast as it appeared so Tim Grover observed this when Michael was still playing in the NBA and Tim was training him he says that after every game I used to ask Michael one question five six or seven as in what time are we hitting the
gym tomorrow morning and he'd snap back a time and that was it no matter what had happened the Night Before Good Game bad game soreness fatigue he was up working out every morning while the other guys slept interesting how the guy with the most talent and success spent more time working out than anyone else Kobe was the same way Kobe had an insatiable desire to work and Kobe had
that from day one it says most guys on the day that drafted go out and celebrate Kobe went to the gym there's a great quote that I have saved of Kobe Bryant I don't remember where it's from I think it might be I can't remember it might be from Mama mentality but Kobe this is Kobe Bryant on how he knew he was going to win a lot of championships it was easy to S this is
Kobe speaking now it was easy to size other players up in the NBA I found that a lot of guys played for financial stability once they got that Financial stability the passion the work ethic and the obsessiveness was gone once I saw that I thought this is going to be like taking candy from a baby no wonder Michael Jordan wins all these [ __ ] championships and so in the same chapter
they talk about a lot of the workouts they're doing this is fascinating this is this may be my favorite idea in the entire book um I'm going to read it to you and then I'm going to read the summary now I have this note on myself on my desk to myself now uh for all of Michael's amazing moves and Unforgettable moments he knew that none of that could happen without the
fundamentals those basic moves that he practiced over and over and over again he he worked on being consistent and he worked on it relentlessly Michael Jordan worked on consistency relentlessly and that's something I believe and I learned that from just reading all of these biographies you see it over and over again I I really believe that assuming
that you're in a business that's working that time carries most of the weight and if that's the case then the best thing you could do is work on consistency relentlessly over a long period of time so I mentioned that quote earlier that uh Michael Jordan said in the last dance that my game was my biggest endorsement my dedication to the game led to all this other stuff and the way I think
about this is a season of no my friend Jeremy gon said that one of the most valuable things I could do is just say no to everything else that's not making the podcast or growing the podcast and he's right about that it's very similar to what Michael Jordan would do every year on Labor Day so every year on Labor Day uh Michael would shut or by Labor Day Michael would shut down everything
outside of basketball and just train three workouts a day workout golf workout lunch golf break workout dinner bed every day no commercial suits no promotional tours no events just work because he knew better than anyone else that all the outside stuff was the result of hard work on the inside not the other way around shoe deals and commercials don't make you an icon being
Unstoppable makes you an icon and being Unstoppable only comes with hard work my game was my biggest endorsement my dedication to the game led to all the other stuff another trait that Tim observed in both Kobe and Michael is the fact that they have a hard time trusting other people or or maybe not maybe way I put this as like they trust themselves more than anybody else there's a great
line in Michael's biography uh on episode 212 where it says Jordan mostly believed in himself in Mike he trusted all others were open to question and so Tim has some ideas on why this is maybe the case trusting others is the same as giving up control and they usually have a painfully hard time with that they have this in common at some point they learned that they can only trust
themselves maybe it was a lesson they learned in childhood or something that happened later in life but it forced them to rely on the sheer power of their gut instinct and they realized that to survive and succeed they could never take their hands off the wheel and finally the last story from this book that I want to share with you is uh this is a story about Kobe it's really on
just having one focus in fact my home screen on my phone has been just this quote from the last dance and it's been this way for a long time and it says a guy that was totally focused on one thing and one thing only that was obviously ref to Michael this is Kobe uh everything Kobe does is all about Excellence everything nothing else matters you hear people say that all the
time I'll do whatever it takes but Kobe truly lives it every detail of his life every hour of his day the lonely time he spends in the gym the people he seeks out to help him maintain that Excellence everything everything revolves around being on top and staying there that's why we work so well together he has one focus and I have one focus our shared addiction to winning and everything we
do is about that one objective okay so before I jump into the other book the other book is the winning or is winning the unforgiving race to Greatness I have I have to just share a couple of I have a ton of these stories mostly they Michael stories I have some kobe stories in here too but I'm just addicted to like reading I don't even know why I just something about Michael's
unapologetically extreme mindset just makes me laugh I don't even know what it does it fuels me in very bizarre ways and what's great is you know these stories happened way before the internet and so the only time they would like tumble out was they'd be like a documentary or maybe a book or something like that right but now you have all these like athletes and former athletes
and people that played with Michael that go on podcasts and they tell all these crazy Michael Jordan stories and so I collect these crazy Michael Jordan stories usually from podcast sometimes they're you know written somewhere but I just want to give you because he's just not normal and so Stephen Jackson played for the Charlotte Hornets he he played for Michael Jordan's team when Michael
owned it right and and he told this hilarious story on the podcast so I'm going to read a somebody else's summary about this story because I thought the summary was hilarious and it just talks about the fact that you know this is not a norm we're not we're dealing with an the an outlier of an outlier and so Stephen Jackson tells the story this is the summary because he's playing for
Michael Jordan right and he goes and this is the summary of Steph Jackson story so this is not Stephen Jackson speaking this is the summary okay I completely understand why so many people think that m is the greatest normal human beings don't do [ __ ] like this while on a podcast Stephen Jackson told a story about Michael Jordan MJ was angry with the Bobcats for being so bad
right they're just losing games he owns the team he is super competitive he says like there's a there's a scene in the book and in the Last Dance where you know he he they they they ask him while he's still playing in the NBA like do you have a gambling problem and he laughed he's like I don't have a gambling problem I have a competition problem and you super competitive back
then he is still still competitive to this day and Kobe tells a hilarious story cuz he's like you know there's like is Michael Jordan the most competitive you know person you ever met he's like listen I'm just as competitive with him in basketball the difference between me and Michael is he he's competitive with everything which [ __ ] that doesn't matter I think is the
way Kobe put it and so he's he he's like you know with basketball yeah we we go back and forth but he's like I was having dinner with Michael one night and Michael's like oh what about my 91 you know team versus your 2003 I would have whooped your ass and and and Kobe's like Michael ju just enjoy your salad like calm down we're not going to have this
debate and so he's just competitive with everything and so let's go back to this I completely understand why so many people think he's the greatest normal human beings don't do [ __ ] like this while on a podcast Stephen Jackson told a story about Michael Jordan MJ was angry with the Bobcats with his team for being so bad so he came to their practice took away all their Jordan gear
so keep in mind Jordan brand right the brand Under Nike his entire team everybody in the NBA has that I think has the stuff so you have like the shoes you have all the work the warm-up gear everything right so he came to the practice took away all their Jordan gear and beat the starters with the second unit keep in mind MJ was in his 50s and he came and waxed NBA starters with the
bench think about the inner competitive drive that you have to have first of all you've you've been out the league for a decade and a half or however long it's been you make them take off the clo their clothes because you don't think they're worthy of your brand name then you take the the bench and say hey come with me and you play scrimmage five on five and you beat them Stephen Jackson
was telling that story Stephen Jackson was one of the starters and he is telling the stories that that Michael in his 50s came back and waxed NBA starters with the bench that is one of the crazi stories I've ever heard and so I talk about you know that was probably let's say decade ago maybe you know eight years ago that happened Michael's still like this there's this young player uh ja Morant I
think is how you pronounce his name and he was you know talking a lot of trash and he was like oh Michael's not that good I would cook MJ that was a quote from John Morant this is MJ's response in my third season which is how the season that John Mor was in when he said that about Michael right he's like oh I'm better than him I would beat him whatever the case is
Michael goes remember Michael's like damn near 60 when he's saying this in my third season I averaged 37 points and the next season I won my first MVP out of five show me what you can do little boy and stop tweeting I just love this idea of a 60-year-old MJ s calling saying show show them what you could do little boy and stop tweeting and so this like you know super competitive
drive you know it fueled him when he was younger still has this to this day it's something that Kobe you know I've told the story before it's one of my favorite Kobe stories um because he's being interviewed byad Rashad and this is really the foundation of Kobe and this is the very beginning of Kobe and Michael Jordan's relationship you know that they had that you know
I watched the eulogy recently to prep for this podcast that Michael Jordan had at Kobe's Memorial he's like he was my little brother Kobe would say the same thing in fact one of the last interviews he did was for the last dance and in that episode I think it's episode five or maybe four and you know Kobe talking he like listen when I came into the league Michael provided a lot of
guidance for me I had questions about shooting his turnaround shot he gave me a detailed answer and on top of that he said if you ever need anything give me a call and so Tim talks about the fact that that that you can't tell Kobe to give you a call CU he'll call you like 2: 3 in the morning over and over again uh Michael talked about in his eulogy too but what was fascinating is the
respect they had for one another and where it originated from where Kobe is now retired and he's like listen I truly hate having discussions about who would win one-on-one or fans saying hey you would be Michael you're better than Michael and Kobe says something that I love he's like listen I feel like hey what you get from me is from him I don't get five championships without him
because he guided me so much and gave me so much great advice and part of that is tied to what I said earlier is like my study of these extreme individuals is like the worst thing you can do is back down from them and so Phil Jackson coached both Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant Michael's retired at this time Phil invites uh Michael to a Lakers practice and it's Phil Jackson Michael
Jordan Ahmad Rashad and Kobe Bryant and all sitting in the room and Ahmad is talking about in this interview he like listen I I read this piece that said you didn't challenge him or that he didn't challenge you and that did that it never happen and he goes it did happen because I was sitting right there at the table with you guys and so one of the first
things that Kobe says to him is like you got your shoes let me just read the transcript here and so you know uh Phil jackon asked Michael if he if he wasn't doing anything just come by practice and maybe you know he'd want to play and Michael said to Kobe a young Kobe hey maybe we can figure out what you got and then you said back no maybe I'll figure out what you got and then Michael said
you can't guard me and then you said to Michael you can't guard me and then a mod asked Kobe how old were you Kobe's response 21 1 years old and so Michael and Ahad wind up leaving there was a silent moment and as they're walking out in the hallway he goes man I love that dude he's a warrior and he loved you because you didn't back down and Michael would do that on purpose he says in the
last dance like if you're trying to maintain dominance over people you don't want to give them a chance to gain any kind of confidence and Kobe had that same exact mentality he says Mike and I both know there are certain players that we can intimidate there are certain players that are afraid but every now and then you run into a player that has the same DNA that you do the same
competitive competitive spirit that you do and you quickly realize that the bullying and the trash talking is not going to work with this person and as you read about Kobe or you read about Michael you hear all these stories you realize like there's this constant search for them internally to find other things that keep their motivation up to keep them like fully engaged
and they would compete even in like meaningless exhibition games so there's this former NBA player named Eddie Johnson and he tells two hilarious stories he tells a Michael Jordan story and then he tells I'm going to share one that he uh that he tells about Larry Bird I'm a huge Larry Bird fan in fact I have Larry Bird's Autobiography on my desk I'll eventually make an episode on
it but Eddie Johnson goes on a podcast and tells a story about Michael Jordan and they're playing the Bulls in an exhibition game and Michael comes up to him before the game and he to Eddie and this other guy named Tom and he goes hey I'm gonna give your boy 40 and they're like who are you talking about I like Dan the guy you have cover me like I'm going to give him I'm going to put 40
points on him and they're like yeah whatever and MJ didn't like that they doubted him he goes bet $200 and Eddie says I took the BET and Tom took the bet so you know if if Michael doesn't score 40 he's going to have to give up 400 bucks if he does score 40 he gets $400 and so Eddie and Tom are on the bench and they're watching the game and they're like oh
this guy just starts going nuts and it says Tom and I are looking at him like this dude is just insane and so a short while later he has like 38 points and he walks over to the bench he looks at Tom and I and he says get that money ready he then catches the ball reverse pivots on him and he just tries to tear the rim up tongue wagging and all he dunked on
him for the 40th point and then he held up four hand four fingers in each hand for 400 nobody else knew what the four meant right so everybody's like what what is Michael doing with each hand as for on right then he runs past us and says I want my money and then he checks himself out of the game and so that was later in Eddie's career right but when Eddie is a rookie he's playing against I
got to tell you this Larry Bird Story cuz I there's so many just like I collect Michael Jordan stories I collect Larry Bird's stories CU he was like a legendary trash talker I just think it's hilarious and so Eddie Johnson's now telling another story and this time it's on Larry Bird he goes listen I remember playing against Larry Bird it was my second game of my career and I am scared
to death Larry Bird walks over to me stands next to me and he leans over and he looks at me and he says do you honestly think that you can guard me I didn't say anything in response so he goes over to our bench and says you made this rookie guard me I'm going to bust him up and he says that right in my ear he says I'm going to wear your ass out the game starts and he is wearing me out
later he comes up to me and he says I bet you can't do this he raises up and shoots a long three-point shot it's an airball I just look at him and he says that don't matter it's the fact that I can do that and stay in the game I bet you can't and so there's just a million of these like psychological warfare psychological games that Kobe's uh engaging in that Michael's engaging in
Dominique Wilkins told another great story they're about to play the Bulls says Michael Jordan walks into the locker room he's got a suit and tie on and they're like what the hell is going on here like why are you in my our locker room and so he walks up to me and says lace him up it's going to be a long night and then he leaves and Dominique's
like what the hell did he just in our locker room he's like I didn't even know what to say I was completely shocked and then the punchline of the story was he had 60 that night he had 60 points that night and then this Michael Jordan story is the most recent one i' I've came across and it's Julian Edelman who played on the Patriots and he's talking about this that he's about to play in
the Super Bowl right it's a few days before he plays in the Super Bowl he sees Michael Jordan and Derek Jeter having dinner together and so he goes up and introduces him self and says hey I'm playing in the Super Bowl and he says they could have been more different like Jeter was welcoming and charming and Jordan was really stand offish and so the conversation only lasts a few
minutes but as the conversation is about to end Jordan says hey kid I got a bunch of money on you don't [ __ ] it up and Edelman says that was the only thing that he had said to me and I responded Yes Sir Mr Jordan and I think all these stories besides the Edelman one where because he wasn't competing or anything he was just literally betting on something I think he understood what he
was doing himself because you can go back and watch these interviews with him and there's another Jordan interview I'll link it down below and he says something is interesting and he's relatively young I think he's still in uh playing in the NBA when he says this and he says a good competitor always evaluates his opponent and you understand him for what he really is you
never try to give him confidence you try to take it at all times mentally I've got to find a way and sometimes you have to what you have to do is you have to trick yourself you have to look inside yourself and find different types of challenges from game to game that's how I got myself motivated and it wasn't the same every game I had to find a focus to go out and play at a certain level in that same
interview he says I just feel my competitive Drive is far greater than anyone else that I've ever met I thrive on that I think that is my biggest motivation in life I find certain competitions in life and I try to overcome them I feel confident about my competitive drive and so I'm going to pick up the book winning and he tells you exactly what he's trying to do while he's
writing the book there's a bunch of obviously Kobe stories in here A bunch of Michael Jordan stories in here and he's trying to take you into the world of elite Cutthroat competition and so what very fascinating is he would ask all of his clients and people that wanted to be his clients the same question he's like you need to describe winning in one word and he says you'd be
surprised like how many people would describe it you know in very similar ways they say it's glorious it's awesome amazing it's euphoric etc etc and he's like but the weird thing is like why are the same descriptions being applied over and over again and he thought that Kobe was the only one that ever answered in one word this way and Kobe's answer was
everything and Tim thought that was the best one-word answer he also thinks that Michael had the best description of winning that he ever heard so he says I never asked MJ but he answered it anyways in the last dance in this one moment he summed up everything he knew about his lifelong partnership with winning his answer is more than a word but it's worth everyone and so this is
the the quote from Michael Jordan that Tim loved from the last dance this is what Michael said I pulled people along when they didn't want to be pulled I challenged people when they didn't want to be challenged and I earned the right because my teammates who came after me didn't endure all the things that I endured once you joined the team you lived at a certain standard that I
played the game and I wasn't going to take anything less now if that meant I had to go in there and get in your ass a little bit then I did that you ask all my teammates the one thing about Michael Jordan was that he never asked me to do something that he didn't [ __ ] do when people see this they're going to say well he wasn't really a nice guy he may have been a tyrant well that's you
because you've never won anything I wanted to win but I wanted them to win and be part of that as well look I don't have to do this I'm only doing it because it's who I am that is how I played the game that was my mentality if you want to play that way then don't play that way and then Tim's interpretation of this is again why I think it's so valuable to read
biographies because you don't just see the oh the book doesn't start out like oh this person is Rich and successful it's like most of it most of what you and I is like the struggle how did they get there and so Tim says yes winning is glorious and amazing and powerful and awesome and all those things but if you think that's all it is then as MJ said you've never won anything it's the
punishment he took from the other teams before becoming the greatest ever play of the game the years of Relentless pressure and scrutiny of everything that he did the single-minded focus on one thing winning championships not just for himself but for everyone around him winning can be glorious but it can also [ __ ] you up this is why I said I think the Relentless audiobook you know cuz it
talks about like the dark side the struggles you know just the the extreme traits and extreme things that happened to them in sacrifice they said something you know something the line in the book was like they'll alter their they re rearrange or alter their entire life just to win I probably have 30 highlights from this book but this is my favorite line in the book everyone
wanted to be like Mike Mike did not want to be like anyone else every great creation and invention started with people who knew how to think and didn't allow themselves to be told what to think remember that Kobe quote I said that you know what you get from me you know I got from him I don't get five championships without him he guided me so much and gave me so much great advice
Tim saw that's because Tim is training Kobe after he trained Mike right and so I said Co Kobe would call or text Mike in the middle of the night asking how he played against a certain guy how he handled a situation what he thought about this or that and Michael would always answer his questions and help them learn that is a major trait of the greats by the way they want to pass
along their knowledge so the the Next Generation can keep learning going back to everyone wanted to be like Mike Mike only wanted to be like himself the greats figure out what works for them regardless of what everyone else does this is something that you'll see if you watch the Last Dance because they show a bunch of examples where Michael is before game he's lacing up his shoes and
I didn't know this until I read the book that Tim said that he had that that Jordan had the most disciplined game day routine that he's ever seen so it says uh and really when you read this this happens over several pages but R routine reduces the number of decisions right so if you Outsource you just you make routine things that you just have to do all the time then you can actually focus
on the important things uh Michael planned and organized every detail of his day from the time of his workout to the car he drove to the arena I knew what time and how long we were working out for his automobile manager knew which car he'd be driving and what time to have it ready the chef his Chef knew exactly what he'd be eating and what time he needed it served part of his
routine was to lace his shoes before every game fresh out of the box this ritual had a special meaning to him one day the team bus was delayed so I went ahead and Lac his shoes exactly the way he did just to save him some time he refused to wear them I had interfered with his routine he had the equipment manager get him a new pair unlaced so he could lace them himself every time he
warmed up in practice he started with a chest pass the greatest player in the world working on a basic chess pass why routine Basics fun fundamentals if you can't master the fundamentals you can't master anything why was routine so important to him because the game themselves were so unpredictable his routine allowed him the mental freedom to focus on one thing the complexity of
the game and then one of the most fascinating parts of the book was that he compared and contrasted like Talent MJ verse hard work where Michael worked hard but was more naturally talented and Kobe or worked harder but was less naturally talented and so it says um he starts working with Kobe in 2007 because koby's having problems with his knees he calls
Michael like what the hell should I do Michael's like go work with Grover and so they start working out together and it says Kobe wanted to learn everything he could about MJ the program the schedule the workouts the whole were team he wanted to know about Michael's lifestyle how he reacted to certain situations how he handled teammates and coaches and anything else Kobe could add
to his arsenal of weapons he wanted knowledge not so he could become MJ so he could become better Kobe Kobe never stopped he was insatiable for game film he also never slept so he said you know Kobe would text him work and they he'd want to work out from like 2: in the morning 4 in the morning 3:00 a.m. all different times and so Tim says I never slept during those years I just na
because you never know when he'd be ready to go back to work MJ knew when to stop Kobe didn't you would never find MJ on a court at 4:00 a.m. he slept at night because he knew sleep was part of his training but above all they had this in common they each possessed an unshakable confidence in themselves that never wavered and you see this in this recruiting call the Bulls asked Michael
Jordan to be a part of remember I said remember that phone call between the Portland Trailblazers and Bobby Knight hey should we draft Sam Buie should we draft Michael Jordan he's like playing at Center the Bulls management asked Michael to be part of a conference call with Sam Buie who was a free agent at the time everyone made their pitch to Sam about why he should join the Bulls
and etc etc and then it was MJ's turn and he just said Sam are you coming or not we're winning with or without you his belief in himself was so powerful that he never doubted the outcome and that's something that they share with a lot of greats inside and outside of sports in fact Sam Walton talked about having that same exact mentality when he was building Walmart he said in his
autography shortly before he died he says it never occurred to me that I might lose to me it was almost as if I had a right to win thinking like that often seems to turn into some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy and I think that relentless self-belief is important in avoiding the following very very few people are willing or able to bet on themselves they become the
assistant manager of their own lives waiting for direction and approval from some higher authority because they don't feel confident enough to make decisions and take action on their own Kobe and Michael were the opposite of that and everybody around him knew this this is one of my favorite Michael stories from early in his career in the early days of Michael's career a reporter asked his
coach Doug Collins about his strategy for coaching the greatest player in the game it's pretty simple said Collins give him the ball and get the [ __ ] out of the way Michael elaborated on this mindset in the Last Dance my mentality was to go out and win at any cost if you don't want to live that regimented mentality then you just don't need to be alongside of me because I'm going to
ridicule you until you get on the same level with me and if you don't get on the same level then it's going to be hell for you and this is a great explanation of that when you're giving everything you have making every sacrifice and devoting every part of your life to winning it's hard to tolerate anyone in your circle who isn't doing the same and so that's key it's
not going around and them being dictators or you know being jerks or [ __ ] to to everybody around them even though you know most people would describe them as that it's they're never asking somebody to do something that they're not doing themselves that they're not first asking of themselves and so this idea this is very I mean I I have a million notes like Post-it notes
in this book because there's so many times where I'm reading both of them and I'm like oh this is like the Steve Jobs vein story and it's one of my favorite stories because it really illustrates Steve Jobs mentality more than anything else and it was told after he passed away and Johnny I is giving an interview I think with Vanity Fair if I remember correctly and you know he says one time
they're having this design meeting this is like maybe a year or two before Steve passes away and you know to be on the design team you have to be like you know the best of the best already and Steve just lit into them he was not happy about their performance he did not think it was excellent enough and everybody leaves and and Steve and Johnny Are by themselves and he's like hey can you
know we like you know just tone it down a little bit think about the delivery the message I'm I'm paraphrasing now and Steve goes oh I'm disappointed in you I didn't like you're Vain and Johnny's like who whoa that's like why you insulting me like why you calling me vain he's like I thought the work was the most important that the quality of the work was more important than anybody
else the fact that you're worried about the delivery or other people's feelings mean that that in Steve's opinion Steve job's opinion that now other people's opin other people's feelings are more important than the work and you just want people to like you and so therefore you're Vain and Johnny was taken back for a while you know kind of insulted or maybe
heard by this and then he realized he's right like we say the work is more important so therefore that has to come or that has to be a higher priority than anybody's feelings and there's a line in this book that one line that made me think of that story and it says he's Tim is talking about Kobe and Michael he says their minds were stronger than their feelings and so this extreme
dedication to Excellence was not only for their teammates but everybody around them too and so one thing about Michael Jordan I'm going to read a story from uh driven from within which I'll pick up in one minute and so there's two main things that jump out at me that are related to things that you and I have talked about in the past one that you can't ride the fence uh when you're with
Michael Jordan that's gon to be a story from driven with from within and then there's a great quote by Bill Walsh who wrote that excellent book The Score takes care of itself and he says Champions behave like Champions before they're Champions and so Tim is telling the story the very first time that he meets Michael he gets to the house rings the bell Michael Jordan opens the door
he's in head to toe in full Nike here remember this is probably 88 89 hasn't won any championships he has this deal with Nike has no idea no idea what's in the future right the fact that this this deal alone is going to make him hundreds of millions of dollars in income every year you know be worth billions and billions of dollars if he ever wanted to sell it back to them but he's already in
full Nike gear looks down at Tim's shoes and sees Tim is wearing convers shakes St at them shakes his head they have the meeting at the end as Tim walks out he takes another look at his convers and he says never again and then he shuts the door on Tim okay so I'm going to put down the winning book and I'm going to pick up driven from within which is the
the autobiography or the closest thing that Michael has an autobiography which he did all the way back on episode 2113 I'm going to tell very similar story and this guy is telling the story his name is Fred white Whitfield and he's like listen Michael's whole being is all about loyalty and winning and he really feels that you can't ride the fence and
so Fred is close with Michael and this guy named Ralph Ralph was a player who had a puma contract and not a Nike contract and since they were friends Puma would send him a bunch of you know clothes and all and shoes and Michael would do and Nike would send the same thing like so half of his closet is Puma half of it is Nike and so Michael comes to uh Fred's apartment and we're getting
ready to go out and he says hey it's kind of cold can I borrow one of your jackets and I said sure go in my closet he went in there and he saw everything separated out he's in there a little longer than necessary and he comes out of my room he's taken all of my Puma stuff out brought it into the living room and laid it on the floor he goes into the kitchen gets a butcher knife
and literally Cuts up everything this was like his second or third year in the league he literally took a butcher knife to my shoes ripping and cutting when he's all done he picks up every little scrap and walks down to the dumpster he says hey dude call Howard from Nike tomorrow and tell him to replace all this but don't ever let me see you in anything other than Nike you can't ride
the fence that is how Michael thinks and so in this story I'm about to read from the winning book to you it says like he pursued victory in everything he pursued victory in everything like that's the way to think about him so you know he sees Tim he's like okay you're going to be my trainer now but don't ever come around here and Converse like you're
you're on my team then I'll be loyal to you and if not like it's very black or white with him right he also said that you have to keep up with him remember this whole thing like how many we've been talking for a very long time now and every time Kobe and Michael are saying the same thing I'm not coming down to your level that's not happening you will rise to mine right and so he
says keeping up was essential if you're part of MJ's world that was non-negotiable and the very first time I ever traveled with him he was taking his entire personal team so he's got you know a chef uh all these people that are in fact they make this point later on that this is not a luxury these are business partners which is a great line but I'll get there in a minute so he's
got he's you know he's got his security he's got his Chef he's got his trainer they're all coming and he's like listen meet it meet at my house and then we'll travel to the airport from there but everybody's driving their own car and so MJ jumps into his Ferrari and he says to everyone you better keep up now Tim is driving his father's 1987 Sterling and he's like this is not the fastest car
ever made but I somehow managed to pull up at the same time he did I was there was no way I was going to fall behind I drove on the shoulder I ran uh red lights I drove on and off exit ramps anything I could to keep him in my sights I do not recommend this I'm just telling you what happened everyone else was 5 minutes late and of course Michael let them hear about it keep up that was
his directive for everyone around him and everything he did we all knew we do not compromise we do not take shortcuts we do not make excuses keep up with me and my standards are you're out he pursued vicory and everything he was unapologetically extreme a lot of you know he's Relentless you can call him that people call him ruthless they would have in Chicago they during the summer
they'd run these pickup games Tim's gym right and you'd have people all you know some NBA players coming over some college players all these other people and they just play pickup and it's a very hot day some new guy who was trying extremely hard to impress Michael he got overheated and he collapsed right in front uh like in the middle of the game and so we call 911 Tim is giving him CPR
while they wait for an ambulance and he feels like a presence over him and it's MJ like hovering over him and the guy opens his eyes slowly sits up looks around and sees Michael Jordan standing over him Michael looks down and asks Tim is he okay and I go he's alive Michael says are you good the kid looks up and smiles weakly he says yes sir I'm good
Michael's response good go get a sub I got a game to win and the point of that story to me is like oh this like ruthlessness this relentlessness this addiction to competition it doesn't matter if there's no Stakes right it's a playup play it's a pickup game during the summer it is practice but it's isn't that just like the story that Eddie Johnson told where he's like I'm going
to put 40 points on this guy in an exhibition game most starters aren't even playing in the game I don't see an off switch with when I'm reading about Michael and Kobe and when I'm studying Michael and Kobe I just don't see an off switch and I don't think that's very different from Nolan Bushnell the founder of Atari mentor of Steve Jobs hired Steve Jobs when he's 19 he's like
listen Steve Jobs has one speed and that speed is go and what's interesting between Michael and Kobe and Steve Jobs is they were about like mastering the fundamentals and trying to get like they were addicted to like Simplicity and I think one of the reasons there's a great line in this book that is just talking about M go and Kobe's approach but I think it's really um Steve Jobs approach
and maybe the best book that ever uh taught this was uh this book called creative selection it's written by this guy named Ken Kenda I've read the book three times it's episode 281 if you haven't listened to it I'm going to going to read the book and do another podcast on it over and over again I love that book but because it goes into Ken was a programmer who worked directly
under Steve Jobs and he demoed to him on multiple occasions so you get a real insight into how he was like thought about building products and building his whole organization but there's something that is very similar to I see now like their approaches where it says stop adding start deleting winning demands Total Focus delete is it easier to climb a mountain with a weighted vest and a
full pack or just with the essentials and I think this like Relentless dedication to focus Relentless dedication to Simplicity Relentless dedication to the fundamentals it just helps them get to where they're going faster because they have one focus and there's a huge theme I don't know if I've I've hit on enough is they they're they're never going to be they're just's
not they're never complacent uh there's this interview that Michael Jordan gave where he says I never feel that I'm at my best I feel I still have room to improve I still set goals for myself to strive for I'm never complacent with what I've achieved even though it's been very successful for me I still feel I have a lot to prove I still feel I have a lot to prove so I'm never really too
complacent with myself for what I've achieved Kobe mentions this Kobe and Michael are both incapable of complacency right and so Kobe mentions this in that interview with Alex Rodriguez where he says you know when he tells people that if the next 20 years of his life isn't better and he doesn't achieve more than the last 20 years he would consider that a failure and people
would tell Kobe like you know when you say that that's crazy you know it's just respectful to what you accomplish in basketball and Kobe's response to this was perfect and Kobe's point was like I wouldn't have achieved those things without that mindset that idea is like okay you achieve something great then you move on and you do it again and you move on to the next thing and you
achieve something and then you move on and you do it again and again forever and then one thing that appears over and over again is the the the commitment to reinvestment that Michael and Kobe would make uh reinvestment in education and constantly training and learning uh from people that came before them for people that anybody that can help them right
but also in like what is getting you to that the Pinnacle of your profession anyways and in their case is physical so this is what I mentioned earlier where like oh these aren't luxuries the these are business partners I love that framing I'm always amazed when the media report on a Superstar athlete who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars or even more on their training and health as if
that's a l as if that's a luxury look they have a chef they have a masseuse he's got a whole gym and a basketball court in his house those are not luxuries those are business partners and then related to that is why they spent so much time learning and honing their craft they can take everything away from you your house your money your clothes your car but one thing they can't take
is your education and what you've learned and the one thing you can count on if you do indeed lose everything is that education and I mentioned earlier that Michael and Tim would talk about the self-doubt the butterflies you know the nervousness that would happen before a game those people are performing well not be in absence of fear but in spite of it and so there's another example of
Kobe saying the same thing Kobe says I have self-doubt I have self-doubt I have insecurity I have fear of failure I have nights where I show up to the arena I'm like my back hurts my feet hurt my knees hurt I don't have it tonight I just want to chill we all have self-doubt you don't deny it but you also don't capitulate to it I love that you do not
capitulate to your self-doubt you embrace it and towards the end of this book Tim is reflecting on his relationship with Kobe It Was Written after Kobe died and I I think this is a very important lesson he says Kobe's impatience was legendary the biggest mistake we make in life is thinking that we have time the longer it takes time to capture your winds the less time you have to enjoy
them and that's the biggest thing we don't know how much time we have the biggest mistake we have in life is thinking we have time you can see this in one of the last interviews Kobe did he's talking about the next 20 years of his life he had no idea and I hate even saying those words I hate the fact that this is even real because I spent so much time studying him and learning from
him and he spent so much time in inspiring me but I think that takeaway that Tim has is dead on the biggest mistake we have in life is thinking that we have time and so I think the perfect place to end this is exactly how Michael ended the last episode of The Last Dance he was talking about his entire Journey he says it started with hope it started with hope we went from a shitty team to
one of the all-time greatest dynasties all you needed was one little match to start the whole fire and that little match that helps ignite my inner fire is exactly what spending time reading learning and watching uh Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant have done for me that is where I leave it for the full stories highly recommend buying both the books I will
leave the book The Links for both books in the show notes if you buy the books using that link you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time that is 340 books down 1,000 AO and I'll talk to you again soon just a few quick things before you go you can now get Founders merch if you go to shop. Founders pod.com or you go to Founders podcast.com and just click through there
you can actually order sweatshirts and hats with the founders logo on it if you're interested in that I'd highly recommend getting a few sweatshirts I own four of them they're ridiculously comfortable get yourself a comfortable sweatshirt and You' be supporting the podcast at the same time also I started posting uh some of the older episodes to YouTube I will leave that link down
below if you can do me a favor just go over there and subscribe and what I'm doing is eventually a few weeks I'm actually building out a studio in a library right now and there'll be video for all the episodes the new episodes of Founders but for the old episodes what I did is actually matched up the audio with the transcript so if you're interested in listening to the episode
as the same time as you're reading the transcript you can do that on YouTube I will leave the link down below and the last thing I was thinking about was a line that was in the episode that you just listened to that they were describing Kobe and Michael and they're like the greats never stop learning all the hours of work that they do have created this Unstoppable internal
resource that you can draw on in any situation they were referencing the fact that Kobe and Michael were constantly watching gam tape I think of listening to Founders podcast and I've said this multiple times before I think listening to Founders podcast is like watching gam tape of History's Greatest Founders and I think reading Founders notes isn't even deeper version of that since the
majority of my notes and highlights don't make it into the podcast and so a bunch of people that have signed up for Founders notes have sent me they're like there's a ton of notes and highlights in here that aren't even on the podcast and so since I work in Founders notes every day and I've been using and adding to this database the searchable database of all my highlights and notes since 2018
that was obvious to me but I'm like a fish in water and so I was realized I like oh I should probably tell people that Founders notes is even deeper than Founders podcast I consider Founders podcast like the free trial to Founders notes it's if you want to sign up for Founders notes you go to Founders notes.com that's founders with an S Founders notes.com but it is a deeper
version of the podcast since the majority of my notes and highlights don't actually make it into the podast podcast actually majority is probably not the right word but you get what I mean a bunch of notes and highlights are in Founders notes that are that never appear on the actual podcast and so this was on my mind when I was listening back to the Jordan and Kobe episode because I
was like oh if there was an NBA equivalent of Founders notes it's obvious that Jordan Kobe would have signed up for it and used it as a tool in that 600 Page biography of Kobe I referenced this this fact in that episode and in this episode too that he used to subscribe to this service that would send you VHS tapes of NBA games and then he he did this so much that he
had a closet full of Michael's games and then when you listen to their interviews and you read their words Michael and Kobe would talk about over and over again that they they sought advice from the great players that came before them and I really do believe that reading Founders notes gives you the ability to do that exact same thing but you're doing it for History's Greatest Founders
and I can say that because I've been doing this for myself this was a tool you up until the last few months you couldn't even access it this was a tool I was building internally for myself if you listen to the Jay-Z episode that I republished uh last a couple days ago actually there's a reference I listened back to that episode too right because I
make Founders podcasts for it's a tool for me as well is for you where it's like okay I may not be able to reread these books in the future but I can go back and listen to like I haven't read Jay-Z's autobiography since I made that episode two years ago but I listen to that to to that episode I was like oh all these ideas came back to the Forefront of my mind and in there in
that episode there I reference the fact that I have this daily practice because Jay-Z is talking about the importance of practice you know the importance of practice comes up over and over again George would talk about it Kobe would talk about it and in that Jay-Z episode I was like well my daily practice is actually reading and rereading my notes and highlights that I put in this
gigantic searchable database in this app called readwise and because I talked about readwise so much I went on other people's podcast talked about I talked about my own podcast a bunch of people over the years have asked to get access they're like I want access to your readwise I want to read your notes I want to read your highlights and so a few months ago I I actually contacted
the founders of rewise because they listen to the podcast it's like hey why don't we partner uh I want to build my own version right like I'm not building a new version of rewise I want to build a version where if you sign up at Founders notes.com you see exactly what I see which means you see my notes and my highlights and then you have all the features that I have which is the
ability to to search through this and so Founders notes exist because so many people listen to Founders podcast asked for a way to go deeper and so that's exactly what it is now there's another thing that I'm doing right now uh for a limited time only that came because people ask over and over again it's like oh David Michael Jordan has this a great thing that successful people listen the
people that don't listen don't last long he I love that line and you know I've thought about that line a lot since I read it for the first time you know two and a half years ago I was like David maybe you should take Michael's advice and listen because a bunch of people been sending me messages like hey can you build a version of Founders first of
all they told me hey you should build you know your own version readwise which I did for Founders notes second thing they asked is like hey is there a way you could do this where there's no ongoing subcription like can I just pay once and have access forever and so I've been testing that over the last I don't know like two weeks or something like that the response has been incredible
and what I realize is why they asked that is one that means that if you sign up now you get access to every single highlight and note that I've ever done and ever will do that makes it even more powerful so that then Founders notes becomes a tool that you can actually use your entire career to tap into the collective knowledge of History's Greatest entrepreneurs and so Michael
Jordan's version of that for his craft would be watching TV watching NBA games on TV right Kobe Bryant's version of that at the beginning of his career was he actually got tapes but as technology keeps improving it gets easier and easier to tap into the collective knowledge of History great entrepreneurs and I don't think there's another tool in the world that can help you achieve
that that better than Founders notes does and right now it has all the features that I've been using forever but because I'm working so closely with the team rewise and we have dedicated engineers in this now I'm developing features that no one else has anywhere so there's going to be a lot of updates that are coming to Founders notes soon I will go into more detail on this as they
become live I'm testing them myself but I want to just give you a sneak peek because I've become obsessed with a bunch of these new features that have been testing that aren't live yet but will be and the good news is is that if you sign up now you get access to all these features because I'm just going to keep adding them all the new features and all the new improvements for free so
right now this minute you can access all my notes and highlights you can search by keyword by person by subject by idea any keyword you can possibly think of you can search that's available right now right you can also read all my highlights and notes by book it's amazing how much you can learn by rereading my highlights and notes of a of a particular book usually takes you
know 5 10 minutes the third way that you can browse my highlights too and don't worry about remembering this if you sign up you'll get all of in the welcome email I go into detail how I use it but I do want to give you an overview here so the third ways that you can browse my highlights is that you can have the notes presented to you in a random order
on this thing called the Highlights feed those three ways that's how I've used this tool for years and I couldn't make the podcast without it but I'm not going to stop there because I'm again I'm building the tool for myself and so as I keep doing this I'm 8 years into this project you know we just hit what 340 books I'm going to constantly need to develop more and more tools so I can
remember all of the the lessons that you and I are learning on this giant mission to condense and clarify the collective knowledge of History's Greatest Founders so soon you'll also be able to search every single transcript from every single episode I already have this feature another feature that I have that'll be live for everybody soon uh it's the founders GPT like chatbot AI
interface that's not what it's going to be called I got to figure out what it's going to be called might call it super search because I really do feel like this is search on steroids so you can search it semantically and it has actually been making connections that I have even missed so I've been asking them to essentially like I want to build like mental models and I already do this
to reading but is there a way to do it's like okay tell me all the important things I need to know about Andrew Carnegie's career or tell me what are the most important ideas Edmund Lan had or what are the similarities between Kobe and Michael as an example and so what this AI chatbot does is it goes through all my notes my highlights on all my transcripts and it'll show you
what it fetches that's the term it uses where it's like okay I read these 50 highlights and then I summarize it in these six bullet points and so if you want the long in-depth version you can read all the 50 highlights and all the notes or you can just go to here's the you know tldr version of that another feature that I'm working on as well I want bullet point summaries for all the
key ideas on every episode we are all busy I want to get right to the point and then another idea this is going to take a long time but another idea is I want a collection of ideas organized by by theme across every book and episode so instead of learning by person right as what we do on each individual episode we're learn like today we just learned about Michael and Kobe there might be
some stuff in there about Rockefeller and jobs the main focus on Robert is on Kobe almost said Robert instead of Rockefeller the main focus is on Kobe and Michael but instead of learning by person I want all on one page and again this is what I want I'm very selfish I want this for me because it's not just good enough for me to learn it once I want this in my memory for the very idea
and reason that they covered in one of these books the greats never stop learning and all the hours of work that you do have created this Unstoppable internal resource that you can draw on in any situation that was a description of Kobe and Michael but I want that in my life and so what I would love to see is like okay I want a collection of ideas organized by theme right across
every book and episode all on one page and so for example I was like I want to know how all of History's Grace Founders that we've covered up until this point how did they think about topics different topics uh you know marketing recruiting distribution managing how to fire people how to think about product development on and on and on and on and
so my very very long-term vision of this again I'm going to be doing Founders this is my life's work I think it's obvious if you listen to the podcast I want to do founders for as long as I have a voice and Founders notes is the tool that I'm building right alongside that to fulfill my life's work and so over time what I really want it to be is not just my notes and highlights which
thereby itself it's a crazy value right but over time I wanted to become this ever increasing giant valuable curriculum that condenses and clarifies the collective knowledge of History's Greatest Founders and so that is the long-term plan right now for a limited time only if you are interested if you're one of these people that are interested in not having an ongoing
subscription that you want to pay once that you're in Forever which would mean that Founders notes becomes a tool that you use your entire career to tap into the collective knowledge of History's Greatest entrepreneurs do not Dilly time is limited this offer could anytime sign up now at Founders notes.com that's Founders notes.com Founders notes just like everything else that I talk about
as always if you can't remember the URL if you don't want to go through the show notes whatever you just go to Founders podcast.com everything I do is at Founders podcast.com as always thank you very much for the support thank you very much for listening I'm going to go read a book I'll give you a hint you'll probably you probably already figured out who this is but there may never have
been an American that was wealthier if you figure out their wealth in relation to the money supply so that is the hint on the book that I'm reading right now hopefully the podcast will be done you know four or five days I will put it out as soon as that it's done in any case thank you very much for listening I hope you sign up at founders.com and I will talk to you again soon