What Michael Jordan and Kobe Taught Tim Grover about “Winning”

Brandon:
This is the BiggerPockets podcast, show 471. A lot of people can adapt, but do you have the ability to overcome? That’s the thing. Adapting just means, “All right, I’m settling for what’s going on now, and I’m just trying to survive.” And there’s too many people that are just trying to survive, to survive in business, survive in life. Listen, you’re not here to survive, you’re here to thrive. And in order for you to thrive, you have to figure out a way to overcome.

Intro:
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Brandon:
What’s going on to bonus, Brandon Turner, host of the BiggerPockets podcast here with my co-host Mr. David, always winning Greene. What’s up David Greene. What a phenomenal show we’re about to do.

David:
Man, I am just so full of something, I don’t know what to call it. Last time I felt this way was when we interviewed Ed Mylett, where you just feel like you could just run through a brick wall and you want to.

Brandon:
Yeah.

David:
Our guest today has that ability to make you feel that way.

Brandon:
Yeah, we just got finished recording. We’re just in the introduction right now. But this show is so full of good stuff. I joked afterwards, I wanted to run inspirational music through the entire episode, because it’s like one of those you just want to run. So our guest today is Tim Grover. If you’re not familiar with Tim Grover, he is the… he even says in the interview trainer is the wrong word, but the guy who helped-

David:
Sports enhancement specialists.

Brandon:
Sports [inaudible 00:01:36]… helped Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, and a whole lot of other people become who they are. In fact, the cover of Tim’s new book, he’s had a book called Winning, it is phenomenal. That’s our quick tip for today is to pick up a copy of his book. But the cover of his book has this quote from Michael Jordan, yes, the Michael Jordan, Tim Grover was by my side for 15 years and knows more than anyone about building winners. This book is essential for those who want to be the best at whatever they do and are willing to pay the price to get there.

Brandon:
So whether you want to be the best at real estate investing, at entrepreneurship, at being a good husband, wife, father, mother, whether you just wanted to have a really good looking garden. Whatever it is you want to be the best at, this interview is going to help you get there. I think you’re going to like it a lot. So man, it’s just so good. Tim is also the author of another book called Relentless. You may have read that one or the huge book from a few years ago.

David:
Bestseller.

Brandon:
Yeah, Bestseller, very popular book. And he’s got a new one now called Winning. So that’s a wrap for the intro. Anything else you want to cover here, David?

David:
This guy, Tim Grover, for all of you listeners out there that may not have heard of him, we’re talking about a person that takes Lamborghinis and makes them work better, right? There’s a handful of people in the entire world that can do what Tim does and has had the experience. How many people would say, I’d love to sit down and have a lunch with Michael Jordan and pick his brain. This guy spent years with not only Michael Jordan, but Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, the top athletes in the world, impacting into them and pulling out of them, right?

David:
How much did Tim get from working with people like that? And now he’s bringing it to us and our audience to help everybody here, regardless of what your goals are, regardless of what game you are playing in, and regardless of what winning means to you, to teach you how to do it better. Tim, if you’re listening, thank you very much for doing the show and for bringing your A-game. You easily could have showed up and just slacked off and treated it like it was a scrimmage. But that wouldn’t be what a cleaner does.

Brandon:
Yeah, that’s not what Tim does. Make sure you guys listen also. If you’re only can listen to half this interview right now because you’re on a commute and you’re get out of the car, please listen to the entire thing. The last half, the last even 15 minutes are so life changing and emotional to a degree that I don’t think we’ve ever quite done on the show before. So I think listen for that, stay tuned. And with that, let’s get to today’s show. All right, Tim, welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast, man. It is an honor to have you here.

Tim:
Oh, thank you guys. It’s an honor for me to be here. But when you started, you said five, four, three, two, one, we’re already down four seconds. I got four seconds or less time to talk to you guys. Can we just go on one next time?

Brandon:
Next time we’re going one.

Tim:
All right.

Brandon:
All right. Well, then you don’t know if I’m cutting up or down. I got to start on two because then you know I’m cutting down. Otherwise, it’s a mess. All right. For those who don’t know who you are, let’s go into a background. I mean, you worked with a lot of big people. I mean, I got a whole introduction here, I could read, but I want to know from your world, who are you? What do you do?

Tim:
Well, my official title when I was training, majority of the professional athletes, I had to come up with something because I just didn’t like trainer. I was like, “I spent too much time in school to be just labeled as a trainer.” So I came up with a sports enhancement specialists, which has taken athletes at the highest level and making them even better. I don’t quite do as much as that now, we still consult for a lot of teams, but I’m more in the mindset space. And what I do now is teach people the ability to understand and see what winning is all about.

Brandon:
And do you find there’s a lot of connection between the sport world and the business or just mindset world?

Tim:
Oh, 100%. I mean, listen, I think it’s actually even more competitive in a business world, because listen, you go to the sports world, let’s say NFL football, they play one game a week. Sometimes two, they got to play on a Thursday. You literally have scouts playbooks of the other. You know what the other team’s going to run. You have people watching. You know their offenses, you know their defenses, and you have a whole week to prepare for it. Think about it in the entrepreneur space, in the business space, you can literally wake up and have to have a brand new game plan because something happened in the world, which is obviously we know it already did happen, or something happened in your life. So you have to be able to adjust and pivot and be able to understand and move with these different things as quickly as you do.

Tim:
And to me, yeah, a professional athlete may be competing from a physical standpoint, but from a mental standpoint, we’re all competing, and the people in the business world actually have to compete from a mental standpoint more often and more frequently than the professional athlete.

Brandon:
That reminds me if all of a sudden the NBA announced, “Hey, by the way, there’s now four baskets. Today you’re going to have to play in four baskets instead of two.” The entire landscape could change. That doesn’t happen in sports, but yeah, business overnight. Oh, by the way, that doesn’t work anymore. By the way that policy changed or the government changed their tax thing. Oh, by the way, there’s a pandemic. So definitely I can see that the ability to adapt to those situations in business is probably just as severe, if not more than sports.

Tim:
Well, not only adapt, I mean, a lot of people can adapt, but do you have the ability to overcome? That’s the thing. Adapting just means, “All right, I’m settling for what’s going on now, and I’m just trying to survive.” And there’s too many people that are just trying to survive, to survive in business, survive in life. Listen, you’re not here to survive, you’re here to thrive. And in order for you to thrive, you have to adjust, and you have to figure out a way to overcome.

Brandon:
I think that that’s never been more relevant, maybe 2010, but other than that, than right now, in the real estate space where the rules of the game are changing so fast, the environment is changing so fast. The way a deal looks is changing. I mean, if you go and you watch film of the NBA in the nineties, they’re playing a game so radically different than what these guys are. I mean, basketball is basketball, but you’ll see guys take the ball into the middle and just jump, and in midair, get shoved across the key. And that was just normal. That’s a foul, right?

Tim:
Yeah.

Brandon:
You do that now, you’re out of the game, they’re talking about you on sports center, they’re probably trying to cancel you on social media for violence. It’s completely different than what guys were doing before. And so the way that you played the game had to be different. You want a different body types, you want a different strengths profiles, you had different offenses, you would run a good shot in that environment, look different than what it’s like right now. And the teams that are winning are the teams that adapt and overcome. So that’s what I love about what we’re facing with COVID-19, with technology and the role that it’s playing in how business is done today than before. And the reason we love having people like you on, Tim, is you’ve basically made your career out of helping people understand this is the way you need to think, Kobe Bryant thought like this, Michael Jordan thought like this. They didn’t care who was on the other side of the court from them, they were going to do things this way.

Brandon:
And the people that can take that mindset on themselves are the ones that are going to win. It just doesn’t matter what happens with COVID-19. It doesn’t matter what happens with the industry. It doesn’t matter what happens with whoever the president is. You figure out a way to adjust to those rules and then you overcome. I want to get into your background in a minute here. But before I do, the question I want to ask you is, for people who say they want it but they don’t actually make that choice to whatever it takes that’s what I’m going to do, have you noticed a common theme or a pattern in what holds them back from doing it?

Tim:
Well, yeah. A lot of it is when they say they want. Well, what do you want? It’s too vague of a thing. What do you want, all right? And people say, “I want more money. I want more success.” “Okay. Hey, I’ll give you an extra dollar. Now you just made more money. Congratulations. You won,” all right? Now, what actually do you want? I get athletes all the time, and business people that work with me. They says, “I’ll do anything,” until they find out what my definition of anything is. Well, and the change is people look for that, where they say, “[inaudible 00:09:52], I want it.” Define what you want and then understand do you have the ability, do you have the know-how, do you have the knowledge to get in that chase? Because once you say you want something, all right, now you’re going to get in that chase. And are you going to be able to chase whatever you’re winning?

Tim:
What happens is people love to go straight from average to great. And I’m like, “You can’t do that.” All right. This is what has to happen, before you can… Everyone says I’m chasing greatness. Well, hold on, before you chase greatness, have you caught and mastered average? And then after you catch and master average, then you got to go chase and master and catch good. Then you can start chasing greatness. So when people say, I want it, they want to go right to greatness without knowing, “Well, before I get to greatness, before I become great at whatever I need to do, I have to master these steps here.” It’s the fundamentals of the mindset, just like there’s a fundamentals of a basketball game. In my book, Winning, I talk about every single practice.

Tim:
You can debate, in my mind there’s no debate about who’s the greatest basketball player ever, but every single practice, Michael Jordan started each practice off with a chess pass, a basic chess pass. Well, he goes, “This is the foundation of the game. This is the game at its most average level. And I must be able to master this today, tomorrow, five years from now,” all right? You got to keep doing those things over and over again. Then it becomes clear of what actually you want, because what you want up here may be completely different than what you want in here. What you want in here maybe completely different than what you want in here.

Brandon:
I had a story, I think I’ve shared it before, where my high school basketball coach, his dad was the head coach at University of the Pacific in California, Division I college. And we had a really rough practice where guys just… I think it was really something as simple as we were missing a lot of shots, which typically coaches don’t care if you miss shots as long as you’re taking good shots, you’re doing the fundamentals. But this guy had just got done playing in college and he had a higher standard.

Brandon:
And so he lined us all up and he said, “Okay, who in here at the beginning of the year said they wanted to be a better shooter?” We all raised our hands. And he said, “Okay, put your hand down if you left after practice yesterday.” And me and one other guy were the only ones that kept our hands up. And he said, “All right, so how does this whole team tell me that you want to be a better shooter, but only two of you stayed after practice to work on shooting yesterday?” And he lined us all up and he ran us until we puked. It was miserable.

Brandon:
But it set something off of me. This was actually the first blog I ever wrote for BiggerPockets, was about this. And it’s the difference between wanting something and just liking to have it. If you want it, you would stay after practice to work on shooting, that seems very obvious. Everybody in there didn’t want to be a better shooter, but if the shooting fair he was going to touch him on the head but instill him with the ability to shoot, they would take it, okay?

Tim:
Yes.

David:
And I think that language is really important. Tim, what I’m hearing you say is, if you’re not doing these things, it might be that you need to look at yourself and just say, “I don’t really want it.”

Tim:
You don’t. And here’s the other part. Be careful what you want, because I always say this, the reason people don’t get to what they want and they’re not successful is because they’re afraid of what success looks like, what it actually means, what it actually takes to get there and what it actually means to hold that win briefly. Think about all the professional organizations that win one year that don’t win again the next year. They all want to win that championship again. They all want the Super Bowl. They all want the NBA title. They all want those things. But like you said, you just can’t waive that one.

Tim:
So what you wanted and achieved earlier, that doesn’t matter on what’s new. In your line of work, when you guys do the real, yeah, you can close a deal one way. But what you said earlier, Dave, closing that next deal or the way you close deals now is totally different to what it was in the past. So yeah, you won on an investment or you won on a deal earlier, that doesn’t mean you’re going to win the exact same way on this one. You may not win at all.

David:
And we hear this a lot. We hear people complaining about the fact that… We’ll hear there are no good deals out there. And I think to Brandon and I, what we hear is someone playing basketball saying, “Man, there’s just no good shots out there. The defense is just too good. There’s no way to get open. I should just go sit on the bench until the defense stops guarding me.” And the reality is you just need to adjust your expectation of what a good deal is and adjust your strategy on how to get one. And we’re really just beating this drum quite a bit because it’s too easy to tell yourself something like, “There’s not a good deal out there,” or, “The market’s too hot, I don’t want to play. The competition’s too great, why should I get in there?”

David:
What I was just telling my team, I run a real estate brokerage here and we have 38 houses in contract, we legit have 150 buyers right now. There are not enough houses for all the people we have. The inventory is so bad. And what I was telling them at our meeting last night is, the reason that everybody is struggling right now is you never had to be this good of an agent to close deals. It was not that hard to work with the buyer.

David:
Traditionally, the buyer comes, you have a little talk, you hold their hand, you ask them what they like, you show them the tile, back splash they want, they buy the house. Well, now you basically have to have a conversation where you say, you’re not competing with the seller, you’re competing with 11 other buyers that are probably bringing cash, that have swung and missed on four deals, and they’re tired of it, and they’re going to do whatever it takes to get that deal. And if you’re not walking in with that same mentality, that you want it as bad as them, let’s not do this. Let’s not get in the cage and have a cage fight if you’re not committed to a fight. That’s not where you want to be.

David:
And agents have never had to have a conversation that hard with somebody before. And that’s why there’s a struggle. But what I was telling them is, if you get your skill level up to where it needs to be to win in this environment, when this passes and we get into a semi-regular market, it’s going to feel easy. It’s going to be like you’re cleaning up with the practice squad type of a thing. And I love that, Tim, you preach this message constantly. I’ve listened to many interviews you’ve done. I’ve never once heard you say, “Well, the answer is you’ve got to drop your standards sometimes. You got to lower your expectations when things are too tough.”

Tim:
No. You know what? You brought up a great point here. We’ve heard this over and over again. Michael said, “I practiced so hard, so the games were easy. The harder I practice, the easier the games were.” Now, what’s going on in your line of work is, and I talk about this in the book, Winning, winning makes you different and difference scares people. So what happened is, before everybody knew what to think, you had the blueprint. You were like, “Okay, this is how you close a deal. This is how it’s done.” You get this big 2000 page booklet. You get your license or whatever it is, and you read it and read it. But now the people that are winning, they know how to think. Not only do they know what to think, they know how to think. And there’s a huge difference between the two.

Tim:
And you have to be able to do both. You look at the booklet, you understand what the rules and the regulations are. Those are the standards, but having the ability now to adapt in this environment and adapt with the competitive nature and the winning nature, not just competing, winning, because a lot of people are in the game and they’re competing. You said less numbers are actually winning. The ones that are winning, they know how to think. They have their individuality, they have the creativeness. They know how to trust their instincts. They know how to throw in more than just a backs splash.

David:
And so I want to ask you, Tim, you worked with Michael Jordan, most considered the best to ever do what he did in a league where you get highly compensated for being good at what you do. So it draws a lot of talent into that world. It’s not like he was the best underwater basket weaver more than anybody had seen. What did you do to make it easier for Michael when he was in the game, when you worked him out in practices?

Tim:
Well, the first thing I… I’m going to go back to the real estate thing, no matter how beautiful the house is, building whatever you guys are dealing with, five flat, 10 flat, whatever units is, how important is the foundation?

Brandon:
Yeah, key.

Tim:
Extremely important. So what we did was we always emphasize the foundation, because no matter how… Yeah, everybody wants an athlete to jump higher. They want them to run faster. They want them to move quicker. Well, if the foundation isn’t good, those things are never going to happen. So my first goal with him and all the individuals I’ve worked with is, let’s minimize your injuries. Let’s develop the foundation so it’s so strong. And I worked on different areas that nobody would pay attention to. We would literally spend 20 minutes after each workout just working on the muscles that stabilize the ankles. Because if you get sprained ankles, you’re not going to be able to perform well. Groin strains, hamstring issues, all these little things, all the nuances that nobody want to pay attention to, we really take each finger and work. And obviously Michael had these massive hands to be able to do things with the ball, but the bigger the hands were, the more susceptible they were to getting hit and the fingers were getting jammed. So doing exercises to minimize those things.

Tim:
You know you’re not going to be able to eliminate any kind of injuries, but able to decrease those chances will automatically make you a better player, will automatically make you a better athlete. Then once we are able to understand those things and address those, now let’s work on making you run fast. Let’s make you jump higher. Let’s make you be able to cut a little bit faster. But again, with those things, I’ve never driven a car that just has gas, that just says, go, go, go. It has brakes too. So one of the things I know a lot of individuals don’t pay attention to is, if you need to go, you also have to have equal amount of stopping power. And that was another thing that we really put emphasis on. Say, “Okay, Michael, before we work on making you,” and this is with all my athletes, “jump higher, well, let’s work on absorbing the force first of the height of that jump.”

Tim:
So what we would do, everybody now trains where they jump up on boxes. We did the opposite and I still do this to all my [inaudible 00:21:35], “Let’s jump down. Let’s teach you how to absorb the force first.” Because you have to absorb the force more in your game than you actually have to do to apply it on the maximum level. How many times do you see an athlete in any sport, in football, that a quarterback uses his maximum strength to throw a football or basketball? He uses his maximum vertical to shoot a shot or go out for a dunk or go out for a rebound. They don’t. So let’s work on the brakes on the maximum level, on the level in between, on a level a little bit lower, and that will translate into a better athlete.

David:
Yeah. When you think about the times when in our own games or when we’re watching athletes, when they’re playing the best is when they’ve been consistently doing it. But the beginning of the season is never the best stuff to watch, regardless of what the sport is. It’s when they hit their rhythm, and the best teams are trying to hit their rhythm going into the playoffs, basically. They want everything meshing. So that’s a really smart thing to highlight, that preventing injury, preventing maybe mental burnout, that might be the equivalent when it comes to other goals people have, if you just go 16 hours a day, you never hit the brakes, you’re going to hit that point where now you just don’t do anything, you’re out of the game. Your skills weakened. It takes you awhile to get back into it. A lot of success is just that consistency. I think that’s what you’re getting at Tim, is you recognize in order for Michael to be great, he’s got to be doing this consistently.

Tim:
How many times do you guys get this question, all right? When you’re at your seminars, you doing your podcast. What’s the one thing… Boy, I wish it was that simple.

Brandon:
Right.

David:
[crosstalk 00:23:19], yeah.

Tim:
Yeah. Before we got organized on this thing, how many different things that we go through? Hey, this is going to be the finger count here. You may see the computer go up and down. You have this, you have that. Yeah. You guys just didn’t say, “This is the one thing that’s going to make this podcast [inaudible 00:23:35].” And people always looking for that just like, they just want to go to that one. It’s not that easy. If it was that easy, everybody would winning, everybody would be doing these things. It’s the consistency of doing things over and over again and doing them with a purpose. You can fall into a routine. The pandemic, it forced a lot of individuals to change their routines, almost everyone.

Tim:
And for some, that wasn’t a good thing. For others, they needed to do that because they were in the wrong routine. And a lot of times your wrong routine isn’t a physical routine, it’s a mental thing. It’s how you think, it’s how you approach things. I dislike it when you ask an individual, “How are you doing today?” “I’m okay,” or, “I’m good.” Is that what you’re going to settle for? Are you really going to settle for okay? Are you going to really settle for good? Because if that’s the majority of where your mind is going to be, those are the results you’re going to get. You’re going to get okay results. You’re going to get good results. When somebody asks me how my day’s going, I’ll say I’m having a great day, or I’m having a fantastic day, because the pressure I put on myself to have that great day is a constant reminder to other individuals. And when you tell people you’re having a great day, it uplifts those individuals too. And you could be having the shittiest day out there.

David:
Something that is fascinating to me about Michael Jordan, he’s just one of those people that no one ever gets tired of watching him. There’s something about that human being that is captivating. It just draws your attention. And it’s hard to put your finger on sometimes.

Brandon:
Even when he’s playing with Looney Tunes, [crosstalk 00:25:22].

David:
But I noticed this when we watched The Last Dance, right? You got to revisit all those cool memories that you had. He was not always the most popular person with his teammates and with the people that he played for, and I’m imagining with other people in the league. You never hear a person that doesn’t say I did respect Michael Jordan. I mean, I think a hundred percent of human beings would say I respected him more than anyone, but he wasn’t always liked. And as I watched it, I was struggling with this feeling of, “Well, in order to be that good at something, does that mean I’m not going to be liked by more and more people?” Now, I’m probably going to be loved and esteemed by the people who are trying to do the same thing as me, okay?

David:
I bet you, Scottie Pippen got along really good with Michael Jordan because in a way their work ethic was similar. Their goals were similar. But if you’re that person who just wants to be in the league and you don’t really care if you win a championship or not, Michael’s probably driving you nuts. Because he’s just on you [inaudible 00:26:14]. You’re effecting his chance to accomplish his goals and he’s going to elevate you to where you’re at, right? I wanted to ask you, Tim, do you see this same phenomenon in other things in life where somebody who’s really set out to accomplish something great has a hard time getting along with other people, even if that’s not their intention?

Tim:
Yes. You know what? Again, we got a great topic about this in the book. Winning isn’t heartless, but you’ll use your heart less. Yeah. Your mind has to be stronger than your feelings. Michael’s mind was about winning, all right? And sometimes you have to alienate people’s feelings about that. You remember what he said. He goes, “Winning has a price. Leadership has a price.” I will say every morning we have a decision, you can either get out of bed or not get out of bed, all right? Your mind makes you get out of bed, your feelings tell you to stay in bed, right? Feelings make you overthink things, you over-analyze, you’re like, “Oh, I don’t know if this is right. I may hurt this person. I don’t know if this is the right time to do this.” You get all those things. Feelings make you overthink things. Your mind makes decisions. And majority of the people don’t want to make decisions, they want to make suggestions.

Brandon:
Yeah.

Tim:
And your mind it can handle disappointment and failure. You learn from it. You forget about it and you move on. What do your feelings do? You hold onto it. The one thing the most successful individuals, sports, business, teaching, whatever you want to say, they have the shortest memories. They don’t forget, but they don’t constantly think about it. And if you want to get that end result, if you want to win over and over again, you’re most likely not going to be the most liked individual out there. But would you rather have more victories and more wins, or would you rather have more friends? And if you decide to have more friends, those friends combined are going to have less victories and less wins, because the people that understand you, they’re going to be like, “Oh, I get it.”

David:
The definition of winning really plays a role in this. Because if we’re talking about just a basketball games, it’s easy to write that off and say, “Well, there’s other things in life more important.” But I wanted to ask you about, we had Patrick Bet-David on our podcast, and I was listening, just yesterday I think, to a video he made that was talking about you and a conversation that you had with your daughter. And you can correct me if I’m wrong, but to sum it up, basically your daughter was watching you getting ready to leave, and she said, “Daddy, why do you have to go?” And you said, “Well, daddy has to put food on the table.” And that you heard one of the hardest things you’ve ever heard of human being say. And she said, “Well, daddy, if I eat less, can you stay home more?”

David:
And we’re talking about feelings. I can only imagine what that would do to any good father. Just had rip through somebody and bring them to their knees with guilt. But you still made the decision I’m going because I’ve committed to Michael Jordan. He’s committed to something great. He needs me. This is the right decision for me, my family, for our future. I think many men would let that break them. That, that feeling of guilt would be so powerful that they would say, “I don’t want to do it.” And what I thought was monumentally insightful was that Patrick said, your daughter says, “I’m glad you went.” That the example you set for her, while in the moment she didn’t like it, that helped her become a better version of herself, which was what your ultimate goal was. That’s my interpretation of how this went down. I’d like to get your opinion on-

Tim:
That’s exactly what it is. I mean, obviously, if this was in a movie, or be a feel good story, dad would unpack his stuff and give a big hug and we’d go out and go get some ice cream or something like that. It’s not going to happen. And then she would know that’s not genuine. You have to be who you are. So this is who dad is. And it was like, “If I want to sacrifice this time with her now, there better be wins for all of us down the line.” And so if you tell somebody, “Hey, I need two years or whatever it is, whatever you’re doing.” Well, that two years you better deliver in those two years, and it better be beneficial for everybody. I mean, I had the conversation with her afterwards and she goes, “Dad, I get it. I understand.”

Tim:
And that was the most rewarding thing for me, because I always thought that she was like, “Oh.” You know what? She’s not going to understand this thing. Because she understood what the benefit… She could see the benefits of it now. And I’m just not talking about from a financial standpoint, just how happy I was, her mindset, what I taught her, understanding what the sacrifices were, and to tell her, and this was so important, “Listen, you got to perform with energy. Too many people out there perform with emotions. And when they perform with emotions, things don’t turn out well.” Think about every decision you’ve made where your feelings have been stronger than your mind, usually didn’t turn out too well.

David:
Yeah. So that’s what I wanted to ask you. You’ve got a lot of experience in order to help the Kobes and the Dwyane Wades and the Michael Jordans. This was something you had to really dig deep in to understand.

Tim:
Yes.

David:
When you’re facing that moment of temptation, when you want to give up on your teammates, because they’re not giving it down, or you want to just say, “Hey, let’s hang, we’re down by 14, is the fourth quarter, let’s just let it go.” What advice do you have for the person who doesn’t have a sports background, but who struggles with something like mom guilt, where they know I need to go to work, I need to show my kids what a good work ethic is, and they’re looking to me to see where do I come from and who am I. If mommy’s a hard worker, then they’re going to be a hard worker. If mommy makes excuses, they’re going to make excuses. But the feelings are terrible. When they go out that door, they leave their kids behind. Can you share just in that moment of truth what you do to make the right call?

Tim:
There’s always a battlefield that’s going on in your head. And there’s bombs that are busting all the time. You got there’s the anger, there’s a fear, there’s anxiety of leaving your kids. There’s your adrenaline. There’s all this other stuff that’s going on in there. You got to understand who’s controlling that battlefield up in here. Is it you controlling that battlefield or is it guilt controlling that battlefield? Because if guilt’s controlling that battlefield, is it your guilt or is it somebody else’s guilt? And if that’s the case, you’re never going to leave the house, you’re never going to set that example for your children to say, “Hey, society requires you not only to participate, it requires you to complete a task, it requires you to finish, and it also requires you to win.” Too many individuals confuse finishing with winning. There’s a huge difference between the two.

Tim:
If you go out and run a marathon and you’re not a professional marathon runner, the chances of you actually winning that are zero. They’re just like, “Hey, he’s not even…” People like to say, “Oh, I might have a chance.” No, you have no chance. But the example that you’re setting for those individuals is, if I finish this, it allows me to win at something else. So when you walk out that door, all right, that’s your finish, now, go get your win, and bring back that win home, all right? And then too many people stop at finish. When they stop at finish, they think, “Okay, I just closed. I just got out of this door. Oh, I’ve finished. I got here. I have to be able to put the thoughts of my children behind me.” And now you’ve got all these minds, you’ve got all this battlefield, all these stuff going on their mind that are exploding all the time that doesn’t allow you to win.

David:
At the same time, I’m guessing though, Tim, if you harness that, that made your work with Michael that much more powerful, because like you said, I’m leaving my five-year-old at home to be here. We’re getting after it. We’re not half ass on our way through a workout if I’m leaving my kids behind. And I think that when there’s a power in that, that you realize how valuable your time is when your emotions have been stirred up. I don’t really know how to say what I’m going to do. [crosstalk 00:35:37]?

Tim:
I’m going to tell you right now what’s you’re going on right now, all right? And how you say this? And again, this is a thing that’s in the book. And I would say the language of winning is completely different to these exceptional people that win all the time. When you’re in that thought process of constantly winning, it’s the gamble on yourself, is knowing that you can gamble on yourself, and when you have the ability to gamble on yourself, you never lack confidence. You never lack that confidence to get that win, to deliver that end result. And with Michael, what you mentioned earlier, think about this, all right? What we do, and I do this with every individual I work with, from the biggest CEOs to the athletes, we don’t manage time, we manage focus. And David, you just said it, if I’m leaving that house, all right? In order to get that end result for my client, we need to manage focus. I’m here, you’re here, let’s get after it, all right?

Tim:
Too many individuals manage time. And when you manage time, the day could drag on forever, you’re trying to do all these different things. Think about it, when you’re sitting there and you get into that zone, or you get into that space and you look at the clock and you’re like, “Wow, I’ve been at this for four or five hours.” And you lose all aspect of what time is. When you’re not focused, you’ll always keep looking at your clock. Or you going, “Man, I got eight hours to do this project. Then next I only got four, then I got two.” Then all of a sudden at one you’re trying to finish it off. And what is your end result? That’s not your end result because what I said, remember, when you leave the house, that’s your finish. Are you coming back with a win? If you’re only managing time, the chances of you coming back with that win are extremely slim. If you manage focus, it increases that percentage for you to be able to do that. And with each win and each time you manage focus, you understand focus, you increase your confidence level.

David:
Hey, we are talking a lot about winning. Obviously, the book is called Winning, and so we’re talking about winning. But on the flip side of winning is losing, right? I’m curious if we can talk about the people you’ve worked with, whether it’s the athletes, the Michael Jordans, the Kobe Bryant, or maybe it’s CEOs or people you’ve worked with, what do you notice different when they lose versus the average person when they lose? Is there a different trait that you find?

Tim:
Yeah. So, right, Michael has this great quote. He goes, “I never lost a game. I just ran out of time.” Because I never lost a game.

Brandon:
[crosstalk 00:39:06], I love it.

Tim:
Yeah. He goes, “I just ran out of time.” Listen, winning does not belong to you, it belongs to someone else. And majority of the time you’re going to lose. Winning has no loyalty to you. You can’t win without losing, all right? But what I said earlier about having the shortest memories, not accepting winning but learning from it and say, “Hey, how can I do this to get better?” I know you guys love sports stories. So here’s one that very few people know. I have talked about it before. At the end of every basketball game, you get a stat sheet. They put them in a locker room, they give it to the coaches. It has how many minutes you played, how many rebounds used, how many offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, points, how many shots you took, free throws, assists, all that stuff.

Tim:
So when we were working with Michael, when he’d come out of the locker room, I would have a different stat sheet for him, right? He was like, “I’m supposed to score points. I was supposed to make my teammates better. I’m supposed to get assists. I’m supposed to get rebounds. What am I not supposed to do? I’m not supposed to miss free throws. I’m not supposed to miss a defensive assignment. I’m not supposed to turn the ball over. I’m not supposed to make stupid fouls.” Because he was like, “Don’t tell me the things that I’m supposed to do if I do those things still doesn’t guarantee me a win. But the things that guarantee a loss, if I can minimize those things and learn from those things, the chances of me winning are so much better.” You have to learn to lose in order to win on a consistent basis.

Tim:
But what’s happened now is you’ve seen this in society, and I disagree with this, but that’s my viewpoint here. You will go to events, and this was before the pandemic and I’m sure it’ll happen afterwards, the participation trophy is larger than the winning trophy. That the person that participates gets acknowledged more for just participating. So these individuals don’t want to participate. If you’re constantly in the perpetual thing about losing, you’re just in life to participate, we’re not here just to participate, we’re here to succeed, we’re here to have victories, we’re here to win, we’re here to make a better life for ourselves. But in order to do those things, you got to put some work behind it.

Brandon:
I’m wondering when you about consulting with business owners, CEOs, entrepreneurs, things like that, are there common problems that pretty much everyone… Everybody has the same three or four problems, are they really diverse? The people you work with, what are those things that’s everybody seems to struggle with these same things? How do they overcome those? How do you coach people to overcome them?

Tim:
Well, the biggest thing that these individuals struggle with is balance. There’s not a single individual I know out there, successful individual, that hasn’t had to deal with the issue of balance that’s brought up, all right? The story that you brought up about my daughter, that’s a balance thing. Listen, winning creates imbalances. And what we try to do is we try to create somebody else’s balance. Balance is different, you don’t find it. You don’t find balance, you create it, and it’s different for each individual. You have to create your own balance. Now what looks as a balanced life for somebody else may not be balanced for you. And it’s funny, once you become successful, people love to say I live a balanced life. Well, don’t tell me about now, tell me about 10 years ago, tell me about 15 years ago. How were you balanced back then? And what happens when you hear those words from individuals, well you need more balance in life. So what do we do? We add more stuff to the scale. We try to juggle more. We try to do more stuff.

Tim:
Well, how do you get closer to balance? It’s not the addition you take away. You get rid of the unessentials. I always say time for everything equals time for nothing. Now you don’t want the scales to be totally, you don’t want one thing all the way up, and you want all the other thing all the way down, but it’s never going to be a balanced scale. Let’s take business, for example, all right? I love to use this one all the time. Who in business wants zero sales? I always ask individuals, raise your hand. Nobody raised their hands, all right? Who wants zero money? Nobody raises their hand. Who wants zero success? Nobody raises their hand. Who wants zero happiness? Nobody raises their hand. Well, what’s the number on a perfectly balanced scale?

Brandon:
Zero.

Tim:
It’s zero, all right? So what does that mean? You’re settling for average, you’re settling for what everybody else goes with. Your balance of happiness may be different than somebody else’s balance of happiness. Your happiness balance may be higher and your success balance may be lower, or it could be vice versa. You have those individuals that you talk about, the different brokers and so forth, they’re maniacal about making the phone calls, making the details, making all that other stuff, and they never see their friends and never see… That’s their balance right now. Now just because your balance is the way it is in it’s twenties, in it’s thirties, it doesn’t mean it’s going to change in it’s forties and fifties, or it’s going to be the same. That’s why I said you create your own balance. And I’ve noticed the most successful CEOs, that’s something they all struggle with.

Brandon:
Do you see a large correlation between happiness and winning? Like the people you’ve worked with, was Michael Jordan happy?

Tim:
I do. I’ve had this thing and I said, “Hey…” I ask all my athletes, everybody I coach, I was like, “Describe winning in one word.” And you get all these answers. The best answer I got was from Kobe. He said, “Winning is everything.” And I said, “Elaborate on that a little bit more.” He goes, “Well, how do you feel when you win?” “I feel unbelievable.” “How do you feel when your kids win?” “I feel unbelievable.” “How do you feel when your family wins?” “The same, unbelievable.” Your friends, people that you root for, people that you helped, all right? That feeling of winning, you can’t describe it. It’s like that drug that’s only available on the black market, and you’ll go through things over and over again just to get that high for yourself, and for your friends, and for your family. It just doesn’t stop.

Tim:
Those individuals, and even when you have CEOs that “retire”, they never stopped competing, they never stopped thinking about winning. Michael winning… I don’t remember what year he retired, if you want to call it the Washington Wizards years, whatever it is. His shoe outsells the top five Nike top selling shoes combined. And he hasn’t laced one on a pair of a basketball, he still wants to win. The late great Kobe Bryant, when he was done playing basketball, he won an Oscar. He wrote best-selling children’s books. He was getting big into the movie and the entertainment industry. The competitive nature, wanting to win, is in all of us. We’re just afraid to show it because we’re worried about how somebody else is going to perceive us, because it’s easier to be perceived in the middle of the pack with average and good than it is with exceptional and winners. The conversation is completely different.

Brandon:
BiggerPockets, in our world like this real estate investing, we talk a lot about financial freedom, right? Being able to pay your bills with passive income so you can sit on a beach, right? That’s like this dream. But what I was noticing and I talk a lot about is, anybody who can actually achieve that, anybody I’ve ever known who’s achieved that, that amazing like, “Well, I got all this money coming in now,” they can’t do that. If you can achieve financial freedom, you will never take financial freedom. You’ll never take sitting on a beach forever, because you have to keep winning. If you have the power to win, you have to keep winning, or you’re miserable.

Tim:
Hey, Brandon. This is funny. I’m glad you said that because people always say, “Oh, you need to unwind.”

Brandon:
Yeah.

Tim:
No, I like to be wound up. For to me be unwind it doesn’t feel good. If I want to be unwind, I want to be unwound for a little bit, and I’m going to unwind the way I want to be on. But I enjoy being wound up. That’s my wind for me, and it’s just exactly what we said. Listen, you can have that. You’re like, “Okay, I have passive income here. Well, I’d like to have more passive income here. I’d like to have even more. I want to continue to feel that area of winning.” And what also happens is those individuals, they know how quickly things can change in a moment like that. So that fear of things that can change them, doesn’t paralyze them, it actually keeps them going. It’s part of their fuel.

Tim:
They may have fear, but they never have doubt. There’s a huge difference between the two. You can have fear that, “Hey, you know what? I don’t know if I should do this or not.” And everybody has that. But you’d never have doubted the outcome. Because once you have doubted the outcome, what I talked about earlier, now I know your confidence is starting to waiver in yourself or into your team. Kobe would take these shit. He’d have games where he’d shoot two for 20, and they would ask him, “Well, why do you keep shooting?” “Because,” he goes, “if I stop shooting, people would know I lost my confidence.” And he still wants to take the game winning shot during that time, because they don’t overthink those things. How many individual… What Dave was saying earlier, you have all these buyers, you have all these things going on. How many times have numerous individuals, maybe the same individual over and over again lost numerous deals because they overthought?

David:
And I think that, when you look at guys who are great, who are at the end of their careers, I feel like a lot of them their biggest fear is, “If I didn’t leave it all on the court, I would have so much regret now.” And there’s some wisdom in that. When you look at some of the guys that came into the league really talented, but let distractions bother them. Like Andrew Bynum in football. I’m a Raiders fan, we had JaMarcus Russell.

Tim:
Oh my goodness.

David:
Right? He’s got this short window for greatness that he couldn’t get focused, like what you said, he couldn’t harness his focus in that past, and now he doesn’t have another chance. That was it. And so there’s a massive amount of pain and regret that that person has, because they didn’t want to win enough, I would say. So that’s the counter-argument we don’t really hear. When you hear people say, “Oh, you’re obsessed with winning. All you want to do is accomplish this goal. You don’t think about anything else.” There could be times where that does need to get brought up, but there’s also the fact that… Like how many people, Brandon, in 2010 should have bought rental properties and didn’t? And now that window’s past. There’s not another 2010 right now.

Tim:
Yeah.

David:
And if you had the mentality back then of I’ll do whatever it takes, you would have made millions and millions of dollars at one of the best markets efforts to buy property. And so, I’m just saying that as a counterpoint to the people that would hear this and say, “Well, I don’t want to be a Michael Jordan.” Well, you don’t need to be a Michael Jordan if you don’t want it as bad as he wanted it. But for Michael who wants it that bad, he would be in pain to not pursue it. He would be in pain to not play the game that way. To not give everything would have caused that person more regret. And that’s probably something that isn’t understood by a lot of people.

Tim:
It’s not. But it’s understood by the people that win on a consistent basis. You don’t have to have that conversation with those individuals. Listen, the cliches that are out there, those things actually hold people back from winning, and people love to lean on those cliches. This is one that I have people use all the time, showing up is half the battle. No, showing up as none of the battle. What do you mean? Okay, winning shows up every day, so should you. It doesn’t care about yesterday, it doesn’t care about today, it doesn’t care about tomorrow, all right? Now your wins, you may not be as maniacal as Michael, and Kobe, and Dwayne, and these individuals, as you know, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and all that other stuff, but you can still win in other areas of your life. It could be raising your kids. It could be for the charitable organization. It could be for the pet rescue that you work for. It could be to have the most beautiful garden out there when people walk by and you’re like, “Yeah, that…” That’s your level of winning. That’s your definition of winning.

Tim:
And I tell you, I don’t care what people say, they always turn this into a financial thing, but there’s people that win in every form and every way of life, that’s their win. And that’s different to everybody else. You’ll have people that, listen, they don’t want to have a bunch of real estate properties. They don’t want to, for their win is to have… They may not even want to buy because they don’t want that. I rent a place.

Brandon:
Yep.

Tim:
All right? I have a car. I have a steady job. I get paid vacation. That’s their win. And people who are on the other end, I could never do that. But that’s their win. And we are not to judge other people’s win. What did Michael say? Listen, you never won anything, so I had to teach you how to win. And the only way I know how to win was my way. You don’t have to like it, but look at the end result. You don’t have to like the way… People may not like the way you guys do business. Well, they got to respect the results.

Brandon:
I’m so glad you brought that up because, again, I think people do think when we’re talking winning, their mind goes to financial or sports like that. But I might not be as… I’m not Michael Jordan when it comes to basketball. I don’t even know if I’m Michael Jordan when it comes to my real estate business, but I want to be Michael Jordan when it comes to my family, to my daughter Rosie, my son Wilder. I want to be that intent on being the best, because I’m never going to look back at it in my life and go, “Oh, wish I didn’t try so hard to be a good father.” I’m never going to say that. My happiness in life comes from winning. And yet I love winning in business level and in that, but there’s so many areas. And again, know your win. Where do you want to win at? And then act like somebody who wants to win.

Tim:
Act like it, live like it, have the actions behind it, and also have the results behind it. You have to have the results. If this is going to be your win, you have to have the results. And it’s crazy because when raising kids, you don’t know if you did the right thing until your kids are about 40. If you get to stick around that long, then you be like, “Hey, you know what? I did do a pretty good job.” Until then you have no idea. Talking about waiting to see the end results for the win, that’s a long time.

Brandon:
Yeah. So good, man. Well, I want to respect your time. I don’t want to take up all your entire day here, but I do want to take a minute to talk about the book real quick. So when I read your first book, Relentless… That was your first book, right?

Tim:
Yes sir.

Brandon:
I mean that one before that. It was one of the most recommended books to me from a lot of people. And I read it actually while I was running on the treadmill every day, I listened to an audible. And it was unreal, it was so good. And then I hear you coming out with this book, I jumped on it. I would say I like it even better than Relentless. So can we talk real quick the difference? Yeah, I loved Winning. So what’s the difference? What was Relentless about then what did go into Winning?

Tim:
It’s a continuing conversation. That’s the easiest way to describe it. It’s a continuing conversation from Relentless to Winning. But the one thing, not everybody can have the relentless mindset. It should be for everyone, but it’s not.

Brandon:
Yeah.

Tim:
But winning is for everyone. In some form of your life, in some aspect of what you’re doing, there are wins available to you on a daily basis. The feeling, the euphoria of winning is in all of us.

Brandon:
Yeah.

Tim:
And I don’t want to see people go through life and never have a chance to experience that. They have this all, greatness is in all of us. Well, I believe winning is in all of us too. But I want it to be more than in just all of us, I want you to be able to bring it out so you can see what it feels like. You can actually see it, you can meet it, you can greet it, you can understand it. A set of it just staying inside.

Brandon:
Well, yeah. Like I said, the book is phenomenal. It’s called Winning: The Unforgiving Race to Greatness. I recommend everyone pick up a copy of it. I’m going to go to the famous four here in a second. But David, any questions you want to hit before we move on to the last segment?

David:
No, my my mind is so blown right now, Tim. This is one of the best interviews we’ve done, man. I appreciate you.

Tim:
I appreciate. And Brandon.

Brandon:
Yeah.

Tim:
Thank you for saying that. Because one of the things about writing this book with my coauthor and my agent Shari Wenk, was can we write a book that’s not as good as Relentless, but it’s better than Relentless? And that was winning for us. So thank you for saying that. That means a lot to me. It means a lot to both of us. Thank you. And also David saying this is one of your great, now I don’t know if you just tell that to all your people, because I’m going to go back and listen to that.

David:
[crosstalk 00:59:20].

Tim:
I’m going to go back and listen to the whole thing. I’m going to say, “Man, I can.” No, I can tell. Listen, although I could say, “Yeah, you know what? He is from Fresno. Now I get it.”

David:
I was thinking something, this is my last comment, that when… So Tim wrote a book better than Relentless, which was winning for him, right? But what that really means is that I win too, and Brandon wins too, because now we get to read a book that makes it easier for us to win. And what winning was for Tim is different than winning for Brandon. We just acknowledged that. However, Tim’s way of winning made it easier for Brandon to winning the thing Brandon cares about. And really, if you think about it, that’s what causes upward spiral where everyone’s benefiting everybody, and the world’s becoming a better place. That’s what winning does.

Tim:
Yes sir. Thank you, David. Listen, if I get to edit the book again, I’m going to put that in there. I might even credit you for it. Thank you so much.

David:
I love it, man.

Tim:
Brandon and David, thank you.

Brandon:
Yeah. Thank you. Before we get out of here, I do got quick four questions for you. Just a quick fire, rapid section we call the famous four.

Tim:
I [crosstalk 01:00:28] this.

Brandon:
Yeah, you will.

Tim:
But we go ahead. All right, I’ll just give you guys the [crosstalk 01:00:30].

Brandon:
This are just super simple. Famous four questions that we ask every guest every week. So we’re going to find you. First one, is there a habit or trait you’re currently working on improving in your own life?

Tim:
Yes. I need to let other individuals finish their sentences.

David:
I think we talked about this with Ed Mylett and he said something similar. It’s hard when you know [crosstalk 01:00:53].

Brandon:
Love it. All right. Number two, David.

David:
Number two, do you have a favorite business book?

Tim:
Do I have a favorite business book? Yeah, listen, it’s this up and coming author that it’s been eight years before he wrote his next book, and his name is Tim Grover and his coauthor is Shari Wenk. It’s called Winning.

David:
Oh, man.

Tim:
That’s my favorite business book. Hey, you’re going to ask Michael Jordan who his favorite player is?

David:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Yep.

Brandon:
I was just thinking that this news about an eight year hiatus and a new book coming out, the last time I was this excited is when Michael Jordan was coming back from the [crosstalk 01:01:37] on a jersey again. [crosstalk 01:01:39] vengeance.

Tim:
Which I was there for. I was there during the whole baseball thing.

Brandon:
Man, that’s cool. I’m sure a business analogy would get thrown in there as well. But we won’t get there today. Let’s go to question number…

David:
That’s a crypto currency. All these people getting into crypto is like Michael Jordan going to play baseball.

Tim:
Yeah.

David:
It’s not going to go well. Okay, next question. What are some of your hobbies?

Tim:
As weird as this may sound, you want to see other people do well, you want to see other people win, because I can’t even explain it. It’s no longer becomes a hobby, it becomes a way of life. I work out on a regular basis too, so maybe you could call that a hobby, but that’s more, I would say, a borderline addiction.

David:
It’s a good thing to be addicted to.

Tim:
I tell individuals the same thing that all the time, we’re all addicted to something. Any individual that says they’re not addicted to something, they’re addicted to lying.

Brandon:
I mean, you got to get your dopamine somewhere. You’re going to get it in the weight room or you’re going to get it in the meth lab.

Tim:
Yeah.

Brandon:
Right? You’re either going to get it from being a narcissist or watching other people win.

Tim:
Yes.

Brandon:
So you’re addicted to the right thing.

Tim:
Yes.

Brandon:
Yeah. Now, that’s good stuff. Our last question, from me, of the day, what do you think separates successful entrepreneurs from those who give up, fail, or never get started, if you had to really pinpoint one or two things?

Tim:
If I had to pin one or two things, I would say the successful ones understand that there’s no finish line. Everyone’s always looking for that finish line, all right? There is no finish line. And I’ll leave you with this, and I know a lot of entrepreneurs and these gurus on social media and so forth always tell you, you have time. And I tell the story in the book, no matter how many times I tell you, it’s extremely difficult for me. I used to tell Kobe all the time, “We don’t have time.”

David:
Yeah. But I’d say Tim, from your perspective, and for those that don’t know Kobe Bryant passed away in a horrific helicopter accident, that just was very unexpected, I think the fact that you can know that you gave Kobe the best advice anyone could, seeing how his life turned out, is that you’re not going to have that regret.

Tim:
Yeah.

David:
Because if you wouldn’t have told Kobe that, and now you’d be carrying this pain, right?

Tim:
I totally agree. Even though you’re absolutely right, David, it’s still hard for me to say. It’s hard for me to not pick up the phone and text him and be able to call him, or just see what he’s doing and seeing what’s going on. But thank you for understanding.

David:
Kobe was a winner, there’s no way around it. He just was addicted to winning at a level maybe I’d never seen in my life. And Kobe won with his premature passing because he gave all the rest of us this understanding that you don’t know how long you have. You don’t know when a horrific injury is going to come, or cancer is going to come, or the environment is going to shift. And so you got to play every game like it’s the fourth quarter, and there’s 15 seconds left [crosstalk 01:04:55].

Tim:
Yes you do. Because if you don’t, somebody else is.

David:
Well, thank you Tim. I mean, this has been a very emotionally moving. I frankly think a lot of people listening to this have had their minds blown and their hearts moved as well. So from the Jimmy Valvano perspective, this was a great podcast. We laughed, we cried, and we thought. So, thank you for that.

Tim:
Thank you [crosstalk 01:05:21], I appreciate it.

David:
For everyone that wants to know more about you, Tim, where can they find out?

Tim:
The website is timgrover.com. Instagram is @timgrover.

David:
All right, dude. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate having you.

Tim:
Gentlemen. Thank you so much. This was a blast. Thank you. A blast in a good way. It really was. You guys make it real easy. Now I can understand why you’ve had all those guests on there. Ed is a very good friend of mine. Patrick is a very good friend of mine. I get it.

David:
Awesome.

Tim:
You guys are exceptional at what you do. Continue to be even more exceptional.

David:
Thank you, man. Super nice.

Brandon:
Thanks Tim. All right. That was our interview with Tim Grover. Man, I remember when I told you we were getting Tim Grover on the podcast, and you were like, “What? Really?” You were super pumped, and now I know why. You would watch a lot more interviews that he’s done on other people’s shows than I had. And he is a phenomenal speaker, and just such good information. So anyway.

David:
Tim is one of those people that function in a mentor role in my life without ever knowing it. I love what he says. I don’t know, I’m on a frequency and Tim is on that same frequency. Everything he says just hits me. It resonates really well when it comes to pursuing excellence and winning and not making excuses. And then getting addicted to that feeling of overcoming obstacles. Everything we’re talking about on the show, Tim’s just been doing this at a super high level. So I’m thrilled. And I really appreciate you bringing me on the podcast where we can have conversations like that.

Brandon:
Awesome, man. Well, how do you think this applies to real estate investors, like people listening this show that want to build a rental portfolio? I mean, we talked about a lot of stuff today and there were more analogies than a person could probably ever even keep track of. But how does this apply to real estate? What can they take from this?

David:
I think a big one would be the objection that I don’t want to be… Money is not everything to me. I don’t want to have everything be only about real estate or success, I want to have a balanced life. Well, that’s great. That’s what winning is to you. And I think that Tim said something, people with passive income want more passive income, right? And that’s true. However, there are some people that maybe they don’t want more income, but they want to be more passive. And that’s what winning is to them.

Brandon:
Yeah.

David:
You’re making 30 grand a month of passive income and your goal is to become more and more passive with less and less going on. And that’s what winning is. Other people want to make more wealth to be able to impact others, give to charity, be more influential. That’s what winning is to them. Money isn’t the goal, it’s the means to their goal. And so I just think there isn’t really a scenario whether you’re into fitness, whether you’re into being a better father, being a better friend, or whatever it may be that this information doesn’t benefit you.

Brandon:
Yeah, so good. I think one thing to keep in mind as well is, he touches on a number of times, it’s this concept of like, don’t just know what you want, but know what it’s going to take to get it, because that’s the real measure of whether or not you should pursue something or not. It’s not, do you want a million dollars? Do you want to be a millionaire? Do you want to have a hundred units? Do you want to flip a dozen houses a year? It’s, are you willing to do what it takes to do that? Because you shouldn’t get into flipping houses or rentals or bar if you’re not willing to win at it, right? Because then you’re just going to lose, and it’s going to suck, and it’s going to be terrible, right? So we’re only doing this to win some results. So are you willing to do the actions needed for that?

Brandon:
And the answer honestly, sadly might be no. And for many people, you should not get into real estate because you’re not willing to do what it takes to win. You should just stick with your 9:00 to 5:00, set aside money in the stock market, let it go for 40 years, and you’ll retire fine anyway. But if you’re willing to do what it takes to win at real estate, then you will win at real estate. So that was probably the biggest lesson I could pull out of this.

David:
I think that’s a great point anyway. Think about that one, but just do you want it bad enough to be the best, right? So for most people, the answer is no, you shouldn’t be out there. Brandon, should you be or you and I should we become cage fighters, okay? If I wanted it bad enough, even at our age, we could probably get proficient in that, but I don’t want it bad enough to put the work in that it would have to get there, and to take on the downside of that endeavor. So I’m not going to become a cage fighter and that’s a win, because the worst thing you could ever do is get in the cage with somebody who wants to fight and you don’t want to fight, okay?

David:
And there’s many things in life. Like the Bible says, “Count the cost before you go take on an endeavor.” Make sure that you are willing to see this to the end, that you have enough money to build that property that you’re going to build. You don’t want it to be halfway built and then run out of money. There’s a lot of people out there that are just starting endeavor after endeavor. They’re building all these bridges, but they didn’t count the cost. They ran out of juice before they got to the end. Find your bridge, find your fire, right? Follow that and know the things that you should be following, you’ll want it so bad that you will do whatever it takes.

Brandon:
I appreciate that about you. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you that. I’m going to say it publicly right now. You are relentless, to use Tim’s other book title, and you are good at winning. So keep it up, man. You’re an inspiration to a lot of us.

David:
Thanks, Brandon, that’s very nice of you to say.

Brandon:
Well, you want to get us out of here?

David:
I’ll get us out of here. This is David Greene for Brandon, my win twin turner signing off.

Outro:
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