Book Report: Relentless
Elevator Pitch:
You may not know the name Tim Grover, but if you're a fan of sports (and of winners) you know his clients: Dwayne Wade, Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon, even the great Michael Jordan trusted Grover to keep them physically and mentally ready to excel at the highest level possible, year-in and year-out. Grover's Relentless is a gritty, messy, "school of hard knocks" style book, and is a bit tough to put into a box. It's not a playbook, not an encyclopedia and certainly not self-help.
Let's turn to the text itself for a few examples:
Relentless is about never being satisfied, always driving to be the best and then getting even better. It's about finding the next gear to get you to that level, even when the next level doesn't exist.
Look, I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist or a social worker. I didn't sit in a classroom for decades doing studies and collecting data to analyze and writing papers on the theories of excellence and elite performance. But I guarantee you that everything I know, everything in this book, comes from unlimited access to some of the most excellent and elite performers in the world; I understand how they think, how they learn, how they succeed and fail... what drives them to be relentless. (6)
If you can willingly suspend disbelief and forgive a seeming lack of substance on the surface, Relentless allows you a 232-page glimpse into the boring, exhausting and painful world of those who spend their lives 100% focused on becoming truly legendary.
Who should read this?
- Sports fans who like hearing how the Kobes and MJs of the world created their legacies
- Motivation junkies who like a little abuse: Grover does not mince words, and that's kinda the whole point of his approach
- Anyone 100% committed to being the very best in their industry (and has already made peace with the sacrifices inherent)
Who shouldn't bother?
- Someone looking for a "10 actionable steps" checklist, peer-reviewed studies or any whisper of a different way of training the mind. That's Cooler talk!
- Someone looking for a motivational pick-me-up. It's motivational for sure, but only in a cold water bath, smack-you-in-the-face, GET-ON-MY-LEVEL-OR-MOVE kinda way.
3 Big Ideas:
1) The continuum: Coolers -> Closers -> Cleaners
Coolers worry about the competition and how they measure up
Closers study the competition and plan their attack based on the opponent
Cleaners make the competition study them; they don't care whom they're facing, they know they can handle anyone (28)
A Cooler thinks about what he's supposed to think about.
A Closer things, analyzes, and eventually he acts
A Cleaner doesn't think at all, he just knows. (67)
A Cooler is liked.
A Closer is respected.
A Cleaner is feared, and then respected for doing exactly what everyone feared he'd do. (174)
Cooler, closer, cleaner... good, great, unstoppable. You can be whatever you want. (preface xiii)
You get it, right? To explain it much more is to summarize the whole book. What does it take to be a cleaner? Don't ask me... go read the book!
2) Failure, re-evaluated:
Are you an entrepreneur or side-hustler? Having trouble grappling with the avalanche of rejection and failure you face every, single day? Want a little no-nonsense psychology to re-frame these struggles?
Chapter 14 has your back: "When You're A Cleaner ... You don't recognize failure, you know there's more than one way to get what you want."
A Cooler accepts what he can't do and gives up.A Closer recognizes what he can't do but keeps working at it.
A Cleaner knows what he can do and stays with it until he decides to do something else. (205)I don't understand the concept of failure. If you don't succeed at everything you do on your first attempt, does that mean you "failed"? Isn't it a good thing that you keep coming back and working at it until you succeed? How can that be failure?
What most people think of as failure, a Cleaner sees as an opportunity to manage and control a situation, pulling it around to his advantage, doing something that everyone else says is impossible. (206-207)
Let's make this simple: Failure is what happens when you decide you failed. Until then, you're still always looking for ways to get to where you want to be." (208)
"When someone else says you've failed, what they really mean is "if that were me, I would feel like a failure." Well, that guy's not you, and he obviously not a Cleaner, because Cleaners don't recognize failure. (209)
Yes, yes, yes; a thousand times, yes. Who cares what other people think of your plan, of your approach, of your dreams? Not Cleaners, not from people they don't respect.
Does this idea apply to your values? Is it always fair and balanced? Is it a recipe for success in your personal relationships or overall life energy and happiness? Not necessarily, but it is the truth. And that's what's important.
3) Concept of: A Cleaner's Dark Side:
And before you try to tell me you don't have a dark side, let me promise you, everyone has a dark side. In your head, right now, think about the things you don't want anyone to know about you. It's okay, no one will know. The secrets you keep, the maneuvers that have helped you along the way, your desires, your greed, your ego ... the lust you feel for things you're not supposed to have.
That's your dark side. You need it. Because if you haven't figured it out by now, it's the essential link to get you into the Zone, and achieving what you want. (83)
The ability to show up at the gym every day and do what no one else is willing to do, that comes from the dark side. The drive to get to the top and stay up there, year after year? Dark side. A Cleaner with a strong dark side can succeed at whatever he chooses, and his path is usually determined at an early age [...] One way or another, he's going to be the best at something. A positive impact on his life might channel him towards business or athletics; a negative impact might direct him into a life of crime. Really, is there that big a difference between the instincts of a powerful businessman and a powerful crime boss and a powerful athlete? They're all "killers" in their field... (88)
Fear and respect: let them know you were there by your actions, not your words or emotions. You don't have to be loud to be the focus of attention. Think of the Godfather, world-class Cleaner and the quietest guy in the room, surrounded by everyone else waiting to see what he would do or say, and he never had to say a word to get his message across. (175-176)
For me, Grover's point is to accept this idea wholesale: what makes you unique and of value to the world is precisely your ambition, passion & high tolerance for pain. The same inner drive that pushes you to be Relentless also pushes you into a world of isolation, of being misunderstood and, in all likelihood, of acting on all of your worst impulses. It is not coincidence that many of the most successful members of society are frequently found to be the most ethically maligned: extra-marital affairs, corruption& bribery, violence... we don't need examples here, do we?
Just know that about yourself: what pushes you to be unstoppable can easily consume you. The best in the world are uniquely able to harness these would-be character flaws to make themselves better competitors; even if a bit imbalanced.
Best Anecdote: The "Lion Anecdote"
Picture a lion running wild. He stalks his prey, attacking and killing at will, and then goes in search of his next conquest. That's what his lion instincts tell him to do, he doesn't know anything else [...] Now lock him up in the zoo. He lies there all day, quiet and lethargic and well fed. What happened to those powerful instincts? They're still there, deep inside, waiting to be uncaged. Let him out of the zoo and goes lion again, preying and attacking. Put him back in the cage, he lies down.
Most people are the lion in the cage. Safe, tame, predictable, waiting for something to happen. But for humans, the cage isn't made of glass and steel bars; it's made of bad advice and low self-esteem and bullshit rules and tortured thinking about what you can't do or what you're supposed to do [...] Stay in the cage long enough, you'll forget those basic instincts. (69-70)
For me, "the lion anecdote" is one of the single most representative of Grover's many points in the book: simple, brutally honest, and turning the focus, always, back onto you. It hits you like a right-hook, and either you relate immediately or you write him off as an anti-intellectual blowhard.
You're the lion, whether you know it or not. The power to succeed, to dominate, is already within you, just as it was with the dozens of examples throughout the text. The question is, do you want to work for it?
What he doesn't say:
I wish Grover had taken more care to emphasize that the Coolers -> Closers -> Cleaners continuum is just that: a continuum. We want it to be totally binary: you are a Cleaner now & always, or you are a Closer-At-Best and shouldn't bother striving for more. But is it really that way in all cases? All the time? He doesn’t really say…
Grover would surely agree that Cleaners can go backwards; become Closers, or nothing at all. Tiger Woods went backwards during his affair. Michael Jordan went backwards with his baseball career and first season back in the NBA.
History points out that Cleaners who lose the edge can regain it: Tiger came back, and so did MJ. So, are today’s Closers tomorrow’s Cleaners? Or are Cleaners by definition made up of tougher stuff than Closers, and you just have to sit back and hope you won the mindset evolutionary lottery?
Overall Thoughts:
“Repetitive, not overly instructional and absurdly paced” would be one fair assessment of Relentless.
“Steroids for psychology & mindset. I can’t wait to re-listen to this on 2x speed every month on my way to the gym at 5:15am” would be another, totally valid way of describing it.
Ultimately I skew more towards the latter. We don’t go to the gym that early in the morning, mind you, but I spent the extra money to buy the audiobook after reading the physical book for exactly that reason. I related to it, and it vindicated a lot of the ways I run my business.
I also felt strongly enough to write a book report about it.
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