The Mental Game: How a Fighter Uses Mind Games Before the Big Fight

Unstoppable Mindset: Discovering the Edge That Sets Champions Apart In this special mashup episode, we’re peeling back the layers of what separates the good from the great, and the great from the unstoppable. You’re about to dive into the minds of legendary athletes, entrepreneurs, and influencers, all revealing the strategies they use to dominate in high-pressure situations and overcome relentless challenges. We kick off with a powerful conversation on mental toughness from boxing champion Andre Ward, who shares how he harnesses fear and channels it into fuel. "Fear is real," he admits, "but courage steps in anyway." We also hear from wrestler Mark "The Undertaker" Calaway, who lived his life in the ring as a relentless character, pushing the limits to not only win matches but leave an unforgettable legacy. These champions don’t just prepare physically—they build a mental fortress that lets them stay steady under pressure, even when the world is watching. Throughout, Tim Grover, the trainer behind icons like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, breaks down how a relentless commitment to winning means being brutally honest with yourself. He says, "Winning doesn’t care about your feelings; it cares about how bad you want it.” Grover’s insights into pushing past fear and failure give you a glimpse into the “winning mindset”—the mental resilience that keeps these athletes at the top of their game. We round out the episode with Trent Shelton and Ed discussing how to turn pain into purpose. Shelton’s story of overcoming personal tragedy is a reminder that your greatest trials can become your most powerful victories. He says, “Your perspective can be your prison or your power,” reminding us that every setback has the potential to set us up for a massive comeback. Key Takeaways: - How to channel fear into courage under pressure from champion Andre Ward - Tim Grover’s no-excuses approach to winning and the importance of a “made-up mind” - The mindset that drives relentless preparation from Mark "The Undertaker" Calaway - Why your hardest moments can lead to your greatest strengths, with Trent Shelton’s story of transformation If you’re ready to learn from the greats and step up your mental game, this episode is your blueprint for building an unbreakable mindset. Thank you for watching this video—Please Share it and get the word out! What part of this video resonated with you the most? Comment below! 👇 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👇 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIprGZAdzn3ZqgLmDuibYcw?sub_confirmation=1 ▶︎ WEBSITE | https://www. EdMylett.com #EdMylett #Motivation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

  So hey guys, listen, we're all trying to get more productive and the question is, how do you find a way to get an edge? I'm a big believer that if you're getting mentoring or you're in an environment that causes growth, a growth-based environment, that you're much more likely to grow and you're going to grow faster. And that's why I love Growth Day. Growth Day is an app that my friend Brendan Burchard has created that I'm a big fan of. Write this down, growthday.com/ed. So if you want to be more productive, by the way, he's asked me, I post videos in there every single Monday that gets your day off to the right start. He's got about $5,000, $10,000 worth of courses that are in there that come with the app. Also, some of the top influencers in the world are all posting content and they're on a regular basis, like having the Avengers of personal development and business in one app. And I'm honored that he asked me to be a part of it as well and contribute on a weekly basis, and I do.

• 0:45Ed Mylett?

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• 1:27Ed Mylett?

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• 2:08Ed Mylett?

  This is the Ed Mylett Show.

• 2:13Ed Mylett?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. This is one of the greatest boxers of the last two decades, and you might even argue in the history of the sport. And so, Andre Ward, thank you for being here today.

• 2:29Andre Ward?

  Appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me.

• 2:31Ed Mylett?

  I'm curious, I'm a big boxing fan, so when you became on my radar was during the Super Six Tournament, okay, so that was, and they called that the super middleweight division at the time, correct?

• 2:45Andre Ward?

  Yeah, super middleweight, 168 pounds.

• 2:46Ed Mylett?

  But basically, I'm paraphrasing, Showtime got together and said, "Let's just find the best one in the world," and they put the six of you in this tournament. It ended up being a seventh dude or something. Wasn't Jermaine Taylor in it originally, or what happened with that?

• 2:55Andre Ward?

  Well, there were guys that, like, guys would get knocked out or get injured, and then they replaced them. But it was always, the court was always six.

• 3:00Ed Mylett?

  So, again, you had Kessler, you had Froch, or Froch, whatever they called him. There's some dudes in this tournament, right?

• 3:07Andre Ward?

  Yeah.

• 3:08Ed Mylett?

  And you ended up winning that tournament. I'm curious, when it started at that level, was that a new level for you? And like, did you have fear? Like, did you wonder whether you were the man of those six? How'd that work for you?

• 3:22Andre Ward?

  I had to drop everything. We went, we got in the car, got back to San Diego, flew to the Bay Area, literally dropped my family, all packed a bag, double ear infection, got on a red eye, went to Germany, and was there the next morning to announce the second leg of the Super Six, and was this close to not being a part of it.

• 3:40Ed Mylett?

  That's crazy. And the way they filmed it, everybody, by the way, this was so powerful, all this 24/7 stuff you see now, this is kind of the original of that.

• 3:47Andre Ward?

  Yeah, it was.

• 3:48Ed Mylett?

  And it was so well done. It really changed, to some extent, how boxing was promoted on either Showtime or HBO2, the way they laid it out. But I watched it closely, and you weren't the dude they were sort of steering the cameras towards in the beginning. I mean, it was really interesting. It was the other guys that I've mentioned before, and I remember you won, then you won again. I'm like, "Oh, this dude's got a chance to win this whole tournament." So, so, every one of these fights, just curious, when you went into it, I just want to know how like a world-class person thinks or doesn't think. You're there at that thing in Germany, you see these other five dudes. Are you like, "I'm gonna win this tournament," or?

• 4:22Andre Ward?

  I've always had that belief, like... My career was, my professional career was guided very meticulously, you know. The powers that be, the networks, the suits, the promoters, like they, they want bang for their buck. They want to make the most money as quickly as possible. And I had opportunities to fight some of the guys that were in the tournament, maybe a year or two earlier. And it was for more money than I'd ever seen and, you know, great opportunity and, you know, I called first, like, man, they're gonna give us, you know, 600,000. And we get to fight on, you know, HBO and this and that, or Showtime and, and he said, no, no, he said, hold on, he said, I understand that, you know, if we say no to this, internally there's gonna be some blowback, but he, he said, you know, when we fight these guys, I

• 5:06Andre Ward?

  want you to be a full grown man and, and I want you to destroy them. Like, I don't want, you know, no, I don't want you to be barely winning or barely eking by. And we did that like two or three times before the Super Six happened. And we get blowback and some of the blowback spilled publicly, where fans are saying, oh, you know, Ward, he's a gold medalist, but he's moving too slow and that's the heat you take. That's the bullseye you have on your back coming in with a gold medal. But in Germany, I really saw what the intent was. You had Mikkel Kessler, who was Mikkel Kessler at the time, he was like 42 and 1 or something like that, but like, I don't know how many knockouts. He had more knockouts than I had fights. You had Carl Froch, who was from the UK, and you had Arthur Abraham, and then you had

• 5:50Andre Ward?

  the three Americans. Jermaine Taylor, who was teetering, he was still relevant, but he was teetering on, on, on kind of being done. You had the young guy, Andre Durrell, and then you had the other young guy and myself. And I could tell that everybody that was there, they just looked at us like we were just a token just to be there, like, these guys will make it interesting. Some namesake, young guys coming up, but these guys, these are the guys that are supposed to win. Yes. And I took exception to that. To the personal. I took exception to that and... I got on the phone, I called Virgil, I said, man, they don't, they don't really expect me to win this. He said, oh yeah, I know. He said, it's always been like that. He said, but just watch. Unwavering faith, he's always that pillar. And, and again, that jumped off on me.

• 6:35Andre Ward?

  It's already confident, but now, now it was personal. Now it was personal.

• 6:39Ed Mylett?

  Your physiology change is so dramatic. You go into your Virgil thing.

• 6:42Andre Ward?

  You can see it, man.

• 6:43Ed Mylett?

  You're like.

• 6:44Andre Ward?

  You can see it, you can see it.

• 6:46Ed Mylett?

  And at that time, Kessler and Frasch were like rock stars in their various countries too, right? They were big names at the time.

• 6:52Andre Ward?

  I don't blame anybody for not picking us. Like, I probably wouldn't have picked me. I was a young guy. Yeah, I had the gold medal, but I hadn't, I hadn't done anything as a, as a pro. My biggest win was a guy named Edison Miranda, who was a beast. He was a top contender, right? That was my biggest win as a professional. So, I don't blame anybody for not picking me, but I was also gonna use that as fuel and ammunition as well. I was gonna use it.

• 7:16Ed Mylett?

  So he goes on to win that like he wins everything else. Here's another thing you said throughout, I just want to hear everybody, everyone just hear things I hear that I think are important. I do think that there are times in your life where if you don't jump on an opportunity, you will regret it the rest of your life. That there is timing to when you win. There are moments, and you've said this a few times where Virgil said this to you. And for a lot of you that are chasing what you're chasing, you may get fatigued at that chase, but there's gotta be this part that goes, if I don't jump on this now, this may never come again for me. So your timing is so critical on, winning this Super Six tournament was a huge catalyst. Now let's talk some boxing stuff, just for me, because I want to know some stuff.

• 7:52Andre Ward?

  Let's do it.

• 7:53Ed Mylett?

  I'm curious, uh, when you, I, I told you I was gonna ask you this, and you haven't told me the answer, so I'm curious. Forget the training part just for a second, we're gonna get to that. You are getting wrapped. You're about to go out, okay, for a big fight. You're getting wrapped up. I'm sure Virgil's talking to you, you're going through whatever your game plan was. What goes through you? Is there honest emotions here as a fighter? See, the thing about boxing to me is that it's different than every other sport. UFC has some of this as well, but the, the combat sports. This is a man and a man.

• 8:23Andre Ward?

  Mano a mano.

• 8:24Ed Mylett?

  I think people forget this, like, even when you bat as a baseball hitter, there's another dude coming up after you. If you ground out, the other dude could get the hit, right? This is a man and a man. And I'm just curious, when you have that happening, you're getting, look at your physiology change again, right? But I'm just curious, like, when you're getting wrapped at that moment, what's going through you emotionally? What do you, what's happening to you at that time?

• 8:46Andre Ward?

  That moment can break. A lot of men. You can have a great training camp. Uh, everything could be clicking. You could have a great fight week, leading up to that moment. And that moment, as well as the walk to the ring, you can lose it. Like, you can lose your confidence. You can let fear overtake you. Um, and you can somehow convince yourself that you're not worthy to be there in that moment. Um, it's almost like an out-of-body experience. You hear people say, you know, a guy froze, or, you know, he didn't, he didn't perform, or it was a deer in the headlights. Like, that's what they're talking about. Like, you have, it's almost like a surreal moment. Like, this, this moment that you've been prepping for, talking about, building up to, the world has been talking about.

• 9:31Andre Ward?

  Like, it's here, and the fact that it's actually here, like, it hits you in a, in a, in a, in a different kind of way. Like, you're getting wrapped, and you have the commission from whatever state you're fighting. They're coming in, they're checking on you. They're giving, they're giving you the countdown. "We got forty-five minutes." "We got thirty minutes." "We got twenty." Then they come back in after you get your, your, uh, your gloves back on, and they, and they say, "We got five minutes." "We're walking in two and a half minutes." And they start to count you down, like, whether you train good or not, that's running through your brain. Thinking about my wife and my kids. I'm thinking about the fact that the whole world is literally gonna be watching me in just a few moments. Thinking about my critics. They got a front row seat. They got a front row seat.

• 10:17Andre Ward?

  Thinking about my supporters and the people that are, are riding with me, getting behind me. They got a front row seat. They're watching, they're pulling for me. It's like this, like, this controlled chaos that's going on. And it's literally an arena. It's, it's a, it's a, with two gladiators getting ready to literally risk it all. Like, boxing is the only sport, professional sport that I know of, that one loss can change your pay scale. Like, it's in the contract. If you lose a fight, your minimums can change. We can renegotiate those minimums. Like, that's what's going through my head. And fear is very real.

• 10:59Ed Mylett?

  Really?

• 11:00Andre Ward?

  Anxiety is very real. It's very present. And all the guys that say, "I don't get nervous." "I'm Iron Man." They're not being honest. Like, that's very, very present. But that's where my faith.

• 11:14Ed Mylett?

  New Year's.

• 11:16Andre Ward?

  Comes in. And I start to believe beyond myself. I start to believe beyond the way that I'm feeling. Like, we're called to walk by faith and not by sight. We're called to walk by faith and not by feeling. So, fear is present, but courage is going in the midst of fear. And I've had 32 fights before I retired. And I had to do that every single time. It's not like, "Oh, this is the 25th time I've done this." It's easy. Because one punch can change your pace scale. One punch can change your life. And you're not guaranteed to walk out the same way you walked in. So, all of that is going through your mind, running through your body. And you gotta channel it. You gotta process it.

• 12:01Andre Ward?

  And you gotta believe, and you gotta be unwavering. And one thing I would always do was I would kinda just pace the locker room. And even though my team's in there, even though the commissioner's coming in and out. And again, this is like controlled chaos. Television cameras are in your face. Producers are walking around. You hear the crowd. You hear the announcer. I would just talk to myself. "It's my night. It's my night. I'm not going home without my belts." Like, those types of things, they may seem corny to some people, but that stuff would really lift me up. And because a made-up mind is a hard thing to break. And your mind has to be made up. Not walking to the ring, or when you step through those ropes,

• 12:43Andre Ward?

  your mind has to be made up before you leave that locker room that, "I'm not gonna be broken. I will not lose tonight."

• 12:51Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my gosh. You ever get, uh... You ever get there where you're at the stare-down? And look at a dude to know you got him? Has that ever happened? Or is it, on a professional level, you just don't know? Has it ever happened the reverse? Where you're in that state? You're in that faith state? You're in that strong state? And you look, you're like, "Oh, I got this fool." Has that ever happened? You have to tell me who.

• 13:11Andre Ward?

  Most times, no. Because as fighters, we can lie.

• 13:17Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 13:18Andre Ward?

  We're good chameleons. Because in the sport of boxing, if you show weakness, the opponent's gonna pounce. So we hide a lot of our emotions. You know, you got some guys that are scared to death and they'll, they'll put a mask on. There's one time, one time in a 32 fight career that I knew I had a guy at the weigh-in. Chad Dawson.

• 13:39Ed Mylett?

  You knew, and you even told me who it was. And by the way, Chad Dawson was a great fighter, but you knew. How'd you know him? Why'd you know?

• 13:46Andre Ward?

  He... So you get a lot of rumors and you hear a lot of hearsay in training camp.

• 13:52Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 13:52Andre Ward?

  This guy, you know, they'll call my coach, and I stayed away from that stuff, but my coach always had his ear to what was going on with my opponent. And he would decide on what he wanted to share and what he wouldn't want to share.

• 14:04Andre Ward?

  The guy Edison Miranda that I just told you about, he was sparring with Chad Dawson to help Chad Dawson get ready for our fight. Big fight. Chad Dawson was the lineal light heavyweight champion and just beat the great legendary Bernard Hopkins.

• 14:19Ed Mylett?

  Southpaw.

• 14:20Andre Ward?

  The fight before, yes. Tall, rangy. He beat Bernard Hopkins, he's on HBO, Max Kellerman asked him, "You know Chad, what do you want next?" I minded my own business, he calls my name, I had just won the Super Six. He said, "I want Andre Ward." He said, "I'll fight him in his hometown of Oakland, California, and I'll go down to his weight too." And I said, "Really?"

• 14:42Andre Ward?

  And I like Chad, like I supported Chad and didn't see that coming. That was like the easiest fight that we ever negotiated right there. And I held him to every single word that he spoke. Every word.

• 14:53Ed Mylett?

  My weight, my place.

• 14:55Andre Ward?

  So, they get into training camp, and because he's losing so much weight, his punch resistance isn't there. Edison Miranda can crack. Edison Miranda knocks him out and sparring.

• 15:08Ed Mylett?

  And it's sparring.

• 15:09Andre Ward?

  Stuff starts to circulate. Verge comes to me, he said, "Listen babe." He's called me babe. "Listen babe." I'm not saying this to get you off track, we gotta stay focused. We were probably about two and a half, maybe three weeks away from the fight. Maybe about two and a half. He said, "I'm hearing some things, man. I'm hearing that Edison Miranda, he knocked Chad out." Said, "Knocked him out." Said, "Knocked him out." Like, they had to stop the sparring, help him up, and that was it for the day. Now, if you're a fighter, like, that's like the worst-case scenario. It's one thing if you get knocked out in a fight. Got small gloves on, no headgear, it happened. That's acceptable, in some respects. In sparring, nah, nah. Not if you're the top dude. There may be a sparring partner getting knocked out, but not the top guy, not the champion.

• 15:53Andre Ward?

  That was a no-no. Started hearing rumors, some kind of process, like, "Man, he got knocked out. Man, that's crazy." But in my mind, I'm always very much in my head, especially in training camp, so I'm like, "Ah, maybe they're just floating that out there to get in my head or trying to get me off track." And that's what Verz, he said, "But don't, you know, don't worry about it too much, just, you know, stay focused." We kept hearing stuff, kept hearing stuff. Nothing ever went on the airwaves. Nothing, nothing on the internet, nothing. Press conference came, the week of the fight. I'm thinking, "Man, I wonder if they're gonna say something." Rumor gonna come out, if I'm gonna be asked about it. It's never asked about it. The weigh-in comes, Friday, the fight's Saturday. I said, "Now I'ma drop it on him." "Now I'ma drop it on him."

• 16:36Andre Ward?

  We go face-to-face, and his team, they're over there woofing. My team's kind of woofing a little bit, and I leaned in his ear and I said, "Hey, man, I heard what happened in the gym." I said, "You better tighten it up tomorrow night." And you just see his shoulders just go, "Ah." And he's got this look on his face like, "How did you know?" I won the fight with Chad Dawson right there.

• 17:01Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 17:02Andre Ward?

  We turn and look at the cameras, turn back and look at him before I walk off the stage. I broke him.

• 17:08Ed Mylett?

  You just knew.

• 17:09Andre Ward?

  Broke him.

• 17:10Ed Mylett?

  That is an awesome story.

• 17:11Andre Ward?

  He thought he got away with it, he thought we didn't know. It's too late, you can't get out of the fight now.

• 17:16Ed Mylett?

  That is awesome, man.

• 17:18Andre Ward?

  That was the only time I ever felt like I won a fight when I get face-to-face.

• 17:23Ed Mylett?

  Thank you for all of that insight of that and what it's like getting wrapped.

• 17:26Andre Ward?

  I don't know if I've ever told that story before.

• 17:28Ed Mylett?

  It's awesome, but we're keeping it in whether you want to or not. I'm keeping that one in there. No, we do too much. So, you said that one punch, couple more things on boxing, then we'll shift, because we're gonna run out of time. But, like, I could go three hours of this. But, you said that one punch, who's hardest you ever been hit by who?

• 17:44Andre Ward?

  Hey, hey, hey.

• 17:47Andre Ward?

  I would say, it's tough to say one guy, but I would probably say the guy with the

• 17:56Andre Ward?

  the strongest power, the two guys with the strongest power are Arthur Abraham. And I heard rumors about him. The analogy people always gave was he feels like he's got bricks in his gloves. And if you watched my first fight with him, the only fight that we had in the first round, he hit me with a jab.

• 18:16Ed Mylett?

  A jab.

• 18:16Andre Ward?

  And for those that don't know, that's a basic punch in boxing, just a straight, straight punch. Wow, he hit me and I kind of buckled a little bit. I said, oh, boy, it's real. Everything they said was real. And that kept me on my toes and kept me on my game the whole night. And then Edison Miranda, he hit like a mule. His money punch was the right hand, that's pretty much all he had. He pawed with the jab. He had these long arms, and if he landed that right hand flush, a lot of guys went to sleep. And that was my first time facing a big puncher like that. And that's probably the worst I've ever felt after a fight, was fighting Edison Miranda. Those two guys probably had the most devastating power.

• 18:56Ed Mylett?

  So I thought you were gonna say, and we'll wrap up the boxing piece here, I thought you were gonna tell me Kovalev. So, I love your face when I said that. So, for those of you that don't know, so I'm a huge fan of yours, you know this. But now that we're friends, I need to tell you that before you fought him-

• 19:12Andre Ward?

  You a little worried?

• 19:13Ed Mylett?

  I was worried for you. So I thought, this is the crusher.

• 19:16Andre Ward?

  Yeah?

• 19:17Ed Mylett?

  This dude supposedly can really hit, right? And so, y'all don't know this, he beat him twice. And but, but, so, just, because those are the last couple fights, right?

• 19:27Andre Ward?

  Yeah, last two fights.

• 19:28Ed Mylett?

  What would you just tell me about fighting him, prepping for him, getting hit by him, those fights? Anything you would tell me about those experiences?

• 19:35Andre Ward?

  I mean-

• 19:36Ed Mylett?

  Because the first fight was like, hey, people thought it could've gone either way. The second fight, there was obviously no question.

• 19:40Andre Ward?

  Yeah, no, I mean- Kovalev is like, he's a real deal. He's a real deal. Anytime you got a nickname like the Crusher,

• 19:47Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 19:47Andre Ward?

  you better be able to hit hard. And he has good power. He has good power. It's not what I thought it was. But he hits hard. And I think one thing that's always been overlooked in my career, you hear about, you know, people say, oh, he's a good boxer, you know, Dre, you know, he can do this, he can do that, but they never talk about my chin. And that's not really something I want to be known for.

• 20:06Ed Mylett?

  Because you don't want to get hit all the time.

• 20:06Andre Ward?

  Hey, I'm not, that's not really my thing, but like, I've fought the best punchers in the game. And I've been down twice in a 32 fight career. And I fought the best. And one of those times was against Sergey Kovalev.

• 20:21Andre Ward?

  I can't get into too much because we're, you know, we're gonna be putting out the documentary soon and we're gonna detail a lot of what happened in the pre-fight for Kovalev I, but just went through a lot of different things physically for that fight. I was moving up in weight from 168 pounds to 175 pounds. But again, like you just mentioned, I'm not going up there just to fight some Rudy Poo. I'm fighting the best guy. This guy was the real deal.

• 20:45Andre Ward?

  Russian fighter. He was known for going into other people's hometowns and home countries and like taking their belts. And nobody really wanted to fight him. And here I am, a guy that's in a lower weight class, who's not really considered a big puncher, but has a lot of skill and I've pretty much won everything at the lower weight class. And people are saying, man, he's going up in weight? Like, the overall consensus was, the critics were saying, he bit off too much. This is the guy that's finally gonna get him. And my supporters were saying, Dre's going out boxing. We get into the fight and the first thing I noticed about him was just how accurate he was. Like, it wasn't necessarily that he hit hard. It was just, he was just very accurate. Like, I was thinking and he was punching.

• 21:30Andre Ward?

  And the first round was just like, man, it was just like a blur. And I remember sitting down and Verge getting on me right away, saying, man, stop posing. Meaning, stop standing still. Like, move your legs. Like, warm up, get moving. And I was just kind of like, man, I just, I don't know. I just kind of felt like I was in quicksand. Second round, he and I. Exchange and I'm getting ready to throw a right hand. He's getting ready to throw a right hand. His right hand gets there first. And I just see a flash, bam. I look up, oh man. I'm on the canvas. And I hear the crowd going crazy. I look up, the referee's in my face, six, seven, eight. And I stand up. In those moments, we talked about pre-fight, but in that moment, that's for sure a fight or flight type moment. Yeah.

• 22:13Andre Ward?

  Like whatever you got on the inside, it's gonna come out. If you got turn in you, it's gonna come out. If you got any kind of coward in you, it's gonna come out. If you got the dog in you, that's gonna come out too. And I thank my dad for these types of moments because my dad had that dog in him. He's the type of guy that would never start anything, but if you hit him, he's gonna hit you back. And that was probably the best thing that could have happened to me in that first fight with Kovalev was for me to get knocked down because now I'm mad. Now I wanna get that back. And I'm no longer overthinking trying to be perfect. Like I was too busy, I was incensed with trying to get that moment back from him. And I found somehow, some way, man, by the grace of God, I clawed my way back into that fight.

• 22:57Andre Ward?

  And I really felt like from the seventh round on, um, I broke him. And when I say broke him, it doesn't mean that he quit. It doesn't mean that he threw in the towel. It means that he wasn't himself. I stopped him from being who he wanted to be that night. And I eked out a win. And I won the fight by the 12th round. If I'm not mistaken, two judges gave it to me. Correct. One judges gave it to him, one judge gave it to him. And some people were not happy about it. And, and some people were happy about it. And after the fight, I thought I was done. I thought I was done. Uh, I think it was a combination of just my career, like

• 23:41Andre Ward?

  the physical toil that it took to get ready for fights and then the actual fights. And then you see the reaction from the people. And it's like, man, I just gave my all. I just beat the boogeyman, I beat the monster. And it's still not enough. And I didn't do anything for three months after that fight and that's a no-no for me. Like I always do something. I'll take, you know, maybe three, four weeks off, let my body heal and then I'll start to do some running, some light shadow boxing. I'll get back in the gym little by little. I like had no desire, like literally for three months straight. And I remember going to see my pastor, Napoleon Kaufman, former Raider running back. Really? He's your pastor? Yeah, that's my pastor. Did you go to Notre Dame or Navy? No, he went to UW, University of Washington. That's right, okay, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:26Andre Ward?

  From Lumbok. I remember him, yep. Yeah. I remember going to him and you know, he abruptly retired after six years in the league and started a church and he's been doing great. I said, "Man, Pastor, I don't know, man." I said, "I think I'm done, man." He said, "Man, why do you say that?" I said, "I haven't done anything in three months." I said, "That's not like me. I have no desire to do this." And I thought he was gonna cosign with me. Yeah. And he kinda sat there like he does. He said, "You know, Draymond, he said, "I think you'll be fine if you stop right now." He said, "But I can see you doing one more." And I remember like, I was thankful for what he told me, but at the same time I was disappointed. I'm like, like, "What?" Wait a second, he was gonna give me that extra little oomph to like give me the courage to walk away. Yeah. And he challenged me. He said, "Man, I can see you doing one more."

• 25:10Andre Ward?

  I said, "Really?" I said, "But yeah, but I just told you I have no desire to do it. I haven't been to the gym." He said, "I know, I know." He said, "But once you make up your mind that you wanna do the second fight, he said, "The fire will be rekindled." And he just sat there. And I got up and I walked out and again, I had mixed emotions. I was like, "Man, I appreciate him." And that wasn't what I thought he was gonna say. And he challenged me just to go a little bit longer, go a little bit further. And I was content, even though I knew I was gonna get some heat and people were gonna say, "You're running from Kovalev, you lost the first fight, you're scared to fight the second fight." I knew I was gonna get that, but I was over it. Drove home and...

• 25:51Andre Ward?

  Talked to my wife and mowed over her for about another week. And I picked up the phone, I told my team, I said, man, get the money right. I said, we'll do the second fight. And just like that, the desire kicked back in.

• 26:04Ed Mylett?

  It did come back. You trained just as rigorously for that fight as in the other fight.

• 26:08Andre Ward?

  I had the best training camp for that fight than I probably ever had in my whole career. I was the happiest. I just enjoyed it again.

• 26:18Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 26:19Andre Ward?

  The first fight, physical issues, it was just a lot of pressure, like it was just a lot, it just didn't feel right. But once I got through that and got to this other side, man, I had a great camp, man, I was happy.

• 26:30Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 26:31Andre Ward?

  I had the bounce back in my legs, my body felt good. I just mentally, like me and Verz had planned to knock him out. That was the first thing Verz said when I went back to the gym, he said, we gonna stop him. And in my mind, I'm like, alright, how? Like, give me the how. That's the what, what's the how? He said, we gonna hit him to the body. He said, you broke him that second half of that fight, he was exhausted. He said, we gonna pick up where we left off. And the camp was just amazing.

• 26:56Ed Mylett?

  It was amazing.

• 26:57Andre Ward?

  Amazing. We had, you know, bumps and bruises, but that was the best camp emotionally that I've had in a long time.

• 27:02Ed Mylett?

  So that leads to the big question. Like, he retired, by the way, if you want to see something that's unbelievable, so this was a dominant win, okay? I think your best fight, myself, because of who it was against too, but, so, you want to see an emotional clip, go to his Instagram, which we're gonna promote at the very end, we're gonna promote some things here in a minute that I want you all to see that are awesome that he's doing. But let me just be clear with you, you need to go watch this video, it's emotional, watch, I told him, I got teary eyed watching it alone, right? But, so you lost a little of your juice after the first fight, you found it, then he retired after this fight, okay. But like, still the dominant fighter that you are, like, why not fight again? Do you know you're not gonna fight again? Or is there the chance that something like that happens again and that fire gets rekindled

• 27:47Ed Mylett?

  and we see you back in the ring again? Because he walked in here, I'm like, this dude is fit, I mean, ready to go. It's been a year Friday that he decided to retire, but like, really?

• 27:58Andre Ward?

  Yeah.

• 27:58Ed Mylett?

  You know how boxers are, like, really, now, he saved some money, he's not your normal boxer, but be real, like, is there a door open? I know you can't, like, is it cracked open? Is it possible the right dude came along, called you out, whatever? Like, be, don't, don't do the TV answer, do the real answer, like, is there a chance that you would fight again?

• 28:18Andre Ward?

  Listen.

• 28:21Andre Ward?

  It's not something I'm planning, you know, it's not something I'm planning, it's not something that's being mapped out.

• 28:29Andre Ward?

  But I'm also smart enough to know that you don't know how things are gonna unfold. You just don't know. So I'm always gonna keep myself in some kinda shape. Yeah, you're smirking. I'm always keep my eye on the game and just see who's who and what's going on.

• 28:43Andre Ward?

  But I'm not planning on it. Like, the why is what we're gonna address in my upcoming documentary. Yeah. Unguarded. Let's talk about that. And I named it Unguarded because my harshest critic will say that, "Andre's guarded, he doesn't give you anything." And some of that is true, but a lot of them haven't taken the time to ask, "Why?" Like, we just met. I followed you, I know your body of work,

• 29:17Andre Ward?

  but I feel like I can talk to you, you know, it's kinda like a kindred spirit there. So you wanna open up to a person like that, and sometimes the media, they come off abrasive and they've, they kinda want the story for the wrong reason.

• 29:29Andre Ward?

  And based on my upbringing and everything that I've had to go through, like, I'm, I'm sensitive with my story, man. I'm sensitive with my whys, and I'm sensitive with all those things, and this is one of the first times that I'm gonna, like, really open up, and not just open up, but like, show people,

• 29:45Andre Ward?

  why the best fighter at that time a year ago walked away from, from tens of millions of dollars. And without giving too much away, like, of course, you know, there's a lot of factors, there's, there's, you know, wanting to preserve my long-term health. You know, I'm dealing with physical issues, I've had multiple surgeries, and, and, and I've, you know, to use your line, like, I've, I've maxed out, like, I poured myself out. Like, I've literally given everything that I was supposed to give. Like, when I jumped rope, I gave it everything I had. When I shot a box, I gave it everything I had. And literally, literally to the point where my coaches had to pull me back. And say, "Man, don't leave it all in here." Like, that's all I know is to give it everything I have because, like, I, I've had a 20-year win streak since I've been a baby, 14-years-old.

• 30:29Andre Ward?

  And that doesn't come easy. And yes, I can have the faith in God, and yes, I can have all that stuff, but faith without works is dead. And I put in that work, so I got to a point where I said,

• 30:42Andre Ward?

  There's only a handful of guys that have walked away like this. A handful. And there's even a smaller percentage of guys that left undefeated. And I didn't just pad my record and then say I'm undefeated. Like, I fought the best. The best available competition. And

• 31:03Andre Ward?

  I just woke up one day

• 31:06Andre Ward?

  and I had tens of millions of dollars on the table. And I told my wife, I was like, "I don't want to do this no more." You know, "I don't want to do this no more." And I said, and even me saying it, like, it's taboo. I'm not supposed to say that as a professional athlete, and more importantly, a fighter. Because when you start using the R-word,

• 31:27Andre Ward?

  the writing's on the wall. Yeah. It's time to go. And, uh, she said, "Babe, if you're saying that, I feel like the decision is already made." And you know, you got my full support. And, um, the video that you just mentioned, for some reason, that video was in my head. Like, I had it. I said, "Man, I want my..." And those boys that were in the video were my sons. Oh, wow. I said, "I want to show people, like, my career at each stage. As a young kid, and then, you know, young teenager, and then, you know, older teenager, and then, I want to let them know that I accomplished everything that I set out to accomplish. I got people that love me. I got critics, you know? But I've done it all that I wanted to do. I've made enough money. Um, I'm ready to go."

• 32:13Andre Ward?

  And

• 32:15Andre Ward?

  there's a piece of this decision that was for me, but then there's also a piece that was for the sport that I love. A sport that I've given, given up a childhood for and given my life to. You know, fighters are not always revered. When you say certain fighters' names, you get a certain reaction. When you bring up the name boxing, and you don't love the sport like you, most people's reaction is, "Ah, you know." And they have something negative to say after that. And one thing that they always say is, "Ah, you know, those fighters, man, you know, they hang on too long." And...

• 32:49Andre Ward?

  I went to Canastota, New York about three years ago to the International Boxing Hall of Fame. And it was such a, it was a rewarding moment. It was a, it was an awesome moment. I'm seeing fighters that I grew up watching and I'm talking to them and we're getting at each other like, "Man, I ought to beat you, man, you're too small." We just had a great two or three days. Then I also saw the ones that, that neurologically weren't good. Or maybe didn't have the money, tangible, you know, proof of what they did all these years. And it bothered me. And Ed, I don't wanna, I didn't wanna be another one of those guys. Like, when is enough enough?

• 33:24Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 33:25Andre Ward?

  Like, you can always say there's more money out there. But the question that me and my wife kept asking ourselves is what do we do with what we had?

• 33:33Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 33:34Andre Ward?

  With what was in, already in our hands?

• 33:35Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 33:36Andre Ward?

  And since I retired, don't get me wrong, like, I missed the boxing checks.

• 33:40Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:41Andre Ward?

  Cause they were plentiful.

• 33:42Ed Mylett?

  Sure.

• 33:43Andre Ward?

  They, they were large.

• 33:44Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 33:45Andre Ward?

  Um, but, but they come with a price.

• 33:47Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 33:48Andre Ward?

  And I just wasn't willing to put my, put my body through that anymore. And again, I'm a person that, that gave it all I had, or I don't wanna do it at all. And if I can't give it all I have, and if I don't think my body's gonna respond like I need it to, I don't wanna wait until some young guy has to show me that I don't have it anymore. I'd rather leave on top and try to set an example for the next generation and say, "Man, you know what? I'm gonna do the Andre Ward."

• 34:09Ed Mylett?

  Oh, wow. You just have this overabundance of character.

• 34:12Andre Ward?

  Thank you, man.

• 34:13Ed Mylett?

  And so that's what overflows from you, right? And I do believe in life, there's these chapters of our lives, and I think, you know, and I wanna make sure that everyone knows about this documentary too, is like, that's one of these chapters, just the preview alone is just gripping. It's like unbelievable, I can't wait for this to get out into the, into the world. And you're turning the page, and one of the things about you is your character, so, by the way, selfishly, I hope as you keep turning these pages, that sometime over the next two or three years again, the, the, the chapter turns where you feel the desire to do that or should do it. But I admire and respect you for not doing it too, because there is so much to be said to be finishing the way that you have. And because of your character, because of your composure, your elegance, the way you communicate, you have a lot of other opportunities outside of boxing too, right?

• 34:54Andre Ward?

  Thank you, man.

• 34:55Ed Mylett?

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• 35:39Ed Mylett?

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• 36:23Ed Mylett?

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• 36:56Speaker 02

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• 37:00Ed Mylett?

  Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. Trent Shelton, welcome back to the show, my brother.

• 37:12Trent Shelton?

  Hey, man. I appreciate you, man. Thanks for having me back.

• 37:15Ed Mylett?

  You've had an injury that ended a career like we both had, right? Or whatever. That is not changeable. It's, it, it, that is a, it's a fact of life. It happened, or there was a divorce, or you had a bankruptcy, or a business failed, or someone did you wrong. So you talk often about being able to not change the situation, but change potentially the way that you what? So go ahead. I'll let you, I'll let you answer that.

• 37:39Trent Shelton?

  That's so powerful, Ed, because I get that question all the time. It's like, I can't change, or even teenagers are saying, I can't, I'm in my parents' household. I can't get out of this household. I can't do this. And if that's the truth, if you can't change the situation, you must change your mindset in the situation. You must change your mindset towards the situation. You must change who you are in the situation. And that's called perspective. Something I talk about all the time. Your perspective can be your prison, or it can be your power. And so any situation that I know that I can't undo, I mean, even with my mother's passing, I can't change that. That's a situation I have forever. I can allow that pain to control me, or I can say, you know what?

• 38:21Trent Shelton?

  I can do something with this pain and, and manipulate it to make it my power. And so I'm always thinking, now, okay, how can I find power in this situation? You talk about the word for the year, right? One of my words I always say is this, or mantras is this is power. When I can't change situations, this is power. Because at some point, I know I'm going to look back and say, man, that situation that was supposed to break me that I couldn't change at the moment, maybe God was allowing me to stay in that situation, not to break me, but to build me. And I can look back plenty of times in my life and say, man, I'm glad I stayed in that, or I'm glad that happened, because now it created something inside of me that if I would have moved from that situation, or I didn't have that situation, I wouldn't have the experience, I wouldn't have the knowledge, and I wouldn't have the strength from it.

• 39:05Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, now that, that won't stay on that, because most people know your story, but maybe they need to be right. Many may not, you know, people that are new to my show, or, or new to you. But this whole thing that you are, this man you've become. Was really born out of a situation you couldn't change with your friend, right? Like the beginning of this version of Trent Shelton. And I think it's probably a great time in the show for you to tell that story. Because I think there's a lot of people, they're in situations they can't change right now. Combined with the fact that they're not sure what their purpose is, or what their passion is, or what to do about it. And you've become one of the biggest influencers in the world through what most people would view and was a tragedy with a friend of yours. So take everyone through that part of your story.

• 39:49Ed Mylett?

  It's the perfect time in the show. Because I think they can see themselves in your story, even though the situations are different.

• 39:56Trent Shelton?

  Absolutely. I was a college teammate, college roommate, even more than that, one of my closest friends in college. His career got cut short. Football player, and what I mean, got cut short. He went through some trials, some relationship things. He left a football team and, you know, he joined the military and nothing wrong with that. But I just know that for him, in conversations, he was telling, he was unhappy just being around him. I could just tell something was different. 2011, I got a call one night, I was actually on my way to our other best friend's house and started running, because me and my best friend were just talking about him. It's like, man, we need to link up with Ann. Got a call from a girl who actually knew us at Baylor, but she was in the corner, she worked at the coroner's office. She said, hey, Trent, Ann is here.

• 40:40Trent Shelton?

  And I didn't put two and two together, I was like, okay, like where? Like, is he, you know, where's he at? He's like, he's here. And I was like, what are you talking about? It's like, I work at the coroner's office, he's here. And it still didn't register. To make a long story short, Ann had committed suicide. They found him three days later with all the memories in front of him, pictures of people, you know, his football things, and, you know, he shot himself in the head. And in that moment, it hurt because, you know, when you lose somebody, the first thing you go to is guilt. The first thing you go to is regret and ask yourself, man, I wish I would have, I wish I would have done more. And in that moment, I knew that there was nothing I could have done more, you know, since the situation had happened. I remember going to the service man and...

• 41:25Trent Shelton?

  And I'm glad that you said this because being a speaker, being whatever people want to call me, titles, author, all the stuff that people give me, this wasn't something that I wanted to do. This wasn't something that I sought out to say, oh, this is a great business idea. Let me do this. Yeah. No, it wasn't. It was my promise to him at his funeral. My promise, and I love what you say, man, you know, keeping that promise to yourself is so, so important. My promise to him was like, Ant, I'mma live the rest of my life to help people with their self-work. So when people see my videos and they say, Trent, man, like, you talk about releasing things from your life or getting rid of toxic things from your life, this is why. Because he had toxic things in his life that he felt like he had no life anymore.

• 42:11Trent Shelton?

  Hmm. And he felt like there was no reason to go on. Hmm. And so with my promise to him, and from that day, start picking up my cellphone, didn't have a following, start making these videos with just this. Yes. Didn't have some camera that you're seeing now, didn't have no microphone, just my cellphone. And I committed myself for the rest of my life. And I want to be clear about that, Ed, because I just feel like we live in a generation now where I don't want to step on any, or I don't mind stepping on people's toes, but I don't want to, you know, make people feel a certain type of way by saying this. And, you know, hopefully I have, you know, you have your insecurities to the side, but a lot of people, you know, when they sign up for certain things, it's for external reasons. It's because they see Ed Mylett with, you know, this following.

• 42:54Trent Shelton?

  They see Trent showing with this, but they don't know what we have endured and what we still endure while we're going through it. That's right. They don't have a deep rooted reason of why they want to do what they do. And every time, opportunity to quit, opportunity to throw in the towel, opportunity to detour to something else, to change, you know, there's people that's on there. And I, I want to be clear, it's okay to, you know, change different things. But if you're just changing because it's hard, because things ain't adding up, because you're not getting the likes and the views and the money, all that stuff, I see a lot of that. And for me, I said, there's no negotiation with this. Yes. Like, I'm burning the boats, burning the bridge, and I'm signing up for this forever. So every time I want to quit, man. I picture his face.

• 43:37Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 43:37Trent Shelton?

  And it makes me go even harder.

• 43:39Ed Mylett?

  I hope everybody just hears what he just said. I mean, it's easy to hear it in hindsight. This guy's a Trent's a football player, right? And kind of then trying to find where, what am I going to do with my life? Imagine this, that because of this tragedy in his life, a situation, as we said in the previous, you know, conversation, wasn't controllable. And he ends up becoming through grabbing his cell phone and just starting to talk about this stuff, one of the biggest influences on the planet. Hundreds of millions of views, probably over a billion, if you added up all your content now, you know, all of it combined, right? One of the most sought after speakers on the planet, podcaster, author, guy I've had, I've had, I think, three people on my show only two times. He's one of them. And that gives you an idea of how highly I regard Trent.

• 44:21Ed Mylett?

  And a lot of you that are listening to this, you're thinking, I don't know what my passion is. Here's a place to look, and it's not always there. Look for a real pain point for you. It's a really, it's not always there, but you go, what's a real pain point? Like for me, my dad was an alcoholic, my low self-esteem. That's the pain point of my life has become my work. That's that thing Trent just used. Deep rooted reason to keep going when you're not successful originally. That's why this pain, it always says, has turned it into a purpose. That's usually where your purpose is coming from, is a place of pain from you. That's why you see some of these influencers that are super fit that used to be super heavy. It was a pain point. My guest today is the Undertaker, AKA Mark Calaway. So Mark, thanks for being here, brother.

• 45:06Trent Shelton?

  No, thanks for having me, man. I'm excited.

• 45:09Ed Mylett?

  One of the things that I noticed about you, brother, on the, that 30 year arc, was how hard you are in yourself. How self-aware you are, particularly as it, as it opens, I won't give the whole thing away, but it opens up with your match with Roman Reigns.

• 45:25Trent Shelton?

  Right.

• 45:25Ed Mylett?

  And you were injured at the time, and, you know, maybe not at the top of your game. And to watch you, watch you back in that video, it made me emotional. I was out on my balcony alone. It was like 11 o'clock last night, and I literally got tears in my eyes because. So admired your self-reflection, your awareness and your desire, even at that time, you're probably 52, probably in your 50s already, right? He's 55 years old, guys, and if you're watching YouTube, look at this man's physique, right? But talk about that, like, setting that standard for yourself, being aware, you setting the highest standard for yourself, not Vince, not someone else, but you.

• 46:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm my toughest critic and I always have been. You got everybody telling you through your course of your career, especially when you're coming up, "Oh, man, you're great, you're this, you're that." And, I mean, yeah, that's fine, but you have to, you've got to take that and you have to put it aside. And it's like when I, when I watched my back when I was coming up and I watched my matches back, good, bad and different, I always had to watch them alone. Because I didn't want any feedback from anybody else saying, "Oh, man, that was, that was great, that was, oh, man, how did you do that? That was so cool." You know, I wanted to watch, even on the good stuff, I wanted to watch and see what I did wrong.

• 46:48Speaker 04

  I wanted to know what, okay, in that situation, what could I have done better to make that match better? And that's, like I said, that's how you continue to grow. The Roman match at WrestleMania, I was, that was tough. And what was so good about the doc was that was the actual first time that I watched it back. Being later in my career, I was, at that point, when I watched it back, I was pretty much done. I was just like, I can't, my bodies give out on me, I can't. And I have to start thinking long-term after 30-plus years. And so that was, that was really raw and real, because I knew, I knew, I knew it was going to be tough to watch.

• 47:34Speaker 04

  Um, and then having to do it in that environment with cameras on me and it was. Yeah, and out of character too, right? I mean. Literally out of character, right? So you got, what you got is, is, is Mark thinking in his head like, you know, there's a lot of things that I wanted to say. Obviously that would have been bleeped and, and edited because I was so disappointed. And not just disappointed for me, I was disappointed for, for Roman in that sense. I saw that. Because it was, it was my, it was my opportunity to, to give him something that was gonna push him. You know, that was gonna push him to a higher level. And it didn't, I didn't deliver on that.

• 48:17Speaker 04

  Um, and I can't make excuse, yes, I was banged up and beat up, but I was there. So, you know, I, I, I have a response, in my mind, I have a responsibility. If my name is on, is on the page, then you gotta go. And I was just, I got, I knew when, I knew in January that I was physically. I was physically not gonna be at my best, but it was too late at that point. Like, I'd already committed, it's already down, this is what's gonna happen. And I was scrambling, trying to figure out how to, you know, how I was gonna make this work. And it just, um, I, I was, yeah, I was thoroughly disappointed and, and, um.

• 49:00Speaker 04

  And then there we go, then the documentary kinda gets, gets rolling, cause initially, you know, initially, it was just. I had those guys there to, to cover that weekend. Oh, is that right? That's all it was gonna be? It was all, it was on the beat, cause I said, uh, cause I thought that was gonna be it. Yeah. Oh, the stuff with the hat and the coat, everything in the ring, all that was, that was just raw and real.

• 49:26Speaker 04

  And um, you know, so I just, I'm not gonna get another chance to catch the stuff backstage and my interactions with my peers and Vince and I just wanted that and not knowing what we were gonna have, but I knew that I wasn't gonna have another chance to get it.

• 49:42Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. Guys, I gotta tell you, Mark's being humble. I don't care if you're WWE fan or not, if you're a fan of achievement, of redemption, of comebacks, which a lot of people need right now, um, learning about a beautiful marriage and how it can make a man stronger, uh, you should go watch this. I gotta tell you, The Last Ride, I watched the entire thing and the thing that, you know, the reason that the show is called Max Out and Mark Person, you're talking about maxing out a career, that's the definition of Mark's life in the WWE as the Undertaker. He's maxed out that career and I have a funny feeling he's not done, which we'll talk about at the end, but, um, but I gotta tell you all something, what he's describing here, guys, this not believing your press clipping

• 50:25Ed Mylett?

  thing, not buying into all the rah rah and hype and accolades you get, I talk a lot about, is your will to win for sale. And yeah, people can lose their will to win when they lose, but you can lose your will to win when you win. In other words, enough accolades, enough money, enough success, it buys your will to still want to get better. It buys your will to want to improve. The thing that I love about Mark and watching him was you can't buy this man's will to win. And I think that's linked to the 30-year-plus career. The other guys, the accolades, the success, the access to different things, at some point stole their will to prepare. I'm not doubtful that you didn't get off track a couple times, but you kept getting back on track. And I gotta ask you, because even as you're talking,

• 51:10Ed Mylett?

  it's a little odd for me to talk to you as Mark, because I think unlike, this is why The Last Ride's so interesting too. You've done very few interviews ever, not as the character. Did you take that to the extreme? Like, I'm just, I ran into you in an airport when I was very young. I'll tell you about that in a minute, but. Like you were in character at the airport when I was there. We were at a baggage claim, guys. And I don't know how old I was. Mark and I aren't even that far apart in age. But I was on like one of my first business trips. I was at a baggage claim. I never came. I didn't say anything to you. But I watched you interact with the fans first. You had your bag with you for about forty minutes, brother. And you've probably done this hundreds of times. And I watched you talk to every single fan, take every single picture, shake every single hand. And I watched him, looked them in the eye too. And I said, I like this dude.

• 51:55Ed Mylett?

  But you looked like the undertaker, not with the, you know, the eye makeup on. But it seemed like you were kind of halfway in character. Am I crazy or did you do that in real life when you went out?

• 52:04Speaker 04

  No, I, I lived this thing. Uh, I, I really did. When I, when I started and this character was so unique, especially for the time period. Um, Vince had all these over the top, these all over the top characters. And, uh, and he, and he gave me this, the whole, the, the original likeness, the name was all Vince's brainchild. And he gave it to me. And he said, this is your opportunity. And so I took it from there. So, you know, when we developed, when I started developing the character, I was like, there's only one way that this is going to work.

• 52:45Speaker 04

  And it was a lot simpler back then because there, you know, there, there wasn't cell phones and, and people recording everything that you do. But I said, I've got to be this for this to work. I can't be that on TV and then be at the airport in a Hawaiian shirt, you know, slapping high fives. And, and it, because it was too big to me, it was too big a disconnect. And, you know, there was a lot of opportunities that I was presented with early on that I passed on. Like people thought I was absolutely nuts, but you'd have to realize that this was my passion, like. Being a professional wrestler, being with the WWE, that was, that was me, right?

• 53:30Speaker 04

  That, I mean, that's what my focus was. And yes, I had opportunities to go and, and do a lot of different things, but in my head, like, okay, this is, this is my, this is my passion. Now, how am I gonna go off and do this and be this completely different character and be the, and then come back and expect people to buy into what I was doing?

• 53:51Ed Mylett?

  There's all the elements of being the greatest. So he's being humble, but he's the greatest of all time. He's the most respected guy in the locker room, most longevity. By the way, he's not gonna tell you this, kind of known as being involved in maybe three of the top three matches of all time, also has one guy in common, him. And, and you guys, forget what you do, you're an engineer, listen to this, you're a school teacher, listen to this, you're an entrepreneur. There are elements that he's giving you that are the pieces to being great. And one of them, I'll help him say this, because he's got so much humility, is his loyalty. It's his loyalty. When he's saying he passed on things, let me be specific, he passed on movie roles and things like that, that he could have done out of character.

• 54:35Ed Mylett?

  There were times where he was offered more money to leave the organization, like other guys did, that were hot, and he stayed and was loyal. And I think loyalty is a very undervalued commodity in becoming a leader. And you're sort of a leader in the locker room for that organization. I gotta think that, and I'd like you to talk about both these things, Mark. One is being a leader and the way you do it, because I get the feeling you're not a rah-rah dude, jump up and down, and, you know, all that, but you are a leader in the organization. And then, since we're on that topic, talk about the very unique relationship you have with the overall leader of the organization, Vince McMahon. It seems that that's become a special friendship forged through loyalty, probably more than anything.

• 55:20Ed Mylett?

  And I gotta think that friendship's been both good to his career and your career as well, so speak to those couple things.

• 55:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. So as far as the, you know, being the leader, it was never really... There was never really something like I tried to pursue. It just, it just kinda happened through the years and I, I fell into this unique position where the, the boys, the guy, the wrestlers,

• 55:47Speaker 04

  you know, they saw what the business meant to me and that the business always came first. No matter what, the business came first as far, when we're out on the road, obviously, you know, your family comes first, but in a business sense, when I'm, when I'm, I don't care how late we stayed out, how, whatever we did nightlife wise, it did not affect the next day's performance. If it did, then you knew you were gonna get, you know, you get pulled aside and say, "Look, if you can't handle this, then maybe you shouldn't be doing this." Because at the end of the day, it depends on what we do for our audience the next day. Guys appreciated that, but they, they knew like, "Okay, hey, you know, takes

• 56:31Speaker 04

  one of us, he goes out and he has a good time just like everybody else, but at bell time, all that goes out the window until after it's all over with." And so, yeah, so there was this, I had, and then I had the also, I had the, the trust of what we call the office, you know, there's the office and then there's the boys. Somehow or another, I kinda landed in the middle. Like, I was always accepted as one of the boys, but the office knew that, that they could, they could trust me. And there were a lot of times, like our, whoever our, um, our, uh, our talent relations VP was, there was a lot of times

• 57:12Speaker 04

  they would come to me and say, "Hey, this is, you know, we're having this, this issue." And I could go to the guys or a guy or a person, pull them aside and say, "Look, man, you know, I understand." And they appreciated that because they know that I'd been through every, everything possible to go through. So, you know, it wasn't like, oh, well, you know, Undertaker's a stooge for the office and he's trying to. Ah, right. You know, they trusted me. So I had that trust on each side, but I could, many times I could talk to somebody and say, hey, look, this is, this is their perspective. Hmm. Okay. I understand your perspective because I'm, you know, I'm talent, right?

• 57:55Speaker 04

  I'm talent. I'm with you. So a lot of times that happened and I could divert bigger issues with guys if they could kind of get over, you know, if they could get over the ego. And then they knew and they trusted me enough like, well, you know, Taker's not going to screw me over. So it worked out. It worked, it worked out really nice. And then with Vince and, and the loyalty and everything else, I, um, so I was told by WCW.

• 58:28Speaker 04

  I was told, I went, I, I'd been there for about a year. My contract was coming up and I went in to renegotiate my contract. And I wasn't looking for a huge bump, but I was looking for, you know, I'd been, I had a pretty good year and I was just looking for a slight, just a slight bump. And I was told by, you know, Jim Heard, who was running the company at the time, Ole Anderson and Jim Barnett, they looked me square in my eyes. And they said, you're a great athlete, but no one's ever going to pay money to watch you wrestle.

• 59:04Speaker 04

  Seriously. Okay. That's all I needed to hear.

• 59:08Speaker 04

  So Vince, so I get a meeting with Vince and, you know, he eventually gives me that opportunity. And that's all he ever promised me was an opportunity. He never told me, hey, you're going to be, you're going to be this guy here for 30 years and do all these things. He said, I'm going to give you an opportunity. And and then, but that's all I always remember. When I did become a commodity, when WCW wanted me back, you know, they wanted to pay me big bucks because they were paying everybody big bucks.

• 59:38Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 59:39Speaker 04

  You know, it's like, no, I, I, I can't do that. I got, you know, they're offering me a lot more money, but this is the man who made me. And, and that's just the way it is. And then obviously we just, our, our, our, we've been through so much together professionally, personally, that, um, you know, most times now I don't even deal with events hardly when it comes to business.

• 1:00:03Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 1:00:04Speaker 04

  Our, our relationship 90% of the time is more of that of friends than it is of, of business, unless there's a special ask that nobody else wants to ask me to do, then they, they, you're the only one that's going to be able to get him to do it. So.

• 1:00:18Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. Well, I think what comes to you second nature, which is loyalty, isn't second nature for most people. And I think that's one of the other elements. I've seen Michelle sitting back there.

• 1:00:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:28Ed Mylett?

  Come on in. So there's Michelle, everybody. And when y'all get the chance to watch this docu-series, you'll get it. Okay. But I'm glad you joined at the perfect time. Thank you for doing that.

• 1:00:38Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:00:39Ed Mylett?

  Because what I want to shift to involves both of you and I want you both to comment on it. Let's be real, we just had COVID, right? The economy's in the tank, you know, things aren't going good. There's millions of people that have had a job and lost it right now. There's entrepreneurs that had a business that are losing it. There's people that got really fit the last couple of years. I mean, they go to a gym in three, four months, they've lost a little of their fitness. Bottom line is there's millions of people around the world right now that need to make a comeback. And as I was prepping for this, and then I watched the last ride, I'm like, oh, man, all right, this is perfect. Because what really happened was, guys, when you watch this, it's really becomes a part of how these two people in love with each other unify and create a comeback in his career.

• 1:01:23Ed Mylett?

  Because Michelle is and was a WWE superstar in her own right, everybody. And we'll talk a little bit about that in a minute too. But talk a little bit about the comeback because it's pretty cool when you watch it. Like, it was a broken down CDO repair place or whatever that thing was that you were training in.

• 1:01:39Speaker 04

  It was, uh, yeah, that place, that place hadn't been touched.

• 1:01:44Speaker 05

  It was not sanitary, I can tell you that.

• 1:01:47Speaker 04

  I don't think anybody had even walked in that place in over 15 years.

• 1:01:50Speaker 05

  Oh, it was bad.

• 1:01:52Ed Mylett?

  It just blew my mind because I'm like, the, the greatest WWE superstar of all time, ends up making his comeback in a place that's like no one's been in for, like, it looked like they're in the middle of nowhere, like an abandoned whatever they were in, you know? And, and that's where the comeback started, but let's talk about that for a minute. I want to set the stage for everybody for whatever your career is. This is a man who's climbed to the top of his industry, right? And Michelle's also been at the top of that industry. He ends up for his la- he's gonna have his last match and doesn't go the way he wants it to. And over time, it gnaws at him a little bit. Like anybody, he wants to make a comeback. It's like many of you right now listening to this, driving in your car, or you're finally back on a treadmill at the gym, listen to this.

• 1:02:35Ed Mylett?

  And imagine after 30 years, his body's beaten up, he's already been to the top, he doesn't need to do it, he's already the most admired dude in the sport, yet he makes a comeback. What were some of the things mentally that you both had to do in order to create the mindset where you're willing to go do that work again? Like you changed your body. That, the, the Roman Reigns match to the comeback, Matt, Mike, you just physically look like a different person, right? So talk a little bit mentally what you had to do to do that. What were some of the elements? And both of you can comment on it.

• 1:03:08Speaker 05

  I think one thing that's key for both of us, it's a blessing and a curse, is we're both completely stubborn. So sometimes though, that helps out, like in situations like this, you know? We both have the mentality of you

• 1:03:20Speaker 05

  gonna do something, you're gonna get it done and do it right and go after it, you know? And just give it your all. And I think, you know, being stubborn helped.

• 1:03:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, I definitely wasn't gonna let that be the last memory that people had of me. So I knew, you know, as you get older. You you had you have to accept the fact that you're going to have to put in twice the work and get half the results. You have to accept that fact. So I had to make the we had to make the the mental decision like, okay, if I'm gonna do this, I mean, we gotta go. And she's like, all right, if that's what you want to do, then we're gonna do it. So on her end, she, you know, she drops everything that that that she's got to do

• 1:04:09Speaker 04

  to make sure that I've got meal prep and I've got, you know, all my appointments lined up like for for rehab, stretching, all all these different things that normally that just she took all that worry off the table. And then, so then it's just the training aspect. And then the training was obviously getting my getting my hip fixed, which was covered pretty well in the in the in the doc. That allowed me to train at a much different level. And then that was kind of a that that alone was a breath of fresh air. Although although it's a, you know, that's one little part of the of my body that I have issues

• 1:04:54Speaker 04

  with, that was the main one.

• 1:04:56Ed Mylett?

  Was there doubt, Mark, like, hey, I'm gonna come back and have a second match I'm not proud of, and I'm gonna embarrass myself or something like that? Because I think a lot of people right now that are thinking about making a comeback, they're like, if I fall on my face again, I don't know if I can handle doing that again. Did you have any of that? Michelle, were you worried about that?

• 1:05:11Speaker 05

  Um, no, but I know how he operates. And I was worried that he was, I mean, knowing him, I think, safe to say, you're probably thinking about it, it was in the back of your head, which is the reason you're going back in the first place, because you weren't happy of, you know, from the last and just kind of out there to prove something. So I knew he wanted to do it. But I think in the same regard, we're both the type of people, you can't fear failure. If you're gonna do it, go out there, you know, learn from the past mistakes and like he just said, train the best way possible for his body to get into the ring and, you know, see what happens. Just can't fear that failure.

• 1:05:48Ed Mylett?

  It looked to me like, and I think there's a huge lesson in this, guys. I'm saying, I want y'all to watch this thing. And I'm not pumping the documentary. I'm just telling you, it'll make an impact on you. And a WWE fan, of course it would. But the millions of you listening to me right now that aren't, it'll make an impact on you and where you are in your life. You're gonna see, you're gonna see what, they're both really humble people. You're gonna see what Michelle did. I think what made the comeback work, guys, I don't think you can dabble in your comeback. Like, they threw the kitchen sink. It was like shock and awe at this thing. All hands on deck, the whole family rallied. They get this place set up. Even the little details, Mark, with like the banners of the other dudes and you up in there, like you're looking, you said one point, you said, "Those guys

• 1:06:28Ed Mylett?

  are watching me." Right? Like, to me, man, like, that was, it was like, almost like a real-life Rocky movie, for real. And then, everybody, and I'll warn you of this, then he comes back, and he does great, but it's not even really what he wished for. It wasn't like, it was a five-minute match, right? He trained for 30, 40 minutes. And so, even when you get your comeback, the first time you come back, it may not even be exactly what you wanted. And then he went past that moment. True, Mark? It wasn't what you were looking for.

• 1:06:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, I trained, I trained for a 45-minute, all-out, back-and-forth war, and was so ready for that. And then, I got there the day of, and that's, that's, you know, it's gonna be five minutes, and you're gonna be a romping, stomping dragon, and, you know, and that's what we sell. I mean, we sell, we sell entertainment. We don't sell time. And...

• 1:07:22Speaker 05

  But we were just talking the other day about how life and wrestling matches are so parallel, right? Like, you know what your ultimate finish is gonna be, or what you would like it to be, but you're gonna get knocked down, you're gonna get beat up, you're gonna have like a little hope spot, where there's this ray of light, like, "Oh, I can do this." You're gonna get knocked back down again, you know, then you have this comeback, and it can be this great comeback, and you can finish on top, or it can be a great comeback, and then you just get knocked back down, and what do you do from there? You know, you can, it's your choice.

• 1:07:51Speaker 04

  What happens, yeah, but what happens there, if you decide to stay down, then that's, that's, that's kinda gonna dictate the rest of your life, really. If you accept it. If you accept where you're you're at, I couldn't accept after watching that match back, I couldn't accept leaving on those terms. And then I I knew where I wanted to be and I knew like, okay, this is this is what we gotta do to get to get to the point where I want to be.

• 1:08:19Ed Mylett?

  That's powerful, man. Like Malcolm X has this great quote that says, "That which you do not hate, you will eventually tolerate." You almost have to hate where you're at, and that's not a negative thing to want to move out of it. If you accept it, as you said, you're there. So you know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing like on repeat all the time? That sweater that kind of just goes with everything or these perfect pair of pants? Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for every day. It's what I'm wearing right now. They give you the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand without the price tag.

• 1:09:02Ed Mylett?

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• 1:10:30Ed Mylett?

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• 1:10:35Ed Mylett?

  That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow The Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Tim Grover, welcome back to the show, brother.

• 1:10:46Tim Grover?

  Thank you so much.

• 1:10:47Ed Mylett?

  At the beginning of the book, guys, this is unbelievable story about your last conversation with Kobe Bryant, just your relationship with him, because I think a winner, I do think of Kobe and MJ, 11 championships between them. Tell everybody a little bit about that conversation.

• 1:11:01Tim Grover?

  You know, Kobe and I, we text often. He was no longer playing ba- he was no longer playing basketball. He had moved into the business world. Already won an Oscar, wrote an amazing children's book. And we text back and forth. We tried to see each other. He was busy, I was busy. And I'd say, "How you doing?" He'd be, "I'm good, how you doing?" And we, "I'm chasing the next win." He's chasing the next win. And we were going to get together. The All-Star game was going to be in Chicago. And our plan was, he was going to come in town, you know, to support and some business stuff and so forth. So we had planned to get together.

• 1:11:39Tim Grover?

  And he said he'll text me when I'm in town. I said, "Hey, I'm not going anywhere." And...

• 1:11:46Ed Mylett?

  Sorry, brother.

• 1:11:49Ed Mylett?

  I'm the only guy who gets Tim Grover to cry on the show.

• 1:11:54Ed Mylett?

  You're good.

• 1:11:56Tim Grover?

  It never happened.

• 1:11:57Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:59Tim Grover?

  It never happened.

• 1:12:02Ed Mylett?

  He said something to you at the end of that conversation too, right? About, something about winning, or I'm gonna keep winning, or something like that. It actually came-

• 1:12:09Tim Grover?

  Chasing the next win?

• 1:12:10Ed Mylett?

  Chasing the next win.

• 1:12:13Tim Grover?

  Chasing the next win?

• 1:12:14Ed Mylett?

  What was it like for you, Tim? Because obviously, the emotion on your face is, this is not Tim. You're not a, you're not a crier.

• 1:12:21Tim Grover?

  No.

• 1:12:21Ed Mylett?

  What, I'm curious, what, when you heard the news originally? By the way, I was with him the week before. Is that crazy? I'll have to tell you that in a minute, but, um, did you just not believe it? Or was it just like, the breath left your body, or?

• 1:12:34Tim Grover?

  So what happened was, you know, I get, I get some information. Somebody shoots me a text, I was like, oh, fake news, this is not true, this is not true. And then more media comes in, more people come, then people that were like, really close to him, like, out in the LA area and so forth, said, hey, I just want to let you know that this is... And I was like, i- i- it can't be. It can't be. It didn't hit me until like, three days later.

• 1:13:01Ed Mylett?

  Really?

• 1:13:02Tim Grover?

  Three days. I was just like, literally sleeping. And I got up in the middle of the night, and I was just like...

• 1:13:11Tim Grover?

  He's gone?

• 1:13:14Tim Grover?

  Because you just didn't want to believe it. You just, you just didn't want to believe it.

• 1:13:18Ed Mylett?

  Do you think, because they, obviously, you being such a close confidant of his, and I get what you mean, like, time happens in life. You're not texting every single day, you're both busy guys. But you don't have to when you're great friends. You and I, even, we text a lot, but even when we don't for a month or two, it's like, right back-

• 1:13:34Tim Grover?

  It's not personal.

• 1:13:35Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:13:35Tim Grover?

  It's never personal. Like, you're busy, hey, your success comes in, send you a thumbs up, everybody. You, you, you don't have to text anybody when they know that you're actually- Excited for every win they get and every win that you get.

• 1:13:48Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:13:48Tim Grover?

  Like, they, they already know, they already know you're there for now. When they do something exceptional, you're like, hey, I just saw what you did, or something funny. But yeah, exactly.

• 1:13:56Ed Mylett?

  I think something with him, like, because it grips so many people that aren't even basketball fans. I think it's when someone lives so full out, that when they're no longer living, the impact of that passing is greater for some reason. You know, he was so alive.

• 1:14:11Tim Grover?

  So, to make the transition from winning on the basketball court to winning in the business environment, and then he got, you got a chance to see, you know, when he was no longer that basketball player, how close he was with his family.

• 1:14:25Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:25Tim Grover?

  You know, how he supported, how he supported everyone, you know, his daughter's basketball games and the volleyball games and everything. And it was just like, he was a much approachable person. You know, everybody used to see this rigid individual on the court, and he was so much, he was smiling, and he was talking to other players and so forth. I always say that his next move, his next win was, he had two things he wanted to do. And I have no proof of this, but just knowing his mentality. One was, he wanted his daughter to be the first female to play in the NBA.

• 1:15:05Ed Mylett?

  No kidding.

• 1:15:06Tim Grover?

  Not the WNBA, the NBA.

• 1:15:08Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 1:15:09Tim Grover?

  That's what he was getting, that's what he was getting her ready for. And the second one was like, he was like, I already own LA from a basketball standpoint.

• 1:15:21Tim Grover?

  I want to erase the basketball thing. I want to own LA.

• 1:15:23Ed Mylett?

  No kidding. He was that driven to continue to win.

• 1:15:27Tim Grover?

  Yes.

• 1:15:27Ed Mylett?

  Which is a theme in the book. See, I'm gonna tell you, you'd be proud of him. By the way, because I know you, there's Interment, and I did not know Kobe well. But our daughters played in the same volleyball league. So, the week before he passed, we were in the same gym.

• 1:15:39Tim Grover?

  I remember you telling this story.

• 1:15:40Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. Three, and it ends up, these volleyball tournaments are long, as you know, being a volleyball dad.

• 1:15:44Tim Grover?

  Yes, they are.

• 1:15:45Ed Mylett?

  But anyway, long story short, there's three dads left. It's almost 10 o'clock at night, left in this gym. Me, him, and another dude, who's a good friend of mine. And it was just striking for me. I watched this, it's the Black Mama, man, she's a killer, right? But I watched him, and I have no idea why, it like really struck me, I'm always evaluating him. You and I talk about it.

• 1:16:04Tim Grover?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:04Ed Mylett?

  Am I a good dad? How's your daughter? You know, like, we're always evaluating these things. And, and I watched him, other end of the gym. I watched him with his daughter, and he's carrying the baby in his one arm. And just, uh, the game was over, and he was like, kinda just caressing his other daughter's back, just watching him. I remember literally going, "I don't hug Bella enough." Like, "I don't hug her enough," you know? And he was such, I mean, because he's a man, he's a flawed man. He was a guy had, he really changed, you know? That's something to be so proud of. Anyway, long story short, because to me, that's winning. Winning is improvement, winning is growing, winning is ultimately... He was a better man on his last day than he was in the middle of his career.

• 1:16:43Tim Grover?

  Right. And when you said flawed, everybody thinks of flawed as a negative. We're all flawed.

• 1:16:50Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:16:51Tim Grover?

  We are all flawed. Accept it, use it, learn from it, and be like, "Okay, this is who I am. This is who I am. I'm not trying to be somebody else." What's, what's your flaws that makes you exceptional? That will make you different. That's what allows you to win where other people don't want to win. There's the people that can say, "Hey, we're flawed. We've both wrote bestseller books." And people won't know this about, they know this about me, but you shared this when we were at, uh, Arate Syndicate one time. You can't spell.

• 1:17:28Ed Mylett?

  That's totally true.

• 1:17:29Tim Grover?

  And I can't either.

• 1:17:31Ed Mylett?

  Such a great point.

• 1:17:33Tim Grover?

  Those are our flaws, and what do we do? We just laugh at it.

• 1:17:36Ed Mylett?

  And we write bestselling books.

• 1:17:37Tim Grover?

  Yes.

• 1:17:39Ed Mylett?

  I never even thought of that.

• 1:17:40Tim Grover?

  We laugh at it. I got knocked out in a spelling bee, which is in the book. And the word they asked me to spell was "ham."

• 1:17:54Ed Mylett?

  That's so awesome, dude.

• 1:17:56Tim Grover?

  It was ham.

• 1:17:58Ed Mylett?

  It's so awesome. I'm crying. So you cried on sad stuff. I cry on fun stuff. I just, I just, you know, I think about it, man, like you say something in the book. There's all these lessons and they're all listed like as number one, which I like too. He's like, hey, there's not 21, there's not 28, there's like, there's just an unlimited list of things.

• 1:18:14Tim Grover?

  Yes.

• 1:18:14Ed Mylett?

  Compiled on this book and winning. And it made me think of Kobe because, you know, when he walked out of the gym that day, I've said this to you too, but he had six days left to live. And I just, you know, what if the world would have, if he could just have a whisper when he got into that car with his family that night? Kobe, six days left to live.

• 1:18:31Tim Grover?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:32Ed Mylett?

  Three days later, Kobe, three more days. Three more days. That's Saturday prior. Kobe, one day left. You know, and the one thing I do feel like about people that win is in the book, because Kobe was doing this to the very end. You talk about the sprint versus marathon thing on winning. Just talk about that because I think Kobe did that till right in the last moment.

• 1:18:53Tim Grover?

  Right at, right at the end. You know, Kobe had this great line that he used to use all the time. He goes, rest at the end, not in the middle. Rest at the end, not in the middle. So to me, life and winning is a bunch of sprints within a marathon.

• 1:19:12Ed Mylett?

  That's a fact.

• 1:19:13Tim Grover?

  Yeah. A bunch of sprints within a marathon. And you can't see the end line. Like in a marathon, you know where the end line is. In winning, that win, that race may have an end line, but there's another start line right after it. And for people that are really driven, and this is, this is not about money, and this isn't about fame. This is about, you could be winning as a school teacher, you could be winning as an entrepreneur, you could be winning in business, you could be winning as an athlete, as a waiter, whatever it is, a waitress, whatever it is. It's that every single time you sprint to that finish line,

• 1:19:51Tim Grover?

  there's another start line that's coming. And that's why it never ends. It's a marathon that just keeps going, going, and going. And I try to tell people, listen, I'm not an avid runner. I used to be in my much younger days, not avid. I used to enjoy it.

• 1:20:10Tim Grover?

  Do you see the times of the best marathons? They're running

• 1:20:15Ed Mylett?

  Insane.

• 1:20:16Tim Grover?

  Insane.

• 1:20:17Ed Mylett?

  Insane. They're basically sprinting.

• 1:20:19Tim Grover?

  They're basically, they're sprinting. They are, they are sprinting.

• 1:20:23Ed Mylett?

  I think that's, it's one of the things, Tim, that you say in the book that I think is like super profound is that I think a lot of people like think there's some pacing to winning. But the truth is, there's not really pacing, is there? The best are full speed, knowing it's a long race, but it's, there's only really one year for them. Or am I wrong about that?

• 1:20:40Tim Grover?

  No, no, you're absolutely, you're absolutely, you're absolutely right, but everyone looks at the physical condition. Are you mentally prepared to sprint every single day? Are you mentally prepared to sprint every single day? And for how long? Because somebody else is sprinting. You don't want them to get what should be your win, ends up being somebody else's win. And everyone says, hard work, now we'll get you closer to that win. How many individuals have you known that you've outworked and they got that win?

• 1:21:17Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:21:17Tim Grover?

  Winning has no loyalty to you. It has no loyalty to me. It has no loyalty to anybody. You can outwork somebody, you can outstudy them, you can do all these different things.

• 1:21:26Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:28Tim Grover?

  You can apply for a job and somebody who's less qualified ends up getting that job. So winning has no loyalty to you. It's like, here it is.

• 1:21:37Ed Mylett?

  This is, this is where the book is so, I call it like hardcore, because that's your style too. It's like, look, there's so many things in the book where you talk like that about, you know, hey, listen, winning doesn't care about you. Winning, winning will lift you up and then slap you back down again, right? There's all of these unbelievable, and I think as somebody who wants to win more, I've done some winning, who wants to win more, when you read it, if you've had any wins in your life, confirmation of truth, when you read something that you know is true, it just instantly sits on you as a fact, right? And so, here's one of the things you say in the book, you say, all over the book, I'm highlighting and writing stuff down, for people I know, for myself, I read this to Max last

• 1:22:18Ed Mylett?

  About 1 a.m. He goes daddy, I said, wake up, I'm reading Grover's book. He's like, bring it back with you tonight, which I'm gonna do, but.

• 1:22:26Tim Grover?

  You give him this one.

• 1:22:27Ed Mylett?

  Okay, I will give him the clean one. Thank you. Winning requires you to be different and different scares people. So if you're worried about what others will say, the long-term effects, the sacrifices you'll make, the sleep you lose, your family being angry, I can't help you with that. There's nothing quote typical about lifestyle and choices you have to make. Winning is an inside, winning is inside all of us, but for most, that's where it will stay. Trapped under a lifetime of fear and worry and doubt. The race, to speak of the sprint, to greatness has no rules to protect you. Nothing says you're gonna lose, you're gonna get, you're not gonna get, nothing says you're not gonna lose, nothing says you're not gonna get hurt. You're not gonna do all this work for nothing. There's no guarantee it'll be fair.

• 1:23:07Ed Mylett?

  Most likely, it will not be fair. You'll lose at the buzzer. You'll lose to someone who didn't work as hard as you did. You lose on a bad call or a bad place. Someone else will get the job. A pandemic will wipe out your season, your bank account, your career. Yet, the prize at the end of that race remains so compelling, so addictive, so gorgeous. We keep running and stumbling and sacrificing and competing to catch it. It's exactly what you're talking about, right?

• 1:23:31Tim Grover?

  It's exactly what I'm talking about. You just, it's. I couldn't describe it any other way. You just look at it. It's not, everybody said, how many times you've heard it? It's not fair. It's not supposed to be fair. It's not, it's not supposed to be fair. Winning is not supposed to be fair. Life is not fair. There's nothing that's gonna guarantee you that win. It's, but the only thing that's gonna guarantee you that loss is if you don't get in this race. How many people, and you talk about this all the time, about the fears and the emotions and like, you know, just. Getting, just going for it, just like here it is. Look at yourself.

• 1:24:11Tim Grover?

  You've moved three different times in probably the last six months. For whatever reasons you've had, alright? And you've literally packed up and moved, like here I'm going, here I'm going, here. You've got people that won't move themselves out of a chair. You've literally moved families, lives, and there's literally a fear behind every single one of those, but there's no doubt.

• 1:24:38Ed Mylett?

  Right, that's really well said.

• 1:24:40Tim Grover?

  There was no doubt.

• 1:24:41Ed Mylett?

  That's really well said.

• 1:24:42Tim Grover?

  Everything that you've done and everything that I've done, there's always been a little fear. And the fear is what allows us to be like, you know what? I'm gonna throw myself over the ledge. I'm going, I'm going, I'm going to do this, but I have no doubt of what the end result is going to be.

• 1:24:56Ed Mylett?

  That's so amazing you say that. I was with a group of guys, influencers, one of them you were with this morning, about four weeks ago. It kinda went around the table like, what moves you? And one guy's like, hey, my dreams, you know, my confidence, my this. And so it got to me, and I think probably at that, well, anyway, I'll just say that at that table, I kinda, I just say, hey, I'll be honest with you, I'm still afraid. I'm still afraid. They're like, you're afraid, you got this, you got that? I said, no, man, I'm still afraid. And it's a real afraid. It's not something I'm trying to conjure up. It's like a real afraid that I have. However, I actually think successful people have this really unique nuance of like tons of self-confidence, combined with enough humility to wanna keep working and learning. It's a really unique look.

• 1:25:38Ed Mylett?

  We both know people that are super confident but don't have that dose of humility where they wanna work hard and wanna be coached, right? And then you also have the people with all the humility in the world, but they don't have the confidence and they're not gonna win either, right?

• 1:25:49Tim Grover?

  And you have, you coach people at all different levels. Your most successful people are your most coachable.

• 1:25:58Ed Mylett?

  A fact. What about when you were training Kobe? You say something in the book, like when you first met him, the first workouts or whatever, like he didn't want you to make it easy on him. He had no expectation about it, right?

• 1:26:08Tim Grover?

  No, I mean, just like, hey, listen. And the thing that he said was unique about this, when we were starting to work out, one of the reporters asked him, said, oh, you hired Tim Grover, Michael, Michael Strain. He goes, well, what do you, what have you, how do you feel about that? Kobe, and I'm gonna use a little language here, he goes... I don't know, he ain't done shit for me.

• 1:26:28Tim Grover?

  He goes, "I'm not gonna judge him by what he did" "last time. I wanna know what he's done for me." We relish that.

• 1:26:36Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, you relish what Jordan told him about you?

• 1:26:39Tim Grover?

  Oh, yes.

• 1:26:39Ed Mylett?

  Tell him, it's okay, sell the language. Remember what Jordan said about you to him?

• 1:26:43Tim Grover?

  Yeah, so he just said-

• 1:26:44Ed Mylett?

  Kobe asked him, "What about this guy?"

• 1:26:45Tim Grover?

  What about, he goes, "He really knows his stuff, but he goes, 'He's the biggest asshole you'll ever meet.'"

• 1:26:51Ed Mylett?

  It's a great compliment, right?

• 1:26:52Tim Grover?

  It's a great compliment. It's a great compliment, because how many people when they're, when they meet winners-

• 1:27:01Ed Mylett?

  Yup.

• 1:27:02Tim Grover?

  -fold? They become yes-men, yes-people.

• 1:27:06Ed Mylett?

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:27:08Tim Grover?

  And then you have to be the person that holds them accountable. And it's funny, I just, as you said earlier, I call people out, I want people to call me out on my bullshit, I call them out on their bullshit.

• 1:27:20Ed Mylett?

  You've done it with me before.

• 1:27:21Tim Grover?

  Yeah, I have. I do, I do it with everyone, and I do it not out of a place out of hate, not jealous or anything like that. Listen,

• 1:27:31Tim Grover?

  the one thing that you've offered me that no one's ever offered me

• 1:27:36Tim Grover?

  is your, is that access to your jet.

• 1:27:40Tim Grover?

  Alright, now if I would've came when I put you in check, if that was coming out of hate,

• 1:27:48Tim Grover?

  that offer wouldn't be there. You know it's coming out of love.

• 1:27:51Ed Mylett?

  100%. By the way, you also have helped my son, unselfishly. And by the way, never told me that you were doing it. Only through him do I find these things out that Tim does. That's what I meant by a real man. I think the winners have this thing, by the way, you should use it, you're the type of person that will never take me up on it, and you should. But I have to tell you guys that I think one of the things that the winners have is they lose this expectation that's gonna be easy. They lose the expectation that they're going to be liked. They lose the expectation that it's gonna be perfect. Like, once you've sort of given up, you've actually surrendered to the fact, "This is not going to be easy, people aren't going to like me, I am going to be judged, I am going to be disliked." It's not all that bad when it starts happening to you.

• 1:28:26Tim Grover?

  And that's what winning's about. In order to win, you have, those are all the things that are in the unforgiving race. So you already know they're there. You know they're there. And then people are still distracted by it. You know everything that you just mentioned is in this race. So if you already know it's there, you know what your opponents are. Deal with it.

• 1:28:49Ed Mylett?

  You also, though, like, there's a level even past that. Like, every time I'm reading the book, I'm like, okay, oh, there's another level, another level, another level. And you articulate it, you've been up close and you're including yourself to like the biggest winners in, in sports. So like, there's layers to this that only someone in that type of proximity to it would know too. But so many people are governed, like, what we're really describing right now is they're governed by their emotions.

• 1:29:14Tim Grover?

  Yes.

• 1:29:14Ed Mylett?

  Their emotions rule their lives, right? And you talk in the book about mindset and thoughts being bigger and more important than that. So this is so huge what he's about to share with you right now because right now, some of you, you're driving right now or you're on a treadmill somewhere or you're watching this on YouTube and you're being governed by your emotions. It's literally dictating the direction of your life, your effort, your belief level, your confidence, all of it. But the highest level winners do what?

• 1:29:41Tim Grover?

  Your mind has to be stronger than your feelings. Your mind has to be stronger than your feelings. Think about every poor decision you've made in your life.

• 1:29:53Trent Shelton?

  Gosh.

• 1:29:54Tim Grover?

  There was more emotion that was involved in it than there was mine. Every single one of them. Think about it.

• 1:30:01Ed Mylett?

  Really wise.

• 1:30:02Tim Grover?

  Your feelings keep you in bed. Your mind tells you, get up.

• 1:30:10Tim Grover?

  Think about it. Every single day, your mind is the one that tells you, get up. And your feelings like, eh, an extra 30 minutes, just roll this, don't worry about it.

• 1:30:19Ed Mylett?

  I could tell you this, every bad decision I made has been ruled by emotion.

• 1:30:24Tim Grover?

  Guess what?

• 1:30:24Ed Mylett?

  You just said that.

• 1:30:25Tim Grover?

  You and I have both.

• 1:30:26Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:26Tim Grover?

  You and I both.

• 1:30:29Ed Mylett?

  You're making me think.

• 1:30:30Tim Grover?

  Every single one, your mind has to be stronger than your feelings. Listen, it's not the popular decision. You are gonna hurt, you are gonna piss a lot of people off.

• 1:30:43Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 1:30:43Tim Grover?

  All right. Are you gonna piss them off for the short term? Are you gonna piss them off for the long term? I've had so many individuals, athletes, that I used to train back in the day and I used to tell them, you're not good enough to go to the NBA.

• 1:30:55Ed Mylett?

  You would evaluate them and be willing to tell them.

• 1:30:57Tim Grover?

  I would tell them, you're not good enough to, but you can make a ton of money overseas. I said, what do you want to do? I said, overseas, you can make, I said, you can literally, you could have a very long career, be extremely popular over there, live a nice lifestyle.

• 1:31:15Tim Grover?

  And be successful for numerous years.

• 1:31:17Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 1:31:18Tim Grover?

  Rover, you don't know what you're talking about.

• 1:31:20Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:20Tim Grover?

  Okay, I'm telling you. Ten years come by, they're chasing the NBA dream, they don't make it. I run into them and they come up to me and says,

• 1:31:29Tim Grover?

  "You're the only one that told me."

• 1:31:30Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 1:31:31Tim Grover?

  "You're the only one that told me."

• 1:31:33Ed Mylett?

  Do you think the fact that they deny is interesting thought? Like, you are candid with me, right? Like, I actually look at, my dad was candid with me. So I, maybe it's because I played sports, I don't know, but like, I look at people who are really candid and frank with me as like, that's actually real belief and love.

• 1:31:50Tim Grover?

  100%.

• 1:31:51Ed Mylett?

  But don't you think most people that don't win, and I'm not calling myself a winner, but I think most people that don't win, don't view candor and direct feedback that way. They view it as hate, or criticism, or you're rooting against me, or... Don't you agree? Like, I actually have very few people who are candid with me.

• 1:32:08Tim Grover?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:08Ed Mylett?

  And those are some of my most cherished people in my life.

• 1:32:10Tim Grover?

  Right. Well, here's the thing. So, when's the right, when's the, when's the best time for the truth? All the time. It's the best time for the truth, all the time. The truth should lead to more action.

• 1:32:25Tim Grover?

  But what does it usually do? It leads to more emotions.

• 1:32:29Ed Mylett?

  Wow, that's really true.

• 1:32:31Tim Grover?

  So when you tell somebody the truth, so what's the first thing? Anybody in a relationship, you go in a relationship with business, personal, whatever it is, the first thing they always ask me, honesty. Honesty is the most important, until you're honest.

• 1:32:46Ed Mylett?

  Until you're honest, yeah.

• 1:32:47Tim Grover?

  Then the emotions get in, and then everything goes haywire. Then your mind still, your mind has to be stronger than your feelings.

• 1:32:56Ed Mylett?

  That's awesome. I have one of the great fitness icons of all time right here. It's Mike O'Hearn, so Mike, thanks.

• 1:33:02Tim Grover?

  Thanks, brother.

• 1:33:03Ed Mylett?

  Thanks for being here, man.

• 1:33:03Tim Grover?

  Thank you, man.

• 1:33:04Ed Mylett?

  So good to have you, man.

• 1:33:05Tim Grover?

  Thank you.

• 1:33:05Ed Mylett?

  Someone said to you, because I think, like, it's rare that you put someone who's the best on the planet at something in front of you. Like, on the earth spinning right now, and we said, who in the last 25 years, let's say, take that window of time, just that basic window of time, which is a fair window, who's probably the healthiest, fittest person, the icon that's sustained it, grown it, and got... more fit and also help more people get there too that he trains with it would be this human right sitting next to me so what does that I know we've talked a lot about like if it's hard to describe yourself I have a hard time doing it's like I'm not even sure how I am you know I'm just that way right but let me ask you something seriously what's that mindset like like don't sugarcoat it no BS don't be humble is it just like you want to crush everybody is that you're

• 1:33:49Ed Mylett?

  trying to chase the best you is it just like this stacking of disciplines that's built you into this thing like what is it that's like this world-class mindset you hold do you know um I

• 1:34:01Speaker 07

  would say it's it's I want to be the very the number one guy I want people to be able to say hey I want to do a Mike O'Hearn I want to be like Mike O'Hearn when I'm that and and

• 1:34:11Ed Mylett?

  in whatever it is

• 1:34:12Speaker 07

  it's just that long period of time yeah and it's not just I don't want you guys to sit there and I I guess I want people to live what I've lived and stop giving the excuses and stop saying ah I'm 30 now it's downhill from here I'm doing pretty good college I peaked and then it's that it's like there's a there's a thing called science and there's a science will show you what's possible what's not possible there is something that's called heart that can break that and something that can set it apart and I'm just saying that the one thing that we're doing now and and I'm lucky enough to be around is to be around doctors and science and actually doing tests now going

• 1:34:52Speaker 07

  why is why is it that I got to be able to do this for such a long period of time and not just as a average Joe because everybody's like as long as I can be healthy fuck healthy I'm sorry

• 1:35:03Ed Mylett?

  it's alright

• 1:35:04Speaker 07

  bleep that out but be a freaking superhero for your whole life

• 1:35:08Ed Mylett?

  yes

• 1:35:08Speaker 07

  and then so I guess for me it's consistency is me describing myself but the hunger to be the very number one

• 1:35:16Ed Mylett?

  yes yes what's the next five or 10 years look like for you do you think we know what the past looked like we know what the present looks like what but we're gonna do more of these but I'm gonna have you back here in five years what do you think

• 1:35:27Speaker 07

  I love the purchasing properties and commercial real estate I love this and it's something that

• 1:35:34Speaker 07

  Again, I think you agree with this. You can be around your friends, but you need some elite people that are raising you up. And I've got that, and I've had that. In the last 10 years, my life has completely changed to the point of where I'm doing all charity and I'm around guys that are better than me.

• 1:35:53Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:53Speaker 07

  In other facets. And they make you stand up and go, "Listen, this is great what you're doing, but I need you here."

• 1:35:59Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 1:36:00Speaker 07

  This is what you need to do. Now, you need to man up.

• 1:36:02Ed Mylett?

  You all need these people in your life.

• 1:36:03Speaker 07

  Yeah. And so I...

• 1:36:05Ed Mylett?

  You gonna buy more property? You think we see in movies?

• 1:36:07Speaker 07

  More properties, leads in movies, and continue to travel the world and talk.

• 1:36:12Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. Do you think you'd be even more fit?

• 1:36:14Speaker 07

  I do. Listen, as much as I got crazy this year, I already told my girl. And I said, "I want to even be better than I was for New Year's."

• 1:36:22Ed Mylett?

  I love this, brother. I love... You inspire me.

• 1:36:25Speaker 07

  Thanks, man.

• 1:36:26Ed Mylett?

  No, you inspire me. You do.

• 1:36:27Speaker 07

  Appreciate that.

• 1:36:27Ed Mylett?

  You're inspiring to me. This is...

• 1:36:28Speaker 07

  Now, see, that's a fun... That's a fun... Oh, is this your ride?

• 1:36:33Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, this is how you're getting home.

• 1:36:34Speaker 07

  Helicopter's coming, guys.

• 1:36:35Ed Mylett?

  Right over the ocean.

• 1:36:36Speaker 07

  Yeah, we're gonna do more of this. This went too fast, but it's just something that when you can push somebody that's already at a pinnacle level, that's badass.

• 1:36:46Ed Mylett?

  It is badass. And that's why I try to surround myself with guys like you. And like you just said, that's such a... That's part of the formula, everybody, is that you surround yourself with people who do make you better, whatever the industry is, doesn't even matter. They just make you want to be better by their example, not their yelling and screaming, right? Their example does.

• 1:37:01Speaker 07

  Thank you for saying that, though.

• 1:37:01Ed Mylett?

  It's a fact. The other thing I want to tell everybody that when you're listening to Mike, there's a uniqueness to him that I want to point out. It's that not only can he do these things, but he can articulate them. That's rare for an athlete. It's rare for a business person to be able to articulate it. The reason I point that out to you is you can get Mike to come speak to your organization. You can have him come talk to your group. He can come do inspirational talks, fitness talks. This is someone that you ought to bring into your company to have speak to you. And he's also somebody that just by following him on social media will alter your life. You will have no excuses. You will be inspired, right? You will see one of the great lives being lived, but there's also all this fitness stuff, all this information out there.