The Mindset of World Champions w/Tim Grover EP 1111

“You can have fear, but you can’t have doubt.”Today's guest is Tim Grover, best known for his training with Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and thousands of athletes and business professionals. He is the CEO and founder of Attack Athletics, Inc., and author of the international bestseller “Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable” and his new book, “Winning: The Unforgiving Race to Greatness.” He appears around the world as a keynote speaker and consultant to business leaders, athletes, and the highest achievers in every field. The conversation was so powerful that we had to split it up into 2 parts, so make sure to listen to part 2 coming soon! In this episode Lewis and Tim discuss the mistake most people make when understanding success, the three greatest lessons Tim learned from Michael Jordan, why we shouldn’t allow other people’s doubt to get in the way of our own success, the truth about obsession, and so much more! For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1111Read Tim’s new book: Winning: The Unforgiving Race to GreatnessThe Wim Hof Experience: Mindset Training, Power Breathing, and Brotherhood: https://link.chtbl.com/910-podA Scientific Guide to Living Longer, Feeling Happier & Eating Healthier with Dr. Rhonda Patrick: https://link.chtbl.com/967-podThe Science of Sleep for Ultimate Success with Shawn Stevenson: https://link.chtbl.com/896-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 1111 with world champion trainer, Tim Grover. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:28Lewis Howes?

  Napoleon Hill once said, "A quitter never wins and a winner never quits." And Suzy Casim said, "Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will." My guest today is Tim Grover, best known for his training with Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and thousands of athletes and business professionals at the highest level. He is the CEO and founder of Attack Athletics, Inc., and author of the international bestseller, Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable. And he's got a new book that is extremely inspiring called, Winning: The Unforgiving Race to Greatness. He appears around the world as a keynote speaker and consultant to business leaders, athletes, and the highest achievers in every field. And our conversation was so powerful that I had to split it up in two parts.

• 1:13Lewis Howes?

  So make sure to stay tuned to part two coming next. In this first part, we discuss the mistake most people make when understanding success. Also, the three greatest lessons Tim learned from Michael Jordan. These are powerful. Why we shouldn't allow other people's doubt to get into the way of our own success. It's not about other people. It's about ourselves. The reason Kobe Bryant was Tim's most demanding client and what he demanded from Tim. Tim's story of meeting Michael Jordan and how 30 days turned into 15 years working with him. How to create balance in your life the right way. The truth about obsessing over your craft and so much more. This is going to inspire you, and if it does, make sure to share this with one, two, or three friends.

• 1:56Lewis Howes?

  Text them, post it on social media, tag myself and Tim as well over on social media as you're listening to this. And a quick reminder, if this is your first time here, click that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or Spotify right now, as well as leave us a rating or review, letting us know the part you enjoyed most about this episode. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only, Tim Grover.

• 2:21Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. I'm extremely excited about our guest, Tim Grover in the house. My man.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Lewis, what's happening? A long time no see, man.

• 2:28Lewis Howes?

  Good to see you, man. Very excited about this. You have been training and working with the greatest athletes and leaders of our generation, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Dwyane Wade, and many others that rave about you and your mindset, more than just you as a trainer, but you're the way you think and the way you show up, the habits, the just the rituals, the routines, everything you bring to the table. And I want to ask you, my first question is, what do most people misunderstand about success in general? You're around the most successful people, you train them. What do people misunderstand about success?

• 3:05Speaker 01

  I think the thing that people misunderstand about success is they're looking for the easiest way to get there. You know, and it's funny, how many people?

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Books have you read, or I won't say promoted, but had on your show, and everybody goes, "Five easy steps, 10 steps to greatness," you know, "Eight steps to this." And those steps for success, they're infinite. They are infinite. You cannot count them. It doesn't matter how long you've been doing it. Those steps are constantly shifting. You don't know if they're there. Sometimes you have to trust that the next step is going to be there when you can't even see it. And sometimes when you step on that step, you go right into quicksand. But you got to be able to pull yourself back out of it again.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  So everybody's looking for these steps and there are no steps. Those steps never, never end. And you just can't climb steps. Sometimes you got to crawl those steps. And you finally get to the top and everything shifts and you're at the bottom again.

• 4:17Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy. What does that mean? Sometimes you're at the top and then you're at the bottom again.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Well, you may get to the top and you're like, "I'm here." And then you look back down and you look up again, you're actually on the first step. You're on the first step again. And where you thought was the top is not even the top. It's the beginning. It's literally the beginning of where you're supposed to be. And that's when most people just quit. I just like, it just drives me crazy because everybody's like, here. Look at, I always, people that I do the interview with, I always like to use them as an example because people can relate to that. All right. You've been climbing steps for how long to get to here?

• 5:02Lewis Howes?

  To get to? I mean, since starting this, it's been over eight years, but the journey before then, it was, you know, decades to build myself, to prepare myself for this. And now I feel like I'm just getting started.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Right. Exactly. So you have just, right, exactly. So all the steps that you climbed just to get started.

• 5:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Just to get started. And people don't want to talk about those steps. They don't want to talk about those steps and how difficult those steps are and how many steps that you stumbled on and how many steps you didn't even see and how many steps that people placed in front of you and they pulled them, and they pulled them off, pulled away. People that you were very close to, people that you knew, that people that you thought that were like, "Hey, these people actually have my back," except, yeah, they did have your back, but they were actually pushing you down the steps.

• 5:52Lewis Howes?

  For stabbing you.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  Yes. No? And it's funny, when you talk about those things, when people talk about it, they seem surprised. But you should know that in that path, all those things are going to be there.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  They're going to be there.

• 6:08Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's the obstacles, you know, Ryan Holiday says, "The obstacle is the way." Do you think that anyone can become a winner? Your book is about winning, The Unforgiving Race to Greatness. Do you think anyone can become a winner?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Winning isn't all of us. That's what I always say. Listen, and we have wins every single moment. And those are the steps that get us a little closer to what we want. We have a step. We, every minute, you have an opportunity to win. You really do. But with everything that went on in the world in this past year, people forgot how to win. People don't even know what a win looks like anymore.

• 6:46Lewis Howes?

  What does it look like?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, people don't even know like, and so many times a win just comes by because there's a constant change. There's a constant shift. And now with the paradigm of way everything is being handled now,

• 7:00Speaker 01

  you have to look at things completely different. Everybody's waiting for normal. A win, a win doesn't look like what it used to look like anymore.

• 7:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  All right.

• 7:10Lewis Howes?

  What does it look like now?

• 7:11Speaker 01

  What does it look like now? For each individual, it's different. For each individual, it's different. For a lot of individuals, it's just like getting out of that routine that you were stuck in for so long. And did the pandemic allow you to say, "You know what? Yeah, I was in a routine, but the routine wasn't getting me anywhere. I was in a routine of comfort." And the pandemic put a lot of people in a routine that was very uncomfortable, that they weren't used to. They weren't, but it was a necessity. It was needed. You know, people always wish for this time during this thing that happened, "I want to spend more time with my family."

• 7:53Lewis Howes?

  And now they have it.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Now you have it. Okay. Schools aren't doing a good job with educating my kids. Now you're homeschooling. I'd love to work from the house.

• 8:05Lewis Howes?

  Now you're doing it.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Now you're doing it. Now you have all these things going on that you wished you had as you thought were wins. And for some people, they were. And for others, you're just like, "No." These were not, these are not wins. These are, I do a lot of Zoom stuff at home and I got a cat and I got a very lively dog and you'll see the cat run right across the screen. I don't have little kids in the house anymore, but trying to work and have them in the background, asking for school help or, you know, they're, they're on their bandwidth, trying to study in their school stuff. And winning became a distraction. It became a distraction.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  And people are trying to balance all these different things and forgot, "Hey, this is what my win is." That you need to recognize what that win is now. And during the pandemic, it's not getting back to normal. It's getting beyond normal, figuring out what your next win is, how to place it, and how to continue to move forward on that win.

• 9:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Because it's easy to talk about the setbacks because so many people can relate to that. That gave us a nice little comfort thing. Everybody can use the pandemic as an excuse.

• 9:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  All right. And then you have other people that thrive during that time. They're like, "I got, I got to find out a new way to win.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  I got to find out like a real, real new way to win." And you had some people that really, really won big during that time.

• 9:43Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. They stepped up.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  They, they stepped up. Yes. They stepped up. They saw the steps and there was like, "Okay."

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Are the steps stable? Are they unstable? It doesn't matter. I gotta climb them.

• 9:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  I gotta climb them.

• 9:57Lewis Howes?

  Right. You've uh, you've probably been asked this question a million times, so I'm not gonna ask it, which is, I'm not gonna ask you to answer it, which is, uh, who is the best basketball player you ever trained? I'm assuming you've been asked that many times.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  I have.

• 10:13Lewis Howes?

  What I will ask you is, who is the hardest for you personally to train? Who is the hardest for you to show up for mentally, physically? What was the most, the biggest challenge for you? For whatever reason, maybe because they were more demanding, or they were, you know, needed different skills that you didn't have, whatever it is, who was the hardest for you to train?

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Well, you know, it's funny.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  All my top guys, I didn't have any problems with those. They always showed up. I knew what I was expecting. Now Kobe was extremely demanding on knowing everything, like.

• 10:45Lewis Howes?

  Why are we doing this?

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 10:46Lewis Howes?

  Why? Tell me the science behind this.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:49Lewis Howes?

  Otherwise, I don't wanna do it.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  Exactly. You know, you had him on your show, and you know, he's like, every question you ask him, there's, there's gotta be a purpose behind him, otherwise you get that Mamba glare.

• 11:00Lewis Howes?

  What are we doing here?

• 11:00Speaker 01

  What are we doing here? What are we doing here? And so he wanted to know why we did every exercise, why we worked out at this time, what was the rep count? Why am I eating this? Why am I resting this long? He wanted to know every single detail. Why am I giving this particular day off? He needed, he needed to know all of it. Why do we do, why did I change the sequence of this stuff? So he, he was very demanding in that way, which I really enjoyed because it made me sharper in my skills, because Michael, in his career, he was just like, I hired you, if I have to question you, that means I don't trust you.

• 11:44Lewis Howes?

  Right. I trust you, just do, I'll do whatever you tell me to do.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. I hired you to do a job, I have to focus in on this, you go out, you, you do your job. Results were tremendous, but Kobe wanted to know every single detail along the way. Everything, like, why am I changing his diet? What's going on here? Everything. If he didn't shoot well in a game, like, hey, we changed that exercise up. Did that have anything to do with what, what was going on? And you couldn't BS him. And a lot of times, I wouldn't know the answer, and I would say, give me 24 hours. Then I would call somebody who had a better expertise in that. And that was a level of respect that he had, because I didn't come across as a know-it-all.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  I don't know it, I'm gonna ask somebody who's, who's better at it than I am.

• 12:34Lewis Howes?

  Who was, uh, so he was the most demanding?

• 12:37Speaker 01

  He was, oh, you, you know.

• 12:39Lewis Howes?

  He was relentless.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Louis, you being out here, his 3 a.m. workouts, they're.

• 12:46Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Crazy, you know, having to keep the sta, having to keep the Staples Center open later because he wasn't happy the way he performed at that game. And I would not leave till he would leave.

• 12:59Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we would be, we would be in the arena sometimes 2, 3 o'clock in the morning.

• 13:05Lewis Howes?

  Shut up.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. We, and this, you know, one security, one security person there, because they can't leave him alone.

• 13:11Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Right. All the lights are turned off, but except on the, except on the court, and we just, we just keep, we just keep going, we just keep going, we just keep going. The hardest thing with him was getting him to stop.

• 13:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, okay, take a break, rest.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:30Lewis Howes?

  Take the day off.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was the most challenge, you said, what was the most challenging thing? That was the most challenging thing with him, because over all the years that he had his success, it was about go, go, go. And then when I came on, I was the complete, I said, go, I gotta get you to stop.

• 13:51Lewis Howes?

  Otherwise, you're gonna hurt yourself.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Yes, that was a very, very difficult concept for him to understand. And I said, not only physically, mentally, I said, I need you to stop ment, I need you to stop mentally for a little bit. You gotta give this, you gotta give this game a little bit of break up in here. I'm not gonna tell you how to do that, but you have to, you have to find that way, where for 20 minutes, we can just, I just need you to shut it off.

• 14:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And when you were training with a Kobe or a Michael Jordan, was it five days a week? Was it in the offseason mostly? Was it during season? How would it typically work?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Year round.

• 14:28Lewis Howes?

  Year round?

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Year round.

• 14:30Lewis Howes?

  Full-time, year-round? Were you training other people at the same time, or was it just, this is it?

• 14:34Speaker 01

  So with Michael during the season, it was, it was just him. It was just him. Well, we had what was called the Breakfast Club. The Breakfast Club was during the season, I would, I would train, uh, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Ron Harper. They would come on, they would show up at Michael's house.

• 14:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  I would train them, they would get together. If they worked out intensely enough, their reward was breakfast.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  And Michael was the judge of, Michael was the judge of that.

• 15:02Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 15:03Speaker 01

  He was, he was.

• 15:03Lewis Howes?

  You don't eat unless you train hard.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  You, you don't eat unless you train hard. You don't, yeah, you don't get breakfast unless you, unless you're, you're in here. They all had to be here at the same time. We would finish the workouts at different times, because each one had different needs that had to be addressed separately. But once they were done, they sat, they all had breakfast together, they all got in their individual cars, and they drove, they drove to the arena. Some would leave a little bit earlier, because they needed treatment or other.

• 15:31Lewis Howes?

  So they were training hard the day of a game?

• 15:34Speaker 01

  The day of, of the game, they trained. And that was something.

• 15:37Lewis Howes?

  What if they're sore? What if you're like, oh, I can't lift my arms, I can't run?

• 15:41Speaker 01

  See, so it was funny, and I talk about this in this book, Winning, because when I,

• 15:48Speaker 01

  I have a master's degree in exercise science. My bachelor's is in kinesiology. So I spent a lot of time in school, and they taught me what to think.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Here's the book, this is how the body works, this is what, what you need to do. All right. Then when I started working with these individuals, I said, okay,

• 16:08Speaker 01

  between travel days and game days,

• 16:13Speaker 01

  if we were to work out, if we did not work out on those days, we would literally work out maybe once a week.

• 16:18Lewis Howes?

  Because you're practicing.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Practicing, you gotta travel, you know, you got, you, back then, there were almost three to four games a week. You know, now the schedule's a little bit more diverse, but back then, it was, you know, you would play minimum of three games a week. So I was like,

• 16:37Speaker 01

  if we don't work out on game days, we're never gonna make any progress. You will actually be more sore once a week working out. And there were no books to tell me of any of this. There was no, nothing. I couldn't go back then, remember, no internet?

• 16:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  All right.

• 16:55Lewis Howes?

  No cell phones, no internet.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  No cell, no, no cellphone, no Google, no nothing. Yes. It was the Dewey Decimal System for the young people that don't know what that is, is when you go to a library. Yeah, where they have books, and you gotta check out a book.

• 17:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  You couldn't find this information in there. So to me, I started to develop the skill of how to think. It's like, well, you know what? This makes sense to me. So I'd say, hey, Michael, we, Michael, we gotta do this. We have to work out on game day. Yes, it's going to be detrimental early.

• 17:26Lewis Howes?

  Right. First month, first eight weeks, it's gonna, you're gonna be paying, paying, and paying, yeah.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Right. I said, I'm not gonna tell you, you're not. But I said, if we started early enough and get you, we started in the preseason, your body will accumulate, then when the season rolls around, you'll be, you'll be fine. I said, it will pay off dividends in the long.

• 17:43Lewis Howes?

  How, how many years had he been playing in the NBA before you told him, we're gonna be training on game day?

• 17:49Speaker 01

  I started with him right away. I started, I started with him in 89. I think he came into the league, I can't remember the exact year he came into, into the league, but I started training with him, uh, in 1989.

• 18:00Lewis Howes?

  And how did the story go again? Didn't you call like every player on the team or something?

• 18:04Speaker 01

  So again, back then,

• 18:08Speaker 01

  it wasn't easy to pick up, pick up a phone, so what I did was, unless you had a landline at home. And, um, I wrote a letter. I wrote letters. There's 15 players on an NBA team.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  I wrote 14 letters to the Chicago Bulls. I wrote a letter to every single player except Michael Jordan, because I was like.

• 18:29Lewis Howes?

  He's not gonna do it.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  He's not gonna do it. I'm like, I've never worked with a pro athlete, all right? I've never worked with a pro athlete. No one's gonna, he's not gonna, the best of the best is not gonna come in and say, hey, I'm gonna hire this, I'm gonna hire this kid. But he saw a letter in somebody else's locker and pulled the letter out, read it, and gave it to the athletic trainer, the team physician at that time, and said, hey, find out what this kid's about.

• 18:54Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:55Lewis Howes?

  How old were you then?

• 18:57Speaker 01

  I was 20, 25 maybe, 25, 26.

• 19:04Lewis Howes?

  So you're about the same age as Michael, right?

• 19:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Michael's born in, uh, I'm a 62, uh, I'm a 64, he's a 60. He was born in 62, I was born in 64.

• 19:12Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. So he's, he's a couple of years older than you?

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Older, yeah.

• 19:15Lewis Howes?

  And so he saw a letter in someone else's locker and said, oh, why didn't I get this letter?

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, competitive.

• 19:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  Why, why isn't this guy reaching out? You know, I don't know if that was the case, but everybody knows about Michael's competitiveness. And he was just like, why, why didn't he, why didn't he reach out to me? So he gave it to the team athletic trainer, and the team doctor got together. They gave me a call. I didn't know who they were interviewing. Yeah, I had no idea. They said, listen, we have a client that's, that's interested. We have somebody that's interested. So, okay, so for Lily, for three months, for three months, they drilled me. They brought me in to see my, my, to ask me questions, to take tests, to, you know, see if I knew what I was talking about, to go through a rehab process, to go through a workout, all these.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  And that just went on for three, literally four days a week for three months, every single, every single day, every single day. And then one day, they finally said, hey, listen, we want you to meet the client. So, okay, no problem. Didn't tell me who it was. Said, be at the, gave me an address and said, be at this house at 1:30. All right. And back then, it was still a nice house, but it wasn't a gated house. You could just walk up and ring the, ring the doorbell. So I get there.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  I ring the doorbell.

• 20:38Lewis Howes?

  You didn't know who it was?

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Not a clue. Not a clue. So I ring the doorbell.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  No answer. I ring the doorbell again. No answer. I ring the doorbell a third time.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  Michael Jordan opens up the door.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Alright. Luckily, I'm not a starstruck person. I'm not a starstruck person. So he goes. I said, "I'm here." He goes, "Yeah, I know." And then I looked down at my shoes. I'm wearing Converse.

• 21:13Lewis Howes?

  Oh, no.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  And I'm like. Do I go in this house with Converse? So now, winning is Lily talking to me back then because I'm like, "This is the only opportunity I'm gonna get." Do I go into this house with Converse? Or do I take them off?

• 21:30Speaker 01

  So I took them off.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  I got holes in my socks. Both of them, not just one. Both of them.

• 21:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  So what do I do? I turn my socks. Round, so the dirty parts on the top. But the holes are on the bottom.

• 21:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  So I walk into the house. We go downstairs, we talk for about forty, forty-five minutes. I said, "Tell me your philosophy, tell me what's going on." I go through the whole process, the whole program, everything, and he goes. "This doesn't sound right." I said. "This doesn't get any lighter." I said, "Trust me, trust me on this." He goes, "I'll give you thirty days." And thirty days turned into fifteen years.

• 22:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow. That's crazy.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  It's unbelievable story. Then when I walked out of the house. I grabbed my shoes and he looked down and said, "Never again."

• 22:21Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing. Did he give you a pair of Nike?

• 22:23Speaker 01

  No, I had to go out and buy them. I couldn't, I couldn't. You, you can't go into a, potentially a new client and the first thing you say.

• 22:31Lewis Howes?

  Give me some gear.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and ask them for, and ask them for something. So. I went, I left there, went out. Had to. Equip the, equip the downstairs basement as quickly as possible, had to get a new pair of shoes, and we literally started the next day.

• 22:47Lewis Howes?

  Fifteen years. Was it, was it like five days a week for fifteen years? Were there some months off? Were there?

• 22:53Speaker 01

  So. We would go year round, we would. He would stop usually.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  They usually played until the end of June. Cause that's, that's during, that's what was the schedule back then. After the championship, and then he would take off through Labor Day. Cause he had to take care of his endorsements, his different, different deals, spend time with the family, take his trips. So, Michael was extremely smart during that time, and this is the concepts. Of why, a lot of reasons why he was able to win over and over again. So he would say, "Listen, I have all these obligations." He would tell his people. "You have me from. July one.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Until. Labor Day."

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Every endorsement deal. Every obligation I have, every family trip, every oversee, whatever I'm gonna do. Has to be done in those time. Because once Labor Day starts.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  I start training again. I start to train. To get ready for the next. Season.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  And. Once that happened, there was like, that was it, there was no more. "I got a Nike commercial here, I gotta do a Gatorade thing over here, I gotta do a Hanes thing here." I mean, no, it was workout golf, workout golf, workout golf. And that was, that we literally went. We'd go anywhere from five to six days a week, almost sometimes two to three times a day. Not always working out, you know, people always love these stories, "Oh, I work out six hours a day." Yeah, you might work out six hours a day, but that includes your recovery time.

• 24:31Lewis Howes?

  Stretching, yeah.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:32Lewis Howes?

  Warming up.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you're easy to talk. Yes, you're easy to talk about that because you've been, you've been, you've played at the highest level.

• 24:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  People always animated about, "Oh my God, Kobe works out for eight hours a day." No.

• 24:45Lewis Howes?

  Game, wellness, preparing, the stretching, that's everything.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Yes, it's everything that's.

• 24:49Lewis Howes?

  Ice tubs, whatever, yeah.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, that brings you towards that win.

• 24:52Lewis Howes?

  Of course, yeah, that's exciting. So, for those two months then, you weren't really training him during that time.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  I wasn't. Training him during that time, I would train other athletes. That. That. He allowed me, for the first three years, for the first three years, he didn't. He didn't, and this was a great, this was his standard answer, and he would tell everybody, he goes. "I don't pay, I don't pay Grover to train me."

• 25:16Lewis Howes?

  Not to train you.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Not to train anybody else.

• 25:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's crazy.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I don't pay him to train me, I pay him not to train anybody else. So then he would allow me, after, after about three, four years, he would allow me to work with other individuals. But he would always say this, he goes, "You need to tell every single one of your clients. That. If I call."

• 25:39Speaker 01

  And I would always tell everybody, I said, "Listen. I'm, I'm willing to take you on as a client. But. This is the one and only stipulation." I said, "Well, the reason you're here is because you saw the work that I did with him." Let's get that.

• 25:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  Let's, let's not. Mistake that.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  But I said, "If he calls. For whatever reason, and we're in the middle of a workout, we're."

• 26:02Lewis Howes?

  I'm gone.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  I gotta go.

• 26:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  I gotta go. No questions to ask, no, no, no, I said, "The chances of that happening are slim." But I'm just.

• 26:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Let, letting you know.

• 26:13Lewis Howes?

  What were the three greatest lessons? That you learned from Michael?

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Three greatest lessons I learned from. Michael. I would say. Competing.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Accountability. And then winning at all levels.

• 26:30Lewis Howes?

  Winning at all levels, what does that mean?

• 26:32Speaker 01

  You just don't win. In one arena.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  You win in your sports. You win in business. You win in your personal life.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  Other people win because you win.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  It isn't just about you. It's about being able to pull the team.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  And. Show them the, what it feels like. To win. What kind of feeling that gives it. When you win, your family wins. When your family wins, you win. When you win, your friends win, the people that have supported you. Every time Michael played, I always said this. I said, and I said this in The Last Dance.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  He would say. "These individuals are giving me something. That's. Way more valuable. Than the price of a ticket."

• 27:32Speaker 01

  "They're giving me their time."

• 27:35Speaker 01

  "Which is non-refundable."

• 27:39Speaker 01

  "Which is not, you can't exchange it with somebody else, you can't take your ticket and exchange it with another individual." "These people are literally giving me their time." "Whether they're at the arena.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  They're sitting in front of the TV.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  They're watching the news, listening to it on the radio back then, whatever, whatever it may be."

• 28:00Speaker 01

  "My accountability to myself and those individuals. Has to be at the highest level." "Has to be at the highest level because they're doing something.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  That is so, they're giving me something that's so valuable. I have to.

• 28:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Be at my best. I have to be at my best."

• 28:21Lewis Howes?

  Is it possible to win? At everything, if you're going to be the best at one thing?

• 28:27Speaker 01

  No.

• 28:28Lewis Howes?

  Cause even in The Last Dance, he was talking about how. Certain things. You know, in his life, maybe were out of balance because he was all in on.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:37Lewis Howes?

  The obsession of winning in basketball.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Louis, we've all been there.

• 28:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  We've all been there, and one of the chapters I talk about in winning is there is no balance. There is no balance. And everybody loves to talk about balance all the time. And the people that have kind of maybe finally created balance.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  They don't talk about the times where there was no balance.

• 29:01Lewis Howes?

  For years, they weren't in balance, and now they're like, "Okay, I've got some resources, I've got more time, I've got a."

• 29:06Speaker 01

  "I got a staff, I got people that help me, help me do things," and I always just said, you know. People ask me all the time, "How do you find balance?" I say, "You don't find balance. You create it, and it's different for each individual out there." What's balanced for you may not be balanced for somebody else, and I'm not here to judge what your balance is and so forth. Alright, it's different across, it's different across the board, but the one way to get closer to balance, everyone does the complete opposite. People always ask me this, you know, "Well, how do I create more balance?" Well, I said, "Well, what are you trying to do?" "Well, I'm, I'm trying to, you know, people are telling me I need to spend more time with my family, I work too much, you know, I need to, I, I need to pay attention to my kids, or, or. I pay too much attention to them, I don't pay enough attention to my career and all, all this other stuff."

• 29:51Speaker 01

  And I said, "Well, what do you do?" "Well, I, you know, I'm trying to add all these different components," I was like. "That's your mistake."

• 29:57Lewis Howes?

  What should they do instead?

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Delete.

• 30:00Lewis Howes?

  Delete what?

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Your unessentials. There's so many unessentials that you carry wrong, a, around in your head, or in your daily life, in your daily life, in your routines or whatever. When you try to balance things, if you add more things, it becomes more difficult to balance. Delete the unessentials, delete the things that are. That are not creating that balance for you, and if you look at it, if you really sit down, you'd be like, "Yeah, I really don't need to do this, I shouldn't be doing this." "I got a little time wasted, I got my, a little time wasted over here." And that way, it brings you a little bit closer to what you're create, what balance looks like for you. But, like you said earlier, is everything going to be perfect? No. And. I give this example.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  When I do it, when I, when I'm speaking to individuals, and again, I talk about it in the book.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  I'll ask individuals, who wants zero happiness? Nobody raises their hand, alright? I said, who wants zero success? No one raises, uh, no one raises their hand, alright? And I go say, who wants zero life? No one raises their hand. I said, who wants zero love? No one raises their hand. I said, what's the number on a perfectly balanced scale? It's a zero. It's an absolute zero. So I said, if you're trying to balance all those things, all the time,

• 31:38Speaker 01

  you're gonna end up with none of them. You're gonna end up with none of them. Now, I never want your scale to be tipped all the way this way, alright? But then you have to decide how much, where things are, where are things going to be? And the time, listen, if you are one of those individuals a- as a person that's dedicated to their craft, wanna do this, there are things that are gonna have to take a backseat.

• 32:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. If you wanna be the best at something, or great at something.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:13Lewis Howes?

  One of the best at something, something has to take a backseat.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  It, it, and it always is, but then when you take whatever's in the backseat and you put it in the forefront for that moment, make sure you're all in.

• 32:25Lewis Howes?

  All in on that moment. Present, giving, attention, all of it.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  All of it, all of it. Be all in. You know, people always tell, and I, and I could tell, listen, you have very calm demeanor about yourself. You, you, you, you really, you really do.

• 32:40Lewis Howes?

  Less I'm competing, you're on the sports arena.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Right. Exactly, exactly, alright? But, let's go back to your competitive days. How many people would tell you, man, you need to loosen up, you need to unwind?

• 32:53Lewis Howes?

  Nah.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  No!

• 32:55Lewis Howes?

  It's like, I'm focused, man, I'm, I'm in the game.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Exactly. You're like, you're most uncomfortable when you are unwound.

• 33:02Lewis Howes?

  When you're relaxed.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:03Lewis Howes?

  You're just thinking about, how do I do more, how do I create, how do I train harder, when I need to watch films, study?

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:09Lewis Howes?

  You're obsessing over it.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  And that was one of Kobe's favorite words when it related to winning. He says, you have to be obsessed with whatever your win is. And everybody looks at that word, obsessed, as a bad word. As a bad word, but... Look at this, if you weren't obsessed, would you have the guests that you have?

• 33:35Lewis Howes?

  No, we wouldn't be impacting people the way we are, and, and that's okay if that's the life you want, which is not obsession, that's okay. But that doesn't mean you're gonna get the results that obsession brings.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  And don't judge the people

• 33:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  that are obsessed and allow you not to be. You know, because they're doing all the work for you.

• 33:57Lewis Howes?

  They're carrying a lot, a weight, yeah.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Listen, how many people do you know, you just did an interview recently with, was it Tony?

• 34:06Lewis Howes?

  Tony.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  And, um...

• 34:07Lewis Howes?

  Tony Robbins, Russell Brand, yeah.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Alright. Well, if people wanna hear what they have to say, you have to be obsessed in order to get that information for the people that aren't obsessed.

• 34:18Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, otherwise they wouldn't bring the information to me.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Right. So, they should be thankful that, man, you know what? We're really, really thankful that Louis is obsessed at doing what he's doing because it brings us enjoyment. It allows us not to be obsessed in that area, and we can be obsessed in some other area.

• 34:37Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, yeah. I think it's, yeah, I think it's important to, to recognize that obsession over winning, and whatever that looks like for you, that can be sports, business, parenthood, anything. Being, being a good friend, whatever they be. You know, if you wanna be great at something, you can't half-ass it. You can't be tiptoeing a little bit out, spend a little bit of time on it. You've gotta be committed to it, if you wanna be great at that thing. And that means other things might have to struggle or suffer for moments, or you just need to negotiate with the people in your life, this is what I'm up to, and here's what I can give you. I can give you time here, or two months a year I can show up for you, or

• 35:21Lewis Howes?

  one day a week, whatever it is, and you gotta negotiate with others around you, so those relationships don't suffer.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  That's a great way, that's an excellent way of putting it, and that's exactly what I talk about, it's like, listen, if you ask somebody who's very important to you in your life, and you say, I need two years.

• 35:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Stay with me for two years, this is what I have to do, you better deliver in those two years.

• 35:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  You better deliver in those, there better be some tangible stuff in there that you've won at, and also, the person that waited for you, they get a chance to win also. Cause if they're gonna put, where, if you tell them, hey, I need you to wait, this is how I'm gonna be for the next, and after those two years, you better have measurable results, you don't, you can't ask for another two years and nothing's, and then you have nothing to show for, for that period of time, your warranty's over with.

• 36:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  It's done.

• 36:21Lewis Howes?

  And speaking of negotiating, how does someone learn to negotiate with their own minds when they wanna, when things get hard? When they wanna quit, when they're in pain, when they're struggling? How do we negotiate with our negative thoughts for our vision, so that we don't give in to them?

• 36:42Speaker 01

  So, and this, you're gonna, you're gonna, so, again, it, it's just like, you're, you're like picking this book apart for me, I absolutely, I absolutely love it. So I have this, I talk about the battlefield that goes on in your mind. There's literally a battlefield that goes on in your mind all the time. And there's bombs that are exploding all the time, fear, anxiety, I'm not good enough. And a lot of times, you're making those bombs explode, and, or somebody else is making those bombs explode, alright? You have to take control of that space. You have to, too many times, the space between our ears, we don't have control over it.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  A lot of other people have set shop in it, they're like, they, they've like taken the most expensive real estate in the world, and they've like literally sitting in it, and they're not paying any rent.

• 37:37Lewis Howes?

  Ooh. They're making you pay the rent.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:40Lewis Howes?

  They're sitting here and making you pay.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  And you're sitting in there, and those individuals, boy, they know exactly where all the bombs are, and they know which ones to push, and which ones to push, and how to get you emotional, and how to do the, and how to do those things. And they also do it in a positive way also, well, what's considered a positive way. You don't need to work that hard. You're good enough the way you are, you're already successful. Boom, boom, boom. All these different things, cause what they're trying to do is, instead of being supportive, they're actually pulling you back, because now you're starting to create distance between you and them. And they, they don't, they don't want that. You gotta make sure you control that battlefield that's going on in there.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  It's your space, it's your mind, you're going to have negative thoughts. You are. But you don't act on all your thoughts, and that's not, and, and think, just saying, thinking positive is just not going to get it done. Alright? You need to think positive, but you need to act on whatever you're thinking positive of. Just changing your thought is not gonna change your action. It may change your perspective, but you still have to continue to push forward.

• 38:54Lewis Howes?

  So when someone has a negative thought, how should they respond? Should they analyze it, should they replace it with a more positive thought? Should they act on it and say, okay, I'm feeling tired and like I'm not enough today? Should they say, okay, when it happens, I actually do something to get out of it, I move my body, I call a friend, I work out? What should they do when a negative thought comes?

• 39:16Speaker 01

  Also, I always look at it this way, what is causing that negative thought? Is it you? Or is it somebody, or is it something that somebody else said?

• 39:25Lewis Howes?

  Triggering you, yeah.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  About, yeah. So, just like you have something that triggers that negative thought, you have to have a trigger that gets you out of that negative thought. I have negative thoughts just like everybody else, all my, all my, all my client, all my clients did. And then, I, they each had a trigger to get themselves out of it, and I could see it. For me, literally, when I see a negative thought come in, and if I'm walking, I will literally stop. I will literally stop in my tracks, and I'll do like this.

• 39:55Lewis Howes?

  Really? You're like, get out?

• 39:56Speaker 01

  Get out. Get out. That, that, that, that's my trigger. Now, obviously, I can't have my athletes sitting out there doing, but that's what works for me. But the, the important thing is, I come to a complete stop, because I don't want that thought to gain traction. I don't want that, so I need to address it at that moment. I need to address it at that moment. Now, with my, with my, with my athletes, they each, and I can't share the different triggers that they, they had, but each had one when they were like, starting to maybe doubt themselves, or, no. It was very difficult.

• 40:35Lewis Howes?

  You could see it, you could sense it.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  You could, you could, you could, you could.

• 40:37Lewis Howes?

  Whether they were saying it or not, you, you could be like, huh.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Their little body language. Exactly.

• 40:42Lewis Howes?

  They're looking down, they're doubting.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Yes, everybody ha, everybody ha, has those little things, the way they're looking at something, the way their, their head is being held, the way they're breathing, you know, and the way, when they go sit down on the bench, and you know, the way they look, you can always see something, okay, they're not, they're not doing.

• 40:59Lewis Howes?

  How would you, were they coaching themselves out of that, or were you just supporting them with a mantra, or a process for getting out of that? Like, what did MJ or Kobe do?

• 41:08Speaker 01

  I would give them a bunch of things, and I'd just say, listen, you gotta decide on which one you wanna use. You got, you, you have to decide, and a lot of times... The most successful people that you've had on your show, they're the most coachable.

• 41:23Lewis Howes?

  That's it. They're not resistant to learning. They want to improve.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. So a lot of times, I'm sure the, the, the stories, the episodes that I've watched you give, a lot of your guests are asking you questions.

• 41:40Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, wait, wait, who's interviewing who over here? And, and it's, it's a learning process back, back and forth. So when I, when I would talk, well, before I would go to the individual and say, hey, I noticed, they would all be like, I already know what you're talking about. And we like, so we would have that discussion and noticing and being able to be aware of the mistakes, be aware of the negative thoughts, be, beware of the negative emotions. That's on you. We're always looking for somebody else to point those things out to us. Well, you need to recognize those things before anybody else does.

• 42:17Lewis Howes?

  Right. I'm a big believer that you can't win consistently and you can't be great consistently if you're constantly doubting yourself and allowing doubt to make decisions for you.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Louis, you show you didn't write this book.

• 42:36Lewis Howes?

  And I'm not, I'm not saying, I'm not sure if we'll ever be able to eliminate doubt because every new level, every new opportunity, every new adventure we take on, there's going to be a level of, I've never done this. And you're going to have to step into the courage, you know, bones inside of you and say, I've got to leap into courage in this. And there's going to be a little bit of doubt or insecurity, but how do we eliminate it from holding us back? When we have self doubt, how do we remove it? So that we can continue to strive for greatness.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  So how I look at this thing i- is

• 43:12Speaker 01

  we talk about fear and doubt in the, in the book. I said, you've talked to,

• 43:20Speaker 01

  you've talked to the Michael Jordans and Kobe Bryant of the business world on a regular basis.

• 43:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  All right. And every single one of them, I'm sure, no matter how many times they've done things over and over and over again, there's always been a little bit of fear.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  There's always been a little bit.

• 43:38Lewis Howes?

  What if it doesn't work out? What if we lose? What if this risk fails?

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Yes. All right. There's all, but that fear is what allows them to take that next step. It's their, it's their, instead of fear paralyzing them, it's their energy. It's their energy. I always say, you can have fear, but you can't have doubt.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  All right.

• 44:01Lewis Howes?

  So how do we eliminate doubt?

• 44:04Speaker 01

  When you have that fear, when you have that fear, know that what you're doing is the right thing, because if it's not fearful enough, your goals are too small.

• 44:16Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  They're too, they're too small.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  And then you go, you, never doubt the outcome. Don't overthink. A lot of times doubting is overthinking. And what is overthinking? It's creating problems that don't exist. You start over analyzing, you start, well, this could go wrong, this could. Michael always used to say, why should I worry about a shot I've never taken?

• 44:41Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  And people are always thinking about the negative things of something and they've never even done the thing yet. And that creates more self doubt, more self doubt, more self doubt.

• 44:56Lewis Howes?

  So how do we let go of that? Is it just, don't worry about the outcome, just focus on the process? Is it leaning into the fear, knowing that's the thing that we're supposed to go after?

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 45:05Lewis Howes?

  Trigger to move forward.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  But to move, to move forward. All right.

• 45:09Lewis Howes?

  What happens if I fail? What happens if I miss it? What happens if I humiliate myself? Then what?

• 45:13Speaker 01

  But you know what? Here, here's the point. I'd rather have those things than to say, I never did it.

• 45:20Lewis Howes?

  And regret. I always said it too.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  I never, I never, I never did it.

• 45:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  All right. I knew I wasn't good enough to be a professional basketball player. I knew that, but I gave everything I had. And I think both of our careers, you had an injury, I had, I had an injury, even if I didn't have the injury.

• 45:36Lewis Howes?

  You weren't, you were gonna make it.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  So it didn't, no, I'm not, never gonna say, I, I just did, it just wasn't, it just wasn't gonna happen. All right.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  But I never do, I never doubted myself. I never doubted that I was going to win at something. And it was going to start off in, in the, in the sports, in the sports arena.

• 45:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Even when everybody told me, you know, you're not gonna, this is not gonna happen, this is not gonna happen, this is not gonna happen.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  People have to understand that

• 46:06Speaker 01

  winning has no loyalty to you. Exactly what you said, you know, you're gonna fail, you're gonna fail. How am I, how am I gonna look? What if people, what if people, what if people laugh at me? Well, look at the most successful people in the world. All right. When you had, they did a TV piece on Jeff Bezos way back, way back when and you know, his, could you imagine people laughing when he first come out and says, you know what?

• 46:37Speaker 01

  I'm gonna start a company and we're gonna have everything that you want shipped to you in a week. Man, this dude is crazy.

• 46:45Lewis Howes?

  In a day, in two days, yeah.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  And then it's like, you know what? That's not good enough.

• 46:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  We're gonna do it in two days.

• 46:51Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  That's it. You're crazy. That's still not good. People are just laughing. They're doubting it. You're doubting yourself and you're like, I'm gonna do it in a day.

• 46:59Lewis Howes?

  Now you get your groceries delivered in two hours from Whole Foods app on Amazon.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  What normal person thinks that way?

• 47:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  And the people that are a little bit off, a little bit crazy, a little bit like, hey, so what? So what? Right. They have the least amount of doubt. They have the least amount of doubt. You usually have doubt because of what somebody else is gonna think of you. How somebody else is gonna react. All right. And people call it self doubt, but that self doubt is usually afflicted by somebody, somebody else. You think about, you have the greatest idea. All right. You had, you've been at this for eight years, but previously.

• 47:53Lewis Howes?

  Other things, yeah.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Other things. All right. How many times did you tell somebody, I'm gonna go do this and like, oh, that's a terrible idea?

• 48:02Lewis Howes?

  It's funny, the day I came up with the idea for this show, I was in LA, I'd just moved here from New York City. Uh, probably six to eight months prior to that. And I was stuck in traffic. You've lived in LA for.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 48:17Lewis Howes?

  And I moved from New York City, loved it. I'm from Ohio. Came out here, I'm stuck in traffic for hours every day to go see someone, whatever. And I remember having the idea to do a podcast because I was feeling a little stuck in my life. I was feeling like things aren't working, like I need to learn, I want to grow. And I was also like stuck in traffic. And I was like, oh, a lot of people are stuck in traffic. What if I could learn and also give them something while they're stuck in traffic or they're commuting? This is kind of pre podcasting.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 48:49Lewis Howes?

  And I remember I called a friend who had a show. There was only like two people I knew had a podcast. And I said, I've got this idea. And I want to call it the School of Greatness because I want to create the school I wish I would have had growing up. Where they teach you the things about life, loss, failure, doubt, insecurities, like how to grow. They never taught these things in school. I learned it from sports.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:12Lewis Howes?

  So I was like, I'm gonna call it the School of Greatness.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  That's, that's, that's your how to think moment.

• 49:16Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Exactly. And I called one of my friends and he goes, that's the dumbest name I've ever heard. And I go, okay. And every, every time I talk to him now, he goes, I was wrong. That was the greatest name. That was the greatest name and I just didn't see it. So people that aren't gonna see your vision, people didn't see Jeff Bezos's vision, people don't see Elon Musk, people don't see Kobe and Jordan's vision. And that's okay, but you've got to be willing to see it in yourself. So how do we, how do we not allow the doubt of others saying, uh, take it easy. Uh, you shouldn't do this. You sure you want to work that hard? Uh, why don't you do this over here? How do we not allow other people's doubt to make it our own doubt?

• 49:55Speaker 01

  So you know, we always hear this thing about when you have fear, you play to win. When you have doubt, you play not to lose. Yes, exactly.

• 50:08Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. So when you have fear, when you have fear, you play to win. When you have doubt, you play not to lose.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Not to lose. You play not to, you play not to.

• 50:18Lewis Howes?

  I've been there in the past.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:20Lewis Howes?

  You know, you, I've played not to lose many times and you always end up never playing your best.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  You never end up playing your best. You never.

• 50:28Lewis Howes?

  And you never win.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:29Lewis Howes?

  You know, either way, whether you win or lose, you never win if you don't play your best.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Great example. And then, you know, fear is instinctive. Fear is instinctive. Like, okay, like you're like, hey, I'm gonna do, I'm a little fearful here. It's the, it's either to protect you or it's to go. All right. Doubt is created by you. Fear is an instinct. Doubt you create.

• 50:50Lewis Howes?

  So others don't create doubt in you.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  I, initially, well, it's, you have to allow them to create doubt.

• 50:56Lewis Howes?

  You have to receive their.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Yes, you have to receive, you have to receive their, you have to receive their doubt. And then now it becomes, it becomes you. All right.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  Fear is pressure and pressure is a privilege.

• 51:07Lewis Howes?

  It's great.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  It's the greatest thing. You had somebody on here just talking about stress the other day and how, how it keeps you alive, how necessary it is. All right. Doubt you start to panic.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  Doubt you start to panic.

• 51:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  All right.

• 51:26Lewis Howes?

  So how do we learn how to not let the doubt stay in us? How do we remove it? How do we get out? How do we turn doubt into fear and action towards greatness as opposed to?

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Continue to work.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Like a maniacal individual. Or what you want.

• 51:49Lewis Howes?

  Is that the only way to get rid of doubt, you think, is by working, obsessing over something and proving something so you don't doubt?

• 51:55Speaker 01

  Prove it to yourself. We have so many other individuals that are trying to prove it to prove it to everybody, everybody else. Don't worry about proving it to everybody else. Prove it to yourself.

• 52:08Lewis Howes?

  And here's what I'll say around that. I think that's beautifully said because most of my life until I was about thirty, I was living to prove others wrong.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:16Lewis Howes?

  And it was the second most powerful fuel and energy that I think humans have is like, I'm angry, I'm hurt, I'm frustrated. I'm gonna go prove these people wrong about me. And it drove me to be obsessed around winning, around achieving, around accomplishing my goals, and I did, I accomplished them. But it left me feeling very unfulfilled, lonely, insecure, doubting myself even more. Why am I not feeling what I want to feel? Why am I not still getting what I want inside? Because I was driven by the wrong things to prove other people doubting me wrong. And you hear that a lot by like, people will say, prove them wrong. But I think it's prove yourself right.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Prove yourself right.

• 52:58Lewis Howes?

  And like you said, I love that you're saying this because you'll prove others wrong by proving yourself right. So you don't need to go prove them wrong. Just do your best.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  You, you just gave an example.

• 53:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  You're, you're one of your closest friends.

• 53:10Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Man, that's a terrible name. That's a terrible name. Alright? Prove yourself right.

• 53:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, don't prove him wrong.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:19Lewis Howes?

  Say, okay, I'm gonna go do this for me, whether you like it or not.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Right, and the best validation is when they come back to you.

• 53:26Lewis Howes?

  I was wrong.

• 53:26Speaker 01

  I was wrong. That's the best, that's the best validation.

• 53:30Lewis Howes?

  You don't need to say, I told you so. You just say, I told myself so.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 53:33Lewis Howes?

  It's a, it's a shift in it.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  Right, and that person, what did they try to do? They tried to create self doubt in you. And if you would have, this would have been called.

• 53:44Lewis Howes?

  School of average.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Yes, you know, yes, normalcy.

• 53:48Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever it would be.

• 53:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  Whatever it been.

• 53:54Lewis Howes?

  So when doubt creeps in and we start to believe the doubt. Go back into proving yourself right. Go back into obsessing over the craft, doing it for the right reasons, not to prove others wrong. Not to look good in front of a crowd or whatever, but doing it because you love the art of it, the expression of it, the creation of it, the the vision of the thing you want to work on, not to validate something that's lacking, right?

• 54:19Speaker 01

  It, it, you, it's perfect. You look at when Kobe, his first playoff series.

• 54:26Lewis Howes?

  How old was he, do you remember, in his first one?

• 54:28Speaker 01

  It was early in his career. I think he was like eighteen. Yeah, no, no, I'm talking about before he won the finals. This was on the playoffs, in the playoffs, in the playoffs. I think he had this.

• 54:37Lewis Howes?

  No Shaq, pre Shaq.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, he had this horrible game against, I think, I think it might have been the Utah Jazz. I can't, well, he shot like four or five straight airballs.

• 54:45Lewis Howes?

  I remember that, yeah.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  Four or five straight airballs. Alright. Now, he could have came back next year and said, I gotta prove, everybody that said, man, you're too young, why'd you take? No, he was just like, you know what? That's on me. I have to own, I have to own that, I have to own that moment. Alright, I owned that moment. Now, I gotta prove to myself. I can overcome this because now everybody else is doubting me. But I can't doubt myself. I can't doubt my, I can't doubt myself. And everybody's had that moment. Everybody told MJ, don't go to North Carolina, you'll never play.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  You'll never play. And one of the stories I share with individuals is Dean Smith, who was a coach at, uh, coach at the time. He introduced, uh, Michael. He said, Michael, I want you to meet, I think I got the name right. I, I, I'm pretty sure. He thinks I want you to meet Buzz Peterson. Because Buzz Peterson is a number, was a number one recruited player in the nation.

• 55:51Lewis Howes?

  To go to North Carolina.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  To go, to go, yeah, like the number one, anywhere. He was a number, not, number, number one, number one player in the nation. And Michael goes to Dean and says, how could he be number one? He ain't never played me.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  He said, he, he, how, how Dean saw something, he saw that competitive nature in, in, in MJ. And he wanted to see, now, if I tell him that, is that, is that kid gonna start doubting himself? Because everybody else has already told him, you shouldn't be here.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  You shouldn't be here. And Michael went out and he said,

• 56:27Speaker 01

  I don't need to prove to coach. I don't need to prove to Buzz. I need to prove to myself that I belong here.

• 56:35Lewis Howes?

  Did they end up competing? Did they do one on one?

• 56:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, ended up, yeah, that didn't turn out well.

• 56:41Lewis Howes?

  For the other guy?

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, for the other guy, yeah. And, and Coach Smith made them roommates.

• 56:47Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow, that's hilarious. Speaking of one on one, uh, how many times did you get to play one on one against MJ or Kobe?

• 56:57Speaker 01

  Often, it never turned out well.

• 56:58Lewis Howes?

  Did you ever score a point against either of them?

• 57:02Speaker 01

  Yes, I did.

• 57:04Lewis Howes?

  Really? What was that?

• 57:05Speaker 01

  And it was the last point I ever scored.

• 57:07Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 57:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 57:08Lewis Howes?

  What was that like? Where was the moment?

• 57:11Speaker 01

  It was during it, it was dur, well, see, it was, it was kind of like a setup. It was, it was, it was a setup. So it was, um, it was play, uh, Michael and I were kind of messing, messing around and we had just, he's just finished a, a a grueling leg workout.

• 57:27Lewis Howes?

  He's like, can't even walk.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  Grueling leg workout.

• 57:30Lewis Howes?

  So you get him when he's at his lowest moment?

• 57:33Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. And he's up there and he's, you know, we go up there to get loosen, loosen up a little bit and he's just like, he's shooting, he goes, man, I can't even, I can't even feel, I can't even feel my, I can't even feel my legs. I said, I got a great idea to kind of loosen you up a little bit. So let's play a little one on one. He thinks I'm just, yeah, he goes, I pass him, I just go right around him and I score and he's, oh. Big mistake. Big mistake. You, you saw literally the lactic acid just flush out of his body in that second. And, and he goes, alright, motherfucker.

• 58:06Lewis Howes?

  That was the last point?

• 58:08Speaker 01

  That was the last time I touched the ball.

• 58:10Lewis Howes?

  Really? He wouldn't even let you play with it anymore?

• 58:12Speaker 01

  I, well, I couldn't, I couldn't.

• 58:13Lewis Howes?

  You couldn't get the ball back?

• 58:14Speaker 01

  I couldn't get the ball back. I couldn't get the ball. Yeah, I would get the ball back after he scored in the basket and I pass it back to him, but that, that.

• 58:21Lewis Howes?

  Or you got the ball and he was just swatted away.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was just like, I couldn't get around him. I mean, when you're a professional at something, people don't realize how good

• 58:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  those individuals are. I love the people that sit on the sidelines and all this other stuff and they doubt. They doubt how talented those individuals are. And I always tell them in any sport, I say, listen, you give me the, who you think are the five worst.

• 58:51Lewis Howes?

  In the league, yeah.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  In the league. Pick, I don't care who that, any of them.

• 58:55Lewis Howes?

  Dominate. Anyone.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  You get your top five, they will literally dominate.

• 59:01Lewis Howes?

  There was a show, I think, like ten years ago by some guy, a basketball player from the Celtics, I think, who was like the bottom five in the NBA, who like scored five points in eight years. And they would bring out these college, like superstars and rec superstars and freak athletes. They couldn't even score a point on this guy after he retired.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:21Lewis Howes?

  I can't remember the guy's name, Bill something or, it's a tall, like redheaded white guy and it's just like.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Oh, Scalabrine.

• 59:27Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  Scal, yes, yes.

• 59:28Lewis Howes?

  There was a whole show about this because these kind of like All-Star Joes thought they could compete against a retired NBA guy. They couldn't even score a point years after he retired.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 59:38Lewis Howes?

  Wasn't even good in the NBA, but still, you're number five hundred in the world at something, you're gonna destroy everyone else.

• 59:46Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 59:46Lewis Howes?

  You're gonna destroy them.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  They're, their talent level is so unique. You played.

• 59:52Lewis Howes?

  I played football and team handball with the USA team.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  Team hand. Uh, for people that don't know what team handball is.

• 59:59Lewis Howes?

  Most people in America don't know. You know, because you've been to the Olympics, probably, you've seen it, yeah.

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  It is an unbelievable sport. And you talk about competitiveness.

• 1:00:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, here's the, here's the thing. My first year playing with team handball was ten years ago. Uh, I moved to New York City to join the New York, the New York City team because they were the national champions. And there was only, there's only clubs in the USA. There's, no one's getting paid. No one really knows what the sport is.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:23Lewis Howes?

  All Europeans who have moved here, who play the sport on a, once a week. And I made the USA national team nine months after starting to train with the, the New York City, uh, team, made the USA team. And I remember going to Argentina to compete in the Pan Am Championships. And this is, I had a chance to play against the top teams in South America, Brazil and Argentina and, uh, Chile and all these teams. And I'm going against Olympians. These are professionals playing in Europe, Olympians. I'm on the USA national team. But I remember the first time I was up against an Olympian, I had zero chance. Like, they just made me look like an idiot.

• 1:01:06Lewis Howes?

  And I'm an elite player for the country on the USA team. But these guys were so talented. They knew every nuance. They just knew what to do at all times. You had no chance. So it doesn't even matter if you're elite at the college level. You can't compete against these NBA guys.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  So, and this is how, so I have two, I have two stories that you can relate to on this and how competitive these individuals are and how important winning is to them. Kobe's a, was a big soccer fan. Huge, huge soccer fan. So, you know, we, we would take the, the Nike trip to Europe and he would always want to visit all these different teams. And we were always challenged to stop

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  a goal. So like, we would, we would, we would be the score, we would be the goal, we would be the.

• 1:01:57Lewis Howes?

  Good luck. Good luck.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  And we were just, and now, remember, you're talking about one of the best to ever play in a sport.

• 1:02:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  Basketball.

• 1:02:07Lewis Howes?

  Couldn't stop him one, probably, ever.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  We did this for seven years.

• 1:02:12Lewis Howes?

  Couldn't get one.

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  Not one. We didn't even touch.

• 1:02:14Lewis Howes?

  They're not even trying, they're just tapping it in.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  We didn't even touch the ball. We didn't, we didn't even touch the ball.

• 1:02:19Lewis Howes?

  I mean, professional goalkeepers can barely do it. How are you gonna do it? Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you were inspired by this as much as I was. And part two is coming next. And we are talking about what happens to us when we acknowledge our self doubts. The three biggest lessons he learned from Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade. How to change your life by adapting a winning mindset to yourself. Why we need to rethink our idea of selfishness and so much more. If you enjoyed this, click the subscribe button and leave a rating and review over on Apple Podcast. Let us know which part you enjoyed the most about this. Post it over on social media. You can use the link, lewishouse.com/1111

• 1:03:02Lewis Howes?

  or copy and paste this link wherever you're listening to this episode. And I want to leave you with this quote from Orin Woodward, who said, more powerful than the will to win is the courage to begin. Ooh, that one gave me chills because a lot of us have these dreams, these goals, but we don't have the courage to actually just get started. Because we're so afraid of failing down the line, of looking bad, of embarrassing ourselves, of not succeeding, that we never even take the first step. So have the courage today. Take a step towards your goals, towards your dreams, and put yourself out there in an uncomfortable way. That's what this is all about. And I want to remind you, if no one's told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

• 1:03:43Lewis Howes?

  And you know what time it is? It's time to go out there and do something great.