Relentless

Tim Grover

📚 GENRE: Personal Development

📃 PAGES: 272

✅ COMPLETED: June 15, 2020

🧐 RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Short Summary

Tim Grover worked with Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, and many other star athletes during his long career as an athletic trainer. In Relentless, he reveals what it takes to develop yourself mentally and physically.

Key Takeaways

1️⃣ Set High Standards & Compete — Compete in everything you do. Set high standards for yourself and try to meet those standards. Don’t compare yourself to others – focus on what you can control and try to prevent distractions from throwing you off course. 

2️⃣ Get Uncomfortable — The only way to truly grow is to push yourself out of your comfort zone. You will never expand if you don’t challenge yourself by taking on uncomfortable situations. The situations or tasks that you fear the most provide the greatest value on your personal growth journey. 

3️⃣ Work HARD — There’s no substitute for hard work. At the end of the day, progress can’t be made without hard work and effort. Try to bring your “A Game” to whatever you’re doing every day. Do your best to reduce procrastination and distractions. 

Favorite Quote

"Bottom line, if you want success of any kind: you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable."

Book Notes 📑

Chapter 1

  • Being relentless is a state of mind that gives you the strength to achieve.
    • It means craving the end result so intensely that the work becomes irrelevant.
    • It’s in everything you do. Bring it in everything you do, no matter what it is.
  • Tell yourself what to do, don’t wait for others to tell you what to do.
    • Your commitment, dedication, and drive is set by you, nobody else.
  • Decide what you want ➡ commit ➡ act ➡ succeed ➡ repeat
  • Raise your standards. Set your bar and hold yourself to it in everything you do.
  • Demand more of yourself than anybody else could ever demand of you.
    • Never get complacent. There’s always more to accomplish.
  • Find an extra gear!
  • Be the best there is it whatever you’re doing.
  • Quote: “Make everyone get on your level. Make other people compete with you. You don’t compete with others.”
    • You do this by setting the bar at your standards. 

Chapter 2

  • Take responsibility for everything and never make excuses or blame anybody else.
    • You put everything on you, nobody else. Carry the load if you have to. Just get the job done.

Chapter 3

  • Be comfortable being uncomfortable. Push yourself to do the things you don’t want to do or feel like doing.
  • Quote: “Bottom line, if you want success of any kind: you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.”

Chapter 4 & 5

  • Find your zone and get in it. Don’t pay attention to what’s going on around you. Focus on you on the inside.
    • “I got this.”
  • Anybody can have a good idea, it’s what you do with it that matters.
    • Elite people finish the job, they take action.
  • Elite people never question themselves in their own abilities. They have a quiet confidence. They know who they are and what they’re about.

Chapter 6

  • Everybody has a dark side. Use yours to drive you.
  • Drive yourself to win at everything.

Chapter 7

  • You can’t be relentless if you can’t take discomfort and pressure.
    • Put internal pressure on yourself so no kind of external pressure can phase you.
  • Look at pressure as something that will define you. This is the positive way to look at it.
    • Look at it as a challenge that gives you a chance to prove how much you can take.
    • Embrace pressure.
  • When you never push yourself out of your comfort zone, you crumble under the slightest pressure.
    • You need to push yourself and become familiar with pressure so no external pressure can phase you.
      • Ex. Toastmasters 

Chapter 8

  • Always prepare. Be prepared in everything you do.
  • Have something to offer in every situation you step into.
  • Whatever your test with, get the job done.
  • Let go of your fears and insecurities and trust your ability to handle any situation.
    • This comes easier with great preparation.
    • You have to be willing to take risks and fail.
  • Be decisive when making decisions.
  • Control your response to challenges or unforeseen obstacles.
  • You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
    • Take risks!
  • Just do it. Don’t think about fear. Be instinctive and just do it.
  • Don’t blame others for your own mistakes. Shoulder the responsibility. On it. Then fix it.
  • Don’t make excuses, either. Just say, “I messed up.” Then fix it.
  • Create your own pressure to succeed. Have the confidence to know you can handle anything.
    • Don’t allow others to put pressure on you. You put it on yourself.
    • Stop caring what people think.
  • The only opinions that matter are yours and the people that you’re close to.
    • No outside opinions about you should shake you at all.
      • This comes from confidence and belief in yourself and knowing what you’re about. Nobody else should be able to shake that.
      • This comes easier when you work hard and develop yourself.
  • Get on yourself for not doing something right or up to your high standards, even when nobody else notices anything wrong with what you did. Be accountable.
    • Challenge yourself to get it right and get it up to your high standards.
      • Not because you “have to”, because you “want to.”
  • Have the confidence to own a mistake and fix it. People respect that.
  • Stand by your decisions.
  • Mean what you say and stand by it.
  • Create your own set of beliefs and personal philosophy and live by it.
    • This helps you not care about what others think. You’re secure in your philosophy and way of going about things because your way of doing things is at a high standard.

Chapter 9

  • Demand excellence of yourself.
  • Be prepared and ready for an opportunity to show what you can do.

Chapter 10

  • Be decisive and make your own decisions. Don’t let others make decisions for you.
  • Control your response to situations.
  • Don’t spread yourself too thin with what you work on.
    • Focus on one or two things you want to become great at and devote yourself to it.
    • If you try to be good at a lot of different things, you impede your progress and never become great at anything. 
    • Be the No. 1 guy on the list when people need ____ done.
  • Find what you do and do it better than anybody else.
    • Then let everything else you develop build around that.
  • Make the decision to put in the work to be successful.
    • Choose to keep working when everyone else tells you to quit.

Chapter 11

  • It doesn’t take talent to work hard. Working hard is simply a choice.
    • It takes some sacrifice.
  • There will always be distractions. You have to ignore them and do the work.
    • DO THE WORK.

Chapter 14

  • Failure is a myth. It’s all about how you see it and think about it.
  • If you “fail”, it’s just a setback. A stepping stone on the way to success. 
    • Elite people don’t stop, they keep finding ways to get where they want to get to. They find a different way.

Chapter 15

  • Always look for ways to get better and be better.