Are you a cooler, closer or cleaner?
Here is my review on 'Relentless' by Tim Grover, legendary trainer to Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade and many more...
Happy New Week,
I just finished reading ‘Relentless’ by Tim Grover. Tim is a legendary trainer who has trained the likes of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, and other top athletes. Relentless talks about three different types of people; a cooler, closer, and cleaner.
A cooler is good, a cooler is careful, waits to be told what to do, watches to see what everyone is doing, and then follows the leader. A cleaner is a mediator, not a decision-maker, the “setup guy”, keeping things cool until the closer or cleaner comes.
A closer is great, the person you can count on to close the game or finish the deal or get you whatever you need. A closer can handle a lot of pressure, they’ll get the job done if you put them in the right situation and tell them exactly what you need them to do. They get very uncomfortable when faced with something unexpected. They tend to seek attention and credit and are very aware of what everyone is doing and what others think of them.
A cleaner is unstoppable, the most intense and driven competitor imaginable. They refuse any sort of limitations. They quietly and forcefully do whatever it takes to get what they want. Cleaners are rarely understood and they like it that way. The closer can win the game if given the opportunity, but the cleaner creates the opportunity.
Tim talks a lot about preparation and performance, the physical and mental elements, not just for athletes but people in different walks of life. There were a few themes that stood out to me.
“Decide. Commit. Act. Succeed. Repeat.” - it is important to make decisions and stand by them to the end. You can spend a lot of time gathering and analysing data but eventually, you’re going to need to make a decision and act upon it. If you don't make a choice, the choice will be made for you.
“You don’t recognize failure, you know there is more than one way to get what you want” - to me this is the true definition of relentless, being so determined to achieve your goal, you don’t care how many tries it takes, you’re not stopping until you’ve achieved what you’ve sought out to achieve.
“You don’t care about the fame” - Tim’s janitor example stood out to me. A janitor works quietly alone, late at night. No Attention. No one sees him working. No one knows what he does, but the job always gets done. It has to, so everyone else can do their jobs efficiently.
“When everyone is hitting the “In case of emergency” button, they are looking for you” - you have to strive to be the best at what you do. Once you become the best, you are the go-to person for that specific thing. People get paid a fortune for being the expert at one thing, anytime others need that one thing done, you’re the only one they’re calling. Figure out what you do, then do it and do it better than anyone else.
Being the best means engineering your life so you never stop until you get what you want, and then you keep going until you get what’s next. And then you go for even more. People don’t become unstoppable by following the crowd, you get there by doing something better than anyone else can, and proving every day why you’re the best at what you do.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a cooler or closer and being a cleaner may not be everyone’s cup of tea. I think it’s important to know what you want out of your own life and stick to it.
Overall, ‘Relentless’ was a good read, with some applicable lessons. There are a few things I didn’t agree with and the “alpha-male” undertone was a bit cringe. However, he’s speaking from his experience and saying his message in an authentic way. Like I said last week, a lot of the answers or advice we need is within us already, it's more about doing the work. You can read thousands of self-help books and try to gain motivation from them but action is what really matters.
Have a great week,
Subomi
I’ve just dropped a new podcast episode, I had a great conversation with the co-founder of VampUK, Christina Okorocha, and Husam, Senior Publicity Executive for VampUK. Check it out!