Thursday, February 19

Book Review: Relentless by Tim S. Grover

Author: Tim S. Grover
Title: Relentless
Genre: Business, Nonfiction, & inspirational
Pages: 256
First Published: April 2013
Where I Got It: My shelf (Amazon)

Direct, blunt, and brutally honest, Relentless goes to the “dark side” of competitive intensity and killer instinct, that intangible zone where good becomes great, daring you to admit what’s stopping you from succeeding, and forcing you to see that to be the best, you have to keep getting better, never stop working and improving, and never accept being “good enough.”

Over the past two decades, Tim Grover has trained more than 100 championship athletes from all the major professional sports, including Hall of Famers Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr., and many others. Now Tim Grover will finally reveal how the best athletes in the world harness their fears and instincts to achieve unstoppable greatness.


Relentless offers you the secret sauce; Grover describes how to tap into this “dark side,” an intense quality that exists in all of us and has applications in all aspects of life—from fitness to business, from work to school. The appealing part of the promise is that it’s not about some magic diet or pill or squat pattern you do to become better. So much out there tells you how to change by looking for external solution. Tim contends that everything you need is already in you. He shows you how to find it, tap into it, and use it to achieve true greatness.

At one of my meetings at work, my boss shared this book with us. She shared some quotes from it and told us to use it. It inspired me quite a bit, so I decided to grab up the book myself and give it a read. It took me a while to finish, because I re-read sections and made notes and wrote down my favorite quotes. Rarely do I do that...even for school. haha

This is not like any "inspiration" books out there. He is flat out honest and doesn't give you crap about "passion", "inner drive", and "think positive". JUST DO IT! Find something you want and go for it until you get it. He's trained the best of the best like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan. He knows what he is talking about.

The first couple of chapters are the best. Once he goes along sharing stories and how to do what they did and why they did what they did, it does get a little ramble-y, but it good to see examples instead of all talk. I do love how he ended it. 

Here are a couple quotes I liked:

"It's time to stop listening to what everyone else says about you, telling you what to do, how to act, how you should feel. Let them judge you by your results, and nothing else; it's none of their business how you get where you're going. If you're relentless, there is no halfway, no could or should or maybe. Don't tell me the glass is half-full or half-empty; you either have something in that glass or you don't."

"Decide. Commit. Act. Succeed. Repeat."

"When a Cleaner [Someone relentless] makes a mistake, he can look you in the eye and say, 'I fucked up'.

That's it. Confident, simple, factual, no explanation. You made a mistake? Fine. Don't explain it to me for an hour. The truth is one sentence, I don't need a long story. You tell me you messed up, take responsibility..."

Is this type of inspiration for everyone? No. Some people need a softer tone and softer hands, but I need a rough kick in the pants sometimes. I don't like critical feedback sometimes, but I do need a firm kick sometimes. This book totally inspires me.

In the end, I really liked this book. I am so glad my boss brought this to my attention and inspired me to read it. I loved it. Anyone who wants to be relentless and needs some hard and simple truth should read this. Out of five stars, I stamp this with 5 stars. 




6 comments:

Blodeuedd said...

SO not for me ;)

Unknown said...

Thank you for sharing this, Carole! I'm kind of the same way when it comes to motivation: I need the hard truth once in a while. Sometimes I'll just stare at my computer screen and wonder "What should I be doing today?" when the answer is obvious. Make a difference. I'll definitely be checking out this book!

Melliane said...

wow 5? It's rare! It's great that it was that good for you. Now you made me really intrigued!

Carole Rae said...

Felicia, same here. Don't sugar-coat things...just do it.

B, lol it's okay

JK, :D same here. I know I waste a lot of time doing nothing important...while I could be bettering myself. Yes, we need some "me" time, but people waste hours upon hours doing this.

Melliane, RIGHT? Especially this year...not a fantastic start.

Anachronist said...

Sounds like my kind of book. If I listened to different people saying that I couldn't/wouldn't do this or that I would end up mad and even more hopeless than now. And I hate it when people try to talk you out of their mistakes by explaining why they made a mistake in the first place over and over again.

Carole Rae said...

Ana, I agree. Its mixed...sometimes people telling me not to do something makes me hesitate and think about it, but sometimes its makes me want it more. It's annoying. Okay...give me your opinion, but leave it at that and let me make my own choices.