Last week I picked up Tim Grover’s excellent new book, “Winning: The Unforgiving Race To Greatness”.
(I highly recommend it – and also his previous book “Relentless”)
Grover has trained some of the greatest athletes on the planet, including Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, and something he wrote about MJ in the book stood out for me:
Grover said that Jordan was a master at staying focused and not getting distracted by outside forces.
For example, there was a lot going on in his final season with the Bulls …
It was no secret that Chicago was going to blow the team up after the 1997/1998 season, and let the expensive star players and coach Phil Jackson go so they could rebuild with a younger team.
But Jordan refused to get pulled into the media circus that was happening around him, and instead concentrated on what he could actually control.
He couldn’t dictate what ownership would do with the team, but he could put on blinders and focus on playing the best basketball that he could.
Spoiler alert: he did an excellent job, and he helped the Bulls win their sixth championship in eight years (he even hit the winning shot with just seconds to go in the final game of the NBA Championship vs. Utah).
There are other interesting stories in the book, including how Grover bucked accepted norms in the training world and had Jordan eat steak before every game (people thought he was nuts for that) but what I took most from it is to not get distracted by outside forces, keep my head down, and work on what I can control.
My 3 Pillars Strategy is what keeps me on track, and I’m going to explain what it is during a live training that I’m doing on Wednesday, June 2nd at 2 pm EST.
Jump on the court and join me by registering here:
