{"id":958743,"date":"2026-11-10T00:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T00:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/958743\/"},"modified":"2026-11-10T00:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T00:18:14","slug":"what-michael-jordans-trainer-learned-from-the-1995-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/958743\/","title":{"rendered":"What Michael Jordan\u2019s trainer learned from the 1995 loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Orlando Magic had just knocked the Chicago Bulls out of the 1995 playoffs, and much of the criticism landed on Michael Jordan. When his trainer, Tim Grover, told him he\u2019d see him, Jordan didn\u2019t wait for a schedule. \u201cI\u2019ll see you tomorrow,\u201d he said, as Grover later recalled to <\/a>Sports Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That reflex, losing and showing up the next morning, is the product Grover now sells. The CEO of Attack Athletics<\/a>, which he founded in 1989, has turned decades of work with Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and other NBA stars into books, an online training platform, and a pitch to executives that treats winning as a discipline.<\/p>\n

Business leaders have long borrowed from the locker room. Fortune has profiled CEOs who credit high school sports<\/a> for the discipline and accountability they bring to the boardroom. Grover\u2019s version is harsher, and it comes with a price tag.<\/p>\n

Coolers, Closers, and Cleaners<\/p>\n

Grover\u2019s framework starts with his 2013 book, Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable, written with Shari Lesser Wenk. It sorts competitors into three types, and Grover describes the tiers in terms any manager would recognize.<\/p>\n

Coolers are steady but unremarkable. \u201cThe individual that shows up at 9:00 and leaves at 5:00\u2026their work is okay,\u201d Grover said on The Art of Charm podcast<\/a>. They deliver what they\u2019re asked, and little more.<\/p>\n

Closers perform well when conditions are clear. \u201cThe closer can deliver the end result as long as too many variables are not thrown at them,\u201d he said. Give them a plan and they will execute it.<\/p>\n

Cleaners sit at the top. In Grover\u2019s words, a Cleaner is \u201can individual that\u2019s going to get you that end result no matter what\u2019s thrown at them.\u201d<\/p>\n

His 2021 follow-up, Winning: The Unforgiving Race to Greatness, published by Scribner, returns to that hierarchy. \u201cBut there is one thing all Cleaners have in common: the ability to achieve the end result over and over,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n

A $599 course built on the books<\/p>\n

The same categories anchor The Relentless System<\/a>, Grover\u2019s online training platform. It sells for $599 with lifetime access and includes a module titled \u201cAre you a cleaner?\u201d alongside lessons such as \u201cDon\u2019t Think\u201d and \u201cDecide. Commit. Act. Succeed. Repeat.\u201d Buyers also get a guide that tells them which of the three types they are.<\/p>\n

A newer online series, Breakthrough, is organized around ten themes, including obsession, pressure, and fear and doubt. Grover pitches all of it as action over reflection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t teach mindset,\u201d Grover says in a video on his website. \u201cIt\u2019s too many thoughts, ideas in your head that have you overthinking with no action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why Grover keeps returning to The Last Dance<\/p>\n

Much of Grover\u2019s material leans on The Last Dance, ESPN\u2019s 2020 docuseries on the Bulls\u2019 final championship season. It became ESPN\u2019s most-watched documentary ever<\/a>, and Netflix distributed it internationally.<\/p>\n

Episode 8 revisits the 1995 series. Jordan had returned from baseball that spring, and the Magic, led by Shaquille O\u2019Neal and Penny Hardaway, eliminated the Bulls in six games in the Eastern Conference semifinals.<\/p>\n

Hardaway later said the win backfired. \u201cThe respect was always there, but my thing was you had to attack him before he attacked us. But all we did was piss him off,\u201d he told Sports Illustrated<\/a>. The following season, the Bulls swept Orlando in the Eastern Conference finals<\/a> on the way to the title.<\/p>\n

In Winning, Grover quotes Jordan\u2019s defense, from the series, of how hard he drove his teammates: \u201cLook, I don\u2019t have to do this. I\u2019m only doing it because it is who I am. That\u2019s how I played the game. That was my mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n

That mentality has critics. A 2024 Fortune commentary on \u201cthe rise of the jerk\u201d<\/a> described the Jordan of The Last Dance as \u201cPetty. Mean. Kind of angry.\u201d and warned that leaders who display their flaws with pride teach others that being a jerk is the price of success.<\/p>\n

Grover sells the other half of the story. For him, the lesson of 1995 was never the loss. It was what Jordan said next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orlando Magic had just knocked the Chicago Bulls out of the 1995 playoffs, and much of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":958744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,8777,119723,1385,590,85],"class_list":["post-958743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-career-advice","tag-leadership-advice","tag-michael-jordan","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/958744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=958743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=958743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}