Founders: #301 Tiger Woods

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And one more thing before we jump into this episode, I think the first 30 minutes of this

episode may be the craziest, some of the craziest things I've ever read in any book when you get

into Tiger Woods early life. But I want to tell you about one episode that I listened to this week

that I absolutely loved. It's one of my favorite podcasts. It's called Invest Like the Best.

My friend Patrick, who hosts Invest Like the Best, he interviewed Alexis Rivas. Alexis Rivas is one

of the most impressive founders that I've met and he, Alexis, has been a long time founders

listener. I'm going to leave the link down below, but you can just search in your podcast

player as well for Invest Like the Best, Alexis Rivas, episode 326. I saw Alexis a few weeks ago

in LA and I loved how he placed the work that he's trying to do in present day

in her historical context. He said he's trying to be the Henry Ford of housing.

Tiger Woods was the kind of transcendent star that comes around about as often as Haley's comment.

By almost any measure, he's the most talented golfer who has ever lived and arguably the greatest

individual athlete in modern history. For a 15-year span from August 1994, when he won his first of

three consecutive US amateur championships as an 18-year-old high school senior, to the early

morning hours of November 27, 2009, when he crashed his SUV into a tree and effectively ended the most

dominant run in the history of golf, Woods was a human whirlwind of heart-stopping drama and

entertainment. He was someone no one had ever seen or will ever see again. At the height of Tiger's

career, golf beat the NFL and the NBA in ratings. He was mobbed by fans wherever he went. Kings and

presidents courted him, corporations wooed him, women wanted to sleep with him. For the better

part of two decades, he was simply the most famous athlete on earth. Despite his killer instinct on

the course, he was an introvert off of it, more comfortable practicing and training in solitude.

As far back as childhood, he spent far more time by himself. Tiger is the most mysterious

athlete of his time, an enigma obsessed with privacy who mastered the art of being invisible

in plain sight, of saying something while revealing virtually nothing. The two qualities Woods values

most are privacy and loyalty. So that begs the question, why tackle this project? They're talking

about the book. Why tackle this project in the first place? Our answer is simple. Very few

individuals are known throughout the world by one word. That is an excerpt from the book that I'm

going to talk to you about today, which is titled Tiger Woods and is written by Jeff Benedict and

Armin Conteyn. There is a companion to this, to this fantastic biography. It is an excellent

documentary that I watched a few years ago, or maybe like a year ago, on HBO. It's simply

called Tiger. When they said, hey, why are we writing this book? Very few individuals are

known throughout the world by one word. A few months ago, I was in Los Angeles and I was going

through a book store and I noticed this book. It speaks to what they're talking about, the fact

that he is known just by the word Tiger. He's also known by just his face. I saw the book.

There is no title on the cover of the book. All it is is Tiger's face and I immediately knew what

it was about. Then the reason I picked it up is because it says on the cover that it was the basis

of the HBO documentary Tiger. I said, oh, wow, I like the document. I should read the book.

In addition to reading this book, I also rewatched the documentary. I want to start in the prologue

with a main reoccurring theme that you and I have talked about over and over again. It pops up in

nearly every single biography that you and I talk about that you can always understand the son by

the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son. That is a quote from Francis

Ford Coppola's biography regarding the relationship that Francis had with his father. I covered all

the back on episode 242. We see it right away. The arguably the main theme and what I'll probably

spend most of the time talking to you about today is the unusual childhood and unusual family

that Tiger Woods came from. I said in his father's name is Earl. Earl achieved worldwide, and you'll

see exactly what I mean. Earl achieved worldwide claim for his almost mythical role in raising

the most famous golfer of all time. He was notorious for making outlandish statements

like the time he predicted that his then 20 year old son would have more influence on the world

than Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, or Buddha. He is the chosen one, Earl said. He will have the power to

impact nations. And for his part, Tiger says, Tiger repeatedly said that no one in the world

knew him better than his father, the man he frequently referred to as his best friend and

his hero. And so I want to start in the early life of Tiger when he's very, very small and

really focus on this relationship that he had with his dad. If you could look at all the notes

that I left throughout this entire book, the most common note I just kept writing to myself over

and over again is this reminds me of Mozart. It happened so much that I actually went back and

reread all of my highlights for the biography of Mozart that I read. This is episode 240. I want

to read those highlights to you in advance because I really think it will help frame the

relationship. It is spooky. I wrote down Tiger Woods is the Mozart of golf. The parallels are

incredible. Not only the talent, you know, Tiger Woods being the most famous and maybe the best

golfer of all time, Mozart's widely considered the same in his field, but the relationship with

their father. Earl makes the claim in the book that he had his first golf ball when he was like

11 months old. Mozart starts composing when he's like two. And so I'm just going to read a few

of the highlights from the Mozart book and really this is just a way to describe Earl and Tiger.

Mozart's output was enormous, much greater than that of nine tenths of other composers. So my

friend David Perrell, when he found out I was doing a podcast on Tiger Woods, he sent me like

notebook after notebook of all the data that he's collected. David's a huge golf fan and it sounds

like a huge Tiger Woods fan. He's got all these quotes and these highlights and these graphs.

Essentially, like when I read this, his output was enormous, much greater than

nine tenths of other composers. It is in line with all the stats and the data that David sent me.

There is two things I want to read from here, actually, from David's notes that I thought was

fascinating after. I read David's notes after I read the book and I said, Tiger's opponents were

never people. It was always history. And then another early example that I think is a good

parallel with Mozart is the fact that you have somebody that starts unbelievably early, is

unbelievably disciplined, but also extremely gifted and born with like natural intelligence.

And this is an example of this. This is a quote from Tiger when he was older. By the time I was

11 years old, I had already won 113 tournaments. I peaked at 11 to be honest with you. I went 36

and 0 that year and never lost a tournament all in California. I also had straight A's. No A

minuses. They were all perfect A's. So go back to the Mozart highlights. He was a mature artist in

most forms at the age of 12. What that's exactly what Tiger just told us. There was never a month

and often scarcely a week when he did not produce a substantial score. Another description of Mozart.

He was very, he very rarely made any kind of mistake. And when he did, he noticed it. We're

going to talk about the obsessive and disciplined nature of Tiger Woods. The truth is he started

earlier than anyone else and was still composing on his deathbed. Those 30 years were crammed with

creation that he started so early was largely due to his father. The parallels are spooky here.

Mozart's dad seemed to have decided that his own musical future was limited and his efforts centered

on his children. Earl picks up golf later in life becomes completely obsessed. He is completely

obsessed by the time that Tiger is born. So there's a parallel there again. When Mozart was four,

his father decided to concentrate on bringing him out and virtually gave up on composing and

performing himself. Earl was retired from the Navy. He had no other job than dedicating his

self to his young son's amateur golf career and then professional career. He soon came to the

conclusion that he had fathered a genius. That's what Earl just said. Being a very highly religious

man, that he was responsible for a gift of God to music. So Earl talks about the fact that

this was meant to be. This is from God. I don't know if I'd consider Earl a religious man. There's

a lot in this biography that's actually shocking. Back to Mozart. It is important to grasp the strong

religious element raiding from his father that existed in Mozart's life from his infancy. Mozart's

father felt that the musical education of his son was a profound spiritual business

as well as a professional one. So did Earl. He literally thought that Tiger was the anointed

one. He just said that through golf he's going to cure racism. He just got a very interesting

almost like messiah-like vision for his son. I guess it's the way to put that.

And then one more highlight before we jump back into the Tiger book. He, Mozart's father, is often

seen as a tyrant towards his children. There's no way you're going to read the book and not think

Earl's the same way. But the fact is he surrendered his own future as a musician for their sake and

their progress justified his sacrifice. And on that point, after you read this book, you get to the

end, that is an unknown in my opinion. Let's go to five-year-old Tiger Woods. This is very unusual.

Tiger felt different from all the other kids. Instead of toys, his prized possession was a

custom-made set of golf clubs. Besides his parents, his closest friend was his golf instructor. He's

five years old. By the time he was five, he'd already appeared on national television and

performed in front of millions of people. This goes to his unusual, I mean, I'm going to read my

note to you before I read the paragraph to you. Discipline and obsessed at five. I feel ridiculous

for even writing this note. Each morning his mother would drop him off at school and each

afternoon she picked him up. Then she would drive him to the nearby golf course where he

practiced. Tiger had an unusually structured routine that left little to no time for interacting

with other children outside of school. Academically, he was also way ahead of other kids in his

class as well. He was also unusually disciplined for a five-year-old and he seldom spoke.

So just like Mozart's father was obsessed with music before Mozart was born, we see the same

thing with Earl. It says he, Earl was instantly hooked. This is right before Tiger was born.

If golf were a drug, he would have qualified as an addict. He liked it so much that it consumed

him, leading him to spend far more time with his clubs than with his wife. I realized what I'd

been missing my whole life, Earl said. I decided if I had another son, I'd introduce him to golf

early on. And so there is this huge element that you can't really understand Tiger without

understanding his father. His father was a green beret. He believed in engaging in psychological

warfare on his son. Even the name Tiger came from Earl's experience in Vietnam. He immediately

nicknamed his son Tiger and tribute to a comrade from Vietnam. And then we go back to more notes

where I feel even silly for writing intense training before Tiger was one. By the time Tiger

turned one, he had spent 100 and between 100 and 200 hours watching his father hit golf balls.

So what they would do is they'd go out to the garage, they'd put him in a high chair and Earl

would just sit there and swing and hit into the net over and over again. Tiger got so transfixed

by this, he would watch, his mother would try to feed him and he would not eat. He'd wait till

the swing, like the swing was done, then he'd turn and open his mouth so his mom could feed him.

He'd take one bite, then look again, stare at the, stare at the swing back and forth. That's

how he ate. When Tiger was about 11 months old after watching his father practice, Tiger slid

down from his high chair and picked up a club that Earl had cut down to size for him to make a new

tour. He waddled over to the carpet patch, stood over a golf ball and swung. All these things that

I'm reading, you were having over, over many, many pages. It's insane how consistent this is.

Instead of carrying around a security blanket or stuffed animal, Tiger dragged around a putter

from one of the house to the other. It's seldom left his hand. Earl deserved credit for recognizing

so early on that his son possessed rare natural talents and abilities, just like Mozart's dad.

When he was 18 months old, his mother started bringing him to the driving range to hit balls.

After, after Tiger, like the baby version of Tiger, toddler version of Tiger would hit balls,

he would put him back in a stroller and he would fall asleep. By the time Tiger was two years old,

Earl made sure that he'd spent two hours a day hitting golf balls. This was insane.

Tiger was developing the habit of practice, practice, practice. This is,

so I guess one of the reasons I wanted to read this biography. So I don't, I've never played golf.

I don't even know the rules of golf. I've never watched golf, but I know who Tiger Woods is.

I obviously can see he's clearly an extreme winner, clearly has a lot of the same parallels and

the way he approaches his work to a lot of history's greatest entrepreneurs.

But what really made me want to read this book is because one of my favorite books ever for the

podcast and one that's changed my life was episode 212. And that's the biography. I read a 600 page

biography of Michael Jordan. And I was a huge basketball fan and Michael Jordan fan my entire

life. It's still my favorite game to play. And what was fascinating is how the reason that book

changed my life is because, you know, I always saw the highlight, like the games, the highlights,

the championships. I never saw the practice and that the main theme of that book is the same

theme of this book. Practice, practice, practice. Tiger Woods idolized Michael Jordan. Tiger Woods

is definitely the Michael Jordan of golf. The way they approach their practice and their insane

work ethic around improving parts of their game is identical. Earl is, this is the strange part

where he's like constantly trying to get attention for a son, even from a very early age. And we see

how wild and like almost like messianic his, how he feels about a son. Earl Woods made a decision

that would alter the course of his young son's life. He placed a call to a television station

and asked for the sports anchor. My son is two years old, Earl said. And I'm telling you right

now that he's going to be the next big thing in golf. He's going to revolutionize everything,

including race relations. This sentence might be the funniest sentence in the entire book.

It was a blunt way to open a call with a complete stranger. So this sports anchor goes out, it's

like, Oh, yeah, there's a lot of overzealous parents. This might be BS, but let me go out here and

see if that's the case. And he's like, Oh, well, he might be right, not on the race relations, but

he might be the next biggest thing in golf. I see this little tiger hitting golf balls straight.

I mean, straight, not kind of straight, straight. He was only a couple of feet tall,

yet he was hitting it 50 yards and he was hitting the ball flush every time. And so anybody that

sees Tiger Woods golf, it's like you have a gifted, you know, once in a century talent,

his teachers would say the same thing. Tiger showed unmistakable signs of being a bona fide

gifted child in school. He shared the textbook attributes of the gifted child, quiet sensitive

and isolated. And so his parents don't really have any money, but they find ways throughout the

entire book to get professional help, even from an early age. By the time I think he's 13,

Tigers getting recruited by like Stanford, it was well known that he's going to be a pro.

And so there's a bunch of people that say, Hey, you know, I'll give you my services for free,

that coach like a swing coach trainer or everything else, just pay me back when he turns

pro and becomes a superstar because it's obvious that that's going to happen. Those are their words.

And so they wind up getting this, this golf coach. And same thing where he's just like,

this kid is, I think Tiger's four at this time. He's like, this kid is so gifted,

I'm willing to help him for free. And then we're going to get into another main theme of this book

that Tiger uses over and over again. And it's the power of visualization. So it says, this is now

his, his golf coach, I think he's four years old. Instead of drilling the youngster over and over,

Durand simply allowed Tigers natural abilities and his love of the game to grow organically.

Tiger would play 18 holes of golf with Durand. Kindergarten was still months away,

but Tiger was already starting to learn valuable lessons. Superior athletes don't have to pay for

things and not only didn't have to pay for things, they get every, they get paid. The, the, the business

aspect of this is the same thing Michael Jordan realized where he's like, listen, the only reason

that I'm a billionaire now is because of my dedication to winning. If I didn't win six

championships, no one's going to buy my shoes. And then he had no way to predict that his shoes,

you know, people were buying shoes, not to play basketball on them, but they wound up becoming

like a very strong piece of culture. You know, to this day, he's gets a 5% royalty on gross sales

of all the Jordan brand. He's making about 150 to 180 million a year, you know, 20 years after

he retired. So Tiger Woods at his peak, I think this is like 2007, 2008, he was making over 100

million a year just from endorsements, not including any other businesses that he owns,

not including his winnings from golf or anything else. And so today they, they, they say Tiger

is still a billionaire. And again, it comes from this idea that superior athletes, like people

want to be associated with winning. And winning is the genesis of both Jordan and Tiger Woods.

Fortune, Tiger, now this goes to the visualization part that I thought was, that was very interesting.

A few weeks ago, I did Ray Kroc's autobiography. And same thing, he would drive around now Tiger's

doing this when he's a boy. I think he's in elementary school when he started doing this.

Ray Kroc would drive around listening to these like positive affirmation tapes. I don't think Tony

Robbins was a thing at that time, because it's probably before Tony might even be born or Tony

was a kid. But it's that kind of, you know, positive mental affirmations. So it says Tiger was

in grade school when his father furnished him with a cassette player and motivational self-help tapes.

Tiger was filling his mind with words that were intended to make him great. He wrote some of the

messages on a sheet of paper that he taped to his bedroom wall. So he tape it to his wall,

and then read it over and over again. What are these messages? I'm going to read every line to

you. I believe in me. I will own my own destiny. I smile at obstacles. I am first in my resolve.

I fulfill my resolutions powerfully. My strength is great. I stick to it easily and naturally.

My will moves mountains. I focus and give it my all. My decisions are strong.

I do it with all my heart. And then the author says, Tiger listens to those tapes

so often that he wore them out. So now we're going to see another parallel with Tiger Woods

and Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant as well. Michael Jordan would watch tapes of like Dr. Jay,

all these other NBA players that came before him. Then Kobe in turn started to watch tapes of Michael

Jordan and Madra Johnson. Same thing, 10-year-old Tiger. You don't get to the top of your profession

without studying the great people who came before you. This is very clear. Now we're 301

biographies in and this is nearly every single one of them. 10-year-old Tiger Woods stared

intently at the television. It was the final round of the Masters. He was watching 46-year-old

Jack Nicholas. His reactions, this is what Tiger's reflecting back on this when he's older about

him being 10 years old and doing this, his reactions over those last holes of the 1986 Masters

made an impression on me because they were spontaneous and they showed me how much of

yourself you have to put into your shot. Jack was 46 and I was only 10 and I couldn't put it

into words then but I wanted to be where he was and doing what he was doing. After the 1986 Masters

Golf Digest published a list of Nicholas's career achievements. It included his age at the time of

each significant achievement. Tiger tacked the list to his bedroom wall. From that moment on,

each morning when he woke up and each night when he went to bed, Nicholas was there. This is not

unique to golf. It's not unique to Tiger. It's no different than Jeff Bezos running around with

highlighted copies of Sam Walton's autobiography, giving it out to a ton of people, taking I think

was the bias of action and Sam's penchant for frugality and imbibing those characteristics

and traits into the very foundation of early days of Amazon. One of my favorite rappers is this guy

named Jay Cole. I've heard interviews with him and he's also mentioned some songs. When he was young,

he would literally print out other rappers like Nas that he looked up to and print out their lyrics

and hang them up on the wall. That is exactly, that Jay Cole's version is exactly what Tiger's

doing with Jack Nicholas's achievements and Tiger mentions this in the book and it's also in that

file that David Perrell sent me that his goals were, they were confused that what he was chasing

was pure numbers and he's like, no, I wanted to do it when younger than they were. So he talks

about, this is a quote from Tiger that David sent me, is there a misconception about what drives you

and then this is what Tiger says. Here's the major misconception that people have gotten all wrong.

It's what was posted on my wall about Jack's records. It was not the majors, okay? That one was on

there but it was the first time he broke 40, the first time he broke 80, the first golf tournament

he ever won, first time he ever won the state amateur, first time he won the US amateur and

the first time he won the US open. That was it. That was the list. It was all age related to me

that was most important. This guy's the best out there and the best of all time. If I can beat

each age that he did it, then I have a chance at being the best. If you, if you buy the book

and read it, which I highly recommend, there's no reason not to and watch the documentary.

I'm focused on like things that you and I can take for our work and our career, right? That's

the point. Learning from history is a form of leverage. There is an unbelievable amount of like

sex in this book. Makes sense in the sense that he was the most famous person, maybe the most famous

person on the planet when he had that huge sex scandal back in 2009, 2010. I'm not going to go

into this guy's sex life. At the same time, I think if I don't mention it and you buy the book,

you're like, whoa, this, you left out a big part. What I'm focused on is how he could hate parts

of what his dad did. His dad was obviously a Philander. It's in the documentary. It's in the

book. Tiger loves his mom. His mom, you know, took him, was, was there just as much as his dad was

and he hated what his dad, his dad would cheat on his mom in front of like a 10 year old. This is

some weird behavior. And yet he wasn't able to avoid, he hated that part. He hated what his dad

did to his mom. And then yet in many ways, like he followed the path, like the story of the fathers

embedded in the sun. At the same time though, his family, like I don't want this environment. I don't

care if my next, my kid is the next Tiger Woods or next Michael Jordan or the next Taylor Swift,

because my daughter really loves to sing. I would never push them like this. He was raised in this

almost psychotic environment. So you take this unbelievably disciplined kid, this unbelievably,

like genius level IQ kid, and you put him with parents that are, listen to this, this is, this

is Tiger's mom. While driving him to tournaments, she shared her philosophy. He is like 10. While

driving him to tournaments, she shared her, his philosophy with him. In sport, you have to go

for the throat, she said, because if it, if you're, if you're at all friendly, they'll come back and

beat your ass. So you kill them, you take their heart. On the course, he had only one rule,

and that was to play without mercy. Sorry, he's 11 when she's telling him this. At age 11, Tiger

entered 33 junior golf tournaments and won every one of them. There's no feeling I've found that

matches the feeling that I've beaten everybody. Tiger said second place is first loser. So I'm

going to pause there real quick. I told you, you and I've talked about this before. A lot of times

you can read a biography and autobiography somebody you have an idea of who they are.

Like I just read James Dyson's autobiography for a time. I have an understanding of who he is.

I have no clue. I've watched the Tiger documentary twice, read this entire book, this book's about

400 pages. I know how he approaches work. I know he's got almost like terminator level,

levels of focus. He's completely relentless. But the, even the authors who, you know, interviewed

like 250 people who knew him spent years, I think they said they read every single book on Tiger as

well. He's just an enigma where you read Jordan's biography and his autobiography, you have a sense

of who he is. This is very different. Now, that's the thing that popped to mind. This is a note I

left on my page on this page. Later on in this book, Tiger's mom said that Tiger's dad was soft

because his dad cries and he forgives. And then they make the connection. The book opens up with

the death of his father and them burying his father. I think it was in Kansas where he was born.

And they make the point that a decade later, there's no grave. Tiger's dad is in an unmarked

grave. And he's not in an unmarked grave because of Tiger. He's in an unmarked grave because of

his mother. They were never, they were technically never divorced, but they were separated to live

separately. You know, he cheated on his wife over and over again. And this, you never make the

connection, right? She's telling her 11 year old, go kill him, no mercy, go for the throat,

don't act friendly at all. Later on, she's like, there's no point in having friends in life like

she's a Earl and her almost like the same person. And so these are not people, my point is like,

I would never wish, I don't think any parent is going to wish for this environment for their kid.

So the reason I don't, I'm not going to get heavy into judging him is because this happens,

I think as you get older, there was a lot of things my parents did that I did not understand.

And I did not, I was like, why would you do this? And yet you get older, you start having your own

kids. And then you like, you just get a perspective with time. And then I go back and like, listen,

I, you know, I'm obviously not going to do that. My kids, I understand, I'm not excusing that behavior,

but I understand it was like, well, imagine being raised by their parents. You know, I had

both sets of grandparents, my great, my, my paternal grandfather, I never met, but the ones I did meet,

the three I did meet were all terrible. And I just like the older I get, I was like, well,

listen, I'm not excusing that behavior, but imagine if that was like the environment you were

raised in. And like, that was your parents. And then go back even further, like, I wonder what

their parents were like, they probably not great people, right? But just imagine being told, like,

you're going to be Gandhi, you're going to be Jesus, being forced to practice two hours a day

when you're two years old, like your mom, you're 10 years old, I can remember being 10. I had,

like, I have a 10 year old, she just turned 11, like, they're still kids. They're kids, man.

This is crazy. And then later on, after Earl's dead, you know, saying, hey, he was soft, he cried,

and he forgave people, I don't cry, and I don't forgive anybody. And then you put the father

of your son and your ex-husband in an unmarked grave. That is some crazy, ruthless behavior.

Not, I read a lot of biographies, you don't come across like this, especially in the mother,

that's wild. So then we go into more on this, this, this level of training, they wanted to train

not only Tiger's body, but his mind, his dad, man, some of the stuff I'm not going to read you,

because it's crazy. It's insane. Tiger's dad is nuts. And so he actually has a psychologist

that worked at the Naval Academy in Maryland. And he starts having him work with, with Tiger.

And his dad, Tiger's dad was like, Hey, I'm going to make sure that so you're so mentally tough,

that by the time you go to college, you will never ever run into another human being on the

planet that has more mental toughness than you. Brunza is the guy named Brunza started to teach

Tiger how to visualize shots. He gave Tiger cassette tapes containing subliminal messages that

were custom made for him. The two did breathing and visualization exercises together. I wanted to

bring that up because along with practice of visualization is something that's mentioned

over and over again, this book, the amount of pressure that he's on, he's constantly like

isolating himself, whether it's the night before a big tournament, muting the world and really

getting control of his mind. So people, the way that people describe Tiger's level of focus and

intense level of focus is very similar to how Steve Jobs where Steve would, people around him

and Apple would say he was focused so intently on one thing that you could, you could talk,

you could snap your fingers, like you're not until he takes his focus away, he's not hearing any of

that. There's a lot, a lot of that in, in this book with Tiger Woods when he was young, but also

when he was at the peak of his, his golf career. And so this is the section where his father saying,

Hey, I'm going to build a bulletproof mind. Tiger's 12 years old when all this is happening, Earl

put him through what he called Woods's finishing school. He would use psychological warfare and

prisoner of war techniques that he had once taught to soldiers. Earl broke down his son in

an attempt to toughen him up. I wanted to make sure that he would never run into anybody who

was tougher mentally than he was, and we achieved that. Tiger says my dad deliberately would use

a lot of profanity when I was hitting golf balls all the time and throughout my swing. So this is

what his father is telling his 12 year old son, probably did it when he was younger than 12,

dude, fuck off Tiger, he would say sometimes it was motherfucker this, you little piece of

shit this. And then the line I'm not going to say at all, calling him obviously racist term,

things of that nature, he would push me to the breaking point and then he'd back off,

he'd pushed me to the breaking point and then he would back off. I'm not repeating myself.

Tiger's repeating himself here. It was wild. We had a code word that I could use whenever I thought

I couldn't take it anymore, but I never use that code word. I was never going to give in to what

he was doing. I was a quitter if I use that word and I don't quit that word was enough.

Tiger's simply overwhelmed. And so this is the result. This is when he said he was like

near his peak. Tiger's simply overwhelmed the competition on the Southern California Junior

Circuit at an elite tournament that attracted the finest players in the region. Tiger absolutely

dominated. He was in their estimation a decade ahead of the other kids. And then here's just one

of another insane story that is hard to believe that's in the book. Imagine being so good at

golf that the school district changes the boundaries for you. Tiger entered Western

High School. Western High's golf coach Don Crosby felt like his fledgling golf team had won the

lottery when Tiger arrived. Months before school started, the district was considering a modest

boundary change that would have put Tigers home just outside of the Western High District. In an

urgent meeting with Western High's principal, Crosby took out a map and drew a circle around

this specific parcel of land. Whatever you do this summer, Crosby told the principal do not lose

this track. Why? The principal said, because a kid named Tiger Woods lives there. And then we go

back to the Michael Jordan is Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods is Michael Jordan, something that pops up

over and over again in this book. My favorite maxim for this is the public praises people for

what they practice in private. And we see that over and over again. Tiger often averaged more than

10 hours per day on the practice range. Tiger was far more inclined to practice than to play a

round of golf. There's a line just like that in Michael Jordan's biography. Why don't you play the

course more? He was asked. I like practicing better, Tiger said. The first thing I taught Tiger aside

from the love of the game of golf was a love of practice, his dad said. When he was real small,

people would ask him, how did you get so good, Tiger? And he would answer, practice, practice,

practice. One of my all time favorite quotes that I found during research for the podcast came

all the way back in episode 50, it's from Mark Andreessen. And he says, the world is a very

malleable place. If you know what you want and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and

passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than

you would think. We go back from a 10 year old Tiger Woods watching Jack Nicholas,

hopefully that's how he pronounced his name, putting his list of achievements on his wall,

staring at it every night and morning to meeting him at this tournament. And at one point he says,

Nicholas called on Tiger to demonstrate his swing. Tiger is 15 years old. Remaining poised,

Woods demonstrated his flawless swing. After a few swings, Nicholas stopped him. Tiger, he said,

grinning, when I grow up, I want to have a swing as pretty as yours. It was a rare display of public

validation from the game's greatest golfer to the child prodigy who had been anointed his successor.

A few pages later, one sentence I highlighted, but I think I've already told you this,

but he says it explicitly. Tiger says, I want to be the Michael Jordan of golf. I'd like to be

the best ever. Later on, Tiger Woods is going to be obsessed with the US Navy SEALs. He winds up

training with them, has this idea to quit golf and become a Navy SEAL later on, likely causes a

lot of problems with his golf game because it aggravates some of his injuries, like this intense

training that he's going to. But he has this idea where it's like this US, I think it comes from

the Navy SEALs, about violence of action. And violence of action is the unrestricted use of

speed, strength, and surprise and aggression to achieve total dominance against your enemy.

I have no idea why, but when I got to this section, the description of Tiger's swing

early in his career reminded me of violence of action. It was the speed and power of Tiger's

swing that left the most lasting impression. The adjective that came to mind was violent.

Tiger swung so violently that he had raw spots on his forearm from the friction created by

their rubbing together on his release. What's your go-to shot when you aren't swinging well?

Harmon asked. I think it's first or second swing coach.

Swing as fast as I can, unleash everything I have through the ball. Then I go find the ball and I

hit it again. We got to read that again. Swing as fast as I can, unleash everything I have through

the ball. Then I go find the ball and hit it again. Violence of action in the form of a golf swing.

And so then it goes into some of the things that Tiger was witnessing when he was a kid.

And this is a main point that's made in the documentary where his dad would have like this

Winnebago or this RV and they'd park it right next to the golf course. And so Tiger is a young kid

and he'd see his dad start having drinks and invite all these ladies over and then like the

Winnebago would start shaking. And so this is going to become a big problem later on.

And it says he was he was conflicted over his relationship with his father. He loved him and

considered him his best friend. Yet he hated some of the things that he did. And you see this manifest

once Tiger has complete control over his life. He's a grown man, world famous athlete.

Overnight, his net worth goes from zero to 60 million dollars the day he turns pro.

And he spends less and less time with his father. And I think in the documentary it's his mom.

They know he's dying because he's got cancer, diabetes. He's had like a bunch of heart attacks.

He's like smoking and drinking and doing all kinds of crazy stuff. There's a lot of crazy

stuff this guy does even when he's an old man in the book. When I'm pretty sure it was his mom that

said, hey, you need to like go and patch things up because he's about to die and you're going to

regret it if you don't. They also had no problem putting an unbelievable amount of pressure

like financial pressure on him. He knew. So he's like, listen, his father wasn't a CEO. He had no

money. His mother was an immigrant from a distant land. His family had little money and few connections.

Their only real chance for upward mobility rested squarely on Tiger's golf game. Tiger knew that

this was his way out. His family could not pay for all the lessons that he needed, the travel,

everything else. So they put financial pressure on him. And then they kept engaging in this

psychological warfare over and over again. And this is like his dad. The crazy thing about his dad

is like, he almost like bragged about it. Like he would talk about it unprompted. And he's like,

yeah, when he gets a little cocky, I say, you weren't shit before, you aren't shit now,

and you'll never be shit. I could never picture me talking to my son that way. That just seems

insane to me. Tiger eventually gets recruited to Stanford. And then he winds up building a

relationship with Bill Walsh, who wrote that fantastic book, The Score Takes Care of Itself.

I think it's episode 106 of Founders. I actually need to reread that book, because I just have,

I think I'll have a better understanding of it on the second time through. But what's fascinating

is Tiger's young. Bill's towards the end of his career. I think he'd already retired from San

Francisco 49ers. I think he'd already won five Super Bowls. And yet he saw a lot of parallels

and stuff he could learn from Bill. Tiger had long admired Walsh and his reputation as a genius

coach. And so he went to pay him a visit. Walsh and Woods were both very private individuals

with cerebral approaches to their respective sports. They were both introverts to the extreme.

And they were more at ease by themselves than in the company of others. They instantly connected.

They were both perfectionists with similar organizational qualities. And so game recognizes

game. Bill Walsh sees all this guy special. He gave Tiger his own personal key to the

weight room. No other student athlete on the Stanford campus had such a key. Within a month,

Woods was practically living in the weight room. And it sounded like getting away to college was

one of the best things could ever happen to him. Because there's all these people that are going

to wind up playing a role in Tiger's early career that are kind of recruited and introduced to Tiger

by his dad. One was this guy named Merchant. But Merchant became friends with Earl, but he saw

that like the way Earl was with Tiger's mom. And so I'm just going to read and there's a bunch

of stories in the book. I don't think I have to read all of them to you. I think you'll get the

point here. Because I'm really just trying to understand like what kind of what did you expect

when you have somebody that is raised in an environment like this. So he says when he was

in Earl's home Merchant witnessed things that he could no longer ignore. He had it with Earl's

foul mouth abuse of Tiger's mother. And the way he would tell Tiger's mother to shut the fuck up

one night during Tiger's freshman year Merchant finally confronted Earl. Listen,

if I don't speak up my mother, my mother will rise up out of her grave and slap the shit out of me.

If I allow you to continue to verbally abuse your wife as you do in my presence. So please stop it.

Merchant figured that if Earl behaved this way in front of him, he no doubt did the same or worse

in front of his son. He knew how much Tiger revered and loved his father and seeing his father

mistreat his mother was bound to do long term damage. And so then Merchant describes what I

was trying to say earlier. It's like, yes, the impact of his father's undeniable. We can't

discount his mother either. Fans of golf and Tiger would see only the positive of the father-son

relationship and the accomplishments of the son Merchant explained. But Tiger's greatest fan

without question was his mother. She went to all the tournaments. She walked around the fucking

golf courses everywhere he played. She wore the hat. Talk about worship. She loved that boy beyond

belief, but Earl treated her like dirt and it pissed me off. It really did. And so that may have

played a role in Tiger Turning Pro earlier. It says the family dysfunction at home weighed heavily

on Tiger College. His parents desperately needed space. They needed separation, but their ability

to live apart was restricted by their finances. And so when you look at like the totality of,

you know, Tiger's career, you say, hey, there are things like we can learn from there maybe to avoid.

And so his practice habits were unbelievable. His workouts were extreme. And a lot of people,

you know, say like he just essentially like a lot of the decisions he made later on also stemmed

from the fact that he had so many surgeries and then those surgeries, he was in so much pain

and he's on all kinds of prescription medication. And I saw this firsthand, my mom was dying of

cancer. There's nothing they could do. And they just give a ton of pain medication and it just

changes who that person is. But I just can't help but wonder if Tiger had like a Bill Bowerman,

who know, if you would even listen to somebody like that. But Bill Bowerman, I read his biography

back on episode 153, Bill Bowerman is the co founder of Nike. He's a legendary track coach.

Phil Knight, you know, has been on record over and over again, saying that there is no Nike

without Bill Bowerman. And the interesting thing about Bill Bowerman was, wait, this is decade,

people know the importance of resting recovery now, but he was decades ahead of the curve.

And so in that biography, back on episode 153, I'm going to read from it real quick.

He talks about the fact that he just sees class after class after class of tracks,

track stars, right? And they all make the same mistake and that they don't rest and they get

injured and then their career goes to shit. And I just wonder if he had a strong influence, you

know, Phil Knight is a very formidable individual. And yet he was able to like he listened to and

admired Bowerman Bowerman never let Phil Knight over train. And so this is the speech that Bowerman

would give to the incoming freshmen incoming track athletes every year, take a primitive organism,

any weak pitiful organism, say a freshman, you make it lift or jump or run, and then you let it

rest. What happens? A little miracle. It gets a little better. It gets a little stronger,

a little faster, a little more enduring. That's all training is stress, recover, improve.

You think any damn fool could do it, but you don't. You work too hard and rest too little,

and you get hurt. That was said decades before Tiger turns pro. And it sounds like that's like

one of the biggest lessons that jumps from this book. You work too hard and rest too little and

you get hurt. And so this is the first time in the book where it's many, many surgeries he's going

to have. It marked the first of what would become many surgeries over the course of his career,

stemming from excessive wear and tear on his body. He never, Tiger never let on that he was in

pain. The mind, he said, is a powerful thing. Then we go back to this insane mentality that

he's learning from his mother, because a main theme of the book is the fact that he had a,

it says Tiger's lack of sentimentality and personal connection to others can be traced

directly to his mother. This is what she says, I'm a loner and so is Tiger. I don't have many

close friends and never have. I'm independent and strong willed. That way you survive. And so

eventually Tiger makes the decision, much with Nike's encouragement. Phil Knight's a character

that pops up. There's much cameos of him in the book as well. And so he makes the decision he's

going to turn pro. And he gets to meet, he starts getting to meet Michael Jordan, who he idolized,

says Jordan was another story. Tiger had idolized him throughout his teenage years.

Phil Knight even saw Tiger as Jordan's equal. When asked whether Tiger was comparable to Jordan,

Knight said flatly, you bet your ass he is. Jordan, the world's most famous

athlete publicly stated that his only hero on earth is Tiger Woods. It was a hell of a compliment

for a 20 year old. Tiger was too young to drink, but with two strokes of a pen, he had secured

$60 million before playing his first round of golf as a pro. Around this time, this is where his

dad's starting to talk publicly about his 20 year old son. He's going to be Gandhi, he's going to be

Mandela, he's going to be better than all of them. I know I was personally selected by God himself

to nurture this young man. That is exactly, exactly what Mozart's father said. And so they

have an entire chapter dedicated to the 1997 masters. I just want to go back to this point that

the world is a very malleable place. Tiger had sat in his living room at age 10 watching Jack

Nicholas win the 1986 masters on television and dreamed of doing just that. Here he was 11 years

later and Jack Nicholas was now elbowing his way through the masses of spectators,

trying to get a glimpse of Tiger. And so we go back into what was his practice habits,

like what was his regimen after he turned pro and it goes back to maybe this is, who knows,

you have to ask him if he went back and did it. Would he take more like a Bowerman approach or is

it like, hey, he just has this like ruthless intensity and drive and competitive spirit

that maybe he couldn't even control. And so it says, Tiger had compulsive habits. By the spring

of 1997, he was consumed with practicing and working out a typical practice day for him entailed

hitting 600 balls, working on a short game, working on his putting and then playing around a golf

and working out in the gym for two or three hours. That was the life I wanted, he said.

And he never rested after a win. The joy he derived from winning tournaments was always

fleeting. Even after shattering records at Augusta wasn't enough. I didn't care if I won. I didn't

care that I won by 12 shots. He said I was addicted to staying on the range for hours.

And so right away as he turns pro, he's breaking records, he's winning all the time.

And then this is a, this goes, this was really helpful to have David Perrell text me and and

send me all this stuff because, you know, I'm not, I don't understand golf the way he does.

And he's like, listen, the man is wild. He literally becomes the best player in the world

twice. And he's like, nope, I'm going to, I'm going to scratch everything and rebuild my swing

from scratch. He was relentless. And so the first time he rebuilt his swing, it's going to take some

time from, he's, you know, winning, winning, winning. And he's like, okay, this isn't,

I may win now, but I'm going to rebuild my, my swing because I want to win long-term.

And some people debate if this was good or bad or whatever the case is.

But the main point is he had, that means he has to go from dominating and winning to losing.

And he does not like that. And so this is what happens. He goes nine months between victories,

which was an excessive long time for him. And this is just funny to me. It had been nine long

months since his last PGA victory. Tiger received the trophy and held it up. So this guy named Rick,

who is the director for the tournament, he's holding, Tiger's holding up the trophy. And

you go from the end of the tournament to now they're going to go over to like the pavilion where

you take photos and you do the media center. And Tiger's like, okay, I'll head over there.

And then Rick's like, I'll take the trophy, reaching for it. And Tiger's like, no, I just beat 155

guys. I will take the trophy. It was unheard of for the winner to carry the trophy from one stop

to the next following, to the next stop following the tournament. But Tiger wasn't about to let it

out of his hands. His adamancy was an important clue to what makes Woods tick. Money didn't motivate

him, nor did fame. He played for the hardware. He played for the win. He always cared more about

collecting trophies than making friends. Above all, Woods was a scorekeeper and trophies symbolized wins

and wins denoted dominance. And so let's go back to this idea that game recognizes game and the

world is malleable place. Imagine what this must have felt like. And I wish you would elaborate

on it, but you're not getting anything out of the enigma that is Tiger Woods. And this is Jack

Nicholas saying like, there's nobody else like him. They're like, he is the only one. Remember,

he's watching Jack when he's 10 years old. He's has Jack's achievements on his wall. Listen to

this. He joined Jack Nicholas at the post tournament press conference. The great thing is my game

is starting to come around Tiger said, I'm starting to understand how to play the game of golf a little

better than I had before. And then Nicholas says, Whoa, I had never seen this kind of playing before.

How old are you? You're 23 now? Yes, Tiger said, most players are 23 don't have your kind of

imagination. As far as he hits it, there's no reason for him to even bother practicing a short game,

but he has. And that is why he is winning. I don't know if anybody can play the way he does.

He has the ability to do things that nobody else can. And then there's a bunch of golfers

in this book just talked about if you competed with him at this point, it was very intimidating.

Woods was a rare athlete who liked to practice as much as he liked to play,

who's obsession with perfection and ability to perform without fear gave him an intimidating

psychological advantage. And so then goes into his mindset, his inner monologue. He's the night

before the last day of play, he would just he'd get in a room, he started doing this visualization.

He says, no one else stands a chance tomorrow. That night alone in his room, Woods would close

his eyes. He visualized the first tee. From there, he played every shot in his mind one by one,

all the way through the 18th hole. Then he went to sleep. The next day he shot 65 in the opening

round with three rounds still to play. Everyone else had already recognized that they were playing

for second place. So I thought that was the night before the last day that was wrong. So three rounds

to go. This idea of visualization sounds to a lot of people about, Hey, it's Willy Fufu. It's like

some nonsense. All I can tell you is that it is in a ton of the biographies that I read.

When I type in visualization in read wise, I pull up all the notes and highlights I have about this.

This is Estee Lauder. I think first time I covered this is episode 136. I think the second time was

episode 217. And this is what she said. And she's writing this in like the 1970s or 1980s. So decades

before where we are in the book, visualize in your mind's eyes, you see, if in your mind's eye,

you see a successful venture, a deal made, a profit accomplished, it has a superb chance of

actually happening. Projecting your mind into a successful situation, which is exactly what Tiger

is doing where we are in this book, is the most powerful means to achieve goals. If you spend

time with pictures of failures in your mind, you will orchestrate failure. Countless times before

the event, I have pictured a heroic sale to a large department store every step of the way.

And the picture in my mind became a reality every step of the way. That's exactly what Tiger is

doing, isn't it? I have visualized success, then created the reality from the image. Great athletes,

business people, inventors, and achievers from all walks of life seem to know the secret.

That is the end of Estee Lauder's highlight. I had written in my own note at this point,

Bob Noyce, Edwin Land, Steve Jobs, Arnold Schwarzenegger all did this. And now we can add

Tiger Woods to that list as well. And so a large part of the book too is Tiger dealing with, you

know, being relatively unknown to being literally one of the most famous people on the planet.

This is something that I don't think anybody would actually understand unless they go through.

And we see him trying to cope with this. Like he would, he's got two giant yachts at the end of the

book. One is named Privacy, the other is named Solitude. About a decade and a half before that,

he gets obsessed with scuba diving. And he says that he was obsessed with it and spent so much

time under the water. He even gets certified to be like a cave diver too, which is kind of crazy.

But one of the reasons, one of the reasons he did is because

that's one of few places on the entire planet where no one could recognize him and no one

wanted anything from him. And that he just felt very at peace being alone among the fish. And he

felt that there was no other place on the planet that he could achieve that level of peace than on

the bottom of the ocean floor. But there is one person that Tiger could go to and talk like,

how do you deal with these kind of things? Just so happened to idolize Jordan, but also

become friends with Jordan. Jordan obviously was Tiger Woods before Tiger Woods was Tiger Woods.

And this is in the documentary, it's also in the book. And it says, perhaps it was inevitable that

Tiger would turn to Jordan. There was no other athlete alive who had experienced the same level

of fame. The two of them essentially belonged to their own exclusive club. Jordan exercised

considerable influence over Tiger's attitude toward fame, women and power. And so that's when

the book goes into a lot of detail. I mean, they're spending a lot of time in Vegas, you can

imagine what's happening. You know, I don't have to fill that in for you. There was one thing that

was kind of funny though. Tiger went up to Jordan, it's just like, well, what do you like, what do

you say to these, these, all these women? And Jordan goes, you tell them that you're Tiger Woods.

And so that's like the conundrum or the paradox maybe that that Tiger is in, because if no one

feels sorry for somebody, it's super famous and super rich. That's just not, that doesn't happen.

But imagine being around every single person around you, doesn't actually

give a shit about you as a person, they just want something from you, whether it's money,

fame, access, something you can do. Like, how would you make true friends if you're as famous

as Tiger Woods? And the answer is, I don't think you do, unfortunately, not that he was gifted

in making friends anyways. Now, this is wild, though, this goes back to like his dedication.

And this is really the main reason, like I think the book is, is worthy for entrepreneurs to read

is because Tiger paid attention to every single detail, every single aspect,

any little piece, part of his game or any aspect of it that he could improve,

knowing that these little improvements over time, like just creates something that's so

hard to compete with. And so we see like just he had this innate sense of even the equipment

that he used. He considered Tiger's mastery of every facet of the game right down to the

equipment he used downright intimidating. For instance, Nike had recently shipped a box of

prototype titanium drivers to Woods so that he could test them. There were six in total.

After putting the drivers through their paces, Tiger told him that he preferred the ones that

were heavier than the others. But then this guy informed Tiger that all six drivers were the

exact same weight. Tiger argued otherwise, insisting that one made more than the others.

So they send the drivers back to Nike. And this is what they found. They found that five

drivers were exactly the same weight, but the sixth was two grams heavier. When they pulled

the club apart, they discovered that an extra dab of goo had been added to the inside of the head

by one of the engineers. The weight of the goo was equivalent to the weight of two $1 bills.

Yet Tiger noticed the difference in the way the driver felt in his hands.

And I think that story is related to the next sentence where it says he possessed

unsurpassed talents that he honed through a lifetime of practice. It is just so hard to compete

with somebody's success. And it is just doing more work than anybody else. They said on his

college team, he practiced more than all of them combined. So that is the part of the book that

it's all about his career up until what people consider his downfall. But I do think there's

point, there's a few highlights that's worth pointing out. I've been going deep on Robert

Caro and I've been, I watched his documentary, I've been reading his biographies. I'm on the third

biography of his right now. I'm going to eventually do an episode on his autobiography

called Working, which is all about his approach to his craft, because I like how deliberately

inefficient it is. He writes out his books by hand, types them in a typewriter, takes like 10

years, like the level of detail this guy has is fascinating. But something that was interesting

that I heard Robert Caro say, I read about in an interview and also heard him say on the biography,

or excuse me, in the documentary, was that people think he's writing a biography on Robert Moses

and he's writing this like five part biography of Lyndon Johnson. He's like, no, no, I'm using

the form of biography to tell a story of how power works in the real world. And he had done this,

he got basically like this fellowship, I think it was at Harvard, I can't remember,

where he's taking all these classes and he kept talking about the fact that what he was learning

at, I'm pretty sure at Harvard, power doesn't work like that. That power is described in the

classroom is not how power works in a real world. And he decided to dedicate his entire life to

educating us on how power actually works. And this is the reason I would pay attention to

Tiger's story. And again, I'm never going to get on this podcast and like, criticize. I would say,

hey, that's a decision I wouldn't want to make, or I can avoid it. My point is not to criticize,

my point is to understand. And I, the part of studying history, the part of reading so many

biographies is because I think the understanding that I have of human nature and the world around

me now, compared to when I started this project is not even the same. And I'm starting to understand

how the world actually works and how humans actually are, which I think is like, just

in a weird way, comforting, and will benefit like I have a huge benefit as I navigate the

rest of my life and my work and my career, or and my personal life, right? And so this is after

the fallout, where it becomes made public that he's got, you know, who knows how many mistresses

his wife didn't know anything was going on, went up losing, you know, at this point, he was making

over 100 million from endorsements. So just all the stuff that's happening. And what was crazy to me

is, it's in the documentary, but the National Choir has essentially a network of spies and a bunch

of other media organizations have this. And so when I'm reading about this, I'm like, how many

people know that this is actually how the world works. So if I could tie what's happening on this

page to what Robert Caro taught us, he's like the way real power works, political power, power to

shape cities. And Robert Moses case, power to shape entire societies and Lyndon Johnson's case,

it's not how they teach you, that's not actually what's happening. And I feel that that a large

part of the world is like that. And so first of all, the fact was that Tiger was unbelievably

gifted and unbelievably intelligent, and he did not see his demise coming. That's a surprising

toss, right? And when I look at that, I'm like, Oh, like, what's wrong with the guy? I couldn't

see it. It's like, okay, he had a blind spot. What are my blind spots? And then I get into,

essentially, like he had an entire, like he was followed everywhere he went. And people were paying

paid a ton of money to contribute to his downfall. So they could profit off of it. I'm not excusing

the behavior he made. I'm just saying that these people also did some really crazy things that I

don't think most people would realize this is an example. The National Acquire made its business

to know what A-list celebrities were doing after the sun went down. To that end, it employed a

network of women pretty enough to blend right in at the hottest clubs. They backed up that surveillance

with various valets, bartenders, bouncers, and cocktail waitresses at every hotel, restaurant,

and club. Everyone keeping tabs for the National Acquire was paid between $200 and $500 a night

in cash to inform on the behavior of various actors, comedians, musicians, and politicians

known to boost newsstand sales. Think about, you wonder why he names his two mega yachts

privacy and solitude like a decade after this is happening. Everywhere he goes, he's in a restaurant,

a club. He might think the waitress is helping him get order food or get a drink. And she's

literally being paid. She is a spy. That is crazy. And it gets even crazier because

there is so much of this stuff that comes out from in some of these mistresses,

like they're getting paid a ton. I think it was said something like he paid the main one,

Rachel, you could tell I forgot her name or her pronounce her last name. I think he had to pay

her like $10 million. But in some cases, like People Magazine and all these other magazines,

they're paying like $100,000, $200,000. I try to think about this as like having a daughter,

right? Like, how am I going to put this? Let me read this sentence to you.

In exchange for cash, she informed the supermarket tabloid of an upcoming trist

between her daughter and Woods. What the hell is the implication of that sentence?

There is a woman, there is a mother willing to sell out her own daughter

for money. Her daughter was telling her that she's having an affair with Tiger Woods,

that they meet in these parking lots, do all these crazy stuff, the details are in the book,

if you want to read it. And she's like, okay, I bet you I can make a couple hundred grand off

this and say, and now you Google her daughter. Anybody can Google her daughter. And I did this

for a bunch of the people in the book to see what's the first thing comes up. You know what is

the first thing that comes up. It is the affair they had with Tiger Woods and in graphic detail,

pictures, text messages, disturbing things, and you sold out your daughter for money.

What does that say about our species? And there's a line here with Tiger's friend,

these are people who live their lives failing. So they want to read negative things about people

who have gone up and then come down. And then it wasn't until I read the book, because I missed

the connection while I was watching the documentary, I was like, wait a minute, this poor decision

making that Tiger would even say he was poor decision making hits them too. Something that

could have contributed to it other than the natural human nature is that the fact that he's just had

so much pain, he's on a bunch of pain medication, which there's just no way, in the documentary

shows like him getting like his car was just pulled over, he's like sleeping in the car in

the middle of the road. And I think they said he's like on Vicodin, Xanax, Ambien, he's like

mixing all these things, he could have died. He was on the same, the same medication that Michael

Jackson OD on like the Lada pin or something like that, I don't know how to pronounce it.

And so I was sitting here thinking about this, it's like, okay, and some of my notes are just

very simple, like avoid pills. But it's like, his greatest strength might wind up being his

undoing his greatest weakness is the sense that he just worked so much harder and he had a high

tolerance of pain, not realizing that that caused more injuries than necessary. Then his doctors

say, hey, take it easy after surgery, he doesn't take it easy, he goes back, he's like this relentless

drive in them. And then it causes another surgery to happen. And the more surgeries you happen,

the more drugs you have to happen, the more drugs you have to happen, the worse your decision making

gets. And so goes into now we starting to be distracted, maybe he's distracted because he's

also maybe he's interested, maybe he just can't deal with the pressure, but maybe he's also on

a lot of prescription medication. This is when he starts aggravating his injuries,

not from golf, not from practice, but from like jumping out of planes. And so they make the point

that in 2007, you're going to think he's still amazing, but his swing coaches and some of the

data that we're collecting, noticed that, oh, there's like a lag time between doing work that

leads success and success, but also failing before the failure. By 2007 was the first time

Haney started to think that Woods was closer to the end of his greatness than he was to beginning.

There were signs were too subtle to spot in tournaments. They were more apparent in practice

sessions and in the shot disbursement charts kept in testing sessions. Tiger's work habits began

to slip. There were more distractions. The breakdown of Tiger's body as he was off in

physical pain and therefore taking pain medication were both attributed by his caddy and his swing

coach to his extreme workout regimen and his fascination with Navy SEAL training. They were

pleading with him, asking him, please stop doing all his Navy SEAL stuff. It's not good for your

golf game. Tiger ignored them. He stepped up his SEAL activities. He started training in army boots

and going for military military style runs while wearing a weighted vest. Tiger had both Williams

and Haney or had told them both that he was thinking of leaving golf to pursue a career in the military.

Tiger would do as many as 10 parachute jumps per day and he admitted to a friend that he had

injured his shoulder on one jump when he collided with a partner. And so at 31 years old, he's like,

all right, maybe I'll just switch careers. He says he was going to take concrete steps to qualify

to join the Navy SEALs. But Haney pointed out that Tiger was 31 and the age limit for Navy SEALs

was 28. Woods insisted that they were making an exception for him. And so he's pleading with him.

He's like, what are you doing? You're the best golfer in the world. Why would you do this?

Doesn't Jack Nichols' record mean anything to you? Woods stopped, looked him in the eye and said,

no, if my career ended right now, I'm happy with everything that I've accomplished. And so when

I read this, that might be true. Maybe it's true. Maybe it's he's under so much pressure and all

this, you know, he's having a hard time. It's got to be disorienting when he went through.

And so one of my great, one of my favorite quotes that I discovered recently, like probably 20 episodes

ago was from Charlie Munger. Charlie says, the problem isn't getting rich, it's staying sane.

That human mind is not used to dealing with extreme levels of success. So few people are able

to deal with extreme levels of success and actually stay sane. And so they have an entire

chapter on him dealing with pain. This is where I wrote to myself, avoid pills. And Tiger has

like this internal monologue. He's like, listen, there's a different stream being hurt and being

injured. If I'm hurt, I can deal with the pain. Pain is no big deal. I can block that out. But

when I'm injured, my body doesn't respond. And this is the problem. He's like, he got taught,

he was played through pain his entire life. His first reported instance of using painkillers

was in 2002. You can see highlights from his 2008 master's appearance, where he is like

wincing, they try to get him to quit and he says, f off, I'm winning this tournament. And he was

using Vicodin. And I forgot something else. So at least Vicodin to manage the extreme pain that

he had in his knees in during the master. So he's had, you know, at least at that point,

a half a decade, maybe more of confirmed painkiller use. And from all the medical professionals

around Tiger, they're saying this doesn't make any sense. This is not possible. They said it was

hard to reconcile the condition of Tiger's knee with his performance. He had won nine of his

previous 12 tournaments, and he had done it with a severely compromised left knee a few pages later.

This is the inner monologue of Tiger again. That's just what we do as athletes and competitors.

You have to deal with it. It's trying to get up every day and knowing that you have to go in the

gym and bust your butt and that it's going to hurt. And you're going to beat yourself in a

different place, a different state of mind. For me, I just enjoyed that part of it.

And then both the book and the documentary do a great job of showing this very common arc.

He's coming up. He's coming up. He's coming up. Once he gets to the pinnacle, he's torn down.

We see him suffer. We see him repent. He loses his wife, his family, his endorsements.

Then he starts working his way back up. The apex is when he wins his last major in 2019.

His reputation today and present day is nothing like it was 15 years ago when all this happened.

I think one of the lessons and realizations he had after going through all this was actually a

very positive one and one that you and I can use in our work. And we'll end on what I think is one

of the most important lessons in the entire book. I learned one thing for sure. Tiger said,

when I play golf again, I'm going to play for myself. I'm not going to play for my dad or for my mom

or for my agent or for my caddy or for Nike or for my foundation or for you or for the fans.

I'm going to play for myself.

And that is where I'll leave it for the full story. Highly recommend buying the book and watching

the documentary on HBO. If you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes in your

podcast player, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. That is 301 books down 1000

ago and I'll talk to you again soon.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.