When I was a senior in high school back in 2002, around this
time during the year I wanted to join up the wrestling team. I knew some
knowledge about wrestling but never understood the training of it as only
seeing glimpses of wrestling training. I was in a rude awakening, up until then
I didn't have any credentials on conditioning and how to do it and I’m here to
tell you here and now I got the crapped kicked out of me, technique drills,
push-ups, squats, sprinting, running up and down stairs, it got to the point
where in my 2nd or third workout I had to tape up my hand because of
the beating I put on it. My training lasted three days because I ended up
hurting my knee in a training match and once the adrenalin wore off I was in
bad shape. One of my friends at the time named Jesse who was an assistant coach
told me to keep trying and not quit. I wish I had listened to him but I was way
too stubborn and a bit of a wimp back then and just quit the team. If I had any
regrets in sports it would be this but it gave me a lifelong lesson later on in
my later years.
If you’re not use to be being in that environment, you
better learn quickly or are like me at the time and quit. It gives you a reason
to be tough but if you’re not tough enough you won’t get very far, I now know
that and have been through training sessions that I could used back then and
might be in way better shape now. I’m happy with where I’m at and I continue to
improve and because of this lesson I've increased my toughness by 100 fold.
Being tough is not who’s the strongest, the most agile or who has better guns,
being tough is taking that extra crawl from taking all the torture and still
willing to keep going and its about making your limits go beyond your
capabilities.
The one thing about wrestling that I've learned was that
even though in school and teams you rely on points and having a bit of a team
effort, in reality when you’re on the mat, no ones there to help you or fight
your battles and the only person you can rely on is yourself. It’s like this in
life, if you want to make something happen you do it, people can show you a few
things but after that you’re on your own and you win some, you lose some and
when you lose you can’t blame anybody but yourself. You don’t need to be a
wrestler to understand this, this happens not just in sports but business,
relationships, life and it’s up to you to get the things done for yourself.
Even after 10 years I’m still learning this and it continues to improve but not
easier, actually the opposite but that’s the beauty of it.
Respect is one of the biggest things you can have not just
for yourself but those who were around you. Even to this day I have high
respect for wrestlers and other world-class athletes, they get the job done and
they take the torture with a grain of salt. That assistant coach I mentioned
earlier, me and him grew up together and were still friends to this day and I
consider him one of my brothers. Another guy I have found respect for what he
accomplished in his life is Luke Rockhold of MMA fame who is I believe still or
was the Strikeforce Middleweight Champion and why am I saying this, I wrestled
in the same exact gym with him back in High School. I don’t know him much and
never really had a chance to get to know him and hope one day I will but I’m
proud I got to be in the same room with a world-class champion for a short
period of time.
Whenever you win at something it’s awesome and you learn
certain strategies or keep that same strategy to run that winning formula but
it’s the losing that makes the big difference. Losing makes you think about
what you did wrong an what you can do to correct or just quit but in this case
quitting is not an option, make it a habit to learn your mistakes and turn them
into strengths and later on understand your winning ways when you find that
formula. Hating to lose means you can’t stand it and you want to find out what
you can do to prevent it, losing with pride is a whole different ball game and
this goes one of two ways, being cocky when you lose or you understand what the
mistakes were and handle them OK Overtime I've come to hating losing because I
want to be the best at what I do, I want to be stronger and more conditioned,
be a better writer and learn more to do better business and bring in money and
when I lose at times its frustrating but you learn your mistakes and make them
your strengths by working smarter, harder at times and push it the way you want
it to be.
Life in general is a wrestling match, it’s a game of
Physical Chess, you win or lose, you have good matches, bad matches, certain
things work and some don’t and it’s usually unpredictable. The key is to keep
fighting, keep driving to get better and make adjustments, be adaptable and
learn to use your intuition. Find what works and stick with it and throw out
what doesn't Bruce Lee even knew this and now he’s one of the biggest Icons in
history. Be consistent, make it happen and who knows, you might find yourself
being a winner but even as a winner, you want to remain who you are and not
lose sight of what’s important. Believe in yourself and trust in who you are
because no one knows you more than that person you see in the mirror every day.
