Boxing | MAKE A SHIFT

LESSONS FROM ROUSEY

Saturday night for me involved two things: 1) a very jacked up stomach after eating a footlong coney deal from Sonic 2) total shock in seeing champion MMA fighter Ronda Rousey get knocked out by Holly Holm with a very precise kick to the neck. The latter was of course the worse, while Sonic came in a close second. I must have made at least 5 or 6 trips to the bathroom at my friend’s house that night, leaving them questioning what the hell was going on after bathroom visit number 2 or 3. I hadn’t had a hot dog from Sonic in a long time and that will be definitely be my last.

For Ronda, we all know that this won’t be her last fight. Saturday’s knock out was such a surprise to everyone and the awe of her defeat could be felt around the world via Instagram and Facebook. The memes that followed were hilarious and they’re still coming, with one of my favorites being her beat up face being compared to Sloth, the monster on the movie Goonies. She could be Sloth’s twin for sure.

I’ve always been a fan of Ronda and I’ll continue to be. I’m also now a fan of Holly, who I knew very little about before this fight. All this defeat will do for Ronda is piss her off and force her to make a lot of changes in the way she fights. Once she recovers from this big blow, she’ll be back in the gym and I’m sure we’ll hear about a rematch date soon. Until then I feel that there’s a lot we can learn from this upset and like every other event, I can find a life lesson or two that will hopefully help us as we walk and fight through life today. I’d like to say that this is advice that I would give to Ronda, but I’m sure that she doesn’t need anyone to tell her what she already plans on doing.

GET BACK UP

The only thing that Ronda can do after a fight like this past Saturday’s is to simply get back up. One thing that I wish she would have done differently after the fight is to have held her head up while her and Holly were standing in center ring waiting for the winner to be announced. She looked down the entire time which I’m sure she did out of utter embarrassment and shame but isn’t this how we all feel when we fall or get “knocked out”?

After a failure in life I’m sure that for many our immediate reaction is to hang our head low and crawl into a hole and hide for a while. I’ve had my share of failures in life and I’ve either done the same thing or wanted to, but life will go on without us and we can’t hide out for too long. Not “getting back up” is quitting and no one wants to be a quitter, right?

One quality that I’ve learned about myself over the years is that I’m not a quitter, something I can say I’m proud of. I’ve made so many mistakes in life, in both business and personal, but one thing I wont’ do is quit. If I believe in something enough I’ll keep going until I see it succeed. If I’m in love with someone and we’re struggling, I won’t quit, I’ll keep walking with that person until we find light at the end of our tunnel. Quitting is not an option for me and I know that I have years and years of falling to do, but I’ll just keep getting back up, dusting myself off, and learn from my mistakes.

LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES

I guarantee you that the first thoughts in Ronda’s mind after getting knocked out were “what did i do wrong?” and “what could I have done differently?”. Yes, I’m sure there was also a “where am I?” in there too. These first two questions are what she immediately thought when she woke up Sunday morning in addition to a good “LOL!!” as she came across her photo comparison to Sloth from Goonies. She’ll have a lot of regret moving forward but all she can do at this moment is work to learn from her mistakes.

One of life’s best teachers is failure. Many times it isn’t until we fail that we finally “get it” and learn what we wish we could have learned a long time ago. Failure also exposes weaknesses that we never knew were present, and failure seems to be the ONLY thing that can do that sometimes. This fight with Holly exposed so many weaknesses and holes in Ronda’s fight game and in the end, I believe that this will only make her a better fighter.

One of my most recent life failures put me in a position of humility and caused me to inspect myself in a way that I never have before. It forced me to spend a lot of time alone, where I did nothing but write and evaluate what contributed to my mistakes. I have a true desire to learn from my failures and just as Ronda will become a better fighter for doing so, I know that I will become a better person. It’s one thing to fall and get back up, but it’s a completely different challenge to actually WANT to learn from your mistakes. It’s easy to get back up, mainly because you have no other choice, but if you’re not diligent about making changes that will help keep you from making the same mistakes, then you’re sure to fall again and you’ll keep falling until you decide to learn.

KEEP FIGHTING

I’m anxious to see what the future has in store for both of these fighters, especially Ronda. What’s funny is that I’ve always been the person who hate’s seeing people lose. I’m the guy that will feel more emotion for the team that loses than I do for the one that wins. I don’t know why this is, but I just hate seeing people lose or fail, and man I hated seeing Ronda go down the way she did. BUT, we all know that this won’t stop her and she will keep fighting. It’s what she does.

If you keep up with this blog then you probably pick up on a pattern by now and know that my constant encouragement to you is to “not give up”, “keep moving”, “be a better person” and “keep fighting”. I can only share the way I do because, as I’m sure is the case with many of you, life can suck and everyday there are challenges. We all need someone in our corner cheering us on, encouraging us to keep fighting and not give up. And that’s my goal every time I post something in SHIFT, to encourage you, with the hope that in some small way my words will help you “win” today.

I want to see everyone WIN today and everyday. I want to see individuals do great things and create awesomeness in anything that they are doing or trying to do. I want so see someone’s small business endeavor take off and blow up into something they never expected. I want to see people be the best at what they do and become better everyday. I want to see couples fight for each other, not give up on one another, and love like they never loved before. I don’t want to see anyone get knocked down and stay down, I want to see them get up with a vengeance and become better human beings because of the knock down.

Life will try to beat us up everyday, but we don’t have to be knocked out. If that’s the case, get your ass up, shake it off, learn from your mistakes and get back in there and keep fighting. Kick some ass today and encourage others to do the same. And be nice to Ronda today. She may have lost but she’s not done yet. She’ll be back and I’ll be watching, this time without a coney deal.

– @hectorgarciahtx

BETTER PART 5: WHO’S IN YOUR CORNER?

In the boxing movie Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood’s new female boxing project named Maggie, played by Hillary Swank, ends up having to face her first opponent with some unknown business man/fight promoter as her manager. Frankie Dunn, Clint’s character, is hard nosed and only promised Maggie that he would train her and not go any further.

This first fight exposes a few of Maggie’s weaknesses, while Frankie sits in the stands frustrated with some of her fighting mistakes. In her corner is her “manager” who of course is only interested in making some cash off the fight, not very much concerned about his fighter. Not being able to take anymore torture, Frankie leaves the stands and ends up on the side of the ring coaching Maggie with swiftness. In those few minutes Frankie decides to take on the role of manager and by the next round Maggie takes out her opponent.

Maggie wouldn’t have been able to win that first fight, or many after that if she didn’t have good people in her corner coaching and guiding her. It made all the difference in the world to have Frankie step in and tell her exactly what she needed to do. Having a corner full of good people is important to every one of us. There’s no reason for any of us to go through life’s challenges without the help of friends, family, and people that truly care about us.

With this said, I ask you this question: Who’s in your corner? Who do you have speaking into your life and offering counsel on a daily basis. Who do you entrust with the important and most valuable parts of your life? Are they giving good counsel? Solid counsel? Unbiased counsel? Do they have your best interests in mind or do they simply tell you what you want to hear?

There’s really only two kinds of people you want in your corner: honest people and experienced people.

HONESTY

If you’re going to give permission to people to speak into your life and give you counsel, you want people that are always going to shoot straight with you and not hold back. Of course we want people to tell us what we’d like to hear, but that really does us no good. That type of counsel might make us feel good for a little bit, but it’s temporary.

I have several people that know they have permission to be very blunt and honest with me. They know that they don’t have to take my feelings into account and that I WANT them to be 100% honest with me. Some call it “tough love”, but why should pure honesty be referred to as “tough”? Being straight with a friend or family member and not holding anything back is simply love, and it’s only “tough” because most of the time it’s not what we want to hear.

So evaluate your friends and family or your “support systems”. Make sure they’re shooting straight with you. If the counsel they give you doesn’t make you uncomfortable, then maybe they’re not giving you honest counsel. And if you had people in your life that did shoot straight and you removed yourself from them because you didn’t like what you were hearing, bring those people back in. You need them more than you know.

EXPERIENCE

In addition to having honest people giving us counsel, you want people that know what they’re talking about. Maggie, the boxer, had an experienced fighter in her corner who taught her everything she needed to know. All he had to do during a fight was be there in the corner with her, occasionally reminding her of what she had already been taught.

If you’re struggling with something or going through a crisis, why have someone or more than one person in your corner who’s worse off than you? Yes, it’s good to have people to lean on who have been there or are going through the same thing, but they shouldn’t be the only ones in your corner. Allow older, wiser people to stand by you. People that may have been there in the past but succeeded at some point and learned from their mistakes. People that are full of wisdom and strength that can actually “carry” you. Allow people that will not only hold you by the hand while you go through your crap, but those that will actually do some hard work and stand behind you and push you from behind to help you get up the mountain.

Be sure that your corner includes experience that resulted in successful results, not just someone or others that went through something similar, yet never really learned from it. You also want to be careful that there is no bias in your corner, a person that might be bitter or filter everything through hate or dislike, for example someone that may have experienced a bad relationship and now walks around mad at men or women. This can prove to be poisonous and have nothing to do with experience.

I’m sure we can all agree that this life is not easy and will come with daily challenges. I’m thankful for the people in my life that are always there ready to not only hold my hand, but also slap me in the back of the head when I’m not seeing clearly. Take a step back today, wipe your lenses, and make an effort to see more clearly. Make whatever changes you need to make today so that you fill up your corner with good, solid, honest, and experienced people, and then enjoy a very awesome and maybe even a lazy Sunday.

@hectorgarciahtx

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