Immortal Wisdom Weekly #19
Dealing With The Unknown, Sage Advice From A Mentor, And Keeping The Lights On At My Gym
Dealing With The Unknown
No matter how hard I work during fight camps…
No matter how many grueling training sessions and practices I put myself through…
No matter how many tough situations I put myself in with training partners…
When I step into that cage on fight day, I still don’t know what’s gonna happen to me.
That feeling of uncertainty can make guys fold, making them lose the fight before the fight.
But I love it.
The uncertainty and the nerves, that’s what I love most about this sport. That’s what makes it so exciting.
The only way I would stop being nervous is if I was certain about the outcome. But that’s impossible to know.
And the day I stop feeling nervous is a tell-tale sign for me to call it quits.
But the feeling of uncertainty never goes away. Just like how the nerves are never gone.
It’s all about how you respond to those feelings.
That’s how I personally deal with the nerves. I only focus on what I can control.
For things like:
The outcome of the fight.
What my opponent does during the fight.
Getting knocked out or submitted.
Getting injured or even dying.
I have zero control over these things. I accept them as is.
They are what they are and that is what I have to deal with.
Also, accepting that my identity is not tied to the outcome.
This is extremely difficult for a lot of fighters.
MMA is a very personal sport. We put our lives on the line, and make tremendous sacrifices to be the best athlete we can be.
Win or lose, I can wake up the next morning and still be a good father and live a good life.
The sun is gonna come up. I still have my family and friends by my side. And I can still be a good person.
Winning or losing doesn’t affect any of that.
Accepting you have no control over the outcome is a long process. That’s why I tell amateur fighters and beginners to compete as much as possible.
More experience will teach you how to accept these things as is.
Accept the uncontrollables. Control the controllables.
Sage Advice From A Mentor
I’m grateful to be able to call former UFC middleweight champ Rich Franklin a mentor.
He gave me some valuable advice back in the day.
Treat this as a business
I took that a step further and I treat every fight as a business.
For each fight, I do a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) on myself and my opponent. This is a common thing businesses do to identify internal and external factors that affect their business.
My training is structured like a business plan. It’s strategically put together based on who my opponent is.
I don’t really sell myself for fights, but there’s a strategy around that too.
But also treating my personal brand like a business too. There are a lot of moving parts like social media, sponsorships, and marketing.
The key to that is to have the right people around me.
Treating this whole thing as a business is easily the most valuable advice I’ve ever received. So shoutouts to Rich Franklin for helping me think this way early on.
What Keeps The Lights On At My Gym
Running a gym is fucking hard.
I won’t lie, there are some days where I don’t feel like doing it anymore.
But I can’t stop. Here’s why.
I get messages all the time from people on social media and emails about how my discipline and hard work have impacted them positively.
It honestly blows me the fuck away.
At my gym, I hear these stories of how my students are changing their lives through martial arts.
Particularly in the kids’ classes, that’s where it’s most fulfilling for me.
I get a lot of kids who come in after going through some bad experiences. Whether that’s being bullied, being sad in school, or having no friends.
And I’m constantly hearing stories from the parents themselves of how we’ve helped their kids in a positive manner. Kids going from low self-esteem to confident individuals.
When I hear these stories, it fires me up. It tells me I need to keep my gym doors open as long as humanly possible.
But I could never take credit for this.
All credit goes back to the power of martial arts. Martial arts is what gives people the opportunity to create strength and resilience in themselves. For both children and adults.
So I have to pay homage to the hundreds of thousands of years of martial arts history and the martial artists who invented and refined their craft.
I’m simply a messenger of the arts.
Slay Your Inner Demon Weekly
The real game is on the inside.
Every day I wake up and pick a tougher fight. A fight with that bitch ass inner demon inside of me. Every day my purpose is to starve that motherfucker of any little drop.
He never dies though! He’s always there, ready to strike at any moment and take over my mind and take me where I don’t need to go.
So in this weekly series, I’m gonna document challenging shit I’m doing to test myself. I hope this encourages you to do the same and unlock your highest potential!
My journey into mastering breathwork continues.
We’ve spoken about suffocation walks multiple times. Last week is when I realized my own mistake and explained how to do the suffocation walk correctly.
Now I’m onto suffocation runs.
Exhale all the air, hold it and run. This is really, really hard. I have not made much progress.
Not lasting very long and this has not been fruitful yet. But I’ll keep at it.
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That ends it for this week’s Immortal Wisdom Weekly.
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Control the controllables. Accept the uncontrollables.
Be back next week to drop some more savage wisdom in your inbox.
Matt “The Immortal” Brown