What Do You Do When You See Those Purple Spots

The single best quote Mike Tyson has ever given was his famous, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." It speaks to self discipline. It speaks to residence.

If you have ever gotten your bell rung and have seen those purple spots, you know that there is a period of disorientation. Whatever activity you were involved in is irrelevant for purposes of this writing. What I want to address is what happened after those purple spots appeared. Did you immediately get back to what you were involved in. Did you quit? Did you think about what you will do next?

Mike Tyson's quote speaks to our ability to stay calm in the eye of the storm. This only comes with practice. I once attended a Batizado which is an annual promotional ceremony for the Brazilian martial art capoeira. Two high ranking cords were in the midst of a jinga (the game) when one apparently did not take kindly to getting marked (shown where they could've gotten hit) in the face. An immediate fight broke out between the two participants that was akin to a low level bar fight. My friend that was with me mentioned how bizarre it was to him that when pushed, these martial artists resorted to a bar room style fight completely abandoning their discipline and didn't damage one another with their lethal kicks instead. He seemed quite disappointed in that.

The only answer I could muster was, neither one of them has probably ever gotten hit as capoeira is traditionally no contact. In the world of athletics there is one thing that stands the test of time in providing a good barometer of resilience, and that is replicating game day conditions in training, particularly the emotions. All the fancy kicks, punches, forms, and drills are necessary come day of the fight/game but if you are not prepared to manage that emotional space, all bets are off. South Korea is dominant in the world of competitive Taekwondo training not because they are Korean, but because of how they train. The majority of their training consists of sparring. They take the hits. There is minimal bag work, and mitt training. They develop their timing through endless amounts of sparring. They regularly visit those emotional spaces of purple spots during their training.

Entrepreneurs speak incessantly about failing forward and it is necessary to take risks. Life has a way of humbling people few events can but this tends to happen only if we are willing to step outside our prediction cycle and take the hits. It stands to reason that more hits we can take the better we can stick to our plans when those inevitable moments come.

#elliotyi
#paradigmleft
#habits
#mindset

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