Adversity Is A Blessing

It’s there. Looking you dead in the face. Maybe things seem like they’re going well. Almost too well. Turn the corner and there it is, its dark eyes sending chills down your spine. At first, you want to run, or maybe you want to fight. Your limbs feel weak and heavy as your heart starts to race. Blood rushes through your veins at the speed of light.

The effects from this experience stick with you, even haunt you at times. It keeps you up at night, maybe even puts you in a state of panic. Your training suffers, your mood suffers — maybe even your sex life suffers. You just can’t seem to escape this feeling.

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And that’s good. Yeah, you heard me right — that feeling is a good thing. The feeling you’re facing is adversity. We all face it. We all feel its effects. My adversity may differ from yours and vice versa. Some adversity may even seem insignificant to one person when compared to another's.

That doesn’t matter. Adversity is good because it is a stone cold reminder that life can be a motherfucker from time to time. We need to understand and accept that. If you try to pretend that the pain caused by adversity isn’t real, you may become a weak, entitled pussy.

You’ll start to blame others for things that happen rather than taking full responsibility for yourself. It’s easy to point the finger at someone else and try to justify why you aren’t at a certain level in your career, relationship, or training, but that doesn’t get you anywhere. You can never truly grow without manning the fuck up and looking adversity dead in the face to take it on. That’s where development comes from. That is how you learn from your mistakes.

Or maybe you were just dealt a shitty hand. That’s quite possible. Not everyone has the perfect family or situation that they were born into. That’s okay, though. You can’t change or control that. However, you can change your mindset. You can use your unique experience to teach you an exclusive set of skills you could not acquire anywhere else. Then you can help others who are dealing with similar experiences. There isn’t much that’s more fulfilling than helping other people.

Your experiences can give you the platform you need to help tons of people. Or you can let it break you down and piss and moan about why you have it so much worse than everybody else.

The choice is yours.

My career began as a result of my brother's 15-year battle with drug addiction. Over the years I did everything I could to try to help him. From walks to talks to meetings to rehab to tough love to fist fights, I tried my best to help him. However, I realized over the years that I was trying to gain control over a situation I never had a chance to control. I was wasting my time and my anger was getting uncontrollable. Training was my way out. Putting in my blood and sweat day in and day out gave me an outlet to sublimate my pain.

And that taught me many valuable lessons. As I continued to learn and grow from my situation, I found myself in a position to give my advice to people who wanted it. I was able to help them in some small way at one point or another. There was nothing that made me feel better than helping people in need, so I made a career out of it.

Through training, I now try to teach people the value of pain. Pain lets you know that life ain’t easy — and it’s not supposed to be. It reminds you that suffering to some degree is a part of life, and in life, we will all be tested for our tolerance of it. Will you lie down and just tap out? Or will you use it as fuel to find your life’s purpose?

When you experience some sort of suffering, you can really see how beautiful life truly is. You appreciate the time spent with family and friends. You can walk away from a job you hate because you can see that the bullshit just isn’t worth it. You understand that life is way too short and experiences are everything, so you accept fear and do what you want to do anyway. You take more risks. You ignore the meaningless materialistic bullshit because you know what really matters.

We all go through our own shit, but no one handles it the same. You have to be certain that you handle your shit in a healthy way, instead of some of the toxic ways most people do. Otherwise, you’ll never learn from it. Make a deal with yourself to control what you can, cope with what you can’t control, and concentrate only on what counts. That can truly make all the difference in the way you view the world.

There is a ton of shit that is either in the past or completely out of your control, and stressing about it won’t do shit besides holding you back. Decide right fucking now that you will no longer suffer from your adversity. It can be as simple as a shift in your mindset.

For years I stressed about my brother’s problems. I lost sleep, argued, fought and always tried to stay one step ahead of his next move. Guess where that got me? In more fights, having more arguments, and getting less sleep, all while he still did what he was going to do anyway. And in the meantime, the world around me was moving forward and I was still stuck in the same place. It wasn’t until I decided to shift my mindset and focus on my training and my business that I actually started to get somewhere. I’d be lying if I said that came easy, but the task was simple.

Accept reality and the fact that you cannot control everything. Then focus only on what you can control and put your everything into it. Once you make that decision and start gaining some momentum, your life begins to shift. And all you need is a little momentum. Once it starts, DO NOT let up.

Shit is going to happen. That’s the way life is. So prepare yourself to deal with the shit that is going to happen to YOU. Your mind can be trained the same way your body can. Invest time in meditation, journaling, eating the right food, and reading the right books. Search inside yourself and find out who you truly are.

That is the only way you can move forward in your life. If you are to focus on the things you can control, remember that the only thing you can control is what YOU do from here on out.

So take charge, be free, and remember that the adversity that you’re facing can be the greatest blessing you have ever had.