I Watched The Ronda Rousey Fight And Got Punched With 3 Life Lessons
No one would tag me as someone who likes to watch people beating each other up.
But since I'm from Philadelphia, the birthplace of Rocky, watching two people go at it in a ring is not unfamiliar. In fact, it's glorified, namely in a bronze statue of Sylvester Stallone outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
(Photo credit: Flickr)
A few years ago, when I interviewed Lorenzo Fertitta, the UFC then-CEO, he mentioned Ronda Rousey as a person to watch. About 18 months ago, while browsing YouTube, I watched her fight. And fight again. I liked her attitude; but even more interesting than her fight videos were the video snippets about her life and her struggles.
From then on, I took a keen interest in Rousey. She was no different to me than a Jeff Bezos or a Howard Schultz. (OK, maybe she throws a better punch.) Like Bezos and Schultz, Rousey rose from obscurity to the top of her field, through hard work, intelligence, cleverness and risk.
Now that she's suffered her second defeat, I'm wondering what this same class of accomplished individuals would do or have done differently. What did she do wrong, and what can be learned from the rise and fall of a fighter?
- It's all mental. There's a scene in the 2015 movie Creed when Sylvester Stallone's character takes his protege by the shoulder and makes him look in the mirror. He tells him that the biggest enemy is the person staring back at him. Rousey went into her December 30th fight with her body conditioned to the max—but her mental game was weak. In life, how you think affects the way you act and the way other people react to you. I've often said that fear is the #1 biggest motivator—and de-motivator. If not for fear, we would all be the same.
- Humility. I watched the #fearthereturn promos around Rousey's comeback and cringed. There's confidence, and then there's stupidity. When you lose, you must humble yourself, find out what went wrong, and correct it. The same is true whether you've lost a fight or a job. What skills do you need to add on to make yourself better? What did you not foresee? Who can help you improve your game?
- Stick to your knitting. After the fight, there was a lot of criticism that Rousey should have stuck to what she knows best: judo. Instead, she went into the cage a pretend-boxer. Very few people can rise to the top of multiple fields that take years, even decades, for others to achieve. And certainly not after 13 months of training. Jamie Dimon once told me that after he lost his job at Citigroup, he was offered the CEO position at Home Depot. While the offer was tempting, he was realistic enough to recognize that he knew absolutely zero about home improvement. Banking was what he grew up in and had honed his skills in—and that's where he stayed. Now he's in his 11th year as the CEO of JP Morgan.
Now, if you've ever faced defeat, you know what it's like to go to the dark side. Watch as entrepreneur Gary Garrabrant discusses what to do when you sense yourself heading there.
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TV News Reporter
8 年getting ready mentally = key
Data Analyst | Senior Financial Analyst
8 年That and stick to what you know. Her judo got her into the octagon. Makes no sense her trying to trade hands with an obviously far superior striker.
Fleet Solutions Sales Manager
8 年From what I know, only from people that have discussed the fight and follow her and at one time proclaimed her unbeatable, I believe you start to believe your press reports and she seems to have suffered from extreme overconfidence. This happens to athletes and businessmen and women who aren't willing to admit they are weak and need to improve their message, training, performance, etc. Sometimes complacency is your own worst enemy. Sometimes a total reassessment in is order.
I enjoyed this article, really resonated with me. However one thing it doesn't touch on is the risk she took. Maybe knowing it wouldn't work out in her favor, BUT she tried anyway. That too is a take away. We all go about our lives and careers never knowing if we can do or be better in a different field or challenge ourselves to recreate ourselves till it's too late. I commend Ronda on her athletic abilities, God knows I'd never be able to get in that ring. But she does and did; she lost, but she'll be back. Maybe next time her self talk will be to just go out there and "kick some ass sea bass", and not care what the rest of us think of her fighting skills. But lets all be honest, if she were to call us into the ring, I'd run LOL. So my take away from this is to give it all you got and also throw in a few risky "punches" you never know if it will be a TKO.
Vice President at Infinity Paving
8 年I saw an interview prior to her first loss in which Joe Rogan said that Rousey could be the best athlete of all time and may go on to never incur a loss in her professional career. It wasn't long after that and she suffered her first loss. Now it's two... I found it intriguing how he was proven so wrong so fast and that interview and those words have been burned in my brain ever since.