We often confuse the idea of “toughness” with “dominance.” We see the big, scary bully, with giant muscles and fists the size of cinder blocks, and we think to ourselves: “that guy looks tough.”
What we really mean is, that guy looks dominant.
Those big scary guys, well, sometimes they are tough. Other times, they crumble under the pressure of the first encounter with resistance. If you spend enough time in a gym like ours, you’ll see it happen, too.
Toughness is resilience. The ability to stand up after you’ve been knocked down. The discipline to walk into the fire, day after day, knowing that it will hurt. That it will challenge you. That it will frustrate you.
That is toughness.
Being in the MMA industry for nearly two decades, I’ve met a lot of “tough” people, and I’ve also met a lot of tough people.
The toughest people I know, they don’t make a big spectacle of their toughness. They don’t seek out weaker partners to dominate. They don’t brag about their performance in practice. They simply lace up their work boots, head out the door, and get the job done day in and day out. And when they eventually level up and find themselves becoming too dominant in one area, they seek out new challenges to face head on.
There will inevitably come a time in your career (whether it’s martial arts or otherwise) when you run into a brick wall. Walls like this are put in front of you just to see if you have the toughness to knock them down.
Walls like this don’t come down with one fell swoop. Instead, they come down in the same manner in which they were built: brick by brick, day by day. By whatever means necessary.
That is toughness.
So the next time you run into a brick wall, pause for a moment and take a deep breath.
Then lace up your boots and get to work!