I came back from the UK about two weeks ago and am
only just getting back into the swing of things in terms of my exercise routine.
It started like this – I was in reasonably good shape before I went. I had
spent the month practicing a degree of intermittent fasting which I compounded
with a bout of intense exercise (basic upper body calisthenics till failure or sprinting).
I felt great. My resting heart rate reached all time lows and my insulin sensitivity
seemed ok. Heart rate recovery seemed good too, so good that I worried my heart
beat monitor of my phone had gone kaput.
So, I went to the UK feeling good. Then, I
rediscovered dinning in great restaurants and regular drinking. I was, after
all, in the land of fantastic single malts and sweets – specifically chewy
things made from condensed milk. When I returned, it was back to another good
week of corporate entertainment, which meant regular drinks and good food and
places which served “interesting” beers. So, by the time I returned my first
night of upper body work outs, I was actually sore for over a week and as I
write this, I’m trying to shake of a minor gout attack, something which I’ve
not had for quite a while.
This personal encounter with my declining physical
fitness after a two-week break indicates one of the sad truths of life, namely
the sad fact that life’s problems are more often than not brought on by our
successes rather than our failures.
There are plenty of examples. One of the most dramatic
came from the Fury-Usyk fight. The previously unbeaten and unbeatable Tyson Fury
lost a split decision and actually had to take a standing eight count in the
ninth round.
Nobody doubts that Tyson Fury like his idol, Mike
Tyson, (Tyson Fury is named after Mike Tyson), is a force to be reckoned with. Like
his idol in his first professional defeat, Mr. Fury proceeded to compound his
defeat by announcing he had won but the judges were biased because his
Ukrainian opponent was from a country at war (There was a claim that the
referee had counted slowly in the defeat to Buster Douglas in 1990). Just as in
the Douglas fight, whatever biases the judges may or may not have had could not
obscure the fact that that the Usyk camp had their act together whilst the Fury
Camp did not.
https://www.sportbible.com/boxing/boxing-news/tyson-fury-oleksandr-usyk-boxing-news-223456-20240519
Simply put, Mr.
Fury assumed he’d win and boxed liked he already won. Mr. Usyk by contrast came
prepared and was disciplined enough to do what he needed to do.
Successful
people get lulled into believing that success is “God-Given” and they stop doing
the things that made them successful in the first place. Successful people also
tend to believe they wrote the rule book for success without fully
understanding the context of their success.
If you go back
to boxing. Mr. Fury’s idol, Mr. Tyson would later admit in his biography “Undisputed
Truth” that the reason why he lost the 1990 fight to Buster Douglas was simple.
Mr. Tyson partied the night before whilst Mr. Douglas trained exceedingly hard.
If you look at
the “Greats” in any particular given field, you’ll find that its not that they
were “undefeated.” In boxing, there’s Mohamad Ali, who is the idol of every
professional fighter and known as the “Greatest.” If you look at things,
Mohamad Ali didn’t have the “best” record as a fighter. That distinction goes
to Ricky Marciano, the only heavy weight to retire “undefeated.”
So, why don’t
we laud Mr. Marciano the way we laud Mr. Ali. The reason is simple – Mr. Ali
had to face competition. He tasted defeat and he learnt from it. This of the trilogy
of fights he had against Joe Frazier, a fighter who made him taste defeat. Both
men gave their heart and soul into the fights they had.
Most of us have
been fed a false narrative that success is about the absence of failure. We
define a successful person as someone who has always gotten what they’ve
wanted. I think of the myriad of Singapore government officials that get paraded
around as being great because they have great academic results and perfect
careers in the civil service.
The reality is
that you cannot have real success without failure. If you look at the analogy
of Mr. Ali and Mr. Federer in their respective sports, you’ll realise that real
success comes from failure or defeat. Both men had their losses, dealt with it
and came back stronger. These are the guys who inspire others. Ali lost to
Frazier and then came back to beat him twice. Roger Federer set a record and inspired
his two closest rivals to surpass him. One only has to think of how Rafael
Nadal cried when Mr. Federer retired.
People who have
tasted failure understand success is not “God-Given” and so they work to keep
themselves there until they are no longer able to. People who assume its “God-Given”
collapse once the they taste their first disappointment. It’s something HR
departments need to keep in mind when looking at CV’s that fit perfectly.
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