With Ben Askren
The kids who know what's coming or expected to be coming are the kids who are going to deal with adversity better. The kids who think they're going to have all sunshine and rainbows throughout their wrestling career are just delusional. I always tell kids, I don't know when you're going to hit adversity. Maybe you’ll have a smooth youth career, and in High School, you hit it. Maybe your youth career sucks, and then you get better in high school. I don’t know, no one does.
Is it going to be an injury, is it going to be something with your family, an illness? Who knows. But you're going to hit the adversity. If you're okay with knowing that you will hit adversity, when the adversity comes your way, you’re ready to deal with it. If you're in denial that you’ll ever hit adversity, that’s when it’s going to be trouble.
There’s a great chapter in the book, Chop Wood Carry Water, about the rough side of the mountain. If you come up the rough side of the mountain, you deal with a lot of adversity. When more adversity hits, which it inevitably will, it always happens. You’re going to be prepared to deal with it.
The only way to learn how to deal with adversity is to deal with adversity. Be okay with it coming. Don’t avoid it, don’t duck, don’t dodge, don’t do anything. Just know that someday, some adversity is going to come your way. Whether it’s an injury, whether it's a string of losses, you lose your coach, it could be a variety of things. It will come your way; the more okay with that you are, the better you will handle it. The more you struggle with that or deny that, the worse it’s going to be when it comes. Sometimes, adversity can break some people and literally make them quit and not want to do it anymore. So, be ready for the adversity that’s going to come; you can handle it.
