Latest / Man In Your Corner with Shaun Tucker / The Boxer: Why We Keep Fighting When Everything Tells Us to Quit | Ep. 119
Transcript
- Shaun: Hello and welcome back to the reset. I am Shaun Tucker, Human Performance Scientist and Authority Architect. We are here in the Living Lab documenting the struggle, the science, and And the shift for every high performance dad and founder who's ready to bridge the gap between their ambition and their presence. Today we are talking about the fights that we don't choose, the bruises we can't hide, and what it actually takes to reset your life when you're backed into a corner. We are breaking down the soul of the classic song, The Boxer, originally by Simon and Garfunkel, the one I'm gonna focus on today. is the raw driving version of Mumford by the raw driving version by Mumford and Sons. To figure out why, even when everything tells us to quit, the fighter still remains. I can relate to this so so well because as you know, or maybe you don't know, I was in an MMA fight at the end of last year. I got knocked out, technically knocked out. I didn't actually suffer a a proper knockout. I lasted sixteen seconds in the ring. The ring The buzzer went out. When the bell went, we touched gloves. He threw a kick. I threw my arms down. And trust me, you shouldn't do this if you're in a in an MMA fight. Threw my hands down to defend the the kick. Opened myself up for all sorts of trouble and basically landed a couple of shots on my head. I then went to wrestle him because of my strength was definitely in grappling. And tried to do a takedown, ended up getting a knee to my chest, which stunned me back. And if you haven't seen the video, you can also link the video in the show notes as well, because it did go viral, but I'll tell you that a little bit after. ⁓ copped a knee to the chest, which yeah shocked me, and then basically landed a few more hits to the head. And then the game was over. The referee called it. 0:1 Shaun Tucker. And full props to my my competitor. I mean, I believe that the match was made fairly. He definitely had a lot more skill and experience in in Muay Thai and striking. ⁓ my skill base was certainly more around grappling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. So yeah, I mean why do we still have this boxer that lives inside of us? The one that re refuses to quit, the one that will still No matter how hard life gets, we'll still have the willingness to get up and continue. I think there are many times in my life where I have been tested, and I'm sure if you're listening or watching right now, you have too. You've been tested and pushed to the absolute edge and brink of your existence, to the point where maybe you've even considered taking your own life. Which if you ever have, I really encourage you to reach and seek support. even if it was twenty years ago. Because those thoughts, those feelings, they don't disappear. They don't disappear. And it's really important that you're being supported in the right way. So this is men's mental health awareness month, ⁓ in the month of June. I am doing the push up challenge. Today in particular is a hundred and twenty push ups for the the amount of REM sleep that actually caters towards our well being and that it's a hundred and twenty minutes. So hundred and twenty push ups today, which is yeah, it's ⁓ It's interesting because sleep is also one of those things that I've talked about quite a bit on this podcast, but I will get into more details around sleep in later podcast episodes. But today is really talking about suppose why we have that fighter, the one that doesn't quit, the one that keeps standing up, the one that gets bruised, battled, cut open, and still refuses to quit. Cause that's the part of the human spirit that is ever enduring. As the part that's not limited by its thinking, its even physiological process, like its body process. The fact that it can still find a way or find a place in itself to stand up and continue moving. I mean, one of my good friends, Mario Bekes he literally just did the Camino Trail over in Spain. And you know, this guy's been in war. He was in war in Croatia when the when the states split, basically. Yugoslavia split into the four different countries. And He said he really struggled on this walk. He really struggled. Because all of the excuses, all of the things that you've told yourself, when you are left alone in your thoughts for that long, be it days, ⁓ or weeks or however long you're alone with those thoughts and you still no matter what, you still gotta keep walking or sitting in silence. You gotta face yourself. And something happens when you really do look at yourself in the mirror and you just see how vulnerable and how fragile your life really, truly is. Some people and this is just the unfortunate reality I think we're we're in in ⁓ modern times in modern society, is some people get to that place and they completely unsupported. And they can't see the truth within themselves. And they they can't live like that anymore. So they decide to take their own life, which is it saddens me a lot. As I mentioned yesterday on the podcast, I won't go into great depth because I want to talk about the other side of getting through that space. When you truly realize that you are not your thoughts, you are not even your feelings. You're not what this body is, that you're something far greater and far more inclusive of what life truly is. See life has death and life like birth and death happen all the time. It's our mind's perception that can't always see it. And when we get into places where we are stuck, especially in our thoughts, we can't see a way out of the problem that we're in. We tend to isolate ourselves and separate ourselves even further. And I think this is where we put up our guard. Metaphorically and also physically. Because we keep on taking the beating. unaware or unrealising that we have the power to actually throw some weight around and fight our way out of that position. Because the only thing I would do differently, and I was asked about this when I first met Jason Khalipa on a Zoom call, ⁓ probably ten weeks ago or twelve weeks ago, something like that. He said, 'cause I was telling him about my MMA fight that lasted sixteen seconds. He said, What would you do differently? I said, That's the first time anyone's asked me that. I I answered him straight, I said I'd probably throw a punch first. I'd hit him first. Because I didn't, you know, I held back 'cause I at the back of my mind I had my coach in my head saying, Just grab him and don't let go. Because that was my strength. And, you know, if I hit him I'd be playing in uncertainty and the unknown for sure. Because that wasn't what I trained a lot of. But I was still I still had a skill base there. It was just not as trained or refined as my grappling experience. And I'll tell you what's really interesting after the fight, because obviously that went on. I left the cage. ⁓ went over to the doctor just to get cleared for concussion and things like that. I just broke down. Emotionally, I just completely broke down. ⁓ tears just started flowing out of my eyes, and maybe it was just meeting the nurse where she's at. You know, she sees a lot. ⁓ she's seen a lot of ⁓ fights and stuff obviously. And just in that moment was pure release of just this shame that I had that or guilt that I felt like I let everyone down. Yeah, I had probably six or seven people come and watch me drive ⁓ an hour or plus to come and watch that fight. And they came for sixteen seconds of my fight. Because I was the last fight too. And I felt like I disappointed everyone. And I felt a lot of shame and a lot of guilt. And yeah, the tears just started flowing. Yeah. And then after that, I went home. I got back to my hotel. Obviously, no injuries or anything like that, thankfully. A little bit of a black eye, but overall, no concussion. went home with my family, stayed in a hotel, had a great breakfast the next day. I posted my video of the fight onto Instagram and Facebook, two different posts. The caption was shortened on Instagram and was kept raw exactly how I wrote it on Facebook. I closed my Facebook, didn't really pay attention to it. The whole reason why I posted my video was so that I could show my friends and people that I was telling that I was fighting. This is how it went. And I think on the night I started posting, or the night I posted, I started getting people watching it, I started people getting people engaging with it. I started replying to them. Cause, you know, this was my first, I guess, attempt at potentially even getting a large enough engagement that it I didn't have an intention to go viral, but you know, it looked like the views and the engagement was climbing so quickly. I was like, wow, this is amazing. I'm just gonna keep on keep on going this way. I'm gonna see what happens. And got to a point, I think it was ten o'clock at night, switched my phone off, on to airplane mode, went to sleep. Woke up the next day and there was like two hundred thousand views. I'm like, whoa, what the hell? Then I started reading in the comments and people were flaming me, blaming me, blaming my coach, saying you're not ready, what are you doing? You risk your life. Like there was also a lot of support. So I really want to make sure that you know that I wasn't just getting trash talked. I was getting supported by people who I've been in the cage too. And I think only one or less than one percent of people who have actually been in the cage were saying negative ⁓ stuff, saying that You know, you shouldn't have been there, your coach let you down, your match what kind of matchmake is this, or stuff like that. the reason I want to share this with you is it took a big emotional toll on me. ⁓ I'm not gonna lie. And I remember my wife, ⁓ Jacinda, she said, Look, you're spiraling. And I was like, I looked at her, I said, Yeah, I know. But I feel like I need to. And she's like, ⁓ whatever. You do you, man. I'm like, all right, cool. Anyway, it it now sits at almost one point nine million views on Instagram and close to a million views on Facebook. So I went viral on two platforms from one video. And I guess the lesson I want to r really invoke or or show you today is part of me was fighting, you know, it was really the boxer in the ring. From an emotional point of view, like getting trash talked, getting trolled by people who don't even know me, have 16 seconds of context as to fully judge who I am and what I'm about. And literally it was hurting my heart to feel what kind of pain was being thrown at me. Because reality is, it's is it's not my pain. It's actually their pain, and I was making their problem my problem. Which is one of the worst things you can do as a facilitator and a coach. It's really powerful to understand and have empathy towards their pain. But if you start taking it on as your own pain, that's gonna be a massive problem. Cause one, you're not gonna be able to help that person move through their own pain, because you won't be able to hold up a a mirror that is real to that person and be able to show them that you are human too and We're all human, so why are you trash talking and why are you saying these things? I know you have a lot of pain, but it's okay, brother, right? 'Cause the other thing is ninety nine point nine percent of the people watching it were men, right? So it really went to show me that a lot of men are suffering and a lot of men are going on the internet and really they're just commenting whatever the hell they want, right? And they don't understand that this this stuff that is being commented. If it is felt pain, like you're avoiding something and directing it outwards, towards alcohol, towards drugs, towards even trolling people on the internet, these things come back around. Right, there's a reason why there's liver disease. There's a reason why there's heart attacks. There's a reason why there's dementia in Alzheimer's. You have to understand that everything is a cause and effect. And so if you hop in the ring, right, you gotta understand you're gonna get hit. You're gonna have to learn to defend, or you're gonna get knocked out. I got technically knocked out. But I'm still fighting. And the thing, the one thing I want to Get over on this podcast today, on this episode, is you don't have to stand for any of it. You get to choose how you show up. If you don't want to fight, you don't have to. I had many, many reasons not to fight on that night. My coach wasn't there. My subbed coach was then subbed out for another guy who was my competitor's coach. Right, there's a lot of things that were not going right for me on that night. So you still get to choose. And I made the conscious choice to do that. So I don't know if this has been helpful for you, or maybe you see yourself through the lens of the story that I share with you. But that's it. That's it for today's episode of the reset. So if you're ready to stop being a passenger and start being the architect of your legacy, comment the word reset and I'll send the seven day integrity guide over to you. Because when we align our actions and words in the same direction, that's when life happens by choice. Remember, most people wait for their life to change. We architect the reset. I am Shaun Tucker and I'll see you in the next one.