Latest / Man In Your Corner with Shaun Tucker / Ep. 34 | Founder Dad Lessons from Going Viral: Overcoming Criticism and Dad Guilt
Transcript
- Shaun: Welcome back to episode 34 with the reset. My name is Sean Tucker and I am your host. Stop taking on the world's problems and just face your own problems. This is something I wish I learned myself when I unexpectedly went viral in my ⁓ Octagon fight at the end of last year. So if you don't know long story short, I signed up to a 20 week fighter warrior training camp with Altar last year and trained for six months basically and yeah had the option to enter and step into the Octagon at the end which of course if you know about my personality I'm someone who usually commits to the end ⁓ and so I went to Geelong and I fought a guy who was probably a lot more experienced than I was I hadn't really actually had an MMA fight, but from my understanding is he had ⁓ fought in inter-club ⁓ competitions in Muay Thai. yeah, it's not to compare, but really, or even to say that I was at a disadvantage because we both in the same training camp. ⁓ But yeah, in summary, I lost the match in 16 seconds because the ref came in and said, that's it, stop. That's time out. That's the end. Stop the match, this guy wins. ⁓ I didn't even get to punch him. I did go for the the wrestle, ⁓ which I was definitely a lot more experienced in grappling, probably a lot more experienced than he was. But if you've seen the video, ⁓ it is on my socials. And the reason why I share this is that fight was my choice. But what came next when I shared the video that was also my choice but it wasn't what I expected because what came back for those of you who don't know attracted 1.8 million views on Instagram and close to a million views on Facebook huge engagement so more than 2,000 comments on on Instagram and close to a thousand comments on Facebook. Initially I was defending my story. Initially I was saying, you know, this was what happened. Nothing. No one's to blame. The matchmaker made the match fair. ⁓ My coaches not to blame. Like I stepped into my own, my own will, my own choice. And I, I went in and I did what I wanted to do. It was very personal for me. And a lot of the comments coming back initially were quite ⁓ supportive. They were very heartfelt. felt like, ⁓ wow, this is awesome. Like, yeah, a lot of people understand what I did, but then it started turning quite negative quite quickly. A lot of people started being very spiteful and saying that I wasn't ready. And, you know, I spent more time writing the post than I did training. ⁓ And every single moment I read one of those nasty comments, I felt it in my body. Right? I was making their problem my problem. And it was, it was spiraling me out of control. was taking me away from being present with my family over a holiday period. Cause it was around Christmas time that it started going bonkers viral and You know, even my coach called me up and said, Sean, are you okay? A few of the students told me what had happened. You you shared the post and it's starting to go viral. Are you okay? And I said, yeah, man, I'm okay. Like, this is interesting because one of the things was I didn't want to, you know, defame or say that it was anyone's fault, but my own, was, it was on my own volition that I stood in there. willingly signed the contract and said, yeah, I'm accepting that if I die in that cage, ⁓ none of my family, none of my friends can sue the organization. Right. So I willingly signed that document. But those comments, man, oh my goodness, like they hurt. Like not, not gonna under paint it. Like I'm gonna give you a very real experience of what it was like to read them back and actually feel like you're being attacked. And I love the saying, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words shall never hurt me. This is partly true if you live in that physical, very physical realm. ⁓ But if you've ever had a mental health challenge or you're really stuck in your head and sometimes you struggle to get into your body, which I know certainly for me has been my experience of life until I really found the gym and found physical activity as a way for me to. access my body and connect with my my true expression of who I am. Breathwork has been another powerful thing that's helped me on that journey. If you let everyone else... attack you because you've got your guards down, because you care about being compassionate and loving towards the world and you want to make a difference and an impact in people's lives. This is what you're signing yourself up to, I'm afraid. There's a lot of people who are very hurt, who like to stick behind a keyboard and they would prefer to criticize someone else's life than work on themselves. And I think it's the same as gossip, right? Gossip is somewhat similar. You you're saying things behind someone's back that you would never say to someone in front of them, in front of their face. ⁓ this is, this is just toxic. toxic chemicals being spread and growing and duplicating and multiplying that it comes back to you, right? You have to be so mindful of what it is that you're consuming, what you're putting out into the world. Because if you're not, you do get back at some point in your reality, you will get it back. And for me, what was really interesting going through that experience and seeing how my body was responding, seeing how my body was reacting. I finally got to a point where I was like, I'm not gonna even defend anymore, right? So, one, it was gonna take too much time and two, I'd rather let the people who me support me and let the people who ⁓ don't support me and the people who have some sort of, I don't know, something against me or whatever it is, something against themselves, let them be. Just let them be because end of the day, I still walked out of that cage without any permanent injuries. ⁓ I got to sleep that night in the same bed as my wife and my daughter in the same space and there's so many people out there who don't even have a bed who don't even wake up in the morning so there's there is so much to be grateful for at the same time it's It's weird because when we go through these experiences we really truly... Get to know what it's like to... Be in the front, be in the front line and be criticized and be judged. And it's the meaning we take from it, the meaning we make from it is what stays true to us. So for me, I knew it was about being seen in my unique way. Like that was the underlying thing that I really wanted to hold. And for the longest time I've been creating content for probably four to six years now, ⁓ there was always a part of me that wanted to go viral. There was always a part of me that wanted to be seen by millions of people and attract my people. I didn't expect it to come back that way, but here I am. And that post, ⁓ it doubled my following on Instagram. I had over 300 followers and now I've got... closer to 800 followers so it actually doubled the amount of followers that I had and of course most of them were men so it sort of made sense ⁓ to me at least given the work that I did and have done over the past few years to integrate myself in who I am and how I show up and what I'm offering out to the world. So all in all, it's, I guess it's part of the journey, right? There is this thing that happens when you get what you need very unexpectedly. And... I don't know. I don't know if I can say more than that. It's life will take you on a really strange roller coaster of a journey. And it's your mind's attachment to all of these things that make us feel certain ways and respond and react in certain ways. Because we think we know who we are. and we think we have this safety net which is really just an illusion. It's not true. And when you put yourself out and vulnerable in a way that can be met with hate, can be met with love, that's your polarity. That's the magnetism of who you are. And I'm grateful that I've got to experience that, but now I know that there's no need to chase it. If it's aligned, it will come to me naturally. If it's aligned for you, it will come to you naturally. So maybe it's not about trying, maybe it's just doing, but doing from a place of... unknowing what the answers will be, what the outcomes will be. Because it's when we get very tied up in what the outcomes must be, we actually miss the point and we end up going on this spiral of feeling like we've failed, even though we've only just started. So if you found value in this episode today, please share it with just one person. And yeah, this is episode number 34. I look forward to seeing you in tomorrow's episode. Thanks for tuning in.