+1: Punched in the Face Lately? (#1304)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. Brian Cain is one of the world's greatest mental toughness coaches. His client list includes four Major League Baseball Cy Young Award winners, eight UFC World champion, mixed martial artists, World Series and Super bowl champions and MVPs, Olympic medalists, and countless other elite athletes and coaches. He's also a friend and a longtime student of mine who has his clients read Philosopher's Notes to go to the next level Kaner high fives. Now we're going to be talking about him and his wisdom more in the weeks and months ahead. Philosopher's note on his book the Ten Pillars of Mental Performance Mastery coming soon. Today I want to chat about one of his clients. Quick context. Brian recently visited me and the Johnson family out here in the country outside of Austin. The kids and wifey and I had fun learning how to eat fire and break an arrow with our necks and do other fun things we didn't think we could do before Brian worked his magic on us. Now there was a big UFC pay per view event a few weekends after his visit. Brian happened to be coaching one of the fighters in all three of the top three fights, two for championship belts. He invited me to go to the event, but me being me, I told him, thank you, but I'm gonna be in bed hours before the championship fight. So although I didn't go to watch the fights, I did do a little research on his fighters. I read an article on one of the guys fighting for a title. His prior competitors talked about how much he freaked them out because he seemed to love getting hit in the face. The harder they hit him, the more he smiled as he asked them if that was all they had. Them Bob freaked out. Now, I share that story because in my AM Heroic meditation right after Epictetus tells me to practice my philosophy and to remember the choice of Hercules, he often reminds me to remember that particular fighter telling me that if he can smile when he literally gets punched in the face, I can smile when I inevitably get metaphorically punched in the face. And well, that's today's plus one. Now, I understand the fact that the whole martial art metaphor thing might not be your thing, but it's been a handy philosophical teaching tool for thousands of years. So if you'll indulge me and if you feel so inspired the next time you get metaphorically punched in the face, note not if, but when. I encourage you to remember Epictetus and his boxers and Caner and his mixed martial artists and see if you can have fun flipping the switch and smiling as you ask the heroic gods in if that is all they've got, that very next challenge you're going to face sooner than you may like. That's precisely what we train for. Day one. All in. Let's give life all we've got today.