Resiliency: Knocked down 7 times? Get up 8!

It's not easy to keep getting up when you're knocked down. And one of the greatest bits of philosophy, little fortune cookies that I learned in the martial arts was this: Knock down 7 times, get up 8. Right? That's not easy. I remember in my short, unillustrious career as a fighter, I was knocked out and some friends of mine were at ringside and they kept saying, "Get up, Jim, get up!" There I am, bloody, my nose broken, half-conscious, and they're yelling, "Get up!" Afterwards they took me out to celebrate. It happened to be my birthday. And I remember being angry with them. I said, "Look, if you guys love me and I'm knocked to pieces like that, don't yell 'Get up!' You yell 'Stay down! Stay down!'" Right? Years later I recognized that I was wrong. That's absolutely— these are the people you want around you. So one great hint is surround yourself with good people. They're going to keep pushing you back in the ring and telling you you can keep going when the whole world is against you, right? The next part is take realistic inventory of your resources at any given moment. Know what your material, emotional, and spiritual resources are and respond optimistically but realistically based on those resources. And then the last thing is just to try to— You've got to find— and I can't do this for you, nobody can do it for you— try to find that seed of belief or faith in yourself that says, you know what, I know this is going to be tough, but somewhere along the line I really, really feel that I'm going to make it. You remember that old parable that faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain? That's true if you can grasp onto that and build on that. So take that little spark, whatever little bit is left, and hang on to that. Even when the noise around you says, "Stay down." That's how you keep getting up.