In September, James and I did a podcast with world class cricketing legend, Kepler Wessels. He also happens to be a world class boxing coach. I’d been speaking with James for a while about trying to do some kind of new physical challenge as I felt I was just missing something in my life. I was feeling too comfortable. Ever since having to retire properly from rugby I had missed the feelings of adversity and the feelings of satisfaction I felt when overcoming them or learning the hard lessons from it when things might not have gone my way. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem being comfortable. I love it but the problem is that I felt I was always starting to feel comfortable, sure I was still training regularly, working really hard in the business and have a really fulfilling home life. But I just knew that I personally needed to challenge myself physically and mentally in order to achieve a new level of growth. I'm a big believer that there will always be opportunities and benefits to be found in adversity. I started boxing three times per week late September in preparation of getting myself ready to fight. I was a newbie in a sport again and I loved it. I loved noticing how I was improving, learning new skills and using my strength and fitness I have always maintained since retiring from rugby into something new. As we started getting into sparring weekly I knew this was exactly what I was looking for, the feelings of nervousness, and apprehension I'd have driving to the gym at 6am knowing that at 6:30 I would have to fight people was what I needed. Every time I drove there I would be battling negative self-talk “Why am I doing this? Surely there’s something else i could be doing other than getting punched in the face to start my day” But overcoming these voices and getting in the ring in spite of these feelings and never taking a backwards step is the challenge I was looking for to grow as a person. Doing things that scares us helps callous the mind and body for tough times we may face in life, for the most part we are at a place in our lives where we just expect everything to be so easy. You can literally live your whole life from home, never having to leave. In all honesty you can live a pretty damn amazing life never having to be challenged but I'm of the opinion that unless we are challenged or seek our things that will challenge us we won’t ever reach our full potential! I'm not saying the challenge you need to have in your life is to go fight someone, for most people it can be just simply getting up and going for a walk or doing 10 push ups every day and for my members in particular they face their daily battles both physically and mentally in the gym daily. There are days where they don't feel like coming or they are faced with a tough work out but in showing up and taking on these challenges head on they grow as people. I see it every day. If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.
