Watching UFC 117 Silva v. Sonnen was a beautiful example of what I love about the sport and why it influences my entrepreneurial life. Take away all the glitz and showmanship, and you can see in the end it’s always about heart, work ethic, and technique. A little re-cap of the fight: Chael Shonnen was beating Anderson Silva the reining champion for 4 rounds, laying down thunderous punch after punch while in Silva’s guard. Everything Silva had tried was perfectly countered by Sonnen. Silva’s signature fluid playfulness was shredded away Sonnen pin-point strikes and well-timed shots. Silva couldn’t get Sonnen’s rhythm and was frustrated the whole night. Finally in the 5th round of a fight which by my scorecard Sonnen was winning 4-0, there was a opening when Sonnen sat in Silva’s guard with bad posture and one arm trapped, with the other out (a position every beginner Brazilian Jiujitsu trainee recognizes as an opening for a triangle choke). Silva saw the mistake and capitalized, moving quickly to wrap his legs around Sonnen. Sonnen countered with a stand-up and shift, but Silva countered his counter with a shift to an arm-bar, which Sonnen tapped to.
So what did this show and teach me?
1) It’s all about heart. If you’re getting punched in the face for four rounds, you still never give up. It’s the same thing I face everyday as an entrepreneur. I get looks at social gatherings and people asking me when I’ll get a real job. I have people telling me my ideas are stupid. I see other entrepreneurs succeeding while I’m still struggling. I’m constantly getting punched in the face. But you can’t stop, you just need to keep fighting, to keep taking those punches and waiting for your moment.
2) It’s all about work ethic. If you got heart and no work ethic you won’t be around in the 5th round. One of the hardest things in MMA is to keep your cardio up. You just have to keep plugging away at it, always pushing your boundaries and making yourself uncomfortable. I’ll be honest, at times you think you’re going to have a heart attack and pass out, but you know what? You never do. It’s the same thing with entrepreneurship, you gotta keep plugging away making yourself uncomfortable. Personally i’m a very introverted person, but I know in order for this to work, I have to keep getting out there and meeting people. This is also why I stopped training MMA (which i’ll talk about later).
3) It’s all about technique. No matter how tired you are, you better be able to pull a triangle choke out of your ass when you’re exhausted. You know what that shows? Silva’s practiced that move, probably hundreds of thousands of times. It’s one thing to do perfect technique when you’re full of energy, but busting one out when you’re exhausted and have gotten punched in the face 100 times is pretty impressive. You have to constantly learn and hone your craft. If you’re just sitting at home wondering why things aren’t working, then it’s time to start honing your craft. There are about 50 books out on entrepreneurship and dozens of people who write and talk about it. I’m constantly watching Mixergy and TWiSt to learn from other entrepreneurs’ experiences, constantly reading books like Steve Blanks Four Steps Epiphanies or learning about customer behavior through the book Influence, the psychology of persuasion. You have to be learning and honing so you can bust out your triangle choke in the 5th round.
Ok, that sounds awesome and inspirational, so why’d I quit training MMA? #2. It’s all about work ethic. My main goal in life isn’t to be an MMA fighter (altho i’d love to). It’s to be the best entrepreneur out there. Anything detracting from that goal, I decided to cut from my life. MMA was taking about 3 hrs of my life on days that I trained and 1 1/2 hours on days I wasn’t training. I hate losing and getting my ass kicked, so I was constantly reading and studying moves on my off time. It kept me up at night thinking of things I wanted to try on my opponent the next day. I became all consumed by MMA. Paul Graham posted about having a top idea on your mind, and MMA always seemed to be creeping in. I decided that it was time to stop and really take that time to focus on my business instead (besides, as an entrepreneur, MMA was too expensive anyway!).
I hope this inspired some other entrepreneurs who are in the same spot as me!
