Finding Your Power in the Arena of Adversity

[Music]

so it’s march 19

2011 and i am walking to a ufc octagon

to fight luis kane i don’t know if

you’ve ever been to a live fight before

but the tension in the air is thick

you can cut that tension with a knife

i’m in the cage the fight starts

every fight has this feeling out process

you’re making moves but not big moves

yet

neither person is you’re you’re feeling

each other out trying to get

the other person’s rhythm and timing

nobody wants to make that

first crucial mistake

i go first i miss

boom i get cracked

i fall down louise jumps on top of me

hammer fists elbows punching

and in that moment i chose to be a

quitter

i chose to give up i chose to not stand

up and

fight back and have the referee

come in and stop the fight to save me

the coward elliot showed up on that day

it’s not the first time he’s shown up in

my life

six months later i’m in a hotel room

a couple hours before what would be my

last ufc fight

and the last fight of my professional

career

i’m nervous i’m real nervous

crying scared

to the point where i’m not gonna go to

the arena

it’s not the fight that i’m scared of

it’s this coward that showed up in the

last fight

i’m scared he’s gonna show up again

i don’t know why he showed up in that

fight i got no reason to believe he

won’t show up in this one

my wife looks at me and says elliott

you’re here you’ve done the work

if you just get in that cage you’re

gonna get thirty thousand dollars

so just go in get hit with the first

punch fall down and

be done

we both knew what this was this is

career suicide

there’s no coming back from this i’d be

an embarrassment to myself

and the entire martial arts community

but i was so scared

i was so nervous that this became my

plan

i walk into that cage and sure enough

first punch

i get hit i don’t fall down though

i just stumble backwards a little bit

so it i thought let’s fight

after two rounds the fight was close my

coach sits me down in the corner

says this is it fire marshall knowing

that if i lose this fight my career is

over

what have you got can you go out there

and give me

every ounce of your soul in this last

round elliot

i went out and i destroyed my opponent

in that round

i beat him so badly he couldn’t fight

for 11 months

and he had to have two surgeries

afterwards

there’s no cinderella story to my fight

career though

somehow the judges said i lost that

fight

so an hour later there i was again with

my wife

crying again but this time because my

career was over

i looked at her and i said man babe

i’m never going to be as good as i am

today

this moment this fight it ended up being

so important in my life

it was the first time that i ever pushed

past some anxiety

to find some power

power’s such a funny thing it comes upon

us at the strangest times in our life

little did i know i was going to have to

find mine again dig even deeper

but this time in a much different arena

fighting for me was no hobby i was on

the chase

of being a world champion and that chase

began

when i was six years old i was born to

an african-american father

who grew up during civil rights and a

jewish mother

whose parents survived the holocaust

to my grandparents they were convinced

hitler would come again

my dad every single time i left the

house he would say to

me elliot you need to watch your back

to them from their perspectives how

could they not prepare me

for the world and the things that

actually happened in their life

but for me a little kid man

this caused some serious anxieties the

worst was

always coming

high school wasn’t great but college got

better

i became physically fit i lost some of

that baby fat

i started uh brazilian jiu jitsu it’s a

grappling heart

so i learned how to fight this grew my

confidence

i made some friends my ego grew

the fear and anxiety and anxiety inside

of me

no one could see

but i knew it was still there

after winning now all the grappling

tournaments you can win

and conquering the regional mma fight

scene

i got signed to the ufc the nfl

fighting the ultimate test of strength

and power

where two gladiators walk into a cage

one leaves victorious

there’s a secret amongst us fighters

though

we are all afraid to make that walk

to the cage

some mask that fear

with aggression and bravado others

the best the top ten in the world they

are

able to make the past and the future

cease to exist so that they

only find and exist in the moment

and their real power

and greatest skills shine

after hundreds of fights i could never

consistently make this happen

sometimes yes sometimes no

my fear and anxiety would prevent

me from shining

what if i lose i would think

what are other people going to think

about me

so there i was on that saturday night

after i lost my last fight

my career over my identity gone

how was i gonna hide this demon that’s

inside of me

what was i going to do

i focused my attention on teaching and

two days after that fight

i looked at the building that we would

later move our brazilian jiu jitsu

school into

we were going to blow up the scene in

colorado so we opened a second a third a

fourth

life was pretty good successful

businesses

two amazing kids couldn’t ask for a

better wife

life got not good real fast

as it often does with anxiety

four nights in a row no sleep up all

night

panicking during this time

i could take two prescription sleeping

pills and a milligram of xanax

and i could stay awake my mind would

race

oh my god if i don’t sleep i’m going to

go crazy

if i go crazy my wife’s going to leave

me she’s going to take the kids

she’s going to get a judge to say that

i’m crazy

and then man i’m not going to be able to

see my kids i’m going to kill myself

this is the thought that went through my

head

all day every day for three months

after my fifth night of no sleep i

realized i needed some help

i called my friend he’s a doctor he

immediately started taking care of me

like i said some sleeping pills and

xanax for those really intense moments

but he said to me elliot you’ve been

suffering with this demon of anxiety

long enough

we need to take some real steps

he prescribed lexapro for me

an anti-anxiety medication i still take

that today

i got a therapist i see her every week

but most importantly i had my family

and i had a group of friends they would

have done anything for me some nights

they would stay up with me

all night as i panicked

one night my friend mike called me i

wasn’t doing well

i started to cry he started to cry

and he said elliott there’s a lot of

people in this world i would die for

but i would kill someone for you

at that moment at that point

i thought man maybe the way out of this

is to just go in like all the way in

let people see this demon this fear this

anxiety that

exists inside of me don’t hide them

anymore

so one night after teaching

i called my class in not just my class

the whole school

over a hundred people don’t worry it was

before coronavirus

i told them that i was struggling

that i was going to be okay but for me

right now

life was really hard

but this is what martial arts teaches us

it teaches us how to deal with the

difficult moments

so that we can survive

no one is immune to these moments

not me not the guy that you used to see

fighting on television

not the guy that some of you younger

fighters are now looking at because

i won all of the things that you’re now

trying to win

this guy he struggles too

you might be struggling and that’s okay

after about nine months i began to shake

the demon loose

i began to look at my fear and anxiety

in the face so that i could start to

find some power

like i said not the power that you look

at me and see

not this 250 pound guy strong

muscle fighter successful businesses

that is not my power

my powers that i can survive

i can survive like my grandparents

survived the holocaust

like how my dad survives being a black

man in america

like how my parents chose to marry

someone of the opposite race

and religion during a time when that was

greatly frowned upon

yes i can fight

i step on the mats every day

sometimes someone gets their arm around

my neck

and i’ve learned how to stay calm in

that moment so that i give myself a

chance

to survive

i’m getting older now i’m 40.

i get on the mats with 20 year olds

they’re coming to beat me

i get on the mats with those 20 year

olds and i teach them

to be more skillful so that they will

beat me this is what i call the gospel

of fire

stepping into your insecurities and

vulnerabilities

facing your fears and looking at your

flaws

dead in the eye letting other people see

them

knowing that some of them will try to

use those flaws

against you but

it won’t matter you will have a higher

purpose

you will be able to keep charging

you will need to keep entering the arena

i don’t know what your arena looks like

it doesn’t have to be my arena

it is not necessary for you to get in a

cage

and fight another man

it does however need to be hard it needs

to be difficult

you will cry sometimes

that arena needs to be putting pressure

on you

so that you are always searching out the

most

skillful way

so that you can start to find your power

this power of mine that i talk about

please don’t think that it has made

that demon go away he’s still here

he’s with me every single day of my life

he’s no longer a demon though

he’s my friend and he points me in the

direction

that i need to walk

pablo picasso once said the meaning of

life

is to find your gift i call that your

power

the purpose of life is to give it away

so go find your power my ninjas

and then go give it to the world

thank you

[Music]

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