Loose yourself to find yourself
Transcriber: Pedram Pourasgari
Reviewer: Larisa Esteche
Hello everyone!
What can you see
when you take a look at this picture?
You might see a strong man
with a strong body,
full of focus, energy and determination,
ready to fight
in front of thousands of people
in a, let’s put it this way, very unusual
outfit, but a strong haircut.
But it says on social media, you see the
perfect picture and you think, wow.
But as we all know, hopefully the
reality looks quite different.
If I have to describe this picture,
and its deeper truth,
I only see an empty and confused
man living in a broken
and painful body whose
big dream of becoming
a professional wrestling superstar
comes slowly to an end.
This man was me 10 years ago in Las Vegas.
I’m sure when you think about Vegas,
you think about fun and having
the best time of your life
or getting married with a person
you have never met before.
But when I hear Las Vegas,
I only remember my darkest time.
For days, I sat alone in my big hotel room
at the Stratosphere Hotel
and I [could] barely move
my body out of pain.
I stood at a crossroad not knowing
where to go from here.
Should I stay in Sin City and keep
on working even harder on winning
the jackpot in professional wrestling,
no matter what my body was trying to
tell me in the language of pain,
or should I go home as a broken man?
I went home,
back to what is considered as one of
the most beautiful countries
in the world, Switzerland,
the place where I grew up, along with
my parents and my elder brother.
We lived in a very big house surrounded
by the abundance of nature,
and we basically had it all.
But from a very early age, I
felt I don’t belong here.
See, when all the kids at my
age read comic books,
I was interested in professional
wrestling, Buddhism and zen meditation.
And when other kids played soccer,
I stood in the corner and ask myself the
question, what is this life all about?
Yes, I felt alone and misunderstood.
I even remember one time the teacher asked
me in front of the class, “Stephane,
what do you want to become
when you’re older?”
And I said, “I either want to become
a professional wrestler in
the United States of America
or a Buddhist monk in Asia.”
Imagine his face expression.
It was the same face expression my father,
the successful businessman,
gave to me when I told
him about my dreams.
And I remember one time, instead of
going on vacation with other kids,
my parents had to bring me to a Buddhist
monastery where I sat down with
the monks and meditated for two weeks.
But as time went by and I got
more interested in girls,
I put everything into becoming
a professional wrestler.
This sport mixed with entertainment
made me feel completely alive
and took me out of my own reality
living in Switzerland.
But I was still a 14 year old kid,
so I had a major to-do list in front of me
until I could finally chase my dream.
But when I was 20 years old,
I was ready to go and I was ready
to really dive in to become
a professional wrestler and
to sign a contract for
the biggest wrestling company
in the world located in
the United States of America, the WWE. But
what does this business really mean?
Wrestling means to earn your spot.
And just like in life, you can only earn
something if you have sold the seats.
No one is waiting for you and this
business owes you nothing.
You have to promote yourself and get
yourself in the right position that
the right people will notice
you over and over again.
This is an extreme sport where you have
to make lots of sacrifices and it is
a sport that has no season and
doesn’t accept any excuses.
So let me take you on my journey
of how I entered this business
and faced this nearly impossible challenge
as a guy coming from Switzerland with no
wrestling background whatsoever
and where this whole journey did
lead me. So let’s face it.
Here was the reality and
there was the dream.
I firmly believed, and I still do, that if
the dream is bigger than the obstacles,
you will find a way and of course,
I didn’t see any option to
stay in Switzerland,
so I had to leave my home country in order
to turn my dream into reality.
And the first step of my journey led
me straight to Vienna, Austria.
I wrestled at a wrestling school for two
weeks and for the first time in my life,
as I stood in this wrestling ring,
I knew I have arrived.
After two weeks, the wrestling coach
came to me and he said,
“Stephane, you have the heart and
you have the talent
and you should continue
to chase your dream.”
So with a suitcase full of dreams,
I went back to Switzerland and I started
to work at a local gym to:
A. finance my dream and to coach
other people, and to B. getting
the best shape possible. But as
soon as I made enough money,
I packed my bags and I left
Switzerland for good.
I moved from a big house to a tiny
little apartment in a not
so beautiful part in Germany.
I exchanged living in a big room to share
a tiny room with two other people
and three other pets. And what seems like
a big downgrade on the surface became
a huge upgrade to me because I was one
step closer to living my dream.
And in Germany, I went to the
gym twice a day and I found
a wrestling school where I could
wrestle on a daily basis.
And I did that day in, day out,
seven days a week.
After a couple of months, I had my first
wrestling matches in front of
a handful of people, and I traveled all
over in Germany to participate in local
shows. I did that for 12 months,
for one year, to be exact.
And after 12 months, I decided
to really make the big step.
Now, I signed up at a very tough
but very famous wrestling school in
Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States.
And I went there for three months.
This is the maximum of time that you can
spend in the United States as a tourist.
So as I took the plane and I entered
this wrestling school in the USA,
reality hit me straight in the face.
I was completely ignored by each
and every one in there because
I was just known as the guy
coming from Europe.
And then I knew I have to work
harder than anybody else.
And I made sure that I am always the
first one who shows up at practice
and the last one who closes the door
behind him. I did that every single day.
I trained for hours and
I earned my respect.
After two months, this wrestling school
became my home away from home,
and those people who ignored me
first became my second family.
And very shortly before I had
to leave back to Europe,
the owner of the school came
to me and he said,
“I just made a phone call with the WWE.
They want to check you out and they invite
you for an eight hour tryout.”
This was like a dream come true. This
is what I worked so hard for.
So with a rental car, I drove into
the deepest south of torture and
I knocked on the doors of the WWE.
After eight hours of being tested,
trained and drilled and being looked at
of one of the best coaches in the world,
and as I stood in the ring with wrestlers
I only knew from TV, the head coach
came to me and he said,
“We really like your style, Stephane.
We are going to invite you to stay with
us for one week in two weeks.”
So there was the chance, but I could not
take it because of the visa situation.
I had to leave the United States 48 hours
later and I left very devastated
and with a broken heart. But the head
coach gave me one advice and one promise.
He said, “If you go back to Europe, I want
you to wrestle every show possible.
And I promise you, when you come back, we
are going to give you another chance.”
So I did exactly what he told me. I went
back to Europe and I paid my dues.
I wrestled every show possible.
And sometimes it means you drive your
car for 13 hours just to wrestle
a five minute match in front of 20 people.
And you drive 13 hours back and the
promoters only pay you the gas money.
I did that not only for one time, I did
that for the next few years to come.
I wrestled on dirty floors and cold
holes or even in the car.
And after five years arrested
in about 15 countries,
I competed in more than 300 matches,
sometimes in front of 50 people,
sometimes in front of 5000.
But in that time period, I also traveled
back and forth to the United States,
but unfortunately, the guy who promised
me the second chance didn’t work for
the company anymore. And you see, I always
had to start from zero again.
This business is running on such
a fast paced level that it doesn’t matter
what you did yesterday when somebody
told you yesterday. But this time
I found myself back in Las Vegas and my
seventh time to the U.S. after Atlanta.
But this time was different. See,
everything we do comes with a price.
And I was there in Las Vegas in my final
days as a professional wrestler.
There was the chance again, but my
body told me not to take it.
In the last seven years, I experienced
injuries like broken bones, broken ribs,
concussions, dislocated joints,
and I even tear my eardrum.
And the only question
I had left at 3:00 a.m.
in the morning in Las Vegas
was, what went wrong?
And out of the blue, I remember my
days at the monastery when I was
a kid that was an old monk who taught
me one very particular thing,
he said people get lost in
doing because they’re
so busy running after things.
Invest into being and you will see clearly
and you will find yourself
and see the world with new eyes and this
message hit me right in the heart.
15 years later, as I hit rock bottom
right there in Las Vegas.
See, I live my life in the last 27 years,
and especially in the last seven years
and a half do and be method,
which means if I only have
and signed this contract,
I could wrestle in front of thousands
of people on a daily basis
and get paid great money for it.
And I will finally be a happy and
fulfilled person. Guess what?
I was not. I was not because I invested in
the wrong things at first.
And I knew, I have to turn my life
completely around and invest
and invest into one thing only.
So I had to let go of the having part,
letting go of the doing part and
invest and practice being.
So I was this guy who made
this decision and
I became that guy who turned
his life completely around.
I went back to Europe and I checked-in
in a Buddhist temple to practice zen.
As the abbot of the temple came
to me, he just said one thing.
He said, “I want you to stop everything.
Stop running, stop chasing, stop
knocking on closed doors.
Just sit with us and meditate with us
and the world will come to you.
At some point something will open up
and you will discover something that
you have not discovered yet.”
So I did exactly what he told me.
I sat for hours, for days, for
weeks and months to come,
and at some point something opened up.
It was just like the clouds of my life
disappeared and I could see the blue sky
for the first time in my life and the
blue sky became my purpose for life.
See, I always loved to coach people
either in the gym or in
the wrestling ring. But before I
could help and train others,
I have to heal myself. First, I needed to
come up with a whole new way of training.
So I sat longer and at some point
I got inspired with moving
and using my body in such a way that
I can become pain free, stronger,
more aware and more energetic
than ever before.
And it happened and it happened
effortlessly,
and after investing in that
for the next few months,
this idea became a method and at some
point I was ready to bring it to
the people and try to serve them.
So I went back to the country I
always thought I don’t belong,
and I made peace with it because I made
peace with myself before, and with
the less money I had, I found a tiny
little apartment that I had to rebuild
and start my new beginning and
to live my new purpose.
See, starting from zero was something
that wrestling teach me
and zen teach me on how to let
go and how to go all in.
And when everything was ready and
I was ready to welcome clients to teach
my method, no one showed up.
No one showed up after the first day, not
after a months and not after two months.
My younger self would have become very
nervous, frustrated and angry.
But my new self remained calm and
peaceful because I knew if
I sit long enough and just work on myself,
the world will come to me.
After three months, the first client
showed up and a couple of months later
I have 100 clients.
And now five years later,
everything developed. As I developed
and upgraded my inner world,
so did my outer world. So within,
so without I have arrived,
I am fulfilled and I am beyond grateful.
But this is not about the method
and not about success.
This is about the message of trust,
honest and sometimes painful self
reflection and practice the art of being.
And this chance came to me and I took it.
And the funny thing is, I haven’t stood
in a wrestling ring for years,
not even thought about wrestling,
and a while ago I got a phone call
from a famous promoter for
a very famous wrestling promotion
in the United States.
And I got offered one last
wrestling match.
This would be a wrestling match
I would have dreamed about in my
seven year wrestling period.
But this time I have the freedom
to take this chance or not
just sit and I guarantee you if you
work on yourself and on your cell phone,
the world will come to you. Thank you.