JohnA Passaro's Blog, page 25
October 4, 2019
Don’t Let Defeat Be Victorious
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Sometimes losing the battle
Helps you find a way to win the war.
There is a difference between losing and being beaten.
Between resting and quitting.
Between having a setback and becoming discouraged.
Between having failed and being a failure.
In every loss, there is a learn.
In every rest, there is a restart.
In every setback, there is a comeback.
In every failed attempt, there is the winning adjustment.
Use temporary defeat to fuel your future success.
Chapter Excerpt from “Wrestling Rules for Life”
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October 3, 2019
Deep in the Difficult, You Will Find The Best Version of Yourself
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The gem cannot be polished without friction,
Nor man perfected without trials.
Rumi
Feel blessed when faced with difficulty.
As difficulty is the sculptor of men.
One of the greatest, most profound realizations I have ever had in my life was the understanding that all adversity that I ever faced in my life was designed to bring out the best in me, to turn me into the best version of myself.
Since then, I have always been up for the challenge of the transformation.
When I am deep in difficulty, I feel blessed knowing a better version of me is in the process of being sculpted.
I imagine the Universe during the sculpting, with a chisel in its hand and Michelangelo’s quote hanging on its wall,
“Every block of stone has a statue inside it, and it is up to the sculptor to discover it,” while sending more adversity my way.
I truly believe that life doesn’t happen to me;
It happens for me.
In her book, “Death and Dying,” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote,
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.
These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and deep loving concern.
Beautiful people do not just happen.”
“Deep in the Difficult, You Will Find The Best Version of Yourself.” – FREE Download
This is a chapter excerpt from,
If you find joy and value in my writing,
please consider supporting this blog with a one-time donation:
$1 $2 $4 $10 Other Amount
Making your donation a monthly contribution
Will allow me to create and post quality content more frequently.
All monthly contributors get a FREE eBook of their choice each month.
October 2, 2019
“Unwilling To Quit”
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There is nothing like the sight
Of an amputated spirit.
There’s no prosthetic for that.
Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade
The Scent of a Woman
If you watch closely, you can see it happen in every wrestling tournament.
A match where one wrestler fights and another decides to quit.
A match between two evenly matched wrestlers where one wrestler breaks the others will.
A match where one wrestler convinces his opponent that he will not win, and his opponent believes him, and he stops trying.
An experienced eye can pick up the exact moment when it happens.
It may happen after one wrestler gets shut down after a relentless offensive pursuit.
Or gives up points on the line, or on a cheap tilt or allows his opponent to score with short time or come out on the wrong side of an extraordinary scramble, or he lets a bad call affect his focus and his mental state.
Whenever and however it happens, the shift in the effort by one wrestler is dramatic.
A once-tight score suddenly gets blown open.
A wrestler who was once defending all his opponent’s shots at length, suddenly, can no longer defend any of the same shots he so valiantly defended just a minute earlier.
The crowd which formed to see the marquee matchup between two elite wrestlers disperses disappointed, as they came to see a superior effort, not resignation.
What happened?
Why is one wrestler now putting on a takedown clinic verse the other?
Did suddenly one wrestler lose all his talents?
Did suddenly one wrestler lose all his training?
Did suddenly one wrestler lose all his experience?
No, in the blink of an eye, one wrestler lost all his will.
The wrestler who quit let circumstances convince him that he could not win.
When a wrestler reaches this mental point, there may be time left on the clock, but the match is over.
There is no more try.
As try has been traded for resignation.
He is resigned to the fact that he will not win.
With try still left in the tank, he has predetermined his fate.
He is being let up and taken down at will.
It gets so bad that his opponent is attempting to let him up once more, only for the resigned wrestler to stay down and not turn and face him because he knows what is coming.
Another takedown.
He is resigned to stay down, to not attempt.
His goal has changed from winning the match to having the match end.
The one wrestler has convinced himself that resigning is less painful than trying.
****
In every tournament, one can also find a match where one wrestler, no matter the circumstances, is unwilling to quit.
It usually goes like this.
A wrestler is facing an opponent in which he is overmatched.
Few people are watching the match.
The overmatched wrestler gets thrown to his back.
He fights off his back for the whole first period only to be immediately put to his back again in the 2nd period; to fight some more.
While on his back fighting for his survival,
he hears the few people watching the match whisper, “It’s over.”
He continues to fight anyway.
Every time the overmatched wrestler’s shoulder blades get near the mat, he somehow miraculously surges them, to stay alive, even though the likelihood of a comeback is remote.
That doesn’t matter to him.
What matters more to this over-matched wrestler is that he is forever unwilling to quit.
He is unwilling to surrender his will.
He is unwilling to listen to the wrong voices instructing him to take the path of least resistance, to resign and relax for just a second.
Which would end the match.
Instead, he continues to fight through the pain.
He is unwilling to be defeated for lack of try.
After spending two periods on his back,
the over-matched wrestler faces a third period.
He has the choice between top, bottom, and neutral.
He evaluates his options and realizes there is not one option where he foresees a favorable outcome.
The realization doesn’t faze him.
He chooses the top position.
He is immediately reversed and put on his back.
He has just fought off his back for the last four minutes and now faces two more grueling minutes having to do the same.
The rational thought would say it would be easier to ease up for a fraction of a second and allow his shoulder blades to graze the mat ever so slightly, for a fall.
It would all be over then.
No one would blame him; he was over-matched.
But there is something inside the over-matched wrestler that is unwilling to listen to rationale.
He is unwilling to listen to the voice which will lead him to defeat.
He survives the first minute of the third period,
his fifth minute on his back.
It took every ounce of energy he had, to survive.
Just to face more pain.
His chance of winning the match has gone from improbable to near impossible.
It would be very easy for him to end it all;
all he would have to do is collapse his shoulders, and the match would be over.
But something inside of him can’t.
Something inside of him is unwilling.
From his back, he glances up and sees two things;
a crowd is forming around his mat, and the clock says that he has another minute left to fight.
He is out of energy.
He is beyond believing he will win the match.
He feels his shoulders nearing the mat; they are as close to the mat as they have been all match.
He is determined to keep his shoulders above the mat.
Somehow, he reaches down and taps into a reservoir of strength he never knew existed.
He is unwilling to allow his hard work to go for naught.
The ever-increasing crowd takes notice of his effort and starts to root for him not to get pinned.
They start counting down the seconds left in the match.
10, 9, 8…
3, 2, 1,
0.
A loud ovation erupts from the crowd.
The wrestler who has spent the last six minutes on his back untangles himself from his opponent and heads back to the circle.
The crowd is on their feet, applauding.
Not for the victor.
But for him.
For his effort.
For his refusal to allow circumstances to dictate his effort.
They realize they have just witnessed the essence of the sport.
The referee raises his opponent’s hand as he storms off the mat as if he has lost the match,
disgruntled because he didn’t get the pin.
The over-matched wrestler who fought off his back for six minutes is embraced by his teammates and his coaches.
They swarm him as if he had won the match.
Because he has.
His will made him fight.
His will made him survive.
His will made him unwilling.
Unwilling to give in.
Unwilling to take the path of least resistance.
Unwilling to be broken.
Unwilling to quit.
Unwilling to Quit – FREE Download
If you find joy and value in my writing,
please consider supporting this blog with a one-time donation:
$1 $2 $4 $10 Other Amount
Making your donation a monthly contribution
Will allow me to create and post quality content more frequently.
All monthly contributors get a FREE eBook of their choice each month.
October 1, 2019
Your Journey Is Specifically Designed for You
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Not I, nor anyone else
Can travel that road for you.
You must travel it yourself.
Walt Whitman
There is a picture that sits behind my dresser in my bedroom stored between my dresser and the wall.
Every so often, I come across it.
Every time I do, I wonder,
“What if I got that two count?”
The picture I am referring to is a picture of me in my last high school wrestling match having lat dropped my rival but unable to have kept him on his back long enough to get a two count which would have won the match.
I got a one count.
And I lost by one point.
I have always wondered, “What if I got that two count?”
For years I remained immature about the situation and felt cheated,
“How didn’t the ref get down in time to properly count back points?”
That one second haunted me for a long time.
That one second took twenty-six years for me to get over.
The significance of that one second to my life took me twenty-six years to fully understand.
After twenty-six years, I finally got it.
Life doesn’t happen to you,
It happens for you.
Winning a New York State Wrestling Championship wasn’t to be my journey.
You see if I had gotten that two count my life wouldn’t be the same.
If I had got that two count, without a doubt, I would have gone to a different college.
Having gone to a different college,
I more than likely would have stopped dating the girl I was dating at the time, which turned out to be my future wife.
And without marrying my wife, we would not have had any of our kids.
If I would have gotten that two count, I wouldn’t have the people in my life that I now love the most.
My life wouldn’t be as I know it.
I would never trade any member of my family for a state championship.
Not even for 4 state championships.
I believe life happened for me when I got that one count, even though I couldn’t comprehend the loss at the time.
Today I believe I am exactly where I was meant to be.
I believe I have become the person I was meant to be.
I believe adversity and struggle have shaped and carved me into who I am.
I am the best version of myself.
And I have the sport of wrestling, and a one count in my final high school match to thank for that.
I believe my journey was specifically designed for me.
I also believe that you, too, have a journey specifically designed for you.
You may not understand it; it may take years to appear, but I assure you, the journey that is awaiting you, the one that is designed specifically for you is far greater than the journey you currently desire.
Retired Oakland A’s pitcher Barry Zito on reflecting looking back on his sports career and comparing it to life after it said,
“Beyond all of the achievements, the single thing that fulfills me today is the acceptance of myself as a worthy and valuable person, regardless of what my stature or position in the world was on a given day of my sports career.”
And that is the real goal.
The one the Universe is teaching you by tricking you into thinking your athletic efforts are for glory on the mat.
They are not.
They are about preparing you to live a glorious life off the mat.
This is a chapter from “Wrestling Rules for Life”
Which can be purchased at
www.johnapassarostore.com
You Have Survived Another Night
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It’s such a beautiful thing to be awoken by the distant sound of birds chirping in the early morning.
It’s as if they bring the message:
You have survived another night,
And you get to fight another day.
Available @
www.johnapassarostore.com
September 30, 2019
Live Your Life In Such a Way That People Root For Your Success
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Be humble enough to know
That you’re not better than anybody,
And wise enough to know
That you’re different from the rest.
The way that you carry yourself,
The way that you present yourself,
The way that you compete,
The way that you interact with your allies and rivals,
The way that you win,
The way that you temporarily lose,
The way that you care,
The way that you dare,
The way that you strive,
The way that you fall,
The way that you get back up,
The way that you dream,
The way that you recover,
It all goes through a visual filter in every person’s brain to determine two things.
Whether they like and trust you.
And when they both like and trust you, they will root for you.
They will root for you as one of their own.
It is not whether you have or get things in life or sport, but it is about the humanity of the story others can admire; how you lived, how they can relate to your humanity that causes them to root for you.
When someone sees someone else live admirably, they take notice and become a fan.
The ironic thing is my experience in life has shown me that overcoming hardship is the prerequisite to how others see you living admirably.
It is how you handle that hardship that stands out.
Why?
Because hardship is a hard ship to steer.
And as humans, we admire when another human steers that hard ship out of the eye of the storm and back into tranquil waters.
That is worth rooting for.
That is when you will get your greatest applause.
This is a chapter from “Wrestling Rules for Life.”
Which can be purchased at www.johnapassarostore.com
September 29, 2019
Don’t Beat Yourself Poster
September 26, 2019
The Universe Is Watching When No One Is There
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The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses
Behind the lines,
In the gym,
And out there on the road,
Long before I dance under those lights.
Muhammed Ali
Applause can’t be your motivator.
As a wrestler, you train in seclusion, you live with social discipline, and you compete in an empty gym.
Applause can’t be your motivator.
The reasons why you compete must stem from the inside out, not the outside in.
There are no large crowds, no big media following, no social or professional pedestals for wrestlers.
But there is a deep inner worth.
In life after wrestling, applause can’t be your motivator.
For if it is, you will miss out on the most powerful dynamic,
The dynamic of secretly doing something for someone who has no way of repaying you.
When you do something for someone who can never repay you, and no one sees you do it, always remember, the Universe is watching.
And that is the greatest audience in the world.
For how others see you is not nearly as important as how the Universe sees you.
Wrestling Rules for Life
September 25, 2019
You Are Strong Enough – 12 x 18 Poster
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12 X 18 Poster
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You Are Strong Enough – 18 x 24 Poster
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18 X 24 Poster
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