JohnA Passaro's Blog, page 28
July 9, 2019
Faith
[image error]
What is faith, though, if not exercised during times of impossibility.
Nancy Stephan
The Truth About Butterflies
June 23, 2019
Your Confidence Will Be In Direct Proportion To Your Preparedness
[image error]
Wrestling Rules for Life
Rule #27
Your Confidence Will Be In Direct Proportion To Your Preparedness
Every position is my best position.
Kyle Dake
Confidence is belief in oneself.
Belief in oneself comes from knowing.
Knowing comes from being prepared.
Preparation comes from putting in the work, doing the time, making the sacrifices and experiencing the pain.
Confidence is binary.
Either you have it, or you don’t.
There is no middle ground.
It cannot be faked.
It can only be earned.
Confidence is earned through hard work, extreme sacrifices and physical pain.
Then, and only then, will you be prepared.
And, then and only then will you have confidence.
Every test you face where you could do more work, put in more time, make more sacrifices and absorb more pain is picked up by your subconscious mind.
And when you call on your confidence, your subconscious mind knows whether it should deliver it.
There is an old saying, that you can’t fool yourself.
When it is earned, confidence can be called on at your beckoning.
When your subconscious mind believes that you have properly prepared, confidence will automatically appear.
You will then be truly prepared.
“Your Confidence Will Be In Direct Proportion to Your Preparedness”
Is an excerpt from
“Wrestling Rules for Life.”
Order
“WRESTLING RULES FOR LIFE”
Paperback
$28.99
ORDER HERE
June 22, 2019
Be the Guy Who Sets the Bar
[image error]
Wrestling Rules for Life
Rule #27
Be the Guy Who Sets the Bar
I believe in being strong
When everything seems
To be going wrong.
Audrey Hepburn
There reaches a point in every wrestling practice where you will convince yourself that you have reached your mental and physical limit.
So, you look around for confirmation, to see if anyone else is at that limit with you.
To your amazement, your teammates are not stopping.
Instead, they are doing more, giving more, taking more pain.
By seeing this you un-convince yourself that your limit has been reached.
You get back to work.
You do more.
You go further.
You absorb more pain.
Why?
Because the guy next to you is.
And if the guy next to you is, then so can you.
On this day, the guy next to you set the bar.
On another day you will set the bar.
That is what being a teammate is all about.
****
At the NCAA’s a few years back, Barry Davis, the then head coach of the Wisconsin Badgers, was asked how wrestling prepares a young man for life, and he responded,
“Your phone is going to ring someday.
It will.
And on the other end, you’re going to hear something that you don’t like, but you must deal with it.
When that phone rings, you can’t run away.
You must answer it, and whatever it is, you must deal with it.
The sport of wrestling facilitates that.
The sacrifices and sufferings in wrestling help prepare young men for when that phone rings.
I believe that.”
Undoubtedly, there will reach a time in your life, after wrestling, when your new teammates, your family, will face adversity and someone within your family will be convinced that they can’t go on anymore.
That they have reached their limit.
They have convinced themselves that they can’t do anymore, give any more, or take any more pain.
They will look around for confirmation, to see if anyone else is at their limit also.
Here is where the wrestler in you must take over.
Be the guy to raise the bar.
Decide not to be a product of your environment, commit to having your environment to be a product of you.
When your family looks around for confirmation that you are also at your limit, they need to be amazed that you are not stopping.
You are doing more.
You are going further.
You are absorbing more pain.
Your actions will convince your family that they have more to give.
And they will give more.
Because they see you doing so.
And one day they will do so for you.
And that is what being a family is all about.
“Be the Guy Who Sets the Bar”
Is an excerpt from
“Wrestling Rules for Life.”
Order
“WRESTLING RULES FOR LIFE”
Paperback
$28.99
ORDER HERE
There are a very limited number of 1st Editions available.
June 15, 2019
99% Effort Is Not Enough
[image error]
Imagine that you are shopping for life insurance to protect your family.
Your family is the most important thing in the world to you.
There is a one-million-dollar policy that costs $1,000 a year and covers your family every day of the year.
Another one-million-dollar policy only costs $500 a year but doesn’t cover your family on Fridays; if you were to die on a Friday the policy wouldn’t pay out to your family.
Which one would you choose?
Sounds silly right?
Why would someone care enough to take out life insurance but leave themselves vulnerable on Fridays?
It may not be as important as life insurance for your family but only giving 99% effort towards your goal is the same thing.
Why would you care enough to put in 99% effort and by doing so, still leave yourself vulnerable in that 1% that is left undone?
Once it was all said and done, and my wrestling career was over and I had time to reflect, I realized a major part of wrestling was learning to give my all.
100% of it.
No holding back.
Learning to be all in, all the time.
No matter what.
Having no controllable vulnerabilities.
I was best able to do this by concentrating on realizing what was important and learning to control what I could control.
To not be affected by the constant noise of life.
Always being on an ongoing journey towards my vision.
When I did that, I was able to live with any outcome, because I knew I did everything I possibly could have done, there wasn’t one more thing that I could do.
And then and only then I could live with any results.
With no regret.
One of the greatest lessons I have learned from the sport of wrestling is that the outcome isn’t the goal.
Your output is.
You can’t control the outcome.
You can control your output.
The goal is to give 100% of what you have and then you can live with any outcome.
100% effort kills regret.
If you give 99%, you will make yourself vulnerable.
More specifically, your mind will be vulnerable for life.
So, don’t hold back.
Don’t pace yourself.
Don’t save some for later.
Why in the world will you be willing to do 99% and then not be willing to do 1% more?
The 1% which brings truly knowing you did everything that you could, there wasn’t one more thing that you could have done.
1% for peace of mind.
Forever.
For every 1% that you hold back is a 1% that goes in your opponent’s opportunity column.
For every 1% that you hold back, is a 1% bigger chink in your armor.
If you have been fastidious enough to get to 99% effort, one, give yourself credit and then two, go back to work to give the other 1%.
The other 1% will require more effort than the first 20% but it will be worth it.
The last remaining 1% is tolling, it requires more work than it numerically suggests, but it also potentially gets more results than all the other percentage points combined.
So, it’s not 1% that you are fighting for, it is the benefits that the 1% brings.
There are very few people willing to do significantly more work than 1% to only get 1% in return.
But what they fail to realize is that last 1% returns back to you so much more.
It takes you to a new level.
Gladly give that 1%.
Get there.
All you can give is all that you have.
Give it all.
And you will always be at peace with yourself.
99% Effort Is Not Enough
Is an excerpt from
“Wrestling Rules for Life.”
Pre-Order
“WRESTLING RULES FOR LIFE”
Paperback
$28.99
PRE-ORDER HERE
All Pre-Orders will receive a signed, numbered, Limited 1st Edition
June 12, 2019
Signed, Numbered, Limited Edition of “Wrestling Rules For Life”
[image error]
“Wrestling Rules for Life” will be released on Monday, June 17th.
Pre-Orders will be taken up until the book is released.
All Pre-orders will receive a signed, numbered limited 1st Edition.
After the book is released, the 2nd edition will be for sale on Amazon within a week.
The 2nd edition will not be numbered or signed.
[image error]
Pre-Order
“WRESTLING RULES FOR LIFE”
Paperback
$28.99
PRE-ORDER HERE
INTRODUCTION
Wrestling Rules for Life
——————————
I never won a National Championship.
I have never been an All-American.
I never won a State Championship or even a Sectional Championship.
Heck, I don’t even have cauliflower ear.
Not even on one ear.
But 36 years after wrestling my last match I still consider myself a wrestler.
That is because wrestling to me is more than a sport, it is a lifestyle.
For the longest time, 26 years to be exact, I wanted nothing to do with the sport as I felt the sport took everything I had and gave me back nothing in return.
I pledged I would never let my kids wrestle as I never wanted them to experience the pain that I did from this sport.
But something brought me back.
And my kids did wrestle.
And 26 years after leaving the sport I would come to realize what this sport has given back to me in my life.
When I needed it the most.
It taught me how to fight against unbearable adversity.
To have an unbreakable will.
And to be delusionally optimistic, among many other things.
I’ve experienced this sport from every angle.
I was a wrestler myself for six years.
I’ve been a father of a wrestler for ten years.
I’ve been a father of a wrestling coach for three years.
I’ve been a coach all my life.
And I will forever be a fan of this sport.
Looking back over my time in this sport, it is clear to me that there are two types of former wrestlers.
Wrestlers who successfully bridged into life by applying the discipline and principles they learned on the mat, and those wrestlers who hadn’t.
I noticed that it didn’t matter what a wrestler’s accolades were, each type of former wrestler existed at every level of success or non-success in the sport.
I am amazed at the disparity of the quality of life between the wrestlers who had applied the principals they lived on the mat and those who didn’t.
The wrestlers who didn’t never used their resources to propel them into life to be able to handle the adversities life would throw at them.
They seemed to be beaten by the exact principles wrestling taught.
How ironic, the very people who lived the principles on the mat didn’t apply them off the mat.
I have been blessed with the understanding that wrestling is much more than a sport, it is a lifestyle.
That has been invaluable to my life.
It has made such a difference in the quality of my life.
So much so, that I feel compelled to share the principles that I’ve learned.
My hope is that these principles will ring true to wrestlers who need them the most.
Champions who need help in life.
My other hope is to bring homage to a sport that when all the accounting is complete has given to me more than I gave to it.
And I gave it everything I had.
And in return, it gave me everything that I am.
I am a wrestler.
I’ve lived for 6 years on the mat.
And a lifetime off the mat.
“Wrestling Rules For Life” are the principles that have been so valuable to me.
Wrestling Rules for Life will be released on Monday, June 17th.
Please allow for printing and mailing time for delivery.
May 17, 2019
This Game is not Over
Every man at some point in his life is going to lose a battle.
He’s going to fight, and he’s going to lose.
But what makes him a man is that in the midst of that battle, he does not lose himself.
This game is not over.
Coach Eric Taylor
Friday Night Lights
We Have All Been in that Hallway Before.
We have all been in that hallway before.
We have all lost that tough match.
We have all put everything you got into this sport and then all of a sudden it doesn’t work out for you and it just breaks your heart.
What do we do?
What does a wrestler do?
They don’t quit.
They don’t stop.
They get back to work.
They work harder.
They throw themselves deeper into the sport.
They figure it out.
They revise their plan.
That is exactly what wrestling is about.
That is exactly what life is about.
———
Walt Whitman Speech
May 2019
Excerpt from “Wresting Rules for Life”
To be released next week.
Pre-Order a paperback copy of “Wrestling Rules For Life”
http://bit.ly/Pre_Order_Wrestling_Rules_For_Life
May 12, 2019
Bye, Bye …
[image error]
Mom,
A long, long time ago, for my 5th birthday, you gave me a present I will never forget.
The lyrics to my favorite song, “Miss America Pie.”
They were handwritten by you.
This was before Google and the internet so you couldn’t search for the lyrics and copy and paste them then print them out for me, instead, you needed to start the record player, play a small piece of the song, listen to the words, stop the record player and quickly write the lyrics down on paper before you forgot them.
“Miss America Pie” just so happened to be one of the longest songs on record so you needed to repeat this process over and over, literally hundreds of times.
I imagine it took you quite some time to finish.
For anyone else, this would have been a tedious and frustrating process, but for you, I imagine it was rewarding because you did it out of love.
I remember how excited I was when you gave me my birthday gift, five pages of song lyrics to “Miss America Pie.”
I was so excited I brought them to school with me the next day.
I remember coming home from school that day and you asking me about the lyrics, and I remember telling you that I had given them to a girl named Cara.
I will never forget your reaction and response.
For your reaction and response has taught me so much about parenting.
Your reaction and response was not focused on how hard it was for you to write those lyrics, or how much time and effort you put in doing so, or how insensitive I was to give your thoughtful and personal birthday gift to me to a girl I hardly knew, or that I needed to get them back from Cara the next day.
No, instead you simply said,
“If giving those lyrics to a girl made you happy, then I am happy.”
I remember saying, “It did make me happy, but I really liked that gift.”
I remember the next day miraculously waking up to a second set of song lyrics to “Miss America Pie,” with a note attached saying this set was for me.
Mom, you have taught me so much about being a parent.
The countless sacrifices you have made for your children.
The endless time you have invested in us.
With our happiness always being your ultimate goal.
You always put your children before yourself.
Our happiness before yours.
I can’t think of a better definition of being a great mother than the way you lived your life.
Whenever I hear the song “Miss America Pie,” the music always makes me smile.
Your whole life you have always touched me deep inside.
Bye, bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
And them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singin’ this’ll be the day that …
As much as I don’t want it to be, we both understand that this may be your last Mother’s Day in your physical body.
I just want you to know you will always be alive inside me.
You will be alive…
In the way I parent.
In the way I sacrifice for my family.
In the way I will always put my family’s happiness before my own.
You will be alive in the love I have for my children.
You will be alive in the way I live my life.
And I just want to let you know as much as it is going to hurt and as much as we are all going to miss you,
We are all going to be okay.
Happy Mother’s Day Mom.
Love you always and forever,
JohnA
May 8, 2019
For Luckier
[image error]
For better, for worse,
For richer, for poorer,
In sickness and in health.
When you get dealt for worse, for poorer and sickness and you still consider yourself lucky that is when you realize it is not what you go through in life, it is who you go through it with.
#marraige
April 8, 2019
Oops
[image error]
45 Years ago today, my brother Joe asked me to get him right before Hank Aaron came to the plate for his historic Babe Ruth breaking 715th Home Run…
I forgot…
He reentered the room when Aaron was trotting around the bases followed by a fan.
Soon I was being chased the same way around the house…
