She Put On My Video Before Stepping on the Mat

Ali just took silver at PANS.

For those who don’t know, PANS is one of the most competitive no-gi jiu-jitsu tournaments in the world. She competed against women who have been on the mat their entire lives. She walked away with silver.

After it was over she told me something that stopped me cold.

Before she stepped on the mat, she put on one of my YouTube videos. Not for me. For herself. She said it helped her get her head right before competition.

I didn’t know what to do with that at first. I’m her husband. She’s heard everything I’ve ever said ten times over. But she still needed to hear it again, out loud, in that moment, before one of the hardest things she’d do all year.

That’s when it hit me.

It’s not about the information. It’s about what you’re feeding yourself in the moments that count.

Most men are walking around with a running internal monologue that would disqualify them from anything hard before they even started. They’ve told themselves the same story so many times it doesn’t even register as a story anymore. It just feels like fact.

I’m not where I want to be. I’ve tried before and it didn’t stick. It’s too late to change this.

That’s not a personality. That’s a diet. And you chose it.

Ali didn’t win silver because of talent alone. She won it because she’s been ruthless about what she feeds her mind, what she trains her body to do, and who she surrounds herself with. She leaned into every hard moment in training so the hard moment on the mat felt familiar instead of foreign.

Watch the video she watched before competing. It’s two and a half minutes.

And if you watch it and something in you recognizes that you’ve been feeding yourself the wrong story for too long, the Agoge was built for men who are ready to change what they consume, how they train, and who they walk with.