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VIP Commentary – Fighting Spirit

Hello, this is AJ. Welcome to the commentary for ‘Fighting Spirit.’ Fighting spirit, rah!

Sounds like a tough topic. In the video I talk about martial arts and I get really excited. I love martial arts. It’s one of my favorite hobbies. You know, I think I’m very strong in the video. I just watched the video again and I’m like rah! You know all this really strong, powerful, physical stuff. Fighting spirit, fighting spirit, rah!

So I want to talk about this topic in a little different way in this audio, just so you understand that it’s not about being physically tough, not at all. It’s all about our deep emotional resiliency. There’s a good word, resiliency. Resiliency is the ability to overcome difficulties, is what is really is. It’s the ability to just have something bad happen, but then you come back again strong and then something else bad happens, but you come back again strong. You can just keep taking that punishment and coming back and coming back.

When I was a social worker, it’s a term that’s used in social work to describe clients.

That certain kids, certain people, are very resilient. That’s the adjective, resilient. We don’t know why the same thing can happen to two different people, right, like horrible terrible abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, mental abuse, all kinds of horrible stuff and one person is just somehow they’re resilient and they can take all that stuff and somehow they just keep coming back, they don’t give up, whereas another person might totally give up, even if something much less happens to them.

And so developing resiliency, because it’s something that you can develop, it’s kind of like building a muscle, right, a physical muscle. It’s something you can develop and it such a powerful trait to have. It’s so important, especially now. You know in the global economy, in the world, there are a lot of problems right now. A lot of people losing their jobs, a lot of people under a lot of stress, a lot of difficulty in a lot of different places and so this ability to be resilient, to have a fighting spirit, to react to problems in a powerful way rather than a passive weak way is, so, so, so important.

I’d like to talk about an example of this, what I think is maybe one of the very best examples of fighting spirit that I have seen. In it’s in a movie, but it’s based on a true story and I highly recommend you rent this movie and watch it. I just recently watched it again. So the name of the movie is ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’ with Will Smith. I think I’ve talked about it in other lessons in the past.

It’s such a powerful movie. It’s actually set in San Francisco where I am right now and it’s about this man who really loses everything. This man has a small boy and he’s married and they’re really struggling. He’s a salesman, but he’s not making sales and they have all these bills and debts. They’re just barely paying the rent. The rent is late every month and then it becomes late for two months and three months and he’s struggling, struggling, but he’s really trying hard. He’s not lazy. This guy is really, really work hard.

Then his wife just gets really just sick of it all and his wife leaves him alone with the boy and then he starts losing sales, so he’s not getting any money and then he gets kicked out of his apartment and he becomes homeless with his young boy on the streets of San Francisco. He didn’t have a college degree. He just went to high school I think. So they have nothing, but somehow he goes and he applies for a job. For an internship, not a job, an internship at a big company to be a stockbroker, you know to trade stocks. He suffers all these difficult problems and challenges, I mean again and again and again.

You watch this movie and you’re just like oh, my God, how can this guy keep going? But he finally gets the internship, but then he finds out the internship it’s not paid, right?

They accept 20 people and they have to work full time, but they don’t get paid any money. It’s kind of like a competition, because then at the end of, I can’t remember, the end of six months or something or a year, I think it’s six months maybe, they choose one person from the 20. The best one gets a real job and actually gets a paycheck. So for six months he has to work full time, but he gets no money so he’s still homeless. He has no income.

So, anyway, I won’t tell you the rest of the story, but what I just want to emphasize about this is that you watch this story and this man endures and overcomes and keeps fighting through so many problems. I mean every time you think it can’t get worse and it does. It becomes even worse for him. I mean you watch the movie you think this guy has the worst luck in the world. And it’s based on a true story. This is about a real man.

I know when I was watching this movie I was thinking could I do it. If all of that happened to me, I’m asking myself, you know, would I keep fighting or would I finally give up, because it’s so much. I was questioning myself and maybe you can ask yourself the same question when you watch that movie. Would I have his strength?

Would I have his fighting spirit? Do I have it in me?

Now, let me just answer that in one very positive way, which is yes, we all have it in us.

The problem is that many of us cannot access it anymore. I believe very firmly that deep inside us there is this incredible deep fighting spirit, this power, this incredible spirit that cannot be dominated, that cannot be defeated, but it’s been covered over through so many years and different painful things that happen in our life and different fears that most of us cannot access that, cannot get to it 100% And, sadly, some people it’s so covered that they forget that they have it. They have forgotten that they have this fighting spirit at all.

Now, the good news is we can rediscover it. We can develop that fighting spirit. We develop it by facing challenges directly and overcoming them and doing it with a spirit, with an attitude of strength, of being proactive, of being even a little aggressive about this problem.

Now, if you feel like oh, my fighting spirit is weak. You know, I’m always giving up. It’s easy for me to quit. Then you want to start with smaller problems. Don’t start with the biggest, hugest problem in your life and try to do it because it may be too much, but you can start with something very, very small and like just attack that problem rah! I will solve this problem and overcome it err and then you do it. Then, next, you do the same thing with a slightly bigger challenge or problem or difficulty and then again with a slightly bigger one and in this way, step by step, you build your ability to face challenges. You build your ability to face bigger and bigger problems with strength and power.

I mean it’s really just like building your physical strength. I mean it’s the same idea, right.

I mean you lift weights and then you add a little more and you life some more weights.

In the beginning if you’re very, very, very weak, maybe you start by lifting very small weights, but still you will get stronger and then you add a little more weight and you lift again. You add a little more weight and you lift again. I mean why do people lift weights?

It seems like a strange activity really. It’s because by facing that challenge on purpose, by choosing to face the challenge of lifting heavy weights, you create a stronger body and that gives you a better quality of life. I mean that’s the core issue here.

When you’re strong physically you have a better quality of life. You can do more things.

You can enjoy your life more physically. You’re less likely to get injured or hurt or to have problems physically. You’re more likely to live longer and to be strong and energized through your whole life. I could go on and on, but lots and lots and lots of benefits of being strong physically.

Well, it’s the same mentally. In fact, I’d say mentally is even more important. You see, much of the problem is that in modern life now we really have become very soft and addicted to comfort, right? We’ve become addicted to being comfortable and so when we try to make our lives easy all the time and comfortable all the time we become weaker.

It’s kind of like if we just want to lay around on the couch physically, right? If all you do is lay on the couch and watch TV physically, well that seems very comfortable in the beginning, right? Oh, this is great. I’m relaxed all the time. Ah, very nice. You’re just watching TV, you know, no strain on your body, no stress on your body at all. It seems like that should be good for your body, but it’s not. We all know that. We all know that just sitting around, never pushing ourselves physically, never challenging our bodies is a way to be unhealthy and that’s terrible. We all know that will create weakness and, eventually, it could even create diseases and things. We realize that that is horrible, but a lot of times we don’t realize that that is also true mentally and emotionally.

You see if your life is always wonderful and easy mentally, if it’s always wonderfully easy and comfortable emotionally then you can also become emotionally weak, mentally weak. If you never face problems, if you’re always avoiding them or other people deal with the problems for you or you create a life where you can avoid most challenges and problems and difficulties, well in the beginning that will seem nice. Oh, I’ve got no stress in my life. This is wonderful. I’m just going to lay on a beach all the time and do nothing.

The problem is you will become emotionally weaker and weaker. You’ll become mentally weaker and weaker and weaker and if you watch television you’ll become even weaker and even more of a victim and adopt more and more victim mentality because television programs that into people and so you become weaker, weaker, weaker and then when a problem comes into your life, an emotional problem, a mental problem, a challenge in your life, it will seem so overwhelming because you will have become so weak you can’t handle it anymore.

Believe me, we all know that in life, eventually, problems come to us. It’s impossible to avoid them forever. You know, maybe you can avoid them for five years, maybe you can avoid them for 10 years, but eventually big emotional difficulties, mental difficulties, life difficulties will happen. And if we’re always trying to be comfortable we can become very soft and unresilient and, therefore, we can really be just crushed and destroyed when the big problems come. So that’s why it’s vital.

I have talked about this kind of idea many times in the VIP lessons because it is so important. So I’m going to stress it again and this is sort of the reason why. It is very important that you seek out challenges, that you actually go find challenges. It is very, very important in your life that you do things that are difficult, that feel difficult to you, things that you feel are positive and good or exciting or interesting, but that maybe you’re scared of doing them. You need to do them.

You can start small and then do bigger ones, bigger ones, bigger ones, but it’s very important because it builds this resiliency. It builds the fighting spirit so then when something from the outside world happens to your life, when something terrible happens, you lose your job or whatever you already have that mental strength. You already have the emotional strength. You don’t get destroyed by it. You don’t sink into terrible depression. You don’t feel helpless. You feel strong. You’re like okay. I’m going to handle this problem, because you’re already emotionally and mentally strong. You have to build that strength, just as you have to with your body. It’s no different, the process is the same.

Of course, it’s nice if we all have really nice lives. If you have a great relationship and you have a wonderful job or income or whatever and basically in your life if you’re happy and everything is going well, that’s fantastic. Don’t destroy that. I’m not saying sabotage that, certainly not. All I’m saying is don’t get too comfortable. Don’t just sit there and become soft and enjoy it. You need to also, in addition, seek out some challenges.

So enjoy the great relationships you have and the great friendships and enjoy the job that you love, if that’s case, and enjoy your great physical health, if that’s the case, but at the same time don’t just get used to all of that and avoid challenges. No. Enjoy all of that and then also think okay, I don’t want to become too soft so I need a new challenge. What am I going to do that seems a little scary? What am I going to do that seems difficult? What will I do that will develop my fighting spirit? What’s some bigger dream or goal that I’ve had that I’ve been a little scared of? Well, try it. It doesn’t matter what it is.

I’ll give you an example from my past. Way back when I was younger like in my 20s, I have always been scared of heights. In the past when I was younger, I was terrified of heights. Really afraid of high places and so when I was in college, in university, I just decided that I needed to face this somewhat and so I went rock climbing. I went rock climbing and repelling. Rock climbing is when you climb up the mountain and repelling is when you come back down the mountain with a rope.

So I did that a few times and it changed my fear of heights. I still don’t like being up in high places. I don’t enjoy it. I find it stressful, but I’m less terrified of it now than I was then because I faced that. So the point of doing that was not about heights, the point was to build my fighting spirit. The point was to face a challenge and a difficulty and I have a lot of examples in my life of this kind of thing.

The strength I get from doing those things has helped me then when I’ve had problems come into my life. Like I’ve just recently, this last several months have had a very tough time in my life. There’s been some physical problems I’ve had, mental, just lots of challenges. It was a really hard year, in fact. Maybe six to eight-nine months, very, very, very tough for me in many different ways, but I didn’t give up. I didn’t quit, because I had already developed that fighting spirit by seeking out these challenges, by constantly facing challenges in the past.

Even when my life was easy, in fact especially when my life was easy in the past, I didn’t just get lazy. I kept looking for challenges and because of that this year when I had so many difficulties I was able to fight through them and now I’m doing quite well, feeling great. You might be able to hear it in my voice. I don’t know, in the last several VIP lessons compared to now I feel like I’m much more alive again now, but it’s because of that fighting spirit that I could fight through the problems this year and get through it, keep going, not quit, not just sink into depression, not get a victim mentality.

I just kept attacking my problems and I would sometimes, you know, oh. Another problem would come and I’d be like oh, my God, the stress. I would feel like oh, no, not more, oh no. And maybe for a few days that was my reaction, but then ah, I would come back and get that fighting spirit. No, I’m going to fight it. I’m not giving up. Boom and I would fight back and then something else would come and then I would fight back and then something else would come.

I just kept that fighting spirit, kept calling it up and I became exhausted because there was so much stress in my life the last several months that it physically exhausted me until finally I got really sick physically and for about a month, four to six weeks, I was just laying around in bed almost unable to do anything, but I still didn’t quit. While I was sick I was thinking okay, how can I overcome this? Maybe I need to get help. Maybe I need to go out and talk to other people, start reading more, find other resources.

I remained resilient. I kept calling on the fighting spirit. It was still alive in me and then eventually I did find answers and I did overcome problems and then I overcame another one and then another one and then I started getting stronger, stronger, stronger, stronger and now feeling fantastic!

So, in conclusion, we all have this fighting spirit inside us. Every human being, I believe, has it. It’s just hidden and covered up in some people. It’s stronger in some people and weaker in others. Just like we all have physical muscles, right? If you have a body you have muscles. We all have muscles, but in some people the muscles are really, really weak and in other people the muscles are super strong.

Now, the people who are weak we all know could become stronger if they wanted to. If they trained their bodies, if they worked hard, if they step by step by step developed their physical strength by facing first small challenges then bigger ones, then bigger ones, then bigger ones, then seeking it out and overcoming bigger, bigger, bigger, we know that physically any person can become stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger and eventually very, very, very strong. Anyone can do that.

Well, it’s exactly the same emotionally, spiritually and mentally. It’s the same thing. We all have this inside us. We all have a spirit inside us. We all have that fighting spirit inside us. Some people are super strong because they’ve worked it. They’ve developed it. In other people it’s very weak, but even in the people where it’s weak they can develop it. They can build it.

How do they do it? By facing first small challenges then little bigger challenges, then bigger, by actually seeking out these challenges, facing them, overcoming them and then, again, a little bit more, a little more and then more and more until it gets stronger, stronger, strong, until you have such strong powerful fighting spirit that nothing can defeat you, nothing. Anything that comes to you, you can handle it. You might not like it, you might not enjoy it, it might be sad and terrible, but you can handle it. You can face it.

You can get through it.

More than anything, more than any other lesson we’ve talked about, I hope that you will develop that fighting spirit. If there’s one thing I could give you to make your life better it would be this, this inner power and strength, so develop it.

This month your homework is to go out and find a slightly bigger challenge than you’re used to. Find something that seems a little difficult, a little challenging, a little scary and face it, try it, do it and if you overcome it, if you mange to do it then go find another one that’s a little bit bigger and do it again. Develop your fighting spirit, watch ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’ with Will Smith, go rent that movie and watch it, it’s a great movie and talk about your ideas on our social site.

All right, I wish you the very best. I hope you develop that inner strength and power because you do have it. You have it inside you. You can overcome anything. Nothing can defeat you. See you again, bye-bye.