Boxing ???? Contrary to the belief that it is all aggression, is a thinking mans sport. I personally have taught my self to spar and hit the Heavy bag watching YouTube tutorials & falling back on some previous amateur experience from my days in Canada ????????.The art of boxing has taught me many things that I can apply to my personal and business life on a daily basis.

Controlled Aggression: Even though the nature of the sport is aggressive, it requires you to be controlled in your aggression. What this means is that you need to know when to be aggressive. Although moving forward is considered to be aggressive, it demands that you study your opponent, conserve energy and not go berserk, risking a knockout. Similarly in you daily lives, both personal and professional there are times that you require to be aggressive, but in a controlled manner. An argument with your spouse or a disagreement with a coworker is a great example of how controlled aggression can be used to actually defuse the situation. In a boxing ring aggression that is not controlled may lead to you getting knocked out, in your personal and professional life the consequences could be you getting fired, out behind bars or your spouse walking out of the relationship.

Focus: The sport demands complete focus not only on your opponent but on your actions. This is the hardest when you get tired and actually start thinking about how tired you are rather than what you need to do, example breathe, counter, read patterns of your opponent. This translates directly into our personal and professional lives, when we get bogged down at work, tired, or find our selves stuck, many of us think about the how unfair life is, rather than focusing on how & what we can do to overcome the situation we find our selves in. Focusing requires you to constantly talk to your self & is not a one day process. It requires constant effort over a stretched period of time to learn the art of focusing on what matters; solutions and actions!

Patience: At times you just have to be patient! In the sport of boxing ???? and in your personal & professional life this pays dividends. Twelve rounds of three minutes each amounting to thirty six minutes in total may not look long, but when you are in the ring it feels like eternity, specially when you are both physically and mentally tired. In some ways you could think of this as a race between the tortoise ???? & hare ???? that we have all read. Hanging back and being patient at times provides you with openings to counter your opponent, use controlled aggression and read patterns of your opponents style. An average human life expectancy is about 72.6 years now, that’s a long time that passes by quickly. In today’s day and age of instant gratification, VC throwing money at ideas that have not even seen the light of day & viral videos that make individuals instant social media celebrities, patience is a key ingredient that is missing. Patience in our personal and professional life requires us to be a student of our environment, of popular culture, ignoring the noise from society including family & friends to make hasty decisions and take action because the norms of society demand so. Patience is a art, that like everything require practise. Next time you feel like rushing into a decision, talk to your self and tell your self that if I feel the same way about the situation at hand in a months time I will go with it. I have personally failed so many times because of rushing into things due to the fear of missing out, judgement & not putting in the required work. The key is not to regret, but learn and try not to repeat the same mistakes by falling back on the learning’s from your past experiences.

Multitasking: In the boxing ???? ring you are constantly multitasking both mentally and physically. Throwing combos, ducking your opponents counters while all the time thinking about your next move and studying that of your opponents. Multitasking brings focus, controlled aggression, patience & the willingness to adapt to changing situations together. Your brain is thinking and evaluating all options, while your body is acting upon split second decisions that your brain sends to it at electric speed. In our day to day lives, weather at work or home we need to multitask. Believe me when I say, this is not easy. Focusing on more than one thing at a time specially in certain situations requires you to slow down and in some cases it’s requires you to just focus on that one task. Try this, while walking briskly ask your self to do a complex calculation or better while walking with a companion ask them to do this calculation, say 356*29. It is almost certain that you will slow down and shift your focus to the complex task at hand. What has worked for me personally might sound simple & evident, yet most individuals knowingly fail to apply it. The concept of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)! When multitasking work on multiple tasks that are simple in nature. You can for example talk to a co passenger and drive, but in a different situation, where you require complete focus, say driving in a storm you are most likely and advised not to hold a full fledged conversation with anyone! Again, like anything this skill is acquired by practise and trial & error. Many people get bogged down and give up on multitasking because they have set them selves up for failure from start by choosing multiple tasks that are complex in nature. Remember the simple concept of KISS!

Sports in general teach you a whole lot of things about your self and life. Team sports such as soccer or basketball teach you about team work, trust, letting go of ego, sharing success and failure as a team, while taking accountability of the part you as an individual played. Boxing ???? is a individual sport in every sense. You may train with a multiple sparring partners, run in group, but at the end of the day it’s just you who is accountable for the out after the bell ???? rings ding, ding, ding!

Such is the case in life, you and only you are accountable for the outcomes of your action, not your surroundings, not your companion, not your boss or co-workers. Your destiny is determined by the individual choices you choose to make.