Every naked chick in the room ran toward the scale. It was just titties and passports everywhere.
My punishment lasted a month. Knowing I could push through pain and succeed has lasted a lifetime. Pain was just something I became accustomed to as part of life. If you’re an athlete and want to win, something always hurts. You are always dealing with bruises and injuries. You’re testing how far you can push the human body, and whoever pushes it the furthest wins.
I might not have had the tools at my disposal that my opponents had, but I created advantages of my own.
After thirteen years, the American flag that had been placed on Dad’s coffin at his funeral had been unfurled and was fluttering in the arms of my mother. My dad had always believed.
Athletes who dope don’t believe in themselves.
How you feel is entirely in your mind. Your mind has nothing to do with your environment. It has nothing to do with anyone around you. It is entirely your decision.
Acting with fear is called courage.
In the moments that you fall hardest – when you lose a job, or find out a boyfriend is cheating on you, or realize that you made a bad financial decision – you can channel your shame, your anger, your desire, your loss. You can learn, take chances, change course. You can choose to become so successful that no one can ever put you in a situation like that again.
Why is self confidence arrogant? Why is self-depreciation considered modesty? I worked my ass off to be able to have a high opinion of myself. It took a long time and many, many years, and I’m never going to tell – let anyone tell me that I should think less of myself.
To win, you have to be willing to die.
This past Halloween girls across the country dressed up as Ronda Rousey. That’s because she’s an amazing, beautiful, and powerful woman.
Boxing great Mike Tyson said “a happy fighter is a dangerous fighter.” I think he’s right.
The moment you stop viewing your opponent as a threat is the moment you leave yourself open to getting beat. You start thinking you don’t have to train as hard. You cut corners. You get comfortable. You get caught.
Active patience is taking the time to set something up correctly.
Pain is just a piece of information.
When people say, “Oh you’re so cocky. You’re so arrogant,” I feel like they’re telling me that I think too highly of myself. My question for them is: “Who are you to tell me that I need to think less of myself?
People love the idea of winning an Olympic medal or a world title. But what few people realize is that pretty much every second leading up to the actual win is uncomfortable, painful, and impossibly daunting – physically and mentally. Most people focus on the wrong thing: They focus on the result, not the process. The process is the sacrifice; it is all the hard parts – the sweat, the pain, the tears, the losses. You make the sacrifices anyway. You learn to enjoy them, or at least embrace them.
Don’t focus on what you can’t do. Focus on what you can.
If you ever wanna be motivated, go try and be homeless for a day and that will just light a fire under your butt like none other.
There were times when I knew that I was in a terrible situation, but I also knew that it wouldn’t last forever. Those are the moments when you have to remind yourself that this experience is a defining moment in your life, but you are not defined by it.