The pain of becoming a champion

Do you make money with this little table tennis thing? Not yet. Some people can see farther than others. Do you have a job? No. So therefore, when people judge what I'm doing with their logic, it can't be done. How do you live? Well, I live with the confidence that if I believe in myself, the money will follow. So their reasoning, their knowledge, and their logic clashes with my superior belief. And what do you plan to do if this whole dream of yours doesn't work out? That doesn't even enter my consciousness. Every day I wake up, I say to myself, you have two options right now. Keep dreaming with your dreams, or wake up and make it reality. And I change the second option, always. What if what? What if you lose? I don't even see, I can't, my consciousness don't even elevate that thought. At the end of the day, you've got to feel some way. I'm playing to win, and to win I will destroy you. So why not feel unbeatable? And I'm not designed to come third, fourth, or fifth. I race to win. Why not feel untouchable? I'm destroying everybody I step on the court with. Why not feel like the best to ever do it? I told you, all of my critics, I told you all that I was the greatest of all time. Unbeatable. I literally felt like there wasn't a single soul on the planet that can touch me, that can beat me. You say it to yourself, and you look yourself in the eye, and look yourself in the mirror and truly, truly believe that not a man alive can beat you. And that is the way it is. If you want to be great at something, you've got to commit your life to it. Are you enjoying this life? Champions are broken. People want what you have, but they don't want to endure the suffering. They just don't stop. It will cost you everything. If you rest and I'm working, I got you. Without you or with you, there is always going to be champions. If you want to be a champion, you better be better than 99% of the people. And I need to win, because when I win, it's my proof that I am alive. There was no second place. That wasn't an option. So I embrace fear. I'm going to ******* do it regardless. I am the tiger, man, the edge. The Black Mamba. And the way to get it back is to go back to the beginning. Steps on court and does what he does. And I said, you're not going to beat me. I'm prepared to die. The champion feels pain and he fights through it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. And maybe not the next month. Only one thing is true. I will be champion one day. I promise. I have a purpose. It means I have an obligation to see a very specific thing through. And with that obligation comes sacrifice. I'm happy because I'm fulfilling my purpose of life. See, everything was created for purpose. Trees have a purpose. The moon has a purpose. Rats have a purpose. Insects, everything God created has a purpose. And the wise man is he who knows his life purpose. See, ten men with the knowledge of their purpose are more powerful than a thousand men working from morning until evening and who don't know their purpose. You know, I heard a quote one time from Vincent van Gogh that really rang true. He said, he has dedicated his life to his art and he has lost his mind in the process. When I sat and I thought about that, it sounded very familiar. I think a lot of people just, they see you run and they say, oh, it looks so easy. You really look effortless. But before it gets to that point, it's hard. It's like hard work. Day in, day out sacrifice. Day in, day out just dying. There's time when you run and you just want to stop. You don't want to give up. To hell with this, I just want to go home. The day when you get up and you know what, you have a training today. You know it's going to be intense and you're like, oh God, I don't want to go today. But you got to go. And it's so hard and a lot of people don't know. I have given every single thing, every ounce of my life to this craft. They're perfecting my craft and I continue to do so. And in the process, I have lost my mind. But in a good way, to regular society, to people who wake up at 9 a.m., who clock out at 5 p.m., they would look at me and say, I've lost my mind. But me, I have found it almost. Obsession is going to be talent every time. You got all the talent in the world, but are you obsessed? Is it all you ever think about? There is no second place. For me, it ended up becoming preparation. Preparation is everything. If you're not prepared, then you're going to get second or you're going to get third or you're going to get last. Because there's always somebody that is overly prepared or more prepared than you are, no matter what. So for me, I just became that person. There wasn't a single person on this planet during those 20 years, pretty much of my career. But there wasn't another person on this planet that was more prepared than me. Not, period. There wasn't. It's through this pain barrier, experiencing pain in your muscles and aching and just then go on and go on and go on. And this last two or three or four repetitions, that's what makes actually the muscle then grow. And that divides them, one from a champion and one from not being a champion. If you can go through this pain barrier, you make it to be a champion. If you can't go through, forget it. And that's what most people lack, is having the guts. The guts to go in and just say, I go through and I don't care what happens. But being a champion is not just receiving a lot of money or receiving a belt. I'm out there at four or five in the morning, chopping trees, working. To this day, but I got the will to win. The thing that they all have, all the great ones have, they have this unstoppable belief in themselves. My mentality was to go out and win at any cost. If you don't want to live that regimented mentality, then you don't need to be alongside of me. Because I'm going to ridicule you until you get on the same level with me. And if you don't get on the same level, then it's going to be hell for you. Because in the heat of the battle, when it comes time for us to go head to head, you're going to gas before me. I really believe that. If I take my body through hell, you know, and I'm tired and I'm aching, I'm in pain and I got all these pains. And I'm working through that. What can you possibly do to me to stop me from doing whatever I want with you? You know, I've already been through the fire. In my mind, you better keep going. Ain't no stopping. It determines when it's up for you. When we say this cannot be accomplished, this cannot be done, then we are shortchanging ourselves. My brain cannot, it cannot process failure. It will not process failure. If I sit there and have to face myself and tell myself, you're a failure, that's almost worse than death. And just continue to keep your head up, continue to march on ahead towards your dream. And never lose inside now. I think that's definitely for sure the most difficult thing is keeping your goal and your eyes set on that. And not being distracted. Not giving up. I think the easiest thing in life is to give up on whatever you're focused on or whatever you're hopeful for. The hardest thing is to continue to keep going. But we have to. We have to continue to hold on. And I would imagine for so many people out there, that is probably the most difficult thing. The pain and suffering, you need that. Like a wine, grapes need to be crushed. We need to be crushed. You see what I'm saying, brother? We need to be crushed before we can be who we need to be. You are not ready. Like everyone else. You want to learn the way to win. But never to accept the way to lose. I've been crushed. You know, my older brother was shot and murdered. I've been crushed. My other brother died from cancer. You know, I've been crushed. My mom gone, 19 years old. Two years before I even turned pro. She never lived to see any of this. I've been crushed. My father's funeral was the first one I went to. He died in two weeks. I've been crushed. Never had a Christmas tree. Never saw Thanksgiving. I've been on the road, in hotel rooms by myself for 15, 20, 30, 40 years. Seeking an Olympic trophy. Wanted to be Mr. Olympia. I've been crushed because I haven't won ever the Mr. Olympia. Won everything in the world, but you go back and you get second, you get second. You feel like they're just giving you bones and everything. I've been crushed, right? Because I've been crushing myself. Chasing that. But God said, I've been preparing you for a greater purpose than what you wanted. You see? And we can't see it when we're in that crushing phase. And it takes time for us to get to that, that fine wine, brother. You know? So it's when we hold on through the crushing, we find that purpose. To accept defeat, to learn to die, is to be liberated from it. So when tomorrow comes, you must free your ambitious mind and learn the art of dying. Basically, you know what I mean? Those things happen in life. You lose fights, you lose in life, you lose someone you love. But, you know what I mean? It's the person that comes back from that. The man's not thought of greatness because how many times he's raised in victory. It's quoted. It's how many times he brings himself up from the brink of destruction. Because anybody can win. I mean, anybody can win. It's like when you lose, guys go broke and they come back. You know what I mean? It's just, like I say, it's a domino theory. You come down, you go down. You don't lose and then everything goes down. And once you have it, guys, let's jump to it. That right there is supposed to ******* happen. I had all this pent up frustration that I just needed to let out. It was an avalanche, man. And, you know, there was nothing that was going to get in the way. There was nothing that was going to stop me. Because without that kind of abuse on you, you will not become the battle-tested, proven champion that holds the title, has the value of the title. There's so many forms. The scars make the man. There's some things that I can't get over and I'll always be scared of. Both fear and faith demand you to believe in something that you never saw. Like, I'm never so confident I'm going to win. It's probably the fact that I'm scared to fail. And then I realized that, man, I need to make peace with it and there is no shame to admit that you're afraid. Because there is no courage without fear. And when I made peace with that, it changes everything in my life. People say it's like 90% mental, 10% physical. I just think it's 100%, man. I think everything is an illusion, you know. The mind is what creates these things, you know. So when I'm faced with a challenge, I just embrace it. And what can one man do except give his best? If you fail, you try again. If you win, you try again and get better. To me, a fight is not a fight until there's resistance. Until there's something to overcome. And then you, uh, you continue to put one foot in front of the other. But it's not work, it's love. Because what you're going for is what you believe. It's the battle that's going on within me that I'm carrying with me to these competitions. So it's not about you. It's not about anybody else. You're not making me go. I'm driving this thing, man. And you just so happen to be a person that's, that may get demolished in the process. You are not in a fight. I, I, look, I admit it. I equate life to a fight. I do. You're not in a fight until there's pressure. Resistance. Overcoming something. Now you're gonna have to go through hell worse than any nightmare that you ever dreamed. But in the end, I know you'll be the one standing. Some of the best athletes, the greatest athletes in the world do things when they're uncomfortable. But it's the best people who can overcome when they're tired, sore, not in the best mindset. Can push all the pain aside. That's the one thing that separates the good from the greatest. You know, **** your tired body. **** that unmotivated mind. And get out there and do it anyway. You know, you better fight yourself because you're not only winning when things are going your way. You gotta figure out how to win when things aren't going your way. You gotta figure out when your body's fighting you, when your mind's fighting you, how do you still, you know, just say, I'm gonna beat my mind today. Or do you just give in to your mind and say, oh, I'm tired today, I'm lazy, I don't wanna do it, it's too hard, no one else is doing it, it's a weekend, it's too late, these are already off hours. Oh, exactly what I want isn't happening right now. Like, okay, great. You know who that's great for? Your competition. But I'm bound to live up to the light that I have. So what would you say the biggest deception was? What was the biggest lie you were told? It's not that simple. No, that's the biggest lie I was ever told. It's not that simple. And it's a lie they tell you over and over again. It's how they get you to give up. So what's the truth? That it is. That if you just do the thing that they tell you, you can't, then it's done. And you realise it is that simple. That it always was.