How Do You Define Success and Greatness?

Some people say that life is just like a fight.

I agree.

Think about it.

We’re all trying to win at this thing called life. We’re all trying to do our best, exert our influence, and come out on top. Some days we get knocked down, but we get back up and keep fighting.

And at the end of it all, we look back and hope that we did OK.

Just like a fight.

I’ve always believed that there’s a lot to learn about ourselves, about people in general, and about life as a whole from competitive sports.

And especially so from combat sports.

Because in combat sports, alongside the usual huge cost of preparing for competition, the jubilant rewards of success, and the crippling devastation of failure, there’s also the ever-present risk to life and limb.

So the stakes are so much higher. And the lessons are harder-learned.

If competition sports are a great teacher about life, competition combat sports are that teacher on steroids.

I also think that there’s a lot to be gained from watching sports, and not just from competing.

Watching great athletes do their thing can be both motivating and inspiring. And we can learn a lot about navigating life more successfully, and about achieving more, by watching them and trying to apply their courage, dedication, and determination in our own life in various ways.

Maybe that’s why so many of us find role models and heroes among professional athletes.

But I’ve noticed over the years that there’s a problem with this.

Well, not so much a problem, but something that I find a lot of people miss.

Something very important.

Allow me to explain . . .

If you were to ask a group of people who they thought the best tennis player of all time was, you’d probably find many people mentioning players like Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, or Rafael Nadal.

The best boxer of all time? Maybe Muhammad Ali, Rocky Marciano, or Mike Tyson.

How about the best bodybuilder ever? Most likely Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronnie Coleman, or Dorian Yates.

So naturally, these names would figure most prominently in a list of people’s sporting heroes and role models.

And it makes sense. People are most inspired by the greats. The biggest names.

The greater and more successful the athlete, the more they’re going to inspire people.

And the more people they’re going to inspire.

All of the athletes I’ve just mentioned were revered by thousands, sometimes even millions, of fans during their reign. And even to this day.

Now, I’m not in any way suggesting that this isn’t deserved. But one thing that I’ve come to understand over the years is that there’s far more to what makes a champion, a great athlete, or a great anything for that matter, than their record on paper.

There are two things, in fact.

The first is the context of their achievements.

What did they have to overcome – what struggles, obstacles, setbacks and disadvantages, to achieve their results?

How hard did they have to work for it?

How many times were they beaten but kept going and refused to give up?

How unlikely were they to succeed?

These things don’t appear on someone’s list of achievements – on their professional record. But it’s the very thing that inspires people.

This is where the real achievement lies. Not in the final results, but in what it took to attain those results.

The second thing is how the person carries himself or herself.

Do they act like a champion? Do they treat their opponents and fans with respect? Are they humble in victory and gracious in defeat? Do they live with honour and integrity?

Finding role models among athletes or anyone else, or looking up to someone, based purely upon their record of achievement or their popularity is fine. But it’s missing the most important part of the equation.

In my opinion, it’s the lazy way.

There’s so much more to defining true greatness than this, whether it’s in sports or in any area of life.

This entire philosophy was highlighted to me once again a while back when I was watching a podcast featuring boxing trainer and commentator, Teddy Atlas. During the podcast, Atlas stated that he didn’t consider Mike Tyson to ever have been a great fighter.

Mike Tyson is widely regarded, however, as one of the greatest and most feared heavyweight boxers of all time. He was the undisputed world heavyweight champion from 1987 to 1990, and won his first 19 professional fights by knockout, 12 of them in the first round.

He was ranked number one on ESPN’s list of “The Hardest Hitters in Heavyweight History”, and Sky Sports described him as “perhaps the most ferocious fighter to step into a professional ring”.

Teddy Atlas’s comments, therefore, no doubt raised some eyebrows among not only fans of Mike Tyson, but boxing fans in general.

His reasoning, however, came from looking beyond Tyson’s record to the context behind it. Something that most fans of course neglect to do.

The following video is one I’ve edited together to summarise Atlas’s most important points during the podcast. Even if you’re not really a boxing fan (like myself) I believe it’s well worth watching for its thoughtful insights.

According to Atlas, the majority of Tyson’s impressive fight record was purely due to his freakish athletic ability, which simply overwhelmed the majority of his opponents.

So it was that natural talent that led him to being considered one of the greatest fighters of all time in the eyes of many.

On the handful of occasions in his career, however, when Tyson was truly tested and called upon to exhibit the qualities that a make real champion – heart, courage, tenacity, warrior spirit, and so on, he failed.

Atlas concludes that Tyson was only truly in a fight on those few occasions, and he failed each and every time. And it’s for that reason that, in his opinion, Mike Tyson was never great.

Teddy Atlas goes further during the podcast to discuss how Tyson’s poor character was the driving factor behind his lack of self-belief, and therefore his inability to rise to the occasion when faced by a truly great fighter.

As I mentioned, Atlas’s words during this podcast are very deep and insightful. He’s clearly someone who has learned a lot about the nature of people and life through a lifetime of being involved with boxing at the highest levels.

So many times someone will be a fan or a supporter of an athlete or a sporting team for no other reason than they’re good at what they do. And they just like them. Simple as that.

As I said, that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that.

But there’s actually very little to be gained from this kind of superficial connection. This is how idols may be made, but not role models.

For someone to be a role model, they have to represent something much deeper. Role models aren’t just achievers, but also teachers.

They teach by example.

Throughout the years of following MMA as a fan, I’ve found myself gravitating more and more towards the role models of the sport. And these aren’t always the champions and the fighters considered to be the greats based on their records.

That’s why I could relate so closely with what Teddy Atlas was talking about during this podcast.

Some of you may know that Gloria is a former competitive Figure athlete. She competed in bodybuilding contests from 2011 to 2017.

Since I was Gloria’s trainer and had the opportunity to attend each of her contests, I was lucky enough to learn a lot about those competition athletes through the experience – their character, their psychology, and their motivations.

One statement that I occasionally heard from casual observers of the sport was, “Why would you do all that just for a plastic trophy?”

Of course, to anyone actually involved in the sport, or most likely any competitive sport, that question is complete nonsense.

No one makes that kind of sacrifice and puts in that insane about of work just for a trophy.

The reality is, each athlete has their own personal, deep-seeded reason for doing what they do. Their own motivations.

And they all experience their rewards in different ways.

That’s another example of why the end result doesn’t always paint the whole picture of what success is about.

Take Gloria’s case, for example.

During her time, she competed in a total of 17 contests, and achieved a placing on 4 occasions.

Not a bad result, but not fantastic.

But now look at the context behind that achievement. Gloria started weight training late in life. She didn’t come from a sporting or athletic background. As a matter of fact, she struggled with her weight for most of her life.

When she discovered that she actually enjoyed working hard in the gym with heavy weights, she decided she wanted to test herself. But not just against anyone, against the very best.

So as somewhat of a novice to weight training, and standing at just 147cm (4’10”) tall, she signed up to compete in bodybuilding contests as a Figure athlete with the IFBB.

The IFBB is considered to be the biggest and very best bodybuilding organisation in the world. They’re the organisers behind the annual Mr. Olympia competition, which each year crowns the top male and female bodybuilders the sport has to offer.

One of the factors that contributes to the IFFB’s elite level of athletes is the fact that, while steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) technically aren’t allowed, their athletes are not tested to verify compliance.

So what that means is that in reality, virtually all of their athletes are in fact, enhanced with steroids.

In Gloria’s case, because she chose to compete in this organisation as a natural (non steroid or drug-enhanced) athlete, it meant that she knowingly did so at a huge disadvantage.

It meant that she would be competing against seasoned athletes with many years of muscular development behind them, enhanced with steroids, whose training was assisted with other PEDs, many of them standing up to 30 centimetres (12 inches) taller than her.

It also meant that Gloria needed to outwork them all to even have a chance.

While many of her competitors had the option of backing off, or even taking a break, from training between contest seasons, Gloria couldn’t afford to do so as a natural athlete.

Because muscular development is so painfully slow and difficult for a natural female athlete, as is losing body fat, missing even one training session was never an option for her. Nor was allowing her body fat level to climb too high.

This therefore required a whole other level of discipline.

In contrast, Gloria’s enhanced competitors always had the option of leveraging steroids to boost their physique and drugs to rapidly shred body fat in preparation for a contest. This accounts for the often dramatic difference in their appearance between contest seasons and off-seasons.

In this context, Gloria’s achievement of 4 placings in 17 contests is seen in a much different light.

If her goal had been to score as many wins as possible, the obvious option would have been for her to complete in a natural bodybuilding organisation – one in which the athletes are tested for steroid and drug use. This would have given her a much fairer, level playing field.

But as I mentioned, that wasn’t Gloria’s motivation. It was to test herself against the very best, which she did.

When I first became interested in Figure competitions as a fan and trainer, like most people, I had my favourite pro athletes that I looked up to. Back then, they were Erin Stern, Nicole Wilkins, Candice Keene, Candice Lewis, and Ava Cowan.

These were huge names at the time, and represented the pinnacle of the division worldwide.

But as my involvement grew, I gradually learned to view success and achievement in a very different light. It became less of “Who’s the best?” and more of “Who’s overcome the most?”

Who’s defied the toughest odds?

Who’s done something they weren’t supposed to be able to do?

We all love a good underdog story. It’s inspiring.

As Gloria’s trainer and best friend, I could of course be accused of being biased, however I quickly found far more inspiration from her seemingly unremarkable achievements than I did from the heroes of the sport I listed above.

But I know I wasn’t alone.

On several occasions during Gloria’s competitions I got to see fans approaching her to let her know how much she inspired them. That was always really cool to see.

Two instances in particular stand out in my mind.

The first was when we were leaving a show at Fox Studios in Moore Park, Sydney. Although we didn’t achieve a placing on that occasion, a young lady stopped Gloria and showered her with praise for the inspiration she was to her. The girl’s boyfriend and I stood by, smiling awkwardly while the ladies had their moment fan-girling.

Again, it was very cool to experience.

The second time was at a competition in Nowra, on the NSW South Coast. Gloria happened to win second place on that occasion, however during the course of the event she was approached by a woman backstage who asked to take a photo together.

The photo was for the woman’s daughter, who was very inspired by Gloria but wasn’t able to be at the event. I snapped a photo of the interaction between them on my phone, and it still stands as one of my favourite memories.

In any case, the purpose of this blog post hasn’t been to denigrate Mike Tyson, nor to hype up Gloria.

Rather, it’s simply to highlight a fresh perspective from which we can find inspiration in competitive arenas, or any area of life for that matter, and learn about the nature of being successful.

A perspective that differs from the superficial view of success that most of the world limits itself to.

I’ve personally been lucky enough to also be involved in a few other competitive endeavours throughout the years that I haven’t talked about here. And I’ve learned a lot from those as well.

Being involved in competition forces us to see first hand how there’s much more behind people and what they achieve than what lies on the surface of those achievements. More than what the rest of the world sees.

Even without the benefit of competition, however, we can learn the same lessons if we make the effort to look deeper.

Being a mother, for example, is a tough job. For anyone. And raising a child who’s decent, loving, well-adjusted, respectful, and hard-working is an amazing achievement. Any mother who manages this deserves praise.

But what if that mother is a single mother? What if she had to work two or three jobs and to sacrifice, just to make ends meet? What if she’s also a survivor of abuse, or a sufferer of mental illness?

Then her achievements would be all the more noteworthy. All the more impressive.

It’s never just the end result that matters. That’s never the whole story.

The journey behind that result is just as important, if not more so.

That’s something to think about.