Got Fight?: The 50 Zen Principles of Hand-to-Face Combat by Forrest Griffin

Mental toughness is an asset for all of us in every situation, especially in cases where competition is tough and winners take all such as business, sales, entrepreneurship, athletic events, and tournaments. Apart from being mentally stronger you ought to be able to project that image into others so that they do know that you are a person with clear red lines and distinct rules and that challenging you will have consequences. 

Displaying a willingness to embrace pain will project that image and encourage others not to challenge you since they know that when it comes to protecting your territory or defending your values you are willing to go places where they are not. In other words, your willingness to rock the boat, demonstrate your dissatisfaction openly, or walking away in cases where doing so would not be in your best interest but you do so for the sake of demonstrating your willingness to embrace pain to protect your values and rules will make others think twice before attempting to challenge you again. 

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Being emotionally strong is also about not being afraid of biting more than you can chew but to do so you need work hard to develop your skills because you need to get good if you want to take on challenges that at first you are not fit to take on. Winning in life and business requires you to also observe your opponents, particularly their weaknesses, and then make those weaknesses your strengths. So for instance in business, if your competition is superior in quality but also more expensive, you try to focus on pricing and make your product or service much more affordable, or in politics if your opponent can gain more votes among the elite you need to focus on gaining the votes of the lower and middle class who are of lower overall education and wealth. 

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There is a time to be nice and cooperative and there is a time to be bent on viciously winning by willing to fight and do whatever it takes. Being nice and cooperative in a situation where you need to be combative and aggressive not only does not help you but could actually be the end of your success or even your life! At the same time you should never underestimate your opponents you are trying to gain victory over no matter how much better you think you are, this will compel you to remain humble and constantly work on getting better and avoid complacency. When engaged with fierce competition in any area of life you must avoid overthinking since doing so would lead to paralysis by analysis and you getting in your own way. All competitions or fights in life and business will inevitably arouse a lot of negative emotions which is why in such cases actually doing less thinking and relying more on using your strengths and experience will be far better. 

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The most important element of being able to last in competitive situations or fights, be it in business, politics, or personal life, is your ability to implement compartmentalization, meaning that you will have specific mental spaces for specific things, so for example, you will not take your standoff with the clients or business partners to your home, or anytime you enter the gym your mind is free of the competition. By being able to have locations or activities in your life that are associated with peace you will be able to last much longer in all stand offs or tolerate inevitable defeats than your opponent who might take that fight, competition, or losses too personally wherever they go. 

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Dan’s Action Plans

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– Everyone who knows you, whether they are on your side or on the other side, your friend or foe, partner or competitor, they all should know that if push comes to shove you are willing to rock the boat and go places where they are not willing to go be it to negotiate more aggressively, end a relationship that is valuable, walking away, or even starting a war if that is what it takes to contain their other side. 

– Winning in life is more often a result of offense rather than defense which is why you need to focus on developing your strengths instead of fixing your weaknesses and then use your strengths against the weaknesses of your competition. 

– The ability to distance yourself emotionally from all confrontations, competitions, and losses is the key to winning in life, most people avoid those negative emotions by avoiding confrontations, competitions, or loses which is why they cannot win. So instead of avoiding these situations that demand courage learn to distance yourself emotionally from them when you are away from the scene of action.