Lessons From the Undisputed ERA
I wrote a while ago about memories that conveyed my love for professional wrestling.
In 2019 I drove over 1400 miles to see the Undisputed ERA wrestle at several events, and there were even more that I was unable to attend.
Wrestling is special, and the past year has only led to me appreciating those memories even more.
On several occasions, whether it’s on the streets of NYC or in the local Target, I’d be wearing an Undisputed ERA shirt and strangers have greeted me with “Adam Cole!” Obviously, the only way to respond is with “BayBay!”
These guys have provided me, and thousands more people, with a shared communal experience.
Those communal experiences were lacking in 2020.
At no point in 2020 was I afforded the opportunity to be an hour late to my girlfriend’s birthday party because I was waiting in line to see Roderick Strong at WrestleMania Axxess. Nor was I able to drive from NY to Toronto and back within 48 hours to see Adam Cole defend the NXT Championship.
However, there are still important lessons to be learned.
The path to greatness in wrestling is slightly different than other sports. If you make your opponent look really good in football, odds are you’re doing something wrong.
The opposite is true for wrestling. The Undisputed ERA regularly allows their opponent to shine while still defeating them in the process. I’m reminded of this quote from Simon Sinek, “When you compete against everyone else, no one wants to help you. But when you compete against yourself, everyone wants to help you.”
This transcends sports.
It’s also a reminder that everyone is their own brand. We all can reach a global audience with unprecedented ease, and you can find a plethora of people building in public.
Here’s a commonality between wrestling and football: fractal patterns.
Recently I wrote this about fractal habits:
Our habits are mostly hidden from us. Often, we’re not quite sure how we developed any given habit. We’d also be hard pressed to list all of the habits we have. As Warren Buffett said, “most behaviors are habitual. The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
On the Tim Ferriss podcast, Gary Keller described an interesting view. He believes that most people simply accrue habits instead of forming good ones. We have to develop big, scalable habits in order to implement our plans. That is, if we’re thinking big.
I’ve seen this firsthand in both wrestling and football. In football, the best players are those whose efforts in the smallest of tasks are scalable to the biggest moments. Someone who performs at their best on the big stage is equally successful with their training, nutrition, studying, etc.
The same goes for wrestling. Whether they’re wrestling in the Saint Finbar Catholic Church Gym or Madison Square Garden, the Undisputed ERA are consistently excellent.
Hopefully the chance will come to see them wrestle again soon.