Have you ever been really down? Whether it’s about money, a relationship, friends, or just not being able to reach your goals, sometimes you reach a real point where you just want to give up and stop trying. This is where Pat Berry comes in and reminds you to get up, fight hard, and keep going strong no matter what the opposition.
I’ve often said that to be in top shape, you need to eat right and train hard, and that’s correct. But what I haven’t spoken about a lot is being in peak shape mentally as well as physically, where you literally give something all you got like there’s no tomorrow. Sometimes, when you really reach a downer, that’s the time to give all your heart and soul into getting up again and making sure you don’t look back, and don’t hold back.
Pat Berry is the perfect example of this. I’m going to be honest, and I’m probably going to take a lot of flack for this, but I don’t much like the MMA. It reminds me too much of gladiator fighting, and in my personal opinion it’s just glorified cage fighting which shouldn’t be given the legitimacy it has been given. But this post isn’t about the MMA, it’s about Pat Berry and his personal story.
According to this article(where the quotes here are from, link is fixed), Before Pat Berry won his fight, he was about to get evicted from his apartment. He had no money, and lived on rice and ketchup the week before his fight.
He could have asked for money, but according to him, he didn’t because:
“I could ask someone but then at the same time, how hard are you going to work for something if everytime you get in trouble somebody catches you? I did something to put myself in this position I have to work my way out of it.”
I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with his take on things, but there’s definitely something to be said that sometimes you have to reach rock bottom in order to get up and start winning again.
Here’s more about Pat Berry’s story, after he received $120,000 for winning the fight:
“I go to the bank, I’m sweaty, I’ve got the black eye, I haven’t shaven in two days, I’m strung out because I haven’t slept, I have green circles under my eyes so I’m like ‘Can I have a deposit slip mam?’. She gives it to me, I fill it out hand it to her. She looks at the deposit slip, then the check, then looks at me and says ‘Excuse me I’ll be right back.’ Then a manager comes out, a guy in a suit and says ‘What seems to be the problem?’ I was like ‘Well I have a black eye, that’s the only problem I know this looks really ridiculous.’ So he asks me for my ID, I hand him my license an he’s like ‘Your license says Pat Barry, but this check was written to Patrick Barry.’ So I decided to be funny and tell him Pat Barry is in my trunk right now. He didnt laugh. So I told him take your time man do whatever you need to do because I have no where to go and my truck probably wont start when I go outside so you can just do whatever you need to do. An hour later he came back and everything was fine, the check was in my bank account.”
This is a great story about working hard and giving your all to turn your situation around. Whether it’s losing weight, making a special unit, or changing your situation, decide now that you will achieve that goal, formulate a plan, and then go at it with everything you’ve got. The only person who can truly hold you back is yourself.
Rafi Bar-Lev is a former combat-medic and the founder of Passionate Fitness.
Follow him on twitter.
