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Rich Franklin: How to be a champion in life

Three-time Middleweight World Champion in mixed martial arts and ONE Fighting Championship‘s Vice President, Rich Franklin shares important lessons on how to be a champion in life, and not just within the sport. Here are five tips from the man himself:

1) Don’t confuse goals with motivation

Know the difference between your goals and your motivation – any confusion about this will lead to failure. Of course, just like any athlete, Rich’s goal was to have his hand raised and a world championship belt being strapped around the waist. However, that one material object (a medal, belt or trophy) and a single moment of time (the moment you won) will not be enough to carry you through all the painful times to get to your goal.

So, while winning that gold medal is your goal, it should not be your motivation. It will not be enough to motivate you through the early morning workouts, the extra sets of workouts, the strict diet or the disciplined lifestyle you have to take. Instead, Rich said, “Your goal is a by-product of your motivation.” Yes, winning the belt was his goal but it was not his motivation. He added “A goal is what you will earn, while motivation is why you do what you do.

Therefore, focus on why you do what you do, instead of what you will achieve. Passion is the best motivation.

2) Know how to use setbacks to help you move forward productively

Defeat is something we can’t avoid. Not every athlete can remain undefeated forever, but you can learn how to deal with loss and use it effectively. Rich gave a talk called “How To Be A Loser” and you can watch it here.

3) Smart work beats hard work

This is not new – you would have heard this at least once in your life; to work smart and not work hard! But do we know how to do that?

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, said, “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I would spend six of them sharpening my axe.” In that same respect, work smart by practising correctly and not simply practising. In short, perfect practice makes perfect  – it’s NOT simply practice makes perfect.

Rich spends about 20 to 22 hours a week in the gym when he is preparing for a fight – this time is used for conditioning, sparring, drilling and working techniques. It does not include sauna stretching, ice baths or any other complementary fight preparation. Over the 10 weeks leading up to the fight, he would have spent 200 to 220 hours. That means, he spends about eight hours training for each minute he fights in the cage (assuming he goes the full five championship rounds of five minutes). Would you spend 80 hours working on a presentation of just 10 minutes? I hardly think so.

After a defeat, athletes commonly say, “I will work harder and get the win on my next fight.” However, going back to the gym to ‘work harder’ will only yield similar results. It’s not about working harder, it’s about working smarter.

4) Practise consistency.

Look to the person on your left, then to your right and ask yourself, what makes you different from them? Why are you more qualified than your colleague? How do you make the effort to stay ahead of your competition? There are seven billion people on this planet, but only one can win the gold medal at that particular event at that particular time. What separates that person from the rest of the world?

When a champion is training, so is his opponent. When a champion take steps to follow a strict lifestyle, so does his opponent.

How do you then look for that edge? For example, the top three winners of this year’s Men’s 500m Olympic speed skating were separated by 1/100 of a second [Michel Mulder (69.31 seconds), Jan Smeekens (69.32 seconds) and Ronald Mulder (69.46 seconds)]. It’s just like Formula One where the top 10 qualifiers are all within less than one second from the pole position time.

This is where consistency comes in.

The champion understands the importance of consistency. He will not cut any slack, he will not allow his guard down at all, he will not talk himself out of the extra set even though he feels like dying. The champion understands there are few differences between him and the competition, but victory is gained not only at the competition itself, but also over time with all the daily victories of personal sacrifice.

Consistency is what separates the champion from every other person who tries to achieve greatness with mediocre methods. The champion will not allow anything mediocre!

5) Learn to be selfish

Most of us live in a world with heavy workloads, hectic schedules and never-ending things to do. The busier we get, the harder it becomes to make time for ourselves and our health. That’s where our sleep routines suffer, we become more stressed and we turn to the convenience of fast food.

Maintaining proper sleep, dealing with your stress properly and keeping to a consistent nutrition programme is a lifestyle which needs you to make yourself a priority, simply because those around you will only benefit from the best you that you can be. So go on and learn to be selfish!

*These were first published on Rich Franklin’s bi-weekly columns on Yahoo! Sports Singapore.