This week’s future shock is about having the right attitude to succeed in the ring, and in the locker room.
Writing these columns always shows me how much material I would have to write a book with. I could certainly churn out an interesting set of stories, on the theme of my career, and the things I have seen and done, and had done to me, during the years I have been wrestling. The names, the places, the opportunities, the disasters, the rewards… they’d make quite a read.
I owe much of what I have achieved to my outlook, or my attitude if you will. And, as a coach in 2003, I made the teaching of correct attitude a priority with my students. I know that some of them took what I said to heart, I know that others didn’t get what I was trying to teach. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not perfect, but the right method of thinking is an important tool to have.
Attitude, as much, if not more than ability, will guide you through the rewards and disaster that will almost certainly walk hand in hand with a career in wrestling. It’s not what you face that’s important, but rather how you face it.
Too many “wannabe” wrestlers walk into a school for the first time with an attitude. They think they know it all because they’ve seen it on TV. Others have done a little training here and there, and think that they can breeze into a new school and not have to do the warm up. It’s all part of their attitude, their outlook, and trust me, if you have the wrong outlook, you’re not getting anywhere.
And what gives you the right to an attitude anyway? I met the Rock several times in the last couple of years in the US and in the UK. He was nothing but well -mannered, professional, and polite.
What gives you the right to walk around like your God’s gift to wrestling, when one of wrestling biggest superstars of all time does not? Nothing gives you that right.
Let me give you some examples. I remember asking a wrestler, who will remain nameless, for some wrestling advice on the show I made my debut on. He didn’t give me the time of day because he thought he was above me. What happened to him? I hear you ask. Nothing happened to him, he’s made a pigs’ ear of his wrestling career, and I dare say his attitude lead him to it. I know of a promoter who once joked I was not important enough to share a locker room with the “stars” as I laced my boots. Years later I shared a locker room with some of wrestling’s real “stars” and they were humble, and inspirational and were more than welcoming. I don’t miss the old locker room that’s for sure.
It’s this simple, be careful whom you spit on as you climb the ladder, because when you come back down, anger awaits. If your good to people throughout your career, you can climb and descend at will. If you want to talk trash on your first wrestling session, you better be the next big thing or your gone.
I’ve been around for a few years now. In some circle’s I’m respected for what I have achieved. That doesn’t make me even half a “star”. I never stop learning because, no matter what I have achieved, it pails in comparison to the boasts of others. That’s an important thing to recognise. Over the course of the last few months I have been going back to my routes as far as wrestling goes. I have been in the gym more than ever before, and have devoted more thinking time to improving my game than I have ventured to, in years. This is because the attitude has to be right. More on this in the next Future Shock.
Scott Future