Fight to win: How battles can bring out the true strength of one's character

During my programs, I ask participants, “How many agree that every success or failure story has people behind it?” My second question is, “How many agree that our people are our biggest assets?” Invariably and unanimously, the answer is “Yes”. My response is, “That’s an incorrect answer." People are not assets; only good people are assets, and the rest are all liabilities. Goodness needs to be created everywhere in the world; evil just happens. This is nature’s law. Just like farmers, if they want to have a good garden, they must consciously plant good seeds of flowers and fruits. But for weeds, you don’t have to plant them. They keep coming to destroy the hard work. After the farmer has planted good seeds, there is a whole army of insects and weeds to destroy his hard work. Now he has a choice: either get destroyed or destroy them. They cannot both live together. He has to fight, and fighting is another law of nature. In our body, we have white blood cells and red blood cells. What is the function of white blood cells? It is to fight infections. Every day, our body releases millions of cancer cells and immunity cells. Whichever is stronger lives and prevails. Our body is constantly fighting.  

According to an ancient tale, once an old Indian chief was teaching his grandson, imparting wisdom about the constant battle being waged within us—between the two wolves inside each one of us. One is evil, and the other is good. The evil one is greedy, arrogant, selfish, crooked, and egoistic. The good one is peaceful, calm, happy, gracious, generous, honest, and compassionate. The grandson was confused, and he asked, “Which wolf will win?" The grandfather replied, “Son, you have a choice. Which one wins will depend on which one you feed the most”. 

The worst kinds of battles that ever take place are those that take place within a person. To win these battles, we need to know who the real enemy is. Only once you strike the real enemy can you overcome your internal battles.  

When you want to run away from your problems, you take a vacation; but if you don’t know how to get rid of them, you take them along with you on your vacation, carrying all that turmoil inside. 

Since fighting is nature’s law, not fighting is never an option. We fight not for the sake of fighting; our objective is to fight to win. In order to win, we must be strong. Great leaders are not neutral; they either take a stand for or against something. If they are neutral, they are mere politicians. 

Now we need to be strong in the following areas: 

1)      Physically  

Physical strength gives us energy, strength, and sustenance to move forward. If we are not physically strong, it impacts our decision-making process. When a person is physically weak, the kind of decisions that they end up making are probably never the ones they would make if they were physically strong. If you have all the wealth in the world, but no good health, what good is it?  

2)      Mentally 

Mental toughness is a prerequisite for success. Have you ever seen a success story where mental toughness was missing? Probably not. Mental strength gives us the ability to bounce back. Success is not measured by how far you go in life but by how many times you bounce back when you fall down. The legendary martial artist Bruce Lee was shorter in one leg than his other leg by one inch. His eyesight was -10; he could not see his opponent without lenses. Bruce Lee practiced 5,000 punches per day.  Bruce Lee said, “I am not afraid of a person who knows 10,000 ways how to kick, but I am afraid of a person who knows only one way but has practiced it 10,000 times."  

Michael Phelps created history in Beijing in 2008. What most people don’t know is that he fractured his hand two years prior to the Olympics, and the doctor told him, “You cannot get into the water anymore." Michael Phelps had been preparing for this event for a decade and could not bear to see his lifelong dream shattered. Against the advice of his doctor, he continued to practice. Two years later, he created history and won eight gold medals. As someone once said, “Dreams are not what comes to you in your sleep; dreams are those which don’t let you sleep.” Somebody told Phelps, “It must be your lucky day; you won 8 gold medals.” Michael Phelps didn’t like it, saying, “You come here, and I will tell you how lucky I have gotten. In the last 4 years, I have trained for 10,000 hours. If you are good at math, it translates into 2500 hours per year. If you are good at calculus, it translates to 8 hours per day and no Sundays. You go sit in the water for 8 hours per day, every day for 4 years, your body will shiver. And you ask if I got lucky. Luck is not designed to deliver these things to you in life. Too many crackpots keep waiting for jackpots.” 

Athletes train for 15 years for 15 seconds of performance; go ask them if they got lucky. 

During Steve Jobs’s speech at Stanford, his first sentence was, “I came to this world unwanted." The day he was born, he was put up for adoption. 

The reason I share these examples is that they all had problems, many of them much bigger than what you and I are facing today. Could they have overcome the problems without mental strength? The answer is no. Mental strength is like our mobile battery, it needs to be recharged again and again; otherwise, it depletes. 

3)      Emotionally 

Emotional strength brings stability. Without emotional strength, people become unpredictable and imbalanced, and you cannot trust such people. They become moody, whimsical people. The same person is sugar and honey to you today, and the same person will catch your throat tomorrow. If there is no trust, there is no relationship. Emotionally bankrupt people are cold and lack empathy; all interaction with them is merely on the surface. If you want to achieve new heights, you must have a depth of character.  Without emotional strength, people get into conflicts over petty things. Conflicts are natural, but people with emotional strength learn to resolve conflicts rather than dissolve relationships. 

4)      Financially 

During our leadership program, we do talk about financial independence. Sometimes, people tell me, “Mr. Khera, you do talk about money, but money is not important." And my answer to them always remains, “The people who say that money is not important are either stupid or are billionaires.” I am not saying that money is the most important thing, but it is very important. I hear people say that money is the root of all evil. This is the most absurd statement, in my opinion. Money is not the root of all evil; it is the “love of money” that is the root. You have got it wrong if you believe in “loving money, using people.” You must believe in “using money, loving people.” That is the way it should be.  

Unfortunately, in the pursuit of money, we miss out on things that money just cannot buy. I am convinced about one thing in my life, money is wonderful. Hence, it is the moral duty of every good person, to become a multi-millionaire and billionaire. Why? Because money in good hands always does good, money in evil hands will always do evil. 

5)      Spiritually strong 

Spiritual strength is the moral compass that keeps us on track and distinguishes between good and bad or right and wrong. There is something called right and wrong, unlike people who say nothing is right or wrong. Our thinking makes it so. If everything is subjective and there are no rights and wrongs, then every criminal in this world should be released. Who says they are wrong? They didn’t think so. Go keep arguing. If everything is subjective, and there are no rights and wrongs then Hitler was not wrong. Who says he was wrong? He didn’t think so. Go keep arguing.  When we talk of values, we always talk of universal and eternal values. Universal means they cross country, cross culture, and cross religion. Eternal means, they were here before we came and they will be here after we are gone. It is the spiritual strength that helps us establish universal benchmarks on values and ethics. Spirituality is defined as something that makes you feel good or that lifts your spirits. You keep hearing people “Do what feels good!”. 

I come from the old school of thought, which states that, “feeling good is the natural outcome of doing good”. How can you feel good when you don’t do good? Hence, doing good is a natural outcome of feeling good. 

None of us are born with the above strengths, they are acquired. To acquire the above strengths, you need discipline. Can a person be a good doctor or athlete without discipline? The answer is “No.” Through discipline, you become strong and win. 

Views are personal. Shiv Khera is an author, activist and motivational speaker.