Eliot Marshall - The Gospel of Fire: Strategies for Facing Your Fears, Confronting Your Demons, and Finding Your Purpose

Life is about fighting. Youre going to have to fight every day of your life.

Renzo Gracie

What the fuck am I doing? I thought. This is brutal. Why am I doing this to myself? I paced the floor frantically, looking out of my hotel window and down onto the Las Vegas Strip. The glow. All the people partying. All their noisy exuberance, their funnone of which I was experiencing as I sat in my room, overcome with terror, and physically and mentally exhausted from an eight - week training camp. And now, from fight week, where Id intentionally been dehydrating myself to make weight.

I couldnt get my last fight out of my mind. Id mentally given up and I got my ass kicked. I took the beating, like youre supposed to when you fight in the UFC, and I went to the hospital after the match. For that fight, I hadnt had an eight - week camp to prepare; I had only ten days. It wasnt enough, and I was mentally checked out before I even stepped into the cage. It hurtin a lot of ways.

There, in that hotel room over the bright Vegas lights, I was terrified it would happen again. I knew I was fighting a competitor who was even better than my last opponent. I didnt know how Id react in that critical moment: Would I check out? Would he get the better of me? I moved throughout the room frantically, crying and scared shitless. My wife, Renee, tried to comfort me, but she couldnt console me. I knew I was worrying her; shed never seen me this way, and wed been through lots of fights.

Look, she said. Why dont you just go out there, get hit one time, and fall down. Be done. Youre already here. You get thirty grand to walk in the cage and take a jab. Youve done the work. Then lets go home.

Fuck it , I thought. Thats my plan .

I knew it meant Id be a mockery. I knew I might not even be able to do Jiu - Jitsu anymore, and Jiu - Jitsu wasand ismy life. I knew Id embarrass myself. I knew Id disappoint everyone who had come out of the woodwork, everyone who looked up to me as the guy who made it big as the best fighter to come out of our martial arts school, everyone who put me on this pedestal I wasnt even sure I wanted to be on.

Fighting was and is pressure, and it felt heavier than it ever had before. When the moment came to step into the cage, I had no expectation of winning. I did as planned: I took the jab to the face, but I only tripped backward. I didnt fall. Then I felt a switch go off in my brain.

There goes that idea , I thought. Lets fucking fight.

And fight I did. In fact, I had the fight of my life. After two rounds, it was pretty even and I went to my corner.

Well, Fire Marshall, said my coach, Greg Jackson, calling me by my nickname, you tell me what youve got left. Come on. You got anything for me? This could be it. It all comes down to this.

I felt an overwhelming calm come over mea strange sensation in such an intense moment. A moment when I was literally fighting for not only my livelihood but also my life.

I got off the stool and I beat the brakes off the guy. I didnt even know who I was. I dropped him with punches and broke his arm; he couldnt fight for eleven months. Somehow, in the decision, the judges said I lost, but I didnt give a shit. To me, Id won. With everything screaming at me to be a coward, to give in, to surrenderI didnt. Before that moment, Id felt like I was in a prison. Afterward, I was free.

You may feel like youre in your own prison, whether youre held down by your job, your family, your healthanything. Im not religious; I do, however, believe theres something greater than us and I believe in hell. Not the hell that comes after we die, thoughthe hell thats coming for us now. Today? Maybebut one thing is certain: at some point in your life, hell is going to come for you, and its going to be brought on by yourself. By your ego. By your thoughts. Whatever brings it on, just know that when it comes, youre going to have to fight. Grit your teeth, look it straight in the eye, and say, Not today. My coach asked me what I had left as I sat on that stool, and life is going to ask the same of you many times. I know it has of me.

I never had a ride off into the sunset moment in my life or in my fighting career. In the past, worry and anxiety have sapped the energy from everything as I fixated on the image of how tough I was supposed to be. The harder I held on to that ideal, the more it crumbled, and the harder hell came for me. I learned to look the devil straight in his eyes. I learned how to face him, and when you do that, he turns the other way and runs. I know because Ive been there.

I encourage you to go as deep into hell as you can. Thats the Gospel of Fire: walk into the base of the blaze, far below the licking red and orange flames, and into the deep blue. Find the source and face it. Life is tough, man. Just when you think you cant go anymore, go anyway. Im going to help you by telling you what my hell was like. Im going to show you how Im still scared of going back because Im a human being, but Im down to go again. Ill go there with you. Thats what we need in our lives: true connections with other people.