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Professor Don Richard & Myles Jury
Pursuing Your Dreams
By: Don Richard
I am Myles Jury’s long time Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and MMA coach from back in his home state of Michigan. I have fought, competed and trained with some of the best martial artists in the world, and have trained many talented and successful competitors in MMA, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai over the past 17 years.
Finding Your Path
My path to pursuing my dreams began at seven years old. I was invited to attend a wrestling club practice by one of the neighborhood kids. I would attend practices over the next few months and liked training a lot, but when it came time to compete in the tournaments, my parents could not afford the entry fee. Eventually, I started to lose interest mostly because my interest was not being supported at home. This experience did form a foundation that would guide me to where I am now.
A few years later our family moved to Flint, MI, and every day I had to walk right past the Flint Judo Karate and Aikido club on my way to and from school. Every day I would look at the class schedule and wish I could do classes. The year was 1984 and movies like the Karate Kid and Saturday’s Kung Fu theatre were really popular. Martial arts was everywhere on movies and TV shows. One day I just walked in as a 10 year old boy and signed up for a Judo class. I didn’t know what Judo was or anything but it was cool to me! Unfortunately these classes cost money and again there was no support from home and I wasn’t able to continue.
Fast forward a couple more years our family moved again to Davison, MI where I was now entering middle school. Wrestling was offered as a school sport, so of course I joined and fell quickly in love with wrestling and continued wrestling all the way through high school. I was never a great wrestler, but was pretty good and worked hard. I won many tournaments and all conference honors. After graduation, I still had a love for wrestling and volunteered to help coach the middle school team the next couple seasons. That’s when a small spark of what would become my dream and passion started to ignite. I started to realize I liked to teach! Until then, I never really knew what I wanted to do growing up and I didn’t go to college because I wasn’t sure of what I wanted to do.
I soon settled in to a blue collar life working construction jobs and as fate would have it, a minor accident at work set me on a path to success. I stepped on a rusty nail at work and when I went to the clinic to get a tetanus shot, I was 299 lbs when I stepped on the scale! I was always a pretty big guy but I had no idea I had gotten that out of shape. At this time, the UFC was starting to get big and a few of my buddies from high school and I would push the couches back so we could “UFC” in the living room. We were play fighting and I thought it would be really cool to learn this stuff for real. I found a school right in my town and saw a “Gracie Jiu Jitsu” sticker in the window. After my first class, I was hooked and really wanted to get good at this Jiu Jitsu stuff.
Jiu Jitsu was all pretty new to us in the US and there were very few qualified instructors, especially in Michigan. As I got deeper in to my training and started competing, I was immediately thrown to the wolves. My first competition ever was a grappling match with a UFC veteran and former college wrestler. Much to my own surprise, I held my own and nearly won the match. I started competing in as many tournaments as I could and eventually found myself competing in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). I quickly became a champion grappler, winning many tournaments and a regional title in MMA, all within my first two years of training. With the best training in my area and great training partners to push me, I excelled rather quickly. I found myself in a teaching role, in trade for my membership at the gym. That is when I really knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a Martial Arts Instructor!
I think it’s important that everyone finds what they are interested in and if you can make a living doing it, all the better. Ultimately, if you don’t love what you do, you’re probably going to be miserable. Teaching and martial arts is where I’m at my best. I am the happiest, on the mats with my students or out in the arena testing my skills. Find your skill, the arena to test yourself and perfect those skills.
Setting Goals
It is important in life and business, to set goals. There can be an overall goal and a series of smaller goals, that will help you achieve your main objective.
As a coach, I help my athletes set goals constantly. As an example, say I have a young guy that has never trained before, he wants to fight in MMA and make it to the UFC one day. Our goals might look something like this:
- Train hard for 6 months in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Wrestling and Muay Thai
- Start competing in Jiu Jitsu tournaments
- Take an amateur Muay Thai match
- More tournaments
- Another Muay Thai match or two
- After training for a year, competing in several grappling and Muay Thai matches, we take our first amateur MMA fight.
- Continue to gain experience
- Turn Pro
- Continue winning and improving
- Ultimate Fighter try out
- UFC
Within these bigger goals are many smaller goals, but its important to know where you want to go, with a plan of attack to get you there.
Obstacles
Nothing good ever comes easy. The path to living your dreams is littered with obstacles and distractions. Some peoples dreams fall in their lap, and some people never pursue their dreams out of fear of failure. There are many reasons people don’t follow their dreams, but for those that do, the road is rarely straight and smooth.
There are going to be many things to distract you from reaching your goals. When you are this motivated, it’s very hard to fail. If you are very set on your dreams, and you make sure that you can make an income along the way, you’ll be able to provide for your family. Some dreams take longer than others to achieve, but that’s what makes the end goal so worth it. Here are some common obstacles you may encounter.
Feeling overwhelmed:
Most obstacles on the way to reaching your goals, are more trivial than feeling overwhelmed. This feeling is often the product of not knowing where to start, which is in itself a product of poor planning. Sit down and make a to do list!
Lack of organization:
Disorganization is the product of bad habits. Bad habits do not develop overnight. So don’t expect to get organized that quick either. Again, like feeling overwhelmed, lacking an organized approach is something that feels far more sizable than it really is.
You just need to start getting organized and start making it a good habit.
Fear of failure:
Fear is a problem, because it can damage everything in life. It ruins your productivity, destroys your dreams, and keeps you from building the business you’re trying to build. Fear takes the joy out of life. Thomas Edison said, “I failed my way to success.” A pile of failures can turn into a mountain of success. So go ahead and fail. Better yet, fail as fast and as quickly as you can. Failure is temporary, but success is permanent.
Rather than turn and run from failure, run towards it. You’re not running towards disaster, you’re running towards success.
Fear of success:
Fearing success becomes a uniquely personal obstacle relating to change and self-esteem. Ask yourself what is so fantastic about your life right now, being as far away from your goals as you are, that you wouldn’t truly want to see it change. In other words, why are you clinging to that? You can’t fear success without also actively embracing failure.
Hard Work
One thing that has always held true for me, and a big thing that the guys I’ve trained have embraced, that is”Hard Work Pays Off”. The guys and girls that really buckle down and stay focused on their goals, are the most disciplined, the hardest workers and they always achieved more than the ones that put in the minimal effort. Their potential and natural abilities didn’t matter when they’re giving the minimum. There is no substitute for hard work.
My dad always told me, “you get out of life what you put in to it.” Those words have always stuck with me and I think he’s right!
Take that first step on the path to pursuing your dreams and make the life you want and deserve!
-Don Richard
info@FuseMartialArts.com
(Professor Don Richard is the man that got Myles Jury started and took him through his steps, in which Myles is now currently #8 in the UFC.)
Follow Don at:
Facebook: fb.com/FuseMMA
Twitter: @BigDonRichard
Twitter: @FuseMartialArts
Instagram: @Big_Don_Richard
Tune in next week at TheTeamFury.com as Myles Jury along with his most inspiring friends and business partners release a new “Team Fury Blog” every Monday focused on self improvement through experience and education.
If you like this blog, share it on social media with the hashtag #TeamFuryBlog and spread the word!
You can learn more Myles Jury at TheTeamFury.com and his Jury Jiu Jitsu system at JuryJJ.com.
Follow Myles Jury on social media at:
Facebook: facebook.com/TheTeamFury
Twitter: @FuryJury
Instagram: @FuryJury