THERE'S AN "EPIC STRUGGLE" TAKING PLACE INSIDE ALL OUR MINDS

The man’s name in this iconic poster is Doug Blubaugh, and the photo captures him upsetting a multiple time World Champion inside a Roman coliseum and winning gold at the 1960 Olympic Games. 

We tend to see champions as being physically gifted, unaware of the tremendous adversity they had to overcome in order to even compete.  This story needs to be told.

As a young man, Doug Blubaugh had severe asthma that ran through his family.  “We had canvas mats back then, and dust would fly when you hit the mat. It was terrible for a kid with asthma. I could hardly breathe half the season. I often got out of high school wrestling practice at dark and ran home. It was about five or six miles. I did it every night,” he recalled. “I ran to get rid of the asthma. And the more I ran, the less it seemed to bother me.”  This was Doug’s response to having to deal with serious respiratory issues. 

Doug was legally blind, but he never considered his poor vision to be a handicap in wrestling.  “I made myself believe it was an advantage because I didn’t look for things, I felt things.”   This was Doug’s response to having to deal with barely being able to see his opponents.

Doug would develop narcolepsy later in life, a disease that caused him to fall asleep unexpectedly and lose muscle control. Yet from 1984 until his death in 2011, he would travel the nation putting on wrestling clinics, passing on his knowledge of the sport, and becoming one of the most popular clinicians in wrestling history.   This was Doug’s response to having to deal with an embarrassing condition like narcolepsy. 

Life isn't really about  about winning a gold medal, or getting a promotion, or any other type of extrinsic reward. 

“The Epic Struggle” is about overcoming that voice inside your head telling you to quit whenever things start getting tough.  It's only the positive thoughts you keep inside your head that can defeat that negative voice.  When you focus on positivity and just keep battling, what you’re really doing is building the unbreakable character of a leader who never plays the victim in this world. So keep winning “The Epic Struggle” in your mind every day, because life has a funny way of working itself out for the better when you decide you’ll always stand up and fight whenever adversity knocks you down. Because in life we're all either CURSED or we're BLESSED, and we're the ones that get to decide which one it is.  

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