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OCT.15.2020

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A Brit Abroad with Gabriel Kidd: Inspirations


Everyone has inspirations. People, events, actions that motivate us. Things that you see or hear that put you in a positive mindset. I have many inspirations in professional wrestling; some that I feel are obvious, some that are not so obvious. But for this blog I wanted to talk about my inspirations outside of professional wrestling.

These individuals are people I look up to. They help motivate me, all in different ways. I want to share my appreciation for these people in this diary, I hope you enjoy it!

Akira The Don:

Akira The Don is a British DJ.

He takes clips and sound bites from lectures/motivational speeches, puts them to a beat and makes some of the best music I’ve ever listened to. Reading that on paper, it sounds very simple, but honestly go and check out his work. He’s taken sound bites from Joe Rogan, Jocko Willink, Gary Vee (who are all people I listened to before discovering him) and makes incredible music with them.

What inspires me about Akira is not just within his music, but his outlook on life outside his music. There have been times I have been in situations that I didn’t know how to deal with and I would read a blog he posted or a tweet that would help solve these problems. Sometimes they are very black and white answers, sometimes you have to figure it out yourself, but either way they’ve helped me out a lot.

His songs “Mind Control” and “Discipline Equals Freedom” with Jocko Willink have helped me out more times than I can count. They both helped change my mindset in everything that I do. T h a n k Y o u A k i r a. 

 

Kron Gracie:

Kron Gracie is an MMA fighter, BJJ practitioner and a member of the famous Gracie family. I first heard of Kron when I was looking for different diet and nutrition information on YouTube, when I came across this video series called “Munchies.” This series followed different athletes from different sports to see how they ate and trained. Rock climbers, Sumo wrestlers, Ballerinas. It’s a really interesting series so if you’re into that kind of thing I’d recommending seeking it out.

One of the videos followed Kron through a day of eating and training. What really drew me to Kron was his approach to his training and fighting. His nickname is “Ice Cream Kron” and he often says his mantra is “keep cool under pressure.” I really noticed a difference in my matches when I thought about this approach. I would often stress and overthink about matches, which would subconsciously put a lot of pressure on myself.

But when I saw and listened to Kron’s approach about fighting, it really changed my perspective. “I focus on my training and don’t think too far ahead about the fights. They are going to happen when they happen, so why would i waste energy focusing on them now
when I can fully focus on my training.”

After understanding this, I relaxed a lot more and really found a good rhythm. I realised I was where I was for a reason and didn’t need to put counter productive pressure on myself before my matches. I now take 3 deep breaths, get myself into a relaxed state and go out
and do what I need to do to win. And I feel 1000x better for it.

Kron runs a BJJ school out in LA. When I get back to America, I plan on going to train and learn from him.

Conor McGregor:

Conor is probably my biggest inspiration. There are always days as an athlete where you don’t want to go to the gym or go and train. There’s a voice inside your head telling you to not go and take the easy route. I went through a time when I was struggling with this a lot.
After I came back from LA the first time, I was so focused to lose the weight Shibata San had asked me to lose, and Conor McGregor helped play a big part in that. I watched his documentary on Netflix and it left me feeling on top of the world. Hearing the way he would speak about himself and his training lit a fire under me.

Through that documentary, I started to learn a lot about mindset. Everyone has days when they don’t want to do something, but it’s about whether you do it or not that will really determine if you will achieve your goals or not. He has said it many times but the reason he was able to achieve what he has was through a bulletproof mindset. I felt a huge change in my career when I started thinking and studying more about this aspect.

More recently, every morning before I would practice in the dojo, I would watch 15-20 minutes of that documentary every day to get me in the right head space. There’s a part of that documentary where he loses a fight for the first time in the UFC. He comes back from the fight, apologises to his team, clearly distraught and upset. The next scene is him on a bike with his girlfriend narrating over the footage. She said he lost, and the very next day got straight back to training. Asked for a rematch and got it straight away.

That would get me so motivated. It would put me in the right headspace and set me up everyday for training. When practice got really tough, I would envision scenes from that documentary and know I had to get through this to get where I want to be. Without this aspect of thinking, I may not be where I am now. It really helped change the course of my career.

I understand all of these people kind of tie into the same bracket when it comes to how they inspire me. The reason these people are where they are is because of their outlook and approach to what they do. I try and take little things from each individual and apply that to
myself.

Self belief is incredibly important. If you don’t believe in yourself, why should anyone else?

Thank you for reading.
Today’s entries track of the day:
Akira the Don – Mind Control.”
Thank you guys!

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