Hocevar Performance

“Apply yourself, Get all the education you can, but then……do something. Don’t just stand there. Make it happen.” - Lee Iacocca

The words that I write from here on are going to be about educating yourself, opening your mind and “stepping outside of the box.” Education still is and always will be a driving force in my life, whether it be a new book, journal, teleseminar, seminar/conference, hands on experience and/or one on one communication with someone that is great at what you want to be great at.

Here I talk about the last one……

My trip to New York was a great experience where I put my learning process on warp speed in a three day weekend. The last day of our trip I also did something spontaneous that ended up being one of the best parts of our whole trip. I decided to take a chance and go visit Martin Rooney at the Parisi Speed School in Fair Lawn, NJ. For those that do not know of Martin, he is a world class trainer, speaker, writer, motivator and has trained elite athletes from just about every sport conceivable, with a number of olympic athletes. If you want to find out more about Martin, check it out here.

Martin walking the talk

Now, I had no clue whether he will be there and if he was, if he had time to see us. On top of that we had quite a little bit of a trip and had to make it back to the airport in time. It turned out the trip was well worth it as Martin ended up being there and took the time to talk to us. What was supposed to be a 15 minute conversation ended up being around 3 hours!

The conversation made me understand more about why the best are the best. In the three hour conversation Martin was asking us just as many questions as we were asking him and he was just really intrigued with the subjects we were talking about. One of the things he said that stuck with me was: “I want to be the dumbest person when I walk in the room.” So no matter how much knowledge and experience you may have, you can always learn more and it may be from anyone in any field. Stay open to ideas and thoughts of others as they may give an “A-HA” moment.

A lot of the things that we talked about were not even about training but rather mindset, business, life, etc.. It also showed how the best care about the industry as they will take time to share their knowledge and experience with up and coming trainers that are passionate and seeking to know everything they can (never ending journey!). I definitely left the Parisi facility with a lot on my mind and at the same time very fortunate that I was able to meet Martin Rooney and take tons away from our conversation. For everyone that is an MMA athlete, coach or is interested in MMA training, visit Training For Warriors, as Martin has created a community where there is a ton of information available from articles, videos, forums and a great blog by Martin himself. This resource is free (just another great deed as this information is worth a bunch) and you would be crazy not to sign up if you are in any way involved in the martial arts.

Martin’s book - Training For Warriors

I will make an effort to pass it on just as Martin. These types of efforts help the industry become better and better and I hope that we can see more and more of it in the future.