{"id":32216,"date":"2025-02-01T14:38:59","date_gmt":"2025-02-01T19:38:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mentordiscoverinspire.org\/?p=32216"},"modified":"2025-02-01T14:38:59","modified_gmt":"2025-02-01T19:38:59","slug":"the-boxer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mentordiscoverinspire.org\/the-boxer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Boxer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Matt Coddington<br>MDI Contributor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The boxer kept getting punched and knocked down but kept getting up. He didn\u2019t give up. He refused to give up even though it was hard and he felt that he couldn\u2019t take any more punches to the body and to the face. Eventually he sustained what he thought was the final blow. Stay down. Stay down. It\u2019s over. Accept it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His trainer and team believed in him even when his belief in himself was struggling as he was lying on the mat, bloodied and bruised, thinking that he couldn\u2019t go on. They yelled above the crowd but they couldn\u2019t help him unless he got up himself and found his way to his corner. He had to make his way on his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the bell rang and the round was over, he got up and stumbled his way to the stool and his corner of the ring and made his way into the arms of his trainer and his training team. They poured water on his head, put balm on his cuts, and told him that he could keep going. He wasn\u2019t down yet. There was still fight left in him. He could win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But was winning the outer fight the real match? What if the real match was within the boxer, within himself? Are you a boxer? You have to be, and it\u2019s tough. Do you know that your biggest opponent is within yourself? That\u2019s who you\u2019re up against.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s the hardest fight any of us will ever wage. None of us punch as hard as the opponent within ourselves and that motherfucker is relentless until we rely upon our trainer and training team when we stumble into our corner and onto our stool between rounds with blood streaming down our faces and bruised ribs in the boxing ring of life.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s not about how hard you\u2019re hit, it\u2019s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. That\u2019s why we have a mentor, a men\u2019s team, and a division behind us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matt CoddingtonMDI Contributor The boxer kept getting punched and knocked down but kept getting up. He didn\u2019t give up. He refused to give up even though it was hard and he felt that he couldn\u2019t take any more punches to the body and to the face. Eventually he sustained what he thought was the final [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":32246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-men-as-friends"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Boxer - MDI - Mentoring men to live with excellence - Men&#039;s Teams<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mentordiscoverinspire.org\/the-boxer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Boxer - MDI - Mentoring men to live with excellence - Men&#039;s Teams\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Matt CoddingtonMDI Contributor The boxer kept getting punched and knocked down but kept getting up. 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