{"id":46361,"date":"2015-03-19T19:17:33","date_gmt":"2015-03-20T00:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=46361"},"modified":"2025-12-21T20:19:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T02:19:23","slug":"whats-your-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/featured\/whats-your-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Every Man Needs a Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A

“Dempsey and Firpo” by George Bellows, 1924. This painting hangs above my desk.<\/p><\/div>\n

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from author and Navy SEAL Eric Greitens.<\/em><\/p>\n

My boxing coach Earl used to say, \u201cYou can\u2019t get better fighting someone who\u2019s worse than you.\u201d That was cold comfort after my training partner, Derrick, had cracked me in the mouth with a jab. But I knew that Earl was right. Training with someone who was better than me made me better.<\/p>\n

In 1950, the Associated Press polled the leading sports editors in America to find out what they considered the greatest sports moment in the first half of the twentieth century. It was from the fight in the painting above \u2014 that very moment \u2014 that they selected over all others.<\/p>\n

Though largely forgotten today, the punch in that painting was thrown in 1923, in an era when boxing was the dominant sport of the day. A crowd of 80,000 had come to New York\u2019s Polo Grounds to witness the contest for the Heavyweight Championship of the world.<\/p>\n

See the man falling through the ropes? That\u2019s Jack Dempsey. He won.<\/p>\n

Jack Dempsey was boxing\u2019s superstar. The \u201cManassa Mauler\u201d earned his nickname with crushing punches. That evening, Dempsey was fighting the towering Luis \u00c1ngel Firpo, \u201cthe Wild Bull of the Pampas,\u201d the first Argentinian to ever contend for the world Heavyweight Championship.<\/p>\n

Toward the close of the first round, Firpo managed to pin Dempsey against the ropes. With a combination of vicious punches, Firpo knocked Dempsey out of the ring. As Dempsey landed, he cracked the back of his head against a reporter\u2019s typewriter and opened a serious gash.<\/p>\n

The ringside reporters shoved Dempsey back into the ring in time to beat the count. As Dempsey got his legs under him, Firpo quickly pounced to deliver another barrage of punches. Still wobbly, Dempsey was just able to fend Firpo off when the bell sounded to end the round.<\/p>\n

Dempsey had suffered the most dramatic knockdown of his career. Yet he came out of his corner furious to start the second round. In fifty-seven seconds, he knocked Firpo out with a blow to the jaw.<\/p>\n

Sportswriter Allen Barra narrates what happened next: \u201cAnd then, in a moment of almost heartbreaking pathos, the tiger of just seconds before turned into a lamb, stooping down to help up his bloody, beaten foe as the more than 80,000 in attendance at the Polo Grounds roared their approval.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before that night, Dempsey had been one of the sport\u2019s least popular champions. More often than not, crowds cheered for him to be knocked out. But that changed when the crowd saw him pushed to the limit of his ability, humbled, and still triumphant. It was Dempsey who defeated Firpo \u2014 but it was Firpo who made Dempsey an unforgettable champion.<\/p>\n

Dempsey became a legend not despite Firpo, but because of <\/em>Firpo \u2014 just as Ali was great because of Frazier, Shakespeare was great because of Marlowe, and Raphael and Michelangelo pushed each other to new heights.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know what greatness we\u2019re capable of until we\u2019re tested.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a simple way to think about applying this in your own life. Here\u2019s a formula I recently shared with a group of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, all of whom were making the transition to civilian life:<\/p>\n

The magnitude of the challenge \u00d7 your intensity = your rate of growth<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an idea, of course, not a mathematical formula.<\/p>\n

But you do need big challenges in your life, and you need to bring intensity to those challenges if you aim to grow.<\/p>\n

When I came home from Iraq and started working with veterans who felt stuck, I\u2019d often ask, \u201cWhat\u2019s your challenge right now?\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d often ask them to think back on their military training. It was the hardest thing that most of them had done up to that point in their life, and almost all of them brought intensity to it. And then I asked them to remember how much they changed then, how much they grew.<\/p>\n

When many veterans came home from war, they found that they were given many things: free tickets, gift baskets, blankets. What they needed, however, was a challenge. These were men and women of incredible ability, some of whom had done work overseas that was more difficult than anything their peers had ever done. And yet, home from war, people were no longer willing to challenge them, and, without a challenge, these veterans started to drift.<\/p>\n

Recognize the paradox here. Life was \u2014 by almost any measure \u2014 easier at home. There are no bombs, no bullets flying. People had more material comforts. Their friends and their family were closer \u2014 and yet it was here, at home, that they were struggling.<\/p>\n

When people feel stuck it\u2019s often not because things are too hard, but because their goals are too small. Why work your heart out for a goal that\u2019s small?<\/p>\n

In that boxing match in 1923, Dempsey\u2019s opponent was clear: Firpo. In most of our lives things aren\u2019t as clear cut as in a boxing match; we may well be striving for a cause, for our family, for our team. But we can always ask ourselves, \u201cWhat\u2019s my challenge right now?\u201d<\/p>\n

Pick a big challenge. Maybe, even, pick the right and honorable fight \u2014 you\u2019ll be stronger and better on the other side.<\/p>\n

_______________<\/p>\n

Eric Greitens is a Navy SEAL, Rhodes Scholar, boxing champion and humanitarian leader. The founder of The Mission Continues and the author of the New York Times best-seller <\/em>The Heart and the Fist<\/a>, Eric was named by <\/em>Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people. His book, <\/em>Resilience<\/a>, has just been published.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from author and Navy SEAL Eric Greitens. My boxing coach Earl used to say, \u201cYou can\u2019t get better fighting someone who\u2019s worse than you.\u201d That was cold comfort after my training partner, Derrick, had cracked me in the mouth with a jab. But I knew that Earl was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":46362,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[502,6,42272],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-46361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-featured","category-manhood"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Bellows_George_Dempsey_and_Firpo_1924-538x280.jpg","reactor-320":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Bellows_George_Dempsey_and_Firpo_1924-320x261.jpg","reactor-640":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Bellows_George_Dempsey_and_Firpo_1924-640x521.jpg","rpwe-thumbnail":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Bellows_George_Dempsey_and_Firpo_1924-45x45.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46361"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122681,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46361\/revisions\/122681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46361"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=46361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}