David White, MD
Rocky Balboa was a likable young man who grew up on the streets of Philadelphia in poverty and brokenness. He dreamed of becoming a professional boxer and immersed himself in the now decaying local gym where the fading images of past greats loomed in the shadows inspiring those who now sought their chance to “make it out.”
To make ends meet, Rocky sporadically worked for the neighborhood crime boss as a debt collector, a thumb breaker— though in truth, he was more instinctively inclined to offer kindness and counsel to those he was to pressure. This 1977 Oscar-winning film, ROCKY, sweeps us into the inspirational story of this likable ‘nobody’ getting an unexpected chance to fight for the Boxing Championship of the World.
We are a people who love humble-beginnings stories—stories that move people from being nothing to something—despised and lowly to cheered and celebrated. The reason we love these stories is because we have a deep personal connection to them. We, each in our own way, are fighting to matter in what can feel like a chaotic and impersonal world.
It was 1976 when I first saw this movie in the theater. I was ten years old. The movie resonated so deeply with my young soul that when the movie was released on VHS three years later, I would spend summer days tirelessly watching and re-watching, or acting out fight scenes with my friends. But it wasn’t just the fight action that stirred me. I resonated deeply with the main character, Rocky Balboa. His circumstances and relationships drove a narrative that he didn’t matter—that he was inconsequential. But though he had every right to be angry at the world that had offered him little more than abuse, his natural impulse was to extend grace, kindness and care…saying “you matter, you are more than this, I am with you.” This was a clear expression of his core belief that we each have a particular dignity and value. He also believed that he had the unique capacity to endure hardship and abuse, allowing him to patiently enter into the dark spaces of people’s lives.
You Matter and You are More Than This
As a child, I was notably small, slow-growing and maturing much later than my peers. My experience of myself through those years was that I was largely inconsequential, hidden, unseen— or worse yet, seen in my shame, “Wow, you’re so little (chuckle).” My lack of physical presence drove my already shy demeanor deeper into myself. Except in my safest circles, I would say very little, never presuming that my thoughts would carry much weight or impact. I would blush if more than three sets of eyes were looking at me at any one time. As a 98 lbs high school wrestler, I just couldn’t believe that I could or should win. I don’t know what my career record was but I distinctly remember a record of 3-17 one year— fairly standard.
But like Rocky, there was tension in this for me. I knew that this was not the sum of who or what I was. Standard measures did not capture my own worth or value. I could see in myself that I was tenacious, showing up on the mat day after day, loss after loss— still feeling some deep sense of satisfaction as I walked off the mat, though hand un-raised. I also perceived that I could sense how people around me were feeling and what might encourage them. I felt a compulsion for kindness towards those in need of it— to elevate the downcast. This was largely related to the fact that I had no particular reason to elevate myself over them. But even for those that would elevate themselves over me (in the ways that kids are prone to do) I felt compassion, seeing their insecurity, sadness— their own efforts to find value. This is not to say I always did this well— I could certainly be an absent friend, selfish or actively unkind— but I was aware of the tension within me.
Going the Distance
This same identity tension was captured beautifully by Rocky on the night before the championship fight. As he considered the weight of stepping into the ring with Apollo Creed, he realized that he couldn’t win. But he also realized that he didn’t need to. And in the darkness of the sleepless night, Rocky opened his heart to his girlfriend Adrian:
“I can’t do it…I can’t beat him. I’ve been out there walkin’ around, thinkin’. I mean, who am I kiddin’? I ain’t even in the guy’s league. [It] don’t matter. ‘Cause I was nobody before…But that don’t matter either, you know? ‘Cause I was thinkin’, it really don’t matter if I lose this fight. It really don’t matter if this guy opens my head, either. ‘Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody’s ever gone the distance with Creed, and if I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I’m still standin’, I’m gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I wasn’t just another bum from the neighborhood.”
Though Rocky toiled over his true value and identity, he risked everything to climb into that ring, revealing that in spite of his circumstances, in spite of how those around him sought to define him, he knew at a deeper level that he was more than that. He desperately wanted to expose the lies and prove to no one more than himself that he had a purpose and a value only previously imagined. And though uncertain of the outcome, he faced his doubt and fears and climbed into the ring because he believed that he belonged there, and would give all of himself to prove it.
And this is one of the core questions we ask ourselves throughout our lives, “Do I belong here?” The answer to that question speaks to our personal sense of purpose and value. This is the ‘core belief’ that drives the decisions, large and small, that we make every day.
What’s Your Why?
Motivational speaker and business consultant Simon Sinek touches on this in his TEDx talk when he addresses the importance of businesses understanding their “why.” He differentiates that from knowing “what” you do and from “how” you do it. He emphasizes his point with the more personal questions of, “Why do you exist? Why do you get out of bed in the morning and why should anyone care?” Simon Sinek understands that it is not the actual businesses that answer these questions, but real people just like you and me who must look inside themselves to find the answers, and not only in business but in daily life; answers that affect our families, relationships, health, work, hobbies and play. Our core beliefs (our why) drive our sense of purpose and value and thus, what we do. Simon Sinek offers this very charge when stating, “What you DO proves what you BELIEVE.”
Though perhaps unique to me, the way this has worked in my life is that I believe that there is a benevolent God who purposed that I would be small, and as a consequence suffer difficult things related to, but not only to, my stature. In doing so, he bore the fruit of deference, insight, and tenacity. He stirred my heart to compassion for others; not only compassion but a hope that they would know meaning and joy. I came to believe that justice is good and necessary, and in so, a desire to come alongside people in crisis was stirred within me. He also made me to see competition as inspirational, movement as beautiful, and trees, oceans and mountains as magnificent—and these more wonderful when these are shared with others.
These expressed beliefs lend insight into what would drive a small, inconsequential, habitual loser to walk-on to a D-1 college wrestling team as a sophomore, decide a year after finishing college with a degree in criminology to pursue medical school, to become an emergency physician, to serve as a military officer on a Special Operations Surgical Team, to live and serve with my family on Navajo Nation, and then, knowing nothing about business, start a medical practice with my friend Dr. Rich Rayner with the shared hope of inspiring people to aspire to better emotional, spiritual and physical health—connecting people to the purpose and quality that life inherently holds.
What You Do Proves What You Believe
Trust me, these major life decisions, along with myriads of other moment to moment life decisions, were and are pursued and accomplished with the familiar echoes of— you are small, you lose, and you are inconsequential reverberating in my mind. Yet my core beliefs have stimulated responses in rebellion to the voices of my youth. But the lies have not died. Sometimes they scream…most often they whisper.
Just a few years ago I had come to a place where I felt like my world and my beliefs were collapsing around me. I shared with a dear friend and counselor through tears that I didn’t know who the real “me” was. I had suffered some painful disappointments, my boys had the audacity to grow up, I was physically and emotionally exhausted, I was painfully withdrawn from my wife and the whispers were growing louder…small, loser, fraud, inconsequential. This began a season of counsel, care and healing that included an examination of the evidence of who I was. Over time I learned to see and embrace myself and say out loud, “This is who I am, I belong here.”
Yes, what you do proves what you believe. So what do you believe? Not sure? Take a look at what you are doing. Are you living with a sense of value and purpose? Does your care for yourself and those around you affirm that? Is it time to challenge the lies that fight for control; to discover the purpose and quality that life inherently holds?
Climb into the ring; it’s time to fight. This is who you are—you belong here! Believe and go the distance!
