I’m an athlete and coach of a national Portuguese martial arts team and we will be at one of the greatest World Martial Arts Championships in 3 weeks. I’m 100% sure, that this will be an amazing life changing event for us all. It will open our minds, it will literally show us how good we are and that we can achieve awesome things, if we just learn to trust in our dreams more than we trust in everything else.

“Your dreams are true, your doubts are not.”, Bentinho Massaro.

I want everyone in our team to have a clear understanding of the things that they are truly after and how their evolution and individual dreams will play a big part in the future of our team.

These were the base lines of a talk I had with them, to let them see how fucking amazing they are 😉 :

“We can all agree that this Championship will be a huge experience that will have an amazing impact in our life. I want you all to understand why you are here, why are you committed to be in such a challenging event and the reasons why you didn’t quit like many others did.

Let’s all just agree on something very obvious, no one of you will be there for de medals or for the title of world champion, if that was the case, we will buy everyone a cute medal and a piece of paper that says “World Champion” and that was it.
Every single one of you is seeking what the Gold Medal represents for you. It can be the confidence, the happiness, the sense of worth, security, the achieving of a dream, the skills to pick up girls, …

In order words, you are seeking to be a better version of yourselves.

There is something I want you all to realize, you already are what you are trying to be! And trust me, don’t wait for the medals to bring you that confidence you are waiting for. First you need to see that you are already so damn good, that you can be so damn confidence, build that confidence and happiness everyday more, see it in yourselves, be a better version of you every single day and when you get to the Italy, even before you step in to compete, you already have what you were looking for.

The new version of you, that is 200 times more confident, more happy, more worth and that knows how epic you are, will stay with you forever…regardless of any medal.

Then with all that confidence, feeling amazing and knowing that you are on top of the world … you go in and fight for your medal. 😉

Fears and doubts will come out, but we have no time to stop and give them attention, just know that every fear and doubt you may get is not true, period!
Be like a laser, focused on the target and care about nothing else, I have 100% confidence in you all.

You are all so brave, you are already at a very top level and you can easily overcome your fears, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.

And after a good speech from the other coach (and my friend) and some encouraging words from a mother that helped us a lot.  I finished with this:

Now, rise up and go train like the World Champions you are.” 

Drop the mic 😉