Estimated reading time: 10 minute(s)
If you know me, you know I have a keen ability to extract wisdom and lessons from just about anything whether it is a movie, a cartoon or a tweet.
Today I had a chance to watch the post-fight press conference from 2012 highly anticipated match. When the dust settled, Floyd Mayweather Jr. (41-0) remained unbeaten with a 12-round unanimous decision over Shane Mosley (46-6) in their welterweight bout at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Vegas.
I had planned to watch it but something occurred that disallowed me to view it on television. So I decided I was going to watch (read) the highlights via Twitter. Yes, Twitter. Anyone who is a Tweet-a-holic knows that you can follow award shows, concerts, sporting events, press conferences, news broadcasts, etc just by reading people’s updates.
So I said, why not!
Then I saw that alot of people tweeting could see the match online somewhere. I didn’t believe it, but hey in the age of the net anything is possible. I clicked the link and there was the fight! (Warning:Â I do not advocate bootlegging but don’t come to my home and see my DVD collection…I had an old connect in front of Fiesta Mart! Lol!)
Fast forward to the second round. Mosley caught Mayweather with a solid right and shook him up. I thought to myself: Why won’t Mosley go in for the knock out? What is he waiting for? Here is his chance!
He gave Mayweather a chance to shake it off and then it all went downhill from the third round. I saw Mayweather come out the corner on the offensive and with a laser sharp focus in his eyes. At that point, I guess MGM moved in on all online sites because everybody got shut down. Good! Now my guilt went away. (smile)
But I really didn’t have to see the rest of it because I felt it was over for Mosley. Why? Because he let his opportunity slip away. His moment was gone. I said to myself “Mayweather about to put on a clinic.”
And as I went back to reading Twitter play-by-play updates, that’s exactly what happened. Mosley never recovered. Mayweather reigned.
What’s the lesson in it for me? Many.Â
It reminds me of what Chuck “Jigsaw” Creekmur of AllHipHop.com wrote in his recent editorial titled Can Hip-Hop’s New Generation “Master The Moment”. In that editorial he said “Generally, the moment is bestowed upon you and other times created by you. Whichever is the case, you better be ready and I hope you are, because the time is now.”
Mosley had his moment in the second round. He created it for that split second but didn’t fully take advantage of it.Who knows what the outcome might have been had he laid out Mayweather. I’m not a boxing expert by far but I am a student of warfare and for that brief moment he had the momentum.
But he’s not alone. Some of us do it in our personal, family and business lives.
We see our moment…we even may create the moment…yet we don’t strike. We drop the ball. We may procrastinate. We may have fear. We may not be quick thinking and fast moving as we think we are. Then we beat ourselves across the head with the words “What if?”
What happened to Mosley in that moment? What happens to you and I in that moment?
I think Mayweather said it best in this video:
“I got the will to win under the lights. If you guys watch 24/7, I said we all may hit the bag alike. We all may do the pad work alike. We all may jump rope the same. But we all don’t perform under the lights the same.”
What about you? Our number #1 contender is self…stay in the ring
(You’re welcome to follow Brother Jesse Muhammad further on Twitter, become a friend on Facebook, or visit his award-winning site Brother Jesse Blog)