People say to me all the time, 'You have no fear.' I tell them, 'No, that's not true. I'm scared all the time. You have to have fear in order to have courage. I'm a courageous person because I'm a scared person.'
Interpretation
Courage involves acknowledging fear and acting despite it, not the absence of fear.
This quote emphasizes that fear is a natural part of the human experience and that true courage arises when one faces and overcomes that fear. Ronda Rousey highlights the importance of recognizing one's fear, suggesting that it is through fear that one finds the strength and determination to act courageously, thus redefining the traditional notion of bravery as a lack of fear.
In practice
In a motivational speech about facing challenges.
When I was in school, martial arts made you a dork, and I became self-conscious that I was too masculine. I was a 16-year-old girl with ringworm and cauliflower ears. People made fun of my arms and called me 'Miss Man.' It wasn't until I got older that I realized: These people are idiots. I'm fabulous.
I never really liked weightlifting because there is no problem solving, whereas when I am fighting, I am trying to solve a problem, so I don't think about being tired. I box, wrestle, do jujitsu, run up sand dunes; every single day is something different so that I am mentally engaged. That's what makes me want to train longer.
When I looked at the state of women's MMA, what I saw was that it was missing rivalries or anything theatrical about it. Everybody was trying to be Miss America, unwilling to go under any kind of criticism, and taking the safe answers. I thought I needed to do whatever I could to get attention.
A belt does nothing but hold your gi together. A belt has assigned significance, a belt is someone else saying you're good, you don't need other people saying that you're good in order to be good.
Would you be willing to give your life to save the world if no one ever knew your name? If anonymity was the price you would have to pay for significance, would it be too great a price? To live a life of courage is not a guarantee of prestige or adulation. It only matters if you live and die fulfilling the mission you were born for.
There are men in the world who derive an exaltation from the proximity of disaster and ruin, as other from success.
It is something that is called MDS. It is a rare blood disorder that affects the bone marrow. I'm going to beat this. My doctors say it and my faith says it.
Fear will keep you alive in a war. Fear will keep you alive in business. There's nothing wrong with fear.
Gay people - generally speaking - have a responsibility to our own community and to future generations of gay people to come out, if and when we feel that we can.
We need courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit. But the place for this warrior strength is in the heart. We need energy, commitment, and courage not to run from our life nor to cover it over with any philosophy-mate rial or spiritual. We need a warrior’s heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities.
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