Brent Cunningham, December, 2008, vol. 1, no. 17

I had just moved to Ottawa in May 2000 upon accepting a position in what was the booming telecommunications sector after completing my degree in Engineering Physics at McMaster University.  Approximately 20 of us from that graduating class had relocated with the mistaken belief that we had just won some sort of lottery:  we had worked our tails off to get that degree, and now we had multiple offers from some of the fastest growing technology firms on earth:  JDSU, Nortel, Alcatel, etc.  We were offered above-average salaries with stock-option paper gains that had made virtual millionaires of our fellow employees overnight.  We were in an industry riding the “dot.com” wave in which the analysts predicted that there was just “no end in sight” to this remarkable growth.   To us, the future could not have possibly looked brighter.

Completing that degree took a great deal of work, diligence, and sacrifice:  the biggest sacrifice being to my personal health.  I had been involved in a number of sports growing up:  some recreationally, some competitively, but while in university, I had largely lost touch with my athletic side.  Becoming somewhat of a nocturnal creature, I pulled a great number of “all-nighters,” consumed vast quantities of Coca-Cola to keep myself awake, grabbed junk-food on the go, and aside from a brief stint with the university fencing team and occasional roadwork, I was engaging very little physical activity.  Furthermore, I never seemed to feel a moment of “operational ease”—a feeling like you’ve managed all of life’s risks as thoroughly as you can.  Intellectually, I knew it was wrong and I had resolved with myself that once I had finished this degree, I would absolutely positively break from these bad habits and get myself back into shape.  I even knew exactly what I would be looking for:  boxing.  I had done some very basic training on my own in the past and knew first-hand just how intensive the workouts could be.  Furthermore as an ardent boxing fan and aficionado, I had always very much admired the training regimens that professional fighters put themselves through.  It seemed reasonable to me that I should be able to get myself back to a respectable fitness level by simply following their example and sticking to it.

By October 2000, I had sufficiently settled myself in Ottawa (while “rumours” began to circulate about a “possible short-term downturn” in telecom industry) and began my search for a place to train, when I encountered an ad for “Boxing Training” in the City of Ottawa catalog for something called “Whitebrook Health and Fitness”—later renamed Whitebook Boxing Kinetics.  I spoke with the owners on the phone and agreed to meet the following Tuesday to give the circuit a try.

Two things became immediately apparent to me on at that first occasion—both of which were important criteria in my search for a training program.  First, the program was very skills-based and highly structured.  When I had tried boxing training on my own in the past, I had not learned any particular skills or technique and basically lacked any sense of direction.  Here I was expected to listen to feedback and “learn to walk before I could run.”  The second observation was that the training was hard!  After an hour of circuit training including a punch-out at the end, I was utterly exhausted!  I mention this second observation to illustrate a very specific point:  fast forwarding 8 years to the present as a coach, I see many students no different from that Brent of 8 years ago arrive with the best of intentions:  they know they need to get into shape, or they’ve seen “Million Dollar Baby” (a movie I myself STILL have not seen!) and are highly enthusiastic about transforming themselves into the next Million Dollar Baby.  But somewhere along the line, they become discouraged and never return as soon as they discover that WBK is hard.    But the fact is:  life is hard!  The endless prosperity promised by the dot.com craze turned into a “dot.bomb”—the former industry titans are shadows of their formers selves as tens of thousands of people in this city were thrown out of work and saw their livelihoods, dreams, and life-savings rapidly disappear.  Why should I expect my circuit training to be any easier?  If anything, in a hard and crazy world such as this, a challenging workout has GOT to be the best medicine!

As the months passed that first training session, the workouts would eventually become slightly easier as I developed the skills, and consequently would progress to Level II—where as a newly rebranded “rookie,” the workouts would become difficult all over again!   But true to that promise I made to myself as a university student, I would not compromise or become discouraged.  On the contrary, as my form began to improve, my naturally competitive nature began to kick in as I began to set my sights on Level III (there were only Levels I through III at the time).  

What is more is that I became much more conscious of my total fitness and conditioning as I became much more aware of the connection between diet and sports performance.  And as I progressed to Level III, I became a member of an exclusive club of “guinea-pigs” for the newly-created Levels IV, V, and VI as they emerged—each time starting over as a rookie and each time focusing my energies on mastering the new skills to progress to whatever other challenges lay ahead.  And guess what?  During that progression from Level I rookie to Level VI vet, life didn’t get any easier either!  Life will always be filled with those ultimate highs:  from business, professional, and financial success, to those ultimate lows:  injury/illness/death of family and friends, business failure, stock market crashes, relationship breakdown, war, genocide—I’ve been impacted by all of the above and everything in between.  Truly, I am no more immune from the beautiful and disappointing realities of life than anyone else.  But for me, through it all WBK has provided that one hour of sanctuary not only from the world, but a sanctuary from myself!—a place where I can temporarily tune out the noise from the world and take out those frustrations on the bags! 

Almost seven years of continuous training and having Level VI under my belt would propel me to the greatest challenge of them all:  coaching!  How could a normally quiet, reserved, and intensely private person such as myself learn to communicate those past 7 years of skills and experience to that Level I rookie who doesn’t know what they are getting themselves in to?   How do I take something as “obvious” to me as throwing a left-hook, and demonstrate it to someone who has no concept of what a left-hook is?  How do I break down this science into its constituent components with the same level of enthusiasm I felt when I got it the first time?  Talk about feeling like a rookie all over again!  Coaching is not nearly as easy as it looks and this challenge is still very much a work-in-progress.   But no different from the first 7 years of circuit training, I’ve stuck to it, got my ass to class, and continually worked on refining those coaching skills. 

Over the past few months, the WBK coaching staff and I have broadened our coaching repertoire through practical course in sports psychology ultimately introducing us to the National Coaching Certification Program, a national program whose mission is to “enhance the experience of all Canadian athletes through quality coaching*.”  If you had told Brent of 8 years ago that one of life’s turns would take him down this path, he would have personally flown you down to Florida to introduce you to a piece of land that you might be interested in buying!  It’s funny what kinds of doors life can open simply by staying committed to a plan.

And still, life has not gotten any easier.  In fact, for me life has never been busier.  In addition to my commitment as a WBK coach, other hats I wear include a mild-mannered program manager for a rapidly growing pre-IPO high-technology start-up, a wise-cracking part-owner of a local honey farm, and having completed a certificate in financial planning, I also operate a low-key tax-planning service.  Life continues to present its challenges and my personal time is stretched thinner than it has ever been before.  

And yet, I seem to thrive in these conditions.  I’m told by co-workers that I am one of the more calm and patient members of our team in what can only be described as a sustained high-intensity environment.  Friends and family have offered that they observe me to be visibly healthier than they remember me in the past.  Oh, and I have not consumed a Coca-Cola in more than 8 years!  Life in the real world is what it is, and yet I am much more focused, disciplined and successful risk manager who is far more contented to learn from life’s outcomes—win or lose—than I used to be.  I owe an enormous portion of these attributes to my commitment to WBK.  This is because the discipline and goal-setting system required to be successful in WBK and in sport in general are equally applicable to any facet of life.   If you wish to become a better risk manager—in your profession, your business, with your investments, whatever—the best place to learn discipline is through sport.  And as my past 8 years can testify, there is no better sports conditioning system to keep you accountable than WBK!

Bottom line is:  life is hard, WBK is hard, so suck it up, and get your ASS to class!  I’ll be there to KICK IT for you!

Brent Cunningham

*Coaching Association of Canada website:  http://www.coach.ca/eng/about_cac/overview.cfm