Step back to step forward: 3 things boxing taught me about leadership and adversity

As a boxer, you are always taught to move forward, keep your hands up and chin down. Remember Rocky’s famous speech?

It ain’t about how hard you can hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward!

But of course, it’s more than that - You’re taught to calculate, lay traps, hit and move, and keep your back off the ropes.

Thus, boxing’s not just about moving forward, but rather it’s about how you can assess a situation calmly and make adjustments. Strategizing to take advantage of points of weakness.

All in the heat of the moment with an opponent trying to take your head off.

Sometimes, brute strength and willpower is enough to get you the win, but even the greatest bulls in the history of boxing don’t make a career out of that. A guy like Mike Tyson was known to be an extreme pressure fighter, but he also had great lateral movement, creating angles and setting traps.

April 2016 Fundraiser with GW University

Throughout my competition years, my style could be characterized as aggressive counterpunching. Attempting to set traps and make opponents pay for mistakes.

Flashback to my championship fight in 2016.

My opponent was a slick, forward moving opponent that laid on the pressure. He kept me on my heels, trying to keep my back to the ropes.

In order to keep him at bay, I peppered him with long jabs and crosses, trying to maintain the distance. But he was able to get inside and land a few strong combinations, especially because his shorter stature provided an advantage at close distance.

He was strong and he was smart.

After the 1st round, my coach warned me that he was slipping past my long punches to get inside and try to body me. He was trying to close the gap and mitigate my range.

I was told to let him push into me, and at the right moment, to use his own momentum against him and get him off balance before countering with an uppercut followed by a left hook.

Round 2 was even. I continued to land long punches, and he continued to try to get inside, successfully, a few times as well. Every time he got on the inside, he threw short combinations and immediately disengaged. But I kept him at bay for what appeared to be a draw of a round.

Round 3, the final round, was a battle, toe to toe, fighting (literally) for dominance.

We both continued to throw heavy shots, landing damaging blows. But my opponent was smart, he slipped past my punches and was getting in on the inside, pushing into me with his shoulder.

And at the exact moment I felt him lean into me, I leaned in to him. I felt his weight on me before stepping back, letting his body fall forward. And as his head came forward from the sudden lack of counter force, I dug my back foot into the canvas and I threw an uppercut as hard as I could at his chin.

Bang!

I threw a hook to follow it up.

Bang!

I disengaged and we continued the toe to toe battle. And as our evenly boxed match came to an end, it was unclear who was going to win. A close match, indeed.

Awaiting in the middle of the ring, I heard the announcer call out. "And the winner of the 132 lbs. championship, fighting out of the BLUE CORNER, JEFF WONG!"

I won!

It turns out that the key to the decision depended directly on the combination that won me the 3rd round, and ultimately the fight.

Healy Hall with two National Championship belts

In order to move forward, I had to step back. To reassess, regroup, and provide the space to think and act without being smothered by the opponent.

I walked away that day with my second USIBA National Championship belt.

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Boxing, like any martial art, can be a great teacher in life. One must do everything one can to prepare for battle - shadow boxing, running sprints, thinking about technique and strategy, tactics, etc.

But what I didn’t realize was how the concepts I learned in the boxing ring could apply to the workplace.

Even in a different language, in a different culture, in the streets of Paraguay, South America.

This time, flashback to October 2021.

We were just 2 months away from the delivery of our documentary, Rostros del Río. I was leading a team of 7, which included video editors, social media managers, lawyers, and graphic designers.

We were operating at full steam, as I was doing my best to keep up with each person’s greatest needs:

What do you most need now to be able to execute?

And everything was going great. Until it wasn’t.

On our short timeline, I had met with our graphic designer and animator about certain maps we needed for our documentary.

In our meeting, we talked about budget, scope, schedule, processes, and feedback. The meeting went great (or so I thought), because I exited the meeting feeling confident that in 10 days time, our animator would deliver the maps and we could move on with our timeline.

On day 5, I emailed the animator to see how it was going. Any questions? Anything I can help provide? Nope. All good. Great.

On day 10 (the agreed upon day of delivery), I bothered him for the maps, but they weren’t done yet. Some finishing touches, and he could get them in the following day. No problem, but feeling suspicious.

The next day, he delivered the work. But the work was nowhere near the quality that Henry and I were hoping for - the proportions were off, the movement/speed was off.

What the heck!

By this time, we were already in the beginning of November, when our deadline for the documentary was in just about a month.

We needed those maps. ASAP.

My first thought was to respond with harsh and direct feedback about the work, and that I expected him to deliver the improved versions ASAP.

Yet somehow, I was reminded of my fight to win the 2016 national championship.

Maybe charging forward like a bull isn’t the way to get us the maps, I thought.

I was taking the figurative “step back” to reassess, readjust, and counterattack. We were clearly on a tight budget and a short timeline (lacking the figurative bulk that a guy like Tyson had).

But how could I provide him feedback in an email when there was so much to comment on? Should I call him? Go to his office? Should I fire him and get a new animator? If we started with a new animator, then we’d be starting from scratch - what if the new guy doesn’t deliver, either? Not to mention our budget. And our timeline.

We were stuck.

I took a walk to clear my mind in Paraguay’s 102 degree heat and I asked myself the following questions. On a shortened timeline and budget, how can we receive the quality animation work that we needed for our documentary? And what is the best path to get there?

I re-analyzed our meeting notes with him where we gave him our creative direction and we talked about what we expected. I sidelined my own desire to be right.

I thought about our communication and broke it down into 3 categories.

1. What did I tell him that, since our meeting, our creative vision had changed, thus it’s not what we wanted?

2. What did I tell him that maybe we didn’t explain correctly or sufficiently (considering the language that graphic designers speak, not to mention all of our business meetings were conducted in Spanish)?

3. What did we ask of him that he didn’t deliver on?

By breaking up the feedback into these categories, I realized that our communication was by no means perfect. In fact, I could see large gaps in our direction that could be misunderstood.

I realized that it was my responsibility to be as clear as possible to avoid miscommunications and ultimately, deliverables that don't reflect the desired outcome!

So, I met with him for 2 hours to go over the deliverables, looking frame by frame what we had wanted, holding a conversation, not a blame game.

And it turns out that he was unsure about a few creative points, which led him to make assumptions and change the direction of animations.

I knew we were under the gun, but with patience and humility, we talked openly about how we could move forward. He admitted where he could improve his work, and I admitted where I could improve my communication skills.

After the meeting, both of us walked away with a positive outlook for the coming weeks. We were able to maintain our contractor-client relationship (and even strengthen it) by communicating openly and honestly.

I took what I learned from boxing, stepping back before moving forward.

And the following 3 ideas crystallized in my mind.

LESSON 1. Sideline ego.

• When something goes poorly, I can’t jump to the conclusion that I was perfect. Because I’m definitely not perfect, and I’m often wrong. And that’s OK.

LESSON 2. Reassess (without pride clouding my thought).

• Where in the plan could I have acted differently? Provided better direction? Done more to set up my teammates for success?

LESSON 3. Assume good intentions of the other party.

• I want quality work. He wants to deliver quality work. No one is actively trying to sabotage the project.

With these 3 lessons in mind, I was able to manage the expectations and the morale of our team through a grueling few months, charging forth into the end of December, successfully completing the documentary on time and within budget.

You can watch our teaser trailer below of our documentary. While you won't see the coveted maps in the trailer, keep a lookout for an update and link to the full film shortly!