Know How to Take a Punch | Rabbi Bentzion Shafier

0:00When I was a young man, learning in Shiva, I was invited to join a very exclusive Musa Tabura. Musa Tabura is a group of fellows who is at the same age, one producer Hiddish says something it might be a chazal, might be a gammara, I invited a very serious group, the first week someone said it, Dastakinim, next week someone said a rasch and chumish, third week was my time to represent. I walked into the room, I was not carrying a chumish, not carrying a Musa safer, I walked in carrying a picture sports book. I got some pretty serious looks when I put the book down on the table and then I opened to the center section and they just saw Muhammad Ali holding up the heavyweight championship belt. It looks pretty dirty when they said, shay for what do you want, I said, tell me what you see. All right, we get it. Frazier been the world champion, Ali just won the fight, what do you want? I said exactly, when you look at that picture, what do you see? You see glory, you see victory. You don't see that the world heavyweight champion got so beat up in the fight that they brought him straight to the hospital for 21 days he couldn't get out of his hospital bed. And that's at the part you read about in the sports section, it's not the part you hear,

1:01you hear about the victory, you hear about his glory, but you don't hear that the world champion got so beat up that for three weeks he couldn't get out of bed. What I wanted to share with my friends that day is the key to success is not talent, the key to success is not ability, not even determination, it's knowing how to take a punch because I don't care how good you are, I don't care how talented you are, you're going to seek lofty goals, some you'll hit, some you won't, but if you're not able to get a hit, fall to the canvas and pick yourself back up, you'll never succeed in life. Find me human being who succeed in any endeavor in life, I guarantee they knew how to get knocked down and get back in that game time after time after time, because success in any endeavor in life certainly in a vote as Hashem requires knowing how to succeed, knowing how to succeed means knowing how to take a punch, knowing how to get knocked down and knowing how to get back in the fight time after time after time.