Beasey Hendrix was a legend in sports psychology, especially wrestling psychology.  He personally crafted an intricately detailed system of mental preparation for matches.  His book, Wrestle your perfect match, became the blueprint for many wrestlers.

In this short video, he bluntly and humorously explained his answer to wrestlers who didn't feel like training hard.

Cher is an award winning singer, actress, performer and businesswoman.  However, what I am about to tell you about her will amaze and shock you.

I was up late one night recently, reading Cher’s bio, and I learned some fascinating facts about her life.

I have always had a keen interest in learning about highly successful people and in particular, their journey to the top…but this was something else.

Setting aside for a minute Cher's personal setbacks, (two failed marriages) Cher has had many professional failures along the way, such as…

• two failed television series
• several failed attempts at a solo career
• failed Sonny and Cher television show,
• several failed Sonny and Cher albums  resulting in getting dropped from her label several times
• 2 failed attempts with Geffen records
• two early movie failures which practically sunk her acting career.

I'm sure I've missed a few as well.

Finally, even after gaining much success, on the screen as well as in music, Cher wound up nearly bankrupt, a single mom with a spotty acting resume that few took seriously…to the point where, when people saw her name in the credits, they started to laugh.

At the same time, she suffered a slowdown of her musical career.

Finally she caught a break (please don’t call it luck), snagged a Broadway role that led to a movie role, followed by Golden Globe and Oscar winning roles, and she was back.

Cher changed musical directions several times…

“Take me home” became a worldwide success. With success in music, film and television, as well as launching successful fitness videos and doing lucrative infomercials, she eventually built a $600 billion dollar empire.

Amazing success story with plenty of roadblocks along the way.

Whatever you think of Cher, like her, love her, hate her, indifferent – you gotta respect her perseverance, that never-quit attitude that kept her going.

I’m always fascinated by stories of highly successful people…

and every time I am able to dig deep, I find a familiar pattern…

a person who has been knocked down, and gotten back up, numerous times.

I find great life lessons in such things, that can relate directly to wrestling.

I’m reminded often that you have to be willing to fail if you’re ever going to succeed.

Now I'm talking to you parents.

Does your athlete (if you’re a parent) have every opportunity to fail? If not, they are being robbed of incredible opportunities for success.

Every time Cher failed, she learned from the experience… but she never stopped trying.

I was just in the room with a parent that “gets it”, understands the importance of letting their young athlete fail so he can grow from it.

Many parents don’t understand what that looks like.

I want the athletes in my room to embrace the challenge, not fear it. A parents approach is paramount to his ability to accomplish that and here’s why:

No matter who you are, how mentally or physically tough you are, nobody…and I do mean nobody – is on, at their best, wrestles their best, every time out. Its just not how it works for us mere mortals.

Just ask Cher.

As a parent, it is easy to deal with your athlete’s successes…those times when he is on, competing at his best, at the top of his game.

What’s hard is dealing with the flip-side of that coin. Bad match, not at the top of his game, lacks intensity, motivation, energy, focus, direction.

Now what do you do?

First of all, your athlete needs a ‘soft place to land.’ In other words, you want your athlete to always feel he can come over to you when things don’t go well. Now, he may need some time to himself after a loss, but you want him to feel okay with coming over afterwards.

How to Guarantee your athlete will want to come to you

Remember, the good times are easy to manage. The challenge is when things go awry.

Here’s a guaranteed method that my own mother used with me…and I never hesitated to come over when a match was over, no matter how poorly I wrestled.

Never in my life, did either of my parents ever tell me how I did, what I did wrong, or criticize my effort in any way, shape or form.

Instead, I got open ended questions or silence.

Open ended questions such as, “well, what do you think?” Or “what can be learned from this experience?” Even, “what’s your plan?”

Sometimes though, silence was best. My parents would let me do the talking – if I felt like it.

Because of my parents’ approach (especially my mom’s, since my dad wasn’t always there), I never dreaded going over to them after a match. I had my ‘soft place to land’ when necessary.

As a result, I had a lot of success in the sport… and to this day, retain the passion for the sport I fell in love with.

After failure – and, like Cher, I’ve had plenty – I kept getting back up and trying harder.

I still fail sometimes – but I don’t fear it.

That’s the true model for success, not only in wrestling, but in life.

We simply can’t be afraid to fail…and parents can help tremendously in developing that mindset.