I’ve been training to become an amateur boxer for two years now.
It’s a brutal sport. Nobody enjoys getting hit in the face. But there’s something about it—the balance of strategy, endurance, and instinct—that makes the sweet science an art.
When people first step into a boxing gym, they assume it’s all about power. That the key to winning is throwing the hardest punch.
I’m no different.
When I first got into “boxing” (lol), I got a cheap pair of 16oz gloves and went to town. You could catch me swinging at the heavy bag as hard as I could, throwing what I thought were Mike Tyson-level hooks…
I couldn’t move my wrists for three days.
Everyone wants to land the knockout punch. But real fighters know it’s not about brute strength—it’s about precision, timing, and control. Those first wild swings don’t just waste energy; they leave you vulnerable. A sloppy punch can get you countered and knocked down before you even realize what happened.
Boxing is about equilibrium—power, speed, and patience working in sync—which translates into so many other areas of life.
That’s why I love it.
I also learned that boxing should be instinctual.
It’s about survival just as much as it’s about being on the offense.
This is a sport where you unilaterally spend more time training than competing. Hours and hours of shadow boxing, jump rope, working on your positioning, and an excruciating amount of bag work. But no amount of training can fully prepare you for what happens inside the ropes.
Because when you step into the ring, you’re not just fighting—you’re being hunted. Your opponent has trained just as hard, and they have one goal: outwork you, outlast you, and break you.
Just look at the recent Tank Davis vs. Lamont Roach fight. In a sport where every fraction of a second matters, Davis found himself supposedly blinded—by his own corner.
Now, I’m a fan of Tank, but ‘grease in the eye’ is a first for me.
But that’s the unpredictability of boxing. You can train for every scenario, sharpen every skill, but the fight will always throw something unexpected at you.
The moment pressure builds, when fatigue sets in and pain creeps through your ribs, we tend to believe it will last forever. But it doesn’t. It never does. It may last for 5 or 10 seconds at most at a time.
You survive one moment, then the next. You push through discomfort, stay composed, and wait for the opening.
If there’s one rule in boxing that’s easier said than done, it’s this: never fight emotionally.
There is no room for emotions in the ring.
I guarantee, take a few good jabs to the head, and your first instinct will be to swing back in frustration. You’re pissed off now. You’re thinking, are you just going to let them punk you like that? I don’t think so.
But when you lose your temper, you lose control. You leave yourself exposed, and bam! That’s when you get hit with a counterpunch so good even your coach goes:
Keeping your composure, staying calm, and thinking a few moves ahead—this is the difference between an ugly match and a great one.
But the point I want to make is that no one cares about what you do behind the scenes. Whether you did or didn’t get your road work in. Whether you’ve been properly hydrating and eating clean. Or how many hours you spent recording yourself in the gym.
All that matters is how you perform when it counts.
Is More Pain Ahead?
Boxing is often called a metaphor for life.
And let’s talk real life.
Take our new administration’s first 100 days in office, for example. From the moment the president took office, the policy punches started flying:
“Among the dizzying number of orders Trump signed during his first day in office were several designed to bar asylum for people arriving at the southern border, end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented migrants, declare migrant crossings at the US-Mexico border to be a national emergency (thus unlocking federal funding), direct federal agencies to investigate trade practices, order the government to assess the feasibility of creating an “External Revenue Service” to collect tariffs and duties, withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, roll back a variety of regulations on tailpipe pollution and energy-efficient appliances, and open the Alaska wilderness for oil drilling.” – Molly Callahan, What Have We Learned So Far from the Start of Trump’s First 100 Days?
The latest to be passed down: 25% broad tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports, along with an additional 10% of tariffs on Chinese imports, bringing the current levy to 20%.
Despite Trump already backpedaling (likely realizing that it directly conflicts with the 2020 USMCA free trade agreement he put into place), temporarily pausing Canada/Mexico tariffs for a month, Canada retaliated by targeting American wine and spirits by pulling them off distributor’s shelves.
A new round of tariffs on aluminum and steel went into effect last as of last night.
It’s a rapidly evolving situation. However, numerous other companies—Ford, GM, Best Buy, Apple, and Tesla, to name a few—could be affected by these tariffs. In preparation, they held many strategy sessions and planning talks in war rooms to specifically address this possibility. Now that it’s here, it’s to be determined what their next move is.
Will more retaliation efforts continue? Is higher inflation and slower economic growth truly ahead of us?
What’s ensued from the state of confusion has resulted in the S&P 500 taking back all of the post-election gains since November.
If we continue to see another 5-10% slide, this is where pain starts to seep in. Headlines will get scarier. We could continue to hear about job losses. I can’t say things won’t get worse.
And with the speed of new information and contradicting statements, it’s feeling more like a high volume amateur fight than a 12-round strategic professional bout.
In those moments, it feels like it will last forever.
But it won’t. It never does.
Being a long-term investor, building wealth the long way, is tough. When you get on the market’s bad side, it feels like it has one goal: outwork you, outlast you, and break you.
Market downturns and recessions aren’t speculation—they’re inevitable. And when the punches start landing, emotions can wreck even the best-laid plans.
The market is always moving, giving us head fakes. Always on its toes. You have to stay nimble, too.
Just as a fighter must learn when to defend and when to strike, investors must know when to hold steady and when to seize an opportunity—it’s about balancing survival with seizing opportunities.
Because the market can reverse in an instant, and those so-called safeguards can backfire.
Recent research from Grant Hawkridge shows the S&P 500 has so far mirrored its typical post-election year pattern, rising in January and dipping in February and March.
If history is any guide, the market may be close to finding its footing, with the potential for a strong rally into year-end.
Again, we’re dealing with moments in time.
Because, in the end, no one cares whether you felt like staying disciplined or if you thought about making the right move.
All that matters is how you perform when it counts.
Don’t forget your training.
We’ve been here before.
