Follow Robert Abruzzese on Instagram @RobbyAbz for your regular dose of success and inspiration. Read more here.
Ignoring failure is detrimental to people’s lives. One success story, proudly built on failures, is Robert Abruzzese. Robert has been smacked, kicked, and bruised by life, but has risen again and again. Each time fitter, smarter, and more determined, regenerating like an octopus into a new, more superior version of himself.
Robert believes that failure is a fantastic gift if you can see it, respect it, and restrategize based on it. It shows which decisions were good or bad. It teaches us that arrogance can cause irreparable self-blindness which can lead to narcissism. It teaches us toughness.
Of course, not one of us WANTS to fail, but it takes guts to take risks in life. If you play it safe all the time, you will not reach your full potential…You may miss out on incredible life-changing opportunities. Failure is a part of life. It’s how you respond to it that makes all the difference.
The Beginning
Robert Abruzzese was a top athlete in college. He and his closest friends were champion wrestlers and title-winning Golden Gloves boxers, ready to take on the world. The 9/11 attacks had a big impact on them, and it provoked them enough to seek revenge for the horrific assault on the US. They all decided they were all going to enlist in the Marines, each with their own military occupational specialty. Garth was to be a recon sniper, Kyle was to be in the thick of it in the infantry, and Rob was planning on flying overhead protecting all the ground troops in fighter jets and helicopters.
Robert’s thoughts were, “There is my only one chance to do this. This is the war of my time. I wanted that honor, I wanted that respect, and I love my country. I rode a motorcycle 2.5 hours (going 100 mph the whole time) from Stamford, CT to the Massachusetts Marine Officer Recruitment Center. I was moving forward with my plans to be a pilot. They knew I was coming, so when I got there I sat down and took the ASTB (Aviation Selection Test Battery), a challenging exam testing your intelligence and ability to understand the mechanics of flying. I passed, then sat down in the office with one of the Marine Recruiters, a hardened veteran. I’ll never forget the conversation… “We’re the Varsity squad!!! The first ones in and last ones out. Once a Marine, always a Marine. You belong here.” I was elated. All I had to do next was fill out some paperwork, take one more test, The ASVAB, and soon enough I’d be shipping out. I was told I can not lie on this questionnaire or I could be prosecuted for a crime.” There were a few lines that asked about previous injuries. Have you ever been in an accident? Have you ever broken a bone? Yes…Yes. I was in a motorcycle accident when I was 19 years old. I fractured my T3 & T6 vertebrae, broke my sternum (where all your ribs meet), and lacerated my spleen… I was then informed I was disqualified due to the injuries I sustained“.
Not taking no for an answer, Robert was instructed to go to the Army, and not to tell them about this incident. They need your permission to look up your medical records… “I followed through with that advice and enlisted in the Army as a Calvary Scout 19D” My friends never made it in. They were arrested a few weeks before for an incident involving holding someone at gunpoint.
Long story short…During week 18 of the 22-week OSUT training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, The spinal injury caught up with him. The constant downward pressure on his spine caused these injured discs to compress, sending shooting pains down his legs. During a long 10-mile battalion run, he started to fall out…Something that was unusual for him. “First I was attacked by the drill sergeants running with us…then they could see something was really wrong. I was sent to the hospital straight from there…They looked up my previous injuries, and a few weeks later I was given a general discharge from the Army…”
I was devastated, but I did learn a lot of things about physical and mental toughness. It is also something I continue to think about. Could I have toughed it out? Maybe with the right stretches/therapy I could have fixed my injury. There were two key takeaways from this.
#1 Never Give Up
#2 The military has a saying: “Adapt And Overcome.”
The Adaptations
Robert adapted into a marketing career but was let go from two positions because he couldn’t adapt from the army to the PC office life. This was very disappointing and frustrating as here was another Not-A-Good-Fit situation.
Robert says, “I was watching Generation Iron and was inspired.” I realized I could compete with some of the top guys. I moved to Miami, got a job at Equinox South Beach, and worked my way up the ladder to a tier 3 trainer. One of the most highly educated training positions Equinox has. During that time, I trained clients, did photoshoots, and competed in men’s physique competitions. I was putting in 19-hour days. I would wake up at 5 am and go to sleep at midnight, with very few breaks. I ended up being signed by Silver Model Management as a fitness athlete and relocated to NYC.”
“After two years of intense input by me and not much outcome, I realized this was another Not-A-Good-Fit situation as I was not like the 6’3” Greek gods that competed with me for castings. When chatting with my trainer Anton Antipov (8x IFBB Pro Champion & 5 time Olympian,” he said people like us do fitness because we love it not as a wealth maker.”
Robert decided his next Adapt And Overcome strategy was studying again and received an MBA. “Being out of studying for some time makes it tough to get back into it. I have to thank my trained mental stamina for getting through endless hours and late nights of study. With that MBA I obtained work at CuriosityStream.”
“Work went well, I networked hard, my social circle grew, and my social appointments. In NYC the pressure to be ‘somebody’ is huge, intense and unrelenting. It can eat you up. The social networks and social status almost outweigh whatever it is you do during the day” explains Robert.
“It ate me up. And spat me out. I had lost focus on training and healthy eating, I drank more, my relationships suffered, and my mind suffered. I had activated a genetic chemical depression. I literally nearly killed myself when I started taking handfuls of sleeping pills one night planning an overdose. My ex counted how many I took, and she said I took 114…I felt hopeless, lost and pointless. I spent roughly 2 weeks in hospital. One week to make sure I didn’t need a liver transplant, and the next week under evaluation for depression. Soon after I started seeing a psychiatrist regularly.”
With ongoing therapy, Robert discovered that his focus on training and healthy eating gives him a healthy mind and a healthy way of living. Exercising the mind with positive affirmations every day also works very effectively. A healthy body is not obtained by thinking about going to the gym, you have to take action and go. A positive mind needs to do positive exercises.
Failure teaches us where we went wrong, how to get up, adapt and let go again. Adaptation is key. Failure does not mean we are bad at something; it means we have to try a different path to success. ‘I can’t’ is short for ‘I CAN TRY’. This is firmly ingrained in Rob’s mind. He says: “Some of the most successful people have failed more than you know. True failure is only a state of mind. You fail only when you refuse to get back up after you fall.”
In The End
Failure doesn’t have one face. Students or teachers fail when trying new things. We fail in relationships, we fail in careers, we fail in hobbies and that is good. Observe, adapt and you will have become more skilled and tougher than those who have avoided failure.
“I have a strong reservoir of knowledge and skillsets obtained from my diverse journey. My journey has allowed me to have experience and knowledge to benefit real conversations with a broad spectrum of real people.”
“A lot of people have had dreams that could not be fulfilled. They need to realize they have become a better person; That they are not starting over again, they are starting from experience. They have developed more intriguing chapters to their life story and they have developed skills and knowledge” says Robert, “All of this is something that you can’t buy or extract from a university.”
Wealth is a mindset. Robert follows the mantra: The harder you work, the luckier you get and is finding it to be absolutely true. “I am learning as much as I can. That has put me in a position that is attracting people and opportunities to me.” Robert’s favorite book is 10X, The Only Difference Between Success And Failure by Grant Cardone.
When bad luck or failure hits, remember there is ALWAYS something you can do to be better prepared next time. Now get up, adapt and OVERCOME. Find the success in your failures and you shall continually grow to new successes.
Follow Robert Abruzzese on @robbyabz for your regular dose of success inspiration
(Syndicated press content is neither written, edited or endorsed by ED Times)
