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10 Life Lessons I Didn’t Want to Learn

It’s time for some tough love.

Chris Wojcik
5 min readMar 9, 2022
Photo from my seminar in Washington, DC last weekend.

In my life, there have been few better experiences of “tough love” than stepping out onto the mat to compete at a Jiu-Jitsu tournament, fully expecting myself to dominate my competition, and then proceeding to get choked unconscious in the first round.

Nothing quite exposes your limits like passing out due to a lack of oxygen.

It’s really hard to run away from the fact that you need to improve when you’re being woken up by a referee being told that you lost and you need to get off the mat so that they can continue with the rest of the tournament.

This was a painful lesson, but I’ve found that the most important lessons are usually the ones that you do not want to receive.

Here are 10 lessons that I have learned through the painful exposure of my limits, across all facets of my life.

In business, competence is only half the battle. You must also look competent.

About 2 years ago, I started bleaching and dying my hair. Usually, I’m plain ole bleach blonde like the picture above, but I’ve also been hot pink, red, and blue. Some people see this and judge me and draw conclusions about my character based on my hair color.

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Chris Wojcik
Chris Wojcik

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