Beware of Unnecessary Warfare

Jordan Burroughs is one of the greatest American wrestlers in history. He is an Olympic Gold medalist and six-time world champion. Known for his explosive style and incredible mental resolve he is admired and respected around the world.

But even the best of the best can get off course. Even the most elite performers can lose focus. 

Heading into the 2024 Olympic Trials, hosted at Penn State University, Jordan Burroughs was on a crash course with multiple athletes training at the Nittany Lion Wrestling club. Even in a sport like wrestling where things are “settled” by way of physical combat, there’s always the temptation to have a war of words. And of course in today’s modern era of constant connectivity the war of words takes place in one of the least effective ways to settle conflict - social media.

“It all started at NCAAs with Bo Nickal’s tweet. I responded to his tweet and created this entire storm I shouldn’t have got myself into. If I could go back in time I would have just ignored his tweet and it would have changed everything from a mental perspective.”

An 11-word reply online resulted in the entirety of an entire fanbase coming down on Burroughs via social media. 

For weeks, it became a non-stop buzz in the air between Jordan Burroughs and “Nittany Lion Nation.”

Even days before competition, Burroughs was engaging with Nittany Lion wrestlers on social media (even on multiple platforms).

With multiple Nittany Lion wrestlers in his bracket at the Olympic Trials AND the trials being hosted at Penn State, all of a sudden an incredibly taxing and demanding pursuit - just got harder.

It resulted in Burroughs eventually losing to a Nittany Lion in the semi-finals, being booed off the mat and as he headed into the tunnel turning around and engaging with fans in the stands who hurled insults and slights.

Even the most disciplined, focused competitors can get distracted and pulled into unnecessary conflict.

When asked about his experience at the Olympic Trials months later, Burroughs had this to say:

“I wasn’t in the right mental space. I engaged in unnecessary warfare that jaded my mental clarity and didn’t put me in a good space to perform. I’m best when I’m focused. Look back at my career and when people have thrown me off of my game I rarely retaliate. When I do, it takes me off my game, it becomes a crack in my mental focus and a lack of discipline. My body and my mind weren’t in sync.”

That’s what unnecessary warfare does to us. It begins to dislodge the mind-body relationship. We either can’t get into or we can’t maintain the flow state that is often needed to be at our best.

And the sad part about it - is we only realize after the fact, that it was all unnecessary. It wasn’t needed. When emotions are running high it is really hard to determine in the moment - is this really necessary? How is this helping me get what I came to do?

Just since January, I have engaged in hundreds of conversations with high performers in workshops, group coaching sessions or 1-on-1 conversations with clients. Here are some common themes I hear where people lose their mental clarity by way of engaging in unnecessary warfare.

They fight on too many fronts

They’re always halfway pursuing opportunities. New things emerge and they drop what they’re doing and go chase a new opportunity. Often after a little while they drop that and go pursue something else. It becomes a game of never giving their main thing the full attention it deserves.

They engage in conflicts that don’t lead to anything productive

Of course a high performer and leader is no push-over, but it’s easy to get pulled into conflicts that sap our energy, cause us to lose sleep, affect us in a visceral, physical way only to look up and go “what was I trying to gain from all this?” You don’t have to respond and retaliate against everything thrown your way. If you engage in every conflict you’re just going to be a person who’s constantly in conflict. 

They misuse social media for entertainment and mindless engagements.

Social media can be a net positive. You can read some of the world's best thinkers, interact, respond, ask questions, and build connections through sharing ideas. But also it can become something where we drift into consumer mode, looking to be entertained or lose our minds in digital arguments over philosophies, politics, or digital feuds. And even if you’re not actively in the comments or replies, your perspectives are being shaped by your scrolling. 

They let a comment or an opinion from someone in their ecosystem “own” them.

It’s one thing to be triggered by a comment or an opinion. We’re not robots, we have to internally respond to the emotions that come from criticism toward us. But when weeks later we’re stewing and ruminating over a person or a perspective in our own minds it’s an entirely different experience. It’s not about “don’t let them bother you.” It’s about getting to the root of why that comment or perspective was so hurtful, and what that says about ourselves more than it says about them. 

They fail to set boundaries - they can’t say no.

We all have a finite amount of time, energy, and focus. Often I hear “there’s not enough time in the day.” The time in the day is the same that it’s always been. 24 hours a day. 168 hours a week. The feeling of “there’s not enough time,” isn't about the lack of time. It’s about the lack of barriers and boundaries for where we direct our time. Saying yes to everything is necessary if you want everyone to like you. It’s entirely unnecessary if you want to pursue your actual purpose or reason for being. When we fail to say no, our time and our lives become jumbled, crammed, overstimulated and stressed, while slowly time drifts away - unnecessarily. 

Unnecessary warfare is the engagement of time, attention, and energy in conflicts, endeavors, opportunities that pull you away from your purpose in the present.

It is the inability to keep the main thing, the main thing.

We’re here to make the Olympic team, instead we’re arguing with fans in the stands. 

We’re here to execute on our training in the domain, instead we’re “proving” something to someone. 

We’re here to accomplish our mission, instead we’re emotionally triggered, mentally unregulated, and standing off in the corner, having failed our objective and wondering how we got here.

None of this is to pick on Jordan Burroughs. In fact, his sense of engaging in the thoughts and emotions that led to the experience is just one example of why he is truly elite. His reflection on the 2024 Olympic Trials was rooted in “I’m still learning, and I sure won’t do that again.” That is how we stay the course. That is how we get better.

Most people fail to lean into the necessary introspection to respond to the feedback life gives us. 

We go from unnecessary warfare to unnecessary warfare, never realizing the patterns of thinking and feeling that put us in recurring experiences - often well short of our hopes and dreams.

You do not have to repeat the same pattern. We can learn, we can respond, we can create our own lists of “I sure won’t do that again.” That’s the basis for wise living and high performance. Jordan Burroughs models this for us better than anyone. 

As British writer Alan Watts said, “You’re under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago.”

Or as Paul’s letter to the Romans says “Dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.” 

You don’t have to engage in unnecessary warfare.

Stay The Course,