Dan Gable on The Origins of His Mental Toughness

What's your organ experience? Mental toughness is one of the most important aspects of wrestling. Obviously, technique and fitness are huge, but mental toughness is what defines wrestlers, in my opinion. Because when you see successful wrestlers in the UFC in particular, there's no one like them. When they come over to MMA, you recognize there's something special about them as athletes. And I think that it comes from the fact that wrestling is so difficult. The practices are so hard. But in the world of mental toughness, where mental toughness is one of the cornerstones, you're known as a guy that stands out. You stand out amongst, like David Goggins likes to say, you're uncommon amongst uncommon men. What is that? What made you stand out from these other wrestlers? Well, I'm going to jump forth to my high school coach, even though I got a lot before that. But I just remember what he said in the room. And he was like the best high school coach in the state at the time. He said, guys, win with humility. Lose with dignity, but damn it, don't lose. And he put those last two lines together real quick. So he kind of had to listen to him. But it was pretty neat because you win with humility, you lose with dignity, but damn it, don't lose. And so that was my first major coach that really taught me a lot of those type of principles. But before that, I was a kid that was at the YMCA when I was five, six years old. And basically, the reason why I was there, because you want to learn how to swim, because if you're an outdoors guy and you want to be around water and you want to make sure you know how your kids swim. So my mom and dad got me in the YMCA. But what they got me in the YMCA really for was they needed help. My dad was a full-time worker and my mom, she stayed at home a lot, but she also helped my dad at the office at home. But I was a little hellion. And they needed me to learn how to swim. But they also needed me to learn how to be a little bit sociable. They needed me to learn how to get along with kids. My first job was at the YMCA. I actually competed. My first sport, competitively, besides practicing, was swimming. And I won a YMCA state championship when I was 12 years old, believe it or not, in the backstroke. Which, you know, in wrestling, I know in fighting you can go to your back and there's lots of tools that you can do there. But I hate going to my back. And I think if I was a fighter, I hate gravity coming down on me. So I don't mind putting it down. But you know, and there's skills there you have to learn. But I really liked the YMCA because it gave me a chance to learn something away from home. I was home with my mom, it's home with my dad, home with my sister, four years older than me. But you know, it's just something I call it going for help. And I think my mom and dad realized at that time that they needed some help with this kid. And I think that's a really good thing to think about as people in the world when you have kids growing up. And if you're not giving them what you need to give them, why not go for help? And there's organizations out there. Now you got to be careful, you know, who you're putting them into. Or even if you give them to a babysitter or whatever like that. But you know, if you're pretty confident that you have a good place to get some help, you get some help. And the same way with me as a coach, same way with me as a husband. I mean, I got my wife, I got my family, I had my assistant coaches, and I got my fans. I mean, I always had them looking out for me. I built that kind of trust with them. Or more than even trust, just they want to help. And that was the way. Now, you can't go overboard. You still got to make sure that the help you're getting is the right help. But the YMCA was perfect for me because, I mean, I can remember the first day they took us to a wrestling room. We had a little wrestling room at the YMCA. And I was already wrestling before that because my dad was a wrestler, not a great wrestler, but his friends were. So when they came to the wrestling, learning the sport, my first wrestling room was at the YMCA there, even though I had been in a wrestling room because these older guys had drugged me around into the wrestling rooms in Waterloo. But I can remember wrestling a kid, and I handled him pretty good because I had already been wrestling in my carpet at home, wrestling outside in the grass, and these people had a little experience with me. But the kid kind of got mad. So I was waiting for my mom and dad to pick me up after the wise couple hours where he spent there. And this kid came out and he goes, you know, you can, you know, maybe you beat me in wrestling up there. But he goes, how about a street fight? And I said, whoa. You know, I was probably eight, nine, eight years old at the time. And you know, it was downtown Waterloo, Iowa, a tough town. I was on one side of the river and he was on the other side of the river growing up. And so he probably had been in more fights than me, but I wasn't really going to fight him. I was waiting for my dad to pick me up and all of a sudden he punches me. And so, you know, what do you do? You got to fight. I mean, either that or run. You know, and I fought and I did all right. I mean, just like in the wrestling room, I did all right. And so I had some of that in me too. But when I had the guy on the down and I kind of let him up, we both looked over. My dad was there standing watching me and that guy's dad was standing there. And my dad and his were talking to each other. And so, you know, that's part of the experience that you kind of grow up in. And I don't know if they even knew each other, but they were kind of supervising. Yet we didn't know they were there. And that was kind of one of my first experiences with understanding a little bit about competition outside of organized sports. Yeah, raw competition. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Primal. Yep. So, you know, actually speaking of the story there, it was a really good one. This is about my mom and dad. My mom and dad were great people, but they like to drink a lot of beer and smoke a lot of cigarettes. And that's why they probably didn't live so long. And they probably had a lot of had some trouble at home. And by that, I mean the cops visited a home quite often just to break up fights. Or my mom would probably call the cops on my dad. So the first time I ever really took notice was when they came the first time and they took my dad away. And he had been rough with my mom, so I probably understood. But I saw him kind of throw a handcuff on him. I think they just threw one on and kind of took him out the door. I didn't really see from there. So he came home that night later on. He just, you know, I don't know, they brought him back later. But so the next day I went to school and the cop that had, the policeman that had come and picked him up was actually a neighbor down the street. Just lived about a block from us. And I was really bad, you know, at the police taking my dad away, even though probably it was a good thing. But I didn't really understand what was going on at that time. And this is different today, probably wouldn't go on. But the neighbor policeman about a block away had a son in my class at school. So after school that day, we were both walking home and I was really mad. And I pulled out of my pocket a wire. And I took this kid down on the ground and I wired his wrists together. And not real hard, but like there were handcuffs. And I grabbed the wire and I said, this is what your dad did to my dad last night. And I'm going to do it to you and I'm going to take you and I'm going to take you home this way. And I took him home because he lived about a block away. And I undertook the things off and let him go in. But it's like probably fourth grade. But my dad found out about that. And wow, what did I get in trouble? I mean, he used to hit me on top of the head with a ring. Probably why I don't have much hair. And he looked at me and he said, you know what? I was intoxicated last night. It was good they took me out of here. But you know what they did to me when it got me down to the police department? He said, I played pool with them. They had a little billiards room down there and they played pool with me until I sobered up and then they brought me back. And you did that to his son? I said, dad, I was protecting you, I thought. And everybody understood. But it's kind of funny how things are. And I don't think that's the old days, good old days, compared to I don't know. They'd probably do a lot more. They'd lock you up probably, but it'll only give you too many breaks. But it's kind of funny how that's the kind of house, difference between 40 years ago, 50 years ago, 60 years ago. What do you think is better though? Are the good old days the good old days or is it better today? I think I like the good old days. I mean, I got picked up one other time. And it was my former, I was back home from college and he was my gym teacher in eighth grade, Mr. Blue. And he ended up being a policeman. So when I came home in college, so that was about in seventh grade. So we're talking six, seven, eight years later when I was home for the weekend and I was driving and he picked me up and I probably had a beer in a car or something. And, you know, he actually let me go, but he picked me up again the same night. So he took me down a second time and he put me in his office in the police station. We talked for quite a while. He let me go too. But, you know, you just can't get away with it. I mean, there's just more rules, regulations. People find out it's like, whoa, whoa. You know, I think the good old days probably gave you a chance to actually realize things better than you can today. You can actually get a second chance maybe. And, you know, that type of thing.