A life lesson from Ode Osbourne: ‘Turn those losses into learns’
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“The Jamaican Sensation” Ode Osbourne (8-3) has learned to balance his new life as a UFC bantamweight with being “knee deep” in teaching. When Osbourne spoke with The Scrap, he stated that juggling both jobs is not difficult at all. “It’s just another day in the office for me to be honest with you. It’s actually not that difficult for me, I just flow through it”.
Osbourne debuted at UFC 246 in January, losing to Brian “Boom” Kelleher by guillotine. To earn his ticket to the UFC, he competed on Contender Series where he defeated Armando Villarreal via armbar.
The 28-year-old has been a teacher for approximately six years. Osbourne noted that it takes a certain degree of planning to hold down a teaching job outside of the cage.
“The most difficult thing is getting your training schedules in, you know, because I’m trying to get pads sessions in,” said Osbourne. “I’m trying to get wrestling one on one and I’m trying to get all these different things in. And I think that’s the most difficult part when you’re, you know, trying to prepare a lesson for the kids the next day, and also trying to prep for a fight, you know, answer parents and all kinds of different stuff on the side”.
When asked what his students thought of him being a professional MMA fighter in the UFC, Osbourne jokingly responded:
“Man those students don’t give a damn about me being in the UFC. If I lose the fight they are like ‘Mr. O man, come on what was that’. They just give me a hard time all the time. They keep me honest though; because they are the only ones that can joke with me like that. They are really like that younger sister or brother that just come for you.”
During the Coronavirus quarantine, Osbourne has taken up many hobbies including gardening, Forex trading and fishing. He let out a laugh when admitting his recent fishing trip was not a prosperous one. “I didn’t catch one single fish. I just took up fishing like a week ago. I didn’t catch one but guess what though, I’m gonna go back and I’m gonna keep going back,” said Osbourne. “I didn’t know shit about fishing. First of all, I didn’t know what was in the river. Now I found out, I did some research, I did some studies, I watched some YouTube videos and found out there are a lot of small mouth bass in there. Now I can get the right bait for small mouth bass and try again.”
“Everything in life is just try and try and try man. I’m used to failure. That’s how I am where I am. I failed, then I got it right”.
For a fighter training the body is one thing, but training the mind for fighting takes preparation as well. The Wisconsin resident described his process for preparing his mind for a fight.
“It takes a lot, a lot of meditation, and calming my mind and getting rid of those outside voices you know, that’s the killer. And not just fighting in all sports and in life,” said Osbourne. “Outside voices, once they start trickling in, and they start getting right into your membrane you can’t let that happen. It’s the voice of resistance. Whenever that voice of resistance starts talking to you, you either give in or you push right through it. For me it’s just constantly developing that strong mindset”.
Osbourne is also busy adding author to his list of occupations. The tentative title for the autobiography is ‘Bottom Boy Survivor”.
“I’m writing a book right now. Yes, I’m gonna put it all out there for everybody. I got so many skeletons so many, so much shit that people really don’t know about me. My close friends, best friends that think they know me, they know nothing about the deep, deep shit that made me who I am today.” He described the task of writing an autobiography as being extremely difficult. “It’s tough writing about yourself because you got to uncover things that you’ve suppressed, you know. I mean picture peeing yourself in class, and the teachers, laughing at you, the kids laughing at you, and times that by twelve and that’s how I feel writing this book by myself.”
During the interview Osbourne’s friendly demeanour and zest for life shined through. He wanted to share a note of positivity and life lesson to others.
“Anybody out there that has anybody telling them they can’t do something or feel like they want to do something. Feel like they’re at the edge of their seat and they want to try something else but afraid of failure. Don’t be afraid of failure. It’s never too late to fail. Fail, see how many times you can fail. Let’s see how many times you can get back up from failing. That’s my challenge to y’all out there. How many times can you fail at something to be good at it. You don’t got to be the best, you just got to be good just long enough, just long enough for everybody else to fall below you, because society is just trickling down man. As long as you keep your edge you will be the best eventually. Turn those L’s into lessons man; those losses into learns”.
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