The best time to lose is never.

The second-best time to lose is early in the season.

Especially right after a wildly successful year.

A loss late in the season plants doubt. It shakes your confidence. And there might not be enough time to work through that doubt, reset, and make a real run at a championship.

But an early loss?

That’s a brutal, beautiful reminder of how fragile winning is.

What happened last year was magical—and by definition, magic doesn’t show up on command.

Some days, it just isn’t there.

One of the biggest disadvantages of winning is this: you become the hunted.

Every serious, championship-driven, hard-working wrestler has you circled on their calendar.

They see your face when they push for one more rep.

In their eyes, you are the reason they suffer—and someone who needs to pay.

An early-season loss flips that.

You go from being the hunted back to being the hunter.

And being the hunter is always better.

I never want to lose.

But if I have to, I’ll take the loss early in the season, every time.

Because losing early erases the fear of losing that grows heavier with each passing week.

It trades the fear of losing for a burning desire to win.

Sometimes, losing is the very thing that makes you win.

It creates a deep hatred for your own vulnerability, your humanness.

It makes you determined to never feel that empty, unfulfilled ache again.

It’s far better to take that hit early, with six weeks to regroup, adjust, and come back stronger…than to get sniped at the end with no time to respond.

So if this past weekend didn’t go as planned— if the unthinkable, the unimaginable happened—feel blessed.

You are no longer the hunted.

You are the hunter again.

Go hunt.