Anthony Robles began wrestling at 14 and faced immediate skepticism. Robles was born with one leg — but he refused to back down.
Robles persevered by confronting what he calls “the doubters.” “I would tell myself, ‘If I quit now, I’m proving them right,'” Robles said.
This motivational strategy worked for a while, but it took a toll on Robles. “After I got more success, I kept thinking, ‘I have to keep winning to prove them wrong.’ The pressure kept growing, and I worried more and more about winning.”
Robles, now 36, ultimately developed strategies to relieve the psychological pressure of pushing forward in the face of adversity.
After his junior year at Arizona State, Robles reached elite status. He was a high school national champion and earned All-American college honors.
But finishing seventh in the NCAA tournament left him devastated. Then, over the summer, everything changed.
“A manila envelope arrived in the mail,” he said. “It was filled with about 40 letters from third-grade students in Atlanta. They’d read about me in a wrestling magazine and were sharing their own challenges and dreams. I got teary-eyed.”
Those handwritten notes shifted his perspective. The pressure to prove others wrong faded. A new mindset took hold.
“My takeaway was to give my best effort, move on, and not worry about the end result,” he said.
That simple shift changed everything. Freed from the weight of expectation, Robles entered his final season with clarity—and crushed the competition. He closed his career by defeating the defending NCAA champion to win the national title.
Robles’ story ultimately became a movie, “Unstoppable,” starring Jharrel Jerome as Robles and Jennifer Lopez as his mother, Judy.
