World heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua has created a motivational film with Lucozade Sport to inspire people through the power of coaching and sport.
In the documentary Joshua surprises aspiring football coach Michael Kulu, who dreams of one day working at a top Premier League club, and takes the 19-year-old on a tour of the boxing club where he started his career in Finchley.
The reigning IBF, WBA & WBO champion introduces Kulu to his old boxing coach, Sean Murphy, who tells the teenager about breaking his hand the first time he took a young Joshua on the pads, and how his early teaching helped forge the Brit’s famous victory over Wladimir Klitschko.
“Don’t be that guy at 29 saying ‘I wish I’d done it when I was 19’, because you’ll live a life of regret,” Joshua tells Kulu.
“Find something that you’re passionate about and something you’re working for yourself. Going [to boxing] just because I was dropping my cousin off and watching turned into ‘I think I can do this’, [and that] turned into something that I loved.”
“From the neck up is where you win or lose the battle. It’s the art of war. You have to lock yourself in and strategise your mindset. As long as you have discipline, you can be a success. Discipline is what makes you do everything you need to do. Whether you sit on the bike for half an hour or throw on two jumpers and just sweat, it’s good to get up, get the body active, put on your headphones and just pedal away.
“Just set yourself a goal and try and stick to it. Because you’ll always end up better than where you started. Don’t worry about the title. Worry about what you’ve got to do today, tomorrow, the next day, and that title will be waiting for you. You have to speak from a place where all is possible. When you speak from a place where there are limits, you’ve already set yourself up to fail.”
The film has been released as part of Lucozade’s Made to Move campaign, which aims to get one million people exercising by 2020.
