“I was grateful that he gave me that opportunity,” Hernandez said of Montoya. “And it was a great decision on his part, a lot of wisdom there, because when we came back, we were different. It was a completely different version of myself and a huge level of growth happening in that time away. and I definitely got a lot of the mental work that I needed in conjunction with the physical.
„I got that synchronization that maybe I was lapsing on before. Maybe I was a little too grunt-like and a little too brutish in the physicality and I wasn’t connecting some of the dots I needed mentally, and I was able to do that. I’m real coachable, I adapt real well. I like to think I’m self-aware and so I’ll pick things up. It’s not anything I’m coming up with on my own. I just do a good job of parroting what my coaches back home have taught me that maybe these guys haven’t seen yet or are privy to, and I do a good job of impersonating coach when I need to.”
READ: Strong Culture Carries Factory X
In the process, Hernandez has become a leader in the room, and as a leader, he’s not only showing his teammates the value of being a martial artist all year round and not just in fight camp, but he’s leading by example in how he deals with the ups and downs of the business. So the way he reacted to the Cerrone fight? That’s a thing of the past.
“The Cerrone fight launched me into a month-long depression, honestly,” he said. “It’s like the world around me was completely shaken and I was completely beside myself and real upset. The dream you had and the vision and the opportunity, and all these things, and as you grow and go, you can get back to that and they can all be a big opportunity.
„Each one had a story around it. That one had its own story around it, the Dober fight had its own chaotic, COVID, self-taught and trained story around it that led me to Factory X, where my manager talked me off a cliff, telling me, ‘Let’s get to a gym and you’ll see.’ And I saw the light. And no knock to my guys back home. They still fly out and no one’s better than them at what they do, they just don’t do MMA; they do specifics.”
