ABOUT

VERSUS THE MIND

Most people think the hardest part of training is the body. The truth is the hardest part is getting your mind to let you start.

My name is Gustavo Beck. I’m 27, born in the countryside of Brazil, and my fitness journey started over a decade ago.

I walked into a martial arts gym for the first time at 15. It gave me direction and a reason to push myself. At the same time I had to work and study to help my family, so training was always the first thing to pause when life got busy.

To stay consistent, I shifted to a regular gym where I could train on my own schedule. I lifted weights, improved my diet, got stronger, and later returned to martial arts through Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It felt good to be back doing what I loved.

A few years later I moved to Ireland and started training Muay Thai in 2018.

When the pandemic hit and everything shut down, I started running. Running changed everything for me because there was no coach, no teammates, no hype, just me. The feeling after was amazing, but the process exposed something important.

It didn’t matter how much I loved training. Most days I didn’t feel motivated. With running it became even clearer, because there was nothing external to push me.

People assume passion makes things easier, for me it was the opposite. Even when I was progressing, I had to fight with myself every single day.

I tried to figure out why. I blamed food, sleep, maybe lack of vitamins. I even did blood tests. Everything came back normal. I kept waiting for motivation to become automatic. I expected a switch. That switch never came.

So I started paying attention to my mind instead.

I realised the mind never shuts up. Laziness, doubt, comfort, fear, low motivation, these are normal parts of being human. They don’t disappear just because you want them gone. They wait for you to agree with them.

My mind still talks every time I run. It tells me to slow down, to stop, to take a shortcut. Sometimes it starts before I even lace my shoes. The difference now isn’t that I don’t feel it, it’s that I expect it, I embrace it, and I push.

When I stopped trying to eliminate those thoughts and used those feelings as fuel, everything changed.
That’s how discipline grew for me. Not from talent. Not from motivation. Not from passion. From accepting that I’m human and moving anyway.

Most people don’t fail because their body quits. They fail because their mind convinces them not to start long before the body needs to stop.

And that’s the question that shaped this philosophy:
Why do we show up for responsibilities we don’t enjoy, and struggle to show up for the habits that make us healthier, stronger, and happier?

That’s where Versus The Mind was born, from the belief that we’re not fighting our bodies, we’re learning how to lead our minds.

Why this matters for you

If you learn how to move even when you don’t feel ready, you unlock the only skill that actually changes your life: consistency. That’s what VXM teaches, not hype, not motivation, but how to act in the presence of resistance.

Who I am

I’m a professional Muay Thai fighter and an endurance athlete. I compete at the highest level of Muay Thai in Ireland and I race in endurance events, including running a marathon in under 3 hours.

This isn’t a hobby, it’s a lifestyle built on structure, consistency, and long-term commitment.

I don’t talk about discipline from the outside. I fight. I run. I cut weight. I train twice a day. I show up when I want to quit. I deal with the same internal voice everyone deals with, I just don’t let it lead.

That’s what VXM stands for. I don’t coach theory.
I coach what I live.