She is the lord of her ring and on Thursday she shared her message of inspiration and determination with about 100 Aboriginal children from Regina and nearby First Nations.
Mary Spencer, from the Nawash First Nation in Ontario, is an Olympic boxer, a three-time world champion and a nine-time Canadian boxing champion.
She was the keynote speaker at the Regina Sports For Life program held at the University of Regina.
Her stories were as much about life as they were about boxing.
She had humble beginnings, collecting quarters from shopping carts to buy gym shoes for basketball.
Eleven years ago, Spencer started training as a boxer.
Her progress was remarkable and so is her attitude.
She says life is not about what happens to you but how you react to it.
She says failure can teach you how to succeed.
“How you handle a loss is almost more important than how you handle a win and that is something I have dealt with in the last eleven years and that is something I am dealing with right now and I am very confident in the outcome,” she says.
Spencer ended the presentation by reading an inscription on her Olympic ring which reads, “make it happen.”
She is going for gold at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.