This is for you if things are not happening as quick as you’d like, if you expected more reward for your efforts over this or previous years.
Treat this post as a serious reminder for you to not give up but to maybe change your approach in order to get different results.
Above all I want to show you some proven strategies that will work for you and help get you back on track in your sport or in life.
Iron Mike
To do that I want to share with you some key moves that Mike Tyson did in order to ensure that he became a champion.
Mike is a man of extremes, at one end of his spectrum he achieved the impossible and inspired millions of us yet at the other end he lived a drug fuelled and criminal life that infuriated millions of us.
Love him or hate him he is one of the most impressive sporting figures of our generation and I want to shine a light on the part of his life when things were going to plan, when he went from zero to hero, that’s the period of his career where you can learn something that will help you on your journey.
Forget how he went off the rails once he got to the pinnacle, that’s a blog post for another time, for now let’s just focus on what he did that created success and what he did that you can use today.
He Achieved The Unthinkable
How can an overweight 10 year old who had never gotten into a fight, who was too scared to stand up for himself, who was constantly bullied and called “Little Fairy Boy” become a Heavyweight Champion of the World by the age of 20?
Seriously, think about that.........
Here was a child who had no healthy mentors in his early years, who lived in squat houses filled with drug addicts and prostitutes, who was arrested 38 times by the time he was 13 years old, who was abused on a daily basis and was living every day in fear. Crime, violence and death was present at all times.
Most people reading this wouldn't last a day in his early life yet this kid became the youngest ever Heavyweight World Champion.
Can you really imagine just how hard that would have been to pull off, to go from being that wimpy kid with no future to becoming one of the greatest Boxers in history?
Compare Mike To You
Many of us boast how much we have achieved and how good we are at something but compare your achievements to what Mike accomplished.
Most likely you were brought up with much more support than Mike had, with more opportunities, with people who loved and cared about you and who provided you with the tools needed to go get what you want.
Can you honestly say that you have made the most of these advantages or do you think that you may have taken them for granted?
At one point Mike could never compete against someone like you, so instead he would steal from them, but he turned things around and managed to rise to a level that made people like us admire him.
I don’t say these things to patronize you, I am saying them to break your current perspective which is causing you to hide behind bullshit excuses and false limits.
Too many people use Facebook to tell the world how great they are, they paint a fictitious existence online but if you are determined to achieve something big in your short life then you’d better drop this way of working and get on with things.
Your online profile will not make you a champion, it barely contributes.
You may not be one of these show offs but I know that you understand what is being communicated here. It is going to take blood, sweat and true grit if you are to get what you want, you'd better be prepared to do that.
5 Things Mike Did, That You Can Do
There is no doubt that Mike Tyson was a natural fighter, from his early days of boxing people could already see that he had something.
It is essential to have the natural skill for what you do but it's not enough on its own, Mike had other qualities that took him from being a street bum to a World Champion.
Here are just 5 of them that you can implement right away.
No. 1 - The 90/10 Rule
From the start he was taught that "90 percent of boxing was psychological and not physical. Will, not skill."
Your brain runs the show, it is your control centre, it forms your reality and how you act. You must train your mind as much as anything else you do, it is the one aspect that separates the good from the great.
To succeed at anything you must be able to…..
1) Perform at your best when it matters
2) Regain concentration when distracted
3) Keep focused after a mistake
4) Overcome self-induced fear
5) Have the inner belief structure that helps you
6) Have confidence when needed
7) Use negative experiences and failure
8) Disrupt your competitors' mentality
9) Be motivated to work on your craft every day, and be hungry for more
10) To overcome the past
These are just a few of the mental skills that you should aim to master if you are serious about winning anything, if you take hold of this area then you will outperform those around.
No.2 - Take from History
When Mike was in his growth period leading up to his title bout he spent 100’s of nights in his room watching old fight tapes, he used to obsessively study past fighters.
He was hungry to know what made them win, to learn the different styles of boxing, to analyse what worked and what didn’t, to take all the lessons offered from previous years.
In doing so he came up with his own menu of what works and trained them into his approach. This was not just limited to the ring, he used to learn how they approached their sport and their behaviours.
Interestingly he found out that Boxers in the 1800’s used to train much harder than the Boxers of the 1900’s, so he could see exactly what he must do in order to beat modern fighters. The Boxers from the 1800’s were true gladiators and their approach would work again.
This is also applicable to racing in the 2000’s, for example the way Senna and Fangio dedicated themselves and searched for answers is rarely seen in modern day drivers. If a modern day driver worked as hard and as committed as those guys did then you could have someone special.
It is too easy to think that the current generation is better than previous ones, that drivers nowadays are better than the ones in the past, this kind of foolish thinking is an example of why this cannot be true.
No.3 - Have Purpose
If you want to inspire a man to achieve great things then you need to stoke their inner fire.
Humans only take massive action when things mean a lot to them, Mike was desperate to be admired, to be seen as the best and to be feared. He had spent years being bullied but now he had something that would give him the chance to be the bully, to have them on their knees in his presence.
It was also the way to stay alive in the hood and he thought it was the same rule for life.
Boxing gave Mike the chance to finally be someone, to escape his shithole life and deliver his personal needs. It gave him purpose.
These things are addictive, it is power, respect and reward for your efforts, that’s what most masculine men live for and again Boxing was giving Mike these benefits.
These values that were being met far outweighed the pain he had to go through so it was automatic for him, the harder he trained the better results he would get and the happier he would be. The best drug in the world.
What’s your purpose for racing?
If it's just because it's fun, then forget about it you will not make it.
If it's because you have always done it, then forget about it you will not make it.
If it's because it will make others happy, then forget about it you will not make it.
You need to have a real purpose, it must mean more than anything else and only then will you be operating from the correct starting point.
No. 4 - Get A Great Mentor
Mike Tyson would not have been as successful if it wasn’t for his coach Cus D’Amato.
This old man may have been delusional in life but he certainly knew how to create a boxer, his saying was:
“A boy comes to me with a spark of interest, I feed the spark and it becomes a flame. I feed the flame and it becomes a fire. I feed the fire and it becomes a roaring blaze”
Cus took Mike in, he taught Mike how to fight and how to use his strengths. A good coach who knows what they are doing can save you many years and help turn you into the kind of competitor you want to be.
Choose your coach wisely and make sure that you have someone who forces you to grow as a person and a sportsmen. Every minute spent with your coach should be designed to make you better.
No.5 - Full Immersion
Mike got away from the hood, he moved away from his home town and lived with his coach so he could make Boxing his number one priority.
If you really want to master something then you must fully immerse yourself into the learning process, you need to give yourself over to it.
This kind of discipline is common in Martial Arts and in anything that requires true mastery, if you are devoted to your chosen path then this type of conditioning is essential.
The problem with drivers now is that they feel they have prepared enough if they have spent one day at the team workshop on the simulator, they think that is enough to make them champion. Ridiculous.
Final Word
If you feel that you can work harder, then you can, you can always work harder or smarter than you are. Just be brave enough to admit it and to do something about it.
Take from people like Mike Tyson, they are real case studies that are showing you the way.
Here is a cracking little video of Mike Tyson:
Cover photo provided by Abellto Roldan
