Mike Tyson: why he cried before every fight

Did you know that Mike Tyson cried before almost all his bouts? Imagine the world heavyweight boxing champion crying before a fight!

Crying was pivotal for Tyson. But it’s how Tyson reframed crying while he was a teenager that made him a champion.

Mike Tyson was a fat stuttering child stealing purses and getting into trouble.

Cus D’Amato took him in when he was 16. And started training him to become a boxer. Without D’Amato’s help, Mike Tyson would most probably have ended in prison.

Tyson had a very unkind and brutal childhood. He had many streetfights. And contrary to popular belief, Tyson was a very scared child. He was afraid of his mothers boyfriend. He was afraid of the gangs in the streets.

Tyson considered himself a coward.

He would literally shake uncontrollably before fighting with other kids. It took D’Amato to come and help Tyson rebuild his confidence. D’Amato helped Tyson by speaking with him every night and helping him relabel his emotions.

Tyson doesn’t shake because he is a coward. Shaking is fire. It fuels the fight.

“Fear is fire.”

This reframing made sure that Tyson could fight with more vigour. Yes he still shook and he still cried, but that just made him stronger! The shaking became fuel for aggression. The shaking and crying now allowed him to have those first round knock out wins!

As motivational speaker Tony Robbins says: “The words you attach to your experience become your experience.” The same sensation of shaking hands could be a sign of cowardice or a sign of fire within. It’s how you frame it that changes your experience.

You cannot control your initial emotions.

That’s what D’Amato taught Tyson. You cannot control life events. You cannot control the first adrenaline dump. The shaking and the crying.

But what you can control is the experience. Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. Relabel your emotions. Change the words you use to convey your first bout of emotions.

Isolate your emotion and then relabel it.

This is an extremely hard thing to do however. When you are in the middle of experiencing the emotions, you don’t have the awareness to modify the words you use. It’s very difficult to relabel in the moment.

So what can you do if you cannot be mindful in the moment? You have to use conditioning.

That’s what Cus D’Amato did with Tyson. He didn’t say “calm down” or “stop crying” to Tyson. He didn’t even ask Tyson to sit still or breathe. Because he knew that in the moment, Tyson would not understand anything.

The process of understanding has to happen a lot sooner than the fight night. Thats why the nightly conversation ritual was there: to reinforce to Tyson that shaking is ok. Fear is fire. Fear is fuel. It burns the coward but warms the hero.

Along with the nightly conditioning, Tyson build a trigger for himself.

The famous Tyson towel.

While his opponents wore silk robes and fancy attire, Tyson didn’t wear branded attire while entering the ring. Instead, he wore a simple white towel with a hole in it for the head.

The removal of the towel acted like a trigger. While the towel is on, Tyson can cry. When the towel comes off, the fuel has to be redirected towards the opponent. As the towel comes out, Tyson changes into the “baddest man on the planet!”

That’s how the crying Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion and probably the most ferocious fighter to ever live!

Action Summary:

• The words we attach to our experience become our experience. So become aware of the words you use. And replace your words to be positive.
• Condition your vocabulary. Repeat the positive ideas and reaffirm the positive words for yourself.
• Replacing of words rarely happens in the moment. In the middle of emotions, things can only change if: you are pre-aware, and you have a trigger to remind yourself.