"My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want your heart, I want to eat his children.” - Mike Tyson, the Baddest Man on the Planet.
As enticing as it may be, let’s set aside the eating of children for now, and focus on the first sentence of Tyson’s poetic warning, for performance psychology has never been more succinctly articulated… again, minus the eating of children. Or maybe including that.
Bear with me.
My Style is Impetuous
Never has there been a heavyweight better built for war. Tyson’s training, at the hands and wisdom of Cus D’Amato was different. Cus was a supreme strategist, and Tyson the perfect specimen to imbue the mind of a chess player in the body of a beast.
Even today, clips of Tyson training and teaching, the facility of his footwork, both offensive and defensive at the same time, placing his body out of danger yet into range for devastating power strikes delivered with the most terrifying of heavyweight attributes - speed.
"Speed kills. Speed always kills.” Said Cus, as Tyson worked through embodied If-Then propositions of war, at levels of complexity that vastly exceeded his peers. He had more answers to more problems than any of those who faced him, and delivered those answers with blinding speed.
Speed bought Tyson optionality. And options delivered at speeds that exceed comprehension (of his opponents), are impetuous in style to the inferior fighter.
My Defense is Impregnable
Never has there been a fighter who embodied the essence of the Hydra better than Tyson. The Hydra, mythological snake-like creature with many heads, was one of Hercules’s most terrifying foes. Why? Because when he lobbed off one of the Hydra’s heads, two grew back in its place.
There are those in the world of boxing who’s defense is pure, and borderline mystical, like that of Floyd Mayweather, who could evade, dodge, slip and parry dozens of strikes within an opponent’s flurry, timing counterstrikes within momentary gaps. Floyd knocked out over half his opponents, but he wasn’t known as a knockout artist. He was just extremely hard to kill, and in that ghost-like durability, he found the time and space to finish the job.
Tyson, on the other hand, would welcome incoming strikes as an opportunity to overwhelm his opponents. His opponents would strike once, and get hit twice. Tyson’s defense was so sound, his style so impetuous, that his opponents knew that to strike Tyson was to empower him.
Imagine the psychology of a creature so dominant, that every personal affront doubled your responsive capability.
The Essence of Lightness
In The Essence of Lightness I dedicated one chapter to uncertainty, and the strategies with which we master it. My thesis in The Uncertainty Scroll was that there are two types of domains in which the whole person can and should prepare to face uncertainty with power and grace - dynamic-open systems, and static-closed systems.
Strategies built for one of these domains fail miserably when applied to the other, so understanding this categorical difference is critical when navigating complexity and uncertainty in life, and further, making sense of mind-body training as a cornerstone of personal growth and development.
This will all make sense soon, as will the Tyson reference, so bear with me.
A dynamic-open system is one where inputs and outputs are not closely correlated - love, war, life at large, entrepreneurship, etc. The defining attributes of these domains is the level of complexity, and therefore predictability (and lack thereof), that defines them.
A static-closed system could describe that of the mechanic, the mathematician, the architect, and to a large degree, the mind-body master. There is a very high degree of causality of inputs and outputs in static-closed systems. The mechanic can diagnose a faulty engine and replace deficient parts with incredible accuracy. The fitness expert can calculate caloric maintenance levels and plot a course for guaranteed fat loss. The mind-body master… can do so much more.
To become the Hydra, where the domain in question is life at large, where anything from trauma and heartbreak to love and creativity can surface with very little predictable accuracy, we can clearly see this separation of the human system from the ecosystem.
To master one’s own path, one must take their personal growth and development very seriously, for if the mind-body deteriorates due to stress, anxiety, fear, or exhaustion, the train derails. This is a path with extraordinary predictability of outcomes based on specific inputs, actions, and practices. This is the domain of Weightlessness.
To master one’s own path, one must also take into account unforeseen circumstances, black swan events, those things we cannot predict with accuracy yet are probable to some degree. And despite the opinions of many, we can indeed prepare for them nonetheless.
This is the domain of war, and the world of Mike Tyson. This world cannot be dissected with near certain degrees of accuracy. There are and always will be levels of volatility that exceed one’s ability to model (or define) it.
And for this world, one must generate options in excess of present demands. Like the hydra, unpredictable events, rather than cut you off at the knees and derail your deepest desires, should make you stronger. Because you’ve laid multiple tracks, generated real potentialities, and created real options (networks, knowledge, opportunities, etc) that can be activated in a moments notice, any roadblock inadvertently becomes an accelerator.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a corporate careerist or a cage fighter, these domains don’t change. And they must be addressed to unlock elite performance and predictable success.
In Tyson, Cus built a machine that could weather war - a mind so focused and eyes so fixed he could break his opponents during their stare down, and a body so formidable that his heavyweight frame moved with middleweight speed.
In Tyson, Cus created a hydra, a person who’s style was so impetuous and defense so impregnable that his opponents were afraid to attack him… their attack only gave Tyson a reduction of absolute complexity for which he had ample responses - options - ready to deploy.
Becoming the Hydra
If the premise of options exploration to generate momentum in life - i.e. to design good luck - interests you, check out the third book in my Weightless Trilogy: Law of the Die.
But regardless of your path, or how aggressively you want to play with risk and optionality, the mind-body that you take into every opportunity, obstacle, and silent effort must not be ignored. It’s your sword and your shield, and life just gets better when you pay it due attention.
I provide many resources you can take and run with, but if you want to approach the mind-body game with real effort, focus, and guidance, join the next tribe of The Weightlessness Process, where we spend 12 weeks of structured effort doing just that, and come out the other end your fittest, most focused, passion-filled self.
Be Weightless!
Tom Fazio
Weightlessness | Mind Body Performance