829 Mike Tyson: The Mind and Journey of a Champion Fighter

This is episode number 829 with Mike Tyson. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Muhammad Ali said, Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It is an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing. Again, the great Muhammad Ali said that. And today we've got a powerful episode with Mike Tyson. If you don't know who Mike Tyson is, he is a former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world who won his first 19 professional bouts by knockout, 12 of them in the first round. He holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA, and IBF heavyweight titles at 20 years old. He is he's also an actor and author, having appeared in multiple films and panels, as well as written two books, Undisputed Truth and Iron Ambition. Mike also started the Mike Tyson Cares Foundation to give kids a fighting chance by working with innovative centers that provide for the comprehensive needs of kids from broken homes. And in this interview, we talk about how he overcame his biggest internal struggles, and he has many of them. The power of discipline and how to keep going, even when you hate what you're doing. The truth about toxic masculinity, the best advice Mike has ever gotten about becoming the champion, and when he has felt the most at peace with his life. Now, I've been promoting this over the last week before the release of this episode, and so many of you said that you're excited about this interview. There were a few people that said, you know, that they weren't excited about it because of his past. And I can tell you this, We all have different things that we've gone through that we're not excited about, that we're not proud of. And Mike talks about these things in the interview. And when I was on his show, on his podcast, he talked about them as well. And the thing I love about Mike is his ability to have humility and understand where he made mistakes in his life and tries to move forward and improve those mistakes by giving back and improving his life. And I think you're gonna see some of that in this, which was really inspiring for me. So get ready, make sure to take notes, share this with your friends, Louis www.schoolofgreatness.com/829 because it's going to be an inspiring, powerful one to share with your friends.

Welcome, everyone, back to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got the legendary Mike Tyson in the house.

My man, good to see you. Thank you, brother. You have these cameras mounted everywhere. I don't know where the- Everywhere, man.

Yeah, you're here.

Look here.

Okay, I'm here. You're here, you're me. Yeah, for goodness' sake, man. I'm excited that you're here.

I came on your show.

A little while back. I'm excited for that to come out. I wanna make sure everyone watches that, Hotboxin'. Thank you. It's a great show. You've got so many big names on there.

You've been inspiring people with your message. I think so. God, your message is really great.

I think it's having fun and being slapstick. You're doing good, man. You're doing good. And I'm really inspired by you, Mike, because you've gone through a lot of darkness. You've gone through a lot of darkness in your past. and we talked about this on your show, which is why I was so excited to have you here, that you went to prison for a few years, you did a lot of things that you said you weren't proud of, but now you've gone through this spiritual journey that you're really looking to inspire as many people as you can and heal yourself. And I think it's really cool what you've been able to do by overcoming all that. So I just wanted to acknowledge you to start by everything. And you were talking on the show that we did about, some of the lessons you've learned from your past. And I wanted to see if we could start with that.

Go for it.

And hear, what do you think are some of the biggest lessons you learned about who you were 20 years ago compared to who you are now?

Sometimes, I don't know, sometimes it's hard to accept who you are. Sometimes I see young kids out here, they commit suicide and they don't like who they are in prison. And it's really difficult. to accept who you are in this world, 'cause really we don't know. But then in order to have friendships, you have to be put in this particular kind of, I don't know, you have to be labeled, so to speak, you know? So we don't know who we are.

Right.

Till we get, I guess, to a certain degree of evolution.

Do you feel like you knew who you were when you were 20, 25?

I had no idea.

Yeah, I mean, you were the world champ at 20.

I had no idea what was going on. Outside of that, what the world was really about and we had to really be accountable, hold yourself accountable. I had no idea what that was all about. You didn't know in another world.

Did you feel like you held yourself accountable to anything except for your training and dominating in the sport?

Yeah. Yeah.

That's why I held myself accountable for.

Yeah.

When did you feel like you started to realize who you were?

When I got married for the third time, my wife Kiki, we really had to, what can I establish? By saying we had to really make a choice what we wanted to do in our life. A really bad no-win situation, and we had to establish some kind of foundation for our life. So that's really what I had to see what I was made out of.

How old were you then?

Well, probably in my 40s. 40s.

42. During the marriage, was it not working.

At some point where-- oh, it was never working. It was never working.

And-- why was it never working?

Because marriage in itself is an interesting dynamic. Because it's nothing you could prepare for. It's something you have to grow into. You can't prepare yourself for this. I don't care how many girlfriends you have, how many romantic-- When we were in relationships you had, you cannot prepare yourself for this, if you've never been involved in this kind of matrimony, that the word matrimony before. And so it didn't work for a while, and then we realized we didn't kill each other since we didn't kill each other, let's see if we can make this work. We still love each other. We're not dead, all the stuff we went through, we're not dead. So let's just see if we can make this work. And some bizarre reason it worked. It just works and stuff. Every now and then we get our, I guess our buttons pushed. Pushed everything and has a reminiscence of the past, which wasn't good in our memories. We may respond in a certain way, but it's just triggers. It's not head with us.

How do you learn to overcome the triggers today still from the triggers of your past? I think I read that you were, you know, got arrested 30 something times before you were a teenager. So it seemed like everything triggered you then, right?

But from that perspective, everything changes when my classes change. I never understood my struggle. You know, I had everything I wanted, but still I was fighting the light. My dark spirit was still fighting the light. That was my struggle. I couldn't get anything done.

You were winning everything. You were on the top of the world, but what was the big struggle internally for you during those highest moments where everyone wanted to.

It didn't appear real because at that time I lost my mentor, everybody was dying. Because when I met them when they were pretty old and I was very young.

Yeah.

And everybody started dying and I didn't understand that. Instead of thinking that duh, they were old when they met you at 57 or close to 60 when they met you, Mike. So of course they were gonna die eventually. You become a man, these guys are gonna die. I don't know, I couldn't deal with that for a minute. And then the world just came in on me and it just was overwhelming. I just had to learn from life experiences.

Yeah. What was-?

I just couldn't conduct myself.

Yeah. What was your biggest fear in your early 20s?

No one loving me, not being accepted being a nobody.

Yeah. Wow.

Did you not feel like anyone loved you or accepted you even though you were the champ?

Well, that was a funny dynamics in itself because I come from a eat dog, eat dog kind of world and stuff. And I met somebody and he showed me the basics of life. Be kind to people the way you want people to be kind to you. And all that is the basic of life. But our main objective was to be the best in the world in this particular discipline.

It's hard to be kind when you're trying to be the best at the same time too, huh?

Yeah, but that's the part of discipline. Discipline is separating the two. You have to do what you hate to do, but do it like you absolutely love it with vigor and do the end.

What did you hate doing and practicing in your early 20s or late teens?

I hate the whole aspect of the warrior mentality and the duration of it. That's probably the main part, the length of how long you have to go through that. that psychological war fare. It takes tolls on people.

Yeah.

That kind of stuff. It's just really rigid. If you become the best, you have to almost become fanatical. This is my life. This is all I live for. This is my air, this is everything.

Wow.

Yeah, I guess most athletes feel that way. They have one of those old time trainers in there. have that particular type of method of training. Yeah. It just becomes your life. So you could do this in your sleep, 'cause it's so regimented. Right. Almost like we're zombies.

I know.

Robots.

It's like militant.

Yeah.

Very, like, army. When do you feel the most loved today?

When I'm harassing my kids. And stuff.

You're harassing your kids?

I don't like it. I harass my kids. And sometimes they might be tortured to know, 'cause sometimes they have to grow up. They live in this, make-believe world. And I say, hey, listen, you can't-- sometimes, you know, we bought this house for you. You can't have a slumber party over there. This is not the real world. These people didn't pay any rent. Are they paying you rent to live in your apartment or anything that we pay for? We need to learn responsible. We have to be responsible. And we have to also be reliable, you know, whatever it is that we do, we have to be accounted for.

Yeah.

I want to take a moment from this Mike Tyson interview to thank our sponsor, Quartz. Now, Quartz was founded in 2012 for a new kind of business leader. Quartz is creative, intelligent, journalism rich with culture and broad world views. With more than 230 people around the world collaborating to bring a global perspective, Quartz has a presence in New York, London, Nairobi, New Delhi, Hong Kong and San Francisco. And it contains coverage of the global economy with topics and questions of importance to business professionals. So listen up. A courts membership provides a community for the new generation of global business leaders. Access to all courts award-winning journalism with in-depth field guides to the most disruptive forces in business, video tutorials on the essential skills of modern executives and other member exclusive journalism. thought provoking discussions with some of the most respected people in business. And what I've loved diving into is the complete guide to the CBD boom. It's something I've been interested in getting into myself, and this breaks down the entire boom that's been happening and an overview of Silicon Valley's growing impact on politics. So many interesting insights that I've been diving into and learning about. And Quartz is offering my listeners 25% off your first year of membership. All you need to do is go to qz.com and enter my code greatness at checkout. That's qz.com with the promo code greatness for 25% off your first year of membership. Make sure to check it out right now for exclusive insights to breaking world news and narratives perfect for tomorrow's top business leaders at qz.com promo code greatness. And now let's get back to this interview. with Mike Tyson.

What do you think is the biggest regret you have from everything you've been through?

Many regrets, many regrets. What do I say? I have many regrets. But they say these regrets are something we shouldn't worry about. We have many regrets. You know, I wish I would have spent more time with my kids and my youth.

Spend more time with your kids.

Yeah, absolutely. Because now I'm trying to catch up on it. It doesn't work. It really doesn't work.

They're getting older now, huh? They got their own lives.

They don't relate to my path. It's just that you're a alien.

You don't know what we're up to. What's the message you would say to yourself now that you've gone through, because you've gone through a lot of transformation. You've gone through different experiences, transformation, you've done a lot of work on yourself, you're wiser now. If your 20 year old or 25 year old self was sitting right here where I'm at and you could sit down and have a conversation with him, what would you want to say to him?

You know that he should prepare on developing what makes him happy in life. Let's drive on developing that and cultivating that, what makes you happy. And that strong alliance within yourself on what makes you happy and never break that. Because that's all of our really treat, we would get a hundred million dollars, we'd be, what is happening? I don't mean ha ha ha, who who who, ha ha ha, ain't funny. What is the essence of happiness? What does that mean? Everybody has a different definition. Well, we got seven billion people, I'm sure, seven billion different definitions. Some people may have dark happiness. They like to do dark stuff and that makes them happy, but it's still happy. So what makes necessarily happy a good thing?

What makes you happy?

Simple stuff. And I don't know if that's happy. I take it for granted sometimes like everyone else is my kids and stuff. And I have to, you know, not worried about going to prison, not worried about paying my bills and having my lights on and my lights being cut off or my water being cut off. yeah. It's being stable in my life.

Yeah.

So you would tell him to start pursuing happiness more?

You know, that's the word I would use, you know, but that's the only thing that's gonna stimulate us.

Yeah.

You know, when I don't know if it's happiness, we call it happiness.

Sure.

Why is it the word happiness that makes us think this is something that we should know mean? Fucking ascend to why happiness? Because we look at the response of happiness, what it looks like. So we should always ascend to happiness. Yeah.

I'm curious, you've been on both sides of the spectrum. I would say that some people might consider your behavior 20 years ago was very toxic, right? This image of toxic masculinity. I feel like I've been there in a lot of ways. I know Evan's been there and a lot of people. I think a lot of men have gone through this phase. what would you say to the women listening who maybe want to support the men in their lives? Maybe it's their father, it's their brother, it's their boyfriend or husband who maybe are experiencing toxic tendencies, types of behaviors. What would you say to the women on how they can best connect with men in their life who might be hurting them?

I can't give a woman any perception of any aspect of a man because there's so many men, I don't know how many men in the world conducts himself.

Yeah.

Acting the pain, the suffering. We're all so totally different. So my opinion on anything, it'll only be the men that I'm accustomed to, which is myself. Right. You know, I could never just say how we're gonna understand men or think differently.

What do you think women could have done to understand you better back in the day when you were going through different challenges? How could women have shown up differently in your mind? Or is it nothing they could have done to change the way you thought about yourself or you thought about the world?

I don't know. They may have, but I don't know. I don't have no particular aspect on how I think about them individually. Yeah. This and that. I don't know all the women in the world who have an opinion about how they think about me.

Sure. How do you think men should be raised in this time in the world right now? Because I think there's a lot of conversation about toxic masculinity. What advice would you give to men who are maybe hurting or angry or living in a toxic way? What would you say to just the men of the world?

Hey, listen, there's truly nothing to say to anyone that's living in a toxic, unless he comes for help. You know, I mean, some people realize, hey, I just can't stop this lifestyle. I can't stop this conduct in my life, but I wanted to change, but I can't stop, so what do I do? Yeah. You know, but some people love, most of the people that have this conduct, this mess, this is their identity, this is their ego. I don't want to give the you, Mike. I want my toxic energy you. The girls love it. That's what they think.

But it never makes you feel fulfilled deeply inside when you live that way, right?

Nobody feels, fulfilled. You know what I mean? We all fulfilled at different stages of our life. At 18, I'm fulfilled from this particularly difficult or fun fulfillment. And at 28, I like this. I don't like that no more. I like doing this. People are fickle. Very few of us are really constipated on what we continue to do in a sense. Stay with it for a long period of time.

Yeah.

What does it take to be a true champion? To be the best in the world at something? You lived it for a long time. What does the mindset have to be like if someone wants to be the best at what they do?

It's just dedicating and sacrificing your life to being a particular way you want to be. Like you want to conduct. Say you want to be like Tony Robbins. You get all the information you can about Tony Robbins. and you conduct yourself, this is how I wanna live my life. This is almost like, this is your manuscript. Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Your blueprint, yeah. Yeah, this is what I'm gonna do. Yeah. I'm gonna live like Tony, I'm not gonna be Tony Robbins, but I'm gonna live here, I'm gonna conduct myself like Tony Robbins. Yeah, yeah. So you gotta live it, you gotta breathe it, you gotta be it. Yeah, and you have to be that before you actually become the person. Interesting. You're not gonna become the person over night. You think you're prepared, that he told you Robbins, write it down. Tomorrow you turn 40. You didn't know. It's gonna take time, so I'm gonna become this guy. You know, I'm gonna be this guy before, 'cause you're not ready. But when the time comes, you're gonna be ready. You're gonna be Tony Robbins. This is my life. I'm a custom this. Of course I got this role. Of course I got this job. Of course I got this raise.

I prepared for it. You wouldn't even be surprised.

Before you became the champ the first time, were you visualizing and imagining it? Yeah, 'cause I was 14. This is who I am. This is who I'm gonna be. I'm Kentucky. This is the guy. You have to be the champ before you be the champ. You understand?

Does that make sense?

Yeah. Does that really? 'Cause it sounds as if you have to be him before you can be him. You can't just pop, it's by training and doing push-ups and knocking people out. This is I'm the champ. No, you have to be the actual champ. Your conduct, your lifestyle, have to be the champ before you actually wear the belt. Maybe that's better.

You have to be the champ before you can even wear the belt.

Wow.

So you were saying, I'm gonna be the champ. You were living life that you wanted.

I left. That's all I did. I would read books about them. That's all I did. I would read books about them, watch them fight. That's my life. I wasn't in school, and I wasn't in training. I was watching them and reading about them.

Watching the greats.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

What's the best advice you ever got from a champion before you?

Most of them is the advice they gave me about life. And they said, you, have to live your own life. You can't live your life like me. I can't live my life like you. We're just all different. Some of them say, Take care of your money, you know? They regret it on that.

Right.

The ice learned from a farce. A lot of these guys, I just watch the way they conduct themselves. They're always dignified. Most of them, unless some of them had some mental issues, they had damage from boxing. They're a little bit outrageous. But other than that, most of them were very dignified and classy men.

What was your biggest weakness when you were the champ for so long? As you were knocking guys out in the first round, first few seconds, what was the biggest weakness in your game and also in your life?

I don't know. I think I was a glutton. I wanted everything.

Material things to win, women, this, everything.

Everything's wanted everything.

He wanted the world.

Right now, though, that's the only thing that wanted-- nah, they wanted it yesterday. Tomorrow I want it right now. It's instant. Wow. And if you can't give it to me, I don't want it no more. If I can't get it right now.

I don't want it no more.

Yeah, anything I couldn't have, anything I couldn't have, I despise and hate it. Wow. Yeah, if I couldn't have that girl, I hate her guts. Wow. Couldn't have that car, those cars, anybody to drive that car.

Why do you think that was? If you couldn't have it right now, you didn't like it anymore.

'Cause I didn't need no distractions.

Oh, wow.

They make me feel anything that I'm less than immortal.

Wow. Yeah.

So if you couldn't get right now, it made you feel less than immortal.

Yeah.

So you were like, get it out of my life.

Exactly.

Wow.

What's the craziest thing you wanted that you've got right now? That you were like demanding everything and what did you, someone, I mean, what was something flown from Dubai overnight and you got like a steak dinner from somewhere?

I never thought about that. But I'm sure it was bizarre or something.

Yeah. I want a tiger right now.

Give me my tiger mentality. That's just the way I was raised as a fighter, I think. 'Cause it would, if you couldn't get it, it would distract you. Why can't I possess that? If I'm so great, why can't I possess that?

Wow.

Can it distract you from your goals in life?

What do you think is your greatest weakness right now? This time of your life?

I don't know. My friends and my kids and stuff, family.

It's a weakness?

Yeah, 'cause people are losing so many people. They feel like he's dead, she's sick. My friend's mother just died yesterday. Everybody's dying, everybody's so sad and they're wow.

Yeah.

Instead of, you know, we should always look at death as something glorious. Because, listen, life is very interesting. Listen. We got it from nothing. Look at all we received. We have kids, we have grandkids, all this stuff. But it's not your mother and father, and they saw each other, and they, hey, we love now. Look, we're here. Look all we got. Look what you're doing. Look at your show. It's because people were in love. This is glorious. Yeah. For free. Free.

We don't have to pay anything to be here.

Nothing. We can't get mad when it's our time to go. It was free.

What do you think about with death?

Death is beautiful. How could life be beautiful? Death is not beautiful. They wouldn't be life if there wasn't death.

Wow.

So death isn't something you're afraid of?

At one stage in my life, you know, and then you reach 52 and you say, well, I'm not gonna get another 52.

Wow.

And then you know, wow, what happened to that time? My whole perspective on life is different. My whole perspective is what I needed, what I wanted. That was all about what I needed, what I needed for someone else that I love. When am I leaving, when I'm gone? It's really bizarre, right? When you have the actual confrontation and aspect of immortality and the long game existing.

Huh.

What do you think is your biggest superpower right now? Like your biggest strength?

I think it's me who I am. My essence, my existence. When I'm no longer here, it does no longer exist.

How do you want to be remembered now?

Just remember, it doesn't matter how. You know how many thousands of years are gonna go by once I die? It's no longer, it's no longer matter.

No one's gonna remember then, a couple dozen years, yeah. So what is the biggest fear for you right now? You don't have any big fears right now?

Besides, you know, eventually I want my kids getting sick. I want them to have a life like I had.

Yeah.

And seeing the world like I've seen.

Mm-.

Other than that, no, I'm prepared to meet God, yeah.

Wow.

What was the biggest mentor you had when you were in jail? Was there anyone in jail that taught you anything or no one?

Oh, yes, some. Well, yes, I was just radical in jail and my mentor, I need to run it all. It all needed my- Really? -Yeah.

You were like, I'm gonna run this whole place?

I wanted to be in control. I wanted to have my food brought to me.

Wow.

It's a mindset you get once you get put in that situation. You don't make the mania in it.

Wow.

What was the biggest thing you learned about yourself during that time?

Back then I learned that I didn't want to be there. I was afraid to be there. No, I was afraid that I lost everything that I had at once.

You lost all your money at one point, right?

Yeah, but no, no, no, not that time. I wasn't at that time. I still had money. When I was in prison, I still had money. It wasn't no bankruptcy and stuff. I couldn't do nothing, so I would call my council, send money to her. If somebody needs money, I'm gonna still take care of my friends and their bills and stuff.

But you're afraid you lost everything else.

Yeah.

Like the titles, like the respect.

No, no, there's some things you could have done if you didn't have this, what do you call this? Garbage on you. What is this garbage?

Yeah.

You didn't have this garbage, you could have called off. It's a lot of things. A lot of people just it up. Oh, man.

What do you think you could have accomplished had you not gone to jail?

Really good stuff. I've accomplished it when I came out.

Right.

And I still wasn't happy. It was just all in my mind. All the things I thought I could accomplish, and only if I didn't go to jail was just a hallucination in my mind. I went to jail, I still accomplished everything.

If not more than I thought I would accomplish. -'Cause you came out and you still won the title.

-Yeah, it's just, you- made a bunch of money. It was just an illusion. You know, it was chasing an illusion. It was just, it never existed, but it was in my head. When I was in my head, I was getting revenge for who? I'm no one, no one got you.

In jail, but you, who am I getting revenge on? It's my head was f***ed. What happened to your life when you.

Started studying spirituality more? I don't know. It's pretty tricky. It's pretty much just letting it wing it. You say, just imagine if it was like this. And then you realize I can make it like this. You know, spirituality, I don't know. It wipes everything. This is what spirituality is. It wipes everything that I ever believed. It makes it a lie. You know?

What did you used to believe that makes it a lie now?

I believe just what everybody else, Adam and Eve, mother. I believe that. Yeah, that's what I believe. I believed all that crap. Wow. And everything then, so that's the paradigm shift, with everything you've been taught your whole life, and then it comes a time you realize it was a lie. Now how do we start from there? Well, we live in a lie. We have to make up our own lie and live in this lie. It's going to take a, if you check them, try to figure out to the day you die, you will never figure it out. It's based thousands and thousands and how many millions of lies and years of lies. And some people just dedicated their whole life to try to figure out the lies and what this world is about. They found out nothing. They got, they had, you know, they had this big encyclopedia in mind about wonderful things in history of the world and stuff, but we don't have the answer still. It's just a beautiful ride.

Just enjoy the ride.

Yeah.

Don't try to figure everything out.

No way, it's a beautiful ride. We don't do that. As human beings, we don't do that. We don't enjoy the ride. This is not right. We gotta figure this out. This is not right. That's how we are. Do you think if you had- I was spoiled something. Yeah, I know.

Do you think if you had more peace in your heart, more love in your heart, in your 20s, 30s, do you think you would have enjoyed the ride more? And do you think you would have been able to be as successful in the boxing world if you had peace and love in your heart?

I didn't know. All my life I read about the Conqueror, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Charlemagne, all these crazy gods, Clovis, I read about these guys. They declared themselves God. You know, depend on, think of great prophets, think of Jesus, Prophet Muhammad, Blessings upon him, was in the time of Alexander the Great, he would eliminate them. They wouldn't exist anymore. Everything has proper timing. In certain worlds, in certain times, they wouldn't have ever existed.

Wow.

When do you think was the moment you started to feel more peace in your heart? inner peace?

I don't know. I had the responsibility of just taking care of my family.

That's when it shifted more?

Yeah. After I tried to destroy it, it didn't work. And I said, well, I have to take care of this stuff. I have to. I have to really confront, what am I gonna do here? You know? And then I said, this is what I'm gonna do, and I'm gonna dedicate my life. And that was a mess, too. And then eventually we have 10 years. It worked out. We have a great deal of respect for one another.

Where do you think you'd be if you had no kids right now?

I wouldn't exist.

Really?

No way.

Where would you be?

I don't know. Probably dead with AIDS or something. Really?

Yeah.

It wouldn't exist. Or maybe somebody would kill me for with their wife or girlfriend. You never know. Unless I'd be a junkie.

Wow.

Well, kids, that's the only thing that stable me.

Wow.

That's the only thing that gave me any kind of meaning. Man, if kids the world, I don't give a. Wow. Yeah, we had a talk.

Do you wish you would have had kids younger than or.

No, I wouldn't accomplish my goals. No, because everything's proper timing. Proper timing, yeah. You think you're playing checkers, you think you, you, you. you're navigating your life, but you're not.

Yeah.

You know, you think you're, I know you say, why don't I just go ahead and do some drugs and you my life up there and Mike don't think I'm now again my life and miss. You're just not, you're not programmed to do that then. Yeah. And if you were programmed to do that, you're programmed to come back and rebound.

Right.

Your life is not meant to go there. It's just not meant to be. Wow. What do you think is the lesson you still want to learn for yourself? Like the challenge you want to overcome still? to make you a better person?

I can't, I can't and never find that. You know, because that lesson, that thing I want to realize is, why me? Why is this happening? I'm going to figure it out.

What's the question you wish you could have answered?

Why is this who am I? Why is my purpose here? But I can make sense, I can say my purpose is to be the best person I could possibly be before I die. You know what I mean? That could be our purpose in life. See how far we can go in life before we die.

Yeah.

But suppose people don't think in that perspective. That's what Elouise told me, 'cause I'm talking some, I think I'm talking some glamorous. I'm talking some fly. And he was telling me on Mike, you know, that some people live in the outskirts of Ohio or somewhere, and they just live simple lives, and that's all they wanna do, Mike.

Enjoy the life.

This shit we talking about don't mean nothing. Nothing. They afraid to die, afraid to meet God, taking care of the kids, the people they love, who may go on a vacation, may never go on a vacation, or leave the town, but this is just a simple life. This is what makes them happy.

Yeah.

And they really can't, you know, I come in the place, if you're nothing, if you ain't something, you're nothing. You know, isn't that so fucking shallow? If you're not something, you're nothing. What's my definition of something? Somebody would blow the money in their pocket. I have no concept of humanity is what life is. To have me blow a wad, I should be able to violate that person that doesn't.

Wow.

I don't know.

Yeah.

I'm lost again.

Wow.

I should have just tried to figure it out yet to go with the flow.

Wow.

How did you learn to finally start forgiving yourself?

For.

Oh, that's that, man. That happened, excuse my language, that must have happened yesterday or something. You just don't do that stuff overnight. It doesn't work like that. At least for me, it doesn't work like that.

Took a long time to forgive yourself?

Yeah, it's only I take, because I only, I know my demons and I realize in life everybody's gonna really find them out eventually. You think you're gonna hide that shit, it doesn't work that way.

So you just started to forgive yourself on things or it's happening every day or? Pretty much.

We don't come around yet.

Wow.

I'm not gonna, hey Mike, the all that shit you did is cool, man. God love you, that's bullshit. I don't function, I don't think that. I don't think God leaves you to figure it out yourself. Is it cool, it's cool? If it's not, it's not, you figure it out. Yeah.

And what are you most proud of in your life? that you've done.

Wow. I know I'm proud of them existing.

Yeah.

I love to be alive. I know this makes him all right. I'm proud to be alive and existing.

Yeah.

Do you feel like you should have been dead many times?

That could have happened. Yeah, that could have happened. I don't know. I used to look at it and say, wow, what am I proud of? You know, say I'm proud of my children and stuff, but they have their own lives to live. Yeah, I'm only proud of them because they're kind, they make me happy. Some of them do things I don't like, but it's just that my kids are my kids, and that's my personal life. And I think of something that I'm proud of, I don't know, I don't think about my fighting. I don't know, it's just weird that when you say that, you know? I wanted them doing things now that I'm proud of. I'm building a company, we're making people aware of health. in cannabis. So I'm really proud of my company. That's doing life and rents.

Yeah.

And what are you most grateful for about your wife?

Yeah, I'm just. Well, it's interesting you say that, because we have fought a long fight together.

You fought a long fight together?

Yeah. Yeah.

How many years has it been now?

10 years. But we've been with each other longer than that.

Yeah.

Yes. It was really great growing up with this is my third marriage. This is her first. But it's really been, this marriage and the struggle that we endured together was really going to tell us this is going to, we're going to make it in life or not. You know, our existence in life, we're going to do this stuff, we're going to feel it's going to be over and stuff. And so when we had our kid, we just dedicated our life to make sure our kid wouldn't have the life that we had. It's a really kind and pleasant life.

Yeah.

What do you love about her the most?

She's just an awesome kid and she's very competitive in life.

Is this your daughter or your daughter.

And besides having two crazy parents, she really conducts herself like a champion.

She's the adult in the family.

Oh, she's really awesome. Yeah, she's only 10 years old. And what do you- She's our life. And we have another son named Morocco. He's eight years old.

Oh, that's great.

Yeah, but we, as, she's a, she's a, she's a girl that keeps us together. That's cool.

What do you admire and love about your wife the most?

The most? Oh, man, that she kept our family together. And that was her main objective, is keeping our family together.

Yeah.

And being one.

That's great.

For the most.

That's great.

She didn't give up. You know, most people can easily give up. Yeah, move on. It's just so easy. Move on.

Lots of options out there.

Yeah. It's so pervasive that this is what people do. If it doesn't go well, you get away and we just go move on. We don't try to make this work.

Well, you did that in your previous marriages. You know, you guys ended them.

I kept going. My previous, I could always throw money at my problems. I had my money then, but I didn't have money then, so I can't say, fuck you, take that. Right. So we had to make this stuff work.

Wow. You gotta learn, you gotta grow. That's good. I've got a couple final questions for you. This one is called the Three Truths. Okay. So I want you to imagine that you are, it's your last day.

I'm dying.

It's many years away, right? It's your last day. I'm always prepared though.

You're prepared any day.

I'm done.

Let's do it.

Let's imagine it's 50 more years. You got 52 to go, right?

Nah, it's not that many years.

Let's say you got as many as you want. And then there's the last day, you've gotta, You got to turn the lights off.

Okay.

You got your family there. It's a good setting.

Okay.

You've accomplished what you want. Your ranch has blown up. Your company, everything you're doing is amazing.

This is not a reality. This is not necessary.

Let's imagine.

Let's imagine.

Let's visualize.

Yeah, this is beautiful.

And beautiful. You have a moment where you get to share your final three truths with the world. You get to to announce it on your podcast, or you get to write this down. And these would be three lessons. The only three things people would be able to remember you by are these three final lessons that you would share with the world, what I like to call the three truths. What would you say are your three truths?

If I had more time, I could be even better than what I am. Yeah, and if If I had more time, I could probably write through all the wrongs that I did. If I had more time, I could love spending time with my kids.

Those are great. What lessons would you share with the world that you would want them to have for their lesson from you?

That we all have to live our lives to the fullest and fulfill our lives.

Yeah.

Our life fulfillment. Whatever your life is, you know, this is what most people's problems are in life. They didn't fulfill their life fulfillment.

Who they're supposed to be.

Yeah.

Who they wanted to be.

What were they focused on?

It just never happened. They don't believe it happened to them.

Yeah.

I guess they believed it was supposed to be ordained for them. I don't know, but.

Yeah.

And then there's some people that works hard and do use all the secrets of life and they still never get it. What do you say about that? How that works? And then there's people that work, but don't work as hard as these guys, and they get it. It's just a luck thing. Somebody liked them. They had the right look, they had the right person, that something that got them on. How do people look at that in life? Do they give up and they say, I just keep working in a way that's been failing all my life until something happens. How do they look like? How does somebody think outside of the box and say, we're not gonna do it that way no more. You just wait for the way to like us. We're gonna make our own life. We're gonna make our own future. We're gonna create our own jobs. That's how it happens. It happens from watching failures.

Sure.

Wasn't people just try, try and fail? And then somebody said, this is the way.

Less of a dynasty for me.

How can we support you?

What's, you know, you got your show, you got your company, you got the ranch. Tell us where we can connect with you, how we can support you. Hey, listen, Hot Boxin' is just, it's amazing.

It's a podcast your guys can, it's amazing. Check in, prescribe there and just hang out with us. It's incredible. It's gonna be really interesting.

It's on YouTube, it's on iTunes.

It's all over the world. Hotboxing with Mike Tyson. Yes. Yeah, Evan's amazing on there.

I went on there. And then the old box, so you.

Guys, there's an old boxer named Jack, look up Jack Britton. Okay. Is that a- New York fighter.

I'll look him up later. You've had some incredible people on there. You had Snoop, you had LL Cool J recently. You had Lewis Howes on there, so.

Make sure you check that episode out as well.

That's a really interesting story then there.

I mean, you share some crazy stuff.

It's amazing. You guys gotta check this out, 'cause the stories you've been through are amazing.

So check that out.

Where else?

They can follow you on Instagram, Twitter, Mike Tyson everywhere. Oh, the freaking world. Everywhere. You're worldwide, baby. Like, this guy's got the energy playing.

I don't even feel comfortable cursing. I said a few cursing, I feel like I got stuck with a hot coal. It's all good.

It's all good.

I've got one final question for you, Mike, but before I do, I wanna.

Acknowledge you one more time for-- All right.

All the growth, because you could have easily tapped out.

You could have easily gone back to jail. I'm never gonna tap. I'm never gonna do that. I'm just gonna always try hard and see what's gonna happen. Listen, I've been worse than this. I've been in the worst situation that I've ever been in. And why you just, and I didn't give up then. Why am I gonna give up now? I'm at the height of my life now.

How am I gonna give up?

I love it.

What the hell am I doing? I love it. This is the dream right now.

The dream, baby. Yeah.

No doubt about it.

Final question then is, what's your definition of greatness?

My definition of greatness, someone or something that could do the most difficult thing in the world with the most simple of these. That's greatness.

Ooh.

Mike Tyson, the man. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you, brother. Thank you, man.

It's powerful.

There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this interview to get the one and only Mike Tyson. If you did, make sure to share this with your friends. Post it on social media. Spread this far and wide. LewisHowes.com/829 Tag me on your Instagram story, LewisHowes, and tag @MikeTyson as well. Let him know that you're listening to this and what you thought about this episode. Text it to a friend. Spread the message of greatness. Every time you have an opportunity to learn from one of the greatest fighters in the world, one of the greatest athletes, inventors, whoever it may be, someone who's been at the top, it's important to learn from the lessons and also pay it forward. So make sure to share this message with your friends and other people that you might find it interesting as well. And Muhammad Ali had a great quote at the beginning of this interview. Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing. No matter what you've been through in your past, no matter how dark or scary it may be, or no matter how dark and scary your future dreams might be, Impossible is nothing. It's not impossible to overcome the challenges of your past or the judgments of your past or the pains you've caused other people. You can always create a new future right now. And your future dreams and goals, as big and scary and impossible as they may seem, you need to focus on one day at a time. One day at a time on how can you improve and how can you enjoy and appreciate the journey every single moment because this life is not guaranteed for another hour, another day, another month, a year, or 20, 30, 40 years. It's not guaranteed. What's guaranteed is right now until it's not anymore. I hope you enjoyed this interview. Make sure to subscribe to this podcast if this is your first time here. Leave us a review on what you think about this show and listen to other episodes. We've got some incredible guests coming on every single week, some of the top minds in the world. So make sure to click the Subscribe button, tag me and follow me on Instagram at Lewis Howes. And I love you so very much. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.