The Talent Myth
Whether you’re a fan of boxing or not, whether you love or hate Mike Tyson, I would really recommend seeing the recent Tyson documentary. Mike tyson is a fascinating individual but one part of the documentary really stood out to me. Firstly though, take a second to just think about Mike Tyson. Despite all of the controversy and issues in his personal life, I think very few people would deny that he is one of, if not the, most naturally talented and devastating competitor in possibly the most demanding sport in the world. That’s a pretty incredible achievement. The sad truth is, the majority of us (and the people we know) will never accomplish anything even remotely close to success on that scale.
And yet in the documentary, Tyson describes what happened before his first fight. I can’t remember exactly what he said but the gist of it went “I was so scared of fighting, in my changing room I told my trainer I had to go to the store and get some things. I headed down to the store but I’d really intended to go to the train station. I didn’t want to fight anyone, I thought I should just get on this train and get the f*** out of here and leave this people here”. This is someone who will be remembered as a once in a lifetime, possibly once in history, boxer who had a level of ferocity and devastation that’s never been seen before and he had so much self-doubt he almost didn’t even step in the ring.
Then there’s his fight with Buster Douglas, when he lost his belt in what was a massive upset (Buster was a 42 to 1 underdog to win that fight). In the documentary, Tyson admits that he didn’t train especially hard or take the fight that seriously. He still trained (probably at a level that most of us couldn’t handle) but just not as intensely as he usually would have and he got knocked out by a far less talented fighter.
In a television interview just after Tyson won his second belt, he talks about when he first started boxing. He talks about sparring and his first few times in the ring and says “I won a few, I lost a few”. At some point, Mike Tyson, stepped into a boxing ring and was beaten by someone whose name we’ve never heard. One of the greatest fighters ever, was beaten by a no name at some point. But Tyson continued fighting. I bet most of us can think of a time where we tried something new, didn’t get the hang of it straight away and gave up. I’m not saying if we tried harder we could all be Mike Tyson, I’m just saying that when you give up you destroy any chance you might have had of being great.
It’s a more media-friendly story to dress people up as being child prodigies or naturally gifted in a way that makes them destined for success. It’s more interesting to read about how David Beckham could curl a football from age 4 than it is to read about the countless extra training sessions and time he spent practicing, once his team mates had gone home, to become one of the greatest strikers of a football in history. It’s more entertaining to read about Cristiano Ronaldo playing football on the streets of Portugal as a kid than it is to read about the time he spent in the gym building up his physique so he could be a complete footballer.
There’s also an ego element involved. As humans it’s more fulfilling for us to appear gifted or special in a way that others aren’t rather than showing how hard we’ve had to work to achieve a level of ability at something. Thus the talent myth continues to be perpetuated.
Obviously talent and ability is an important factor. I doubt that however many hours I spend practicing cricket that my poor hand eye co-ordination is going to allow me to be an international cricket player. But I know for a fact that if I spent one hour a day practicing, I’d become significantly better than I am right now. There’s a great quote from Hernan Crespo, an Argentinean football player, in which he compares himself to Batistuta (one of the greatest strikers ever) by saying something along the lines of “Batistuta is a born champion, to be at his level I have to work twice as hard and train twice as much”. Crespo will never have the natural gifts that Batistuta had but with his work ethic, he still managed to command a world record transfer fee and score a lot of goals.
The fact is that the limiting factor in most of us achieving our goals/dreams isn’t a lack of ability or talent. It’s that not enough of us have the determination to stick with something until we’ve mastered it. Right now there’s probably a boxer out there who had the same raw ability as Mike Tyson but decided to get on that train and we’ll never know his name.