Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Physical endowment is not like intellectual endowment. It’s visible. Size, build, agility are all visible. Practice and training are also visible, and they produce visible results. You would think that this would dispel the myth of the natural. You could see Muggsy Bogues at five foot three playing NBA basketball, and Doug Flutie, the small quarterback who has played for the New England Patriots and the San Diego Chargers. You could see Pete Gray, the one-armed baseball player who made it to the major leagues. Ben Hogan, one of the greatest golfers of all time, who was completely lacking in grace. Glenn Cunningham, the great runner, who had badly burned and damaged legs. Larry Bird and his lack of swiftness. You can see the small or graceless or even “disabled” ones who make it, and the god-like specimens who don’t. Shouldn’t this tell people something?

Boxing experts relied on physical measurements, called “tales of the tape,” to identify naturals. They included measurements of the fighter’s fist, reach, chest expansion, and weight. Muhammad Ali failed these measurements. He was not a natural. He had great speed but he didn’t have the physique of a great fighter, he didn’t have the strength, and he didn’t have the classical moves. In fact, he boxed all wrong. He didn’t block punches with his arms and elbows. He punched in rallies like an amateur. He kept his jaw exposed. He pulled back his torso to evade the impact of oncoming punches, which Jose Torres said was “like someone in the middle of a train track trying to avoid being hit by an oncoming train, not by moving to one or the other side of the track, but by running backwards.”

Sonny Liston, Ali’s adversary, was a natural. He had it all—the size, the strength, and the experience. His power was legendary. It was unimaginable that Ali could beat Sonny Liston. The matchup was so ludicrous that the arena was only half full for the fight.

But aside from his quickness, Ali’s brilliance was his mind. His brains, not his brawn. He sized up his opponent and went for his mental jugular. Not only did he study Liston’s fighting style, but he closely observed what kind of person Liston was out of the ring: “I read everything I could where he had been interviewed. I talked with people who had been around him or had talked with him. I would lay in bed and put all of the things together and think about them, and try to get a picture of how his mind worked.” And then he turned it against him.

Why did Ali appear to “go crazy” before each fight? Because, Torres says, he knew that a knockout punch is the one they don’t see coming. Ali said, “Liston had to believe that I was crazy. That I was capable of doing anything. He couldn’t see nothing to me at all but mouth and that’s all I wanted him to see!”

Float like a butterfly,

Sting like a bee

Your hands can’t hit

What your eyes can’t see.

Ali’s victory over Liston is boxing history. A famous boxing manager reflects on Ali:

“He was a paradox. His physical performances in the ring were absolutely wrong.… Yet, his brain was always in perfect working condition.” “He showed us all,” he continued with a broad smile written across his face, “that all victories come from here,” hitting his forehead with his index finger. Then he raised a pair of fists, saying: “Not from here.”

This didn’t change people’s minds about physical endowment. No, we just look back at Ali now, with our hindsight, and see the body of a great boxer. It was gravy that his mind was so sharp and that he made up amusing poems, but we still think his greatness resided in his physique. And we don’t understand how the experts failed to see that greatness right from the start.

Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan wasn’t a natural, either. He was the hardest-working athlete, perhaps in the history of sport.

It is well known that Michael Jordan was cut from the high school varsity team—we laugh at the coach who cut him. He wasn’t recruited by the college he wanted to play for (North Carolina State). Well, weren’t they foolish? He wasn’t drafted by the first two NBA teams that could have chosen him. What a blooper! Because now we know he was the greatest basketball player ever, and we think it should have been obvious from the start. When we look at him we see MICHAEL JORDAN. But at that point he was only Michael Jordan.