Mike Tyson, A Case Study

Last night at the gym tattoos got brought up.  There’s a lot of guys with tattoos at the gym.  The conversation quickly escalated from full sleeves and neck tattoos to face tattoos.  Naturally Mike Tyson was mentioned.  Then it moved from Mike Tyson’s face tattoo to his high pitched voice.

My boss tells a great story about running into Mike Tyson in the Las Vegas airport and asking him if he could get a picture with him.  Mike Tyson was kind enough to do so (in case you wondering what you could ask Mike Tyson if you ever ran into him).

According to the story Mike Tyson asked him about his Buckeyes shirt.  In his best Mike Tyson impression, which is pretty great, my boss says, “An Ohio State fan from Utah? Thats’ hilarious."

We all laughed at how ridiculous it must have actually sounded.

I am sure there are a million jokes about Mike Tyson and how ridiculous he is.  But here’s the thing, it doesn’t matter.

His voice doesn’t matter.
His face tattoo doesn’t matter.

The reason he is where he is is because he was able to deliver.

I am not a huge boxing fan.  Growing up the only thing I knew about Mike Tyson was this:

It’s an accomplishment to get into a video game.  Especially one as popular as Punch Out! But I never thought twice about it.

One summer I was working at a golf course and the TV in lobby had ESPN Classic on.  They were featuring Mike Tyson’s fights.  That was the first time I had ever seen him knock someone out.  Like I said before I had never really watched a professional boxing match and still don’t know much about it.  But I was impressed by what I saw.

It was like watching Michael Jordan play basketball, or Wayne Gretzky play hockey, or Michael Phelps swim. It’s almost unbelievable that someone has that much talent and skill.

When you can produce work that stands on its own then you can be, say or do anything you want.  Because after that quality of work has been established that’s your measuring stick.

The only time after that that people will start to question you is when the quality of your work goes down, or you stop being able to deliver consistently.  Again think about Mike Tyson.

The real trick is that consistency is hard as all get out.

For me I don’t think I’ve focused enough on the work that I am producing.  In my writing, at work, at home, or anywhere.  Quality has not been my main focus.

So I haven’t been able to the results that I want because I’m not putting the work to get them.