No matter how good you get, you will always feel a bit of intimidation when talking with the women you like most. You may have dated a hundred women, but what happens with the next woman is always an unknown.
What Tyson says about fear is spot on. It gets at the heart of dealing with fear and anxiety: it’s a paradox. The more you’re willing to experience fear, the less power it has over you.
I come out. I have supreme confidence but I’m scared to death. I’m totally afraid. I’m afraid of everything. I’m afraid of losing. I’m afraid of being humiliated. But I was totally confident.
The closer I get to the ring the more confidence I get. The closer, the more confidence I get. The closer, the more confidence I get.
All through my training I’ve been afraid of this man. I thought this man might be capable of beating me. I’ve dreamed of him beating me. I always stayed afraid of him. The closer I get to the ring I’m more confident. Once I’m in the ring, I’m a God! No-one can beat me.
You can’t change how you feel and think, but you can change your actions. If you are unwilling to feel fear and embrace the thoughts that go along with it, then you start to avoid situations that cause fear.
And when you do feel that fear, you feel like something is wrong, like it means that you’re going to fail.
Instead, the first step is to embrace your fear. Lean into it. Feel it. Feel all of it. Embrace the worst outcome with open arms.
Once you do that, the fear no longer has power to hurt you. It can actually help you at that point.
Next, Mike talks about the importance of eye contact.
A fight is a high tension social interaction with winners and losers. There can also be losers in meeting new people–but it’s our own bodies that defeat us. We do it to ourselves.
Most guys were just pretty much intimidated. They lost the fight before they even got hit. I knew the art of skullduggery. I knew how to beat these guys psychologically before I even got in the ring with them.
I walk around the ring, but I never take my eyes off my opponent. I keep my eyes on him, even if he’s ready and pumped and he can’t wait to get his hands on me as well. I keep my eyes on him. I keep my eyes on him. I keep my eyes on him.
Then once I see a chink in his armor. BOOM!
And one of his eyes may move and then I know I have him. Then when he comes to the centre of the ring, he still looks at me with his piercing look as if he’s not afraid.
But he already made that mistake when he looked down for that one-tenth of a second. I knew I had him. He’ll fight hard for the first two or three rounds but I know I really broke his spirit.
When you make eye contact with people, NEVER ever look down. As a guy who’s dealt with a lot of anxiety in the past, I still sometimes feel compelled to look down when I feel intimidated. Don’t. Look anywhere else but down.
Look to the side. Look up. Look away. Just don’t look down. The video is actually amazing because you can see–for a fraction of a second–Tyson’s opponent get intimidated. Women can sense that too.
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posted in Acceptance, Body Language
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