Retrieve Larte Della Guerra: Le Lezioni Che Ho Imparato Constructed By Mike Tyson Rendered As Print

began boxing in. It was only then did I realize how beautiful this sport is,

I'd only read about how great Tyson was, So, I wanted to get into his head, see what made him who he became,

It is a fascinating read, but not particularly well written, It is written by Tyson himself, so, I'm not surprised,

This book will give you great insight on the psychology of great athletes,
Great book for the historical processes that made Boxing what it is, Filled with legalistic presentations and power play style conniving behind it all, Most of this book is my Mike's life w Cus, It's mostly Cus battle with the mob and powers that be that tried to control boxing, It does however have great spiritual and ambitions motivations, Cus was a stern man, but filled with brilliance in how to create a fighter,

Mike really showed me that he is more intelligent than I ever expected, I feel he had a ghost writer, but either way, he is much more intelligent than some of his previous statements "I'll eat your children" etc, I now understand that most of this was just the intimidating rage that Cus instilled in him to be the greatest and youngest HW champ of all time, Mike is a very complex man and my understanding and admiration for him continues to grow with this read,

I recommend it for anyone interested in boxing or Mike Tyson, "My Life with Cus" does a great job of humanizing the almost mythical boxing creator Cus D'Amato, The book begins and ends with stories from Mike, one of his most famous pupils, With the ending coming from a perspective from an older Mike, no longer biting ears, showcasing Tigers and having outlandish press conferences, The middle of the book goes into more of Cus' story before Mike, At times I thought the interlude was the "longest" part of the book but near the end the connections are made the piece if all together wonderfully,

Boxing fans and histories label Cus and a crazed, paranoid man, and after reading this book, perhaps he was, Constantly afraid of the mob being after him with the ties to boxing, worried of being betrayed by those he loved and hesitant to show love at the same time.
Part of the reason Mike was so outlandish was because of the affirmations Cus would tell him about being the best in the world making comparisons to gods and roman gladiators which really gives some insight as to why Mike became such a erratic face of media.


I'm happy that Mike is in a place in his life where he is reflective and is able to document these stories to give us a glimpse of the chaos he had lived through.
You can tell that his wife and being a father had helped him grow and his recent endeavor in his exhibition boxing is to give back and come full circle with the sport that both gave him life and destroyed him.


I give this bookas I could've done withless of Cus' backstory and more of the direct time with Mike, but a fantastic read nonetheless, Great read. Learned many new things about Mike, Cus, and Floyd Patterson, Story gets a little trying during the chapters about Cus and the mob but other than that a great read for the fight fan, I really found this to be a sad book in a few ways, One yes DAmato saved Tyson and then got him into boxing and a champ, but he didnt learn anything from his father figure and went off the rails, Yes, I believe he probably would not have done most of the stupid stuff he did but he really needed him in his life in order to function, at least that is the way it appears to me.
I received this book from Netgalley, com
Cus took Mike as ayears old troubled kid with no self esteem or confidence and made him a god in the ring inyears, you may not agree with lots of the methods he used but there are lots of thing that everyone can learn.
Most importantly the importance of the psychology and the mindset, I'm fascinated with Mike's life and I follow him until now, although I was bornyears after he won his title but he's still a huge inspiration for me.
I will take so many things from this books and probably will read it again in the next few years, What a great book, Cus' legacy will live forever, "I would let you fight Larry Holmes right now, You could beat him. But you don't believe it, Confidence applied properly will surpass genius, Nothing surpasses confidence. "

Everyone needs a Cus in their life, Someone that sees something special, that speaks life into you, and doesn't give up on you when everyone has including yourself, What an excellent book!!! This book inspires, The book talks about boxing, Talks a lot about boxing, Talks a lot about D'Amato's allin fight against the corrupt mobsters who ran the IBC, But it's not a boxing book, It's a selfhelp book. And it's the kind of selfhelp book people who don't like selfhelp books will like, It's about an old guy whose developed a specialized martial art: the peekaboo style, He's got one goal: train world champions, The fundamentals of his peekaboo style aren't physical, they're mental, He believes in character. Character makes the difference in the ring, His training techniques are unorthodox, He would put his fighters under hypnosis, and whisper to them, "When you hit, hit with bad intentions, " He would have his fighters recite, twenty times, at morning and at night, a simple mantra daily: "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better, " He would tell his fighters that they were God's most ferocious creations, He would tell his fighters that the memory of the boxing idols of that day would all be forgotten in the future, unless one of his fighters would say, in the future, "I learned this punch from Jack Dempsey or so and so.
" He would take in street kids with absolutely no confidence, and instil in them the selfconfidence of the gods, He was Cus D'Amato, and his protege was Iron Mike Tyson,

My mind is divided on selfhelp, Obviously it works. That I don't doubt. The problem is the people who invest themselves into selfhelp seem to become themselves selfhelp coaches, They're like tinker toys, each winding one another up, They don't seem to do things other than train one another, But this book is awesome in that D'Amato is into selfhelp and he does things, He produced three champs: Floyd Patterson, José Torres, and Mike Tyson, He took fighters with low selfconfidenceespecially Floyd Patterson and Mike Tyson, who had no selfconfidenceand convinced them they could be world champions, In the book, Tyson spends pages marvelling how D'Amato's techniques raised his confidence so high that he thought he was a god, To this day, Tyson struggles because D'Amato raised his selfesteem too high, If that's not testimonial to D'Amato's system of character building, then I don't know what is,

The book is filled with examples of D'Amato and his "mind over matter" philosophy, I'm not much into hocuspocus, but if it helps you succeed, then it is good, Here's a short passage that gave me the chills, I wonder if everyone gets these moments or these moments only come to the happy few

Cus was a believer in destiny, Even as a young boy, he felt that he'd be famous someday he always had a feeling that "there was something different" about him, I had the same exact feeling, So it felt right that I would move in with Cus and Camille, Cus was so happy. I couldn't understand why this white man was so happy about me, He would look at me and laugh hysterically, Then he'd get on the phone and tell people, "Lightning has struck me twice, I have another heavyweight champion, He's only thirteen. "

One of the first nights that I stayed over at the house on one of the home visits, Cus took me into the living room, where we could talk alone.
"You know I've been waiting for you," he told me, "I've been thinking about you since, If you meditate long enough on something, you get a picture, And the picture told me that I would make another champion, I conjured you up with my mind and now you're finally here, "

D'Amato reminds me of a character in an Ibsen play, Solness in The Master Builder, He too, practised this visualization technique to become the master builder, So, there are others out there who feel the pull of destiny, A curious, driving call full of power and powerlessness at the same time, The fire burns into you, but at the same time you are thrall and a pawn to this destiny that looms over you,

Why do we do this, the

endless hours of training Cus too, has an answer, We do it for immortality, to be remembered in a song for the future generations, I feel sometimes D'Amato should have been an ancient Greek, living in the times of Homer, The ancients also recognized this justification, They built pyramids so that they would be remembered, They fought the Trojan War for ten years so that it could be a song for the future generations to epic singers to sing, Today, if you want to be remembered, there's something wrong with you, You need to be humble, You need to blend in, Don't go for a home run when you can get away with a hit, D'Amato sets today's values on their head, Aim for one thing with all your being, he says:

I used to ask Cus, "What does it mean being the greatest fighter of all time Most of those guys are all dead.
" "Listen, they're dead, but we're talking about them now, this is all about immortality, " That fucked me up. It changed the whole game, I just thought it would be about riches, the big cars, the big mansions he used to point out to me, But now he was taking it to a whole other level, He got me hooked with the riches, but now he suddenly said, "You're going to be a god, " This was the real deal, and the real deal fucked me up real good, Then he said, "Forget the money, " Once he told me that shit, it blew my mind, He was talking immortality and I'm figuring out what that is,

And here's D'Amato on having a purpose in life, People today, I think, value living for the sake of living, But D'Amato offers another view: it's not about life, but about life's purpose, Purpose is so concentrated a force that when it's not met, the dead will come back:

Then Cus told me that he was dying from pneumonia, I started getting angry. We had so much together, I'm a little street kid with this old guy who's in exile and we'd talk about these grandiose dreams and making money and buying mansions and how there was nobody in the world who could touch us.
They couldn't do anything but gawk at us, We were the most magnificent gift boxing had ever witnessed, And now it was over before we had reached our ultimate mission, I couldn't go on with it without Cus,

"If you die, I'm not going to fight anymore," I said, sobbing, Cus looked angry. "Now listen, if you quit fighting, then you're going to find out if people can come back from the dead, because I will come back and I will haunt you for the rest of your life.
You have to fight. "

On the way to the goal, fighters encounter obstacles, Life gets in the way, Injuries get in the way, Doubt gets in the way, Fatigue gets in the way, D'Amato had a solution. If you don't go all the way, you'll never know how close you were, To keep his fighters focused, he had this John Greanleaf Whittier poem posted in the very spot where he would work the fighters the hardest:

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,

When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high,

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit,

Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.


Life is queer with its twists and turns,

As every one of us sometimes learns,

And many a failure turns about,

When he might have won had he stuck it out

Don't give up though the pace seems slow

You may succeed with another blow.


Often the goal is nearer than,

It seems to a faint and faltering man,

Often the struggler has given up,

When he might have captured the victor's cup,

And he learned too late when the night slipped down,

How close he was to the golden crown.


Success is failure turned inside out

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,

And you never can tell how close you are,

It may be near when it seems so far,

So stick to the fight when you're the hardest hit

It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.


Iron Ambition is a fantastic and rich read for a variety of reasons, If you're a fan of Tyson, you'll want to learn about his trainer and manager, If you're a fan of boxing history, you'll want to read about D'Amato's dangerous fight against the corrupt IBC, If you're driven and laserfocused on goals, you'll want the secrets of D'Amato's techniques which gave his fighters the psychological edge, From Cus D'Amato you will learn that it is okay to want it all, It is okay to spend your life in dogged pursuit of one purpose, It is okay to sacrifice everything that stands in your way, It is not a crime to want glory and immortality,

Cus D'Amato was born in theth century, but he was really born out of his time, His values and beliefs resonate more closely with the ancient Greek and Romans who believed that it is not our peers who will judge us, It is eternity who will judge us, Why is it that way It is that way because we have the spark to be great, to be the greatest, And when you have the spark to be the greatest, you comport yourself and live life as though eternity were watching every step you take, This book teaches you that greatness is not a crime and dares you to be more, .