Float like a Butterfly, Sting like a Bee

From “The Greats” to you,

Happy Friday.

As I’m getting more familiar with writing newsletters, I encourage each of you to reply to this email with your answer to the following:

1. What do you dislike, the most?

Whether it be the writing, the formatting, the length. It can be anything.

My goal is to build the most engaging, thought-provoking, inspirational newsletter on the planet.

To compete with The Greats.

Tim Ferris. James Clear. The likes.

That will not come without its own failures. Failures I’m willing to face head on. So let it fly.

Thank you and enjoy this weeks edition of “The Greats”.

If you were forwarded this week’s edition, please subscribe!

One Tale:

A young Cassius Clay was not an athlete. His free time spent playing board games with his brother, Rudy, boxing was never a consideration in his youth.

This was until 1954, when Cassius attended an event at a local gym in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. When young Cassius stepped outside, he found his new bright-red Schwinn bicycle… missing.

Cassius reported the stolen bike, in tears, pleading with a local police officer that he would “Whup whoever stole it”.

The police officer, Joe Martin, would go on to ask if he knew how to fight.

Cassius would respond, “No”.

9 words would then change the fate of boxing, and the world, forever.

“You better learn to fight before you start fighting” - Joe Martin.

As fate would have it, Martin wasn’t just a local police officer, but also, a local boxing coach.

Under Martin’s mentorship, young Cassius went on to become one of the world’s most elite amateur boxers.

By the time he was 18, Cassius had won 108 bouts. 6 Kentucky Golden Glove Titles. 2 AAU National Championships. And 1 Olympic Gold Medal in the 1960 Olympics in Rome.

Yet, when he returned home, a 1960’s America still had no respect for a young black man. No matter the honor he had fought and won for his country.

Cassius threw his medal into the Ohio River.

Over the next 4 years, Cassius would go on to win 19 professional bouts and challenge title holder Sonny Liston - a 35-1 legend in the boxing world - to a shot for the world title.

Clay, the 8-1 underdog, was “a punk” in the eyes of Liston.

In the months leading up to the fight, Cassius would taunt Liston at any opportunity that presented.

Cassius rented a bus and parked in front of Liston’s house, screaming out of a bullhorn: “I’m gonna haunt you until you fight me”.

Ali then cornered Liston while he was losing at craps, where Liston would fire a gun at him, filled with blanks.

During the build up to the fight, Cassius became a worldwide celebrity. Mostly due to the fact that he never shut the fuck up.

He even conned Life Magazine into running a 5-page exclusive on his “under-water” training regime, a regime that in reality… did not exist.

In truth, he couldn’t even swim.

“I’ll fight that chump in a telephone booth”.

After 6 rounds, Liston refused to answer the bell for the 7th.

Cassius “simply out-boxed him”.

“I’m the king of the world”, “I’m pretty”, “I’m a bad man”, “I am the greatest”, was Ali’s message to the world.

“Sonny Liston made 2 mistakes his whole life. When he fights me the first time and when he fights me the 2nd.”

The next year, a newly minted “Muhammad Ali” - his name changed after his induction into the Nation of Islam - gave Liston a rematch.

A rematch where Ali knocked him out in 2 minutes, 17 seconds.

“GET UP. GET UP YOU BUM. GET UP AND FIGHT. NO ONE’S GOING TO BELIEVE THIS” - Ali, standing over Liston.

The punch that KO’d Liston would become known as the “Shadow Punch” because “it came so fast few in the crowd could claim to have seen it”.

Over the next 16 years, Muhammad Ali would go on to become one of the greatest boxers in the history of the world.

A final record of 56-5, Ali would take on the best boxers of the 20th century and defeat them all.

In 1981, Ali would finally retire from the sport, the greatest of all time.

Two Quotes:

"I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was. I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I was really the greatest." - Muhammad Ali

“Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even." - Muhammad Ali

Three Lessons:

The words you tell yourself matter. Before he was ever recognized as the greatest boxer of all time, Ali had already begun repeating these words to himself and to the press.

His belief in himself transcended beyond his own breath, beyond the ring, and beyond the United States.

It was felt throughout the world.

When you’re just getting started, your greatest advantage is being underestimated. During his first fight with Sonny Liston, Ali was the underdog, the betting odds 8-1 in Liston’s favor.

This gave Ali something to prove. With the odds stacked against him, Ali promoted hard, trained harder, and bent the universe to his will.

Being underestimated allowed him to shock the world, again and again… becoming a cultural icon in the process.

Your “greatest” work is just the beginning. Upon his retirement from boxing, Ali went on to become a humanitarian, philanthropist, and cultural leader.

He came to find his greater purpose in life was using the platform that he had built to enact the change he wished to see.

He challenged the Vietnam War, brought attention to injustices around the world, and fought for civil rights here in America.

Citations:

NCAA

The Greatest (1977 Film)

University of Louisville