interview

Andrew Cohen: To become Heavyweight Champion of the World, you've had to muster extraordinary self-discipline and willpower in order to develop strength of body and mind; and, in a sense, to be victorious in any worthwhile endeavor in life, it's necessary to become a master of oneself. Not many people achieve the level of self-mastery that you have. Could you please describe your own understanding of what self-mastery is all about?

Evander Holyfield: Well, I guess "self" is not knowing that you've got help from anyone. Based on our ego, we'd say, "Well, I'm a man, and as a man I think I'm supposed to be able to do certain things." Like when I was a kid, I thought a man was supposed to be tough, so a man don't supposed to cry, he's supposed to just hold the pain in, and a man don't supposed to quit—all these things—so when I say "self-mastery," when I was younger, this is what I thought it was.

AC: So you thought self-mastery was a matter of willpower and self-control?

EH: Well, I'm saying as a kid you would think that. But as a man, I know that's all just a joke because the truth is you actually can't make it, you can't be good enough, and you can't be disciplined enough if you don't have a stronger being in there.

AC: You do very intense training, though. There's only a very small minority of human beings who could endure the intensity of the kind of training that you do. It takes a certain amount of willpower and determination to make that possible, and most people simply wouldn't be able to do it. After a couple of weeks, they'd say, "No, I just don't have the discipline to do this any more."

EH: Well, yeah, but we're talking about "self," and my whole thing is that the only thing that keeps me achieving is not "self"—it's faith in God. You've got to understand, my growth has always been spiritual. So to say "self-mastery"—you're talking about a guy that really learned at a younger age that it's impossible to be just "self," because the point is that even with me being totally disciplined and totally faithful, I might not have been Heavyweight Champion of the World—because I made so many mistakes! So that's how I know that God is good—because of all the mistakes that I have made. I can't look a person in the eye and say, "Look, hey, I ran every day, I trained every day, I did everything by the book." Compared to other people, maybe I did more than them, but some people worked harder than me.

AC: Could you please describe what your experience of spiritual faith is? What does it mean to experience the presence of God in one's own heart?

EH: Well, that's real easy. I remember I was twelve years old when I first encountered that. I had fought this kid and he had beat me twice; so he was the first guy I ever lost against, and he was the second guy I ever lost against, and in the final it ended up he's in the tournament. Now, if I can't beat him, I can't go to the Junior Olympics in Tennessee, and I really, really, really wanted to go to Tennessee real bad—I was hurting!—and I started crying 'cause this guy was stopping me. Now in reality, see, one thing is the guy beat me twice, but the truth is—it's another day. But because he beat me twice, I kind of believe that I'm wasting my time. Then I started thinking about what my grandmother told me—"Take Jesus in." Now at twelve years old I never, never, ever had come to the point of being desperate enough to call Jesus unless I was gonna get a whupping by my mom, right? If I would be scared at night, I would just realize that Jesus was there to make me feel secure because my grandmother had always told me that you could take Jesus anywhere with you. But now I was so desperate that going into the ring I was crying, "Please Jesus, help me, help me. Help me win!" And that gave me enough confidence to go out and do all I can, and when I did all I could, I won! And then I realized what happens, you know? Because it felt like the same fight that I'd fought twice before where he got the victory, but this time they gave it to me. And I'm going, "It works! It works!"

So that was my first experience with the Lord, and from that point on I just always prayed—always prayed. And every time I had a setback, I would just pray that the Lord would allow me to see what I had done wrong. Like one thing was, I'd be fighting and all of a sudden I'd just run out of energy. Well, I found out that the reason I ran out of gas was because I had fear—a fear that made me panic, made me say, "I got to get him out or I'm gonna run out of gas." So I'd be fighting so hard that if I didn't get him out, I would be out of gas! I'd be in shape, see, but I'd psych myself out! So my whole thing was that I just prayed and, all of a sudden, I found out that fear itself is what causes a person to think about all the bad things that can happen.

AC: What you seem to be saying is that when you've lost, it was only because for one reason or another you weren't giving everything—you were allowing some thought of fear or weakness to get in the way. So are you saying that if every time you got in the ring you never allowed any thought to get in your way, and you were always giving two hundred percent—everything you had—you'd have to win every time, no matter who you're fighting?

EH: No, because there's points in time that people are better. I've fought guys at times that were just better off. They had more experience, more skills, and whatever I did, they would just do a little bit more. So the point is that if you fought your best fight, and your best is not good enough, then what can you say? No more than, "Hey, I fought a great fight, and I did good!" That's life itself, and that's one thing I realized that I'm always saying because I know the word of God. See, God allows His people to prosper, which means growing. Now that don't mean by leaps and bounds. Eventually it will be leaps and bounds, but growing is growing. So if I ran track and I started off running an eleven and I ended up at a ten-five but I never got the gold medal, I still ain't got nothing to complain about. I have gotten better. So that's how I am as an athlete. I realize that there are people behind me, so I have to look for things for me to get better. Because when they're at home, one thing's for sure—they're going to be watching my last fight. But that's fine, because I'm looking at that tape, too, and seeing what I did wrong and all that, so I can be a lot better than that, so when they fight against me, I'm still ahead. My whole life is like that. The only time people catch you is when you stop. When you say you're great, that's it.

AC: You're talking about a certain attitude of fearless confidence, right?

EH: Well, because I know the word of God, and I know that I believe, I know that fear is the only thing that prohibits you from being the very best you can be. Now when does a person become fearless? You never know! You just take one step at a time. But when you master the game you realize, "Hey, I'm jabbing. What I want to do is jab this way and make him move his head that way 'cause I can hit him when I claim the shot. All right! Knocked him down! The guy's hurt now. He ain't dealing with all his faculties now—he's hurt." Before that, I would jump on him like, "Oh, oh, I got to get on him 'cause I may not get him later," instead of realizing that I'm the one that made him get in that position, so if he clears his head up, I can make him get back in that position and do that same thing to him again. It took me all them years when I used to panic to come to the point of realizing that, as a professional fighter, when I get in the ring, I'm in control. And once I've realized I'm in control, he can't hurt me unless I allow him to hurt me. All of a sudden the fight becomes easy! And I don't have to panic 'cause if I'm in control, I'm either going to knock him out, or I'm going to win by decision.

AC: You're talking about being in control, and knowing you're in control, and that understanding changing your relationship to everything that happens. Would you say that's what self-mastery is all about?

EH: Well, that's what people may think self-mastery is all about. But I don't think you can ever be just that and be the very best, because my whole thing is that having control is having the wisdom to know why I'm in the position I'm in. So even if I'm saying, "I control this fight," I recognize that God gives me the knowledge to control the fight. I see a lot of guys who may have more physical strength, may have a faster jab, maybe better footwork, but if they got all that knowledge and I got all this knowledge, then what would make me better? It's who knows how to apply the knowledge. See, I've met people who had a college degree, a master's and all that—and I just have a twelfth-grade education. They say, "How you know all that?" And I say, "Because God gives wisdom, and wisdom is how to utilize the knowledge that you have." So you know, I understand what people call "control," but you have to always be thankful for who gave you the knowledge, and for who gives you your health and strength. And when I start thinking about all the things that allow me to be in control, then I realize I'm not in control—that anything can happen on any given day, you know? If I hurt my hand or break my arm and can't fight no more, then what would I do? But because I trust in God, I know that I could take the knowledge that he's given me and just find me some kid who's willing to listen, who's willing to follow directions. I'd take my knowledge and give it to him, and we'll still make it to the top. Because again, my whole thing is that wisdom is the most powerful thing, because you can keep training someone over and over, but if that person don't want to do it, you have to just keep looking for people—keep looking until somebody says, "I want this knowledge, and I'm going to use it just like you taught me to use it"—and then you'll go to the top.

AC: In your book, The Humble Warrior, I read that after your victory over Buster Douglas you said, "It dawned on me that all the things other people had told me all my life weren't true. 'You won't make it. You can't do it. You're too small.'" You then said, "I was set free." Successful champions like yourself transmit a very positive message that says, "I Can—and you can too." This experience of "I Can" is the discovery of a powerful self-confidence that frees. It frees the personality from all self-limiting notions and ideas. Now, in the Old Testament, the Lord said, "I Am that I Am." And this experience of "I Am that I Am" is often called "revelation." In your own experience, which is more important? The revelation of "I Am that I Am," or the self-confidence that comes from knowing that "I Can"?

EH: Well, the self-confidence. Because the revelation that you know who you really are means that we have to grow to love ourselves—because of all the insecurity. Because, you know, you grow up in a society where everything is different—meaning you see somebody shorter than you, you see somebody taller than you. So because we admire things in people that we don't see in ourselves, we would like to have certain things that we don't—because we think they look great on that person. So we say, "If I had this, if I had that." Now in the end, you realize that you really can't love yourself if you don't love God, because God is the self within you to make you say, "I love me," and when my love shows that I love me, then I can also love you—the way that you are, not the way that I want you to be. And when that self-confidence grows to the point that I love, then I see that I want to be something nice. And then it comes to, "Are you willing to pay the price that's necessary to be that?" Because you can, and then either you do or you don't, and there's no excuses.

Now when you say "I Can," you're talking about the inner being, your spirit: "I can do all things through Christ, because Christ has set me free from all the insecurities that would cause me to fail in life." That means you ain't worrying about somebody saying, "You didn't make it," or thinking, "I'm gonna do all this work and still I'm gonna lose," as the reason you didn't even start. And see, not even to start, that's almost like saying, "I don't even want to be born." I mean, why would I be born if I'm not supposed to win? What would bring me into this doggone world knowing that I can't make it? All that's the insecurities. But when you know that you can, it breaks all barriers, because then you say, "Hey, I can do this!"

AC: Does that confidence come from your experience of "I Am that I Am"—of your true Self? Or does it come from your own success in applying self-discipline and willpower to accomplish your goals?

EH: Well, it comes from that experience of "I Am." Because the fact is that it's one thing to know about God and another thing to live of God. See, my whole thing is that my mama taught me about this, this, this and this, but if I didn't test it, then how would I know it's real? It's like a chair: If you sit in that chair, you know it's hard, but if you ain't never sat in it, you ain't sure that the sucker can hold you. These are the things that were taught to me as a kid—that God was rich and God had everything, that you are a child of God and you supposed to have these different things too. But I didn't have these different things, so I was in question. And until I fought, I thought I couldn't beat this guy!—same thing! So that's why my whole life has always been down to the fact that when you have a setback, you don't call that a loss. "Lose" means when you don't get back up. A "setback" means that, hey, something happened, something that you did wrong and then you're corrected. Now you mend it back together. Now it's stronger than it was the first time, and you know you're going through here because of the experience that you're gonna have behind you. A lot of things don't happen the same way when you learn from the past experience, which assures you that you can make it. So that is the reason why you say, "Well, through trial and error—through faith—I can sit here and tell you it's real." I can't tell nobody something is real that I ain't experienced for myself.

AC: What you're talking about is never losing faith and always persevering, right? Never giving up. Can you speak about never giving up and what that means to you, and what role it's played for you? Does never giving up merely require a decision that's made with the mind and the will? Or does it involve a spiritual dimension, a surrender to a power greater than ourselves?

EH: Well, it's spiritual because it's impossible not to give up if you don't have a strong spiritual side—because, I mean, we're just people. We have this reality: "I'm just a man." So there's got to be something more than you, and you have to have your security in a higher being that you know can protect you. The reason I don't walk in fear is because I know there's a better place. So I'm saying it's the spiritual side that allows you to come to grips with life itself and what you're doing with it.

AC: In your book you speak about the "prayer closet," that place of inner solitude that you go to in times of prayer and self-recollection.

EH: Well, people call it "prayer closet." I call it "communication"—my communication with God. I mean, how can I hear His voice if I don't talk to Him on a regular basis? And see, that communication is the key to my confidence, to knowing that I can win, and if I don't have no communication, then my confidence is shaken. My fighting is nothing if I can't pray! If someone keeps me from praying, or distracts me from praying—if I get out of prayer—I just feel that I'm a dead duck. I shouldn't even show up if my communication line is not right. I'd get tore up!

AC: I understand from what I've read about you that you experience something in those moments when you're praying by yourself. Can you describe what that experience is like?

EH: Well, it's real simple. It's a give-and-take situation. Have you ever been in a relationship with a lady that you really love and then you did something wrong and you couldn't wait to just talk to her? Then when you all are talking, you all come in and greet each other, and there's, like, peace. That's the same thing with God. You know that you're wrong and all this, and so you have to come and confess your sins. "Lord, you know I did wrong, Lord, and I'm suffering." Now you got to admit that you was wrong, and the reason why you're admitting that you're wrong is because of these things that are happening to you now. You're suffering the consequences, and now you want to get out. But you know that the only way you can get out is by confessing that you're wrong. "Lord, I was wrong. I know that I was wrong, Lord. Show your love, show your mercy." And then you get this peace, so that you're able to get up and start your day off.