Episode Description
He broke a man's jaw to go undefeated on national TV—and felt nothing.
Think Mike Lee’s pro boxing career looks like a dream? Inside the ring, yes, he was impressive. But outside of it, the pros and cons weren't passing weigh-ins.
"You'd think that someone who punched other people in the face for a living would want to do a podcast about poems, but ... here we are."
In this episode of There’s a Poem in That, we follow Mike through the final bout of his boxing career—and the invisible fight that was already well underway. What emerges is a story about more than sport. It’s about the addiction to intensity, the emotional crash that follows achievement, and the quiet ways identity can become tied to performance.
"I'm actually ironically an extremely empathetic, un-confrontational person."
Over years of competition, Mike chased the feeling that winning was supposed to bring. But the highs didn’t last. The lows got lower. And eventually, his body began to break down in ways no one could fully explain—until a diagnosis of Lyme disease helped make sense of the pain, exhaustion, and confusion that had been shaping his career all along.
His retirement didn’t end the fight—it only changed it.
In highlights from 3 hours of intimate interview, you'll hear about:
- The psychology of high performance and adrenaline
- Depression and emotional flat-lining after success
- Chronic illness and invisible symptoms
- Losing an identity built since childhood
- Redefining masculinity, vulnerability, and fatherhood
At the center is a quieter question: If you’re not what you achieve… who are you?
And what happens when you no longer need to prove you're enough?
If this episode resonates, share it with someone who’s been chasing a high—and leave a review with the line that stayed with you.
TAPIT is listener supported. Listeners like you help make TAPIT's services available FREE to anyone who calls the listener line. Join the movement and get bonus content available nowhere else, by contributing as little as $1 a month, here.
Some contributors support the show at $5,000 a year, assuring TAPIT's continued growth as nonprofit arts organization with vision. To join these visionaries, visit us here, or send a message to todd@poeminthat.org.
Read the poems and access more bonus content at poeminthat.com. Or shop our merch!
Is there an unwritten poem in your story? Leave Todd a voicemail on our Haiku, Hawaii, listener line, and tell him why: 808-300-0449.
Follow TAPIT on Facebook.