Out October 22, 2026
the book.
In Your Corner
Train Your Mind Like a Fighter to Face Life Like a Champion
Javier Mendez founded the American Kickboxing Academy in San José, coaching and cornering Khabib Nurmagomedov, Islam Makhachev, Daniel Cormier, and Cain Velasquez. In Your Corner is part memoir, part mindset book. It’s a life in fighting, told across eighteen rounds in three parts (Fighter, Coach, Legacy), and lays out what it taught Javier about pressure, preparation, and the people in your corner.
From first outline to final draft, we built it together. I interviewed Javier at length, and then the people closest to him, from family and friends to the fighters he cornered, including recorded sessions with Khabib Nurmagomedov and Islam Makhachev in Dubai. Then came research, outlining, drafting, and revision until the voice on the page was unmistakably his. While much of this process was unique to Javier and his goals, it’s the same level of collaboration I bring to every ghostwriting client.
Not everyone is a fighter. Everyone is fighting something. From In Your Corner
A ghostwriting project, start to finish
how it was made.
A book is always much more than a manuscript. It’s edits, revisions, feedback, changes, new ideas. This is what co-writing In Your Corner involved, and what a ghostwriting client can expect from me.
- InterviewsRecorded conversations with Javier, in person and online, and with his family, friends, and fighters, including Khabib Nurmagomedov and Islam Makhachev in Dubai, until the stories and the way he tells them were on tape.
- ResearchThe fights, the dates, and the people in the stories, checked against the record so the book holds up to readers who know the sport.
- StructureEighteen rounds in three parts, so a life in fighting reads as one argument about pressure and preparation.
- Drafting and revisionEvery chapter written, then rewritten with Javier until it sounded like him and not like me.
- Back-cover and catalog copyThe description, positioning, keywords, and comparable titles that retailers and readers see first.
- Cover and productionDirection and feedback on the cover through its iterations, the copyright page, and the details a finished book needs.
He got me down, exactly who I was. He felt my heartbeat. And he wrote the book the way I would want it to have been written. Javier Mendez, on the Teaching Socials podcast
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