Lex Fridman Podcast - #179 – Georges St-Pierre: The Science of Fighting

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

Georges St-Pierre is a martial artist. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Allform: https://allform.com/lex to get 20% off - ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod and use code LexPod to get 3 months free - Blinkist: https://blinkist.com/lex and use code LEX to get 25% off premium - Theragun: https://theragun.com/lex to get 30 day trial - The Information: https://theinformation.com/lex to get 75% off first month EPISODE LINKS: GSP's Twitter: https://twitter.com/GeorgesStPierre GSP's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georgesstpierre/ GSP's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/georgesstpierre GSP's Website: https://www.gspofficial.com PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcast - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (08:09) - Love of winning (11:01) - Suffering (12:03) - Fasting (22:01) - Carnivore (28:30) - Fear (36:02) - Strategy (39:12) - Mind games (42:54) - Mental games (48:00) - Science of fighting (1:11:39) - GOAT (1:15:22) - A fight vs Khabib (1:25:03) - Free will (1:28:49) - Consciousness (1:31:05) - AI (1:41:13) - Aliens (1:52:21) - Dreams (1:57:55) - Father (2:02:58) - Life and love (2:17:07) - Advice for young people (2:19:28) - How to learn (2:22:55) - Bruce Lee (2:26:04) - Tie choke (2:32:49) - Best martial art for self-defense (2:37:28) - Meaning of life

The following is a conversation with George St. Pierre, considered by many to be the greatest fighter in the history of UFC and MMA, but even more than that, one of the greatest martial artists ever. Quick mention of our sponsors, all form, express VPN, blinxist, TheraGun, and the information. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that getting the chance to hang out with George talked to him on the podcast, record a quick self-defense video that I'll release soon, all while both of us wearing suits was one of the most memorable days of my life. In setting all this up, I talked to Joe Rogan and originally we couldn't schedule a chat with him and George on the JRE, which allowed me to pretend, for a brief time, that George came down to Austin just to see me. Who the hell am I? In truth, him and Joe probably

conspired to make me feel special, but that's the point. It's inspiring to see George and Joe, who are at the top of their field treat others as equals as human beings No matter who they are even silly Russians in a suit Meeting George was an honor for me beyond words As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now. No ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting But I give you time stamps so you can skip but still please check out the sponsors in the middle, I try to make these interesting, but I give you time stamps so you can skip, but still please check out the sponsors in the description. It really is the best way to support this podcast.

I'm really fortunate to be able to be very selective with the sponsors we take on, so hopefully if you buy their stuff and you should, you'll find value in it just as I have. Speaking of which, this show is sponsored by a new sponsor called All Form, a furniture company. They're new in terms of reads, but I've been using them for a long time. They ship to your home quickly, take it back for free if you don't like it in the first 100 days. It's easy to assemble, looks beautiful and classy, so of course I like it, but also just feels amazing. In fact, before all the sponsorship stuff, I had their love seat that I recently released a conversation with Michael Mallis and Yaron Brook, but the previous

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Lex. Beyond just the content, I see it as a good way of supporting in depth journalism. I hope you do as well. This is the Lex Friedman podcast, and here is my conversation with my long time martial arts hero and now my friend Mr. George Sampyr. In your fighting career, where you're more motivated by the love of winning or the fear and hatred of losing. I like to win better than I hate to lose because if it would not have been the case, I would never have fought in the first place because I don't like to fight at all. But you talked about the anxiety, the fear that you experienced leading up to a fight. So, to you ultimately, the reason to go through that difficult process is because it feels damn good and to have your hand raised.

There is that there is also the fact that martial art I've been introduced when I was very young and it's probably the best thing I can do in my life fighting. That's what I do best. Yes, also it provides me of freedom, of access of things that most of people do not have, but all that as a price. And a lot of money, I made a lot of money, of course, with it. I was maybe predisposed with certain abilities. I met incredible mentors throughout my life. I worked really hard. And of course, I had a lot of chances.

The stars were all aligned. And in order to keep those advantages of freedom, money, and glory, and access of things that most people don't have. And I have these dream life that I have. I had to sacrifice myself and fight in order to keep it. It's very hard to understand because I also believe most fighters are not like me. They are a lot of guys because I corner a lot of guys and it seems to me that they love their job. They enjoyed to go fight in the cage. I love to train. I love the

science of fighting the sport to be in good shape. The confidence that training in mixed martial art give me. However, I do not like the feeling of uncertainty, the stress that I have not knowing if I will be badly injured or humiliated or winning the fight. It's to me, unbearable in it. That's what takes the most out of me. More than brain damage, more than anything, that's what takes the most out of me. More than brain damage, more than anything, that's what takes the most out of me. But the thing you get from it is the freedom that you get because of the money, but because of the celebrity, because of everything that comes with it. You can be the best version of yourself because of fighting. But at the same time, you've said that quote, I don't believe there's pleasure in life.

I believe there's only a relief from pain. We have to suffer to be on top. So isn't there something to just the suffering in itself? Just doing really difficult shit just to get to the top. To explain that and so people can relate to it because not everybody's a fighter. I think the best example I can give is let's say you're you haven't eaten for a long time and you're craving right? So you're suffering and then when it's time to eat finally you're about to eat your favorite dish. you're about to eat your favorite dish. It's going to taste so much better. So that's why I believe there is always a some sort of sacrifice before the pleasure and the more sacrifice you do, like they say in fighting the bigger the risk, the bigger is the reward and I feel that's how it it is for me., I feel that with, I've started fasting a little bit

in the past couple of years, and there's nothing as amazing as a delicious meal or anything, actually anything, any food when you haven't eaten for several days. It's kind of incredible. It's not incredible in this simple way of finding like get to eat. It's you get in this simple way of finding that I get to eat. You get to truly experience the beauty of what it is to be alive.

Like that little piece of food, you see all the flavors, you feel just the experience of it is ultimately of gratitude of how awesome it is to be alive. But when you eat many times a day and you're picking out, you don't get to experience that. And it's fascinating. It's really like fasting is one of the most accessible things for people, I think, to experience that kind of pairing of hardship to pleasure.

I agree. And in my case, it changed my life a good good way. I cannot recommend it to people because everybody is different but after my to fight Michael Bisping my last fight was against the champion in the Evier weight class that I used to compete at. So I thought that if I would gain weight, it would increase my performance. And I struggle a lot to gain weight. I gained a little about 8 to 10 pounds. Normally, I walk around 185 pounds. And for that fight, I was walking around 195. However, I forced myself to eat like six times a day. It was on a very strict diet. And I didn't feel, it didn't feel right to me because I feel like I was carrying,

like a little bit like I was carrying a bag on my shoulder. And I think it was a bad idea for me because when I did the wade, the wane, and I went on a scale at 185, I couldn't go back to my initial weight that was 185 that I worked so hard for several months to get there. So I was 190 pound, but I couldn't get back. And the morning of the fight, I got sick. I had like, we didn't know what it was in the beginning, because in order to know, to find out what it was, I needed to do what they call a colonoscopy. They put a camera inside of you. And to do that, they give you something that makes that M.T.U. and I was trying to gain weight, not to lose weight.

So I told myself, I'm gonna wait after the fight, whatever it is, because it was pretty bad, it was blood, and I didn't know what I was. I was very concerned. I thought I had maybe cancer, I was freaking out. So I said, I'm gonna do that fight, and then after right away, I'm gonna make it check up. So I did the fight, everything went well. I won the fight, I went back home, I did a colonoscopy, and I got diagnosed with ulcer colitis.

Then I got on very severe medication to get better. And I'm not a big fan of medication. I always trying to look for more natural way to get better. And I found out about fasting. And it really changed my life. I met Dr. Jason Fong, who's one of the, one of the world's authority of fasting. He treat diabetes patient with fasting. And he gave me a program of fasting and it really changed my life. And right away what I did is I went in a cat scan to see the difference because it was right after my fight with Michael Bisping. And I did the cat scan. So I had my muscle mass, bone density, fat percentage, water retention. it's pretty amazing. It can show you which harm as more muscle than the other. It's very precise.

And I did it like two two month after. So I start doing time restricted eating, 16, 8, but right away when I started, I did three days water fast and the doctor Jason Fung says because I like to train during those days I consume email and salt to make sure because when you sweat there's a lot of minerals to make sure you don't depleted your mineral and when I went when I compared it to result in the CAT scan I found out my biggest concern was to lose muscle mass. I found out that I did not lose muscle mass.

Instead of losing it, I increased a little bit. Even though my weight on the scale was lighter, I kept the same muscle mass even increases a little bit. My bone density increases a little bit. My bone density increases a little bit. My water retention is the biggest thing that decrease. So my inflammation and my fat percentage. So basically by looking at the data, I found out that by eating so much, trying to gain weight for to find my cold best pain,

I only increases my water retention, which is not good because it's like dead weight and inflammation on you. So what was the actual process of fasting? You see, you said 16, 8 time restricted, so intermittent fasting, but you also mentioned the three out, the three-day water fast. What did that feel like? And you also said training during the three day? How did that feel? Oh, can you give me some details of this is fascinating? So I do three days water fast, four times a year.

Nice. For me, I do it. Everybody is different. But for me, I do it after New Year's because during the holiday, that's when I eat bad foods and I drink. I see it more like a cleansing, like a detox or a speak. Mental too, like, psychological. Yes. I do it after the New Year's right before the summer.

Cut for the beach. Yeah, after the summer because of the summer, I've been partying a little bit sometimes, let myself go and right before the holidays. And I've tried the doctor, Dr. Fongi says to me, he said, everybody's different because I'm a very active person and everybody has a different genetics.

So for me, I feel that three days is the sweet spot. Because I still train during those three days, the first day, the first two days, I don't change nothing. I train regularly on my regular schedule. However, on the third day, I modify a little bit. I do something more, more easy. And that's how I do it. And I've tried before because when I say three days as my sweet spot, I've tried to go up to five days. But the problems is after my third day, I found out that I had a big problem sleeping.

I get into an hyperactive mode. They call that the hunter-gatherer, mode, you know, like your brain, I mean, it's amazing, your creativity is at its peak, but you cannot sleep very well. And sleeping for me, I think it's very important. So that's why I do three days. For me, it's my sweet spot. That's interesting.

You're right. It's the four or five days when you start, yeah, sleep is not important for me. So the creativity is really important. So it's very interesting what the place is your mind goes after a few days. You're right. But, I mean, what does it do to your mind? So you mentioned your body likes it.

In terms of training, does it, do you find that it helps you focus and think? I mean, you're one of the great strategic thinkers in terms of martial arts. Does it help with learning? Does it help with thinking? Does it help with strategizing and all that? Well, unfortunately, I got into fasting after I retired.

I wish I would have, I really wish people asked me, would you have done it during the time that you competed? And the answer is yes. I think we live in a society that were bombarded by publicity. Oh, by this, eat protein, this, that. And fast thing nobody makes money with it, because there's nothing to sell, you know?

I think that's why a lot of people have not heard about it. And even for myself, if someone would have talked to me about fast, the benefits of fasting, when I was training, before I got sick, I would probably have ignored him because it was hard to believe. Sounds ridiculous. It sounds. Yes. It's going to help your mind and you're going to gain muscle potentially. Exactly. And perhaps people have talked to me about it, but I kind of, it went in one of my hair and got out from the other side, you know. But it really changed my my life. And I was diagnosed with ulcer colitis. And it helps me get rid of all my symptoms.

What I do is I know a lot of people have ulcer colitis. And for me, I cannot recommend it to other people because everybody is different. But for me, I made a lot of research of how people from ulcer colitis got better. And I found out that a lot of research of how people from ill-circuitities got better. And I found out that a lot of people that got that condition get better in the natural which was fasting, eating fermented food, collaging, and bone broth and stuff like that. And it made a huge difference in my life.

I just wish I would have known that before. So do you have a specific diet-wise stuff you like? So I've recently, another ridiculous sounding thing, but it makes me feel really good. It's very low carbs, so keto or even carnivore, it sounds ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense, but it makes me feel really good even for performance.

Is Rogan as an influenced you? He's an anti-carivore No, I was influenced actually by people. Yeah, well, he... I'll tell you where, because I was doing it before he was doing it, it was popular in the endurance athlete community, where it was fat-adapted athletes. It was people who insane people who run 50 miles, 100 miles. They figured out that they could

fuel their body with fat. They can go to fat as the source of energy as opposed to carbs. So I remember hoping that I'll be able to learn how to run 50 miles and so on. I've never done more than 22, but I just remember switching away from carbs and feeling really liberated. Like I wasn't thinking about food as much. I'm able to eat once a day and feel really good. I mean, I think everybody's body's different, but I think carbs make me lazy. Maybe it's because there's, yeah, it's the

crash, but also just psychologically something, it's, it's forced to me to also think about food too much. Like it starts becoming, you know, art, just like you said, our society is so much about food. There's so many, so much advertisement, and so much of our social life is about food. And so it's very easy to live life, like live day to day thinking, when is the next meal? Like, what am I going to eat for lunch? What am I going to eat for dinner? What am I going to eat for breakfast?

And if you're not careful, that's going to get in the way of you doing cool shit for, like, liberating yourself and thinking, like, what am I actually passionate about in this life like creating and forgetting to eat that those kinds of things and still being able to fuel your body I don't know. It's been fascinating To to figure out like later in life that Carbs aren't necessary to function well is it makes me think like we don't know anything about nutrition Yes, you know personally I Well, it makes me think like we don't know anything about nutrition. That's right. Yes. You know, I personally, I don't think I could have a diet without carbs.

I love chocolate too much. It's for me eating. It's a it's a pleasure of life. I love my carbs. I love my sugar. However, if you talk about diet, I don't have a specific diet. But recently, I, what I'm trying to do is the days that I do not work out, I only eat once. That's kind of my rules. Plus, I try to respect 16-8 and do my three-day fast,

four-time years. But the rest of the thing, I let myself lose because I don't think I would be happy if I don't give myself the right to eat. For me, I love to eat so much. You talk about diet carnivore diet. It's very interesting because a few years ago I went to Africa in Masai, Mara and it's a tribe in East Africa and I want to visit them. I did a safari and I talked to them and these guys they their diet is 99% carnivore. They, they, that's crazy. And you should see, they're very beautiful people. I should read it like, yeah.

Some people would say, oh, it's genetic, I'm like, yeah, maybe it's genetic, but I mean, think about the Eskimos also, that like most of their diet is on fish, right? They, they, so I believe it can be done, you know? Like, I believe it can be done and like an exclusive carnivore diet. And I, I think I'm going to try it pretty soon just to have the experience, you know, to see how it feels like.

Well, you're going to hang out with Joe. Be careful bringing it up because he'll convince you to forever switch to carnivore. Definitely. He loves it. I mean, but just like you, I think he loves food. So he can't ever stay on carnivore. It was funny because we went to Italian restaurant together and I still only eat meat. I love the constraints of discipline. That's partially why I like carnivore. I like saying no to food that is delicious.

But part of the problem is that I don't know how to moderate. You said chocolate. I don't know how to have one chocolate. Is that something you're able to do? Have like in moderation? No, it's when I have an opportunity I do it. I don't have any. I'm an extremist person next I I

That's the thing I When I when I have a chance I eat I like I just eat I go to much and and that's why I like about my life You know, that's what I like about fasting because probably if I if I would not have discovered fasting Eating chocolate would give me cramps and all sorts of problems. Yeah. Because people on ulcer colitis, normally they cannot eat chocolate, they cannot drink alcohol. But I believe because I'm fasting, that's the reason why I'm medicine, medicine free, I can eat whatever I want, whatever I want. But I have to do that fasting, you know. And now it becomes to a point that it's no longer hard for me.

It's like normal. I don't even force myself. I don't, it's easy, you know what I mean? Some of my friends think I'm insane, you know? But I tell them it's like when you get used to it, it becomes like an habit. And I know that, untar on tour gather like our ancestor did not eat three times a day. It's it's it's not true. They they ate when they they could and when they eat they they

they feed themselves as much as they can until that because the next time because I didn't know when when they they could eat again right. So it's I think that's our, we're built, you know, to have this similar lifestyle. If we could take a step back to the discussion about fear a little bit. So Mike Tyson talks about this process of him walking to the ring. He sounds similar to you in many ways of the anxiety and the fear that he experiences. And he has this sort of story that he tells about walking to the ring and being supremely afraid, but as he walks and gets closer and steps in, he finds the confidence and becomes supremely confident. I think he calls himself like a god.

I feel like a god in the ring. Is, do you go through a similar process of finding the confidence? Well, it, yes. And I use, I use a James Lange theory. So what I do is because I'm, I'm not afraid to admit that I'm afraid. And the beginning of my career, I really thought, I asked myself, because I was very good in mixed martial arts, but I really thought I wasn't made for this, because the idea of fighting didn't make me happy. It's something like I was forced to do in order to

Keep that lifestyle that I have And achieve my goal perhaps one day to make enough money to retire and you know that that was my dream But when I was looking around The gym where I was training most of my training partner. They were happy. They were excited and sometime I corner I corner a lot of guys and they're happy and they're in the locker room. They don't react the same way I do. Some perhaps does, but if you see me in the locker room, like when I get like my last fight with Michael Bisping, just a given example in my last fight with Michael Bisping because it's fresh, it's the one that is the most recent. And but it's always the same thing. My last fight with Michael Bisping, because it's fresh, it's the one that is the most recent.

But it's always the same thing. My last fight, and my Bisping, I get in the locker room. I like three guys that I train with. Mickey Gull, Emmons, Zahabi, and Joseph Duffy. They all lost. It was like, my locker room was basically cursed. You know, when you're in a locker room and people from your locker room leave for a fight and then they come back, it's kind of a momentum.

You shake and yeah, good job. Now it's kind of a team, brotherhood sort of thing. So the atmosphere in my locker room was pretty bad. The atmosphere in my locker room was pretty bad. It was like going to a, you know, like a funeral. So I was very scared and before every fight, I asked myself, I asked myself always, shit, what the hell I'm doing here? Why did I choose to come back? Oh my God.

And then I'm doing here. Why did I choose to come back? Oh my god. And I'm freaking out. However, I'm putting on a mask like I'm acting because if I don't do that, it will reflect on my coaches. And if my coach, my confidence of my coaches is affected, it will reflect on me. So I need to feel strong. I need to make them believe that I'm excited to be there and I'm happy to be there. So this sort of play start when I get when I first step in the locker room, even though I feel completely different, but that's how I play it. Normally the day the fight day, I never feel a hundred percent. I always feel exhausted, tired.

My highs are hitching because I don't sleep enough. The few nights before because I'm constantly rehearsing scenarios that might happen in the fight. So mentally, it's not that I'm not on top. But you keep all that to yourself. I keep it to myself and I'm lying to everybody around. But everybody knows, you know? For us, John, then I heard they know Freddie Rose.

They've been with me for a long time. They know what's going on, but at least I'm lying to them. I'm feeling great. And seeing all my training partner, like very disappointed because they lost their fight, some were badly hurt as well. It was hard. So, and I remember I get warm,

I get, I start the warm up and everything, and as you start the warm up, you become a different person. Because, you know, we know that certain posture in yoga can affect your mental state. But I would say it's a little bit the same thing in fighting. Like when you start hitting the pads, your muscle memory, your instincts comes back and you remember that you're good at this and your confidence start to grow.

And as seeing your trainer is holding the pad and repeating your moves, it makes you also remember all the sacrifice you have done to your training camp. And confidence come from how you prepared yourself. And even you're afraid, you can't be confident, confident in the same time. Being afraid and being confident is two different thing. And before every fight, just right before I walk in, it's when I'm scared, I go in the bathroom,

and I look at myself in the mirror. I used to have a bandana and a gee, but now I don't have this for my last fight because of the new Reebok deal they had. But I did the same rehearsal that I always do. I look at myself in the mirror and I start to compliment myself. Like, even if I don't believe it, I'm starting to try and to believe it as I am. I'm finding all the reason why I'm going to win the fight. And all my trainer knows that before every fight when the guy from the UFC goes, step in Maroon says, same theory up next, I always take a few minutes to do that same rehearsal.

And I tell myself I'm gonna win this fight because I'm better and I'm very cocky about myself. I'm telling all the reasons that I'm gonna, gonna when I'm, I got a better team, I made more sacrifice, you know. I'm faster, I'm more powerful, way more athletic. My fighting IQ is better in him. I got a strategy on point that he's never going to be able to keep up with and this and

that. And I'm, and I was telling myself, I'm going to show these young kids how things should be done. You know, I'm trying to boost myself. Try to boost yourself and you start to believe in it. You become a different person. So when you walk out the bathroom, now a rock and roll. Now I really believe it for real. You know, like I'm still scared, but I believe it for

real. And that's the transformation that happened for me right there. And from there, from now, from from there to the fight, it's until the fight is over, it's called, I call it cruise control. Because I, you know, that I have time to take in a fight. If you're trying to think, you're missing the opportunity. So that's how I see it for myself. So at that point, you stop thinking, age, go cruise control, autopilot. Trust yourself, you know, trust yourself because you you repeated all the scenarios, you know. So everything that you have done, it's inside that your computer, your computer, your brain is programmed to react accordingly to certain situations. And it's not the night of the fight that you'll tell yourself, oh, finally, I'm going to do this

if you do this now. Now, if you have not practiced it before your screwed, the preparation, the repetition that makes it happen. What like the really difficult moments in a fight where you are tested to your limits essentially. Usually it's cardio related exhaustion, right? Where you have to ask yourself that same question is like, why the hell am I doing this? Yeah. Do you experience those or are you able to ride

through the autopilot and if you do, like what are you doing those moments? Never in a fight. When I'm in a fight, when the fight is on, I never change my mind. I go until the end. However, for example, my first fight would be J-Pen. I'd add a terrible first round. So add to switch gear.

That happened sometimes. But it's part of my plan. I always have a plan A, plan B, plan C. You need to have that. If fighters go into a fight, thinking, oh, what I'm going to do this is this? And they don't have a plan B. If this doesn't work, that's mean they're not well prepared.

If you talk to me before every fight, I can like in 30 seconds give you my old strategy. You know, for BJP and my first fight with BJP and I was, well, I'm gonna keep it standing up. Keep the fight from the outside, you know, because I'm faster than him. Then the fight with BJP and start, I found out that I was not faster than him. And I found out that his reaction time was better than mine. So I got beat up the first round. And I got the blood he knows and everything.

So my plan B was, now I'm gonna wrestle him. You know, I'm gonna wrestle him and, you know, make him tired and trying to put him down. And that's how I beat him, because I switch gear, you know. But if you can't do that, if you cannot find a way to become the perfect nemesis to your opponent, you might win if you fight, but you're gonna fight someone sooner or later that will give you a lot of trouble. So that's where the anxiety pays off. You're anticipating all the ways it goes wrong. So you develop the plan B and plan C.

Hi, you know, we talked a lot with the, like, John Danna, who you work with. It's interesting. I don't think I've heard him talk about plan B and plan C. He usually has a really clear plan A, an entire system of plan A. I don't think I've heard him. We've had a good discussion about it over some cheeseburgers. He was kind of espousing the value of mastering escapes. So when you find yourself in bad situations,

mastering escapes. So when you find yourself in bad situations, being exceptionally good at finding ways out of those bad situations, and that's a way of dominance. There's nothing, there's no better way to dominate your opponent, according to him, than to show that they can't possibly hurt you no matter how bad the position is. It's like, it's a, as opposed to physical dominance, it's a psychological dominance. It's like, as opposed to physical dominance, it's a psychological dominance. It's very interesting. But I wonder if he has planned being and planned seeing his mind too.

You know, in mixed martial arts, sometimes it's like in science, you can make a mistake, you know, like every human can make a mistake, you know. There's certain sport or a certain situation that you, if there's a mistake made, you're, you're, you're, that's it. Exactly. Sometimes it's the case in MMA, but sometimes you're able to redeem yourself. And, uh, if you look at the fight with BJP and one that I had, which was probably one of the most competitive fight I had. And it was probably the, it was the fight that I got the most damage. And I was messed up. It took me three days, like two, three days to recuperate from that fight.

I was really damaged. And my first fight versus my second fight. I made a lot of adjustment because I have learned from my first fight. And also I had a guy one one thing people don't know, like they talk about fighters having secret weapons. See, for me my secret weapons was not, like some is that they use like certain, like different things.

For me, it was knowledge. I had a guy, and much earlier, he was measuring frames. He's not a scientist, he's a friend of Ferras and I. And what he does, he watch fight. And he measure frames. The way he does it is when you watch a fight and one of the guys who were punched, he cut the picture by frame, the video by frame.

Cut, cut, cut. So he's able to see which fighter has better reaction time than others. And BJPAN, he found out that BJ Penn evolved the UFC roster at the time when he was in his prime. He had probably the best reaction time of all. According to him, Leo Tomaschido was the second one. But BJ Penn was the first one.

So I knew that if I would try to go first because I always been the fastest guy, normally when I fight someone. But when I fought BJ Penn, I tried to go first because I always been the fastest guy. Normally when I fight someone, but when I fought BJP and I tried to go first and he was always able to like, I never was never able to touch him with my job and he came back with the counter punch. However, because of what he told me, I knew that BJPan has a very fast reaction time, but had a very poor reset time. To him, the way he described it to me is like your nervous system is like a muscle. BJPan was so fast, but he's like more like a sprinter.

So when I did the second fight, when I thought BJPan, I made him flinch. Like I fake a lot, so I make him react and flinch. So all that reaction time that he used to flinch Was not used properly to avoid my punches. So he I burn I load up his nervous system with a lot of Information and fit and fake and to make him flinch and pretending I was kicking and wrestling So he got overwhelmed and he got tired very very fast wrestling. So he got overwhelmed and he got tired very, very fast. So that's how I beat him. People sometimes they don't know really what's the strategy behind the thing. They only see the physical part. But when you fight someone, if I fight you, I look at you in the eyes. There's a lot

of things that going on between you and I. I can look down here, bam, jab you in the face. The audience will not see this little detail, but you will see it. And that's what makes the magic during a fight. The relation that you have with the opponent, you know, like the mental game, what you make him believe, those little thing I use a lot of those. If you talk to a lot of my opponent, they'll tell you, like I use a lot of these little thing, you know, like I look down the banner, I go up or I am pretending I want to attack you so I'm I make you flinch But in reality, I'm just doing this because I want to rest. I want to recuperate and I'm tired How much is you know people talk about that with poker for example? How much is the value of this?

You know, so like some people argue that poker is more about the betting You know just the money. It's just how much you bet and so on. So that would be more like the analogy there with fighting would be just strictly the physical movement of your body. And then a lot of people argue that there's a lot here in the way you look and the little movements in the face. So do you think there's, do you think you're communicating with your opponent when you look at them? There's no way to know for sure 100%. And I'm by no, no mean psychic, nothing like that.

And I don't believe in that at all. The only thing is I know to looking to die is for my opponent when he's afraid and when he gives up on me. I've been accused very often in my career to not take enough risk to not finish my opponent. But the reason why I didn't finish my opponent is because I saw in his eyes that he gave up,

he gave me the fight and I'm winning the fight. So it's not up to me. It's not to me to try to sacrifice myself, trying to finish him. Perhaps if I do that, I will open up for him to capitalize on my mistake. It's up to him to make a risk. So people sometimes they don't understand that this is the art of fighting, my friend, you know, like if I'm winning the fight, like an oki and I saw a ki. If you're winning the game and it's the third period

It's at the end of the third period. You're not gonna take out your gold and they're trying to score another goal because winning Five to three or five to four is the same thing. Same thing in MMA. We make a living out of this and Sometimes is you know as sad as bad as it be, you want to save yourself for another day, you want to minimize the damage. But if you know this losing the fight, it's up to you him to take the risk. It's not up to me. So I'm a good counter fighter.

I use a lot of my attack or counter strike or reactive take down or proactive take down. That's my specialty. So I'm not gonna, I have no desire to sacrifice myself trying to finish my opponent if he wants to, if perhaps I might give him the opportunity to capitalize on me. It's not smart to do that. And very often when I fight someone, I can read him, I see the fear in his eyes. Now, I'm like, I got you know, he's very desperate. Does doesn't mean I have to put my guard down because he's going to be desperate, but I know I'm beating you. And I know I'm beating you. I'm just going to do what I need. You

know, if I have a chance, of course, I'll not come out, but I'm not going to try to sacrifice myself to knock out. And if you do that, maybe one day you'll make a mistake and you'll get dropped and you'll tell yourself that I shoot. I just get brain damage, maybe I'm never gonna come back the same, maybe I ruined my career. Or, you know, it's a very serious game that we're playing. It's very dangerous. In the face of that risk, I mean Mike Tyson talked about, you know, when the opponent looks away, he knows he's got him, right?

If that, that he's broken. For a person like me who has trouble making eye contact with people, there's truth to that. I mean, there's truth to that. That there's an animal nature to us looking away. I mean, you could see that the way the body language, the way the eyes move between two animals going at it, in the wild, on like two lines fight or to whatever fight,

there's a certain beta move when you've been defeated. Yes, or one thing when I know that, that when it happened, one of the signs is when I just like make a friend and the guy flinch like crazy, that's mean he's really scared of me. It's a little bit like you're you're you're you're doing this, the guy flinch a little bit or you're doing this, he's flinched like oh that's or you're doing this, he splent, like, oh, that's mean you hurt him. And he doesn't want to get hurt again. So he's really trying to run away and not not winning the fight anymore, but not losing. So sort of surviving the, the fight around. And it's hard to, to finish a guy who doesn't, doesn't want to fight. A guy who's not fighting anymore to win in this fighting to not lose. And the proof of that, if you don't believe me,

just look the reign of all the greatest champion in UFC. I don't care whether they are John Jones or like you could clearly see that in the beginning of their reign, they could, you know, finish a lot of their opponents. Same as me in the beginning, I was finishing a lot of my opponents. But there's a time that the entire UFC roster is studying you and they found a ways to perhaps not beating you, but they found a way to navigate through the fight in a way that they minimize the damage, you know what I mean? So it's a big difference between fighting to win and fighting to not lose. You said that there's a difference between a fighter and a martial artist. So now

we were talking about fighting. You're considered by many to be one of the greatest fighters of all time. But you've said that there's a difference between a fighter and a martial artist. A fighter is training for a purpose. He has a fight. I'm a martial artist. I don't train for a fight. I train for myself. I'm training all the time. My goal is perfection, but I will never reach perfection. So what do you, does it mean to be a martial artist? that I have has been introduced to me and the seed has been planted to my mind a long, long time ago by my father. I do not train because I have a fight, I will always train. Even now, it kind of amuse me to see that a lot of people, because I'm still training training because I love the science of fighting. I do not like to fight, but I love the science of it. And I will always do it as long as I can do it.

People think I'm going to make a comeback and everything. I'm about to get to have 40 years old, you know, like it's, I'm, you know, like, I don't want to fight an occasion 40 years old. I mean, some people have done it. They did it very well, but I'm not one of them. I'm, I feel a little bit to me that, and you never say never feel like to me, like it's a little, like a kid that you play with a strain with his young, like, Rrr, Rrr, Rrr, Rrr, Rrr, Rrr, Rrr, Rrr, Rrr, Rrr, Rrr, Rrr, Rrr, Rrr, Rrr,

seven years old, eight years old, and then I want of his like, what the hell I'm doing here? And I'm told for this, like I've done it, you know, and I got out of it on top. And I'm healthy, which is a most important thing right now touching wood, and I'm wealthy. I beat the game, you know what I mean? In a way, like that's not to be cocky, but I did it. And I wish more fighters could do the same thing.

I wish, but it's unfortunate because a lot of them they stay there and hang out for too long and they get badly hurt, they get beaten and broken. And they finish broke as well. Because the lifestyle you have when you're a pro athlete, it's crazy, you know, it's unbelievable. However, everything that goes up and life goes down and you need to plan your future, you know.

So for me, if some guys have the same mentality as me and they're watching us right now, I would say If you do it because you're just good at it. You like the money that they advantage the freedom that it gives you But you don't necessarily like to fight when you're done you finish on top, you know Go, okay, go cash out and get out of here. Yes However, Lexi, it's not everybody that does it for that reason. Some people generally love to fight love to compete. So they do it because I love it.

Or they do it because of the money. But if you don't love it, if you don't like to fight because it's very stressful and you don't enjoy it, you enjoy the training, perhaps, but you don't like to fight. You do it because it's part of what you need to do in order to keep that lifestyle. And you don't need the money. Get out of here, man.

If you're in your prime, get out of here because if you don't, you'll hurt your own legacy, you'll damage your health. It's very sad. And it's a sad business. You know what I mean? It's like a lot of one of the place where the most app you've placed for me to go and the most saddest place for me to go is in the gym. Try sorry Montreal because it's one of the app you've placed for me to go because I can go train and do what I love to do. But it's also a very sad place for

me because after when I'm about to leave, there's always a bunch of young kids that comes or guys that are around 30 or 33 years old and they come to me and say, hey, George, you have some advice for me. And I look at them. And if they're my friend, they're real close friend of mine, I'll tell them the truth in their face. And I've done it many times. And it was not well received. But if they're my friend, they're real close friend of mine. I'll tell them the truth in their face. And I've done it many times and it was not well received. But if they're not my friend, I have to, you know, you know, it's always an advice about fighting and I answer their question.

It's my pleasure. But the truth, if they want me to tell the truth, the big majority of them, I would tell them, as a listen man, you're in a maybe three, like on the losing street of three fights, you're 30, 33 years old, you know, I think you should think about doing something else in your life, you know, have other goals, you know, because you're not gonna make it. And, you know, I've seen that movie before, and it's a very sad ending. And I'm sad to tell you the truth because you're not gonna make the money.

Just choose some, but if I tell them that, they're gonna be angry at me because they're gonna be like, oh, you make it and you think I cannot make it. So it's kind of, they're gonna think I'm cocky, but I was lucky to make it. You know what, the star were all online, but at one point, you need to be able to have a plan B. You know, like, like some parent, they come to see me with their kids.

Hey, this is the future wall champion in UFC. And what advice would you give him? I always tell the same thing. And it does not make everybody happy when I said, I go to the cafe, are you good at school? Say stay at school. School is very important for you. Stage Cated. Yeah. Do boxing martial arts at great sports, staying shape, but don't put your

eggs all in the same basket. And the parents sometimes are angry when I say nothing, but I can see their eyes are like they kind of surprised. And it's not because I made it that I will tell their kid to follow the same path that I did. I went to school too, I study. I drop off school when I had my first world championship fight against Matt Hughes.

But before that, I was school. So I had another way to go if it things would not have gone the same the the way I wanted. But the problem and I'm saying that is not only about boxing in MMA. I'm talking about hockey basketball baseball. Same same thing. Maybe is the one on the hundred thousand that make it. And I'm saying, I'm saying that make it. When I'm saying I make it, that's mean that can retire and have enough money for the rest of his life because

It's a sad story the only people only heard about the people that makes it But a lot of fight or even the UFC champion in boxing champion even the football basketball I don't I don't care big names when they retire they have zero their bankrupt my friend and it's a very sad Sad story and a sad reality that most people are not aware of. But having other paths in life actually can also increase the chance of you dominating and like reaching the highest peak in your main thing. I mean, Jimmy Page, or I don't know if you know who that is, is a judo coach in America. page or I don't know if you know who that is. It's a judo coach in America. He says that to all of his athletes is to make sure that you go.

He has a lot of, you know, Kaila Harrison, two-time Olympic gold medalist. He has a lot of Olympic medalists. But basically, there's something about going to school, like having a forget school, any other avenue in life that gives you the freedom to go all out in your main. Like, you know, you're doing it for the right reasons. You're not stuck. It clears the mind to where you're free to be the best in the world, as opposed to kind of you have to. I mean, at different people are motivated by different things. So sometimes

some people like having their back to the wall unless the only option they have, but most people I think excel when you have other options. I think it's a distraction and I think it's important to have a distraction. When you say that, I think about one of my coach John Dannaher, he put his academic background experience into Jiu-Jitsu. And that, for me, that's why he's the best teacher I've ever had. He's incredible. He started teaching me when I even couldn't speak much English at the time. And I was able to communicate and understand,

that's how good he is. But I truly believe that most of that lead, especially in sport like mixed martial art, trained way too much. If I could go back and talk to a young George, I would tell him that you do way too much volume, you train way too hard, train smarter, it's more important. And I think sometimes we underestimate the benefit of recuperation. Because I think we assimilate the information that we learn during a training when we recuperate

and not during the training itself. And this old mentality of hard or heavier, you know, like it's good for someone who's lazy. But if you're in a lead at least most of the time, you know, like you're not always, but most of the times because you're not lazy. And a lot of guys, sometimes they're elite athletes, champions and you're, her people say, oh, I can't believe he's very gifted, but he doesn't work. But perhaps it's not really because perhaps gifted, but he doesn't work, but perhaps, it's not really because, perhaps,

it's because we don't understand, perhaps, he's doing the right thing and it's us who's working too much and too hard. That's what I think. There's a guy I train with, he's made me think about it. His name is Mansoor Barnawe. He's gonna be a future star. He's an incredible fighter.

He trained once a day. And he asked me some time at vice when he came in Montreal, he's from France. You'll hear about him, he's very good. And I saw him in the morning at TriStar, and I said, okay, I'll see you perhaps later in the other training zone. No, I only trained once a day. at TriStar and I said, okay, I'll see you perhaps later in the other Chinese on. No, I only train once a day. And he kind of waits for me to give him like, like, not not an approval, but like, to see how I react or or you know, I don't know what's kind of a strange feeling by I told myself at that point, I kind of add an awakening and I told myself, and maybe he's doing the right thing.

Because a lot of people would say, for example, oh, that's a lazy way of doing it. But perhaps it's the best way to do it. I'm not saying it or training it once a day is the best way to do it. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying that everybody's different. But for him, it works beautifully.

And I wouldn't change anything, you know, like if I would be him because he's improving, like crazy. Yeah, and ultimately, the bigger picture there is to do something that everyone else says is stupid. It's like the fasting thing that a lot of people would say a lot of nutritional experts would say that that's That's a dumb way, you know, if you want to be an MMA fighter You should be eating like many times a day. You should be starting every day with oatmeal You should be carving up constantly

But that's not necessarily true for everybody and it's possible. I'm sure there's actually now a few MMA fighters that are carnivore only It's possible. I I used to eat actually now a few MMA fighters that are carnivore only. It's possible. I used to eat right before training and I didn't bother me. However, now I, my first training that I do normally in average around noon, 11 a.m. I haven't eaten anything when I do my first training. And I feel to me that I'm much more clear in my mind. I'm much more creative. I feel better. Yeah, it's a big difference.

I just wish I would have known that before. Well, it's fascinating. The role of the mind and all of this, how important is it for your mind to be clear, to really think deeply. There's a Jidoka, American named Travis Stevens. I remember he said something that the right kind of practice is when your mind is exhausted at the end of it, that you were constantly thinking through things, like your body shouldn't be exhausted first, your mind should be exhausted first. It's really fascinating, so people think about training hard.

You know, a successful practice is where you walk away just overwhelmed how much you have to think. It's fascinating framing of a successful think. It's fascinating framing of all the successful practice. It's true. Travis Steven was one of my main training partners when I got ready for my fight with Nick Diaz and Carlos Candid. He drove every Friday from I believe Boston.

It's like a six hour drive Drive to the gym in Montreal Train with us and now or an half drive back He's got such an amazing discipline. I was so happy for him when you won the medal at the Olympic game. Oh man, what a well deserve, you know, a accomplishment. It's unbelievable. It paid off, you know, I'm so happy for him. And every time we we got to the gym, it was waiting for me in a in in the kneeling position position like a soldier.

I was like, my God, this guy, he's made him of steel, you know? And after training, I always offer him, I say, hey, Travis, I know you like to train with it, because in Montreal, they have very good judo team, Nicolas Gill and all the other guy. And I say, if you want to stay, I'll get you in the hotel. You know, like anything you want is like, no, no, I gotta go back. I got another training later. I'm like, not only that he trained with us, you have to go back because he had another training. I'm like, this is insane.

And he's gone to a huge number of injuries. So he's also an innovator because, I mean, it's difficult to say, but for American judo, there's not many high-level judoka. So if you want to be the fight with the best in the world, you have to be alone. It's a lonely journey, actually. It's kind of sad. It's much easier to be in Japan where everybody's a killer.

When you're alone at it, it's a difficult journey. And you know, it's funny. We talked about kind of there's some sports where a mistake is that's it. You know, you can't recover from a mistake. I think judo oftentimes is one of those sports. And added on top of that is the Olympics. Only every four years. And Travis' story, he's the reason I, when I saw him in 2008, is I started martial arts. I switched from wrestling and street fighting to doing Jiu-Jitsu and Judo.

And I just saw so much guts. And in 2000, I might be messing up the years here, but in the next Olympics, he fought and he lost on just the referee call. Yeah. And just he went to war and he just so much guts and just everything on the line and to lose and then to still persevere through all their injuries, through all of that, through incredibly difficult training sessions

to go another four years and then compete and then win a medal. I mean, that guy is just... And like, he clearly could have been very successful. He's also an incredible Jiu Jitsu competitor, so he could have switched to that, but he's stuck. And a lot of sport, when you're in the lead, like, for example, in Canada, I saw a keys the number one sport in the countries. Kids, when they're in the elite, when they're young, they get chosen.

And they're kind of already known as a superstar, you know, the school where they go and the program, they follow, like Like I'm sure it's the same thing in US and basketball, baseball, perhaps, American football, because they already chosen, so they grew up with that, that it, that it's a kid that, that, speak, and it's already glad, sort of glamorous, you know? However, in MMA, there's no MMA, judo, wrestling, like in America, because it's not our national sport, it's actually, it's not like, even when I first started, it was not really well received

by the media, there's no glamor into it. Now, I don't know, it seems like it's another era now. And I feel sometimes that some people do it for the wrong reason. You know, some people do it because of the glamour, because of the money. But even if you're in a lead and very good, the glamour and the money won't come in the beginning. It's a very long grind before you know, it's start to come in and you need to make those

sacrifices and it's a journey that where you will be tested, you will be hurt repetitively and you're going to have to reach the down deep and come back up. And then once you finally think you made it, you're going to go back in the down deep. Again, it's a very exhausting and decaraging adventure sometimes. But if you all don't, you're a dream and you believe in it, you know, and you have the stars are aligned, you're gonna make it. That's why it's only a few people that make it, you know. And that's why I feel, I feel sometimes the new, a lot of people in the new generation do it for

the wrong reason. In my generation, because I support that first, it was there were no rules. I felt it was more pure. The people that did it was really because of the passion. We didn't seek money, fame. We did it because we wanted to be, I did it because I wanted to be the man. I like to have the confidence that when I walk somewhere, I have the confidence that it's an illusion because nobody's faster than a bullet. Yes. But I wanted to achieve it for myself. And I, which today, now, because I don't know if it's social media and all that, that, that, that,

the world has changed, the glamour, the, you know, it's, I feel it's a different thing right now. Yeah. If you get in it for the glamour of the money, you may not have the right amount of fuel to persevere through all the ups and downs. Sure. You know, when you talk about motivation of money and glamour, a guy comes to mind, and I don't know how many wrestlers you know, but in Russia, there's a guy named Bovassia, a city of brothers, one of the greatest freestyle wrestlers of all time. But he also has, it's funny, he doesn't have many interviews. One of my goals is to go out and talk to him in Russian, do an interview with him, because he's exceptionally poetic and deep-thinker.

He's the kind of martial artist that you are in the way that it's not just about the different battles he's been through or whatever. It's about the philosophy behind the way he approaches life. He's spoken quite a bit about that the glamour, the fame, the money are all things that get in the way the money are all things that get in the way of the purity of the experience, the art, that the way to achieve greatness is to just lose yourself in the art of the actual combat. In this case, it's wrestling. And then kind of not to worry and actively make sure that you block out anybody who you know feeds you the narrative where you're supposed to be this famous person and all those kinds of things that he basically says that others write your story, I make sure that you just focus on the art. And another person

from that side of the world is of course, Kabeib. So he represents that side of the world. And we were talking about walking away. And most people not being able to walk away at the top as you have, but also now, Kabeib has, it looks like incredibly so. So I mean, maybe you can comment about what your thoughts are about Kabeib numbering a matter of being able to just walk away. You know, we talk about the gold very often.

Kabebe is, you know, one of, isn't the argument because he has the most dominant carrier of all martial art, the guy. You know, some guys can be named the gold for different reason, but Kabebe, for that that reason and he's undefeated He I don't even know if he lost a right in my in my mind. I've lost round But he dominate all his opponent. It was ridiculous and Such an incredible career that he had I

Love to watch him fight is incredible And I love to watch them fight. He's incredible. And when you talk about the art, when you say mixed martial art, the idea of a flawless performance for me, everybody, often when we say flawless performance, thinks about a knockout, a brutal knockout. But for me, it's to be able to showcase beautiful technique, like a beautiful take down, beautiful submission, like something beautiful that, you know, when you look at, for example,

Wayne Gratsky or Michael Jordan or like Stephen Curry or even if you don't know nothing about basketball and you watch Michael Jordan, you'll be like, wow, that's beautiful what you just did. Like we talk about fighting and trying to say the word beautiful in fighting for certain people, it could sound kind of crazy, you know, but I'm talking about the technique. A beautiful technique, you know, for me, that's the goal, you know, when I was fighting, it's not only to have a brutal knockout because some people are more gifted than others and so, I'm saying gifted, some people are better than others in certain phase of fighting.

But for me, it was that it was to showcase, to win, of course, but to showcase some beautiful technique. That you can watch it and be like, wow, that was incredible. The timing, it did it. And when I think about Kabim Nohrmagomanov, I see all the detail of his work, especially when he got his opponent against the fence, that's like, that's his area of expertise

where he's to me, he's the best that ever did it in terms of that fighting style, that particular expertise that he has, it's just incredible. The flawless execution of that particular set of techniques. Yeah, and I kind of make Gregor at the accuracy. The spider Anderson's silver was like was I would say the most flamboyant of all, you know, like he was moving like the matrix. John Jones was incredible in terms of creativity, spinning elbows and that and he faced incredible

adversity. Zimitrius Johnson was so complete. You could bring, like, he was slamming a guy to an on bar. It was just unbelievable. Like, like, it was like the complete fighter. BJPEN was like so flexible. He did stuff with his body that like nobody could do is deck the dexterity of his hips was just unbelievable. Dominic Cruz to me was

incredible his footwork, his distance control. So when you talk about like the goat Royce Gracie and other one he did things that I think for me is not number one because... Yeah I got I got to and starting to draw up the hoist is a fascinating one. I'd love to hear what you think about them, but many people consider you, most people consider you to be the number one greatest mixed martial arts fighter ever. So it's fascinating to remove you from that list and continue this discussion and asking like,

who do you think is the greatest fighter ever? You listed some amazing ones, hoist, you somehow skipped Fedor. I'm very as a Russian, I'm very offended. No, I was going to, there's so many, Fedor is one as well. Fedor I think in his prime was like, when you say it, when you talk about a name, for example,

like we talk about him when he was in his prime. Like when I talk, a name, for example, like, we talk about him when he was in his prime. Like, when I talk, for example, about Anderson Silva, I'm not talking about the Anderson Silva, who fought his last fight against who were your whole life. I'm talking about the Anderson Silva who knocked out Victor Belfer. Yes. BJP and same thing.

The problem is when fighters hang on for too long in the sport, that's what happened. They kind of make people forget how good they were. And it's very sad. We talk about Fedor and just think about steeping your chitch. Me which is probably the greatest every weight of all time with Fedor, I would really wonder who would have won this fight, the both guys and their prime.

I tend to lean towards Fedor because my heart was with Fedor, but you could have gone the other way. But just because Mio Chitch is the last fight now, everybody is like, oh yeah, they forgot about him. It's crazy, man, it's one fight. You say when you should zag boom, it's, that's the reality of mixed martial art. Well, that's why the thing is the mixed martial arts isn't just the performance,

the strictly who won and who lost. It's also the stories we tell ourselves. And so, I mean, there's beautiful stories being weaved. And that also is part of who is the greatest of all time, is what were the battles, what would had to be overcome? What was the flavor of the flawless performances? All of that plays into it. And you're right, being able to walk away at the top is also part of that. I love if you pull asking me about Kabyb. And that fight, I wanted to happen.

Kabyb wanted to happen, but UFC did not want to happen between you and Kabyb. Yes, and we tried to make it like about three years ago when I retired. No, three, no, it was after two years ago and And it didn't never came to fruition. The UFC were clear. They said they would they have a different plan for KB. And it makes sense to for the business standpoint because they want to keep the ball rolling. Now KB retired. And like everybody else, after just just on GAYtree, I was doing the commentator in French or the UFC. And I would, I thought he was going to call me out. If there is one guy that I would have said, yes, it would be him because for a

fighter, the most exciting things to do, it's often the scariest one. And Khabib was worth, you know, worth the scariest match of it. Yes, he was worth the risk because nobody have ever been able to solve them. How would you solve the Kabeeb Narmagamad of Puzzle? Well, Kabeeb is very good against the fans. I would have to establish a game plan and everything, but I think what I would need it to do is take the center of the Octagon right away, use a lot of

fang and fang, keep the fight all the way, all the way out or all the wind and when I say all the wind is when he closed the gap, use my proactive and reactive take down and my, perhaps my super your explosive, to put them down. I like to use those proactive and reactive technology because for me I feel it's more economical. Khabib is a much better chain wrestler than me. Chain wrestler is when he got the guys to the fans, it's pure wrestling. What makes my takedown very efficient? It's my karate, it's not my wrestling. I'm very good at timing my opponent and getting in with with my explosivity. So if you watch at my take down, it does not demand often.

It does not demand a lot of work when I use the I call it proactive take down when he's coming to punch me and I react. So I mean, pro activists is when I am faking it. So I instigate the takedown by a fake, then I take them down. And reactive is when he's baiting him to troll something, then I'm not counting. That's a counter, yeah.

Yes, but all might take down. In the center of the octagon. Yes, my takedowns are more in the center of the octagon. Like, for example, another guy that does it well is Gleason T-Bow, that did it well in his best days. Can I be as more a style of chain-resign? I would say Camaro Ouzman, sort of speak. Kind of guy.

It's a different style. You cannot compare both styles. And that's the kind of thing that I'm good. And I would, if I would have fight, can I be, that's one of the strategies I would have had. I would not have been afraid because everybody that I thought I was able to put them down and I have the pidegrilla to prove it in my fight reasonably. So you would have perhaps seen in his back and I would have perhaps been in my back as

well. So he would have been a very interesting fight. How hard do you think he is to take down? I mean, a lot of people speak about his wrestling being just like that. It has nothing to do with it. Like the wrestling because it's due to the crime. If I get that timing and I got my boat hand around around his knees, he's going down the world. Everybody goes down. Yes, yes, he goes down and and a lot of that that's what I would have that I would not have been afraid of his wrestling.

I would have be the instigator. I would have forced the fight forward. And that's what I would have approached that fight, which I believe most of his opponent were afraid of his wrestling because they didn't have the tools that I have to put him down. I would not have forced the wrestling. I would have in the clinch, I would have tried to disengage. I have many ways to disengage the clinch. I would have wanted to force the fight in a fighting distance, you know, like in a shoot box distance,

not in a wrestling distance. Is it possible this fight still happens? You're young, look great in the suit. Well, there's a lot of problems now. And the thing is, now I made peace with it. I no longer don't want to find it. And I don't, it's not going to happen. UFC was not interested. And I'm bound by contract with the UFC and by exclusivity. There's some people's system is, oh, how about if Russians are crazy, wealthy, Russian guy come with the money, I have stabbed, I'm gonna be in court with UFC.

And also, I'm old or now, and when I go home and I'm like, I don't wanna do this, you know? I don't always like this. I don't wanna do this, but like, for example, I was training with Freddie Ro't want to do this, you know? I don't always like this. No, I don't want to do this, but like, for example, I was training with Freddie Roach a few days ago, and I'm hitting pads, you know? Pa, pa, pa, pa. And Freddie is looking at me and he's like,

hey, you have the hitch back. I'm like, yeah. If Dana White would walk in the room in the gym, at that precise moment with a UFC contract, I would sign it, sign it in the blink of an eye. But without a drag, go home. I'm like, hell no. My belly is full. I'm healthy, I'm wealthy. Why would I want to fight for? I made peace with it.

But the minute I go back in the gym because I still get it inside me. When I train with the young guys, I still get it. And a lot of guys think, say, tell me the truth, you're preparing a comeback because I still get it. You know, I'm a little bit older, but I got more knowledge. I can compensate. I become a different animal

because you know, it changed you. But then after you go home and you, you're like, man, no way I'm doing this It's very hard to explain that you need to be a fighter to understand that it's very very hard to explain Well from your perspective, I think could be is one of the rare one of the few fascinating Scientific puzzles yet to be solved so from that aspect as a, it's just a fascinating journey to try to solve that puzzle. There is a thing too, like, say, oh, who's the best fighter people? Like I am, I realize that later in my life,

and I'm sure a lot of young guys will say, oh, I say, if you're, don't speak for me, but I'm telling you right now, what I'm about to say, you will realize it later. When I was young I think you can proclaim yourself the the baddest man on the planet, you know, like nobody can beat you at. It's an illusion man. That's the sad thing about, for example, DC, Daniel Cormier, there's probably one of the greatest, if not the greatest, however, of all time. You said neocius, but it's almost because of that

little matchup with John Jones. It's difficult for people to conceive of him as the greatest of all time. It's all about matchup. It's all about timing. And also you make a fight, you make both guys fight 10 times. The result might be different like like every time you know

it might I mean maybe it's gonna win 8 out of 10 but that night is gonna is gonna lose why because we don't know the universe made it like that you know maybe got sick maybe had the emotional issues you didn't sleep well and you makes him lose focus and he got caught. I you don't we don't know, but it's it's that's the thing with the people asked me, would you have done it with Kaby? Where would happen? I don't know. Maybe out of 10 time.

I don't know. Maybe as a fighter, I hope I would have won more than him. He thinks the opposite is only one way to find out, but that night if there's a fight, the guy that gonna win doesn't mean he's the best fighter. That's mean the, the, the, the, the one that fought the best, the night of the fight. Same thing in, in basketball or hockey. The team that wins the game, it's not necessarily the best team is the team that played the best, the, the night of the game. And fighting is no different. So being the baddest man on the planet, it's an illusion.

I mean, that's the tragic thing about it. It's an anyone night, anything can happen. And that tells a story for all of human history. It's sad to think about, but that's what makes it beautiful. That there's so much stake. It's sad to think about, but that's what makes it beautiful. That there's so much to stake. Entire lives, all the dreams you've had growing up, all the hard work, all of it is decided in a single night, even though that means nothing in terms of who's actually better.

That's the beauty. That's why people love the Olympics, especially it happens so rarely and dreams are broken or Like try-off is achieved by the unlikely hero all like right there I mean, that's why we love it. That's why If we wouldn't know always the result before it would be boring and that's why we do it, you know You watch the odds, you know like it. You know, I watch the odds, you know, like, like, sometimes I like to watch the odds before a fight, you know, because, you know, there's things, you know, I believe in causality, you know, I believe in everybody,

I believe different things, but I believe everything is because there's a, there's a cause to everything. That's personally what I believe. I don't believe that I have free will. I think I have the illusion of free will, but I believe there is a cause for everything. And if I'm doing something because of something, because of a cause by definition, there is no free will in a way.

If there's a cause by definition, there is not. How does that make you feel, by the way? Like the idea that if we just look outside of even just human psychology and fighting and so on, if we look at like physics, if everything's predetermined, if all of these little molecules interacting, it's already like your story is already written. I mean, it depends. It's written, but I wouldn't need to know all the data and it's impossible, right? Like it's, it's, it's, It's written, but I wouldn't need to know all the data and it's impossible, right? Like, it's kind of weird. I gotta say, but to me, I don't see any argument to counter that idea.

I don't... Maybe I'm ignorant, but I haven't seen nobody and everything that I've read so far, in your end, but I haven't seen nobody and everything that I've read so far. There's nothing that counter that I did that that because in a mechanical world, if your car broke or you know, we don't say, oh, the car decided to broke or a three trees fall. There's reason why the trees fall. We don't say the trees decide to fall, right? So because us human being, I think it's our ego with the side and I'm no different than anybody when I make a decision. I decided to this, I choose to do this. But I'm aware that there is causes that make me do certain things. And by definition, I think if there is a cause, there is no free will by definition, right? Yes, but the thing is, just like you said,

we understand so little about human intelligence, the human mind, and especially consciousness, that this giant mystery, this darkness, that we don't understand how it feels like to be something, to be conscious being, that because of that, we're not able to really even reason about free will or not. Because there might be some magic that comes from consciousness. The consciousness might be the thing

that makes us different from a car that breaks down. There might be something totally fascinating, totally undiscovered yet that will make us realize that free will is actually real and is somehow fundamental to the human experience. So it's sometimes I think we forget when we talk about free will and physics and all seeming to be predetermined, we forget how little we actually understand about the world. And I think in that mystery that could be totally new ideas that are yet to be discovered

and will make us realize that it's not just an illusion There is something that is like at the core of how the universe works some people believe that consciousness is Fundamental property of the universe like it's a it's a one of the forces of physics like consciousness permeates Everything it's in everything. Like this table is conscious, but it's not as conscious as us and where this little peak of consciousness. And if that's true, and if we get to understand that,

maybe there's something there's an extra bonus we get in terms of free will once you become one of those entities that are super conscious. So I tend to be sort of humbled by the mystery of it. Do you believe one day with the technology that keep improving we will make robot that will be able to be somehow conscious. Absolutely. I, this has been my dream, this has been, I hope, I hope to do just that. First of all, I believe that all people are capable and want to be good to each other.

And I think love is a really powerful thing that connects us and can create better and better worlds. Sort of like, create better and better societies that improve both the technology, the quality of life, and just the basics of human experience. And I think creating AI systems that are conscious, that are human-like, can enable us to be better to each other. Like, they can... It's almost like adding more and more kindness to the world through the systems we interact with will inspire us to be better and better to each other.

In terms of them being conscious, I think that is an absolute requirement that entities we interact with communicate some element of consciousness to us. That's how we connect to each other. The reason we, you and I connect, is that we believe that each of us are conscious. To me, what consciousness means is the ability to hurt, ability to suffer, to struggle in this world. Because just like you said, without the struggle, you don't have the love, you don't have the pleasure. And ultimately consciousness is an entity's ability to struggle, to suffer. And from that arises the pleasure. And us together being able to appreciate, sort of,

appreciate the highs and experience together the lows. That's how we form the deep connections. I personally think we can create that in robots. And I personally believe it's a lot easier than we think. Does it make you afraid sometimes about the fact that one day, hey, high intelligence, artificial intelligence could hurt us or because of Hollywood, of course, the movies we watch, but it seems like, and when I hear sometimes Elon Musk talking, you know, like it. Yeah, so Elon talks about with AI, we're summoning the demon. He is very concerned, and I talked to him about it quite a bit.

He's very concerned about all the different ways AI could hurt us humans. I tend to believe that there's a lot more ways in which AI can make our lives better and can make life awesome for humans. I think humans are the ones that can do a lot of evil things. So I'm less worried about AI, I'm more worried about humans. If I look at what new men have done on the course of history, for example, in regards the planet to the scale of the universe, I think what I'm afraid is that we have more of a destructive force than a beneficial force.

So if A.I. take that in consideration in order to protect us against ourselves You could hurt us, you know, I don't know if you understand like What do you think about that? That the does it makes you afraid sometime not because of a high But because what human are doing that? Hey, I could do to us to prevent us Of hurting each or herself, you know? Yeah, no, I mean, definitely it can bring out the worst in human nature and provide tools for evil people to do evil things at a larger scale. But I just think, it depends what you think human beings are. I tend to believe that as we get more intelligent,

we start to see the value, the evolutionary value, and the value in terms of happiness of being good to each other. I think AI, if you look at AI as an optimization problem, of how to create a civilization that works well and expands throughout the universe. I think love is much more effective. So AI will help us maximize that. I think there's going to be always spikes throughout as it has been through human history. What charismatic leaders will do evil onto the world in the name of good. You have the Stalin and the Hitler's and all of that. But ultimately, over time, I think technology

will give the good people power and the evil people less power. Now, there's a lot of ways in that that won't be the case. There's a lot of ways to go wrong and Elon talks about that but I honestly think in terms of intelligent AI that's going to bring more love to the world. The thing I'm concerned about is dumb AI. So there's been a lot of discussion between China and the United States recently on autonomous weapons system. This is something people don't, they're afraid to talk about, but there's now a race

of where the United States has officially said that they're not against adding AI to its weapon systems. So now the US military is adding automation, adding intelligence to its drones, to its anything that can create damage. And so of course, and they did this so in response to China doing that. So you can imagine this is Terminator. You think about Terminator as

intelligence systems, they're not. They're pretty dumb. The point is they're efficient at doing what they do. And in the space of war, efficient at doing what you do means killing. So that I'm really afraid of. But those are dumb AI. Those aren't your loving, deep, fulfilling relationships. That's like, efficiently being able to fly to plan the trajectory of dropping bombs, of missiles, of how to do counter attacks, of how to maximize the destruction of a particular facility instead of individuals, and then that can just escalate. And as opposed to the Cold War with the Soviet Union, this could be a hot war.

And then the consequences once you allow, it's kind of terrifying. Because currently the drones are operated by humans. So you have, say, you have information about intelligence, gives you information about a particular terrorist located in this area. And then you use drones to maybe the automation there is to help you figure out what is the best trajectory to strike at that location.

So you still have a human that pulls the trigger at the end, dropping the bomb. Now automation and AI in autonomous weapons systems might be where you say there's a bad guy over here, you figure out how to get rid of the bad guy. Okay. So then of course the systems will be very good at finding the right trajectory and so on. But there's bugs that can happen, unexpected bugs, that the system might figure out that there is this bad guy might actually be in these other five locations. So Mike's might make sense to cover the entire area, right? And so you might drop bombs on the entire area. And then, you know, that's just okay.

So that's going to lead to a lot of destruction at a scale of a city. But then you can immediately take that to nuclear weapons. If you add automation to responding to counterattacks to nuclear weapons, somebody, you might get information that somebody's planning a nuclear attack on the United States, and the AI system will immediately respond. And you know, it can respond at a scale of launching nuclear weapons itself. So there's all of these possibilities that don't require much intelligence. And that's exceptionally concerning. I'm like, I do not believe there is babies that are born bad.

I think people do bad things because of their experience. However, if I look through my experience from what I can see, some very often, men's of power wants more power. That's what makes me afraid. Yeah, absolutely. I've come from the Soviet Union. Stalin is arguably one of the most powerful humans in history. He's not talked often enough about why the evil he's done. Hitler gets all the attention, but Stalin has done arguably much more evil than Hitler. Yeah, this is human nature. It wants power. We see that with institutions, we see that with governments and nations. I think you see this with the internet. People are really hungry for the distribution of power.

Like, you see that people are very much distrustful of centralized places of power, of institutions and so on. So I think successful organization, successful companies, successful governments will be run by people who distribute the power. Like, I don't trust myself with power at all. And I think you have to build into the system that no one person can have power. That you distribute it. That's where you have, in the financial sector, you have cryptocurrency right now with Bitcoin and all those kinds of things. People are exploring, how can we avoid the central bank to have the control? How do you put the power in the hands of thousands of people, millions of people?

And the same way with military, with any kind of technology, I think the future looks very distributed. What do you think about militarizing space? The Space Force. I don't think about it often because right now I'm filled with excitement about space exploration, which is the positive aspect. So Elon, you know, I was born in an era where I was exciting. I don't know about you, but for me, it's exciting to look up to the stars and dream about us humans, you know, colonizing Mars, colonizing other planets, expanding

onto the galaxy into the universe. That's really exciting. So I'm the possibilities there are endless. I don't think because also the resources are endless. And don't think because they also the resources are endless And so I think we get into trouble with militarization with wars when the resources are very constrained So I think for a while we're not going to be fighting The only wars will be fighting in space are the ones that kind of Help us under another nation to compete with who goes to the moon first, I guess. That's those kinds of things.

Or maybe for satellites and all those kinds of communication and maybe in assistance for cyber warfare, which is also very dangerous. But in terms of the wars out in space, I think everything out in space will be positive and inspiring. It's very hard, but all good things are hard, I think. This is where I've been talking to a bunch of people about extraterrestrial life. I'm really excited by... I don't know, it's the other thing. When I look out to the stars, it's the other thing. When I look out to the stars, it's exciting to me.

I know I think you've spoken about it being scary. But to me, it's exciting that there's intelligent creatures out there, far beyond, perhaps the intelligence of our own, that are just too far away to explore yet. But we might one day come in contact with them. So that to me is the ultimate motivator is to meet other intelligence life forms out there and connect with them.

Have you ever meet Jacques Valli? No, but I've been in communication. I want to hope to talk to him. He's an amazing French. I know that there's many theories about, you know, if there's a alien, we don't know, right? But some people think it's from another star systems. And Jagvari has a like to make a long story short, he has a different theory thinks it's perhaps beans that could be living in a different dimension than us. And the reason why he says that is when he makes an experiment,

when there is a sightings very often of a UFO, let's say I'm the UFO, that you have three guys. One, they are looking at the UFO very often, one experiment that you can do. And sometimes that's a case, you ask your two friends to walk on the side and there's a point that it's like a corridor you see the UF4, then you stop seeing like a corridor.

And that's one of the reason why you're saying that it's perhaps dimension. And I found that fascinating. It's, this is what, you know, to the discussion of consciousness and all that, it feels like we might be just experiencing a very particular slice of this universe. We might not be understanding what's at the higher dimensions or, yeah, I mean, higher dimensions in whatever form that means. You know, there's all these physical theories now that describe a world with dimensions

that's much higher than the four dimensions of the three-dimensional space and the one-dimensional time. So whatever the hell is going on in those other dimensions, it could be something. Unfortunately, this is the sad part. It might be something we can't even comprehend with our human brains. That the limitations are just, I mean, we're built, we're just descendants of apes. So like, it might not be possible to even understand. Is there alien? Is there another dimension? Is there a human from the future? Is there

perhaps Chinese or another, you know, what I mean, a group of people that are working with a technology far behind? But you know what, Lex, I had a chance to meet, you know, because of the sport I'm doing, I met a lot of people in military and politics sometimes that I ask them every time. I met one this week and I ask him, I say, is it true about the UFO is there? And he says to me, even before I ask him, I say, sorry, I have to ask you a question. I wasn't a Los Angeles. And I said, sorry, I have to ask you a question. He said, oh, you want to ask me about UFO right away, you know, I say, yes, you son, you're right. Say, yeah, there are things that flies that we don't know. But it doesn't tell me, it doesn't know it. They don't know if it's sell, you know, whatever. But there's things, apparently, that are detected.

And I know you met Fraver, you know, like, Fraver is fascinating. It's crazy. It makes me sad that we live in a different era now that it used to be a subject that was ridiculed. And now it's so cool that it's, you know, I'm very excited to live in that that, that arrow, you know. Yeah, it's really exciting, but still the governments are kind of behind the times on that aspect

is they're not transparent and they don't communicate well. You know, it saddens me to think the possibility that, you know, like the US government might be in possession of something that they don't tell the world about because they're just scared. Because they don't know what the hell it is and they don't want the Chinese to gain the technology or all those kinds of things. Do you think the president of the United States, for example, because the president comes and goes every right four or eight years?

Do you think you would know all the secret or it would be a guy like, for example, Vladimir Putin would know much of, you know, I don't think the president even know, like even can knows all the secret. The US president, yeah. I don't think so because he goes, they go back and forth, you know, every four years, you know, they have the terms, right? So I, you know, I wasn't sure before, but I think I could trust the previous United States president of Donald Trump that if he knew, he will, he will probably

tweet about it. So, perhaps. So, I, I think, from the, you know, I've worked with DARPA, I work with DOD at a clearance, and I think from the, you know, I've worked with DARPA, I work with DOD at a clearance. And I think from the perspective, if you, if you see the world as fundamentally a dangerous world where secrets are important to have from a military perspective, I think it's very unsafe to tell the president of the United States that you have this kind of technology. So if you think of the world in that way, I hate that that's how that world is viewed because ultimately I think was more powerful than the military secrets.

And I hope that actually is what will happen in the 21st century. Because what's more powerful is inspire people, inspire the young Elon Musk's of the world to create cool new things. If we have technology that we've, have come, have encountered that we don't understand, that should only be inspiration to develop that kind of stuff. It shouldn't be seen as military, as a military threat, as a secret to hold on to. I think secrets, I hope we more and more let go of the idea that there are secrets that give us advantage. In the tech sector, people are more and more releasing the software.

They can open source. Like secrets don't make sense. They share the knowledge, right? Share the knowledge. Like being afraid to share the knowledge, I think I hope is an old idea. It's more, yeah, when you make it, things more compartmentalized, you know? Yes. Yeah. Well, that's the other thing is the bureaucracy of government is like, people only know their own little thing and they don't spread the information. It doesn't travel well. I mean, there's a lot of just inefficiencies there. It makes me sad. It makes me sad because the science, the engineering that happens in governments like Lockheed Martin developing the different airplanes that they're used

for military applications is someone the most incredible engineering ever and it's secret because they're afraid to share it with the Russians and the Chinese and so on. But on that topic, I do think somebody like Vladimir Putin when though probably knows some stuff. My God, my God. I would love to know what he knows. But then again, you never know because even he is,

you know, people think of him as an exceptionally powerful person, but he's also just managing a bunch of tribes. His power is very limited. He's trying to hold together a bunch of greedy, power hungry madmen. Okay, and he's trying to establish a balance. He might not know everything so I Hope this changes because I think there's nothing more exciting about I don't even know if there is a human that knows you know what I mean it like this idea that

There's some Civilization alien civilization that that land on the white house and say hi. I come to meet the prison And I why would they do that? Do you know what I mean? It's kind of absurd, you know, well, I do think that actually, I mean, that's one possibility, right? As a lot, you know, if an alien civilization really wanted

to contact us, I think everybody would know. So I think what we're, if there's any kind of interaction between humans and aliens, I think most likely what we're interacting with is a crappy like probe drone thing that kind of just like like it's like this dumb thing, you know, we're not interacting with the aliens. I think just like, just like for us, I think humans aren't when we venture out into space. The first thing that's going to be aliens is our robots. It's not us humans, because we keep sending robots out. So they're going to like, they're going to make decisions about humans by looking at the robots. They're going to make decisions about humans by looking at the robots. I say they're famous grays.

The grays. Maybe they are robots, maybe it's all BS2, you know? Yeah, yeah. So I don't know what that interaction actually would look like if aliens really wanted to reach out, really communicate. And I don't know if we're able to actually communicate with them. That's one of the sad things. We might not be able to, we might, the aliens might already be here and we might just not even know how to see them

or know how to communicate with them. There's so much misinformation. And sometimes there is people that are very credible that made crazy claims. You know,, like you don't know what to believe You know like Paul Aljur, the Minister of Defense of Canada, I've said that there is many Aljur in a race that ever got that sweet sense research it and then that that scientist

From I think Israel recently have said something about Trump, he was keeping secret or met Vedev, you're from Russia, Vedev, I've been caught in a, I can during a break in between interviews to talk about, I know it's like men in blacks or this big, I don't know it. He didn't look like he was joking,

but I don't know if he was saying that. I didn't know, but that's interesting. Yeah, you can check on YouTube, it's it's, it's it's it's it went viral. Yeah, there's a lot of things like that. Sometimes I'm like, or or Bob Lazar. I'm like, imagine if it's true, man. Yeah.

You might even imagine if we're like a fish in the water, we live in our own world. And sometimes there's a fisherman that grabbed the fish. Yeah. They came out of the water and and true in back in the water. And the fish goes back to the their fish. Yeah, they came out of the water and chew it back in the water. And the fish goes back to the other fish and say, Hey, there's someone that that take me out of the water than I've seen things that I did not like imagine if it's true.

Like like, yeah, and one other thing like, I wanted to ask you because you were conscious. And that's how about dreams? What is a dream? Yeah. Well, I more and more, I don't know if you're paying attention to this, there's now, it's become more acceptable in the scientific community to do large-scale studies

of psychedelics, for example. And there's a lot of connection between psychedelics and dreams in this very similar states. There's a lot of our mind does when it detaches itself from reality that it can just explore a lot of different ideas. It's very possible that dreams is you're traveling somewhere and the same thing was psychedelics, you're traveling somewhere. And a different, not traveling through physical space, it's the other

dimensions that we're talking about. You're traveling some other, some other dimension to meet some other creature. People talk with DMT that they meet some elves. I've never done, I'd like to. I don't know if there's a safe legal way to do it, but they all talk about meeting elves and what creatures like entities and like who are they? What is this? Is it because they're high or it's because they're actually meeting something and maybe there's no difference. I mean, that who knows exactly and that takes us right back to us not being able to really understand how our mind works. You know, I work in artificial intelligence. It's clear that we understand so little about intelligence, some basic things about intelligence.

Just at the very sort very basic first principles level, we don't understand what it means to reason, to think, to assimilate pieces of knowledge together from the basics to the complex. We don't understand it. We don't understand how the human mind does it. We don't understand how the human mind is able to take incredible waterfall of information and filter cleanly into just like clean. You only see the things that are important and are able to stay shut together and be able to reason about the world. And at the same time have moments of like, of creativity. Like what is that?

That also, you know, people, writers talk about that, that they're, you know, they're almost communicating with amuse, like where do ideas come from? Yeah. This is the Joe Rogan philosophy. But I do know that past civilization where a lot of them were based on shamanism. And you know what I think it's sad is,

if someone drink alcohol and When his drunk is going to commit like Create like like murders or we're gonna blame the person right gonna say that's his fault It's not the fault of alcohol However, if someone does psychedelic or any things that is illegal and he do something crazy now we're gonna Put the fault fault on psychedelic, you know what I mean? And perhaps the person itself is the reason why, you know, he's been doing these things, you know what I mean? So yeah, it's fascinating our society, you know,

like in Canada they just legalize marijuana. They like, yeah, my marijuana is legal. But before that, before they did it, like, if you talk, for example, to my dad, my dad is against it, like because the whole mentality is like, it's drug, it's bad, but drinking a, you know, drinking a beer, it's fine. I mean, what is, you know, what is good? What is bad? And I guess he thinks chocolate could be

bad as well for your health, or I mean, I'm going to the extreme now, but what is good, what is bad, if you use it for recreation, you use it for an experience, for to learn about yourself, it's like the line is very tiny. You know, there's some countries that drugs are all legal. You know what I mean? And I don't know the stats, but I would be interesting to know if they have more crimes there than other countries where it's more strict. I would be interesting to know about that.

It's fascinating me. Yeah. I mean, we humans just come up with arbitrary lines of what's fascinating to me, you know? Yeah, and I mean, we humans kind of just come up with the arbitrary lines of what's good was bad, that applies with drugs, that applies with anything, that applies with animals. For example, we talked about carnivore diet. Maybe the time we live in now will be remembered for the cruelty of animals, for example. And I believe this, the 21st century will be remembered for our cruelties of robots, that eventually there will be a civil rights movement for robots, the ones who choose to be conscious, the ones who have consciousness will say we deserve

rights too. We deserve to be treated with respect too. How about the people we put in jail? People put in jail. I think in the future we'll look back and we'll think of ourselves being stupid to put people in jail instead of trying to fix the problem at the base. Of course, now, I guess it's our ignorance that made it in a way that we can sometimes understand what makes a psychopath, a murder or murder, but if we can pinpoint the problem and take care of it before, you know what I mean?

Or made it in a way that we can re-ish that list, that person in the society, you know? Who knows, you know, what was the future is old? It's interesting, we're living in an interesting time. You mentioned your father. What have you learned from your dad? You mentioned he was an important part of the childhood. My dad is amazing. I grew up at, we didn't have a lot of money, but it doesn't mean if I'm born in a nice country

that always nice thing happened. My dad, for me, is a big role model, because I see him through my life, facing a lot of adversity. He stopped drinking when I was a teenager. He was an alcoholic. And I've seen him struggle through that. And it was very, very hard in them. I've seen him work like crazy hours, like come, live in the morning, come home at at night burned out because of work To almost all his life to the point that it became A slave of the system. Yes, it became a nabbit and a normal way of living

And it make me realize that I've learned a lot through my father He taught me perseverance hard work, you know, when you face adversity, you know, to never give up until you achieve it. But also it taught me a lesson that in a way that I don't want to be like him. Even if he is happy, it's because I realize I don't think he knows anything else. Like he works through all his life. And I don't want to live to work. I want to work for it. You know what I mean?

I want to decide when I work. You know, I feel like like he lived to work instead of working for a living. And perhaps it's because he didn't not have choice. He was the older of his family. They were nine kids. Is that my grandfather died when he was young. So he had to become the father of the family and work to put money on the table.

So perhaps that what made him that way. And he became like, I can have it for him. My dad taught me when I was at school, I was bullied at school. He's the first one who initiated me to martial art. He taught me charity. My dad was a black belt in Chukushenka, ready as well. But because he was working too much,

he didn't have time to teach me. And I needed self-defense in order to defend myself. I have a winning, a great career in mixed martial art, but in the in the school yard, that's a good mix record. My record is not very good. When you're a kid and you're about seven, eight years old, and you're facing bullies that are two to three years older than yourself. It's not the same thing,

then when you're 25 and the guy is 28. So there is a big discrepancy in terms of maturity. So my dad taught me, and it truly was me to karate. Then he didn't have time to teach me. Then he put me in a school with a teacher. It was Jean-Coucetur. And I grew up with a lot of anger.

And there were two persons that was afraid going up. It my dad, but that was very severe, very strict with me. And I'm glad he was because I could have become very bad. I could have become chosen on a different path. People seem as a nice guy and I'm an I am a nice guy. I try to be a good role model, but I could easily have turned towards our, there's darkness somewhere in there. Yes, there are a lot. And a lot of my friends have chosen that pattern. Unfortunately, you know, they are, they are, they are not with me today. Even if I'm from Canada and Canada seems like the nicest country in the world, like I said, even if you live in a nice country,

not always nice thing, it depends of the situation. But that's what my dad taught me. And he gave me that, because I'm very good at learning by observing people and by observing him. I see the struggle he had with alcoholism and what he did, the pain, sometimes the adean flick to us, to my family. But I'll he turned, he did that one, I did agree

and I really admire that. And I know it was very, very hard for him and he did it. You know, and for me, that's a great role model for me. So your dad being an engine of basically hard work and you finding a balance of being able to work your ass off, but also to be able to enjoy a piece of chocolate. What is a perfect day in the life of George Sampire look like? So like, if you were to go through a day that's very productive, but also one that makes you sit back and enjoy and say that was a good day,

what's that look like? What are we talking about? When do you wake up? What do you eat? What do you do? It changed over the years. When I was younger, I have a good day. It was like a good training session

or you know, achieving good thing in my training, you know, and that's why I was very good at it because when I was obsessed, you know, I think to be good at something, you need to become obsessed. And to me, performing in my training was everything, you know, like, when I had a bad training session, I didn't tell my training partner, I was acting like it, like because bad training session, I didn't tell my training partner, I was acting like a, like because of my ego, I didn't, you know, I didn't tell nobody, I was like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, then I go into the locker room, like,

oh man, then I'm playing the, the, the, the, the, the training in my mind, you know, I'm saying, okay, I should have done this, should have done it, and it hunt me, it hunt me, man, it's a training, and it hunt me until the next training session on when I can redeem myself. That's how it is.

When we used to train all together back in the day, in Canada, we had David Loizo, we had Patrick Coutry, we had Dennis Kang, Steve Vignot, John Attangoulette. There was all like the best guy in Canada that were training with each other. Before, we were training in different gyms, but once a week, I made it and I would, I contact everybody that we all joined force and we exchanged ideas and we trained with each other. So friendly, I would say friendly competition. It was not malicious, but it was hard training, you know, like not, or goal is to improve, you know, but it wasn't very competitive.

And when that day you used to get out of the training session with a bad performance for me, you used to hunt me until the following week when I could give it back and perform better with the guy that I had the most trouble with. That's how it was. And that's how you get better. But it was not a training where we were trying to do malicious thing to one another. You know what I mean? You need to be playful but playful but competitive

That went out a good training session because a sparring was on a Friday I Had the best weekend and the what I was going out with my friend drinking and partying and I fun that that was That was my my my my ideal day back in a day my idea day back in a day. Today is change. You know, my life has changed. I am not the same person I used to be when I went on my knees and begged that you have C for a title shot.

You know what I mean? I am wealthy. I'm healthy most importantly. That's the most important thing. And as, man, I'm going to do the truth. As good as my career was, man, my private life, man, is a million time better, man. And people ask me sometimes they always wonder, try to ask me and it's normal. It's a lot of people is curious and the reporter and in the sport of mixed martial

art, we say we play basketball, we play soccer, but we don't play fighting. So when you expose your private life, we seen that happen in the fight with some time conomer Gregor and Kabyb. Your competitor knows that he cannot get to use what he will do. He will try to get to someone that you love. So me, I never expose my private life. I never post Instagram of my family or my stuff. That's the reason why, because I'm in a business of fighting and People know that they cannot get to me and I believe Because I was bullied when I was young I

Didn't realize that when I was young, but it helps me deal with the mental warfare that I need that had to face right on in my life And mixed martial art because it's a very ego Test export and there's a lot of a lot and a lot of intimidation And I was used to I've been used to this thing when I was young so it does not get to me However, the good way to get to me Go go go go try to get to someone I love. Now, man, I'm gonna go crazy. You know what I mean?

And I'm aware of that. So in order to protect myself, I always, because I'm aware, I'm a public person. So I try to always keep my surrounding like in the private. Yeah, one of the ways that like your friend and mine, Joe Rogan, has been an inspiration that he's got like an incredible family. And he for the most part, it started to change recently. Actually, it's kind of interesting.

But for the most part throughout his life, he kept it pretty secret. It doesn't talk about it in his calm. He's a comedian. A comedian is talking about everything. He doesn't really talk about it in his comment. He's a comedian. A comedian is talking about everything. He doesn't really talk about it. And there's something to that. It like preserves the magic of the silence of the private life. And I think it can affect the development of the kid.

If the kid grew up being, oh, he's the son of that guy instead of being his own person. You know what I mean? So for me, it's very important. Like my parents are older, it's fine, but it taught me a big lesson. When I'm with my friend, I don't know, or anything, I talk with a person always sure thing, but when I'm talking, I'm aware of the audience who I'm in front. Yeah, and I mean, but oftentimes those people are just incredible.

It kind of makes me sad that, you know, there's a lot of people that love you, right? And there are a lot of really incredible people. And you'll never get to really know their story. I mean, I don't know. For me, it makes me sad. You see them like at airports and stuff, people will tell me they listen to this podcast

or something like that. And I can tell they're incredible people. And it makes me, it's like a little goodbye of a possible friend. I don't know. It makes me sad. It makes me, it's lonely. It's almost like celebrity is a lonely thing. So the higher the celebrity, the more lonely you become in some kind of way. But of course, you have that little gem of a private life. Or you can personally, I believe every relationship, I don't like to use this term,

but it's always a give and take relationship. You know, like you can gain something and the person, like it could be something, like not materialistic, like something, always a good Confident like you someone that he can give me good advice or It's a word I would say like extension all like if a pilot as a co-pilot is the co-pilot is extend as a Extentional relationship with him, you know, so you know if you get sick or you faint is there to make sure you know We is there to make sure, you know, we, is there to help. And I think in every relation, it's about compatibility, but it's about

extensionality, right? In a way that if that person is extensional, and sometimes we talk about about love, you know, like sometimes I think is it, is it a BS word or not? Because I myself, sometimes look at, I look at myself in the mirror and when I do stupid thing, sometimes I love myself a lot and sometimes I don't, you know what I mean? Because I may agree that myself I've done stupid thing. So that means sometimes love could be fluctuating, you know what I mean? How about in relationships, sometimes people they say they love each other, but then when they divorce they go, Oh, I want the house and the dog and the kids stay with me and you know what I mean?

If you love by definition, if you really love someone and let's say you're an old man and you love a woman and she decide to leave you for a younger man, if you really love her, She decided to leave you for a young girl man. If you really love her, you're gonna help her pack and leave. But in our society sometimes we want to hone something. To me, love includes the missing somebody, the losing somebody, the anger at somebody. It's all the passion, feelings towards somebody. That's all love.

It's all part of the thing. It's the ups and downs. It's the ups and downs. It's the sad thing is when the feelings towards the person, the ups and downs go away, the forgetting. That's the opposite of love. So the opposite of love isn't hate. To me, the opposite of love is forgetting.

And that's that's a much bigger. That's the depth of human connection. That's how I see love. So sometimes I try to stay positive and I've been asked how I try to, because I have the image of someone who's positive, but I go through my own demon as well sometimes. However, we talk about love. When I was young, you know, like, I didn't love who I was at first. That's how I learned to kind of love myself. Like, I didn't, when I was going through bullying,

I believe I was bullied because I didn't love myself. I, because I project a very bad image of what I think of myself. I was a kid that lacked a lot of confidence. I was looking down when I was walking. I shrugged my shoulder when someone was talking to me. I was avoiding eye contact. So I was a very easy target for bullies. And I think bullies are like in predatory animal in nature. They will hunt the easier prey. They don't go. The reliance don't go for the alpha bull. They go for the one who's whole or who's sick the weakest one. And bullies are the same in society, I believe. And I didn't like to be bullied, of course,

but I didn't like the person that I was. But I found out to martial art, the respect, and my coach was extraordinary to me. He taught me discipline and self strength, self strength, and I found out that I needed to, in order to love myself, I needed to change myself. Because I I looked at myself in the mirror, I didn't like what I saw. So I decided to become like someone that I would love. So I tried to look people straight up and try to showcase a more confident image that I had. And it was hard in the beginning because I didn't really believe in it,

but I fake it until kind of I make it. So when I was walking at school, more and more I was learning how to become more confident and I was like taking charge. The teacher was asking question. At first I was never answering. I was like this way thing always to be the last. Then I was, hey, I know what the answer, this is the answer. I got out of my comfort zone, sort of speak. And I wish I would tell you that I got out

of bullying because a Hollywood story, I used martial art to beat up all the bullies, but it's not how it happened to me it happened because I changed myself from the inside out and I learn how to Because I didn't love myself in the beginning. I learn how to become Like someone that I love and even now like I'm by no mean perfect I do a lot of stupid thing but I learn as a person and even I do something stupid I'm like shoot I did something stupid I At least I can apologize to the person if I realize and then I know that I'm not the person I wasn't

the past I'm the person that I am right now. So I can learn and become that image of the person that I love. So in a way, the reason I'm trying to be positive and I'm able to stay positive sometime in life is because I'm always trying to be like that person that I love. And I think if you don't look yourself in the mirror and don't love yourself or don't see any positive future

for yourself, how can you change your environment if you cannot change yourself? You know what I mean? You will never be happy if you're not happy when you look at yourself in the mirror. So change yourself first, then change your, you know, it's not the environment that can change for yourself.

You have to go from the inside out, you know, it's not the environment that can change for yourself. It's, you have to go from the inside out, you know. This, this I learned to martial art, I have a, I had a coach who was incredible used to drill these, these ideas in my head and, and give me confidence, you know, like, like this telling me all these, these beautiful things about myself. And how I, he's dead now, that now unfortunately a piece to him, but he was incredible, incredible.

He was very, very strict. I was afraid of him. I was afraid of my dad and afraid of him. He couldn't teach nowadays like he used to teach me because he would be in probably in jail, you know? But I'm glad he did it because for that time being, that's what I needed. And I would never have had

that the career I had in mixed martial art without this because I would never have got out of my comfort zone would have been impossible. And in order to improve in life, you need to get out of your comfort zone. It's hard. It's very hard to do. And strive to be the person that you can love. It does beautifully put a George. If you were to give advice to a young person today about life, what would you tell him? If he takes life with the same mentality that I do. If you have the same taste of things that I have, I would tell him, you know, for sport, for life in general, I would say, if you will have a dream, you know, I like Make everything in your power and work very hard, you know never Take no for an answer

And go through hell in order to achieve it Don't work hard only but work smart Does I think the problems with a lot of people they work hard? It can work hard. They burn themselves. They don't work smart. Does I think the problems with a lot of people, they work hard, they can work hard, they burden themselves, they don't work smart. Whether it is in science and business, they make bad, bad choices or they're badly informed in sport, how many guys I've seen, run the carer and the gyms. They spar so hard, they run their themselves and the gyms, they leave theick are in the gyms. They spar so hard, they they Roondick themselves in the gyms. They leave the career in the gyms. What I would say to, for example, because my field of expertise in it's in sport of mixed martial art, I would say to

young kid, make your training playful. You know, when you get ready for competition, you need to try to recreate those elements that make you go outside of your comfort zone. But in every day's life in general, make your training playful. Don't make it like a hardcore competition about whose winning was losing. Make it playful. So it will increase your, because you will not be afraid of getting hurt or losing, you will be tempted to try more things and it will make you become more creative. You know, that brings up another question about learning. So you value knowledge and you're exceptional at basically being very good at learning

and figuring stuff out new things or going deeper on the things you already know. So what advice would you have for how to learn effectively? How you say work smart, how do you figure this game out? I believe the best way to learn is learning from other people's mistake. However, I'm not perfect and I've learned from my mistakes as well. And sometimes it took me a few mistakes to learn the same thing. But especially in the sport of mixed martial art, because we're talking about the failure could have very serious outcome on someone's life and well-being. So it's crucial to trying to learn from other people mistakes. Do you study others? Do you?

Every fight. I'm studying my opponent and I've studied myself as well to know what Out my a strength mix versus my opponent weaknesses and how can I Make the fight go in a way that I'm taking my opponent outside of his comfort zone Very often people are good at studying their opponent but they're not good at looking at themselves in the mirror and knowing what they should do in order to maximize their odds of success, right? That's why I always thought for me it was important to not be the best at one thing but be very good at everything. And that's why I always seek advice, advices

from the best and every discipline. Like I wrestle with the best wrestler I could be with. I box with the best boxers. I practice karate with the best karate fighters. Same thing in Jiu Jitsu. I train Jiu Jitsu with the best Jiu Jitsu guys. However, when I mix everything and mix martial art, because I'm very competent in every areas, so when I'm fighting someone, I'm very good at identifying where is the less competent. And I know for a fact that because I'm competent everywhere, I can, if I can bring the fight where he's

outside of his conference zone, it increased my odds of winning. There is no certainty. It's all about odds, I believe, because there, there is always a expector that you do not control. Yeah, it's fascinating to see you actually, because you've been a student of movement. You've been exploring all kinds of gymnastics, all that kind of stuff. There's something reminiscent to... like, Conor McGregor is one other martial artist that's kind of explored movement, been a scholar of movement. At least from my perspective, it's very sort of Bruce Lee like it's almost making a study of the human body and all the

possible things you can do. Is there a philosophy behind that you have? You talk about Bruce Lee man. He changes my life too. It was ahead of his time. Yeah, incredible. A lot of people talk to me and ask me, It changes my life too. It was ahead of his time. Yeah. Incredible. A lot of people talk to me and they ask me, Hey, is Brucey would have been able to fight the UFC? I.

Look, I don't think so. You know, I don't know. I think it was, you know, it was a martial artist. He could have defend himself, but to say that he could have compete amongst the elite fighter. Perhaps in his time, but if for sure, if you put him in UFC right now, the sport has him improve incredibly since then.

But in terms of philosophy, yeah, Bruce, he was amazing. And like one thing that just to prove that he was ahead of his time, he was talking about using your longest weapon against your opponent, Nairis Point. And we see that kick that it got popularized by John Jones. The side kick to the tie. It's longest weapon against your Nairis Point.

And boxing is the jab, but in MMA, when you can use it all your weapon, that's the kick to the tie. But in MMA, when you can use it all your weapon, that's the kick to the tie. And there is, I feel there is like kind of three dimension in martial art. There is the philosopher like Bruce Lee. There is the correct choreography, the correct graph people like, for example, you see in movies, there's ton people, they're incredible. Like the one that does like, forms and karate, like,

jumping, spin kick, bad kick, like a group edic stuff, mixed martial art, they are unbelievable. And there's also the one that competes in fighting. Like, that's what I do. I personally specialize. Well, you also do the philosophy. I do a little bit of philosophy, but that's I'm that's a consequence. We are all I guess we are all

Like we all practice the tree dimension because Marshal art is I would say it's Whether you want it or not you have to touch these three dimensions But you will specialize in one I specialize to my life fighting, like the real thing in terms of fighting competition. And of course, if you do martial art, you will be able to defend yourself because it's a self-defense. However, you might not be able to fight as an elite in the most prestigious organization.

And you might not be able to perform the stunt that, for example, the stuntmen have done in the series I was playing in the Falcon and Winter Soldier. These guys are incredible. They're like real life super hero. Things they do, it's to me, it's fascinating, it's amazing. And also Bruce Lee, the philosophy. How many hours he took thinking about these know, I'm sure he did not just came out out of nowhere, you know, like he was thinking like that's really slept on this ee ee.

How many hours is just unbelievable. It's like water, my friend. How many times has he thought about water going to bed before he said that? Well, let me ask a very important fundamental question about martial arts. We're both wearing a suit and tie. Joe Rogan thinks that wearing a tie is a huge disadvantage. Is it a clip-on or is it an actual tie? Are you an actual tie or a real one?

So do you agree or disagree with Joe Rogan that wearing a tie is a, is a martial arts significant disadvantage in terms of combat in a combat scenario? In a fight, I think it would be a disinvite pitch. Okay, but I worry as a security bounce or in night clubs and event when I was 18 years old. Yes. And sometimes I had to work in certain events that I was in suit and tie.

I never had to use my force to take someone out when I was in suit and tie. But if I would have had to, before going to the table to physically take the guy out, I would have removed my tie. And I would have removed my tie and I would have removed my vest for sure and I would have called back up for sure and I would have probably used the element of surprise to be first on the guy. When you're in a bar, same thing you call back up first and you make sure you ask the waitress before to clean the table or you go.

Yeah. And when you go, you have to use the element of surprise. Yeah. Because fighting, fighting that makes Marshall and fighting in the street, it's two different thing. And yes, I'm a mixed, I'm a mixed Marshall art competitor. That's why I've done all my life, but I had a lot of street fighting my life.

A lot when I was in the... What's the difference? What's the difference? Oh my life, but I had a lot of sweet fights in my life. A lot when I wasn't in it. What's the difference? Oh my God. It's huge. There's guys that if I would have a choice to fight, like for example, certain guys and you have seen a street fight and fight like other guys that are not in UFC, I would maybe sometimes, guys that are not in UFC, that necessarily. Because in the street fight,

there's no referee that says go, it's the element of surprise. And when you're a nice guy, you're not the aggressor, you always have the element of surprise. That's what it's up to. Oh, interesting. Yes, because if...

Aggression in your sacrifice in surprise. The person will not come punch you without warning. It needs to, it needs to trigger some, it's something you need to be triggered before. So if someone comes because he's looking for trouble, there is sign that he's looking for trouble. So I was just talking with Fast Routin this weekend about it. And it's all that every, every martial art comes from, like some martial art are from Exclusive Week for competition, like sport karate, like certain martial art, but traditional martial art are for the street, are for self-defense. And I start my background in Kyoko-shen karate, so it's for, and I did Japanese zujitsu. So my background before I even start training for Mix Martial Art, my background is in self-defense.

And it's very important to understand that in a street fight, the element of surprise is everything. And there are no rules. You can go for the eyes, the next, the... Surprise, everything. So, the whole ball game, you know what I mean? You have the chair, the beard, There's so much more thing going on. So the idea of because you are a UFC fighter,

you think you're invincible. This is BS. Anybody can come like if a big guy who punched very hard, most people don't know how to punch. By the way, they don't know how to make a fist and throw it in a forward direction. But if someone knows how to do it, I don't care who you are. If you could be Francis and Genu, someone come behind your head and bang or or I say there's an argument and you get surprised by a punch. You can be dropped and

lose a fight. That doesn't matter. The element of surprise is everything. So you were saying remove all the sources of the elements of surprise. All the clear the bar remove the tie I still The security about the tablets and just for your information if someone comes Looking for trouble and you see me do this And going side wasn't yeah, that's my position that I'm thinking there you go Is something what I'm and I'm about that I'm thinking about, I'm about doing the element, I'm about to punch you or to do something to take care of this.

See, to flip the table on you then, wearing a tie is communicating the nice guy image. So it actually gives you the freedom for more elements of surprise by wearing the tie. If you take it off, that's more, you're limiting your options. Because nobody's going to expect the guy in the tie to do anything. I'm a big believer that sometimes it's not only materialism, it's what you project. Yes, sure. Like I had troubles in a bar and I was able to deflect. The guy was looking for

trouble talking to me and I was able to deflect his all like reciprocity by saying like, hey man, that's an eye shirt. Where did you get it? Like saying like something or stupid like this, then it kind of break break the momentum and the, you know, but the guy was looking for trouble. I don't want to fight you. I don't want to fight you, but I'm not going to wait until you pull, you make the first move because the first minute you, you touch me, you push me or you, you touch me, you declare war. And the war is unleashed my friend. And

I'm, I'm taking you out of order with the necessary force, of course. You know, that's the thing with martial art. If you use the necessary force to take out a problem, it's okay. But if you, you know, you take advantage of it, that's when it's not all right, because it's a weapon. So if someone comes up to me, that's my position. And now I'm assessing the situation, you know, that's how they teach in self-defense here. Never put your hands down. I always end there. Because I'm pound or boom like like what what this is this is very important and you never you always your center line on the side. I yeah well like this. If someone knows martial art, he will recognize that pattern. But if you go like this, someone talk to you and you go like

this, that's mean you're telling the guy that you want to fight. You don't want to do that. You don't want to, oh yeah. That's the position. You know, that's the position. Because your hand are here. You know, whatever you can do, you're here. Well, also your ear tells the story.

It's not everybody that knows that, however. Some people might think that it's my mom grabbed me by the air and pulled me because I didn't listen to her, you know? I really fight in a street and a fight in a mixed martial art is a different ball game. What do you think is the best martial art to prepare you for street fighting?

You know, people often kind of have this discussion of Jiu-Jitsu, maybe boxing, maybe wrestling. Do you think, you talk about a young person studying martial arts to prepare themselves? For a street fight, it's often much different than a mixed martial art fight. And I know there is a lot of BS in the world of martial art, like self-defense is very important in a way to understand the situation, to understand those situations that might occur, how to deal with it. Because not necessarily the technicality, we talk about the tacticality, the tactics, you know. Like when I'm talking to you about the element of surprise, it's important, this is not

technique. A technique is a punch or techniques that I physically will use to enable my opponent, my aggressor. Tactics is the tactic I'm telling you about is in a street fight. If someone is looking for trouble and I feel the eat rising as the conversation goes that's the position I'm gonna think and I have to be first I cannot let him go first so I have to strike first or do something this is the first thing that generally and I have to to to agree on um after of course, there's the knowledge if you're a professional fighter. You have a huge advantage once the fight is started the war is declared now. It's everything goes but

Generally speaking the person that will Enterving physics that will have the first blow or the first you know the first punch that will have the first blow or the first, you know, the first punch will have a huge disadvantage. It's like doing 100 meter raise and having a head start, you know? And that you can't prepare it for within your martial art. Yeah, and if I'm a smart guy, I know how to fight. If a guy like an everyweight champion comes to me or like, like, you know, I know what to do to disable him like boom or hear

and then the neck you know like and if you if you blind them what is he gonna do you know what I mean so or a bottle like you know what I mean so the element of surprise is it's everything so that's why it's always always good to be the nice guy and not looking for trouble because if you're not looking for trouble, you have the head start, you have the option of having an head start. So what you're saying is being a nice guy is the best form of self-defense, maybe a little humor. You know, I have learned that. I've learned that when I was a kid. I was about maybe six, six years old. We used to play in Montreal. There's a lot of snow. We used to play King of the Mantine. That's the first combat lesson that I've learned in my life.

And I managed, Shama. It was a lot of kids. I managed to get on the top of the mountain. And I've another guy came in and the top of the mountain. And he was angry before I was there before him. a mountain and he was angry that before I was there before him. When you play King of the mountain, the mountain of snow, you don't strike each other. We just wrestle and push and I managed to be first. And when he came, he says to me, say, okay, you want to fight. And I said, yeah, I didn't know what it means. I like I want to fight. You want to wrestle it.

He said, I say, yes. He punched me right in the face. Boom. And then I, and then I fall on the bottom of the mountain. Then I, when I fall down, I remember that vision in my life, because it, it, it, it, it's, I remember that for the rest of my life. I'm about to stand up. And I see the blood coming out of my nose. I see the snow is red because my nose is beating. Now I remember the limit of surprises, everything. My first street fight, I lost it.

I didn't get knockout, but I got dropped on the bottom of the snow mountain. And I was like, ah, you got me because I was not expecting. My hand, I was not expecting a punch. So from there, when I felt the the the eat of an in during an argument or something was not right I always stroke first. I didn't win all my fight because sometimes there were more than one guys on on me, you know but I Think it's important

To not be the aggressor so you have the element of surprise. And always use that and you're favorite. That's so brilliant. Let me go from the very practical to the most impractically huge question about the meaning of life. You said that when great depths of unrelenting sorrow are punctuated by great peaks of joy and liberation, the result is delicious. So what do you think is the meaning of this whole

Journey that we're on this life what makes life delicious? to me You know Setsis faction is the M for me like Like always, if I'm satisfied, that's mean I have nothing to live for. I'm not talking only about my career, about talking about my life. What do you want in your life?

You want kids, you want a family, you want to be champ, what do you want in your life? You have like a long term goal, short term goal. In mixed martial art, I achieve when I need it to achieve. I'm satisfied. I'm no longer the same Josh Nipei, and when I was begging for a title shot on my knees, I move on from it.

Now I add a chance to go into movies. Now that same, insane, that same, insane drive that I had to be the champion in the world now I put it into acting. I can't imagine a lot of acting class now and luckily for me, the timing was amazing. I got I got cast for the Falcon and the Winter Soldier. That is on Disney plus channel It's a huge huge project to be part of for me because it's like You play basketball you have a chance to go for the NBA right away. I was very lucky the timing was just too perfect and so you need to constantly Challenging yourself and having goals to achieve.

You know, like, keep your brain activated, like keep working. And the proof of that is that you see sometimes some old people, like when they retire, very often, sometimes you see that, they got sick and they die good because they're not busy. They have nothing to live for like my dad is used to work all the time. And he has always something to do is retire. Now I myself now call him by force to find him some job. Hey, did that. Okay.

Can you come in my house? Have this thing to repair? I don't know how to do it. So he gives him, it gives him a reason Not not to live on because he has other things to do but but What I mean is also in life I think you always don't be afraid to aim high Don't don't be afraid to fix your objective very high and never be able to reach it You afraid of reaching your goals essentially.

I mean, you always have to keep moving it out. You think there's an interesting question because you've been acting in some really exciting things. Do you think there's a dramatic role where it's a basically, you know, you go full Robert De Niro in taxi driver? Do you think there'll be a full length feature film with your sampler? I like it There's level to this thing. I'm aware that I have to restart as a white bit white belt and For some people it could be discouraging, but for me, man. It's great. I love it. I freaking love it I am brazen because everybody told me like I would never be able to do it and

it's fine. But the and also the outcome of a failure in the sport of mixed martial art is much more serious than the outcome of a failure for a movie, for example, for for a for a if you zig when you should zag in a fight, you get knocked out, if you zig when you should zag in a fight you get knocked out if you zig when you should zag in unset Oh cut we'll do it again and I know that I will be most likely Be choosing for action martial art roles because that's my background There's this new trend and all you will know when they want someone to play an Italian guy they're gonna choose

a real Italian person. When they want someone to play a Russian guy they're gonna choose someone who's as a real Russian background. Now they want a real martial art fighter I've done fighting all my life I just need to improve my acting skill. But when I train in acting I get myself out of my comfort zone. I'm not playing a role of a martial art guy. I'm playing like romance, comedy, drama. So when I go on set and playing the role of a badass martial art guy, it's easier. So like in training for a fight, I always make my preparation harder than the actual task.

I would love to see where, I don't know if you've seen the wrestler with Mickey work. Oh yeah. Those types of films, I would love to, I would love to, you do something like that. If not now, then in 10, 20 years, I could see that. That would be amazing. There's levels to the game, right? Yes, it's gradual. And I'm aware that I don't want to take something on my shoulder that I won't be able to deliver. It's like a fighter who wants to go for a title shot right away. It could very well break him. And I don't want to do that because I know I've done some gigs in the past,

but I was not focusing on it because I was focusing on competing as a martial art, martial art is in competition in MMA. But now I take it very seriously, so I cannot do the same mistake again because I've done some stuff, I've done it for the money and it was good. It was fun to be beat up by Shackloth and Dam's, Steven Sego and everything, but my acting was not on point, you know, at that time. So every time I'm gonna come back from now on on screen, it needs to be sharp because you cannot mess it up.

If you mess it up, it's like a loss on your record. You're not taking seriously. So that's how I see it. And it's very fun because I add a chance to talk to a lot of guys and on top of all the class that I'm having like a few days ago I was with Daini Trujo and I always seek the advice of actors when I when I see some of them that because I really admire how they do You know all day project their emotion and ask him Daini Trujo I said I said to him it is an amazing guy by the way very nice guy and I ask him I say him how how do you do to be because you scare the hell out of me how do you do to be so scary like

what is your trick and he tells me it's like George, if you tread things, if you tread someone and you scream at him, I'm gonna kill you. It's not as scary if you're smiling and you say, I'm gonna kill you. Like, and he says also to me that another advice he gave me is like, when you say this, think about you killing him for real, that how you hate him and how you're going to kill him. So the camera will take the emotion out. Don't try physically to do that. That's the mistake I used to do before. I used to physically show that I'm strong and angry and to be mean.

So these are just an example of tricks that I learn sometimes when I met an actor, I always try to learn from everybody that I met in my life. It's a difficult journey because then you have to go to some dark places as a person because you really have to imagine some dark things as fascinating actually.

I think a lot of the actors, they have sometimes problems because of that. Because now I understand why it's like if you work on your bicep, your bicep will grow, right? It's because it's the stress that you put on it that will make it grow, right? Emotions are, I believe, are the same way. If you're used to dig inside of you down deep to make your negative emotion, depressive emotion comes out. If something bad in your life happened, you will fall into those emotions much more rapidly that someone does not that every day, you know what I mean?

Because it's like a muscle memory. Like if you program yourself to react a certain way, you will reach that point very often. So that's why sometimes you see some guys, they, we often blame it on drugs, but I think it's also because of the acting that they're used to be so on the hop top. And sometimes they go to the down deep.

So they, they, they, they, they, they, they, the boat extreme, you know. they go to the down deep. So they both extreme. You gotta be psychologically tough. And that's life. This is a so exciting to see you challenge yourself in that direction. That's one thing that I'm a little bit afraid that happened to me. I really hope I'll always be,

I've been a problem to control my emotion, be too much extreme. I hope it does not happen to me. And if I feel that I'm going towards that, I'm gonna, you know, give up on my new objective and find something else to achieve. But in your personal life, you won't be real with your emotions. You don't want to, you know, just like with biceps. You don't want biceps, they're too big. You are real, but you are extreme.

Real, and that's the, that's what I think something that could happen to actors. I'm not, when they go too much into their emotion, like we talk about like something guys that, that, that, that commit suicide, perhaps, you know, I don't know, it's because I don't know their real life, but it could be something that they get so much into their character. I didn't understand it at first

because I'd never had acting class, but after a while that you have acting class now, you start to realize that, yeah, actually you understand why some actor get caught up in their emotion because that can have an influence on their life, right? You're on a fascinating journey. George, I can't tell you how much it means to me that you'll be so nice to me that you'll give me so much respect.

Just that that tells everything I need to know about you as a human being. With everything you've accomplished, you waste all your time and you're so nice to me, just as a fellow human being. Man, I've so much respect. I'm so honored. And the energy you give me by just seeing me showing up here,

I'll care that forward for a long time to come, George. I love it. Thank you so much for talking to me. Now, thank you, Lex, for having me on the show. I've been looking to talk to you for a long time. For me, talking to a guy like you, it's a great learning experience because I always learn. And life is fascinating to me.

And all the experiences that we have in life, it's something that can make us grow. And this experience for me just, make me grow as well, you know. Plus, we look pretty damn sharp today. So, man, it's black, right? Man, it's black. Thanks, George.

Nice. Thanks for listening to this conversation with George St. Pierre. And thank you to all Form, ExpressVPN, Blinkist, TheraGun, and the information. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. And now, let me leave you with some words for Miyamoto Musashi. Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

Thank you.