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

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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lex Fridman?

  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, Allform, ExpressVPN, Blinkist, 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, talk 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.

• 0:41Lex Fridman?

  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 timestamps so you can skip,

• 1:25Lex Fridman?

  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 Allform, 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 Malice and Yaron Brook.

• 2:10Lex Fridman?

  But the previous conversation with Michael Malice, I got to hang out with him on that love seat for a few hours after our conversation. You know, there's something about a love seat that forces you to commit to this journey you're on with the other person, like we're going to be in this together. Armchair is like wolf pack of one. And then a couch is like, well, I'm not sure I'm going to commit yet. I'm just here to have some fun and to explore possibilities, relationships. Love seat says, we're in this ride or die. Let's go. So choose wisely which one you want. Anyway, go to allform.com/lex. They're offering 20% off all orders. If you go to allform.com/lex.

• 2:54Lex Fridman?

  This show is sponsored by ExpressVPN. I use it to help keep my data and online interactions private, much more private than when you use incognito mode. I'm looking at you, internet. Incognito is not protecting you. It's funny, there are some tools that just kind of make us feel secure. And there's some tools that actually increase our security and privacy. I think a good tool should do both. And I think a big part of that, which not many tech companies are doing is transparency. I believe that using people's data isn't the fundamental violation of privacy. I think a lack of clear transparency about the use of data is the violation.

• 3:34Lex Fridman?

  Therefore, I think the first step in fixing privacy on the internet is being transparent about it. I can talk about that for hours. This is just an ad read for ExpressVPN, so I'll just shut up. Anyway, go to expressvpn.com/lexpod to get an extra three months free. That's expressvpn.com/lexpod. One of my favorite tools. Get it. Hopefully you'll enjoy it too. This episode is supported by Blinkist, my favorite app for learning new things. Blinkist takes the key ideas from thousands of nonfiction books and condenses them down into just 15 minutes that you can read or listen to. I think reading stuff on screen or on paper is essential to do every single day.

• 4:17Lex Fridman?

  And Daniel Kahneman has the idea of thinking fast and thinking slow. I think there should be a concept of reading fast and reading slow. I think Blinkist is really great for reading fast. So giving you a shallow understanding of the landscape of knowledge out there. I think it's really important to do because there's not enough time to do. That kind of deep reading on everything. And at the same time, you also should be doing slow reading, which is just going very carefully, very slowly through particular books or blogs or even tweets, to be honest. Giving ideas a chance to breathe in your mind and develop thoughts onto those ideas and let them sort of flourish, kind of date or have a relationship with a book for many months.

• 5:02Lex Fridman?

  Anyway, go to blinkist.com/lex to start your free seven day trial and get 25% off a Blinkist Premium membership. That's blinkist.com/lex. This show is also sponsored by Theragun, a handheld percussive therapy device that I use after workouts for muscle recovery. Mentioning Theragun and every time I see it in my room reminds me of the previous summer where I had to do the insane amount of pushups and pullups and really ask myself some difficult questions about what I am and I'm not willing to do in the physical domain, but also in the mental domain. I actually think physical exercise is the easiest way to allow you to explore your own limits.

• 5:45Lex Fridman?

  I think sometimes it's almost more dangerous to explore the limits of your mind in the intellectual domain, in the thinking domain. Nietzsche talks about this with the gazing into the abyss. Anyway, when you bring up Nietzsche in an ad read, you know you've gone too far. Theragun, friends, is surprisingly quiet, easy to use, comes with a great app that guides you through everything you need to know. You can try for 30 days the Theragun Gen 4 with the OLED display. It starts at $199. Go to theragun.com/lex. That's theragun.com/lex. Oh, and by the way, I bought a podcast with David Goggins.

• 6:29Lex Fridman?

  For people who haven't been paying attention, I got injured. So we delayed the crazy challenge we're going to do together and the awesome podcast we're going to do together. I'm sure we're going to do that maybe in May, in June, that kind of thing. Maybe I'm coming up with excuses to delay it a little bit, but trust me, it's going to happen. This show is also sponsored by The Information. They do in-depth, data-driven investigative journalism in the world of technology. They are actually the first people that made me realize that good journalism costs money. A few years ago, when I signed up, I was actually broke, but it was worth it. It's funny, maybe actually, part of it is when you pay for stuff, you really take it seriously. But at the same time, you have to pay for that kind of long-term

• 7:14Lex Fridman?

  deep dives that journalists have to do. I don't always agree with what they write in there, but I always learn a lot. That's what journalism is supposed to do. Anyway, get 75% off your first month if you sign up at theinformation.com/lex. That's theinformation.com/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 Fridman Podcast, and here is my conversation with my longtime martial arts hero, and now my friend, Mr. Georges St-Pierre.

• 8:09Lex Fridman?

  In your fighting career, were you more motivated by the love of winning, or the fear and hatred of losing?

• 8:17Speaker 01

  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.

• 8:30Lex Fridman?

  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 to have your hand raised?

• 8:46Speaker 01

  There is that. There is also the fact that martial arts have 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. Also, it provides me of freedom, of access, of things that most of people do not have. But all that has 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.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  And of course, I had a lot of chances. The stars were all aligned. And in order to keep that, those advantages of freedom, money and glory and access of things that most people don't have and have these dream life that I have. I had to sacrifice myself and fight in order to keep it.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  It's very hard to understand because I also believe most fighters are not like me. They, 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 a 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

• 10:37Speaker 01

  winning the fight. It's to me unbearable and 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.

• 10:48Lex Fridman?

  But the thing you get from it is the freedom that you get because, uh, because of the money, but because of the celebrity, because of everything that comes with it. So 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?

• 11:19Speaker 01

  To explain that and so people can relate to it, because not everybody's a fighter.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  I think the best example I can give is, let's say you're, you haven't eat for a long time and you're craving, right? So you're suffering.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  And then when it's time to eat, finally, you're about to eat your favorite dish. It's gonna 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, bigger is the reward. And I feel that's that's how it is for me.

• 12:03Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, 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 it's kind of incredible. And it's not it's not incredible in this simple way of finally I get to eat. It's you get to truly experience the the beauty of of what it is to be alive. Like that little piece of food, you see all the flavors, you you 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 pigging out and you don't get to experience that.

• 12:48Lex Fridman?

  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.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  I agree, and in my case, it changed my life on a good, good way. I cannot recommend it to people because everybody is different. But after my to to fight Michael Bisping, my last fight, was against the champion in the heavier weight class that I used to compete at. So I thought that if I would gain weight, it would increase my performance. And I struggled a lot to gain weight. I gained about eight to ten, ten pounds. Normally I walk around one eighty five pounds. And for that fight, I was walking around one ninety five. However, I forced myself to eat like six times a day.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  I was on a very strict diet. And I didn't feel it didn't feel right to me because I feel like I 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

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Did the weighed, the weigh in and I I go went on a scale at one eighty five. I couldn't go back to my initial weight that was one eighty, one ninety five that I worked so hard for several months to get there. So I was one ninety pound, but I couldn't get back. And the morning of the fight, I I I I got I got sick. I had like, uh, we didn't know what 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 um. Something that make that that empty you and I was trying to gain weight, not to lose weight.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  So I I told myself, I I I'm gonna wait after the fight, whatever it is. Because it was pretty bad, it was blood and I I didn't know what I was, I was very concerned 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 a checkup. So I did the fight, everything went well, I won the fight, I went back home, I did a colonoscopy and I I got diagnosed with ulcer colitis. Then I got on very severe medication uh to get better and I'm not a big fan of medication. I always trying to look for more natural way to to to get better. And I found out about fasting and um it really changed my life.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  I met Doctor Jason Fong, was one of the, one of my, one of the world authority of on of fasting. He treat diabetes patient with fasting and he gave me a program of fasting. And um it really changed my life and right away, what I did is I went in a in a CAT scan to see the difference because it was right after my fight with Michael Bisping and I I did the CAT scan. So I had my uh muscle mass, bone density, uh fat percentage, water retention. It's pretty amazing, it can show you which harm has more muscle than than the other, it's very precise. And I did it like uh two two month after.

• 16:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  So I I start doing um time restricted eating, uh sixteen eight, but right the right away. When I started, I did three days water fast and the Doctor Jason Fong, he said because I like to train during those days. I I consume I consume Himalayan salt to make sure uh because when you sweat there's a lot of minerals to to make sure you don't depleted your mineral. And um when I went, when I compared the two 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 it increased a little bit. Even though my weight on the scale was lighter.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  I I kept the same muscle mass even increases a little bit. My bone density increases a little bit. My water retention is the biggest thing that decrease. So the my inflammation and my fat percentage. So basically, the by looking at the data, I found out that by eating so much, trying to gain weight for to fight Michael Bisping, I only increases my water retention, which is not good. Because it's like dead weight and inflammation on you.

• 17:30Lex Fridman?

  So what uh was the actual process of fasting? You said sixteen eight. Time restricted, so intermittent fasting, but you also mentioned the three hour, the three day water fast. What did that feel like? And you also said training during the three day?

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:48Lex Fridman?

  How did that feel? Or can you give me some details of?

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 17:50Lex Fridman?

  This is fascinating.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  So I do three days water fast uh four time a year.

• 17:57Lex Fridman?

  Nice.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Uh for me, I do it, everybody is different, but for me, I do it after New Years. Because during the the holidays, that's when I I I eat bad foods and I drink. I see it more like a like a cleansing, you know, like a like like a detox, so to speak.

• 18:13Lex Fridman?

  Mental too, like psychological.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Yes, I do it after the New Years, right before the summer. Cut for the beach if I have to.

• 18:21Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  After the summer, because in the summer I've been partying a little bit sometime, let let myself go and right before the the holidays.

• 18:30Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  And um I've tried, the doc, Dr. Fang, he says to me, he said, George, everybody is different. Because I'm a I'm a very active person and everybody has a different genetics. So so for me, I 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 I train regular on the on my regular schedule. However, on the on the third day. I modify a little bit. I I do something more uh more easy. And that's how I do it. And and I've tried before because I when I say three days is my sweet spot. I've tried to go up to five days.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  But the problem is after my third days, I I've found out that I had a big problem sleeping. I I get into a hyperactive mode.

• 19:21Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  They call that the unthorgheder uh uh mode, you know, like you you you you you your brain. I mean, it's amazing. Your creativity is at its peak. But you cannot sleep very well. And sleeping, I for me, I think it's very important. So that's why I do three days. For me, it's my sweet spot.

• 19:38Lex Fridman?

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

• 20:13Speaker 01

  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.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  I think we live in a society that were bombarded by publicity. Oh, buy this, eat protein, uh but this, that, and

• 20:37Speaker 01

  fasting, nobody makes money with it because there's nothing to sell, you know? I think that's why it a lot of people have not heard about it. And even my for myself, if someone would have talked to me about fast, the benefits of fasting.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  When I was training before I got sick, I would probably have ignored ignored him. Because I'm not, you know, it was, it's hard to believe.

• 21:04Lex Fridman?

  Sounds ridiculous. Don't eat.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:07Lex Fridman?

  It's gonna help your mind and you're going to gain muscle potentially.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  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 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 people that got that condition get better in a natural way through fasting, eating fermented food, collagen.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  And like bone broth and stuff all they got. And it made a huge difference in my life. I just wish I would have known that before.

• 22:02Lex Fridman?

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

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Is Rogan has influenced you, huh?

• 22:24Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  He's on the carnivore diet.

• 22:25Lex Fridman?

  I was influenced actually by people. Yeah, well, he, there's, I'll tell you where, because I was doing it before he was doing it. Uh, is there's, it was popular in the endurance athlete community where it was fat adapted athletes. It's people who insane people who run fifty miles, hundred miles. They figured out that they could fuel their body by with fat. They can go to fat as a source of energy as opposed to carbs. So I remember.

• 22:56Lex Fridman?

  Hoping that I'll be able to learn how to run 50 miles and so on. I've never done more than 22, but it I 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 every everybody's body is different, but I think carbs make me lazy. Maybe it's because

• 23:26Speaker 01

  The crash.

• 23:26Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's the crash, but also just psychologically something. It it forces me to also think about food too much. Like it starts becoming, you know, our 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 those kinds of things and still being able to fuel your body.

• 24:11Lex Fridman?

  I don't know. It's been fascinating to to figure out like later in life that carbs aren't necessary to function well. It's it makes me think like we don't know anything about nutrition.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  That's right. Yes, you know, personally, I don't think I could have a diet without carbs. I love chocolate too much. I it 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 eight and do my three day fast.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Four time a year and but the rest of the thing I I I I let myself loose because I I don't think I would be happy if I if I if I if I don't give myself the the the right to to eat. For me personally, I love to eat so much next. And you talk about diet, carnivore diet is very interesting because I

• 25:24Speaker 01

  A few years ago, I went to Africa in Masai Mara. And it's a tribe in in 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 ninety nine percent carnivore. They they that's crazy. And you should see they're very beautiful people shredded.

• 25:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 25:50Speaker 01

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

• 26:14Lex Fridman?

  Well, you're gonna 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's he can't ever stay on carnivore. It was funny because we went to an Italian restaurant together and I still only eat meat. Like, I love I love the constraints of discipline. That's that's partially why I like carnivore. I like saying no to food that is delicious.

• 26:48Lex Fridman?

  But a 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?

• 26:59Speaker 01

  No, it's when it when I have an opportunity, I do it. I don't have any. I'm an extremist person, Lex. I I that's the thing. I when I when I have a chance, I I like I I.

• 27:11Lex Fridman?

  Just eat.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  I go too much. And and that's what I like about my life. You know, that's what I like about fasting. Because probably if if I would not have discovered fasting, eating chocolate would give me cramps and and all sorts of problems.

• 27:24Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  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 I'm medication, mi- mi- medicine, medication free. I can eat whatever I want, whatever I want. But I have to do that, that fasting, you know? And now it becomes to a, it became to a point that it's no longer hard for me. It's, it's like normal. I, I don't even force myself.

• 27:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  I don't, it's easy, you know what I mean? Some of my friends thinks I'm, think I'm, I'm insane, you know? But I, I tell them, it's like with, when you get used to it, it becomes like an habit and, and I'm, and I know that Antargata, 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, they feed themselves as much as they can until that, because the next time, because they didn't know when, when they, they, they could eat again, right? So it's a, I think that's how we're, we're, we're built, you know, to, to, to have this similar lifestyle.

• 28:30Lex Fridman?

  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, 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, is, do you go through a similar process of finding the confidence?

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Well, it, yes, and I use, I use a James Lange theory. They, they, they, so what I do is because I'm, I'm, I'm not afraid to admit that I'm afraid.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  And in the beginning of my, of my career, I really thought, I asked myself, because I was very good in mixed martial arts, but I, I, I really thought I wasn't made for this because the idea of fighting didn't,

• 29:40Speaker 01

  was, was, didn't make me happy. It's something like I, I was, 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 to give you an example. In my last fight with Michael Bisping, because it's fresh, it's the one that is the most recent.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  And, but it's always the same thing. My last fight in my, Bisping, I get in the locker room. I had like three guys that I trained with, Miki Gall, Eman Zahabi and Joseph Duffy. They all lost. It was like, like my, my locker room was basically cursed. That my, you know what the, 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 know, you, you, you shake and yeah, good job. Now it's my, you know, it's kind of a team, brotherhood sort of thing. So the, the, the, the atmosphere in my locker room was pretty bad. It was like I'm going to a, you know, like a funeral.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  So I was very scared and every, before every fight, I, I, I asked myself, I, I asked myself always, shit, what the hell I'm doing here? Why did I choose to come back? Oh my God, and, and I'm freaking out.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  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, my, the confidence of my coaches is affected, it will reflect, reflect on me. So I need to feel strong. I need to make them believe that.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  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 felt, 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 rehearse, rehearsing scenarios that might happen in the fight.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  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 me. But everybody knows, you know?

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Fair ass, John and I her, they, they know Freddie Roach. They've been with me for a long time, so they know what's going on. But at least I'm lying to them. I'm like, I'm feeling great. So, 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, I get, I get, I start to warm up and everything. And as you start to warm up, you become a different person. Because, you know, cer- we know that certain posture and yoga can affect your mental state. But it's, I would say it's a little bit the same thing in, in fighting, you know? Like when you start hitting the pads, your, your muscle memory, your instincts comes back

• 33:15Speaker 01

  and, and you, you remember that you're good at this, you know? And, and your confidence start to grow. And as seeing your trainers holding the pad and, and repeating your moves, it makes you also remember all the sacrifice you have done through your, your training camp. And confidence come from how you prepared yourself. And even you're afraid, you can 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 gi, but now I didn't have this for my last fight because of

• 33:58Speaker 01

  the new rebug 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 trying to believe it as I am. I'm finding all the reason why I'm gonna win the fight. And all my trainer knows that before every fight, when the guy from the UFC goes and step in my room and say, "Sampier, you're 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 why I'm gonna win. 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 than him, I got a

• 34:43Speaker 01

  strategy on point that he's never gonna be able to keep up with and this and that." And I was telling myself, "I'm gonna show these young kids how things should be done." You know, trying to boost myself, yeah. Try to boost yourself and you start to believing it, you become a different person. So when you walk out the bathroom, now 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 there to the fight, until the fight is over, I call it cruise control. Because you don't have time to think in a fight. If you're trying to think, you're missing the opportunity.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  So that's how I see it for myself.

• 35:29Lex Fridman?

  So at that point, you stop thinking and you just go cruise control, autopilot?

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Trust yourself, you know? Trust yourself because you repeated all the scenarios, you know? So everything that you have done, it's inside 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 gonna do this if you do this." No, no. If you have not practiced it before, you're screwed. It's the preparation, the repetition that makes it happen, you know?

• 36:02Lex Fridman?

  What about like the really difficult moments in a fight where you...

• 36:08Lex Fridman?

  Are tested to your limits essentially. Usually it's cardio related exhaustion, right? Where you have to ask yourself that same question. It's like, why the hell am I doing this?

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:19Lex Fridman?

  Do you, do you, do you experience those? Or are you able to ride through the autopilot? And if you do, like, what do you do in those moments?

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Never in a fight. When I'm in a fight, when it's the, when the fight is, is on, I never change my mind. I go until the end. However, for example, my first fight with BJ Penn, I had a terrible first round. So I had to switch gear. That happened sometime, but it's part of my plan. I always have a plan B, plan, plan A, plan B, plan C. You need to have that. If fighters goes into a fight thinking, oh, what I'm, I'm gonna do this, this, 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 whole strategy.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  You know, for, for BJ Penn, my first fight with BJ Penn was, oh, I'm gonna keep it standing up, keep the fight from the outside, you know, because I'm faster than him. Then the fight would be Japan start. I found out that I was not faster than him. And I found out that his reaction time was better than, than, than, than mine. So I got beat up the first round and I got a bloody nose and everything. So my plan B was now I'm gonna wrestle him. You know, I'm gonna wrestle him and, and, you know, make, make him tired and trying to put him down. And that's how I beat him because I switched gear, you know? But if you can't do that, if you cannot find a way to become the perfect nemesis to your

• 37:50Speaker 01

  opponent, you, you, you might win a few fights, but you, you were gonna find, you're gonna fight someone sooner or later that will, that will give you a lot of, a lot of trouble.

• 38:03Lex Fridman?

  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, like John Donahue, 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, entire system of plan A. I don't think I've heard him, we've had, we had a, a, a good discussion about it in.

• 38:33Lex Fridman?

  Over some cheeseburgers. And he's, he was kind of espousing the value of 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 a physical dominance, it's a psychological dominance. It's very interesting. But I wonder if he has plan B and plan C in his mind, too.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  You know, in mixed martial arts, sometime, it's like in science, you can make a mistake, you know, like every human can make a mistakes, you know? There's certain sport or certain situation that you, if there's a mistake made, you're, you're, that's it, exactly. Sometime it's the case in MMA, but sometime you're able to redeem yourself. And if you look the fight with BJ Penn, one that I had, which was probably one of the most competitive fight, and it was probably, 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.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  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 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 in Montreal, he was measuring frames. He's not a scientist, he's a friend of Ferris and I. And what he does, he, he watched fight and he measured frames. The way he does it is when you watch a fight and one of the guy throw a punch, he, he cut the picture by frame, the video by frame.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  So he's able to see.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Which fighter has better reaction time than others? And B.J. Pen, he found out that B.J. Pen of all the UFC roster at the time when he was in his prime, he had probably the best reaction time of all. According to him, Yoto Masidou was the second one. But B.J. Pen 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 B.J. Pen, I tried to go first and he was always able to, like, I never, was never able to, to touch him with my jab and he came back with a counter punch.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  However, because of what he told me, I knew that B.J. Pen 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. B.J. Pen was so fast, but he's like more like a sprinter. So what I did the second fight, I, when I fought B.J. Pen, I made him flinch. Like I fake a lot, so I make him react and flinch. So all that, that reaction time that he used to flinch was not used properly to avoid my punches. So he, I burn, I, I load up his, his nervous system with a lot of information and fi, and fake and to make him flinch and pretending I was kicking and wrestling.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  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, the audience will not see these 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, like the mental game, what you, 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, I go up

• 42:44Speaker 01

  or I am pretending I'm, I want to attack you, so I'm, I'm make you flinch. But in reality, I'm just doing this because I want to rest, I want to recuperate and I'm tired.

• 42:55Lex Fridman?

  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, it's just the money. It's just how much you bet and so on. So that would be more like, uh, the analogy there with, 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, you think there's, do you think you're communicating with your opponent when you look at them?

• 43:28Speaker 01

  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 through looking through the eyes of my opponent when he's afraid and when he gives up on me.

• 43:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  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 make it, to try to sacrifice myself trying to finish him. Perhaps if I do that, I will open up for him to, to, to capitalize on my mistake. It's up to him to make a risk. So people sometimes they, they don't understand that this is the art of fighting, my friend, you know? Like if I'm winning the fight, like in hockey, in ice hockey, if you're winning the game

• 44:25Speaker 01

  and it's the third period, it's at the end of the third period, you're not gonna take out your goaltender trying to score another goal because winning, uh, uh, five to three or five to four is the same thing. Same thing in MMA, we make a living out of this. And sometimes it's, you know, as sad, as bad as it can be, you wanna save yourself for another day, you know? You wanna minimize the damage. But if he knows he's losing the fight, it's up to him to take the risk. It's not up to me. So I'm a, I'm a good counter fighter. I use a lot of my attack or counter strike or reactive takedown or proactive takedown. That's my speciality. So I'm not gonna, I, I'd have no desire to sacrifice myself trying to, to, to, trying

• 45:10Speaker 01

  to finish my opponent if he want to, if, if, if perhaps I might give him the opportunity to capitalize on me. It's, it's not, 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 now. He's very desperate. That doesn't mean I have to put my guard down because he's gonna be desperate. But I know I'm beating you. And I know I'm beating you. I'm just gonna do what I need, you know? If I have a chance, of course, I'll knock him out, but I'm not gonna try to sacrifice myself to knock you out. And if you do that, maybe one day you'll make a mistake and you'll get dropped and you'll tell yourself, I shoot.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  I just got brain damaged. Maybe I'm never gonna come back the same. Maybe, you know, I ruined my career or, you know? It's a very serious game that we're playing. It's very dangerous.

• 46:03Lex Fridman?

  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? 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, when like two lions fight or two whatever fight. There's a certain beta move when you've been defeated.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Yes, or one thing, when I know that, that when it happened, one of the sign is when I just like make a feint and the guy flinched like crazy, that's mean he's really scared of me. It's a little bit like you're doing this, that guy flinched a little bit, or you're doing this, he's flinching. Like, that's mean you hurt him and he doesn't wanna get hurt again. So he's really trying to run away and not winning the fight anymore, but not losing. So sort of surviving the five rounds. And it's hard to finish a guy who doesn't wanna fight. A guy who's not fighting anymore to win and is 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.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  I don't care who they are, Jon Jones or, like, you could clearly see that in the beginning of their reign, they could, you know, finish a lot of their opponent, the same as me in the beginning, I was finishing a lot of my opponent. But there's a time that the entire UFC roster is studying you. And they found 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.

• 48:02Lex Fridman?

  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 to you does it mean to be a martial artist?

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Martial artist is because that lifestyle 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 that to see that

• 49:01Speaker 01

  a lot of people, because I'm still 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 gonna make a comeback and everything. I'm about to have forty years old, you know, like it's, I'm, you know, like,

• 49:22Speaker 01

  I don't wanna fight in a cage at forty years old. I mean, some people have done it. They did it very well, but I'm not one of them. I feel a little bit to me that, and you never say never. I feel like to me like it's a little, like a kid that he play with a train when he's young, like, then he's five years old, six years old, seven years old, eight years old, and then I'm like, What the hell I'm doing here and I'm too old for this like like I said I I I've done it you know and and and and I got out of it on top and and I'm I'm healthy which is the most important thing right now I'm touching wood and I'm I'm wealthy

• 50:02Speaker 01

  I beat the game you know what I mean in a way like I I that's not to be cocky but I did it and and I wish more more fighters could do the same thing I wish but I it's unfortunate because a lot of them they stay there and hang out for too long and and they get badly hurt they get

• 50:21Speaker 01

  beaten and and and broken you know and they finish broke as well because the lifestyle you have when you're a pro athlete it's crazy you know it's it's it's unbelievable however everything that goes up and life goes down and you need to plan your future you know so for for me what 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 the 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 go cash out and get out of here

• 50:59Lex Fridman?

  Walk away, that's really hard to do.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  However Lex 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 you know 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 you like 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 know like you don't need the money get out of here man if you're in your you're in your prime get out of here because if you don't you you you'll hurt your own legacy you you'll damage your your health it's it's very sad and and it's a it's a sad business you know what I mean I I it's like a lot of

• 51:46Speaker 01

  One of the place where is the most, one of the most happiest place for me to go and the most saddest place for me to go is in the gym. It's in Tristana Montreal. Because it's one of the happiest place 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 kid that comes or guys that are around thirty, thirty-three years old and they comes to me and say, hey George, you have some advice for me? And I look at them.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  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 time 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 then I answer their question, it's my pleasure. But the truth, if they, they want me to tell the truth, the big majority of them. I would tell them, I said, listen, man, you're in a maybe three, like on a, on a losing street of three fight. You're thirty, thirty-three 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.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  And I'm, 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, 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, the stars were all aligning, but at one point you need to be able to, to have a plan B, you know? Like, like some parent, they come to see me with their kids. Hey, this is the future world champion in the, in the 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 say, I go to the kid, say, are you good at school? Say stay at school, school is very important for you, stay educated.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, do boxing, martial arts, a great sport, stay in shape. But don't put your eggs all in the same basket. And the parents sometimes are angry when I, not angry, but I can see in their eyes, they're like, they, 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, I, I've studied. I, I dropped off school when I had my first world championship fight against Matt Hughes. But before that, I was school. So I had another, you know, a, a, a, another way to go if things would not have gone the same, the, the, the way I wanted.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  But the problem, and, and I'm saying that it's not only about boxing and MMA, I'm talking about hockey, basketball, baseball, same, same thing. Maybe it's 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, they 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 fighter, even a UFC champion, in boxing champion, even in football, basketball, I don't, I don't, I don't care, the big names. When they retire, they have zero, they're bankrupt, my friend. And it's a very sad, sad story and a sad reality that most people are not aware of.

• 55:09Lex Fridman?

  But having other paths in life actually can also increase the chance of you dominating and like reaching the highest peak uh in your main thing. I mean Jimmy Page, I don't know if you know who that is, is a judo coach in, uh, in, in America. He was, uh, he says that to all of his athletes is to make sure that you go, he has a lot of, you know, Kayla Harrison, two-time Olympic gold medalists. He has a lot of Olympic medalists. But basically there's something about going to school, like having an, forget school, any other avenue in life that gives you the freedom to go all out in your main. Like that you, 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.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:55Lex Fridman?

  As opposed to kind of you have to. I mean, uh, different people are motivated by different things. So sometimes some people like. Having their back to the wall and that's the only option they have. But most people I think excel when you have other options.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  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 Danaher. He put his academic background experience into Jiu Jitsu. And that, for me, that's why he's the best teacher I ever had. He's incredible. He start teaching me when I even couldn't speak much English at the time. And I was able to communicate and understand, you know, that's how good he is. But I truly believe that most of athletes, especially in sport like mixed martial art, train way too much. If I could go back and talk to a young George, I would tell him, say, you do way too much volume.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  You train way too hard, train smarter, it's more important. And I think sometime we underestimate the benefit of recuperation. Because you, I think we assimilate the information that we learn during a training when we recuperate and not during the training itself. And this whole mentality of harder, heavier, you know, like it's, it's good for someone who's lazy. But if you're an elite athlete, 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 sometime they're elite athletes, champions.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  And you hear people say, oh, I can't believe he's very 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, he made me think about it. His name is Mansur Barnawi. He's gonna be a future star, he's an incredible fighter. He train once a day.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  And he asked me sometime advice when he came to Montreal, he's from France. You'll hear about him, he's very good.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  And I saw him in the morning at TriStar and I said, okay, I'll see you perhaps later in the other training. He's on, no, I only train once a day.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  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, it was kind of a strange feeling, but I told myself, at that point, I kind of, I had an awakening and I, and I told myself,

• 58:44Speaker 01

  man, maybe he's doing the right thing. Because a lot, 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 training once a day is the, the best way to do it. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying that everybody is different, but for him, it works beautifully. And I wouldn't change anything, you know, like if I would be him because he is, is improving like crazy.

• 59:13Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. And ultimately the bigger picture there is to do something that everyone else is, uh, says is stupid. It's like the fasting thing that, 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 more, 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.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  I, I, I used to eat right before training and I, it didn't bother me.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  However, now I, my first training that I do normally in average around noon, 11 a.m. I'm, uh, I'm, I'm, I haven't eaten anything when I do my first training and it feels to me that I'm much, I'm much more clear, 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.

• 1:00:19Lex Fridman?

  Well, it's fascinating, the role of the mind in all of this. How important is it for your mind to be clear, to, to really think deeply? I, there's a...

• 1:00:30Lex Fridman?

  There's a judoka, 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 had to think. It's fascinating framing of a successful practice.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  It's true. Travis Stevens was one of my main training partner when I got ready for my fight with Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit. He drove every Friday from, I believe, Boston. It's like a six-hour drive. Drive to the gym in Montreal, train with us an hour and a half, drive back. He's got such an amazing discipline. I was so happy for him when he won the medal at the Olympic game. Man, what a well-deserved, you know, accomplishment.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  It's unbelievable. It paid off, you know? I was so happy for him. And every time we got to the gym, he was waiting for me in the kneeling position like a soldier. I was like, my God, this guy, he's made of steel, you know? And after training, I always offer him, I say, hey, Travis, I know you like to train with him, because in Montreal, they have a very good judo team. Nicolas Gil and all those guys. And I say, if you wanna stay, I'll get you the hotel, you know, like everything you want. It's like, no, no, I gotta go back. I have another training later. I'm like, not only that he trained with us, he had to go back because he had another training. I'm like, this is insane.

• 1:02:35Lex Fridman?

  And he's gone through 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, like, fight with the best in the world, you're, you have to be alone. It's a lonely journey, actually. It's kinda sad. It's much easier to be in Japan where everybody's a killer. When you're alone at it, it's a, it's a difficult journey. And, you know, it's, it's funny, we talked about, kinda, there's some sports where a mistake is, um, that's it. You know, you can't recover from a mistake. I think judo oftentimes is one of those sports.

• 1:03:17Lex Fridman?

  And added on top of that is, um, the Olympics, only every four years. And Travis's story, he's the reason I, when I saw him in 2008, is I started martial arts. I switched from like wrestling and street fighting to doing jiu-jitsu and judo. And I just saw so much guts and the, 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.

• 1:03:59Lex Fridman?

  And then to still persevere through all the 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, uh, 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.

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  In, in, in a lot of sport, when you're in elite,

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  Like for example, in Canada, ice hockey is the number one sport in the countries. Kids, when they're in 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, 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 etiquette, that superstar stardom, so to speak, and it's already sort of glamorous, you know?

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  However, in MMA, there is 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 glamour into it.

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  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 elite and very good, the glamour and the money won't come in the beginning. It's a very long grind before, you know, it starts to come in. And you need to make those sacrifices. And it's a, it's a journey that where you will be tested, you will be hurt repeatedly. And you're gonna have to, to reach the down deep and come back up.

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  And then once you finally think you made it, you're gonna go back in the down deep again. It's a very exhausting and discouraging adventure sometimes. But if you hold on to your dream and you believe in it, you know, and you have the, the stars are aligned, you're gonna make it. That's why it's only a few people that that make it, you know? And and that's why I feel I feel sometimes that that the new a lot of people in the new generation do it for the wrong reason. In my in my generation, because of sport, at first it was there were no rules. I felt it was more pure. The people that did it was really because of the passion. They didn't we didn't seek money, fame. We did it because we wanted to be.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  I did it because I wanted to be the man, you know? I I like to have the confidence that when I walk somewhere, I'm, you know, I have the confidence that, you know, it's an illusion because nobody is faster than a bullet.

• 1:07:04Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  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 the the world has changed. The glamour, the, you know, it's I feel it's a different thing right now.

• 1:07:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, the if you get in it for the glamour or the money, you may not have the right the right amount of fuel to persevere through all the ups and downs.

• 1:07:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:31Lex Fridman?

  You know, when you talk about motivation of money and glamour, the a guy comes to mind, and I don't know how many wrestlers you know, but in Russia, there's a guy named Bovasie Satiev. The Satiev 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 a deep thinker. He's the kind of martial artist that you are in the way that it's not just about the the different battles you've been through or whatever. It's about the philosophy behind the way he approaches life.

• 1:08:15Lex Fridman?

  And he he has spoken quite a bit about that the glamour, the fame, 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 his case, it's wrestling. And then kind of not to worry and actively make sure that you block out anybody who.

• 1:08:45Lex Fridman?

  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, let 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, Khabib. 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 Khabib has, it looks like incredibly so. So I mean, maybe you can comment about what your thoughts are about Khabib Nurmagomedov being able to just walk away.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  You know, we talk about the goat very often. Khabib is, you know, one of, isn't the argument because he has the most dominant career of all martial art, the guy. You know, some guys can be named the goat for different reasons, but Khabib for that reason, and he's undefeated. He, I don't even know if he lost, he might, he might, he might have 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. He's incredible. And when you talk about the art,

• 1:10:08Speaker 01

  when you say mixed martial art, the idea of a flawed, flawless performance for me,

• 1:10:18Speaker 01

  everybody often when we say flawless performance thinks about a knockout, a brutal knockout. But for me, it's, it's to be able to showcase beautiful technique, like a beautiful take down, beautiful submission, like something beautiful that.

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  You know, when you you look at, for example, Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan or like Stephen Curry,

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  even if you don't know nothing about basketball and you watch Michael Jordan, you'll be like, wow, that's beautiful what he just did. Like, we talk about fighting and and trying to say the the word beautiful in fighting for certain people, it could sound kind of crazy, you know, but but I'm talking about the technique.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  A beautiful technique. You know, for me, that's the goal. You know, when I was fighting, it's not only to to have a brutal knockout, because some people are more gifted than others. And 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 that that you can watch the watch it and be like, wow, that was incredible. The the timing he did it that. And when I talk up, when I think about Khabib Nurmagomedov, I see all the detail that that of his work, especially when he got he's 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.

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  In in terms of that fighting style, that that particular expertise that he has, it's just incredible.

• 1:12:01Lex Fridman?

  The the flawless execution of that particular set of techniques.

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, and and Conor McGregor at the the accuracy.

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  The spider Anderson Silva 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. Dimitrius Johnson was so complete, you could you could bring like he was slamming a guy to an armbar. It was just unbelievable, like like he was like the complete fighter. BJ Penn was like so flexible, he he did stuff with his body that like nobody could do is the dexterity of his hips was just unbelievable. Dominic Cruz, to me, was incredible, his footwork, his distance control.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  So when you talk about like the GOAT, Royce Gracie, another one, he did things that I think for me is not number one because...

• 1:13:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I gotta, I gotta, and sorry to interrupt, Hoiis is a fascinating one. I'd love to hear what you think about him. 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. Hoiis, you somehow skipped Fedor. I'm very, as a Russian, I'm very offended.

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  No, I was, I was going to, there's so many. Fedor is one as well. Fedor, I think in his prime was like, when you say, when you talk about a name, for example, like,

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  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, who fought his last fight against Ureya Hall. I'm talking about the Anderson Silva who knocked out Victor Belfer. Yes. BJ Penn, same thing. The problem is when fighters hang on for too long in the sport, that's what happened. They, they kind of make, make people forget how good they were. And it's very sad. We talk about Fedor and just, just think about Stipe Miocic. Miocic is probably the greatest heavyweight of all time. With Fedor, I would really wonder who would have won this fight, the both guys in their prime.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  I tend to lean towards Fedor because my heart was with Fedor, but he could have gone the other way. But just because Miocic lose his last fight, now everybody is like, oh yeah, they, they forgot about him. It's crazy, man. It's one fight. You zag when you should zag, boom. It's, that's the reality of mixed martial arts.

• 1:14:46Lex Fridman?

  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, what were the battles, what, what had to be overcome? What was the, the flavor of the flawless performances? You know, all of that plays into it. And you're right, being able to walk away at the top is also part of that.

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  A lot of people ask me about Khabib. And that fight, I want it to happen. Khabib wanted to happen, but UFC did not want to happen.

• 1:15:33Lex Fridman?

  Between you and Khabib?

• 1:15:34Speaker 01

  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 it didn't, never came to fruition. The UFC were clear, they said they have other plan for Khabib. And it makes sense for the business standpoint because they want to keep the ball rolling. Now Khabib retired and like everybody else, after just Justin Gaitchey, I was doing the commentator in French for the UFC. And I had butterfly, 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-

• 1:16:18Lex Fridman?

  He's the scariest matchup for you?

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  Yes, but he was worth the risk. Because nobody have ever been able to solve them.

• 1:16:27Lex Fridman?

  How would you solve the Khabib Nurmagomedov puzzle?

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  Well, Khabib is very good against the fence. I would have to establish a game plan and everything, but I think what I would needed to do is take the center of the octagon right away. Use a lot of fake and fake. Keep the fight all the way, all the way out or all the way in. And when I say all the way in is when you close the gap, use my proactive and reactive take down and perhaps my superior explosivity to put him down. I like to use those proactive and reactive techniques. Because for me, I feel it's more economical. Khabib is a much better chain wrestler than me. Chain wrestler is when you get the guys to the fence, it's pure wrestling.

• 1:17:13Speaker 01

  What makes my take down very efficient, it's my karate. It's not my wrestling. It's, I'm very good at timing my opponent. And getting in with with my explosivity. So if you watch my takedown, it does not demand often, it does not demand a lot of work when I use the, I call it proactive takedown. When um he's coming to punch me and I react, so I I mean proactive is when when I I'm faking it. So I I I I instigate the takedown by a fake, then I take take him down. And reactive is when he's I'm baiting him to throw something and then you then I'm.

• 1:17:52Lex Fridman?

  It's a counter, yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  Yes, but all my takedowns.

• 1:17:55Lex Fridman?

  In the center of the octagon.

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  Yes, my takedowns are more in the center of the octagon. Like, for example, another guy that does it well is Gleason Tebow, that did it well in his best days, you know. Khabib has more a style of chain wrestling, I would say like Kamaru Usman, so so to speak, kind of kind of guy. It's a different style, you cannot compare both styles. And that's the kind of takedown I'm good and I would if I would have fight Khabib, that's one of the strategies I would have adopt. I would not have been afraid because everybody that I fought, I was able to put them down and and. And I have the pedigree to to prove it in my fight resume. So you would have perhaps seen him on his back and I would have perhaps be on my back as well. So it would have been a very interesting fight and and.

• 1:18:39Lex Fridman?

  How hard do you think he's to take down? I mean, a lot of people speak about his wrestling being just.

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  It has nothing to do with the wrestling because.

• 1:18:47Lex Fridman?

  It has to do with the karate.

• 1:18:48Speaker 01

  If I got the timing and I got my both hand around around his knees, he's going down.

• 1:18:52Lex Fridman?

  Everybody goes down, yeah.

• 1:18:54Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, he's goes down and and and I had a lot of a, that's what I would have adopt. I would not have been afraid of his wrestling. Uh, I would have be the instigator, I would have forced the the fight forward. And that's what I that's how 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 in in the clinch, I would have tried to disengage. I have many ways to disengage a clinch. I would have wanted to force the fight in in the in a in a fighting distance, you know, like in in in a shoot box distance, not in a in a wrestling distance.

• 1:19:37Lex Fridman?

  Is it possible this fight still happens?

• 1:19:41Speaker 01

  I.

• 1:19:42Lex Fridman?

  You're young, look great in a suit.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  Well, there's a lot of problems now. And the thing is, now I made peace with it. I no longer don't wanna fight and I don't, it's not gonna happen. UFC was not interested and I'm bound by contract with the UFC. And by exclusivity, there, there's some people says to me, oh, how about if Russians are crazy, wealthy Russian guy come with the money? I said, I'm gonna be in court with UFC. And, and also, I'm older now and when I go home, man, I'm like, I don't wanna do this, you know?

• 1:20:23Lex Fridman?

  But you were always like this.

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  No, I don't wanna do this, but like, for example, I was training with Freddie Roach a few days ago and I'm hitting pads, you know? 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, in the gym at that precise moment with a, with a UFC contract, I would sign it, sign it in the blink of an eye. But when then after I go home, I'm like, hell no.

• 1:20:51Speaker 01

  My belly is full, my, my, you know, I'm, 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, hey, tell me the truth, you, you preparing a comeback? Cause I still get it, you know? I'm a little bit older, but I, I got more knowledge, I can compensate.

• 1:21:15Speaker 01

  I, I, I become a different animal because it, you know, it changed you. But then after you go home and you, you're like, man, no way I'm doing this.

• 1:21:26Speaker 01

  It's very hard to explain. You need to be a fighter to, to understand that it's very, very hard to explain.

• 1:21:33Lex Fridman?

  Well, from your perspective, I think Khabib is one of the rare, one of the few fascinating scientific puzzles yet to be solved. So from that aspect, as a martial artist, it's just a fascinating journey to try to solve that puzzle.

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  There, there is a thing too, that we say, oh, who's the best fighter? People. Lex, they don't, like, I understand, I realized that later in my life. And I'm sure a lot of young guy will say, oh, I say, if you're not, 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 more, the badass man on the planet. You know, like, nobody can beat you at, it's an illusion, man.

• 1:22:17Lex Fridman?

  That's the sad thing about, for example, DC, Daniel Cormier, that's probably one of the greatest, if not the greatest of all time, you said Miotz, but like, it's almost because of that little matchup with Jon Jones, it's, it's difficult for people to conceive of him as the greatest of all time.

• 1:22:35Speaker 01

  It's all about matchup, it's all about timing, and also you make a fight, you make, you make both guys fight 10 times. Their result might be different, like, like every time, you know, it might, I mean, maybe he's gonna win eight out of 10, but that night, he's gonna, he's gonna lose. Why? Because we don't know, the, the universe made it like that, you know? Maybe he got sick, maybe he had the emotional issues, he didn't sleep well, and he, he makes him lose focus, and he got caught. You don't, we don't know, but it's, it's, that's the thing with, people ask me, would you have done it with Khabib? What 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.

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  He thinks the opposite, there's only one way to find out, but that night, if there is a fight, the guy that gonna win doesn't mean he's the best fighter, that's mean, that, that he's 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. It's the team that play 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.

• 1:23:51Lex Fridman?

  I mean, that's the tragic thing about it is on any one night, anything can happen. And that that tells a story for all of human history is it's it's sad. It's sad to think about, but that's what makes it beautiful that there's so much at stake, like 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. It's, I mean, that's the beauty. That's why people love the Olympics, especially because it happens so rarely and dreams are broken. Or like triumph is achieved by the unlikely hero, all like right there. I mean, that's, that's why we love it, right?

• 1:24:36Lex Fridman?

  That's why, that's why we love it.

• 1:24:38Speaker 01

  If we wouldn't know always the result before, it would be boring. That's why we do 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 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 like 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's no free will in a way, you know? If there's a cause by definition, there is not.

• 1:25:23Lex Fridman?

  How's 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 is predetermined, if all of these little molecules interacting, it's all already like your story is already written.

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  I mean, it depends. It's, it's written, but I wouldn't need to know all the data and it's impossible. Right? They like it's, it's. It's kind of weird, I gotta say, but I don't, to me, I don't see any argument to counter that idea. I, I, I, I, I can, I don't, maybe I'm ignorant, but I haven't seen nobody and everything that I've read so far, there is nothing that countered that idea 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, a, a tree, a tree is fall, there's reason why the tree is falling, we don't say

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  the tree decided to fall, right? So, because us human beings, I think it's our ego, we decide, and I'm no different than anybody, when I make a decision, I decided to this, I choose to do this,

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  but I'm aware that there is causes

• 1:26:40Speaker 01

  that make me do certain things, and by definition, I think if there is a cause, there is no free will, by definition, right?

• 1:26:49Lex Fridman?

  Yes, but the thing is, just like you said, we understand so little about human intelligence, the human mind, and especially consciousness, that the, this giant mystery, this darkness, that we don't understand how, how it, how it feels like to be something, to be a 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, that, you know, the, the consciousness might be the thing that makes us different from a car that breaks down. There might be something totally fascinating, totally

• 1:27:35Lex Fridman?

  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 it all seeming to be predetermined, we forget how little we actually understand about the world. And I think, in that mystery, there could be totally new ideas that are yet to be discovered, and will make us realize that it's not just an illusion. It is something that is like at the core of how the universe works. Some people believe that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe.

• 1:28:19Lex Fridman?

  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 we're 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, I, I tend to be sort of humbled by the mystery of it.

• 1:28:50Speaker 01

  Do you believe one day with, with the technology that keep improving, we will make robot that will be able to be somehow conscious?

• 1:29:05Lex Fridman?

  Absolutely. I, that's been my dream. That's 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, is a really powerful thing that connects us and can create better and better worlds. Sort of like, uh, create better and better societies that, uh, 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.

• 1:29:45Lex Fridman?

  Like they can, it's, 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 a, an absolute requirement. That entities we interact with communicate some element of consciousness to us. Like 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. And to me, what consciousness means is the ability to hurt, the ability to, to suffer, to, uh, to struggle in this world. Because just like you said, uh,

• 1:30:29Lex Fridman?

  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, uh, 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.

• 1:31:05Speaker 01

  Does it make you afraid sometimes about the fact that one day HEI, like, intelligence, artificial intelligence could be, you know, could hurt us? Or, you know, like, because we're, you know, because of Hollywood, of course, you know, the movies we watch, but it seems like, when I hear sometimes Elon Musk talking, you know, like.

• 1:31:27Lex Fridman?

  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.

• 1:31:59Speaker 01

  If I look at what humans have done on the course of history, you know, for example, in regards to 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 HEI take that in consideration in order to protect us against ourselves, it could hurt us, you know? I don't know if you understand, like, what do you think about that? Does it makes you afraid sometimes? Not because of HEI, but because of what humans are doing

• 1:32:40Speaker 01

  that HEI could do to us to prevent us of hurting each ourselves, you know?

• 1:32:46Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, no, I mean, definitely, it can bring out the worst in human nature. And.

• 1:32:53Lex Fridman?

  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 we start to see the value, the evolutionary value and the value in terms of happiness of being good to each other. And 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

• 1:33:37Lex Fridman?

  history, where charismatic leaders will do evil onto the world in the name of good. You have the Stalin and the Hitlers and all of that. But ultimately, over time, I think technology will give the good the good people power and the evil people less power. Now, there's a lot of ways in that in that that won't be the case. There's a lot of ways for it to go wrong, and Elon talks about them. 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.

• 1:34:20Lex Fridman?

  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 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 this is Terminator.

• 1:35:04Lex Fridman?

  You think about Terminators and Talents or Systems, they're not, they're pretty dumb. The 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 counterattacks, of how to maximize the destruction of a particular facility instead of individuals. And then that can just escalate.

• 1:35:46Lex Fridman?

  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.

• 1:35:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:58Lex Fridman?

  Because currently, the drones are operated by humans. So, you know, 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.

• 1:36:27Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:36:28Lex Fridman?

  Dropping the bomb. Now, automation and AI and 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 it 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 the scale of a city.

• 1:37:13Lex Fridman?

  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. And so there's all of these possibilities that don't require much intelligence. And That's exceptionally concerning.

• 1:37:43Speaker 01

  I'm like you, 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 and from what I can see is some very often men's of power wants more power.

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  That's what makes me afraid with.

• 1:38:11Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, no, absolutely. I, listen, I've been, 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 by the evils he's done. Hitler gets all the attention, but Stalin has done arguably much more evil than Hitler. Yeah, well, this is, 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.

• 1:38:52Lex Fridman?

  So I think successful organizations, successful companies, successful governments will be run by people who distribute the power. Like, I don't trust myself with power at all.

• 1:39:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:04Lex Fridman?

  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 people, thousands of people, millions of people? And in the same way with military, with any kind of, with technology. I think the future looks very distributed.

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  What do you think about militarizing space?

• 1:39:45Lex Fridman?

  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 it 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 out to the galaxy into the universe. That's really exciting. So the possibilities there are endless. I don't think, because also the resources are endless. And so I think we get into trouble

• 1:40:29Lex Fridman?

  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 we'll be fighting in space are the ones that kind of help us.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  Another nation to compete.

• 1:40:46Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  Who goes to the moon first, I guess?

• 1:40:48Lex Fridman?

  That's those kinds of things, or maybe for satellites and all those kinds of communication, and maybe in assistance for like cyber warfare, which is also very dangerous. But in terms of

• 1:41:01Lex Fridman?

  wars out in space, I think, 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, 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 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,

• 1:41:41Lex Fridman?

  but we might one day come in contact with them. So that, to me, is the ultimate motivator, is to meet other intelligent life forms out there and connect with them.

• 1:41:52Speaker 01

  Have you ever met Jacques Vallée?

• 1:41:55Lex Fridman?

  No, but I've been in communication. I want to, I hope to talk to him. He's amazing.

• 1:41:59Speaker 01

  Friendship. I, um, I know that there's many theories about,

• 1:42:04Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  You know, if there is alien, we don't know, right? But, but some people think it's from another star systems. Jacques Vallée has a, like, to make a long story short, he has a different theory. He thinks it's perhaps beings that

• 1:42:21Speaker 01

  could be living in a different dimension than, 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, I'm the UFO, that you have three guys. One, they, they are looking at the UFO. Very often, one experiment that you can do, and sometime that, that is the case, you ask your two friend to walk on the side and there is a, a point that it's like a corridor. You see the UFO and then you stop seeing it like a corridor. And that's one of the reasons why he's saying that it's perhaps dimension. And I found that fascinating, you know, I.

• 1:43:02Lex Fridman?

  This is what, you know, to the discussion of consciousness and all that, it, 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, a world with dimensions that's much higher than the four dimensions of, the three dimension of space and the one dimension of 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.

• 1:43:41Lex Fridman?

  That the limitations are just, um, I mean, we're built, we're just descendants of apes. So like, it might not be possible to even understand.

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  Is there alien? Is there another dimension? Are they 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, I had the 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, I ask them every time. I met, I met one this week and, and. I I I ask him, I say, is it true about the the UFO is there is there? And he says to me, he's like, even before I ask him, I say, I'm sorry, I have to ask you a question. I was in 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 knew.

• 1:44:35Speaker 01

  I say, yes.

• 1:44:36Lex Fridman?

  He saw it in your eyes.

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

  Say, yeah, there is things that flies that we don't know. But he doesn't, he didn't tell me, he doesn't know, they don't know if it's alien or whatever. But there's things apparently that are detected. And I know you met Fravor, you know, like.

• 1:44:49Lex Fridman?

  Fravor is fascinating.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 1:44:51Lex Fridman?

  It makes me sad that.

• 1:44:53Speaker 01

  We live in a different era now that that it's 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 to that that era, you know?

• 1:45:05Lex Fridman?

  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 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. It's 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.

• 1:45:34Speaker 01

  Do you think the President of the United States, for example, because the President comes and go every, right? Four or eight years, do you think he would know all the secret? Or it would be a guy like, for example, Vladimir Putin would know mu- much of a, you know what I mean? I don't think the President even know, like even can knows all all the the secret.

• 1:45:54Lex Fridman?

  The US President, yeah.

• 1:45:55Speaker 01

  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?

• 1:46:02Lex Fridman?

  So I, you know, I I wasn't sure before, but I think I could trust the previous United States President of Donald Trump. That if he knew, he would probably tweet about it. So.

• 1:46:16Speaker 01

  Perhaps.

• 1:46:18Lex Fridman?

  So I, yeah, I I think from from the, you know, I've worked with DARPA, I work with DOD at 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.

• 1:46:37Lex Fridman?

  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 what's more powerful than the military secrets, and I hope that actually is what will happen in the 21st century, is what's more powerful is inspire people, inspire the young Elon Musks of the world to create cool new things. If we have technology that we've

• 1:47:12Lex Fridman?

  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,

• 1:47:29Lex Fridman?

  I hope we more and more let go of the idea that there are secrets that give us advantage. You know, like in the tech sector, people are more and more releasing the software, making it open source. Like, secrets don't make sense. They share the knowledge, right? Share the knowledge. Like, share, 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. Well, yeah, 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 that are, it makes me sad. It makes me sad because

• 1:48:12Lex Fridman?

  the, the science, the engineering that happens in governments, like Lockheed Martin, developing the different airplanes that they're used for military applications, is some of 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.

• 1:48:35Speaker 01

  Would know.

• 1:48:35Lex Fridman?

  Probably knows some stuff.

• 1:48:37Speaker 01

  My god, my god.

• 1:48:39Lex Fridman?

  I would, I would love to know what he knows. But then again, you, 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.

• 1:49:01Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:49:01Lex Fridman?

  Okay, and he's trying to establish a balance. He might not know everything, so. I, I hope this changes, because I think there's nothing more exciting about.

• 1:49:11Speaker 01

  I don't even know if there is a human that knows, you know what I mean? 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 president. And like, why would they do that? You know what I mean? It's kind of absurd, you know?

• 1:49:29Lex Fridman?

  Well, I, I do think that actually, I mean, that's one possibility, right? Is Lart, you know, if an alien civilization really wanted to contact us, I think everybody would know. So I think what we're, if, 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.

• 1:49:56Speaker 01

  Wuha, Wuha.

• 1:49:57Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, more, more, yeah, yeah. 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 meet 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.

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  The, the famous grays.

• 1:50:27Lex Fridman?

  The grays.

• 1:50:27Speaker 01

  Maybe they are robots, maybe it's all BS too, you know?

• 1:50:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, so I, I don't know, 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, that, that, we might, the aliens might already be here, and we might just not even know, know how to see them or know how to communicate with them.

• 1:50:55Speaker 01

  There, there's so much. Misinformation and sometimes there is peoples that are very credible that that that made crazy claims, you know, like, you don't know what to believe, you know, like, like Paul Elliott, the Minister of Defence of Canada, said like some, that there is many alien rays that ever, that's what he said, research it and that scientist from, I think, Israel recently have said something about Trump, he was keeping secret, or, Matt Vedeve, you're from Russia, Matt Vedeve, I've been cutting, like, during a break in between interviews to talks about, like, oh, it's like Men in Black, so to speak, I don't know, he didn't look like he was joking, but

• 1:51:39Speaker 01

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

• 1:51:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:54Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:52:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:02Speaker 01

  Take him out of the water and throw it back in the water, and the fish goes back to the other fish, it's like, hey, there's someone that that take me out of the water, then I've seen things that I did not, like, imagine if it's true, like, we, like,

• 1:52:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:16Speaker 01

  And one other thing, like, I wanted to ask you, because you were, consciousness, how about dreams? What is a dream?

• 1:52:24Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Well, I, 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. There's very similar states, there's, there's a lot 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 with psychedelics, you're traveling somewhere.

• 1:52:51Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:52:52Lex Fridman?

  In a different, not traveling through physical space, it's the other dimensions that we're talking about, you're traveling some other, through 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 we're like creatures, like entities. Like, who are they? What's? What is this?

• 1:53:21Speaker 01

  Is it because they're high, or it's because?

• 1:53:24Lex Fridman?

  They're actually meeting something. And maybe there's no difference. I mean, that, uh, 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, at the very sort of basic, uh, first principles level. We don't understand what it means to, to reason, to think, to assimilate pieces of knowledge together from, from the basics to the complex. We don't understand it. We don't understand how the human mind does it.

• 1:54:04Lex Fridman?

  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 stitch them together and be able to reason about the world. And at the same time, have moments of like genius, of creativity. Like, what, what is that? That also, you know, people, writers talk about that, that they're, you know, they're almost like communicating with a muse. Like, where do ideas come from?

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:33Lex Fridman?

  This is the Joe Rogan philosophy.

• 1:54:35Speaker 01

  But, but I, I do know that past civilization were, a lot of them were ba- based on shamanism. And you know what? I think it's sad is if someone drink alcohol and when he's drunk, he's going to commit like create like, like murders or some, we're gonna blame the person, right? We're gonna say that's his fault. It's not the, the fault of alcohol. However, if someone does psychedelic or any things that is illegal and do something crazy, now we're gonna.

• 1:55:06Speaker 01

  Put the 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 how like society, you know, like in Canada, they just legalized marijuana.

• 1:55:24Lex Fridman?

  Oh, yeah?

• 1:55:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, 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 glass, you know, drinking a beer, it's fine. I mean, what is, you know what I mean? What is good, what is bad? And I guess you think chocolate could be bad as well for your health. Or like, I mean, I'm going to the extreme now, but.

• 1:55:51Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:51Speaker 01

  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 it's the line is very tiny, you know? There are some countries that drugs are all legals, you know what I mean? And I, I don't know the, the stats, but I would, I would be interesting to know if they have more crimes there than other countries where it's more strict. I would, I would be interesting to know about that. It fascinate me, you know?

• 1:56:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and I mean, we're humans kind of just come up with arbitrary lines of what's good, what's 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 to animals, for example. And I believe this, the 21st century will be remembered for our cruelty to robots. That eventually there'll be a civil rights movement for robots. Where 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.

• 1:57:07Speaker 01

  How about the people we put in jail? People put in jail? I mean, I think in the future, we'll look back and we'll think of ourselves being stupid, you know, to put people in jail instead of, you know, like trying to fix the problem in, in, in, in, at the base, you know? Of course, now we're, or I guess it's our ignorance that made it in a way that we cannot sort of sometimes understand what makes sometime a psychopath a psychopath or a murderer, a murderer, but you know, 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-establish that person in, in the society, you know? Who knows, you know, what was the future is old.

• 1:57:52Speaker 01

  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 your childhood. My dad is amazing. I grew up, 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 happen, you know? My dad for me is, is a big role model because I see him through, through my life facing a lot of adversity. You know, he, he stopped drinking when I was a teenager. He was an alcoholic and I've seen him struggle through that, you know?

• 1:58:30Speaker 01

  And it was very, very hard and I'm, I've seen him work like crazy hours, like come, leave in the morning, come home at night, burned out because of work through almost all his life, to the point that it became a slave of the system. Yes. It became an habit and a normal way of living.

• 1:58:59Speaker 01

  And it made 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.

• 1:59:11Speaker 01

  But also he, he, he taught me a, a lesson that. In a way that I don't want to be like him, even if he is happy.

• 1:59:21Speaker 01

  It's because I realized 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, for, you know what I mean? I want to decide when I work, you know? I feel like, like he, he, he, he lived to work instead of working for a living. And perhaps it's because he did not have choice. He, he was the older of his family. They had, they were nine kids. His dad, my grandfather died when he was young. So he had to become the father of the family and, and work to put money on the table. So perhaps that what made him that way and he became like, like an habit for him.

• 2:00:04Speaker 01

  My dad taught me, uh, when I was at school, I was bullied at school. He's the first one who initiated me to martial arts. He taught me karate. My dad, my dad was a black belt in Kyokushin Karate 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.

• 2:00:26Speaker 01

  I have a winning, a great career in mixed martial arts, but in the, in the schoolyard. That's so good. Mixed record. My, my, my, my, my record is not very good.

• 2:00:37Speaker 01

  When you're a kid and you're about seven, eight years old and you're facing bullied, bullies that are

• 2:00:48Speaker 01

  two to three years older than, than yourself. It's not the same thing than when you're 25 and the guy is 28. So there is a big discrepancy in terms of maturity.

• 2:01:01Speaker 01

  So my dad taught me, introduced me to karate. Then I didn't, he didn't have time to teach me. Then he put me in a school with a, a teacher that said, it was Jean Coudsour. And I grew up with a lot of anger.

• 2:01:20Speaker 01

  And there were two person that was afraid growing up. Was my dad, my dad was very severe, very strict with me. And I'm glad he was because I, I, I could have become very bad. I could have become chosen on a different path. People see me as a nice guy and I'm, I'm gonna, I am a nice guy. I tried to be a good role model, but I could easily have turned towards her.

• 2:01:45Lex Fridman?

  There's darkness somewhere in there.

• 2:01:47Speaker 01

  Yes, there are a lot and a lot of my friends have chose that, that path. And unfortunately, you know, they, they, they are, they, 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, it's 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, you know, and he gave me that.

• 2:02:15Speaker 01

  To, to, because I, I, I'm very good at learning by observing people and by observing him. I, I see the, the struggle he had with alcoholism and what he did, the, the, the pain sometimes that he inflict to, to us, to my family, but how he turned, he did that 180 degree. And I really admire that. And I know it was a very, very hard for him and he did it, you know, and for me, that's a great role model for me.

• 2:02:46Lex Fridman?

  So with 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 St Pierre look like? So like, if you were to go through a day that's very productive, but also one that's 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?

• 2:03:19Speaker 01

  It changed over the years. When I was younger, I have a good day, it was like a good training session or 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 because of my ego, I didn't, you know, I didn't tell nobody, I was like, hey, then I go in the locker room, like, oh, man. Then I'm playing the training in my mind, you know, I'm saying, okay, I should have done this, should have done, and it hunt me.

• 2:04:03Speaker 01

  It hunt me, man, it's a training and it hunt me until the next training session 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 Loiseau, we had Patrick Cote, we had Dennis Gang, Steve Vignot, Jonathan Goulet, 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 in a way that I contact everybody that we all joined forces and we exchanged ideas and we trained with each other.

• 2:04:45Speaker 01

  So a friendly, I would say friendly competition, it was not malicious, but it was hard training, you know, like not, our goal is was 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, it 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, you know, but it was not a training where it was, where we're trying to do malicious thing to one another, you know what I mean? It need to be playful, but playful, but competitive.

• 2:05:29Speaker 01

  When I had a good training session, because the sparring was on a Friday, I had the best weekend in the world, I was going out with my friend, drinking and partying and have fun, that was, that was my ideal day back in the day.

• 2:05:45Speaker 01

  Today has changed, you know, my, my, my, my life has changed, you know, like, um, I, I am not the same person I used to be when I went on my knees and begged the UFC for a title shot. You know what I mean? I, I am, uh, I'm wealthy. I'm healthy, most importantly, that's the most important thing. And as,

• 2:06:10Speaker 01

  and I'm gonna tell you the truth, as good as my career was, man, my private life, man, is a million times better, man. I, I, and, and people ask me sometimes, they always wonder, they, they try to ask me. And it's normal, it's a lot of people is curious and the, the reporter. And in the sport of mixed martial arts, we say we play basketball, we play soccer, but you don't play fighting. So when you expose your private life, we seen that happen in the fight with sometime Conor McGregor and Khabib. Your competitor knows that he cannot get to you, so what he will do, he will try to get to someone that you love.

• 2:06:53Speaker 01

  So me, I never exposed my, my private life. I never post Instagram of my family, of my stuff.

• 2:07:01Speaker 01

  That's the reason why, because I'm in a, and I'm, I'm in a business of fighting.

• 2:07:06Speaker 01

  And people know that they cannot get to me. And I believe that

• 2:07:12Speaker 01

  because I was bullied when I was young,

• 2:07:16Speaker 01

  I didn't realize that when I was young, but it helps me deal with the mental warfare that I need, that I had to face later on in my life in mixed martial arts, because it's a very egotistic sport. And there's a lot of, a lot of, a lot of intimidation. And I was used to, I've, 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.

• 2:07:43Speaker 01

  Go, go, go, go try to get to someone I, I, 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, I'm a public person. So I try to always keep my surrounding like in a private.

• 2:08:03Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, one of the ways that like your, your friend of mine, Joe Rogan, has been an inspiration that he, he's got like 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. Doesn't talk about it in his comment. He's a comedian. Comedians talk about everything. He doesn't really talk about it. And there's something to that. It like preserves the magic of the, the silence of the private life.

• 2:08:31Speaker 01

  And I think it can affect the, the development of the kid. If the kid grow up being, oh, he's the son of that guy instead of being his own person. You know what I mean? So, 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 at a dinner or anything, I talk with person always share a thing. But when I'm talking, I, I'm aware of, of the audience where I'm in front.

• 2:09:03Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and I mean, but oftentimes those people are just incredible. It kind of makes me sad that, uh, 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 they're, I could tell they're incredible people and it makes me, it's like a little goodbye of, of a possible friend. I don't know. It ma- it makes me sad.

• 2:09:31Speaker 01

  All right.

• 2:09:32Lex Fridman?

  It's, 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 where you can.

• 2:09:46Speaker 01

  Personally, I believe every relationship I, I.

• 2:09:50Speaker 01

  Like, 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 materialist, materialistic, like something, oh, he's a good, confident, like, he's someone that can give me good advice, or...

• 2:10:10Speaker 01

  It's a word I would say, like, extensional, like, i- i- if a pilot has a copilot, is the copilot is extend, has an extensional relationship with him, you know, so he knows if he gets sick or he faint, he's there to make sure, you know, he's 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?

• 2:10:53Speaker 01

  Because I'm angry at myself, I've done stupid thing. So that means sometimes it could, love could be fluctuating, you know what I mean? How about in relationships, sometimes you, you, people, they say, oh, 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, i- i- by definition, if you really love someone,

• 2:11:17Speaker 01

  and let's say you're an old man, and you love a woman, and she decides to leave you for a younger man, if you really love her, you're gonna help her pack and leave. But in our society, sometimes, we, we, we want to hone something.

• 2:11:31Lex Fridman?

  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. Like, I, you know, it's all part of the thing, it's the ups and downs. It's, uh, the sad thing is when the feelings towards a person, the ups and downs go away, the forgetting. That's, 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, this is the depth of human connection. That's how I see love.

• 2:12:04Speaker 01

  Sometime I tried 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 sometime. However, we talk about love. When I was young,

• 2:12:22Speaker 01

  you know, like, like I didn't love who I was at first. That's how I love, I learned to kind of love myself. Like I didn't, I didn't, when I was going through bullying, I was, I believe I was bullied because I didn't love myself. I, 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 predatory animal in, in nature. They will hunt the, the easier prey.

• 2:13:05Speaker 01

  They would don't, they don't go, the lion don't go for the, the alpha bull. They go for the one who's old 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, the person that I was. But I found out through martial art,

• 2:13:26Speaker 01

  the respect. And my, 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 didn't, when 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, and trying to.

• 2:13:59Speaker 01

  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 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 when the the teacher was asking question, I was at first, I was never answering. It was like this waiting always to be the last. Then I was, hey, I I I know what the answer this is the answer. I got out of my comfort zone, so to speak.

• 2:14:35Speaker 01

  And I wish I would tell you that I got out of bullying.

• 2:14:39Speaker 01

  Because a Hollywood story, I I use 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 have loved. 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 I at least I can apologize to the person if I realize and then. I know that I'm not the person I was in the past.

• 2:15:21Speaker 01

  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 in a way, the reason I'm trying to be positive and I 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. But how can you change your environment if you cannot change yourself? You know what I mean? You would 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 gonna change for yourself. It's you have to go from the inside out, you know?

• 2:16:08Speaker 01

  This I learned through martial arts. I had a coach, he was incredible. He used to drill these ideas in my head and give me confidence, you know, like this, telling me all these beautiful things about myself. And now he's dead 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 it would be probably in gel, you know. But I'm glad he did it because for that time being, that's what I needed it. And I would never have had that career I had in mixed martial arts without this.

• 2:16:50Speaker 01

  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, very hard to do.

• 2:17:01Lex Fridman?

  And strive to be the person that you can love. That's beautifully put, George. If you were to give advice to a young person today about life, what would you tell him?

• 2:17:14Speaker 01

  If he takes life with the same mentality that I do, if he has 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 have a dream, you know, like,

• 2:17:44Speaker 01

  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.

• 2:17:57Speaker 01

  Don't work hard only, but work smart. That's, I think, the problems with a lot of people. They work hard, they can work hard, they burn themselves, they don't work smart. Whether it is in science, in business, they make bad choices or they're badly in form. In sport, how many guys I've seen ruin their career in the gyms? They spar so hard, they ruin themselves in the gyms, they leave their career in the gyms.

• 2:18:30Speaker 01

  What I would say to, for example, because my field of expertise in it's in sport of mixed martial art,

• 2:18:37Speaker 01

  I would say to a young kid, make your training playful. You know, when you get ready for for competition, you need to try to recreate those element that makes 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 who's who's winning, who's losing, make make it playful. So it will increase your because you you will not be afraid of getting hurt or losing.

• 2:19:19Speaker 01

  You will be tend to trying more things and be you it will make you become more creative.

• 2:19:28Lex Fridman?

  You you know, that brings up another question about learning. So you you value knowledge and you're exceptional at 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 know, you say work smart. How do you figure this game out?

• 2:19:55Speaker 01

  I believe the best way to learn is learning from other people's mistake.

• 2:20:04Speaker 01

  However, I'm not perfect and I've learned from my mistakes as well. And sometimes I've I it took 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 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's mistakes.

• 2:20:35Lex Fridman?

  Do you study others?

• 2:20:37Speaker 01

  Yes, every, every fight. I'm studying my opponent and I've studied myself as well to know what,

• 2:20:47Speaker 01

  how my 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, 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.

• 2:21:26Speaker 01

  And that's why I always seek advice, advices from the best in every discipline. Like I wrestle with the best wrestler I, I could be with. I box with the best boxers. I, I practice karate with the best karate fighters. Uh, same thing in jiu jitsu. I trained jiu jitsu with the best, best jiu jitsu guys.

• 2:21:50Speaker 01

  However, when I mix everything and mix martial art,

• 2:21:55Speaker 01

  if I, if I'm, because I'm very competent in every areas. So when I'm fighting someone, I'm very good at, and that 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 comfort zone, it increases my odds of winning. There is no certainty. It's all about odds, I believe, because there, there is always X factor that you do not control.

• 2:22:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's fascinating to see you actually, because you've been a student of movement. Uh, you've been exploring all kinds, I mean gymnastics, all that kind of stuff. There, there's something reminiscent to, um, like Conor McGregor is one other martial artist that's kind of explored movement, been a scholar of movement. Um, at least from my perspective, it's very sort of Bruce Lee like. Uh, it's almost making a study of the human body and all the possible things you could do. Is there a philosophy behind that that you have?

• 2:22:55Speaker 01

  You talk about Bruce Lee, man. You said it best.

• 2:23:00Speaker 01

  He changes my, my life too. He was ahead of his time.

• 2:23:05Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, incredible.

• 2:23:06Speaker 01

  A lot of people talk to me and ask me, hey, is Bruce Lee would have been able to fight in UFC? I. Look, I don't think so, you know, I don't know. I think he was a, you know, he was a martial artist, he could have defend himself, but to say that he could have competed amongst the elite of the elite fighter, perhaps in his time, but for sure, if you put him in UFC right now, you know, the sport has improved incredibly since then. But in terms of philosophy.

• 2:23:38Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:38Speaker 01

  Bruce Lee was amazing. 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 nearest point. And we see that, that, that kick that it, it, it, it got popular, popularized by John Jones, you know, the, the sidekick to the thigh. Longest weapon against your nearest point. In boxing is the jab, but in MMA, when you can use all your weapon, that's the kick to the thigh.

• 2:24:06Speaker 01

  And there is, I felt there is like kind of three dimension in martial art. There is the philosopher like Bruce Lee. There is the choreography, the choreograph people, like for example, you see in movies, the stunt people, they're incredible. Like or the one that does like forms and karate, like jumping, spin kick, back kick, like acrobatic stuff, mixed martial art, they are unbelievable. And there is also the, the, the one that competing in fighting. Like, that's what I do, I, I personally specialize in.

• 2:24:40Lex Fridman?

  Well, you also do the philosophy.

• 2:24:42Speaker 01

  I do a little bit of philosophy, but that's. I, I'm.

• 2:24:45Lex Fridman?

  That's a consequence.

• 2:24:46Speaker 01

  We are all, I guess, I guess we are all like we all practice the three dimension because martial 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 through my life in in 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 in the the series I was playing in the Falcon and Winter Soldier.

• 2:25:28Speaker 01

  These guys are incredible. They're like real life superhero. Things they do, it's to me. Like, it's fascinating. It's amazing. And also Bruce Lee, the philosophy. How many hours he he he he he took, like, thinking about these stuff, you know, I'm sure he did not just came out of out of nowhere. You know, like, he was thinking, like, that's mean he slept on on this. He he. How many hours? It's just unbelievable.

• 2:25:57Lex Fridman?

  It's like water, my friend.

• 2:25:59Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:25:59Lex Fridman?

  How many times has he thought about water going to bed before he said that? Uh, let me ask a very important fundamental question about martial arts. We're both wearing a suit and tie. Uh, Joe Rogan thinks that wearing a tie is a huge disadvantage. Is it a clip-on or is it an actual tie?

• 2:26:17Speaker 01

  It's an actual tie, I really want.

• 2:26:19Lex Fridman?

  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?

• 2:26:31Speaker 01

  In a fight, I think it would be a disadvantage, disadvantage, yes.

• 2:26:35Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 2:26:35Speaker 01

  I I work as a as a security bouncer in in nightclubs and event when I was eighteen years old.

• 2:26:41Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 2:26:42Speaker 01

  And, uh. Sometime I had to work in certain event that I was in suit and tie. I never had to. Use my force to take someone out when I wasn't supping 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 vest for sure. And I would have called backup for sure. And I would have probably used the element of surprise to be first on the guy.

• 2:27:14Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 2:27:15Speaker 01

  Uh, when you're in a bar, same thing, you call backup first. And, and, and you make sure you ask the wait, the waitress before to clean the table before you go.

• 2:27:24Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:25Speaker 01

  And when you go, you have to use the element of surprise.

• 2:27:28Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:29Speaker 01

  Because fighting, fighting in mixed martial art and fighting in the street, it's two different thing. And yes, I'm a mixed, I'm a mixed martial art competitor. That's what I've done all my life, but I had a lot of street fight in my life. A lot when I was in.

• 2:27:44Lex Fridman?

  What's the difference? What's like the?

• 2:27:45Speaker 01

  My god, it's a huge difference. There is guys that if I would have a choice. You know, to fight like, for example, certain guys in UFC in a street fight and fight. Like other guys that are not in UFC, I would maybe sometimes pick guys that are not in UFC, not necessarily. Cause in, in, in, 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 taught me.

• 2:28:15Lex Fridman?

  Oh, interesting.

• 2:28:16Speaker 01

  Yes, because if.

• 2:28:19Lex Fridman?

  Aggression, you're sacrificing the surprise.

• 2:28:21Speaker 01

  Will not come punch you without warning. It needs to, it needs to trigger some, it's something 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 Bas Rutten this weekend about it and, and.

• 2:28:39Lex Fridman?

  I saw that.

• 2:28:40Speaker 01

  Every, every martial art.

• 2:28:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:43Speaker 01

  Comes from, like some martial arts are from exclusive vehicle for competition.

• 2:28:47Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 2:28:48Speaker 01

  Like sport karate, uh, like certain martial art. But traditional martial martial art are for the street, are for self-defense. And I start my background in, in Kyokushin Karate, so it's for, and, and I did Japanese Jiu-Jitsu. So my background before I even start. Training for mixed 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't go for the eyes, the necks, the, the.

• 2:29:18Lex Fridman?

  Surprise is everything.

• 2:29:20Speaker 01

  Total ball game, you know what I mean? You have the, the, the chair, the beer, there, 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, 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 Nganu, someone come behind your head and. Wang or, or let's say there, there's an argument and you get surprised by a punch. You can beat you up and lose a fight. That, that doesn't matter.

• 2:29:57Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:57Speaker 01

  The element of surprise is everything.

• 2:29:59Lex Fridman?

  So you were saying, remove all the sources of the elements of surprise. All the, clear the bar, remove the tie. I still disagree with you about the tie.

• 2:30:07Speaker 01

  And, and. But just for your information, if someone comes looking for trouble and you see me do this. And, and going sideways a little bit.

• 2:30:19Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:19Speaker 01

  That's my position that I'm, I'm thinking.

• 2:30:22Lex Fridman?

  There you go.

• 2:30:22Speaker 01

  Maybe something will happen and I'm, I'm about.

• 2:30:24Lex Fridman?

  That's a good.

• 2:30:25Speaker 01

  I'm about thinking about doing the element. I'm, I'm about to punch you or, or to do, to, to do something to, to, to take care of this.

• 2:30:31Lex Fridman?

  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. Cause nobody's going to expect the guy in the tie to do anything.

• 2:30:50Speaker 01

  I, I'm a big believer that sometimes it's not only materialism, it's what you project.

• 2:30:57Lex Fridman?

  That's true.

• 2:30:58Speaker 01

  Let's say 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 whole aggressivity by saying like, Hey man, that's a nice shirt. Where did you get it? Like saying like something or stupid like this, then it, it kind of break, break the momentum and he, 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 gonna wait. Until you pull, you make the first move because the minute you touch me, you push me, or you touch me, you declare war and the war is unleashed, my friend, and I'm taking you out of order with the necessary force, of course. You know what I mean?

• 2:31:41Speaker 01

  That's the thing with martial art. If you use the necessary force to take care of the 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. Always hand there. Because I'm boom or boom, like this is very important. And you never, you're always your center line on the side. Ah, yeah, like this. If someone knows martial art, he will recognize that pattern. But if you go like that, if someone talk to you and you go like this,

• 2:32:25Speaker 01

  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, ah, yeah.

• 2:32:32Speaker 01

  You know, that's the position. Because your hand are here, you know? Whatever you can do, you're here.

• 2:32:37Lex Fridman?

  Well, also, your ear tells a story.

• 2:32:39Speaker 01

  It does. It's not everybody that knows that, however. It's some people might think that it's my mom grabbed me by the ear and pulled me because I didn't listen to her, you know? A real fight in a street and a fight in mixed martial art is a different ballgame.

• 2:32:54Lex Fridman?

  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, we talk about a young person studying martial arts to prepare themselves?

• 2:33:08Speaker 01

  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 stuff that like, but I believe self-defense is very important in a way to understand the situation, to understand those.

• 2:33:32Speaker 01

  Those situations that might occur, how to deal with it? Because not necessarily that we talk about the technicality, we talk about the tacticality, the tactics, you know? Like when I'm talking to you about the element of surprise is important, this is not technique. A technique is a punch or techniques that I physically will use to enable my opponent, my aggressor. Tactic is the tactic I'm telling you about is in a street fight. If someone is looking for trouble and I feel the heat rising as the conversation goes, that's the position I'm gonna take. And I have to be first. I cannot let him go first. So I have to strike first or do something.

• 2:34:16Speaker 01

  This is the first thing that generally I have to agree on.

• 2:34:24Speaker 01

  After that, 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 intervene physically, that will have the first blow or the first, you know, the first punch will have a huge disadvantage. It's like doing a 100 meter race and having a head start, you know?

• 2:34:51Lex Fridman?

  And that you can't prepare for with any martial art?

• 2:34:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, and if I'm a smart guy, I know how to fight. If a guy like an heavyweight champion comes to me or like, you know, I know, I know what to do to disable him, like boom or here and then the neck, you know? Like, and if you, if you blind him, what is he gonna do? You know what I mean? So, or a bottle, you know what I mean? So, 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.

• 2:35:30Lex Fridman?

  So what you're saying is being a nice guy is the best form of self-defense, maybe a little humor.

• 2:35:35Speaker 01

  Yes, and you know, I have learned that, I've learned that when I was a kid.

• 2:35:39Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:39Speaker 01

  I was about maybe seven, six, six years old. We used to play in Montreal, there's a lot of snow, we used to play king of the mountain.

• 2:35:48Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:49Speaker 01

  That's the first combat lesson that I've learned in my life. And I managed somehow, it was a lot of kids, I managed to get on the top of the mountain and I've, another guy came in, come in on the top of the mountain and he was angry that before I was there before him. When you play king of the mountain, it was a 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 wanna, you wanna fight? And I said, yeah, I didn't know what he mean, like I wanna fight, wanna wrestle, he say, I say, yes. He punched me right in the face, boom, and then I, and then I fall on, on the bottom of the mountain.

• 2:36:30Speaker 01

  Then I, when I fall down, I remember that vision in my life because it, it, it's, I will 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 that the snow is red because my nose is bleeding. Now I, I remember the element of surprises, everything. My first street fight, I've lost it, I got, I didn't get knocked out, but I, I get, I get dropped on the bottom of the snow mountain. And I was like, ah, he got me because I was not expecting, my hand, I was not expecting a punch. So from there, when I felt the, the, the heat of an, during an argument or something was not right, I always stroke first.

• 2:37:13Speaker 01

  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.

• 2:37:22Speaker 01

  To not be the aggressor, so you have the element of surprise and always use that in your favor.

• 2:37:27Lex Fridman?

  That's so brilliant. Let me go from the very practical to the 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?

• 2:37:56Speaker 01

  To me,

• 2:37:58Speaker 01

  you know, satisfaction is the end for me. Like, like, like, I always, if I'm satisfied, that's mean I have no, nothing to live for. I'm talking, I'm not talking only about my career, about, I'm talking about my life. What I, what do you want in your life? You want, you want kids, you want a family, you want to be champion. What do you want in your life? You have, you have like a long-term goal, short-term goal?

• 2:38:24Speaker 01

  In mixed martial art, I achieve what I needed to achieve. I'm satisfied. I'm no longer the same Georges Nippier than when I was begging for a title shot on my knees. I move on for it, from it.

• 2:38:39Speaker 01

  Now I had 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. Like, I'm having 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.

• 2:39:20Speaker 01

  And so you need to constantly challenging yourself and having goals to achieve. You know, like, that 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, sometime you see that, they, they got sick and they die, or, or because they, they, It's either because sometime we think we

• 2:39:51Speaker 01

  we certainly may benefit we do something good for them by making not work and giving them a break. So in our mind, we're like, oh, he's gonna be able to relax. But in their mind, it's not 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. He's retired now. I myself now call him by force to find him some job. Hey, dad, can can you come in my house? I have this thing to repair. I don't know how to do it. So it gives him, it gives him a reason. Not not to live, because he has other things to do, but but

• 2:40:31Speaker 01

  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.

• 2:40:43Lex Fridman?

  Be afraid of reaching your goals, essentially. I mean, you always have to keep moving it out. You think there's a it's an interesting question because you've been acting in some really exciting things. Do you think there's a a dramatic role where it's basically, you know, you go full Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver? Do you think there'll be a full-length feature film with Jérôme Saint-Pierre?

• 2:41:07Speaker 01

  I liken there is level to this thing. I'm aware that I have to restart as a 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 embrace it because everybody told me like I would never be able to do it and it's fine. But 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 if you zig when you should zag in a fight, you get knocked out. If you zig when you should zag in on set, oh, cut, we'll do it again.

• 2:41:48Speaker 01

  And I know that I will be most likely be choo- chosen for action martial art roles because that's my background. There is this new trend in Hollywood now 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 has 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.

• 2:42:32Speaker 01

  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.

• 2:42:48Lex Fridman?

  I would love to see where, I don't know if you've seen The Wrestler with Mickey York?

• 2:42:52Speaker 01

  Oh yeah.

• 2:42:53Lex Fridman?

  Those types of films, I would love to, I would love to you do something like that. If not now, then in ten, twenty years, I could see that, that would be amazing.

• 2:43:03Speaker 01

  It's

• 2:43:03Lex Fridman?

  There's levels to the game, right?

• 2:43:05Speaker 01

  Yes, it's gradual and I don't, and I'm aware that I don't wanna take something on my shoulder that I won't be able to deliver. It's like a fighter wants to go for a title, shot right away, it could, it could very well break him. You know what I mean? And I don't wanna 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 artists 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 Jacques Van Damme, Steven Seagal and everything, but my acting was not on point, you know, at that time.

• 2:43:48Speaker 01

  So if I ever, every time I'm gonna come back from now on, on, on, on screen, it need 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 taken seriously. So, so that's how I see it and

• 2:44:05Speaker 01

  It's very fun because I had 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 Danny Truho. 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, how they project their emotion. And I asked him, Danny Truho, I said, I said to him, he's an amazing guy, by the way, very nice guy. And I asked him, I say, how, how do you do to be, because you scared the hell out of me. How do you do to be so scary? Like, what is your trick? And he tells me, he's like, George, if you threaten things, if you threaten

• 2:44:45Speaker 01

  someone and you scream at him, "I'm gonna kill you", it's not as scary if you're smiling and you say,

• 2:44:56Speaker 01

  "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 gonna kill him. So the camera will take the emotion out. Don't try physically to do that. That's a 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 learned sometimes when I met an actor. I always try to learn from everybody that I met in my life.

• 2:45:32Lex Fridman?

  It's a difficult journey because then you have to go to some dark places as a person because you really have to imagine, imagine some dark things. It's fascinating, actually.

• 2:45:42Speaker 01

  I think a lot of the actor, 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 a, it, because it, 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, to, to, to make your negative emotion, depressive emotion comes out. If something bad in your life happened, you will fall into those emotion much more rapidly that someone who does not that every day. You know what I mean? Because it will, it's like a muscle memory.

• 2:46:25Speaker 01

  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, some guys, they, we often blame it on drug, but I think it's also because of the acting. They're used to be so on the hopped up and sometimes they go to the down deep. So they, they, they, they, they're, they, the boat extreme, you know?

• 2:46:47Lex Fridman?

  You gotta be psychologically tough and that's life. This is, I was so excited to see you challenge yourself in that direction.

• 2:46:53Speaker 01

  That's one thing that I'm a, a little bit afraid that happened to me. I, I, I really hope I'll, I'll always be, uh, you know, like a problem, having a problem to control my emotion be

• 2:47:06Lex Fridman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:47:07Speaker 01

  Too much extreme. I hope it does not happen to me. And, and, and if I feel that I'm going towards that, I'm gonna, you know, give up on, on my new objective and find something else to, to achieve.

• 2:47:23Lex Fridman?

  But in your personal life, you want to be real with your emotions. You don't want to, it doesn't, you don't, just like with biceps. You don't want biceps, they're too big.

• 2:47:31Speaker 01

  You, you, you, you are real, but you are extreme real and, and, and that's, that's the, that's what I think sometimes that could happen to actors sometimes when they go too much into their emotion. Like we talk about like sometimes guys that, that, that commit, 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, okay, I understand why some actor get caught up in their emotion because that can have an influence on their life, right?

• 2:48:14Lex Fridman?

  You're on a fascinating journey. George, I can't tell you how much it means to me that you'd be so nice to me, that you'd 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 have so much respect, I'm so honored. And the energy you give me by just even showing up here, I'll carry that forward for a long time to come, George. I love it. Thank you so much for talking today.

• 2:48:42Speaker 01

  No, thank you Lex for having me on the show. You know, I've been looking to talk to you for a long time. For me, talking to a guy like you, it's a, it's a great learning experience because I always learn. And it's, life is fascinating to me and all the experiences that we have in lives, you know, it's, it's something that can make us grow. And this experience for me just, you know, make me grow as, as well, you know?

• 2:49:07Lex Fridman?

  Plus, we look pretty damn sharp today, so.

• 2:49:08Speaker 01

  Men in black, my friend.

• 2:49:10Lex Fridman?

  Men in black. Thanks, George.

• 2:49:12Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 2:49:14Lex Fridman?

  Thanks for listening to this conversation with George St. Pierre. And thank you to Allform, 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 from Miyamoto Musashi. Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.