The Truth About Overnight Success

In today’s episode, I sit down with UFC Hall of Famer Forrest Griffin, a retired mixed martial artist and Vice President of Athlete Development at the UFC Performance Institute. Forrest shares how growing up with very little shaped his mindset, why struggle can build resilience, and how fighting became an unexpected path after football and college. We talk about the realities of building a career in the UFC, the role of personality and social media, knowing when to walk away, and the financial challenges athletes face after competition. Forrest also explains why working smarter, taking care of yourself, and staying grounded matter long after success arrives. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The guest that I wanted to bring to aspire is not only a legend, a Hall of Famer in the UFC, notably for the first and biggest fight that put the UFC on the charts, first million dollar pay per view for the UFC. He is loved by Dana White, not only for what he's done for the UFC, but what he's done for the community. And if you want to see a video, I just found it recently about Forrest Griffin, who's also the Executive Vice President of the UFC for personal development, professional development of the fighters.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  But this video on YouTube, check it out, it's Dana White telling you about how Forrest Griffin anonymously shows up to the food banks when he was the champion of the world and would just show up in his shorts and a ripped T-shirt and just pay for all the food, feed people. And I just love Dana White's explanation of one of the toughest individuals in the entire world with one of the biggest hearts in the whole world as well. By the way, not to mismanage your expectations, he's also one of the funniest people I've ever interviewed. And I've had Robin Williams, I've, I've had some serious comedians.

• 1:20Speaker 00

  I don't know why he's so funny, but I promise you, you're about to enjoy an incredible interview. So if you don't mind, let's all give it up for the incredible UFC Hall of Famer Forrest Griffin.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  All right.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  What's happening?

• 1:46Speaker 00

  Hey, buddy.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  That's a great picture.

• 1:49Speaker 00

  You're so handsome.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  I was.

• 1:50Speaker 00

  Why are your ears so fucked up?

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  They're still that way.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  The funny thing is.

• 1:55Speaker 00

  No AI on those ears?

• 1:57Speaker 01

  We get on that next time, but I have huge ears and I can barely hear, so it's kind of weird.

• 2:03Speaker 00

  All right, Forrest, a lot of people know about the professional side of what you do, but you, you have a great mindset and probably one of the most charismatic people that I know. Growing up, like me, you grew up with nothing and.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Except like you, a great mother.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  Right, we both had great moms, so let's, let's start there. You know, give me a little bit of background of what your mindset was as a kid, like where you thought you would be and how your mom influenced you or didn't in order to be the success that you are.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's funny. So, I mean, we, we all kind of have our backstory and mine is, is pretty cool. We had a pretty rough growing up, we were food insecure. One of the reasons why I like to work with.

• 2:50Speaker 00

  They didn't call it food insecure, they just called it starving.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  You were just hungry back then.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  We're old.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Good point. But, but yeah, no, so that's, that's why I have that relation to the food bank is because I remember, you know, you have like the pink slips, it used to be like a different color money that you buy the food with and you'd be like, I hope nobody sees me. But yeah, so, you know, I got to grow up with a little bit of struggle, which is the best thing, which honestly, if you think about it, I worry sometimes about my daughter and the kids in this generation because they've never struggled. Now, like we were talking about, we struggled, but I had a great mother who set me on a great path. And here I am, and I was blessed because at 13, I went from not having too much to, um, basically I worked my way out of poverty the old fashioned way. My mom got remarried to a guy with a job.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  It was, it was great. So a lot of people don't like their stepdads. I love my stepdad. We were like 13, we got like a new car, we moved into a house in the suburbs. I'm like, this is the best. I love you, Byron.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  So you didn't always want to be a fighter. How, how did fighting come about in your career?

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I, I always like, when I get to talk to kids, you guys, not your kids, you're very old actually, so they're not, no, I'm kidding. You're, you're young at heart, I'm sure, probably not.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  But I, you know, I didn't really know about fighting and think about fighting, like you. Uh, I wanted to be in the NFL, unless it was basketball season, then I wanted to be in the NBA. And it turns out I wasn't good enough. And I, I like to tell kids, think like a shark, you know, you don't have to be at your target. You don't have to be eating all the time, but you have to be moving in the direction of something you want. So you're not moving away from things, you're always moving towards your next goal. And I realized at the University of Georgia, turns out you're not good enough to play football, fact.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  And I saw some guys wrestling and I saw some guys fighting in a room and I thought the natural thing, I saw guys fight, I was like, that looks fun. I bet I could do that. I went in, turned out I couldn't do that. I got whooped. But that's addictive. Like when you get destroyed at something, you're like, okay, I gotta figure this out. This is real. Fighting's awesome. I gotta figure it out. And then like a subpoena, you know, you were almost a lawyer, fortunately, almost.

• 5:20Speaker 00

  Oh no, I was a lawyer, I'm a covering lawyer.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  My mom actually made me take the bar even, that sucked.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Well, that, I mean, that makes it official, just in case this whole thing doesn't work out.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  I'm still waiting.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  But, uh, yeah, so I, uh, you know, I always thought about it like that, like, you know, you get a subpoena, it says, lay all other matters aside. And I, I just like, all right, cool. I was a cop at the time, I was like, I'm gonna quit my job. So I paid back my little two-year, whatever, paid back my contract, they call it. And I just started being, you know, a professional fighter, which was probably the worst mistake in the world in like 2001. So I quit my job, dropped out of school and followed my dream, which I would not tell kids to do, but it worked out for me.

• 6:10Speaker 00

  Which is, is funny, right? We wouldn't tell, and I have this philosophy, and this is where my faith lies. When I look at my children and the struggle that created the might that I have to be successful, and I look at your life and the struggle that you've had that created this might. As a parent, even though I know very well that people like you and I are made from the mistakes, were made from the struggles, I have a really hard time taking the toughest things that I've had to go through and putting my kids through it or wishing it on them, even though I know they'll be better off like we were.

• 6:51Speaker 00

  Where does that faith come from? When, I mean, that's a big leap. And did you ever have any doubts when you were about to, you know, sign with the UFC? It wasn't like a huge thing.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  I had all the doubts, all the doubts. I mean, I, you know, it's pretty cool. I was doing, I was in college, I was a cop, I had a job, I had money, you know, regular paycheck. And I was like, all right, I'm gonna do this fighting thing. My first fight, my first fight after quitting my job, I destroyed my shoulder. Fortunately, I was still in college, so I got that free, uh, you know, college student insurance. And let me tell you, that free insurance was worth everything I paid for it. My shoulder has not been right since. So, so three, three more surgeries later, it kind of works. But so there I am, uh, you know, it was pretty successful, parents are happy with me, followed my dream.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  I ended up on my coach's couch with no car, no money, feeling sorry for myself, kind of like a loser. And, um, you know, I kind of built my way back up, win some fights, things are going all right. And then I shattered my.

• 7:55Speaker 00

  How much, how much you were getting paid to win fights back then?

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, sometimes you get $900, but usually four or five. I remember, so I fought a guy named Dan Severn who had like 60 fights, I had four. And, um, there, I was gonna get $250 to fight and the promoter comes to me after and is like, man, I'm so sorry Forrest, we didn't do that good. Turns out you're not a, you're not a big seller. I can only give you 200. And I was like, what? Like, I know I just lost, but I'm still a professional cage fighter. He can't just take 50 bucks from me, but he did.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  It, it is amazing how things change. Now, as you are today, right across the street in UFC has, since I've known you, opened a second performance center, it's a state of the art facilities. The top of everything is in there when it comes to athletes and rehab and development and recovery, uh, all of those things.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  We, we pride ourselves on expensive shit.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, you do. And it works, right? But you, you still, uh, remain humble, not just personally, but for the business itself with, you know, great jokes. But, you know, is, is there a difference in the fighters today because they do make millions of dollars?

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's a great point, you know, um, and some people are like, well, you give them all these things, is it gonna make them soft? The truth is no, man, you're, at the end of the day, you still have to go in a cage, fight somebody in your underwear in front of millions of strangers. You get like, you know, you start with like 12 and 12, that's 12,000 to fight, 24,000 to win. You get a couple of thou-, it, it's not, it's not blow you out of the water money right away. It's, um, you know, it's, it's a lot like America's becoming, there's the rich and there's the not rich. There's, there's not much middle class in the UFC, you know, if you know their names, if you've seen them on TV, well, those guys and gals are doing all right financially, but the ones on the undercards, they, they're struggling, you know, they're, um,

• 10:01Speaker 01

  they're paying their dues.

• 10:03Speaker 00

  And social media has changed while you've been there as well.

• 10:08Speaker 00

  Has it impacted economically some of the fighters that may not be that good, but have been able to build a community or a brand? Are there fighters that are?

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Did you have any names in mind? Did you want to call anybody out?

• 10:20Speaker 00

  No, I did not.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  No, so that is.

• 10:22Speaker 00

  You never call out a UFC fighter? Bad idea, especially if you're slow now. See, I used to, this is true.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  I could run away from them.

• 10:30Speaker 00

  Right, exactly. I used to tell people all the time, I was a great punt returner in college. Like, you play college football? Well, yeah, I could run scared faster than anybody could angry. And that's run out now that I'm 58. So every UFC fighter, I only have good things to say, especially Michael Chandler. He's my favorite.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  You know, it's funny, I had a very similar saying. It was like, if I can't outfight them, I can outrun them. You know, so I figured, nah, you know, that's like 90% of the population. But back to your point about social media, and it's just part of the game. I mean, you guys, you're in businesses. It's, every business has a social media. You know, you're looking at reviews of a business. You'll look at their social media and see what people have, you know, posted and said about them. You know, it's, it's, it used to be the old saying was, can you put asses in seats? And now it's like, can you put eyeballs on screens? And if you come in, you got a million, 2 million, 5 million followers. I think Armin Sarukyan's a great example of a guy that was a very good fighter, but did people care?

• 11:31Speaker 01

  And then he went out, if you're familiar, he went out, he started hanging out with all these influencers, doing the social stuff, fighting people's bodyguards, just doing crazy stuff, making big money bets with people. And now he's got a hell of a following and people are interested. He was already a great fighter to begin with, but now people care. And, you know, you think about the UFC, right? It's the ultimate meritocracy, but at the end of the day, it's also a business and it's also the entertainment that the fans want. So people have to care. People have to want you. People have to want to see you fight. I used to tell the guys when I first started, you can fight the perfect fight. You can not do any media.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  You can not have to worry about this or that, or talking to people, or getting up, or dealing with fans, but you're not going to get paid. You're going to fight for free. It's all the other stuff you do in that fight week that sucks, that messes up your routine, but that's what sells the fight.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  And I think that's true in a lot of professional sports. And I remember Marcellus Wiley, one of my client's friends, he said, yeah, I play football for free. I show up every Sunday for free. He's all, it's all the bullshit up until the game that I get paid for. You know, all the questions and the taping and the films and the practicing and the weightlifting.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  You know, looking at it as a business though, you, you are an executive of the UFC now. So you have to actually see things as a business. Now, you downplay. Go ahead.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I really don't. So business is not my angle. It's the athlete development and care that is what I do, which is appropriate because I am horrible at business. I know this is a business, you know, you guys are all here for business stuff. Sorry.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  We're not taking financial advice from Forrest, just mindset advice.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Well, I just put you all the, just, I have a really good CPA. I'll just put you on your phone with him and you can take all the.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  Andrew's our guy. Andrew's our tax architect, so we're on with Andrew.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  There you go. So, yeah. Well, this is a question.

• 13:34Speaker 00

  It's a good question. You missed.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Great question.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  I forget what I asked you, so let's move to the next question. There's so many different things that we get to.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Oh, no, it was.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  Personal development.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, exactly. So the business side versus the athlete development side. And yeah, personal, becoming somebody that's likeable. You know, I get to talk to athletes a lot about how they present themselves and like, what are you really trying to do? And I always say, don't be yourself, right? Because they always say, be yourself. I've met a lot of these guys, they're not the most likeable people in the world. Like, don't be yourself. Be your first date self. Be the best version of yourself. Be the version of you, like, when you're on the first date and you chew with your mouth closed. You know, be that version of yourself. Don't just be like, oh, I'm just me this stuff.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  No, comb your hair, look good, you know, do your thing and then kind of find your rhythm. You look like a guy like Chael Sonnen. He's had a mediocre career in fighting, but he's doing amazing on being Chael Sonnen. The Chael Sonnen business is booming, a lot better than he was when he fought. So for me, I came up in the era of Randy Couture, Mr. Captain America. Dude, was in the army for eight years, wrestled in the Olympics, just an amazing human being. You, like, you can't even compare yourself to that. And then you had Chuck, right? This crazy intimidating madman, the Iceman, the Mohawk and the head tattoo and just craziness. So I was like, oh my God, I don't have any of that. What, what do I have?

• 15:06Speaker 01

  And I kind of figured out, well, I have a lot of nothing, but a lot of averageness. So I'm kind of the everyman, you know? I always thought of myself as the proxy for what you would be if you just put an average guy in the UFC. And he's like, yeah, that dude's pretty badass. He's, I hope he didn't kill me, you know? And I would just always say kind of that, that thing that everybody would think, but not say. And that's kind of how I found my rhythm and, and who I was. You know, so basically, when you get this persona or you get to speak to, to people like this, you want to be a little bit of a magnification of what you already are. But there has to be, I think, some truth to it. It can't just be all made up, you know? Yeah.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  So you find, what do you like about yourself? What are the best versions of yourself? And you try to express those and minimize, you know, the qualities that aren't so great.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  You know, it's interesting, as an agent, a sports executive, I've been around the fight game, but mainly boxing, because that was much bigger when I was in that prime part of my career.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  We fixed that.

• 16:11Speaker 00

  Yes, you did. And, you know, some great wrestlers. In fact, the wrestling observer guy, Dave Meltzer, we get, we get all mixed up. So I get a lot of that news through my career as well. And I always know when someone like thinks I'm Dave Meltzer, because wrestling fans are nuts. And, you know, when you're someone like me who talks about gratitude and forgiveness and kindness and write books like compassionate capitalism and someone DMs you, look, you motherfucker, I'm going to kill you. You're like, hmm.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  Wrong Dave.

• 16:45Speaker 00

  Wrong Dave, right? Which is nice. But in, in the business that I was involved with, it's interesting because wrestling people always thought was fake. Hulk Hogan told me, he goes, Dave, wrestling is predetermined, professional wrestling. It's not fake. He goes, I've had more surgeries than Forrest Griffin ever could imagine. That's how real professional wrestling is, but it's predetermined. He, he would admit that. Boxing is kind of the hybrid between UFC and wrestling. Because I believe a lot of times boxing matches could be predetermined, but they were, I will tell you that. And, you know, let me just tell you how, like, I mean, just look at like Jake Paul today,

• 17:29Speaker 00

  you know, and Tyson and in these kind of fights. You know, there's a reality. I'll, I'll tell you a story. I won't use the name of the referee, but one of my friends, Sugar Ray Leonard, who's one of the greatest fighters of all time and one of the greatest people of all times, late in his career, got offered $2.4 million. I won't tell you what for which fight. And, you know, he was along in his career.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  This is before inflation. That's back when that was a big number. I know you were like.

• 17:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, put it this way.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  2.4, they were like, but.

• 18:02Speaker 00

  Put it this way.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Is he real money?

• 18:03Speaker 00

  The 2. whatever million dollar house he bought in Mahal and Drive next to Spielberg, he just sold for 57 million. So you can see how this equates.

• 18:14Speaker 02

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• 18:42Speaker 00

  Anyway, Sugar, he goes into the first round and it's, you know, I think a 12 round fight. And as soon as he gets hit hard, he, you know, he's hugging the referee and the referee calls it immediately. And he leans into the referee, goes, thanks, bro.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  So yeah, I don't think, the one thing I think people love about the UFC is it's real, but it can't be predetermined because from the time it goes, you can't, you can fake it in a ring with boxing gloves and you could predetermine a wrestling match, but I don't see how in UFC, you could fake it.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Well, the other thing is that you get incentivized for winning and even for stopping your opponent, right? So you can get, you get 25 grand if you stop your opponent. So if you don't go to decision, 25 grand, that's big. You get, you know, again, the way you pay is a structure. You might make 110 to fight and then 220 to fight and win. So you're going to make double the money to win. Plus you have all those bonuses, right? So there's also, I think, $400,000 bonuses for each fight. So again, what do they, what's the UFC, what's Dana trying to incentivize? Performance, not just winning, but winning in spectacular

• 20:06Speaker 01

  fashion. Again, it's a product. It's a product. It's meant to entertain people. And you know, there's fights where I go to like, all right, it's 1.25 speed. Okay. You know, you know, again, I've seen so many, you gotta, you gotta entertain me. You gotta bring it.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. Now, speaking of entertainment, there's other things revolving in your world. And one of the fun things that you work on is the slap fighting.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Well, I'm injured at the moment, so I'm not able to be chief head catcher, but I was briefly a catcher. So.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  Explain to people that may not be familiar with the slap fighting.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  First off, you just, you gotta watch it. It's, it's hard to explain. Does anybody know what we're talking about slap? There's a couple of that. You just, I think he volunteered to do it, actually. Who's saying? No, I'm out. Sorry. You're on your own. Yeah. So it's literally where you just slap each other. And there's, there's a set of rules and you kind of go with like a boxing scoring criteria. And there's people like me that are meant to not let you get that secondary concussive effect, right? So if you're going down, they catch your head basically before you hit the, you know, hit the stage. But it sounds crazy. But I will tell you this, being up there, there's a great energy. It feels really cool

• 21:28Speaker 01

  because they're like, wow, am I about to get knocked out? Or how am I going to knock this person out? So they got that going on. And I'm like, all right, don't be a dumb ass. Don't drop this person. Don't look like it. So everybody up there is feeling the feels, you know? So it's, it's, it's pretty cool.

• 21:45Speaker 00

  UFC obviously is a great product, but they're still growing. And a lot of people may have thought that the UFC has peaked out, but it just seems to continue. You know, you are on the inside. Is there still a lot of potential for growth with UFC?

• 22:05Speaker 01

  So I mean, I'll tell you, I'll give you kind of a stocked answer. He's trying to ask me those inside questions, huh? Were you trying to get me fired, Dave?

• 22:12Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 22:14Speaker 00

  You're my inside guy. I can't get you.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  There's, there's, I believe, this is personal, I believe there's a saturation point. So it turns out at the end of the day, it is fighting. Like people are hurting other people. And sometimes even I go, damn, that sucked. Oh, God. Arms aren't supposed to bend that way. Oh, my God. So there's a saturation point, but there's still so many people internationally that are not represented in the UFC, right? So if you think about it, one of the things that we get to do with the academy program, our goal is to create talent from certain regions, right? So if you think about China, everybody, all the Chinese folks, they want the great Chinese athlete to root for. They're like, oh, he's,

• 22:59Speaker 01

  he's one of us. He's got a similar background to me. I should start training. And then that creates the next version of fan. If you think about it, we both played football, you know?

• 23:09Speaker 00

  Different levels, but yeah.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Well, you made it further than I did, which is ironic according to me, but.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  Me too.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  But.

• 23:17Speaker 00

  I mean, I have to interject for one reason because people are like, you really play.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  But we're both, we're both fans of football because we had some experience playing football. And that's what we're doing. We're getting young kids. Look, you get eight, nine, 10 year olds doing MMA, jiu jitsu, wrestling. They might never compete. They might, you know, fizzle out in high school, but they'll have an appreciation for what it takes to do that. So like when I watch an NFL game, I go, oh my God, that is amazing. Whereas I feel like if you never tried to play football, you're like, yeah, I'll just, I'll just do that. Like when I watched the Olympics, I didn't do any of those sports. I'm like, it's just, it's looks kind of easy. You just throw it a little, just throw it a little further. Why is he so, why is it, was it so hard? Like, what are they doing?

• 24:02Speaker 00

  That's so good. I was going to say, I played college football. People are like, really? And then I'm humbly and honestly, I'm like, well, I was below average college football player. And then they laugh and I think to myself, you know, like half of, in history, half of all college football players were below average. I'm not a mathematician.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  I think that's how average works. I'm pretty sure.

• 24:24Speaker 00

  People won't admit it.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Don't, don't confuse us with medians in modes. Okay. Let's stick with average.

• 24:29Speaker 00

  That's.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Keep it simple.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  It's so good. But NBA is probably been the best at maturing the international.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  And Yao Ming created a huge following and obviously now in the NBA in different regions.

• 24:45Speaker 00

  Conor McGregor, probably the biggest star in the history of the UFC. And part of that, a lot of people, besides being a big character, understanding, you know, content, part of it was that Europeans, it wasn't just where he's from. It's all of Europe comes here for a fight, go crazy.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's more Irish people in America than Irish people in Ireland. So that was the big thing.

• 25:14Speaker 00

  Like more Jews, more Jews in New York than in Israel.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Sure. Yeah, exactly. So that's how he got the American market, you know? Oh, it's Irish. Everybody like my last name's Irish. Am I Irish? I don't know. St. Patty's Day, I am. My name is. So, you know, we're all, we all got a little bit Irish. Yeah. So he definitely, I mean, he did everything right at the right time. So I did some things right. And again, I was right there at the right time. It's that whole, you know, opportunity of luck and preparation type thing, you know? So the timing was right and he was the right athlete with the right skill set to say he was going to do amazing things. And then he did amazing things.

• 25:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. And doing amazing things makes a big difference. You won at the right time and you had a, as a champion, well deserved, but it was a lot of hard work. And very few people could have done what you did and very few people could have done what Connor did because the preparation is what gets missed. And the years of the doubt and the surgeries and the.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  The, the overnight success, right? We're all, you know, I was like a six year overnight success. I won the ultimate fight. Oh, my kids come out of nowhere. I was like, man, I've been doing this since 2000.

• 26:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  It's been, it's been a really rough five years. I've been homeless twice now.

• 26:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  And it's like, when you're 26 and you're living on your, or 25, living in my mom's house, because they took my room. So now I'm living in the, in the living room, in the bed my grandmother died in, the old electrical bed at 25. And you're like, man, I wish I could get a girlfriend, but where would I do with? So you're feeling like a loser, you know? So there's, again, like.

• 26:58Speaker 00

  That's so good.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  You know, you're not the overnight success. Like there's a lot of work, a lot of struggle went into it.

• 27:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. I, even young entrepreneurs that are successful, they were selling Skittles at seven, right? They were developing their business. They were coding at a young age. And, you know, just look at Gates and Bomber, you know, in where those guys were in high school and being exposed to these certain opportunities. There is that element of being exposed to and being prepared for and making the decision to do it.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  You know, that, that, yeah, that, that kind of reminds me of all the guys in the gym that were really good, some even better than me, that you've never heard of, that just didn't make it for whatever reason, you know? Some of it was luck. Some of it was like, they were, they were like one more shot away from that big payday, whatever. What is it? You know, something in Dave, Dig a Hole. If you've ever seen, if you have kids, anybody? No? It's a great book. Sam and Dave Dig a Hole. It's a legit book. But the thing is they quit and they're like three feet from the big payoff, you know? So you never know when that payoff is going to be. So it becomes kind of addictive to keep going

• 28:13Speaker 01

  and keep going. And you think, I think that's how gambling works, actually. Like, hey, the next one, the next one's going to be the one. The next one's going to be the one. I know for me, fighting was like that. This is the fight that's going to get me in the UFC. This is the fight that's going to get me noticed. If I do something here, they'll, they'll, they'll, you know, they'll definitely want me, right?

• 28:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. And that leads to the most obvious question in that realm of three feet from gold. And it's true in entrepreneurship and business. But the difference is in sports, when to say when. So I saw Marcus Mariota, you may not or do know who he is. He was a client and Marcus.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Quarterback.

• 28:51Speaker 00

  Quarterback and he.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  NFL.

• 28:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, he plays for Washington right now and he upset Seattle, the champions. And he's 42 years old or whatever Marcus is and out of, out of nowhere. And people had told Marcus when to say when I was with Austin Eckler. Uh, this weekend, he, you know, has a big announcement today that's coming out. He was retired because of injury and it doesn't look like he'll be retired anymore. Um, when in fighting, do you know when to say when?

• 29:22Speaker 01

  That's rough. It's really, I think fighting is harder than anything else because there's not like a team that cuts you. It's an individual sport, so you kind of create your own opportunities. And once you've built up a bit of a name and a bit of a reputation, um, you can kind of keep going. And the other thing is like in any career, like relating to you guys. It's at the end where you make the money, you know? You look at like, you know, you're going to struggle, struggle 20,000, 40,000, cool, cool. But it's at the end of your career where you make the big paychecks that are going to set you up for the next stage of your life. So it's really hard financially and mentally to turn it off. You know, most of us, our dream job was to be a professional fighter in the UFC. And then you do that and there's times you're sick of it, sure.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  But at the end of the day, like, what do I want to do more than this? Nothing. So it's very difficult. And that's, again, that's, that's a, that's a difficult conversation. It's like, where are you financially? Where are you in your life? What, what other skills do you have? What do you want to do? Um, you know, which is physically, where are you? Can you do this without hurting yourself? You know, what, what, like for me, I, I retired 36, which I feel like was pretty young, but it was like, you know, you're, you're seven surgeries deep. How, how far do you want to go? What's your quality of life looking at like you're 50? I think my daughter was three or four at the time. I was like, man, it'd be cool if I could dance at her wedding. That's not the path I'm headed on right now, you know?

• 30:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  So, yeah. I mean, well, she can wheel me down the aisle or something. I was like, no, I gotta call it.

• 30:54Speaker 00

  You now have a normal business life as well. And I assume you have to invest your money.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 31:04Speaker 00

  And tell me a little bit about the challenge.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  It's all penny stocks for me, all penny stocks. Petty stocks.

• 31:12Speaker 00

  Give me the greatest.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  And always black on roulette.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  As an athlete, when, when you retire, what, what are some of the dummy tax that you paid on the investment side?

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, so land was booming. Everything was amazing. I, I own a lot of dirt that I still have to pay taxes on and still have to pay the registration and the LLC fees that maybe one day I'll be able to offload. Um, but you know, again, you, you take some big swings and you, you know, for the most part, you want to like, you know, take smaller swings. You want to give good advice. Uh, again, make sure you're researching these people, looking them up. Um, you know, I, uh, I hate, hate, hate to see guys in my industry lose on deals because that's not money that they could ever make again, you know? Losing money at 26, well, that sucks.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Losing money at 36, well, that's going to change your life.

• 32:07Speaker 00

  As an athlete.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, as an athlete, because.

• 32:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  You know, if you think about it, um, I don't know, and you were thinking about professional athletics. Looked like we might have a few takers. He's thinking about maybe career in slapback there, but it, it kind of sucks. Like you work for a regular company, nice and safe. Now I know you're entrepreneurs, so it's similar to being a professional athlete. But you work for a region, regular company, you know, work for DuPont. I'm going to make 3% more than I did last year. Probably not going to get fired unless there's a corporate takeover or whatever. Um, yet works an athlete, you're like, cool. I made 400 grand last year. Cool. I made 500. Cool. I made 300. Cool. I made 200. Cool. I made no money. Wait, what? Oh yeah, you're, you're not good enough anymore.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  You know, you're not going to headline cards. You're not good enough. And now it's like, oh my goodness, what, what have I saved? What, you know, and I'll even, I'll own this. Lifestyle creep got me too. And I got used to like making pretty good chunks of money. And then like when there were no more chunks of money, I said, oh boy, I gotta, maybe I gotta change a few things. I can't, gotta, gotta be buying everybody's dinner all the time, you know? It's like, whoa.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  Um, so good.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  You know, it's not because I'm nice. It's because I wanted to feel like a big shot, just so you know.

• 33:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's a difference between you learn when you're buying everyone dinner. There's the people that will reach for the actual check and then people that kind of reach for their wallet.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  Like, like alligator arms.

• 33:36Speaker 00

  Exactly. Oh, I got that. I got that. All right.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  See, when I was buying everybody dinner, it was at like Applebee's. So it wasn't a deal. We're not, we're not at like Barcellos or something.

• 33:46Speaker 00

  You went to SW? No, no. That's why I keep buying you dinner. I just enjoy watching you eat.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  That's well, I'm the savage. Have you ever seen anybody else do the 22 ounce prime rib?

• 33:57Speaker 00

  No, it's amazing. We were just talking about Herschel Walker and the guy eats nothing.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  He eats nothing. I eat four times more than Herschel Walker, which is the only thing I'll ever be better than him at is eating.

• 34:09Speaker 00

  I can out eat half the NFL. That's impressive until you die. Um, all right, we have a minute left. You, you have done so many unbelievable things on, in the cage and outside the cage. I always like kind of the best piece of advice or favorite quote or something that can inspire us. I'll share mine while you think about it. Mine's simple. It's you're either humble or you're about to be. And it's amazing through the failures and successes. I still have to remind myself every time I succeeded something. And all of a sudden get a little bit bigger for my family, my friends, the media.

• 34:52Speaker 00

  I gotta remind myself, hey, brother, you're either humble or you're about to be. How about you? What, what moves you today?

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Well, so, uh, Eddie Murphy's got a great, great quote on advice and basically says you shouldn't give it because they're not going to listen. It's just going to frustrate you. So seriously, look up Eddie Murphy's quote on advice. Um, but for me, I, that's almost some of what I do in my job. And I don't, I don't worry about like the advice. I just, I want to give the, something that's tangible to them, you know? Like I don't give people, hey, you should probably do this. Well, that's not their set. They're not good enough to do that or they just don't have that opportunity. So for me, uh, one of the things is try to work smarter so you can work harder. Um, growing up, uh, I read, what was it? Animal Farm.

• 35:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  And my favorite character was the horse that ends up his glue. And his motto was one in doubt, work harder. And that was my motto through my fighting career. And then it ended sooner than I thought it did. And I thought, maybe that wasn't the best motto. Maybe sometimes you should work a little smarter so you can work a little harder. And I know you guys as entrepreneurs, you always think, well, I don't need that. I don't need to go breathe for 20 minutes or I don't, I don't need to. You know what? I gotta skip this workout. No, you know, you're going to get more out of that nine, 10 hour day. If you do the little thing, if you take care of yourself. So again, there's a balance and that's different for everybody.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  Great harmony, individualized for every human being. We are blessed to surround ourselves with champions. Let's hear it for the Hall of Fame UFC champion, Forrest Griffin.