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. 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. This is the Lex Friedman Podcast, and here's my conversation with my longtime martial arts hero, and now my friend, Mr. George St-Pierre. In your fighting career, were you more motivated by the love of winning or the fear and hatred of losing?

- I like to win better than I hate to lose, because if it would not have been the case, I would never have fought in the first place because I don't like to fight at all. - But you talked about the anxiety, the fear that you experienced leading up to a fight.

So to you, ultimately, the reason to go through that difficult process is because it feels damn good to have your hand raised? - There is that. There is also the fact that martial art had 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 as a price, and a lot of money. I made a lot of money, of course, with it. I was maybe predisposed with certain abilities.

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

It's very hard to understand because I also believe most fighters are not like me. A lot of guys, because I corner a lot of guys, and it seems to me that they love their job. They enjoyed to go fight in the cage. I love to train. I love the science of fighting, the sport, to be in good shape, the confidence that training in mixed martial art give me.

However, I do not like the feeling of uncertainty, the stress that I have, not knowing if I will be badly injured, or humiliated, or winning the fight. It's, to me, unbearable. 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.

- But the thing you get from it is the freedom that you get because of the money, but because of the celebrity, because of everything that comes with it. 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? - To explain that, and so people can relate to it, 'cause not everybody's a fighter, I think the best example I can give is, let's say you haven't eat for a long time and you're craving, right?

So you're suffering. And then when it's time to eat, finally, you're about to eat your favorite dish. It's gonna taste so much better. So that's why I believe there's always 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 how it is for me. - 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 kind of incredible.

And it's not incredible in the simple way of finally I get to eat. You get to truly experience the beauty of what it is to be alive. Like that little piece of food, you see all the flavors, you feel just the experience of it is ultimately of gratitude of how awesome it is to be alive.

But when you eat many times a day and you're pigging out, you don't get to experience that. And it's fascinating. It's really like fasting is one of the most accessible things for people, I think to experience that kind of pairing of hardship to pleasure. - I agree. And in my case, it changed my life on a good way.

I cannot recommend it to people because everybody is different. But after my, to fight Michael Bisping, my last fight was against the champion in the 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 a little about eight to 10 pounds. Normally I walk around 185 pounds. And for that fight, I was walking around 195. However, I forced myself to eat like six times a day. I was on a very strict diet. And it didn't feel right to me because I feel like I was carrying, like a little bit like I was carrying a bag on my shoulder.

And I think it was a bad idea for me because when I did the weigh-in and I went on a scale at 185, I couldn't go back to my initial weight that was 195, that I worked so hard for several months to get there. So I was 190 pound, but I couldn't get back.

And the morning of the fight, I got sick. I had like, we didn't know what it was in the beginning because in order to know, to find out what it was, I needed to do what they call a colonoscopy. They put a camera inside of you. And to do that, they give you something that make, that empty you.

And I was trying to gain weight, not to lose weight. So I told myself, I'm gonna wait after the fight, whatever it is, because it was pretty bad. It was blood. And I didn't know what I was. I was very concerned. I thought I had maybe cancer. I was freaking out.

So I said, I'm gonna do that fight. And then after right away, I'm gonna make a checkup. So I did the fight. Everything went well. I won the fight. I went back home. I did a colonoscopy and I got diagnosed with ulcer colitis. Then I got on very severe medication to get better.

And I'm not a big fan of medication. I always trying to look for more natural way to get better. And I found out about fasting and it really changed my life. I met Dr. Jason Fong, who's one of the, one of the world authority of fasting. He treat diabetes patient with fasting.

And he gave me a program of fasting and it really changed my life. And right away, what I did is I went in a CAT scan to see the difference, because it was right after my fight with Michael Bisping. And I did the CAT scan. So I had my muscle mass, bone density, fat percentage, water retention.

It's pretty amazing. It can show you which harm has more muscle than the other. It's very precise. And I did it like two months after. So I started doing time restricted eating, 16/8, but right away when I started, I did three days water fast. And the Dr. Jason Fong says, because I like to train during those days, I consume Himalayan salt to make sure, because when you sweat, there's a lot of minerals to make sure you don't depleted your mineral.

And when I 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, it increased a little bit. Even though my weight on the scale was lighter, I kept the same muscle mass, even increases a little bit.

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

- So what was the actual process of fasting? You said 16, eight time restricted, so intermittent fasting, but you also mentioned the three day water fast. What did that feel like? And you also said training during the three day. - Yes. - How did that feel? Can you give me some details of- - Absolutely.

- This is fascinating. - So I do three days water fast, four time a year. - Nice. - For me, I do it, everybody is different, but for me, I do it after New Year's because during the holidays, that's when I eat bad foods and I drink. I see it more like a cleansing, like a detox, so to speak.

- Mental too, like psychological. - Yes. I do it after the New Year's, right before the summer, cut for the beach if I have to. After the summer, because in the summer, I've been partying a little bit sometime, let myself go and right before the holidays. And I've tried, the doctor, Fong, he says to me, he said, "George, everybody's different because I'm a very active person and everybody has a different genetic." So for me, I feel that three days is the sweet spot because I still train during those three days.

The first day, the first two days, I don't change nothing. I train on my regular schedule. However, on the third day, I modify a little bit. I do something more easy and that's how I do it. And I've tried before because when I say three days is my sweet spot, I've tried to go up to five days.

But the problem is after my third days, I found out that I had a big problem sleeping. I get into a hyperactive mode. They call that the hunter-gatherer mode. Your brain, I mean, it's amazing. Your creativity is at its peak, but you cannot sleep very well. And sleeping, for me, I think it's very important.

So that's why I do three days. For me, it's my sweet spot. - That's interesting. You're right. It's the four or five days when you start. See, sleep is not important for me. So the creativity is really important. So it's very interesting the places your mind goes after a few days.

You're right. But I mean, what does it do to your mind? So you mentioned your body likes it. In terms of training, do you find that it helps you focus and think? I mean, you're one of the great strategic thinkers in terms of martial arts. Does it help with learning?

Does it help with thinking? Does it help with strategizing and all that? - Well, unfortunately, I got into fasting after I retired. I wish I would have, I really wish people ask me, "Would you have done it during the time that you competed?" And the answer is yes. I think we live in a society that we're bombarded by publicity.

Oh, buy this, eat protein, this, that. And fasting, nobody makes money with it because there's nothing to sell. I think that's why a lot of people have not heard about it. And even for myself, if someone would have talked to me about the benefits of fasting when I was training, before I got sick, I would probably have ignored him because it's hard to believe.

- Sounds ridiculous. Don't eat. - It sounds, yes. - It's gonna help your mind and you're going to gain muscle potentially. - Exactly. And perhaps people have talked to me about it, but it went in one of my hair and got out from the other side. But it really changed my life.

I was diagnosed with ulcer colitis and it helps me get rid of all my symptoms. What I do is, I know a lot of people have ulcer colitis. And for me, I cannot recommend it to other people because everybody is different. But for me, I made a lot of research of how people from ulcer colitis got better.

And I found out that a lot of people that got that condition get better in a natural way through fasting, eating fermented food, collagen, and bone broth and stuff for their gut. And it made a huge difference in my life. I just wish I would have known that before.

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

- Is Rogan has influenced you? He's a carnivore diet. - I was influenced actually by people. Yeah, well, he, there's, I'll tell you where, 'cause I was doing it before he was doing it, is there's, it was popular in the endurance athlete community where it was fat adapted athletes.

It was people who, insane people who run 50 miles, a hundred miles, they figured out that they could fuel their body by, with fat. They can go to fat as the source of energy as opposed to carbs. So I remember hoping that I'll be able to learn how to run 50 miles and so on.

I've never done more than 22, but I just remember switching away from carbs and feeling really liberated. Like I wasn't thinking about food as much. I'm able to eat once a day and feel really good. I mean, I think everybody's body's different, but I think carbs make me lazy.

Maybe it's because- - The crash. - Yeah, it's the crash, but also just psychologically something, it forces me to also think about food too much. Like it starts becoming, you know, 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 gonna eat for lunch? What am I gonna eat for dinner? What am I gonna eat for breakfast? And if you're not careful, that's gonna 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. I don't know. It's been fascinating to figure out like later in life that carbs aren't necessary to function well. It makes me think like we don't know anything about nutrition. - That's right.

Yes. You know, personally, I don't think I could have a diet without carbs. I love chocolate too much. For me eating, 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 what I'm trying to do is the days that I do not work out, I only eat once.

That's kind of my rules. Plus I try to respect 16/8 and do my three day fast four time a year. But the rest of the thing, I let myself loose because I don't think I would be happy if I don't give myself the right to eat. For me personally, I love to eat so much.

Next. And you talk about diet, carnivore diet. It's very interesting because a few years ago, I went to Africa in Masai Mara and it's a tribe in East Africa. And I went to visit them. I did a safari. And I talked to them and these guys, their diet is 99% carnivore.

That's crazy. And you should see they're very beautiful people. Shredded like, some people would say, "Oh, it's genetic." I'm like, "Yeah, maybe it's genetic." But I mean, think about the Eskimos also. Most of their diet is on fish, right? So I believe it can be done. I believe it can be done, like an exclusive carnivore diet.

And I think I'm gonna try it pretty soon just to have the experience, to see how it feels like. - 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 can't ever stay on carnivore. It was funny 'cause we went to an Italian restaurant together and I still only eat meat. Like I love the constraints of discipline. That's partially why I like carnivore. I like saying no to food that is delicious. But part of the problem is that I don't know how to moderate.

You said chocolate. I don't know how to have one chocolate. Is that something you're able to do? Have like in moderation? - No, it's when I have an opportunity, I do it. I don't have any, I'm an extremist person. That's the thing. When I have a chance, I just eat.

I go too much. And that's what I like about my life. That's what I like about fasting because probably if I would not have discovered fasting, eating chocolate would give me cramps and all sorts of problems. 'Cause 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 medication free. I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want. But I have to do that fasting. And now it became to a point that it's no longer hard for me. It's like normal. I don't even force myself.

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

And when they eat, they feed themselves as much as they can until the next time. 'Cause they didn't know when they could eat again. So I think that's how we're built, to have this similar lifestyle. - If we could take a step back to the discussion about fear a little bit.

So Mike Tyson talks about this process of him walking to the ring. He sounds similar to you in many ways of the anxiety and the fear that he experiences. And he has this sort of story that he tells about walking to the ring and being supremely afraid. But as he walks and gets closer and steps in, he finds the confidence and becomes supremely confident.

I think he calls himself like a god. I feel like a god in the ring. Do you go through a similar process of finding the confidence? - Well, yes. And I use a James Lange theory. So what I do is, because I'm not afraid to admit that I'm afraid.

And in the beginning of my career, I really thought, I asked myself, because I was very good in mixed martial arts, but I really thought I wasn't made for this because the idea of fighting didn't make me happy. It's something like I was forced to do in order to keep that lifestyle that I have and achieve my goal, perhaps one day to make enough money to retire.

And 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 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, but it's always the same thing.

My last fight, Bisping, again in the locker room, I had like three guys that I trained with, Mickey Gall, Eamon Zahabi and Joseph Duffy. They all lost. It was like my locker room was basically cursed. 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 shake and yeah, good job. Now it's my turn. It's kind of a team brotherhood sort of thing. So the atmosphere in my locker room was pretty bad. It was like going to a, you know, like a funeral. So I was very scared. And before every fight, I asked myself always, shit, what the hell I'm doing here?

Why did I choose to come back? Oh my God. And I'm freaking out. However, I'm putting on a mask like I'm acting because if I don't do that, it will reflect on my coaches. And if my coach, the confidence of my coaches is affected, it will reflect on me.

So I need to feel strong. I need to make them believe that I'm excited to be there and I'm happy to be there. So this sort of play start when I get, when I first step in the locker room, even though I feel completely different, but that's how I play it.

Normally the fight day, I never feel 100%. I always feel exhausted, tired. My highs are hitching because I don't sleep enough the few nights before, because I'm constantly rehearsing scenarios that might happen in the fight. So mentally, it's not that I'm not on top. - But you keep all that to yourself.

- I keep it to myself and I'm lying to everybody around me. But everybody knows, you know? Ferraz, John, they know Freddie Rose, 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, "Hey, 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 start to warm up and everything. And as you start to warm up, you become a different person because, you know, we know that certain posture and yoga can affect your mental state. But I would say it's a little bit the same thing in fighting, you know?

Like when you started hitting the pads, your muscle memory, your instincts comes back and you remember that you're good at this, you know? And your confidence start to grow. And as seeing your trainers holding the pad and repeating your moves, it makes you also remember all the sacrifice you have done through your training camp.

And confidence come from how you prepared yourself. And even you're afraid, you can be 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 the new Reebok deal they had. But I did the same rehearsal that I always do. I look at myself in the mirror and I start to compliment myself. Like, even if I don't believe it, I'm starting to trying to believe it as I am.

I'm finding all the reason why I'm going to win the fight. And all my trainer knows that before every fight, when the guy from the UFC goes, step in my room and says, "St. Pierre, you're up next." I always take a few minute to do that same rehearsal. And I tell myself, I'm going to win this fight because I'm better.

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

And I was telling myself, I'm going to show these young kids how things should be done. You know, I tried 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 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. So that's how I see it for myself. - So at that point, you stop thinking and you just go cruise control, autopilot. - 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 brain is programmed to react accordingly to certain situations. And it's not the night of the fight that you'll tell yourself oh, finally, I'm going to do this if you do this now. No, if you have not practiced it before, you're screwed. It's the preparation, the repetition that makes it happen.

- What about like the really difficult moments in a fight where you are tested to your limits, essentially. Usually it's cardio related exhaustion, right? Where you have to ask yourself that same question. It's like, why the hell am I doing this? - Yeah. - Do you experience those? Or are you able to ride through the autopilot?

And if you do, like, what do you do in those moments? - Never in a fight. When I'm in a fight, when the fight is on, I never change my mind. I go until the end. However, for example, my first fight with BJ Penn, I had a terrible first round.

So I had to switch gear. That happened sometimes. But it's part of my plan. I always have a plan B, plan A, plan B, plan C. You need to have that. If fighters goes into a fight thinking, oh, I'm going to 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. You know, for BJ Penn, my first fight with BJ Penn was, oh, I'm going to keep it standing up, keep the fight from the outside, you know, because I'm faster than him.

Then the fight with BJ Penn start. I found out that I was not faster than him. And I found out that his reaction time was better than mine. So I got beat up the first round. And I got a bloody nose and everything. So my plan B was now I'm going to wrestle him.

You know, I'm going to wrestle him and, you know, 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 opponent, you might win a few fight, but you're going to find, you're going to fight someone sooner or later that will give you a lot of trouble.

- So that's where the anxiety pays off. You're anticipating all the ways it goes wrong. So you've developed a plan B and plan C. Hi, you know, we talked a lot with, like John Donaher, who you work with. It's interesting. I don't think I've heard him talk about plan B and plan C.

He usually has a really clear plan A, an entire system of plan A. I don't think I've heard him. We've had a good discussion about it in, over some cheeseburgers. And 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, 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.

- You know, in mixed martial arts, sometimes it's like in science, sometimes you can make a mistake, you know? Like every human can make mistakes, you know? There's certain sport or a certain situation that you, if there's a mistake made, that's it, exactly. Sometimes it's the case in MMA, but sometimes you're able to redeem yourself.

And if you look at the fight with BJ Penn one that I had, which was probably one of the most competitive fight, and it was probably the, it was the fight that I got the most damage, and I was messed up. It took me three days, like two, three days to recuperate from that fight.

I was really damaged. And my first fight versus my second fight, I made a lot of adjustment because I have learned from my first fight. And also I had a guy, one 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 Ferras and I. And what he does, he watch fight and he measure frames. The way he does it is when you watch a fight and one of the guy throw a punch, he cut the picture by frame, the video by frame.

Clack, clack, clack, clack. So he's able to see which fighter has better reaction time than others. And BJ Penn, he found out that BJ Penn, 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, Lyoto Mashido was the second one.

But BJ Penn was the first one. So I knew that if I would try to go first, because I always been the fastest guy normally when I fight someone. But when I fought BJ Penn, I tried to go first and he was always able to, like I never, was never able to touch him with my jab and he came back with a counter punch.

However, because of what he told me, I knew that BJ Penn has a very fast reaction time, but had a very poor reset time. To him, the way he described it to me, he's like, "Your nervous system is like a muscle." BJ Penn was so fast, but he's like more like a sprinter.

So what I did the second fight, when I fought BJ Penn, I made him flinch. Like I fake a lot, so I make him react and flinch. So all that reaction time that he used to flinch was not used properly to avoid my punches. So I burn, I load up his nervous system with a lot of information and fake and to make him flinch and pretending I was kicking and wrestling.

So he got overwhelmed and he got tired very, very fast. So that's how I beat him. People sometimes they don't know really what's the strategy behind the thing. They only see the physical part. But when you fight someone, if I fight you, I look at you in the eyes, there's a lot of things that going on between you and I.

I can look down here, bam, jab you in the face. The audience will not see 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, like the mental game, what you make him believe, those little thing, I use a lot of those.

If you've talked to a lot of my opponent, they'll tell you like, I use a lot of these little thing. Like I look down at Banner, I go up or I am pretending I want to attack you, so I make you flinch. But in reality, I'm just doing this because I want to rest, I want to recuperate and I'm tired.

- How much is, people talk about that with poker, for example, how much is the value of this? So like some people argue that poker is more about the betting, just the money. It's just how much you bet and so on. So that would be more like the analogy there with fighting would be just strictly the physical movement of your body.

And then a lot of people argue that there's a lot here in the way you look and the little movements in the face. So do you think you're communicating with your opponent when you look at them? - There's no way to know for sure, 100%. And I'm by no means 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. 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 capitalize on my mistake. It's up to him to make a risk. So people, sometimes they don't understand that this is the art of fighting, my friend.

Like if I'm winning the fight, like in hockey, in ice hockey, if you're winning the game and it's the third period, it's at the end of the third period, you're not gonna take out your goal and they're trying to score another goal because winning five to three or five to four is the same thing.

Same thing in MMA, we make a living out of this. And sometimes, as sad as it can be, you wanna save yourself for another day, 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 good counter fighter, I use a lot of my attack or counter strike or reactive takedown or proactive takedown. That's my specialty. So I'm not gonna, I'd have no desire to sacrifice myself trying to finish my opponent if he want to, if perhaps I might give him the opportunity to capitalize on me.

It's not smart to do that. And very often when I fight someone, I can read him, I see the fear in his eyes. Now I'm like, I got you now. He's very desperate, 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. If I have a chance, of course, I'll knock him out, but I'm not gonna try to sacrifice myself to knock him 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, I just got brain damage, maybe I'm never gonna come back the same, maybe I ruined my career or, it's a very serious game that we're playing, it's very dangerous.

- In the face of that risk, I mean, Mike Tyson talked about, "When the opponent looks away, he knows he's got them." 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 two lions fight or two whatever fight, there's a certain beta move when you've been defeated. - Yes, or one thing when I know that, that when it happened, one of the thing is when I just make a feint and the guy flinch like crazy, that's mean he's really scared of me.

It's a little bit like you're doing this, that guy flinch a little bit, or you're doing this, he's flinch, 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 round.

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. I don't care who they are, John Jones, like you could clearly see that in the beginning of their reign, they could finish a lot of their opponent, 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 a ways to, perhaps not beating you, but they found a way to navigate through the fight in a way that they minimize the damage. You know what I mean? So it's a big difference between fighting to win and fighting to not lose.

- You said that there's a difference between a fighter and a martial artist. So now we were talking about fighting, you're considered by many to be one of the greatest fighters of all time. But you've said that there's a difference between a fighter and a martial artist. A fighter is training for a purpose, he has a fight.

I'm a martial artist, I don't train for a fight. I train for myself, I'm training all the time. My goal is perfection, but I will never reach perfection. So what to you does it mean to be a martial artist? - 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 to see that 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 get to 40 years old, you know? Like it's, I'm, you know, like. - Well, Mike Tyson-- - I don't wanna fight in a cage at 40 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 you play with a string when he's young, like, (imitates drum roll) then he's five years old, (imitates drum roll) six years old, seven years old, eight years old.

And then I'm always like, what the hell I'm doing here? And I'm too old for this. Like, I've done it, you know? And I got out of it on top and I'm healthy, which is the most important thing right now, I'm touching wood and I'm wealthy. I beat the game, you know what I mean?

In a way, like, that's not to be cocky, but I did it. And I wish more fighters could do the same thing. I wish, but it's unfortunate because a lot of them, they stay there and hang out for too long and they get badly hurt. They get beaten and broken, 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 unbelievable. However, everything that goes up in life goes down and you need to plan your future, you know? So for me, if some guys have the same mentality as me and they're watching us right now, I would say if you do it because you're just good at it, you like the money, 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 cash out and get out of here.

- Walk away. - Yes. - That's really hard to do. - However, Alex, it's not everybody that does it for that reason. Some people generally love to fight, love to compete. So they do it because they 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 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, say get out of here, man. If you're in your prime, get out of here because if you don't, you'll hurt your own legacy, you'll damage your health. It's very sad. And it's a sad business, you know what I mean? It's like a lot of, one of the place where, is one of the most happiest place for me to go and the most saddest place for me to go, it's in the gym, it's in Tristar, 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 30, 33 years old.

And they comes to me and say, "Hey, George, you have some advice for me?" And I look at them. And if they're my friend, they're real close friend of mine, I'll tell them the truth in their face. And I've done it many time and it was not well received.

But if they're not my friend, I have to, it's always an advice about fighting and I answer their question, it's my pleasure. But the truth, if they want me to tell the truth, the big majority of them, I would tell them, I said, "Listen, man, you're in maybe three, like on a losing street of three fight.

You're 30, 33 years old. I think you should think about doing something else in your life, have other goals, because you're not gonna make it." And I've seen that movie before and it's a very sad ending. And I'm sad to tell you the truth because you're not gonna make the money.

Just choose something. 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 what, the star were all aligned, but at one point you need to be able to have a plan B.

You know, like some parent, they come to see me with their kids. "Hey, this is the future world champion in UFC. And what advice would you give him?" I always tell the same thing. And it does not make everybody happy when I say that. I say, I go to the kid, I say, "Are you good at school?" Say, "Stay at school.

School is very important for you. Stay educated." "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 say, not angry, but I can see in their eyes, they're like, they kind of surprised.

And it's not because I made it that I will tell their kid to follow the same path that I did. I went to school too. I've studied. I dropped out of school when I had my first world championship fight against Matt Hughes. But before that, I was at school.

So I had another, you know, another way to go if things would not have gone the same, the way I wanted. But the problem, and I'm saying that, it's not only about boxing and MMA. I'm talking about hockey, basketball, baseball, same thing. Maybe it's one on a hundred thousand that make it.

And I'm saying, I'm saying that make it. When I'm saying make it, that means 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 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. - But having other paths in life actually can also increase the chance of you dominating and like reaching the highest peak in your main thing. I mean, Jimmy Pedro, I don't know if you know who that is.

He's a judo coach in America. He was, he says that to all of his athletes is to make sure that you go. He has a lot of, Kayla Harrison, two-time Olympic gold medalist. He has a lot of Olympic medalists. But basically there's something about going to school, like having, forget school, any other avenue in life that gives you the freedom to go all out in your main.

Like that, 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. - Yes. - As opposed to kind of, you have to. I mean, 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. 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, I say, you do way too much volume.

You train way too hard. Train smarter, it's more important. And I think sometimes we underestimate the benefit of recuperation. Because I think we assimilate the information that we learn during a training when we recuperate and not during the training itself. And this whole mentality of harder, heavier, you know, like 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 time it's because you're not lazy. And a lot of guys, sometimes they're elite athlete, champions, and you'll 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 made me think about it. His name is Mansour Barnawee. He's going to be a future star.

He's an incredible fighter. He train once a day. And he asked me sometime advice when he came to Montreal. He's from France. You'll hear about him. He's very good. And I saw him in the morning at TriStar and I said, okay, I'll see you perhaps later in the other trainings.

Oh no, I only train once a day. And he kind of wait for me to give him like, not an approval, but like to see how I react. Or, you know, I don't know. It was kind of a strange feeling, but I told myself at that point, I kind of had an awakening and I told myself, man, maybe he's doing the right thing.

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

And I wouldn't change anything, you know, like if I would be him, because he's improving like crazy. - Yeah, and ultimately the bigger picture there is to do something that everyone else says is stupid. It's like the fasting thing that a lot of people would say, a lot of nutritional experts would say that that's a dumb way.

You know, if you want to be an MMA fighter, you should be eating like many times a day. You should be starting every day with oatmeal. You should be carving up constantly, but that's not necessarily true for everybody. And it's possible. I'm sure there's actually now a few MMA fighters that are carnivore only.

It's possible. - I used to eat right before training and it didn't bother me. However, now my first training that I do normally in average around noon, 11 a.m., I haven't eaten anything when I do my first training. And it feels to me that 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. - Well, it's fascinating the role of the mind in all of this. How important is it for your mind to be clear, to really think deeply? There's a Jidoka American named Travis Stevens.

I remember he said something that the right kind of practice is when your mind is exhausted at the end of it, that you were constantly thinking through things. Like your body shouldn't be exhausted first. Your mind should be exhausted first. It's really fascinating. So people think about training hard.

A successful practice is where you walk away just overwhelmed how much you had to think. It's fascinating framing of a successful practice. - 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. (laughs) 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 accomplishment. It's unbelievable.

It paid off. 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. (laughs) I was like, my God, this guy is made of steel. And after training, I always offer him, I say, hey, Travis, I know you like to train with that because in Montreal, they have very good judo team, Nicholas Gill and all those guy.

And I say, if you wanna stay, I'll get you the hotel. Anything you want, it's like, no, no, I gotta go back. I gotta 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.

- 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 have to be alone.

It's a lonely journey, actually. It's kind of sad. It's much easier to be in Japan where everybody's a killer. When you're alone at it, it's a difficult journey. And it's funny, we talked about kind of, there's some sports where a mistake is, that's it. You can't recover from a mistake.

I think judo oftentimes is one of those sports and added on top of that is the Olympics. Only every four years. And Travis'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 jujitsu 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 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, and like he clearly could have been very successful. He's also an incredible jujitsu competitor. So he could have switched to that, but he's stuck. - In a lot of sport, when you're in elite, like for example, in Canada, ice hockey is the number one sport of the country.

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 it's a kid that superstar stardom, so to speak. And it's already glass or glamorous, you know? However, in MMA, there's no MMA, judo, wrestling, like in America, because it's not our national sport. Actually, it's not like, even when I first started, it was not really well received by the media.

There's no glamor into it. Now, I don't know, it seems like it's another era now. And I feel sometimes that some people do it for the wrong reason. Some people do it because of the glamor, because of the money. But even if you're in elite and very good, the glamor and the money won't come in the beginning.

It's a very long grind before it start to come in. And you need to make those sacrifices. And it's a journey that where you will be tested, you will be hurt repetitively, and you're gonna have to reach the down deep and come back up. 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, and you have the stars are aligned, you're gonna make it. That's why it's only a few people that make it. And that's why I feel sometimes a lot of people in the new generation do it for the wrong reason.

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. We didn't seek money and fame. We did it because we wanted to be, I did it because I wanted to be the man.

I like to have the confidence that when I walk somewhere, I have the confidence that it's an illusion because nobody's faster than a bullet. But I wanted to achieve it for myself. And which today now, because I don't know if it's social media and all that, the world has changed.

The glamor, I feel it's a different thing right now. - Yeah, if you get in it for the glamor or the money, you may not have the right amount of fuel to persevere through all the ups and downs. - Yeah. - For sure. When you talk about motivation of money and glamor, a guy comes to mind, and I don't know how many wrestlers you know, but in Russia, there's a guy named Bovesy Seteev.

The Seteev 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 different battles you've been through or whatever.

It's about the philosophy behind the way he approaches life. Now he has spoken quite a bit about that the glamor, 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 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. 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, not bringing him out of being able to just walk away. - You know, we talk about the gold very often. Khabib is one of, isn't the argument because he has the most dominant carrier of all martial art, the guy.

Some guys can be named the gold for different reason, but Khabib for that reason, and he's undefeated. I don't even know if he lost, he might have lost round, but he dominate all his opponent. It was ridiculous. And such an incredible carrier that he had. I love to watch him fight, he's incredible.

And when you talk about the art, when you say mixed martial art, the idea of a flawless performance for me, everybody often when we say flawless performance thinks about a knockout, a brutal knockout. But for me, it's to be able to showcase beautiful technique, like a beautiful takedown, beautiful submission, like something beautiful that, you know, when you look at, for example, Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan or like Stephen Curry, 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 trying to say the word beautiful in fighting for certain people, it could sound kind of crazy, you know, but I'm talking about the technique, a beautiful technique. You know, for me, that's the goal. You know, when I was fighting, it's not only to have a brutal knockout because some people are more gifted than others.

I'm saying gifted, some people are better than others in certain phase of fighting. But for me, it was that, it was to showcase, to win, of course, but to showcase some beautiful technique that you can watch it and be like, wow, that was incredible, the timing he did it.

And when I think about Khabib Nurmagomedov, I see all the detail of his work, especially when 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 in terms of that fighting style, that particular expertise that he has, it's just incredible.

- The flawless execution of that particular set of techniques. - Yeah, and Conor McGregor at the accuracy. The Spider, Anderson Silva was like, was I would say the most flamboyant of all, you know, like he was moving like the Matrix. Jon Jones was incredible in terms of creativity, spinning elbows and that, and he faced incredible adversity.

Dmitriy Ruzhansky was so complete. You could bring, like he was slamming a guy to an armbar. It was just unbelievable. Like, he was like the complete fighter. BJ Penn was like so flexible. He did stuff with his body that like nobody could do. His, the dexterity of his hips was just unbelievable.

Dominic Cruz, to me, it was incredible. His footwork, his distance control. So when you talk about like the GOAT, Royce Gracie, another one, he did things that I think for me is the number one because- - Yeah, I gotta, and sorry to interrupt, the hoist 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. Hoist, you somehow skipped Fedor. I'm very, as a Russian, I'm very offended. - No, I was going to, there's so many. Fedor is one as well. Fedor, I think in his prime was like, when you say, when you talk about a name, for example, like we talk about him when he was in his prime.

Like when I talk, for example, about Anderson Silva, I'm not talking about the Anderson Silva who fought his last fight against Uriah 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 kind of make people forget how good they were. And it's very sad. We talk about Fedor and 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.

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 forgot about him. It's crazy, man. It's one fight. You zig when you should zag, boom.

That's the reality of mixed martial art. - Well, that's why the thing is, the mixed martial arts isn't just the performance, the strictly who won and who lost. It's also the stories we tell ourselves. And so, I mean, there's beautiful stories being weaved. And that also is part of who is the greatest of all time is what were the battles?

What had to be overcome? What was the flavor of the flawless performances? All of that plays into it. And you're right, being able to walk away at the top is also part of that. - A lot of people ask me about Khabib. And that fight, I wanted to happen.

Khabib wanted to happen, but UFC did not want to happen. - Between you and Khabib. - Yes. And we tried to make it like about three years ago when I retired. No, it was after two years ago. And it 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 Justin Gaethje, I was doing the commentator in French for the UFC. And I had Butterfly. I thought he was going to call me out. (laughing) 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- - He's the scariest matchup? - Yes, but he was worth the risk because nobody have ever been able to solve them. - How would you solve the Khabib, no matter how many of them out of puzzle? - Well, Khabib is very good against the fence.

I would have to establish a game plan and everything. But I think what I would need it to do is take the center of the octagon right away. Use a lot of think and faith. Keep the fight 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 takedown and perhaps my superior explosivity to put him down.

I like to use those proactive and reactive takedown because for me, I feel it's more economical. Khabib is a much better chain wrestler than me. Chain wrestler is when you got the guys to the fence, it's pure wrestling. What makes my takedown very efficient, it's my karate, it's not my wrestling.

I'm very good at timing my opponent and getting in with my explosivity. So if you watch at my takedown, it does not demand a lot of work. I call it proactive takedown. When he's coming to punch me and I react. So I mean, proactive is when I'm faking it.

So I instigate the takedown by a fake, then I take him down. And reactive is when I'm baiting him to throw something, then I'm going. - As a counter. Yeah, yeah. - Yes. But all my takedowns- - In the center of the octagon. - Yes, my takedowns are more in the center of the octagon.

Like for example, another guy that does it well is Gleason Thibaud, that did it well in his best days. Khabib has more a style of chain wrestling, I would say like Kamaru Usman, so to speak, kind of guy. It's a different style. You cannot compare both styles. And that's the kind of takedown I'm good.

And if I would have fight Khabib, that's one of the strategy I would have adopted. I wouldn't have been afraid because everybody that I fought, I was able to put them down. And I have the pedigree to prove it in my fight resume. So you would have perhaps seen my back and I would have perhaps be in my back as well.

So it would have been a very interesting fight. - How hard do you think he is to take down? I mean, a lot of people speak about his wrestling being- - It has nothing to do with the wrestling because- - That's due to the karate. - If I got the timing and I got my both hand around his knees, he's going down the other way.

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

- Is it possible this fight still happens? You're young, look great in the suit. - Well, there's a lot of problems now. And the thing is, now I made peace with it. I no longer don't want to fight. And I don't, it's not going to happen. UFC was not interested.

And I'm bound by contract with the UFC and by exclusivity. There's some people says to me, "Oh, how about if Russians, a crazy wealthy Russian guy come with the money?" I said, "I'm going to be in court with UFC." And also I'm older now. And when I go home, man, I'm like, I don't want to do this, you know?

- But you were always like this. - No, but I don't want to do this. But like, for example, I was training with Freddie Roach. A few days ago and I'm hitting pads, you know? (imitates punching) And Freddie's looking at me and he's like, "Hey, you have the hitch back." I'm like, "Yeah." If Dana White would walk in the room, in the gym, at that precise moment with a UFC contract, I would sign it in the blink of an eye.

But then after I go home, I'm like, "Hell no." My belly is full, I'm healthy, I'm wealthy. Why would I want to fight for? I made peace with it. But the minute I go back in the gym, because I still get it inside me, when I train with the young guys, I still get it.

And a lot of guys think, say, "Tell me the truth, you're preparing a comeback." 'Cause I still get it. You know, I'm a little bit older, but I got more knowledge. I can compensate. I become a different animal because it changed you. But then after you go home and you're like, "Man, no way I'm doing this." (both laugh) It's very hard to explain.

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

- There is a thing too, like we say, "Oh, who's the best fighter?" People, like I realized that later in my life. And I'm sure a lot of young guy will say, "Oh, St-Pierre, 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 baddest man on the planet. You know, like nobody can beat you at. It's an illusion, man. - That's the sad thing about, for example, DC. Daniel Kormien is probably one of the greatest, if not the greatest of all time.

You said Neochish, but like, it's almost because of that little matchup with Jon Jones, it's difficult for people to conceive of him as the greatest of all time. - It's all about matchup. It's all about timing. And also you make a fight, you make both guys fight 10 times.

The result might be different. Like every time, you know, I mean, maybe he's gonna win eight out of 10, but that night he's gonna lose. Why? Because we don't know 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 makes him lose focus and he got caught.

We don't know, but that's the thing. People ask me, would you have done it with Khabib? What would happen? I don't know, maybe out of 10 times, I don't know. Maybe as a fighter, I hope I would have win more than him. He thinks the opposite. It'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 he's the one that fought the best the night of the fight. Same thing 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 night of the game. And fighting is no different. So being the baddest man on the planet, it's an illusion.

- I mean, that's the tragic thing about it is on any one night, anything can happen. And then that tells a story for all of human history. It's sad to think about, but that's what makes it beautiful that there's so much 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.

I mean, that's the beauty. That's why people love the Olympics especially 'cause 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 why we love it, right? That's why we love it. - If we would know always the result before it would be boring, that's why we do it.

You watch the odds, like sometimes I like to watch the odds before a fight because there's things, I believe in causality. I believe in everybody believe different things, but I believe everything is because 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. If there's a cause by definition, there is not. - How does that make you feel by the way?

Like the idea that if we just look outside even just human psychology and fighting and so on, if we look at like physics, if everything's predetermined, if all of these little molecules interacting, it's all already like your story is already written. - I mean, it's written, but I would need to know all the data and it's impossible, right?

Like it's kind of weird, I gotta say, but I don't, to me, I don't see any argument to counter that idea. Maybe I'm ignorant, but I haven't seen nobody and everything that I've read so far, there is nothing that counter that idea that, because in a mechanical world, if your car broke, or we don't say, oh, the car decided to broke, or a tree is fall, there's reason why the tree is fall, if we don't say the tree is decide to fall, right?

So because us human being, I think it's our ego, we decide, and I'm no different than anybody, when I make a decision, I decided to do this, I choose to do this, but I'm aware that there is causes that make me do certain things. And by definition, I think if there is a cause, there is no free will, by definition, right?

- Yes, but the thing is, just like you said, we understand so little about human intelligence, the human mind, and especially consciousness, that this giant mystery, this darkness, that we don't understand how it feels like to be something, to be a conscious being, that because of that, we're not able to really even reason about free will or not.

'Cause there might be some magic that comes from consciousness. The consciousness might be the thing that makes us different from a car that breaks down. There might be something totally fascinating, totally undiscovered yet, that will make us realize that free will is actually real, and is somehow fundamental to the human experience.

So, 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, that 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 at the core of how the universe works. Some people believe that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe. Like it's one of the forces of physics. Consciousness permeates everything, 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 tend to be sort of humbled by the mystery of it. - Do you believe one day, with the technology that keep improving, we will make robot that will be able to be somehow conscious?

- Absolutely. That's been my dream. That's been, I hope to do just that. First of all, I believe that all people are capable and want to be good to each other. And I think love is a really powerful thing that connects us and can create better and better worlds.

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

In terms of them being conscious, I think that is an absolute requirement that entities we interact with communicate some element of consciousness to us. Like that's how we connect to each other. The reason 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, ability to suffer, to struggle in this world.

Because just like you said, without the struggle, you don't have the love, you don't have the pleasure. And ultimately consciousness is an entity's ability to struggle, to suffer. And from that arises the pleasure. And us together being able to appreciate sort of appreciate the highs and experience together the lows.

That's how we form the deep connections. I personally think we can create that in robots. And I personally believe it's a lot easier than we think. - Does it make you afraid sometimes about the fact that one day, hey, hi, like artificial intelligence could hurt us? Or, you know, like, 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.

- Yeah, so Elon talks about with AI, we're summoning the demon. He is very concerned. And I talked to him about it quite a bit. He's very concerned about all the different ways AI could hurt us humans. I tend to believe that there's a lot more ways in which AI can make our lives better and can make life awesome for humans.

I think humans are the ones that can do a lot of evil things. So I'm less worried about AI, I'm more worried about humans. If I look at what human 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 AI take that in consideration in order to protect us against ourself, it could hurt us. I don't know if you understand what, like, what do you think about that? Does it makes you afraid sometime? Not because of AI, but because of what humans are doing that AI could do to us to prevent us of hurting ourself, you know?

- Yeah, no, I mean, definitely it can bring out the worst in human nature and provide tools for evil people to do evil things at a larger scale. But I just think, it depends what you think human beings are. I tend to believe that as we get more intelligent, we start to see the value, the evolutionary value, and the value in terms of happiness of being good to each other.

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 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 people power and the evil people less power. Now, there's a lot of ways in that, 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. 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 Terminator. You think about Terminator as intelligent systems, they're not, they're pretty dumb. The point is they're efficient at doing what they do. And in the space of war, efficient at doing what you do means killing. So that I'm really afraid of, but those are dumb AI.

Those aren't your loving, deep, fulfilling relationships. That's like efficiently being able to fly, to plan the trajectory of dropping bombs, of missiles, of how to do counter attacks, of how to maximize the destruction of a particular facility instead of individuals. And then that can just escalate. And as opposed to the Cold War with the Soviet Union, this could be a hot war.

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

So you still have a human that pulls the trigger at the end, dropping the bomb. Now, automation and AI 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. 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, that's just, okay, so that's going to lead to a lot of destruction at the scale of a city.

But then you can immediately take that to nuclear weapons. If you add automation to responding to counter attacks to nuclear weapons, you might get information that somebody's planning a nuclear attack on the United States. And the AI system will immediately respond. And it can respond to the 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. - 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, very often, men of power wants more power.

That's what makes me afraid with- - 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 human nature. It wants power. We see that with institutions. We see that with governments and nations. I think you see this with the internet. People are really hungry for the distribution of power. Like you see that people are very much distrustful of centralized places of power, of institutions and so on.

So I think successful organizations, successful companies, successful governments will be run by people who distribute the power. Like I don't trust myself with power at all. And I think you have to build into the system that no one person can have power, that you distribute it. That's where you have, in the financial sector, you have cryptocurrency right now with Bitcoin and all those kinds of things.

People are exploring, how can we avoid the central bank to have the control? How do you put the power in the hands of 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.

- What do you think about militarizing space? - The Space Force. I don't think about it often because right now I'm filled with excitement about space exploration, which is the positive aspect. So Elon, 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 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 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.

- Another nation to compete. Who goes to the moon first, I guess. - That's those kinds of things. Or maybe for satellites and all of those kinds of communication and maybe in assistance for like cyber warfare, which is also very dangerous. But in terms of the wars out in space, I think everything out in space will be positive and inspiring.

It's very hard, but all good things are hard, I think. This is where I've been talking to a bunch of people about extraterrestrial life. I'm really excited by, I don't know, it's the other thing. When I look out to the stars, it's exciting to me. I know I think you've spoken about it being scary, but to me it's exciting that there's intelligent creatures out there far beyond perhaps the intelligence of our own that are just too far away to explore yet, but we might one day come in contact with them.

So that to me is the ultimate motivator, is to meet other intelligence life forms out there and connect with them. - Have you ever meet Jacques Vallée? - No, but I've been in communication. I hope to talk to him. He's amazing. - He's French, yeah. I know that there's many theories about, you know, if they're resilient, we don't know, right?

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 could be living in a different dimension than us. And the reason why he says that is when he makes an experiment, when there is a sightings very often of a UFO, let's say I'm the UFO, you have three guys.

One, they are looking at the UFO. Very often, one experiment that you can do, and sometime that is the case, you ask your two friends to walk on the side and there's a point that it's like a corridor. You see the UFO and then you stop seeing it like a corridor.

And that's one of the reason why he's saying that it's perhaps dimension. And I found that fascinating, you know? - This is what, you know, to the discussion of consciousness and all that, it feels like we might be just experiencing a very particular slice of this universe. We might not be understanding what's at the higher dimensions or yeah, I mean, higher dimensions in whatever form that means.

You know, there's all these physical theories now that describe a world with dimensions that's much higher than the four dimensions of the three dimensional space and the one 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. That the limitations are just, I mean, we're just descendants of apes. So like, it might not be possible to even understand. - Is there alien? Is there another dimension? Are they human from the future? Is there perhaps Chinese or another, you know what I mean?

A group of people that are working with a technology far behind. But you know what, Lex, I had 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 ask them every time. I met one this week and I asked him, I say, "Is it true about the UFO is there?" And he says to me, he's like, even before I asked him, I say, "Hey, 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, he knew it. And I say, "Yes." - He saw it in your eyes. - He said, "Yeah, there is things that flies that we don't know." But he didn't tell me, he doesn't know it.

They don't know if it's cellular or whatever, but there's things apparently that are detected. And I know you met Fravor, you know, like- - Fravor is fascinating. - It's crazy. - It makes me sad that- - We live in a different era now that it's, it used to be a subject that was ridiculed and now it's so cool that it's, you know, I'm very excited to live in to that era, you know?

- Yeah, it's really exciting, but still the governments are kind of behind the times on that aspect is they're not transparent and they don't communicate well. You know, it saddens me to think the possibility that, you know, like the US government might be in possession of something that they don't tell the world about because they're just scared.

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. - 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 much of, you know what I mean?

I don't think the president even know, like even knows all the secrets, right? - The US president, yeah. - I don't think so because he goes, they go back and forth, you know, every four years, you know, they have the terms, right? So I, you know, I wasn't sure before, but I think I could trust the previous United States president of Donald Trump that if he knew, he would probably tweet about it.

So I think from the, you know, I've worked with DARPA, I worked with DOD at a clearance. And I think from the perspective, if you see the world as fundamentally a dangerous world, where secrets are important to have from a military perspective, I think it's very unsafe to tell the president of the United States that you have this kind of technology.

So if you think of the world in that way, I hate that that's how that world is viewed because ultimately I think what's more powerful than the military secrets, and I hope that actually is what will happen in the 21st century, what's more powerful is inspire people, inspire the young Elon Musk's of the world to create cool new things.

If we have technology that we've have come, have encountered that we don't understand, that should only be inspiration to develop that kind of stuff. It shouldn't be seen as military, as a military threat, as a secret to hold onto. - I think secrets, 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, they're making it open source. Like secrets don't make sense. - They share the knowledge, right? - Share the knowledge, like being afraid to share the knowledge, I think, I hope is an old idea. - It's more, yeah, when you make it, things more compartmentalize, 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 there. It makes me sad, it makes me sad 'cause the science, the engineering that happens in governments, like Lockheed Martin, developing the different airplanes that they use for military applications, that's 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- - Would know? - Probably knows some stuff. - My God, my God. - I would love to know what he knows.

But then again, you never know because even he is, 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. - That's right. - Okay, and he's trying to establish a balance.

He might not know everything. So I hope this changes 'cause I think there's nothing more exciting about- - I don't even know if there is a human that knows, you know what I mean? Like this idea that there's some alien civilization that land on the White House and say, "Hi, I come to meet the president." And I, why would they do that?

You know what I mean? It's kind of absurd. - Well, 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 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- - Wah, wah.

- Yeah, more, yeah. It's this dumb thing, you know, we're not interacting with the aliens. I think 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. 'Cause we keep sending robots out.

So they're going to like, they're going to make decisions about humans by looking at the robots. (laughs) - I say the famous grays. - The grays. - Maybe they are robots. Maybe it's all BS too, you know? - Yeah, yeah. So 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, we might, the aliens might already be here and we might just not even know how to see them or know how to communicate with them. - There's so much misinformation and sometimes there is people that are very credible that made crazy claims, you know?

Like you don't know what to believe, you know? Like Paul Elyard, the minister of defense 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 Medvedev, you're from Russia.

Medvedev have been caught in a, 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 I don't know if he was saying the truth. - I didn't know about this.

That's interesting. - Yeah, you can check on YouTube. It's, it went viral. Yeah, there's a lot of things like that sometime. I'm like, or Bob Lazar, I'm like, imagine if it's true, man. - Yeah. - Imagine if we're like a fish in the water, we live in our own world and sometime there's a fisherman that grabbed the fish, take him out of the water and threw it back in the water and the fish goes back to the other fish, it's like, hey, there's someone that take me out of the water.

Then I've seen things that I did not like, imagine if it's true. Like, and one other thing, like, I wanted to ask you because you were consciousness, how about dreams? What is a dream? - Yeah, well, I more and more, I don't know if you're paying attention to this.

There's now, it's become more acceptable in the scientific community to do large scale studies of psychedelics, for example. And there's a lot of connection between psychedelics and dreams. There's very similar states. 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. In a different, not traveling to physical space, it's the other dimensions that we were 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 creatures like entities. And like, who are they? What's, what is this? - Is it because they're high or it's because- - They're actually meeting something and maybe there's no difference.

I mean, that, who knows exactly. And that's takes us right back to us not being able to really understand how our mind works. You know, I work in artificial intelligence. It's clear that we understand so little about intelligence, some basic things about intelligence. Just at the very sort of basic first principles level, we don't understand what it means to reason, to think, to assimilate pieces of knowledge together from the basics to the complex.

We don't understand it. We don't understand how the human mind does it. We don't understand how the human mind is able to take incredible waterfall of information and filter cleanly into just like clean. You only see the things that are important and are able to 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 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? - Yeah. - This is the Joe Rogan philosophy.

- But I do know that past civilization where a lot of them were based on shamanism. And you know what? I think it's sad is if someone drink alcohol and when he's drunk, he's going to commit like murders or we're gonna blame the person, right? We're gonna say that's his fault.

It's not the fault of alcohol. However, if someone does psychedelic or any things that is illegal and do something crazy, now we're gonna 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 legalize marijuana. - Oh yeah? - Yeah, marijuana is legal. But before that, before they did it, like if you talk, for example, to my dad, he's 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 eating chocolate could be bad as well for your health or like, I mean, I'm going to the extreme now, but what is good?

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

I would be interesting to know about that. It's fascinating, you know? - Yeah, and I mean, we humans kind of just come up with the 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 cruelties to robots. That eventually there'll be a civil rights movement for robots, the ones who choose to be conscious, the ones who have consciousness will say, "We deserve rights too.

We deserve to be treated with respect too." - How about the people we put in jail? - People put in jail? - I think in the future we'll look back and we'll think of ourself being stupid to put people in jail instead of trying to fix the problem at the base.

Of course now, I guess it's our ignorance that made it in a way that we cannot sometimes understand what makes sometimes a psychopath a psychopath or a murderer a murderer. But if we can pinpoint the problem and take care of it before, you know what I mean? Or made it in a way that we can reestablish that person in the society, who knows what was the future is old.

It's interesting, we're living in an interesting time. - You mentioned your father. What have you learned from your dad? You mentioned he was an important part of 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.

My dad for me is a big role model because I see him through my life facing a lot of adversity. You know, he stopped drinking when I was a teenager. He was an alcoholic and I seen him struggle through that. You know, and it was very, very hard. And 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. It became an habit and a normal way of living. 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.

But also it taught me a lesson that, in a way that I don't want to be like him, even if he is happy, it's because I 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, you know what I mean?

I want to decide when I work. You know, I feel like he lived to work instead of working for a living. And perhaps it's because he did not have choice. He was the older of his family. They were nine kid. His dad, my grandfather died when he was young.

So he had to become the father of the family and work to put money on the table. So perhaps that's what made him that way. And he became like, like an habit for him. My dad taught me, when I was at school, I was bullied at school. He's the first one who initiate me to martial art.

He taught me karate. 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. I have a winning, a great career in mixed martial art, but in the schoolyard.

- That's so good. Mixed record. - My record is not very good. When you're a kid and you're about seven, eight years old, and you're facing bullies that are two to three years older than yourself, it's not the same thing than when you're 25 and the guy is 28.

So there was a big discrepancy in terms of maturity. So my dad taught me, introduced me to karate. Then he didn't have time to teach me. Then he put me in a school with a teacher. It was Jean Couture. And I grew up with a lot of anger. And there were two person that was afraid growing up.

It was my dad. My dad was very severe, very strict with me. And I'm glad he was because I could have become very bad. I could have become chosen on a different path. People see me as a nice guy and I am a nice guy. I try to be a good role model, but I could easily have turned towards a wrong path.

- There's darkness somewhere in there. - Yes, there are a lot. And a lot of my friends have choose that path. And unfortunately, they are not with me today. Even if I'm from Canada and Canada seems like the nicest country in the world. Like I said, even if you live in a nice country, not always nice thing.

It depends of the situation. But that's what my dad taught me. And he gave me that because I'm very good at learning by observing people. And by observing him, I see the struggle he had with alcoholism and what he did, the pain sometimes that he inflict to us, to my family.

But how he turn, he did that 180 degree. And I really admire that. And I know it was very, very hard for him and he did it. And for me, that's a great role model for me. - 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 makes you sit back and enjoy and say that was a good day, what's that look like? What are we talking about? When do you wake up? What do you eat?

What do you do? - It changed over the years. When I was younger, I have a good day. It was like a good training session or achieving good thing in my training. And that's why I was very good at it because when I was obsessed, I think to be good at something, you need to become obsessed.

And to me, performing in my training was everything. 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 tell nobody. I was like, "Hey, hey, hey." Then I go in the locker room, I'm like, "Fuck, man." Then I'm playing the training in my mind, and I'm saying, "Okay, I should have done this, I should have done that." And it haunt me.

It haunt me, man. It's a training and it haunt 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 Côté, we had Dennis Kang, Steve Vigneault, Jonathan Goulet.

It 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 a note, I contact everybody that we all joined force and we exchange ideas and we train with each other. So I would say friendly competition.

It was not malicious, but it was hard training. Our goal was to improve, 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 haunt 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 we were trying to do malicious thing to one another. You know what I mean? It need to be playful, but playful, but competitive. That when I had a good training session because a 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 my ideal day back in the day. Today has changed. You know, my life has changed. You know, like I am not the same person I used to be when I went on my knees and begged the UFC for title shot.

You know what I mean? I'm wealthy, I'm healthy, most importantly. That's the most important thing. And as, man, I'm gonna tell you the truth, as good as my career was, man, my private life, man, is a million time better, man. I, and people ask me sometimes, they always wonder, they try to ask me, and it's normal, a lot of people is curious and the reporter, and in the sport of mixed martial art, we say we play basketball, we play soccer, but you don't play fighting.

So when you expose your private life, we've seen that happen in the fight with sometimes 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. So me, I never expose my private life.

I never post Instagram of my family or my stuff. That's the reason why, because I'm in a business of fighting, and people know that they cannot get to me. And I believe, because I was bullied when I was young, I didn't realize that when I was young, but it helps me deal with the mental warfare that I had to face later on in my life in mixed martial art, because it's a very egotistic sport, and there's a lot of intimidation.

And I was used to, I've been used to this thing when I was young, so it does not get to me. However, the good way to get to me, go try to get to someone I love. Now, man, I'm gonna go crazy, you know what I mean? And I'm aware of that.

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

Actually, it's kind of interesting, but for the most part, throughout his life, he kept it pretty secret. Doesn't talk about it in his, he's a comedian. Comedians talk about everything. He doesn't really talk about it. And there's something to that. It preserves the magic of the silence of the private life.

- And I think it can affect 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 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 the dinner or anything, I talk with personal, we share a thing, but when I'm talking, I'm aware of the audience who I'm in front. - Yeah, but oftentimes, those people are just incredible. It kind of makes me sad that, you know, there's a lot of people that love you, right?

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

And it makes me, it's like a little goodbye of a possible friend, I don't know. It makes me sad. - You're right. - 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. - Personally, I believe every relationship, I don't like to use this term, but it's always a give and take relationship, you know? Like you can gain something and the person, like it could be something like not materialistic, like something always a good, confident, like someone that can give me good advice.

Or it's a word I would say like extensional. Like if a pilot has a co-pilot, the co-pilot 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 love, you know, like sometimes I think is it a BS word or not? Because I myself, sometimes look at, I look at myself in the mirror, and when I do stupid thing, sometimes I love myself a lot, and sometimes I don't, you know what I mean?

Because I'm angry at myself, I've done stupid thing. So that means sometimes love could be fluctuating, you know what I mean? How about in relationship? Sometimes 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, by definition, if you really love someone, and let's say you're an old man and you love a woman and she decide to leave you for a younger man, if you really love her, you're gonna help her pack and leave. But in our society, sometimes we want to hone something.

- To me, love includes the missing somebody, the losing somebody, the anger at somebody. It's all the passion, feelings towards somebody. That's all love. Like, you know, it's all part of the thing. It's the ups and downs. The sad thing is when the feelings towards a person, the ups and downs go away, the forgetting.

That's the opposite of love. So the opposite of love isn't hate. To me, the opposite of love is forgetting. And that's a much bigger, the depth of human connection, that's how I see love. - Sometimes I try to stay positive and I've been asked how I try to, because I have the image of someone who's positive, but I go through my own demon as well sometimes.

However, we talk about love. When I was young, you know, I didn't love who I was at first. That's how I learned to kind of love myself. When I was going through bullying, I believe I was bullied because I didn't love myself, 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 a predatory animal in nature.

They will hunt the easier prey. They don't go, the lion don't go for the alpha bull. They go for the one who's hold or who's sick, the weakest one. And bullies are the same in society, I believe. And I didn't like to be bullied, of course, but I didn't like the person that I was.

But I found out through martial art, the respect. And my coach was extraordinary to me. He taught me discipline and self-strength. And I found out that I needed to, in order to love myself, I needed to change myself. Because 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 trying to showcase a more confident image. And it was hard in the beginning because I didn't really believe in it, but I fake it until kind of I make it.

So when I was walking at school, more and more I was learning how to become more confident. And I was like taking charge. When the teacher was asking question, at first I was never answering. It was like this, waiting always to be the last. Then I was, hey, I know what the answer, this is the answer.

I got out of my comfort zone, so to speak. And I wish I would tell you that I got out of bullying because a Hollywood story, 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 as something stupid, I'm like, shoot, I did something stupid.

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. I'm the person that I am right now. So I can learn and become that image of the person that I love. So in a way, the reason I'm trying to be positive and I'm able to stay positive sometime in life is because I'm always trying to be like that person that I love.

And I think if you don't look yourself in the mirror and don't love yourself or don't see any positive future for yourself, how can you change your environment if you cannot change yourself? You know what I mean? You will never be happy if you're not happy when you look at yourself in the mirror.

So change yourself first, then change your... You know, it's not the environment that gonna change for yourself. You have to go from the inside out. This I learned through martial art. 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 how I...

He's dead now, unfortunately, peace to him, but he was incredible, incredible. He was very, very strict. I was afraid of him. I was afraid of my dad and afraid of him. He couldn't teach nowadays like he used to teach me because he would be probably in jail, you know?

But I'm glad he did it because for the time being, that's what I needed. And I would never have had that career I had in mixed martial art without this because I would never have got out of my comfort zone. Would have been impossible. And in order to improve in life, you need to get out of your comfort zone.

It's hard, it's very hard to do. - And strive to be the person that you can love. As beautifully put, George. If you were to give advice to a young person today about life, what would you tell them? - If he takes life with the same, 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 will have a dream, you know, like, make everything in your power and work very hard, you know, never take no for an answer and go through hell in order to achieve it.

Don't work hard only, but work smart. That's I think the problems with a lot of people. They work hard, they can work hard, they burn themselves, but they don't work smart. Whether it is in science, in business, they make bad choices or they're badly informed. 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. What I would say to, for example, because my field of expertise, it's in sport of mixed martial art. I would say to a young kid, make your training playful. You know, when you get ready for competition, you need to try to recreate those element that makes you go outside of your comfort zone.

But in everyday's life in general, make your training playful. Don't make it like a hardcore competition about who's winning, who's losing. Make it playful. So it will increase your, because you will not be afraid of getting hurt or losing. You will be tempted to try more things and it will make you become more creative.

- You know, that brings up another question about learning. So you value knowledge and you're exceptional at basically being very good at learning and figuring stuff out, new things or going deeper on the things you already know. So what advice would you have for how to learn effectively? How, you know, you say work smart.

How do you figure this game out? - I believe the best way to learn is learning from other people's mistake. (both laughing) However, I'm not perfect and I've learned from my mistakes as well. And sometimes it took me a few mistake to learn the same thing. But especially in the sport of mixed martial art, because we're talking about the failure could have very serious outcome on someone's life and wellbeing.

So it's crucial to trying to learn from other people mistakes. - Do you study others? - Yes, every fight I've studied my opponent and I've studied myself as well to know 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 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.

That's why I always seek advices from the best in every discipline. Like I wrestle with the best wrestler I could be with. I box with the best boxers. I practice karate with the best karate fighters. Same thing in Jiu Jitsu. I train Jiu Jitsu with the best Jiu Jitsu guys.

However, when I mix everything and mixed martial art, because I'm very competent in every areas. So when I'm fighting someone, I'm very good at identifying where is the less competent. And I know for a fact that because I'm competent everywhere if I can bring the fight where he's outside of his comfort zone, it increased my odds of winning.

There is no certainty. It's all about odds, I believe. Because there is always X factor that you do not control. - Yeah, it's fascinating to see you actually 'cause you've been a student of movement. You've been exploring all kinds, I mean, gymnastics, all that kind of stuff. There's something reminiscent to, like Conor McGregor is one other martial artist that's kind of explored movement, been a scholar of movement.

At least from my perspective, it's very sort of Bruce Lee-like. It's almost making a study of the human body and all the possible things you can do. Is there a philosophy behind that that you have? - You talk about Bruce Lee, man. You said it best. He changes my life too.

He was ahead of his time. - Yeah, incredible. - A lot of people talk to me and they ask me, "Hey, is Bruce Lee, would have been able to fight in UFC?" I, no. Look, I don't think so. I don't know. I think he was a martial artist. He could have defend himself, but to say that he could have compete amongst the elite of the elite fighter, perhaps in his time, but for sure if you put him in UFC right now, the sport has improved incredibly since then.

But in terms of philosophy, yeah, Bruce Lee was amazing. 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 kick that it got popularized by John Jones, you know, the side kick to the thigh.

It's 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. 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 stun people, they're incredible. Like the order one that does like forms in karate, like jumping, spin kick, back kick, like acrobatic stuff, mixed martial art. They are unbelievable. And there's also the one that compete in fighting. Like that's what I do.

I personally specialize in. - Well, you also do the philosophy. - I do a little bit of philosophy, but that's, you know, - That's a consequence of the fighting. - 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 dimension, but you will specialize in one.

I specialize through my life in fighting, like the real thing in terms of fighting competition. 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 and the most prestigious organization. And you might not be able to perform the stunt that, for example, the stuntman I've done in the series I was playing in the Falcon and Winter Soldier.

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 took thinking about these stuff. I'm sure he did not just came out of nowhere. He was thinking, that's mean he slept on this.

How many hours? It's just unbelievable. - He's like water, my friend. How many times has he thought about water going to bed before he said that? Oh, let me ask a very important fundamental question about martial arts. We're both wearing a suit and tie. Joe Rogan thinks that wearing a tie is a huge disadvantage.

Is it clip on or is it an actual tie? - It's an actual tie. - So do you agree or disagree with Joe Rogan that wearing a tie is a martial arts significant disadvantage in terms of combat, in a combat scenario? - In a fight, I think it would be a disadvantage.

- Yes. - Okay, but did this make any sense? - I work as a security bouncer in nightclubs and I had to work in a certain event when I was 18 years old. - Yes. - And sometimes 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 was in suit and tie. But if I would have had to, before going to the table to physically take the guy out, I would have removed my tie and I would have called backup for sure. And I would have probably used the element of surprise to be first on the guy.

- Yes. - When you're in a bar, same thing. You call backup first and you make sure you ask the waitress before to clean the table before you go. - Yeah. - And when you go, you have to use the element of surprise. - Yeah. - Because fighting in mixed martial art and fighting in the street, it's two different thing.

And yes, 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-- - What's the difference? What's like the-- - Oh my God, it's a huge difference. There is guys that if I would have a choice to fight, for example, certain guys in UFC in a street fight and fight other guys that are not in UFC, I would maybe sometimes pick guys that are not in UFC, not necessarily.

Because in a 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. - Oh, interesting. - Yes, because if-- - Aggression, you're sacrificing the surprise.

- The person will not come punch you without warning. 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 Bass Ruthen this weekend about it.

- I saw that. - Every martial art comes from, like some martial art are from exclusively for competition. Like sport karate, like certain martial art. But traditional martial art are for the street, are for self-defense. And I start my background in Kyokushin karate. So it's for, 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 go for the eyes, the neck, the-- - Surprise is everything.

- It's total ball game, you know what I mean? You have the chair, the beard, there's so much more thing going on. So the idea of, because you are a UFC fighter, you think you're invincible, this is BS. Anybody can come, like if a big guy who punch 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 Ngan, someone come behind your head and bang. Or let's say there's an argument and you get surprised by a punch.

You can be dropped and lose a fight. That doesn't matter. The element of surprise is everything. - So you were saying remove all the sources of the elements of surprise. All the, clear the bar, remove the tie. I still disagree with you about the tie. (laughing) - Just for your information, if someone comes looking for trouble and you see me do this, and going sideways a little bit, that's my position that I'm thinking that maybe something will happen.

And I'm about-- - That's a good non-threatening-- - I'm about thinking about doing the element. I'm about to punch you or to do something to take care of this. - See, to flip the table on you then, wearing a tie is communicating the nice guy image. So it actually gives you the freedom for more elements of surprise by wearing the tie.

If you take it off, that's more, you're limiting your options. 'Cause nobody's gonna expect the guy in the tie to do anything. - I'm a big believer that sometimes it's not only materialism, it's what you project. - That's true. - 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 something stupid like this. Then it kind of break the momentum. But the guy was looking for trouble. I don't wanna fight you. I don't wanna 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? That's the thing with martial art. If you use the necessary force to take out a problem, it's okay. But if 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. That's how they teach in self-defense. Here, never put your hands down. Always hand there. 'Cause 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 this, if someone talks to you and you go like this, that's mean you're telling the guy that you wanna fight, you don't wanna do that. You don't wanna, ah yeah. That's the position.

'Cause your hands are here. Whatever you can do, you're here. - Well, also your ear tells the story. - It's not everybody that knows that, however. Some people might think that it's my mom grabbed me by the ear and pulled me because I didn't listen to her. A real fight in the street and a fight in mixed martial art is a different ball game.

- What do you think is the best martial art to prepare you for street fighting? People often kind of have this discussion of jujitsu, maybe boxing, maybe wrestling. Do you think, when you talk about a young person studying martial arts to prepare themselves. - For a street fight, it's often much different than a mixed martial art fight.

And I know there's a lot of BS in the world of martial art, like self-defense stuff. But I believe self-defense is very important in a way to understand the situation, to understand those situations that might occur, how to deal with it. Because not necessarily that we talk about the technicality, we talk about the tacticality, the tactics.

Like when I'm talking to you about the element of surprise, it's important, this is not technique. A technique is a punch or techniques that I physically will use to enable my opponent, my aggressor. 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. This is the first thing that generally I have to agree on. 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 everything goes.

But generally speaking, the person that will have the first blow or the first punch will have a huge advantage. It's like doing a hundred meter race and having a headstart. - And that you can't prepare for with any martial art. - 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 what to do to disable him. Like boom, or here, or the neck, you know? Like, and if you blind him, what is he gonna do? You know what I mean? So, or a bottle, you know what I mean?

So, the element of surprise is, it's everything. So, that's why it's always good to be the nice guy and not looking for trouble, because if you're not looking for trouble, you have the headstart, you have the option of having a headstart. - So, what you're saying is being a nice guy is the best form of self-defense, maybe a little humor too.

- You know, I have learned that. I've learned that when I was a kid. I was about maybe seven, six years old. We used to play, in Montreal, there's a lot of snow. We used to play King of the Mountain. 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 another guy came in on top of the mountain, and he was angry that 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 fight?" And I said, "Yeah." I didn't know what he mean, like, "I wanna fight, "you wanna wrestle?" He said, "I say yes." He punched me right in the face, boom. And then I fall on the bottom of the mountain.

Then when I fall down, I remember that vision in my life, because 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 the snow is red because my nose is bleeding. Now I remember the limit of surprises, everything.

My first street fight, I lost it. I got, I didn't get knocked out, but I got dropped on the bottom of the snow mountain. And I was like, "Ah, he got me," because I was not expecting it. My hand, I was not expecting a punch. So from there, when I felt the heat during an argument or something was not right, I always stroke first.

I didn't win all my fight, because sometimes there were more than one guys on me, you know, but I think it's important to not be the aggressor, so you have the element of surprise, and always use that in your favor. - That's so brilliant. Let me go from the very practical to the most impractically huge question about the meaning of life.

You said that when great depths of unrelenting sorrow punctuated by great peaks of joy and liberation, the result is delicious. So what do you think is the meaning of this whole journey that we're on, this life? What makes life delicious? - To me, you know, satisfaction is the M for me.

Like I always, if I'm satisfied, that's mean I have no, nothing to live for. I'm not talking only about my career, I'm talking about my life. What do you want in your life? You want kids, you want a family, you want to be champion. What do you want in your life?

You have like a long-term goal, short-term goal? In mixed martial art, I achieve what I needed to achieve. I'm satisfied. I'm no longer the same Josh St-Pierre than when I was begging for a title shot on my knees. I move on from it. 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 cast for "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" that is on Disney+ channel.

It's a huge, huge project to be part of for me because it's like you play basketball, you have a chance to go for the NBA right away. I was very lucky. The timing was just too perfect. And so you need to constantly challenging yourself and having goals to achieve.

You know, like keep your brain activated, like keep working. And the proof of that is that you see sometimes some old people, like when they retire, very often, sometime you see that they got sick and they die or because they... It's either because sometime we think we... We make, we 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 going to 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 you come in my house? I have this thing to repair. I don't know how to do it." So it gives him a reason, not to live because he has other things to do, but what I mean is also in life, I think you always don't be afraid to aim high.

Don't be afraid to fix your objective very high and never be able to reach it. - 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 'cause you've been acting in some really exciting things.

Do you think there's a dramatic role where it's basically, you go full Robert De Niro in "Taxi" driver, do you think there'll be a full length feature film with Georges St-Pierre? - I liken there's 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 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. And I know that I will be most likely be 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. So when I go on set and playing the role of a badass martial art guy, it's easier.

So like in training for a fight, I always make my preparation harder than the actual task. - I would love to see where, I don't know if you've seen the "Wrestler" with Mickey Rourke. - Oh yeah. - Those types of films, I would love to, I would love to you do something like that.

If not now, then in 10, 20 years, I could see that. That would be amazing. There's levels to the game, right? - Yes, it's gradual. And I'm aware that I don't wanna take something on my shoulder that I won't be able to deliver. It's like a fighter who wants to go for a title shot right away, it could very well break him.

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 artist 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-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal and everything, but my acting was not on point at that time. So every time I'm gonna come back from now on, on screen, I 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 that's how I see it. And 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 Trujillo.

And I always seek the advice of actors when I see some of them that, because I really admire how they do, how they project their emotion. And I asked him, Danny Trujillo, I said to him, he's an amazing guy, by the way, very nice guy. And I asked him, I say, 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 someone and you scream at him, "I'm gonna kill you." It's not as scary if you're smiling and you say, I'm gonna kill you. 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. - It's a difficult journey 'cause then you have to go to some dark places as a person, 'cause you really have to imagine some dark things. It's fascinating, actually. - I think a lot of the actor, they have sometimes problems because of that.

Because now I understand why. If you work on your bicep, your bicep will grow, right? Because it's the stress that you put on it that will make it grow, right? Emotions, I believe, are the same way. If you're used to dig inside of you down deep to make your negative emotion, depressive emotion comes out, if something bad in your life happen, you will fall into those emotion much more rapidly that someone who does not that every day.

You know what I mean? Because it's like a muscle memory. Like if you program yourself to react a certain way, you will reach that point very often. So that's why sometimes you see some guys, we often blame it on drug, but I think it's also because of the acting.

They're used to be so on the hop top and sometimes they go to the down deep. So they're both extreme, you know? - You gotta be psychologically tough. And that's life. This is, I'm so excited to see you challenge yourself in that direction. - That's one thing that I'm a little bit afraid that happened to me.

I really hope I'll always be, you know, like having a problem to control my emotion be too much extreme. - Oh, yeah. - I hope it does not happen to me. And if I feel that I'm going towards that, I'm gonna, you know, give up on my new objective and find something else to achieve.

- But in your personal life, you wanna be real with your emotions. You don't want to, it doesn't, you know, just like with biceps, you don't want biceps that are too big. - You are real, but you are extreme real. And that's the, that's what I think. Sometimes it could happen to actors when they go too much into their emotion.

Like we talk about like sometimes guys that commit suicide, perhaps, you know, I don't know, 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 never had acting class, but after a while that you have acting class now, you start to realize that, yeah, I understand why some actor get caught up in their emotion, because that can have an influence on their life, right?

- You're on a fascinating journey, George. I can't tell you how much it means to me that you'd be so nice to me, that you'll give me so much respect. Just 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 to me. - No, thank you, Lex, for having me on the show.

I've been looking to talk to you for a long time. For me, talking to a guy like you, it's a great learning experience because I always learn. And life is fascinating to me and all the experience that we have in life, it's something that can make us grow. And this experience for me just make me grow as well.

Plus we look pretty damn sharp today. - Men in black, my friend. - Men in black. Thanks, George. (laughing) - Nice. - 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. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)