I do wish this drawing looked more like GSP but hey, it’s practice. Anyway. I drew him because I listened to his interview on Lewis Howes’ podcast this morning. Some quick notes before I head off for a walk.
- Being bullied as a kid helped him build mental resilience as an adult but it’s not without its downsides. First: being bullied as a kid sucks.
- If you’re 35 with 3 straight losses with a dream of going pro… it might be time to let that dream go. This was part of a section where he talks about why he always tells kids to keep studying. It’s very very hard to make a living fighting. In 2 ways. First, the likelihood is just low—the level you need to get to requires years of dedication with the right training approach. Second, if you do make it to where you’re fighting for money, it’s still rarely enough to retire on after you’re done fighting. (Yes, even in the UFC.)
- He regrets that “I am not impressed with your performance” line… he apologized to Matt Hughes later. It wasn’t the right thing to try and take someone’s moment away from them to shine the light on himself. (Still one of the greatest post-fight moments ever.)
- The gym is the happiest and saddest place… He loves the gym because it’s where he gets to train. He gets to make both his body and mind better at the gym. But he knows it can be a sad place true because, as mentioned above, he sees a lot of people with dreams that won’t get fulfilled. And it can be easy to fall in love with outcomes that will never come instead of learning to love the training.
- Overconfident + Fearless = On the mat with Matt Serra punching your face — He says he was always afraid for every fight, except the fight against Matt Serra which he lost. Never again would he go into a fight feeling that overconfident.
- Eventually, tapping to strikes became okay… In the moment and months and years after, he looked at it as a moment of weakness. You tap to submissions but not to strikes. Tapping to strikes is more of “I quit” where tapping to submissions can be more of “Okay you got me”. He’s at peace with it now though and knows that it was better than taking more unnecessary strikes to the head. Those add up, fast.
Okay I’m off to the gym to try and fall in love with (a different kind of) training a little bit.