Georges St-Pierre: The Science of Fighting
音乐与艺术体育与武术心理与人性生物与进化AI 与机器学习
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🔑 关键词
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💬 精彩语录
"like, but I believe self defense is very important in a way to understand the situation, to understand"
喜欢，但我相信自卫对于了解情况、了解情况非常重要
— Georges St-Pierre （2:26:40.040）
"And so I think we get into trouble with militarization, with wars when the resources are very constrained."
所以我认为，当资源非常有限时，我们就会陷入军事化和战争的麻烦。
— Georges St-Pierre （1:33:47.580）
"we might be just experiencing a very particular slice of this universe, we might not be understanding"
我们可能只是在经历这个宇宙的一个非常特殊的部分，我们可能不理解
— Georges St-Pierre （1:36:27.480）
"And to me, performing in my training was everything, you know, like when I had a bad training session,"
对我来说，训练中的表现就是一切，你知道，就像我训练不佳时一样，
— Georges St-Pierre （1:56:56.360）
🎙️ 完整对话（2401 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with George St. Pierre, considered by many to be the greatest
以下是与乔治·圣皮埃尔的对话，他被许多人认为是最伟大的
Lex Fridman (00:05.240)
fighter in the history of UFC and MMA, but even more than that, one of the greatest martial
UFC 和 MMA 历史上的拳击手，但更重要的是，他是最伟大的格斗家之一
Lex Fridman (00:11.260)
artists ever.
曾经的艺术家。
Lex Fridman (00:13.520)
Quick mention of our sponsors, Allform, ExpressVPN, Blinkist, Theragun, and The Information.
快速提及我们的赞助商 Allform、ExpressVPN、Blinkist、Theragun 和 The Information。
Lex Fridman (00:21.840)
Check them out in the description to support this podcast.
在说明中查看它们以支持此播客。
Georges St-Pierre (00:25.080)
As a side note, let me say that getting the chance to hang out with George, talk to him
作为旁注，让我说，有机会和乔治一起出去玩，和他谈谈
Georges St-Pierre (00:30.040)
on the podcast, record a quick self defense video that I'll release soon, all while
在播客上，录制一段快速自卫视频，我很快就会发布，同时
Georges St-Pierre (00:36.140)
both of us wearing suits was one of the most memorable days of my life.
我们俩都穿着西装，这是我一生中最难忘的日子之一。
Georges St-Pierre (00:41.540)
In setting all this up, I talked to Joe Rogan and originally we couldn't schedule a chat
在设置这一切时，我与 Joe Rogan 进行了交谈，最初我们无法安排聊天
Georges St-Pierre (00:45.640)
with him and George on the JRE, which allowed me to pretend for a brief time that George
与他和乔治一起在 JRE 上，这让我可以假装乔治很短一段时间
Lex Fridman (00:51.920)
came down to Austin just to see me.
来奥斯汀就是为了见我。
Lex Fridman (00:54.960)
Who the hell am I?
我到底是谁？
Georges St-Pierre (00:57.080)
In truth, him and Joe probably conspired to make me feel special, but that's the point.
事实上，他和乔可能合谋让我感觉很特别，但这就是重点。
Georges St-Pierre (01:01.800)
It's inspiring to see George and Joe, who are at the top of their field, treat others
看到处于各自领域顶尖地位的乔治和乔对待他人是令人鼓舞的
Georges St-Pierre (01:07.060)
as equals, as human beings, no matter who they are, even silly Russians in a suit.
作为人类，平等，无论他们是谁，即使是穿着西装的愚蠢的俄罗斯人。
Georges St-Pierre (01:13.760)
Meeting George was an honor for me beyond words.
见到乔治对我来说是一种无法言喻的荣幸。
Georges St-Pierre (01:17.920)
This is the Lex Friedman Podcast and here's my conversation with my longtime martial arts
这是莱克斯·弗里德曼播客，这是我与我长期武术的对话
Georges St-Pierre (01:23.920)
hero and now my friend, Mr. George St. Pierre.
英雄，现在是我的朋友，乔治·圣皮埃尔先生。
Georges St-Pierre (01:29.680)
In your fighting career, were you more motivated by the love of winning or the fear and hatred
在你的格斗生涯中，你的动力是对胜利的热爱还是恐惧和仇恨？
Lex Fridman (01:36.640)
of losing?
失去？
Georges St-Pierre (01:37.800)
I like to win better than I hate to lose because if it would not have been the case, I would
Georges St-Pierre (01:44.840)
never have fought in the first place because I don't like to fight at all.
Lex Fridman (01:50.040)
But you talked about the anxiety, the fear that you experienced leading up to a fight.
Lex Fridman (01:55.380)
So to you, ultimately the reason to go through that difficult process is because it feels
Lex Fridman (02:03.180)
damn good to have your hand raised?
Georges St-Pierre (02:06.640)
There is that.
Georges St-Pierre (02:08.040)
There is also the fact that martial art, I've been introduced when I was very young and
Georges St-Pierre (02:15.080)
it's probably the best thing I can do in my life, fighting, that's what I do best.
Georges St-Pierre (02:21.440)
Also, it provides me of freedom, of access of things that most of people do not have,
Lex Fridman (02:32.900)
but all that as a price and a lot of money, I made a lot of money, of course, with it.
Lex Fridman (02:38.160)
I was maybe predisposed with certain abilities.
Georges St-Pierre (02:43.120)
I met incredible mentors throughout my life.
Lex Fridman (02:48.160)
I worked really hard and of course, I had a lot of chances.
Georges St-Pierre (02:53.320)
The stars were all aligned and in order to keep that those advantages of freedom, money
Lex Fridman (03:03.380)
and glory and access of things that most people don't have and have these dream life that
Georges St-Pierre (03:09.280)
I have, I had to sacrifice myself and fight in order to keep it.
Georges St-Pierre (03:16.440)
It's very hard to understand because I also believe most fighters are not like me.
Georges St-Pierre (03:23.280)
A lot of guys, because I corner a lot of guys and it seems to me that they love their job.
Lex Fridman (03:29.000)
They enjoyed to go fight in the cage.
Georges St-Pierre (03:32.800)
I love to train.
Georges St-Pierre (03:34.000)
I love the science of fighting, the sport, to be in good shape, the confidence that training
Lex Fridman (03:40.640)
and mixed martial art give me.
Georges St-Pierre (03:43.000)
However, I do not like the feeling of uncertainty, the stress that I have, not knowing if I will
Georges St-Pierre (03:51.560)
be badly injured or humiliated or winning the fight.
Lex Fridman (03:59.680)
To me, I'm bearable and that's what takes the most out of me.
Georges St-Pierre (04:04.440)
More than brain damage, more than anything.
Lex Fridman (04:06.580)
That's what takes the most out of me.
Lex Fridman (04:08.960)
But the thing you get from it is the freedom that you get because of the money, but because
Lex Fridman (04:15.980)
of the celebrity, because of everything that comes with it.
Lex Fridman (04:18.520)
So you can be the best version of yourself because of fighting.
Lex Fridman (04:21.780)
But at the same time, you've said that, quote, I don't believe there's pleasure in life.
Georges St-Pierre (04:27.180)
I believe there's only a relief from pain.
Lex Fridman (04:30.000)
We have to suffer to be on top.
Lex Fridman (04:32.280)
So isn't there something to just the suffering in itself?
Lex Fridman (04:35.720)
Just doing really difficult shit just to get to the top?
Georges St-Pierre (04:39.840)
To explain that and so people can relate to it because not everybody's a fighter.
Georges St-Pierre (04:45.280)
I think the best example I can give is let's say you're, you haven't eat for a long time
Lex Fridman (04:53.500)
and you're craving, right?
Lex Fridman (04:56.120)
So you're suffering.
Lex Fridman (04:58.520)
And then when it's time to eat, finally, you're about to eat your favorite dish.
Lex Fridman (05:04.200)
It's going to taste so much better.
Lex Fridman (05:06.760)
So that's why I believe there is always some sort of sacrifice before the pleasure.
Lex Fridman (05:12.620)
And the more sacrifice you do, like they say in fighting, the bigger the risk, the bigger
Georges St-Pierre (05:19.400)
is the reward.
Lex Fridman (05:20.400)
And I feel that's how it is for me.
Georges St-Pierre (05:23.480)
Yeah, I feel that with, I started fasting a little bit in the past couple of years.
Lex Fridman (05:29.080)
And there's nothing as amazing as a delicious meal or anything, actually anything, any food
Georges St-Pierre (05:35.780)
when you haven't eaten for several days.
Lex Fridman (05:39.060)
It's kind of incredible.
Georges St-Pierre (05:41.560)
It's not incredible in this simple way of finally I get to eat.
Lex Fridman (05:45.840)
You get to truly experience the beauty of what it is to be alive.
Georges St-Pierre (05:51.760)
Like that little piece of food, you see all the flavors, you feel just the experience
Lex Fridman (05:58.120)
of it is ultimately of gratitude of how awesome it is to be alive.
Lex Fridman (06:04.400)
But when you eat many times a day and you're pigging out and you don't get to experience
Lex Fridman (06:08.880)
that.
Lex Fridman (06:09.880)
And it's fascinating.
Georges St-Pierre (06:10.880)
It's really like fasting is one of the most accessible things for people, I think to experience
Georges St-Pierre (06:16.680)
that kind of pairing of hardship to pleasure.
Lex Fridman (06:21.400)
I agree.
Lex Fridman (06:22.400)
And in my case, it changed my life on a good way.
Lex Fridman (06:26.240)
I cannot recommend it to people because everybody is different.
Lex Fridman (06:30.220)
But to fight Michael Bisping, my last fight was against the champion in the heavier weight
Lex Fridman (06:39.160)
class that I used to compete at.
Lex Fridman (06:41.400)
So I thought that if I would gain weight, it would increase my performance.
Lex Fridman (06:48.840)
And I struggled a lot to gain weight.
Georges St-Pierre (06:50.400)
I gained about eight to 10 pounds.
Lex Fridman (06:54.280)
Normally I walk around 185 pounds.
Lex Fridman (06:56.480)
And for that fight, I was walking around 195.
Lex Fridman (06:59.440)
However, I forced myself to eat like six times a day.
Georges St-Pierre (07:04.120)
I was on a very strict diet and it didn't feel right to me because I feel like I was
Lex Fridman (07:13.840)
carrying like a little bit like I was carrying a bag on my shoulder.
Lex Fridman (07:18.360)
And I think it was a bad idea for me because when I did the weigh in and I went on a scale
Georges St-Pierre (07:29.040)
at 185, I couldn't go back to my initial weight that was 195 that I worked so hard for several
Georges St-Pierre (07:35.960)
months to get there.
Lex Fridman (07:38.680)
So I was 190 pounds, but I couldn't get back.
Lex Fridman (07:42.100)
And the morning of the fight, I got sick.
Georges St-Pierre (07:46.640)
We didn't know what it was in the beginning because in order to know, to find out what
Georges St-Pierre (07:53.440)
it was, I needed to do what they call a colonoscopy.
Georges St-Pierre (07:55.560)
They put a camera inside of you and to do that, they give you something that makes that
Georges St-Pierre (08:02.840)
empty you.
Lex Fridman (08:03.840)
And I was trying to gain weight, not to lose weight.
Lex Fridman (08:06.980)
So I told myself I'm going to wait after the fight, whatever it is, because it was pretty
Lex Fridman (08:12.600)
bad.
Georges St-Pierre (08:13.600)
It was blood.
Lex Fridman (08:14.600)
And I didn't know what I was.
Georges St-Pierre (08:15.600)
I was very concerned.
Lex Fridman (08:16.760)
I thought I had maybe cancer.
Georges St-Pierre (08:17.760)
I was freaking out.
Lex Fridman (08:20.240)
So I said, I'm going to do that fight.
Lex Fridman (08:22.720)
And then after right away, I'm going to make a checkup.
Lex Fridman (08:25.120)
So I did the fight.
Georges St-Pierre (08:26.440)
Everything went well.
Lex Fridman (08:27.440)
I won the fight.
Georges St-Pierre (08:28.440)
I went back home.
Lex Fridman (08:29.440)
I did a colonoscopy and I got diagnosed with ulcer colitis.
Georges St-Pierre (08:33.640)
Then I got on very severe medication to get better.
Lex Fridman (08:37.800)
And I'm not a big fan of medication.
Georges St-Pierre (08:39.960)
I was trying to look for more natural way to get better.
Lex Fridman (08:46.040)
And I found out about fasting and it really changed my life.
Georges St-Pierre (08:50.920)
I met Dr. Jason Fong, who was one of the world authority of fasting.
Georges St-Pierre (08:59.160)
He treat diabetes patient with fasting and he gave me a program of fasting and it really
Georges St-Pierre (09:07.320)
changed my life.
Lex Fridman (09:08.320)
And right away what I did is I went in a CAT scan to see the difference because it was
Georges St-Pierre (09:15.160)
right after my fight with Michael Bisping and I did the CAT scan.
Lex Fridman (09:19.240)
So I had my muscle mass, bone density, fat percentage, water retention.
Georges St-Pierre (09:26.000)
It's pretty amazing.
Lex Fridman (09:27.000)
It can show you which harm has more muscle than the other.
Georges St-Pierre (09:30.800)
It's very precise.
Lex Fridman (09:32.080)
And I did it like two months after.
Lex Fridman (09:35.520)
So I started doing time restricted eating, 16 eight.
Lex Fridman (09:40.800)
But right away when I started, I did three days water fast.
Lex Fridman (09:46.200)
And the Dr. Jason Fong, he said, because I like to train during those days, I consume
Georges St-Pierre (09:52.240)
Himalayan salt to make sure, because when you sweat, there's a lot of minerals to make
Georges St-Pierre (09:57.040)
sure you don't deplete your mineral.
Lex Fridman (10:00.200)
And when I compared the two results in the CAT scan, I found out my biggest concern was
Georges St-Pierre (10:06.200)
to lose muscle mass.
Lex Fridman (10:07.680)
I found out that I did not lose muscle mass.
Georges St-Pierre (10:11.080)
Instead of losing it, it increased a little bit.
Georges St-Pierre (10:14.060)
Even though my weight on the scale was lighter, I kept the same muscle mass even increases
Georges St-Pierre (10:21.480)
a little bit.
Lex Fridman (10:22.480)
My bone density increases a little bit.
Georges St-Pierre (10:25.720)
My water retention is the biggest thing that decrease.
Lex Fridman (10:30.200)
So my inflammation and my fat percentage.
Lex Fridman (10:33.640)
So basically by looking at the data, I found out that by eating so much, trying to gain
Georges St-Pierre (10:41.240)
weight to fight Michael Bisping, it only increases my water retention, which is not good because
Georges St-Pierre (10:47.480)
it's like dead weight and inflammation on you.
Lex Fridman (10:50.840)
So what was the actual process of fasting?
Georges St-Pierre (10:54.480)
You said 16, eight time restricted, so intermittent fasting.
Lex Fridman (10:59.760)
But you also mentioned the three hour, the three day water fast.
Lex Fridman (11:03.800)
What did that feel like?
Lex Fridman (11:04.800)
And you also said training during the three day?
Georges St-Pierre (11:07.480)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (11:08.480)
How did that feel?
Lex Fridman (11:09.480)
Can you give me some details of, this is fascinating.
Lex Fridman (11:12.400)
So I do three days water fast, four times a year.
Georges St-Pierre (11:17.720)
Nice.
Lex Fridman (11:18.720)
For me, I do it, everybody is different, but for me, I do it after New Year's.
Georges St-Pierre (11:24.440)
Because during the holidays, that's when I eat bad foods and I drink.
Lex Fridman (11:29.240)
I see it more like a cleansing, like a detox, so to speak.
Georges St-Pierre (11:34.400)
Mental too, like psychological.
Lex Fridman (11:35.760)
Yes.
Georges St-Pierre (11:36.760)
I do it after the New Year's, right before the summer, cut for the beach.
Georges St-Pierre (11:43.400)
After the summer, because of the summer, I've been partying a little bit sometimes, let
Georges St-Pierre (11:47.600)
myself go.
Lex Fridman (11:48.600)
And right before the holidays.
Lex Fridman (11:51.800)
And I've tried, Dr. Phuong, he says to me, said, George, everybody's different because
Lex Fridman (11:57.680)
I'm a very active person and everybody has a different genetics.
Lex Fridman (12:01.200)
So for me, I feel that three days is the sweet spot because I still train during those three
Lex Fridman (12:08.400)
days.
Georges St-Pierre (12:09.400)
The first day, the first two days, I don't change nothing.
Lex Fridman (12:11.800)
I train on my regular schedule.
Georges St-Pierre (12:14.640)
However, on the third day, I modify a little bit.
Lex Fridman (12:19.200)
I do something more easy and that's how I do it.
Lex Fridman (12:25.800)
And I've tried before, because when I say three days is my sweet spot, I've tried to
Lex Fridman (12:31.800)
go up to five days.
Lex Fridman (12:33.680)
But the problem is after my third days, I found out that I had a big problem sleeping.
Lex Fridman (12:39.080)
I get into a hyperactive mode.
Georges St-Pierre (12:41.760)
They call that the hunter gatherer mode, you know, like your brain, I mean, it's amazing.
Lex Fridman (12:48.600)
Your creativity is at its peak, but you cannot sleep very well.
Lex Fridman (12:53.280)
And sleeping for me, I think it's very important.
Lex Fridman (12:56.220)
So that's why I do three days for me.
Georges St-Pierre (12:57.920)
It's my sweet spot.
Lex Fridman (12:58.920)
That's interesting.
Georges St-Pierre (12:59.920)
You're right.
Lex Fridman (13:00.920)
It's the four or five days when you start, see sleep is not important for me.
Lex Fridman (13:04.760)
So the creativity is really important.
Lex Fridman (13:07.520)
So it's very interesting the places your mind goes after a few days.
Georges St-Pierre (13:11.600)
You're right.
Lex Fridman (13:12.600)
But I mean, what does it do to your mind?
Lex Fridman (13:16.800)
So you mentioned your body likes it.
Lex Fridman (13:18.860)
In terms of training, do you find that it helps you focus and think?
Georges St-Pierre (13:23.760)
I mean, you're one of the great strategic thinkers in terms of martial arts.
Lex Fridman (13:28.480)
Does it help with learning?
Lex Fridman (13:30.000)
Does it help with thinking?
Lex Fridman (13:31.160)
Does it help with strategizing and all of that?
Georges St-Pierre (13:34.160)
Well, unfortunately, I got into fasting after I retired.
Lex Fridman (13:39.240)
I really wish people asked me, would you have done it during the time that you competed?
Lex Fridman (13:45.760)
And the answer is yes.
Lex Fridman (13:48.240)
I think we live in a society that we're bombarded by publicity.
Georges St-Pierre (13:52.400)
Oh, buy this, eat protein, this, that.
Lex Fridman (13:56.000)
And fasting, nobody makes money with it because there's nothing to sell.
Georges St-Pierre (14:02.280)
I think that's why a lot of people have not heard about it.
Lex Fridman (14:06.380)
And even for myself, if someone would have talked to me about the benefits of fasting
Georges St-Pierre (14:13.480)
when I was training before I got sick, I would probably have ignored him because it's hard
Lex Fridman (14:23.840)
to believe.
Georges St-Pierre (14:24.840)
It sounds ridiculous.
Lex Fridman (14:25.840)
Don't eat.
Georges St-Pierre (14:26.840)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (14:27.840)
It's going to help your mind and you're going to gain muscle potentially.
Georges St-Pierre (14:30.800)
Exactly.
Lex Fridman (14:31.800)
And perhaps people have talked to me about it, but it went in one of my ears and got
Lex Fridman (14:37.280)
out from the other side, you know?
Lex Fridman (14:39.760)
But it really changed my life.
Lex Fridman (14:42.280)
And I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and it helps me get rid of all my symptoms.
Lex Fridman (14:49.720)
What I do is, I know a lot of people have ulcerative colitis and for me, I cannot recommend
Georges St-Pierre (14:55.440)
it to other people because everybody is different.
Lex Fridman (14:58.500)
But for me, I made a lot of research of how people from ulcerative colitis got better.
Lex Fridman (15:05.680)
And I found out that a lot of people that got that condition get better in the natural
Georges St-Pierre (15:10.840)
way through fasting, eating fermented food, collagen and bone broth and stuff like that.
Lex Fridman (15:17.920)
And it made a huge difference in my life.
Lex Fridman (15:20.000)
I just wish I would have known that before.
Lex Fridman (15:22.480)
So do you have a specific diet wise stuff you like?
Lex Fridman (15:26.000)
So I've recently, another ridiculous sounding thing, but it makes me feel really good is
Georges St-Pierre (15:32.240)
very low carbs.
Lex Fridman (15:33.640)
So keto, even carnivore, it sounds ridiculous.
Georges St-Pierre (15:37.660)
It doesn't make any sense.
Lex Fridman (15:39.360)
But it makes me feel really good, even for performance.
Lex Fridman (15:42.440)
Is Rogan has influenced you?
Lex Fridman (15:44.280)
He's a carnivore diet.
Georges St-Pierre (15:45.780)
I was influenced actually by people, yeah.
Lex Fridman (15:49.680)
There's I'll tell you where, because I was doing it before he was doing it.
Georges St-Pierre (15:54.400)
It was popular in the endurance athlete community where it was fat adapted athletes, people
Georges St-Pierre (16:00.560)
who insane people who run 50 miles, 100 miles, they figured out that they could fuel their
Georges St-Pierre (16:07.000)
body by with fat that can go to fat as the source of energy as opposed to carbs.
Lex Fridman (16:13.080)
So I remember hoping that I'll be able to learn how to run 50 miles and so on.
Georges St-Pierre (16:20.400)
I've never done more than 22, but it, I just remember switching away from carbs and feeling
Lex Fridman (16:29.560)
really liberated.
Georges St-Pierre (16:30.560)
Like I wasn't thinking about food as much.
Lex Fridman (16:33.980)
I'm able to eat once a day and feel really good.
Georges St-Pierre (16:37.560)
I mean, I think every everybody's body is different, but I think carbs make me lazy.
Georges St-Pierre (16:44.760)
Maybe it's because the crash, yeah, it's the crash, but also just psychologically something
Georges St-Pierre (16:51.720)
it it forces me to also think about food too much.
Georges St-Pierre (16:54.560)
Like it starts becoming, you know, our logistic, you said our society is so much about food.
Georges St-Pierre (16:59.480)
There's so many ads, so much advertisement and so much of our social life is about food.
Lex Fridman (17:03.620)
And so it's very easy to live life, like live day to day thinking, when is the next meal?
Lex Fridman (17:10.800)
Like what am I going to eat for lunch?
Lex Fridman (17:11.800)
What am I going to eat for dinner?
Lex Fridman (17:12.800)
What am I going to eat for breakfast?
Lex Fridman (17:14.960)
And if you're not careful, that's going to get in the way of you doing cool shit for
Georges St-Pierre (17:21.120)
like liberating yourself and thinking like, what am I actually passionate about in this
Lex Fridman (17:25.440)
life?
Georges St-Pierre (17:26.440)
Like creating and forgetting to eat those kinds of things and still being able to fuel
Lex Fridman (17:30.760)
your body.
Georges St-Pierre (17:31.760)
I don't know.
Georges St-Pierre (17:32.760)
It's been fascinating to, to figure out like later in life that carbs aren't necessary
Georges St-Pierre (17:39.520)
to function.
Lex Fridman (17:40.520)
Well, it makes me think like, we don't know anything about nutrition.
Georges St-Pierre (17:44.120)
That's right.
Lex Fridman (17:45.120)
Yes.
Georges St-Pierre (17:46.120)
You know, personally, I don't think I could have a diet without carbs.
Lex Fridman (17:53.040)
I love chocolate too much.
Georges St-Pierre (17:54.920)
For me eating, it's a, it's a pleasure of life.
Lex Fridman (17:57.160)
I love my carbs.
Georges St-Pierre (17:58.160)
I love my sugar.
Georges St-Pierre (17:59.520)
However, if you talk about that, I don't have a specific diet, but recently I, what I'm
Georges St-Pierre (18:06.480)
trying to do is the days that I do not work out, I only eat once.
Lex Fridman (18:13.520)
That's kind of my rules.
Georges St-Pierre (18:14.760)
Plus I try to respect 16 eight and do my three day fast, uh, uh, four times a year.
Lex Fridman (18:22.880)
But the rest of the thing, I, I, I, I let myself loose because I, I don't think I would
Georges St-Pierre (18:28.900)
be happy if I, if I, uh, if I, if I don't give myself the, the, the, the right to, to
Lex Fridman (18:35.640)
eat for me personally, I love to eat so much next.
Lex Fridman (18:38.920)
And you talk about a diet, carnivore diet is very interesting because I, um, a few years
Georges St-Pierre (18:45.640)
ago I went to Africa in, uh, Masai Mara and, uh, it's a tribe in, uh, in, in, uh, East
Georges St-Pierre (18:53.280)
Africa and, um, I want to visit them.
Georges St-Pierre (18:56.920)
I did a safari and I talked to them and these guys, they, their diet is 99% carnivore.
Georges St-Pierre (19:05.520)
They they, that's crazy.
Lex Fridman (19:07.120)
And you should see they're very beautiful people shredded.
Georges St-Pierre (19:10.840)
Some people would say, Oh, it's genetic.
Lex Fridman (19:12.200)
I'm like, yeah, maybe it's genetic.
Lex Fridman (19:13.480)
But I mean, think about the Eskimos also that like most of their diet is on, on fish, right?
Georges St-Pierre (19:21.040)
They, they, so I believe it can be done, you know, like, I believe it can be done and like
Georges St-Pierre (19:26.200)
an exclusive carnivore diet.
Lex Fridman (19:28.040)
And I, I think I'm going to try it pretty soon just to have the experience, you know,
Georges St-Pierre (19:33.560)
to see how it feels like.
Georges St-Pierre (19:34.560)
Well, you're going to hang out with Joe, uh, be careful bringing it up because he'll convince
Georges St-Pierre (19:39.040)
you to, uh, forever switch to carnivore.
Lex Fridman (19:41.120)
Definitely.
Georges St-Pierre (19:42.120)
He loves it.
Lex Fridman (19:43.120)
I mean, but just like you, I think he loves food.
Lex Fridman (19:47.260)
So he's, he can't ever stay on carnivore.
Georges St-Pierre (19:50.160)
It was funny cause we went to an Italian restaurant together and I still only eat meat.
Georges St-Pierre (19:55.360)
Like I love, um, I love the constraints of discipline.
Lex Fridman (1:00:02.600)
I thought it was more pure.
Georges St-Pierre (1:00:04.880)
The people that did it was really because of the passion.
Lex Fridman (1:00:08.040)
We didn't seek money, fame.
Georges St-Pierre (1:00:11.880)
We did it because we wanted to be...
Lex Fridman (1:00:14.040)
I did it because I wanted to be the man, you know.
Georges St-Pierre (1:00:16.560)
I like to have the confidence that when I walk somewhere, you know, I have the confidence
Lex Fridman (1:00:21.480)
that, you know, it's an illusion because nobody is faster than a bullet.
Lex Fridman (1:00:26.160)
But I wanted to achieve it for myself.
Georges St-Pierre (1:00:29.920)
Which today now, because I don't know if it's social media and all that, the world has changed.
Georges St-Pierre (1:00:36.960)
The glamour, you know, I feel it's a different thing right now.
Georges St-Pierre (1:00:42.120)
Yeah, if you get in it for the glamour or the money, you may not have the right amount
Georges St-Pierre (1:00:47.880)
of fuel to persevere through all the ups and downs, for sure.
Georges St-Pierre (1:00:51.600)
You know, when you talk about motivation of money and glamour, a guy comes to mind, and
Georges St-Pierre (1:01:00.480)
I don't know how many wrestlers, you know, but in Russia, there's a guy named Bovassiy
Lex Fridman (1:01:06.800)
Satiev.
Georges St-Pierre (1:01:07.800)
The Satiev brothers, one of the greatest freestyle wrestlers of all time, but he also has...
Lex Fridman (1:01:15.000)
It's funny that he doesn't have many interviews.
Georges St-Pierre (1:01:16.560)
One of my goals is to go out and talk to him in Russian, do an interview with him because
Lex Fridman (1:01:21.160)
he's exceptionally poetic and a deep thinker.
Georges St-Pierre (1:01:24.640)
He's the kind of martial artist that you are in the way that it's not just about the different
Lex Fridman (1:01:29.720)
battles you've been through or whatever.
Georges St-Pierre (1:01:31.820)
It's about the philosophy behind the way he approaches life.
Georges St-Pierre (1:01:35.000)
Now, he has spoken quite a bit about that the glamour, the fame, the money are all things
Georges St-Pierre (1:01:41.400)
that get in the way of the purity of the experience, the art, that the way to achieve greatness
Georges St-Pierre (1:01:50.040)
is to just lose yourself in the art of the actual combat, in his case, it's wrestling,
Lex Fridman (1:01:58.620)
and then kind of not to worry and actively make sure that you block out anybody who,
Georges St-Pierre (1:02:05.720)
you know, feeds you the narrative where you're supposed to be this famous person and all
Georges St-Pierre (1:02:10.840)
those kinds of things that he basically says, let others write your story.
Lex Fridman (1:02:16.920)
Make sure that you just focus on the art.
Lex Fridman (1:02:19.440)
And another person from that side of the world is, of course, Khabib, so he represents that
Lex Fridman (1:02:25.680)
side of the world.
Lex Fridman (1:02:26.680)
And we were talking about walking away and most people not being able to walk away at
Lex Fridman (1:02:32.080)
the top as you have, but also now Khabib has, it looks like, incredibly so.
Georges St-Pierre (1:02:39.520)
I mean, maybe you can comment about what your thoughts are about Khabib Nurmagomedov being
Lex Fridman (1:02:45.360)
able to just walk away.
Georges St-Pierre (1:02:47.800)
You know, we talk about the GOAT very often, Khabib is, you know, one of, isn't the argument
Georges St-Pierre (1:02:53.520)
because he has the most dominant carrier of all martial art, the guy, you know, some guys
Georges St-Pierre (1:03:01.960)
can be named the GOAT for different reasons, but Khabib for that reason, and he's undefeated.
Georges St-Pierre (1:03:07.760)
I don't even know if he lost, he might have lost a round, but he dominates all his opponents.
Georges St-Pierre (1:03:15.360)
It was ridiculous and such an incredible career that he had.
Lex Fridman (1:03:22.240)
I love to watch him fight, he's incredible.
Lex Fridman (1:03:27.180)
And when you talk about the art, when you say mixed martial art, the idea of a flawless
Georges St-Pierre (1:03:35.760)
performance, for me, everybody often, when we say flawless performance, thinks about
Georges St-Pierre (1:03:43.200)
a knockout, a brutal knockout.
Lex Fridman (1:03:46.960)
But for me, it's to be able to showcase beautiful technique, like a beautiful takedown, beautiful
Georges St-Pierre (1:03:55.880)
submission, like something beautiful that, you know, when you look at, for example, Wayne
Georges St-Pierre (1:04:04.840)
Gretzky or Michael Jordan or like Stephen Curry, even if you don't know nothing about
Georges St-Pierre (1:04:13.360)
basketball and you watch Michael Jordan, you'll be like, wow, that's beautiful what he just
Lex Fridman (1:04:18.720)
did.
Georges St-Pierre (1:04:19.720)
Like, we talk about fighting and trying to say the word beautiful in fighting for certain
Georges St-Pierre (1:04:25.680)
people, it could sound kind of crazy, you know, but I'm talking about the technique,
Georges St-Pierre (1:04:31.320)
a beautiful technique, you know, for me, that's the goal.
Georges St-Pierre (1:04:35.320)
You know, when I was fighting, it's no need to have a brutal knockout because some people
Georges St-Pierre (1:04:39.120)
are more gifted than others.
Georges St-Pierre (1:04:41.240)
I'm saying gifted, some people are better than others in certain phase of fighting.
Lex Fridman (1:04:46.240)
But for me, it was that it was to showcase, to win, of course, but to showcase some beautiful
Lex Fridman (1:04:51.860)
technique that you can watch it and be like, wow, that was incredible.
Georges St-Pierre (1:04:56.720)
The timing, he did it.
Lex Fridman (1:04:58.960)
And when I think about Khabib Nurmagomedov, I see all the detail of his work, especially
Georges St-Pierre (1:05:06.480)
when he's got his opponent against the fence, that's like, that's his area of expertise
Georges St-Pierre (1:05:11.520)
where he's, to me, he's the best that ever did it in terms of that fighting style, that
Georges St-Pierre (1:05:18.920)
particular expertise that he has, it's just incredible.
Lex Fridman (1:05:22.320)
The flawless execution of that particular set of techniques.
Lex Fridman (1:05:25.640)
And Conor McGregor had the accuracy.
Georges St-Pierre (1:05:31.340)
The Spider Anderson Silva was like, was, I would say, the most flamboyant of all, you
Georges St-Pierre (1:05:37.440)
know, like he was moving like the Matrix.
Georges St-Pierre (1:05:40.200)
Jon Jones was incredible in terms of creativity, spinning elbows and that, and he faced incredible
Georges St-Pierre (1:05:45.640)
adversity.
Lex Fridman (1:05:46.640)
Dimitrius Johnson was so complete.
Georges St-Pierre (1:05:51.720)
You could bring, like he was slamming a guy to an armbar.
Lex Fridman (1:05:54.880)
It was just unbelievable.
Georges St-Pierre (1:05:55.880)
Like, like he was like the complete fighter.
Lex Fridman (1:05:59.240)
BJ Penn was like so flexible.
Georges St-Pierre (1:06:02.200)
He did stuff with his body that like nobody could do his, the dexterity of his hips was
Lex Fridman (1:06:07.800)
just unbelievable.
Georges St-Pierre (1:06:10.480)
Dominic Cruz, to me, was incredible, his footwork, his distance control.
Lex Fridman (1:06:15.880)
So when you talk about like the GOAT, Royce Gracie, another one, he did things that I
Georges St-Pierre (1:06:20.320)
think for me is the number one.
Lex Fridman (1:06:21.920)
Yeah, I gotta, I gotta, and sorry to interrupt, Royce is a fascinating one.
Georges St-Pierre (1:06:25.520)
I'd love to hear what you think about him, but many people consider you, most people
Lex Fridman (1:06:31.480)
consider you to be the number one greatest mixed martial arts fighter ever.
Lex Fridman (1:06:38.320)
So it's fascinating to remove you from that list and continue this discussion and asking
Lex Fridman (1:06:44.160)
like, who do you think is the greatest fighter ever?
Georges St-Pierre (1:06:46.680)
You listed some amazing ones, Royce.
Lex Fridman (1:06:49.560)
You somehow skipped Fedor.
Georges St-Pierre (1:06:51.280)
I'm very, as a Russian, I'm very offended.
Lex Fridman (1:06:53.200)
No, I was, I was going to, there's so many.
Georges St-Pierre (1:06:55.880)
Fedor is one as well.
Georges St-Pierre (1:06:57.440)
Fedor, I think in his prime was like, when you say, when you talk about a name, for example,
Georges St-Pierre (1:07:02.760)
like we talk about him when he was in his prime.
Georges St-Pierre (1:07:07.320)
Like when I talk, for example, about Anderson Silva, I'm not talking about the Anderson
Georges St-Pierre (1:07:10.520)
Silva who fought, who fought his last fight against Uriah Hall.
Lex Fridman (1:07:14.600)
I'm talking about the Anderson Silva who knocked out Victor Belfer.
Georges St-Pierre (1:07:18.080)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:07:19.080)
BJ Penn, same thing.
Georges St-Pierre (1:07:20.720)
The problem is when fighters hang on for too long in the sport.
Lex Fridman (1:07:25.400)
That's what happened.
Georges St-Pierre (1:07:26.400)
They kind of make, make people forget how good they were.
Lex Fridman (1:07:32.360)
And it's very sad.
Georges St-Pierre (1:07:33.360)
We talk about Fedor and just, just think about Stipe Miocic.
Lex Fridman (1:07:38.000)
Miocic is probably the greatest heavyweight of all time.
Georges St-Pierre (1:07:41.200)
With Fedor, I would really wonder who would have won this fight, the both guys in their
Lex Fridman (1:07:46.320)
prime.
Georges St-Pierre (1:07:47.320)
I tend to lean towards Fedor because my heart was with Fedor, but he could have gone the
Lex Fridman (1:07:52.200)
other way.
Lex Fridman (1:07:53.200)
But just because Miocic lose his last fight, now everybody's like, oh yeah, they forgot
Lex Fridman (1:07:57.760)
about him.
Georges St-Pierre (1:07:58.920)
It's crazy, man.
Lex Fridman (1:08:00.360)
It's one fight.
Georges St-Pierre (1:08:01.440)
You zig when you should zag, boom.
Lex Fridman (1:08:04.720)
That's the reality of mixed martial arts.
Georges St-Pierre (1:08:06.600)
Well, that's why the thing is the mixed martial arts isn't just the performance, the strictly
Lex Fridman (1:08:13.240)
who won and who lost.
Georges St-Pierre (1:08:14.440)
It's also the stories we tell ourselves.
Lex Fridman (1:08:16.660)
And so, I mean, there's beautiful stories being weaved.
Lex Fridman (1:08:20.280)
And that also is part of who is the greatest of all time is what were the battles, what
Lex Fridman (1:08:27.760)
had to be overcome?
Lex Fridman (1:08:29.920)
What was the flavor of the flawless performances?
Lex Fridman (1:08:35.160)
You know, all of that plays into it and you're right.
Georges St-Pierre (1:08:39.040)
Being able to walk away at the top is also part of that.
Lex Fridman (1:08:42.360)
A lot of people ask me about Khabib and that fight.
Georges St-Pierre (1:08:48.200)
I want it to happen.
Lex Fridman (1:08:50.080)
Khabib wanted to happen, but UFC did not want to happen between you and Khabib.
Georges St-Pierre (1:08:55.160)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:08:56.160)
And we tried to make it like about three years ago when I retired, two, no, three, no, it
Georges St-Pierre (1:09:00.840)
was after two years ago and it never came to fruition.
Lex Fridman (1:09:05.960)
The UFC were clear.
Georges St-Pierre (1:09:06.960)
They said they have other plan for Khabib and it makes sense for the business standpoint
Lex Fridman (1:09:12.080)
because they want to keep the ball rolling.
Georges St-Pierre (1:09:15.600)
Now Khabib retired and like everybody else, after Justin Gaethje, I was doing the commentator
Georges St-Pierre (1:09:21.160)
in French for the UFC and I had Butterfly, I thought he was going to call me out.
Georges St-Pierre (1:09:26.920)
If there is one guy that I would have said, yes, it would be him, because for a fighter,
Lex Fridman (1:09:30.960)
the most exciting things to do, it's often the scariest one.
Lex Fridman (1:09:37.000)
And Khabib was, you know, the scariest macho.
Lex Fridman (1:09:40.640)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:09:41.640)
But he was worth the risk because nobody has ever been able to solve them.
Lex Fridman (1:09:47.600)
How would you solve the Khabib Nurmagomedov puzzle?
Georges St-Pierre (1:09:50.800)
Well, Khabib is very good against the fence.
Georges St-Pierre (1:09:56.400)
I would have to establish a game plan and everything, but I think what I would need
Georges St-Pierre (1:10:01.840)
it to do is take the center of the octagon right away.
Lex Fridman (1:10:05.680)
Use a lot of think and faith.
Georges St-Pierre (1:10:08.000)
Keep the fight all the way, all the way out or all the way in.
Lex Fridman (1:10:11.920)
And when I say all the way in is when you close the gap, use my proactive and reactive
Georges St-Pierre (1:10:16.120)
takedown and perhaps my superior explosive to put him down.
Georges St-Pierre (1:10:20.280)
I like to use those proactive and reactive techniques because for me, I feel it's more
Georges St-Pierre (1:10:25.320)
economical.
Lex Fridman (1:10:26.320)
Khabib is a much better chain wrestler than me.
Georges St-Pierre (1:10:30.440)
Chain wrestler is when you got that guy to the fence, it's pure wrestling.
Lex Fridman (1:10:34.080)
What makes my takedown very efficient?
Georges St-Pierre (1:10:36.960)
It's my karate.
Lex Fridman (1:10:37.960)
It's not my wrestling.
Georges St-Pierre (1:10:40.400)
I'm very good at timing my opponent and getting in with my explosivity.
Lex Fridman (1:10:47.880)
So if you watch my takedown, it does not demand often, it does not demand a lot of work.
Georges St-Pierre (1:10:52.780)
When I use the, I call it proactive takedown.
Georges St-Pierre (1:10:56.200)
When he's coming to punch me and I react, I mean, proactive is when I'm faking it.
Lex Fridman (1:11:03.280)
So I instigate the takedown by a fake, then I take him down.
Lex Fridman (1:11:08.700)
And reactive is when I'm baiting him to throw something, then I'm going.
Georges St-Pierre (1:11:13.520)
It's a counter.
Lex Fridman (1:11:14.520)
Yeah.
Georges St-Pierre (1:11:15.520)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:11:16.520)
But all my takedowns...
Georges St-Pierre (1:11:17.520)
In the center of the octagon.
Lex Fridman (1:11:18.520)
Yes.
Georges St-Pierre (1:11:19.520)
My takedowns are more in the center of the octagon.
Georges St-Pierre (1:11:20.520)
Like for example, another guy that does it well is Gleason Thibault that did it well
Georges St-Pierre (1:11:24.280)
in his best days.
Georges St-Pierre (1:11:26.960)
Khabib has more a style of chain wrestling, I would say like Kamaru Usman, so to speak,
Georges St-Pierre (1:11:31.880)
kind of guy.
Lex Fridman (1:11:32.880)
It's a different style.
Georges St-Pierre (1:11:33.880)
You cannot compare both styles.
Lex Fridman (1:11:36.640)
And that's the kind of takedown I'm good.
Lex Fridman (1:11:38.520)
And if I would have fight Khabib, that's one of the strategy I would have adopted.
Georges St-Pierre (1:11:42.600)
I would not have been afraid because everybody that I fought, I was able to put them down
Lex Fridman (1:11:46.840)
and I have the pedigree to prove it in my fight resume.
Lex Fridman (1:11:52.520)
So you would have perhaps seen him on his back and I would have perhaps be on my back
Georges St-Pierre (1:11:56.600)
as well.
Lex Fridman (1:11:57.600)
So it would have been a very interesting fight.
Lex Fridman (1:11:59.480)
How hard do you think he is to takedown?
Lex Fridman (1:12:01.360)
I mean, a lot of people speak about his wrestling being just...
Georges St-Pierre (1:12:04.640)
It has nothing to do with the wrestling because...
Lex Fridman (1:12:07.320)
It has to do with the karate.
Georges St-Pierre (1:12:08.320)
If I got that timing and I got my both hands around his knees, he's going down the other
Lex Fridman (1:12:13.320)
way.
Georges St-Pierre (1:12:14.320)
Everybody goes down.
Lex Fridman (1:12:15.320)
Yes, yes, he goes down.
Lex Fridman (1:12:16.320)
And I had a lot of that.
Lex Fridman (1:12:18.520)
That's what I would have adopted.
Georges St-Pierre (1:12:19.520)
I would not have been afraid of his wrestling.
Lex Fridman (1:12:23.160)
I would have be the instigator.
Georges St-Pierre (1:12:24.960)
I would have forced the fight forward.
Lex Fridman (1:12:28.000)
And that's how I would have approached that fight, which I believe most of his opponent
Georges St-Pierre (1:12:35.160)
were afraid of his wrestling because they didn't have the tools that I have to put him
Lex Fridman (1:12:38.800)
down.
Georges St-Pierre (1:12:40.080)
I would not have forced the wrestling.
Lex Fridman (1:12:41.760)
I would have...
Georges St-Pierre (1:12:42.760)
In the clinch, I would have tried to disengage.
Lex Fridman (1:12:44.720)
I have many ways to disengage a clinch.
Georges St-Pierre (1:12:47.720)
I would have wanted to force the fight in a fighting distance, like in a shoot box distance,
Lex Fridman (1:12:54.840)
not in a wrestling distance.
Lex Fridman (1:12:57.440)
Is it possible this fight still happens?
Lex Fridman (1:13:02.760)
You're young, you look great in a suit.
Georges St-Pierre (1:13:06.720)
Well, there's a lot of problems now.
Lex Fridman (1:13:10.280)
And the thing is, now I made peace with it.
Georges St-Pierre (1:13:14.600)
I no longer don't want to fight and I don't...
Lex Fridman (1:13:17.480)
It's not going to happen.
Georges St-Pierre (1:13:18.480)
UFC was not interested and I'm bound by contract with the UFC and by exclusivity.
Lex Fridman (1:13:24.520)
Some people says to me, oh, how about if a wealthy Russian guy come with the money?
Georges St-Pierre (1:13:32.520)
I said, I'm going to be in court with UFC.
Lex Fridman (1:13:37.200)
And also, I'm older now and when I go home and I'm like, I don't want to do this, you
Lex Fridman (1:13:43.720)
know?
Lex Fridman (1:13:44.720)
But you were always like this.
Georges St-Pierre (1:13:45.720)
No, I don't want to do this.
Lex Fridman (1:13:46.720)
But like, for example, I was training with Freddie Roach a few days ago and I'm hitting
Lex Fridman (1:13:50.560)
pads, you know?
Lex Fridman (1:13:53.280)
And Freddie is looking at me and he's like, hey, you have the hitch back.
Georges St-Pierre (1:13:56.240)
I'm like, yeah.
Georges St-Pierre (1:13:57.240)
If Dana White would walk in the room, in the gym at that precise moment with the UFC contract,
Georges St-Pierre (1:14:03.800)
I would sign it in the blink of an eye.
Lex Fridman (1:14:07.080)
But when I go home, I'm like, hell no, my belly is full, I'm healthy, I'm wealthy.
Lex Fridman (1:14:15.920)
Why would I want to fight for?
Lex Fridman (1:14:17.720)
I made peace with it.
Lex Fridman (1:14:19.080)
But the minute I go back in the gym, because I still get it inside me when I train with
Lex Fridman (1:14:22.920)
the young guys, I still get it.
Lex Fridman (1:14:25.200)
And a lot of guys think, hey, tell me the truth, you're preparing a comeback because
Lex Fridman (1:14:29.360)
I still get it.
Georges St-Pierre (1:14:30.360)
You know, I'm a little bit older, but I got more knowledge, I can compensate.
Lex Fridman (1:14:36.440)
I become a different animal because, you know, it changed you.
Lex Fridman (1:14:40.760)
But then after you go home and you're like, man, no way I'm doing this.
Georges St-Pierre (1:14:45.440)
It's very hard to explain, you need to be a fighter to understand that it's very, very
Georges St-Pierre (1:14:51.640)
hard to explain.
Georges St-Pierre (1:14:53.040)
Well, from your perspective, I think Khabib is one of the rare, one of the few fascinating
Georges St-Pierre (1:14:59.200)
scientific puzzles yet to be solved.
Lex Fridman (1:15:01.600)
So from that aspect, as a martial artist, it's just a fascinating journey to try to
Georges St-Pierre (1:15:06.160)
solve that puzzle.
Georges St-Pierre (1:15:07.160)
There is a thing too, like we say, oh, who's the best fighter, people, Lex, they don't,
Georges St-Pierre (1:15:12.960)
like I am this, I realized that later in my life and I'm sure a lot of young guy will
Georges St-Pierre (1:15:18.680)
say, oh, I say, Pierre, it's not, don't speak for me, but I'm telling you right now what
Georges St-Pierre (1:15:24.040)
I'm about to say, you will realize it later.
Georges St-Pierre (1:15:27.360)
When I was young, I think you can proclaim yourself the more, the badass man on the planet,
Georges St-Pierre (1:15:33.520)
you know, like nobody can beat you at, it's an illusion, man.
Georges St-Pierre (1:15:37.700)
That's the sad thing about, for example, DC, Daniel Cormier does probably one of the greatest,
Georges St-Pierre (1:15:43.800)
it's not the greatest of all time, you said Neotish, but like, it's almost because of
Georges St-Pierre (1:15:49.880)
that little matchup with John Jones, it's difficult for people to conceive of him as
Georges St-Pierre (1:15:55.160)
the greatest of all time.
Georges St-Pierre (1:15:56.480)
It's all about matchup, it's all about timing, and also you make a fight, you make both guys
Georges St-Pierre (1:16:02.800)
fight 10 times, the result might be different, like every time, you know, I mean, maybe he's
Lex Fridman (1:16:11.840)
gonna win eight out of 10, but that night, he's gonna lose, why?
Georges St-Pierre (1:16:17.440)
Because we don't know, the universe made it like that, you know, maybe he got sick, maybe
Georges St-Pierre (1:16:21.120)
he had the emotional issues, he didn't sleep well, and it makes him lose focus and he got
Georges St-Pierre (1:16:26.960)
caught, you don't, we don't know, but that's the thing, people ask me, would you have done
Lex Fridman (1:16:32.900)
it with Khabib, what would happen?
Georges St-Pierre (1:16:34.680)
I don't know, maybe out of 10 times, I don't know, maybe as a fighter, I hope I would have
Georges St-Pierre (1:16:39.180)
won more than him, he thinks the opposite is only one way to find out, but that night,
Georges St-Pierre (1:16:45.520)
if there is a fight, the guy that's gonna win doesn't mean he's the best fighter, that's
Georges St-Pierre (1:16:49.320)
mean that he's the one that fought the best the night of the fight, same thing in basketball
Georges St-Pierre (1:16:55.360)
or hockey, the team that wins the game, it's not necessarily the best team, it's the team
Georges St-Pierre (1:17:01.360)
that played the best the night of the game, and fighting is no different, so being the
Georges St-Pierre (1:17:07.440)
baddest man on the planet, it's an illusion.
Georges St-Pierre (1:17:11.920)
I mean that's the tragic thing about it, is on any one night, anything can happen and
Georges St-Pierre (1:17:17.000)
then that tells a story for all of human history, it's sad to think about, but that's what makes
Georges St-Pierre (1:17:24.200)
it beautiful, that there's so much at stake, like entire lives, all the dreams you've had
Georges St-Pierre (1:17:30.400)
growing up, all the hard work, all of it is decided in a single night, even though that
Georges St-Pierre (1:17:34.820)
means nothing in terms of who's actually better, I mean that's the beauty, that's why people
Georges St-Pierre (1:17:41.080)
love the Olympics especially, because it happens so rarely, and dreams are broken, or like
Georges St-Pierre (1:17:48.520)
triumph is achieved by the unlikely hero, all like right there, I mean that's why we
Georges St-Pierre (1:17:55.800)
love it, right, that's why we love it.
Georges St-Pierre (1:17:58.760)
If we wouldn't know always the result before, it would be boring, that's why we do it, you
Georges St-Pierre (1:18:02.960)
know, watch the odds, like sometimes I like to watch the odds before a fight, you know,
Georges St-Pierre (1:18:12.160)
because there's things, I believe in causality, everybody believes different things, but I
Georges St-Pierre (1:18:20.160)
believe everything is because there's a cause to everything, that's personally what I believe,
Georges St-Pierre (1:18:26.400)
I don't believe that I have like free will, I think I have the illusion of free will,
Lex Fridman (1:18:31.480)
but I believe there's a cause for everything, and if I'm doing something because of something,
Georges St-Pierre (1:18:37.040)
because of a cause, by definition, there's no free will in a way, if there's a cause,
Georges St-Pierre (1:18:41.520)
by definition, there's not.
Lex Fridman (1:18:43.920)
How does that make you feel by the way, like the idea that if we just look outside of even
Georges St-Pierre (1:18:49.000)
just human psychology and fighting and so on, if we look at like physics, if everything
Georges St-Pierre (1:18:53.120)
is predetermined, if all of these little molecules interacting, it's all already, like your story
Georges St-Pierre (1:18:58.960)
is already written.
Georges St-Pierre (1:19:00.280)
I mean, it depends, it's written, but I wouldn't need to know all the data and it's impossible,
Lex Fridman (1:19:06.080)
right?
Georges St-Pierre (1:19:07.080)
Like it's kind of weird, I gotta say, but to me, I don't see any argument to counter
Georges St-Pierre (1:19:15.800)
that idea, maybe I'm ignorant, but I haven't seen nobody and everything that I've read
Lex Fridman (1:19:24.160)
so far, there's nothing that counter that idea, because in a mechanical world, if your
Georges St-Pierre (1:19:31.280)
car broke, or we don't say, oh, the car decided to broke, or a tree is fall, there's reason
Lex Fridman (1:19:39.880)
why the tree is fall, we don't say the tree is decide to fall, right?
Lex Fridman (1:19:43.440)
So because us human being, I think it's our ego, we decide, and I'm no different than
Georges St-Pierre (1:19:49.080)
anybody when I make a decision, I decided to do this, I choose to do this, but I'm aware
Georges St-Pierre (1:19:56.240)
that there is causes that make me do certain things, and by definition, I think if there
Lex Fridman (1:20:04.720)
is a cause, there is no free will, by definition, right?
Georges St-Pierre (1:20:09.160)
Yes, but the thing is, just like you said, we understand so little about human intelligence,
Georges St-Pierre (1:20:15.040)
the human mind, and especially consciousness, that this giant mystery, this darkness, that
Georges St-Pierre (1:20:25.320)
we don't understand how it feels like to be something, to be a conscious being, that because
Georges St-Pierre (1:20:33.160)
of that, we're not able to really even reason about free will, or not, because there might
Georges St-Pierre (1:20:39.000)
be some magic that comes from consciousness, the consciousness might be the thing that
Lex Fridman (1:20:46.880)
makes us different from a car that breaks down.
Georges St-Pierre (1:20:49.880)
There might be something totally fascinating, totally undiscovered yet, that will make us
Georges St-Pierre (1:20:58.040)
realize that free will is actually real, and is somehow fundamental to the human experience.
Lex Fridman (1:21:03.160)
So it's, sometimes I think we forget when we talk about free will and physics and it
Georges St-Pierre (1:21:11.940)
all seeming to be predetermined, we forget how little we actually understand about the
Georges St-Pierre (1:21:16.840)
world, and I think in that mystery, there could be totally new ideas that are yet to
Georges St-Pierre (1:21:23.360)
be discovered, and will make us realize that it's not just an illusion, it is something
Georges St-Pierre (1:21:29.560)
that is like at the core of how the universe works.
Georges St-Pierre (1:21:33.680)
Some people believe that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, like
Georges St-Pierre (1:21:39.880)
it's one of the forces of physics, like consciousness permeates everything, it's in everything.
Georges St-Pierre (1:21:46.440)
Like this table is conscious, but it's not as conscious as us, and we're this little
Georges St-Pierre (1:21:51.300)
peak of consciousness, and if that's true, and if we get to understand that, maybe there's
Georges St-Pierre (1:21:56.600)
something, there's an extra bonus we get in terms of free will once you become one of
Georges St-Pierre (1:22:03.400)
those entities that are super conscious.
Lex Fridman (1:22:05.840)
So I tend to be sort of humbled by the mystery of it.
Lex Fridman (1:22:10.760)
Do you believe one day with the technology that keep improving, we will make robot that
Lex Fridman (1:22:20.960)
will be able to be somehow conscious?
Georges St-Pierre (1:22:25.800)
Absolutely, that's been my dream, that's been, I hope to do just that.
Georges St-Pierre (1:22:31.720)
First of all, I believe that all people are capable and want to be good to each other,
Lex Fridman (1:22:37.860)
and I think love is a really powerful thing that connects us and can create better and
Georges St-Pierre (1:22:45.080)
better worlds, sort of like create better and better societies that improve both the
Georges St-Pierre (1:22:52.760)
technology, the quality of life, and just the basics of human experience.
Lex Fridman (1:22:57.080)
And I think creating AI systems that are conscious, that are human like, can enable us to be better
Georges St-Pierre (1:23:04.200)
to each other.
Georges St-Pierre (1:23:05.400)
Like they can, it's almost like adding more and more kindness to the world through the
Georges St-Pierre (1:23:12.300)
systems we interact with will inspire us to be better and better to each other.
Georges St-Pierre (1:23:16.580)
In terms of them being conscious, I think that is an absolute requirement that entities
Georges St-Pierre (1:23:23.620)
we interact with communicate some element of consciousness to us, like that's how we
Lex Fridman (1:23:30.280)
connect to each other.
Georges St-Pierre (1:23:31.600)
The reason we, you and I connect is that we believe that each of us are conscious.
Lex Fridman (1:23:37.800)
And to me, what consciousness means is the ability to hurt, the ability to suffer, to
Georges St-Pierre (1:23:44.760)
struggle in this world, because just like you said, without the struggle, you don't
Georges St-Pierre (1:23:51.720)
have the love, you don't have the pleasure, and ultimately consciousness is an entity's
Georges St-Pierre (1:23:57.200)
ability to struggle, to suffer, and from that arises the pleasure.
Lex Fridman (1:24:03.860)
And us together being able to appreciate the highs and experience together the lows, that's
Lex Fridman (1:24:17.320)
how we form the deep connections.
Georges St-Pierre (1:24:19.400)
I personally think we can create that in robots, and I personally believe it's a lot easier
Georges St-Pierre (1:24:24.000)
than we think.
Georges St-Pierre (1:24:26.160)
Does it make you afraid sometimes about the fact that one day AI, like artificial intelligence
Lex Fridman (1:24:35.080)
could hurt us?
Georges St-Pierre (1:24:40.760)
Because of Hollywood, of course, the movies we watch, but it seems like when I hear sometimes
Lex Fridman (1:24:45.600)
Elon Musk talking, you know?
Lex Fridman (1:24:48.160)
Yeah, so Elon talks about with AI, we're summoning the demon.
Georges St-Pierre (1:24:53.480)
He is very concerned, and I talked to him about it quite a bit, he's very concerned
Lex Fridman (1:24:58.360)
about all the different ways AI could hurt us humans.
Georges St-Pierre (1:25:03.240)
I tend to believe that there's a lot more ways in which AI can make our lives better
Lex Fridman (1:25:08.480)
and can make life awesome for humans.
Georges St-Pierre (1:25:11.200)
I think humans are the ones that can do a lot of evil things.
Lex Fridman (1:25:16.280)
So I'm less worried about AI, I'm more worried about humans.
Georges St-Pierre (1:25:20.200)
If I look at what humans have done on the course of history, for example, in regards
Georges St-Pierre (1:25:28.720)
to the planet to the scale of the universe, I think what I'm afraid is that we have more
Georges St-Pierre (1:25:36.000)
of a destructive force than a beneficial force.
Lex Fridman (1:25:41.060)
So if AI take that in consideration in order to protect us against ourselves, it could
Georges St-Pierre (1:25:49.600)
hurt us in a way.
Lex Fridman (1:25:50.600)
I don't know if you understand, what do you think about that?
Georges St-Pierre (1:25:54.400)
Does it makes you afraid sometimes, not because of AI, but because of what humans are doing
Lex Fridman (1:26:00.840)
that AI could do to us to prevent us of hurting ourselves, you know?
Georges St-Pierre (1:26:06.880)
Yeah, I mean, definitely it can bring out the worst in human nature and provide tools
Lex Fridman (1:26:15.000)
for evil people to do evil things at a larger scale.
Lex Fridman (1:26:19.200)
But I just think it depends what you think human beings are.
Georges St-Pierre (1:26:24.280)
I tend to believe that as we get more intelligent, we start to see the value, the evolutionary
Georges St-Pierre (1:26:34.040)
value and the value in terms of happiness of being good to each other.
Lex Fridman (1:26:38.080)
And I think AI, if you look at AI as an optimization problem of how to create a civilization that
Georges St-Pierre (1:26:43.240)
works well and expands throughout the universe, I think love is much more effective.
Lex Fridman (1:26:50.080)
So AI will help us maximize that.
Georges St-Pierre (1:26:53.360)
I think there's going to be always spikes throughout, as it has been through human history,
Lex Fridman (1:26:58.480)
where charismatic leaders will do evil onto the world in the name of good.
Georges St-Pierre (1:27:03.960)
You have the Stalin and the Hitlers and all of that.
Lex Fridman (1:27:07.520)
But ultimately over time, I think technology will give the good people power and the evil
Georges St-Pierre (1:27:19.000)
people less power.
Lex Fridman (1:27:21.960)
Now there's a lot of ways that that won't be the case.
Georges St-Pierre (1:27:26.960)
There's a lot of ways for it to go wrong and Elon talks about them, but I honestly think
Lex Fridman (1:27:32.240)
in terms of intelligent AI, that's going to bring more love to the world.
Georges St-Pierre (1:27:37.560)
The thing I'm concerned about is dumb AI.
Lex Fridman (1:27:40.880)
So there's been a lot of discussion between China and the United States recently on autonomous
Georges St-Pierre (1:27:45.720)
weapons system.
Georges St-Pierre (1:27:47.360)
This is something people don't, they're afraid to talk about, but there's now a race where
Georges St-Pierre (1:27:56.200)
the United States has officially said that they're not against adding AI to its weapon
Lex Fridman (1:28:02.640)
systems.
Lex Fridman (1:28:03.640)
So now the US military is adding automation, adding intelligence to its drones, to anything
Lex Fridman (1:28:14.000)
that can create damage.
Lex Fridman (1:28:16.000)
And so of course, and they did this so in response to China doing that.
Lex Fridman (1:28:21.240)
So you can imagine this is Terminator.
Georges St-Pierre (1:28:24.560)
You think about Terminators and intelligent systems, they're not, they're pretty dumb.
Lex Fridman (1:28:30.360)
The point is they're efficient at doing what they do.
Lex Fridman (1:28:34.480)
And in the space of war, efficient at doing what you do means killing.
Lex Fridman (1:28:39.640)
So that I'm really afraid of, but those are dumb AI.
Georges St-Pierre (1:28:43.120)
Those aren't your loving, deep, fulfilling relationships.
Georges St-Pierre (1:28:49.060)
That's like efficiently being able to fly, to plan the trajectory of dropping bombs,
Georges St-Pierre (1:28:55.880)
of missiles, of how to do counter attacks, of how to maximize the destruction of a particular
Lex Fridman (1:29:01.540)
facility instead of individuals.
Lex Fridman (1:29:04.040)
And then that can just escalate.
Lex Fridman (1:29:07.440)
And as opposed to the cold war with the Soviet Union, this could be a hot war.
Lex Fridman (1:29:12.480)
And then the consequences, once you allow, it's kind of terrifying because currently
Lex Fridman (1:29:19.860)
the drones are operated by humans.
Lex Fridman (1:29:22.040)
So you have say, you have information about, intelligence gives you information about a
Lex Fridman (1:29:30.040)
particular terrorist located in this area.
Lex Fridman (1:29:33.160)
And then you use drones to maybe the automation there is to help you figure out what is the
Lex Fridman (1:29:40.060)
best trajectory to strike at that location.
Lex Fridman (1:29:44.320)
So you still have a human that pulls the trigger at the end and dropping the bomb.
Georges St-Pierre (1:29:49.840)
Now automation and AI and autonomous weapons systems might be where you say, there's a
Georges St-Pierre (1:29:56.640)
bad guy over here.
Lex Fridman (1:29:58.840)
You figure out how to get rid of the bad guy.
Lex Fridman (1:30:02.440)
So then of course the systems will be very good at finding the right trajectory and so
Lex Fridman (1:30:06.560)
on, but there's bugs that can happen.
Georges St-Pierre (1:30:11.280)
Unexpected bugs that the system might figure out that there is this bad guy might actually
Lex Fridman (1:30:16.880)
be in these other five locations.
Lex Fridman (1:30:20.140)
So might make sense to cover the entire area, right?
Lex Fridman (1:30:24.980)
And so you might drop bombs on the entire area and then that's just okay.
Lex Fridman (1:30:31.180)
So that's going to lead to a lot of destruction at the scale of a city, but then you can immediately
Lex Fridman (1:30:35.600)
take that to nuclear weapons.
Georges St-Pierre (1:30:37.620)
If you add automation to responding to counterattacks to nuclear weapons, somebody, you might get
Georges St-Pierre (1:30:43.960)
information that somebody is planning a nuclear attack on the United States and the AI system
Georges St-Pierre (1:30:48.320)
will immediately respond and you know, it can respond at a scale of launching nuclear
Lex Fridman (1:30:53.560)
weapons itself.
Lex Fridman (1:30:54.560)
And so there's all of these possibilities that don't require much intelligence.
Lex Fridman (1:30:59.520)
And that's exceptionally concerning.
Georges St-Pierre (1:31:04.320)
I'm like you, I do not believe there is babies that are born bad.
Lex Fridman (1:31:09.200)
I think people do bad things because of their experience.
Georges St-Pierre (1:31:14.880)
However, if I look through my experience and from what I can see is some very often, man's
Lex Fridman (1:31:23.360)
of power wants more power.
Lex Fridman (1:31:29.440)
That's what makes me afraid with, you know?
Lex Fridman (1:31:32.080)
Absolutely, listen, I've come from the Soviet Union.
Georges St-Pierre (1:31:37.520)
Stalin is arguably one of the most powerful humans in history.
Lex Fridman (1:31:41.280)
He's not talked often enough about by the evils he's done.
Georges St-Pierre (1:31:44.160)
Hitler gets all the attention, but Stalin has done arguably much more evil than Hitler.
Lex Fridman (1:31:49.680)
Yeah, well, this is human nature.
Georges St-Pierre (1:31:52.280)
It wants power.
Lex Fridman (1:31:53.960)
We see that with institutions, we see that with governments and nations.
Georges St-Pierre (1:31:57.320)
I think you see this with the internet, people are really hungry for the distribution of
Lex Fridman (1:32:04.680)
power.
Georges St-Pierre (1:32:05.680)
Like you see that people are very much distrustful of centralized places of power, of institutions
Lex Fridman (1:32:11.680)
and so on.
Lex Fridman (1:32:12.760)
So I think successful organizations, successful companies, successful governments will be
Lex Fridman (1:32:19.280)
run by people who distribute the power.
Georges St-Pierre (1:32:22.240)
Like I don't trust myself with power at all.
Lex Fridman (1:32:24.880)
And I think you have to build into the system that no one person can have power and that
Georges St-Pierre (1:32:32.000)
you distribute it.
Georges St-Pierre (1:32:33.000)
That's where you have in the financial sector, you have cryptocurrency right now with Bitcoin
Lex Fridman (1:32:37.040)
and all those kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (1:32:38.600)
People are exploring, how can we avoid the central bank to have the control?
Lex Fridman (1:32:44.500)
How do you put the power in the hands of people, thousands of people, millions of people?
Lex Fridman (1:32:49.440)
And same way with military, with any kind of, with technology, I think the future looks
Georges St-Pierre (1:32:58.960)
very distributed.
Lex Fridman (1:33:01.040)
What do you think about militarizing space?
Georges St-Pierre (1:33:05.760)
The space force, I don't think about it often because right now I'm filled with excitement
Lex Fridman (1:33:12.400)
about space exploration, which is the positive aspect.
Lex Fridman (1:33:15.760)
So Elon, I was born in an era where it was exciting.
Georges St-Pierre (1:33:22.040)
I don't know about you, but for me it's exciting to look up to the stars and dream about us
Georges St-Pierre (1:33:28.400)
humans colonizing Mars, colonizing other planets, expanding out to the galaxy, into the universe.
Lex Fridman (1:33:35.480)
That's really exciting.
Lex Fridman (1:33:38.180)
So the possibilities there are endless.
Lex Fridman (1:33:43.320)
I don't think, because also the resources are endless.
Lex Fridman (1:33:47.580)
And so I think we get into trouble with militarization, with wars when the resources are very constrained.
Lex Fridman (1:33:55.040)
So I think for a while we're not going to be fighting, the only wars we'll be fighting
Georges St-Pierre (1:34:01.420)
in space are the ones that kind of help us.
Lex Fridman (1:34:05.440)
Another nation to compete, who goes to the moon first, I guess.
Georges St-Pierre (1:34:10.400)
Those kinds of things are maybe for satellites and all those kinds of communication and maybe
Lex Fridman (1:34:15.440)
in assistance for cyber warfare, which is also very dangerous.
Lex Fridman (1:34:19.160)
But in terms of the wars out in space, I think everything out in space will be positive and
Lex Fridman (1:34:28.400)
inspiring.
Georges St-Pierre (1:34:29.400)
It's very hard, but all good things are hard, I think.
Georges St-Pierre (1:34:33.580)
This is where I've been talking to a bunch of people about extraterrestrial life.
Georges St-Pierre (1:34:38.880)
I'm really excited by, I don't know, it's the other thing.
Lex Fridman (1:34:45.320)
When I look out to the stars, it's exciting to me.
Georges St-Pierre (1:34:48.220)
I know I think you've spoken about it being scary, but to me it's exciting that there's
Georges St-Pierre (1:34:53.180)
intelligent creatures out there far beyond perhaps the intelligence of our own that are
Georges St-Pierre (1:34:59.560)
just too far away to explore yet, but we might one day come in contact with them.
Lex Fridman (1:35:04.780)
So that to me is the ultimate motivator is to meet other intelligence life forms out
Georges St-Pierre (1:35:11.440)
there and connect with them.
Lex Fridman (1:35:13.040)
Have you ever meet Jacques Vallée?
Georges St-Pierre (1:35:15.400)
No, but I've been in communication.
Lex Fridman (1:35:17.640)
I want to, I hope to talk to him.
Georges St-Pierre (1:35:19.280)
He's an amazing...
Lex Fridman (1:35:20.280)
French, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:35:21.280)
I know that there's many theories about, you know, if there's alien, we don't know, right?
Lex Fridman (1:35:27.720)
But some people think it's from another star systems and Jacques Vallée has like to make
Georges St-Pierre (1:35:34.120)
a long story short, he has a different theory, thinks it's perhaps beings that could be living
Lex Fridman (1:35:43.080)
in a different dimension than us.
Lex Fridman (1:35:44.960)
And the reason why he says that is when he makes an experiment, when there is a sightings
Georges St-Pierre (1:35:49.700)
very often of a UFO, let's say I'm the UFO that you have three guys, they are looking
Georges St-Pierre (1:35:58.980)
at the UFO very often, one experiment that you can do, and sometimes that is the case,
Georges St-Pierre (1:36:06.240)
you ask your two friends to walk on the side and there's a point that it's like a corridor,
Georges St-Pierre (1:36:11.040)
you see the UFO and then you stop seeing it like a corridor.
Lex Fridman (1:36:14.640)
And that's one of the reasons why he's saying that it's perhaps dimension.
Lex Fridman (1:36:20.000)
And I found that fascinating, you know?
Georges St-Pierre (1:36:23.280)
This is what, you know, to the discussion of consciousness and all that, it feels like
Georges St-Pierre (1:36:27.480)
we might be just experiencing a very particular slice of this universe, we might not be understanding
Georges St-Pierre (1:36:33.000)
what's at the higher dimensions or, yeah, I mean, higher dimensions in whatever form
Georges St-Pierre (1:36:37.980)
that means, you know, there's all these physical theories now that describe a world with dimensions
Georges St-Pierre (1:36:44.080)
that's much higher than the four dimensions of the three dimension of space and the one
Georges St-Pierre (1:36:47.800)
dimension of time.
Lex Fridman (1:36:49.800)
So whatever the hell is going on in those other dimensions, it could be something, unfortunately,
Georges St-Pierre (1:36:56.840)
this is the sad part, it might be something we can't even comprehend with our human brains,
Georges St-Pierre (1:37:02.240)
that the limitations are just, I mean, we're just descendants of apes, so like it might
Georges St-Pierre (1:37:09.120)
not be possible to even understand.
Lex Fridman (1:37:10.840)
Is there alien?
Lex Fridman (1:37:11.840)
Is there another dimension?
Lex Fridman (1:37:12.840)
Are they human from the future?
Georges St-Pierre (1:37:14.720)
Is there perhaps Chinese or another, you know what I mean, a group of people that are working
Lex Fridman (1:37:19.880)
with technology far behind?
Lex Fridman (1:37:21.960)
But you know what, Lex, I had the chance to meet, you know, because of the sport I'm doing,
Georges St-Pierre (1:37:26.880)
I met a lot of people in military and politics sometimes that I ask them every time.
Lex Fridman (1:37:34.040)
I met one this week and I asked him, I say, is it true about the UFOs there?
Lex Fridman (1:37:42.320)
And he says to me, he's like, even before I asked him, I say, sorry, I have to ask you
Georges St-Pierre (1:37:47.600)
a question.
Lex Fridman (1:37:48.600)
I was in Los Angeles and I said, sorry, I have to ask you a question.
Georges St-Pierre (1:37:52.960)
He said, oh, you want to ask me about UFOs right away, you do.
Lex Fridman (1:37:55.400)
And I say, yes.
Georges St-Pierre (1:37:56.400)
He saw it in your eyes.
Lex Fridman (1:37:57.400)
He said, yeah, there is things that flies that we don't know.
Lex Fridman (1:38:00.440)
But he didn't tell me, he doesn't know it, they don't know if it's alien or whatever,
Lex Fridman (1:38:04.360)
but there's things apparently that are detected.
Lex Fridman (1:38:07.240)
And I know you met Fravor, you know, like Fravor is fascinating.
Lex Fridman (1:38:11.200)
It's crazy.
Georges St-Pierre (1:38:12.200)
It makes me sad that we live in a different era now that it used to be a subject that
Georges St-Pierre (1:38:17.840)
was ridicules and now it's so cool that it's, you know, I'm very excited to live in to that
Lex Fridman (1:38:23.840)
era, you know?
Georges St-Pierre (1:38:25.320)
Yeah, it's really exciting, but still the governments are kind of behind the times on
Georges St-Pierre (1:38:29.560)
that aspect is they're not transparent and they don't communicate well.
Georges St-Pierre (1:38:35.160)
You know, it saddens me to think the possibility that, that, you know, like the US government
Georges St-Pierre (1:38:40.640)
might be in possession of something that they don't tell the world about because they're
Georges St-Pierre (1:38:46.560)
just scared is because they don't know what the hell it is and they don't want the Chinese
Georges St-Pierre (1:38:51.480)
to gain the technology or all those kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (1:38:54.600)
Do you think the president of the United States, for example, because the president comes and
Georges St-Pierre (1:38:58.800)
go every, right, four or eight years, do you think he would know all the secret or it would
Lex Fridman (1:39:04.480)
be a guy like, for example, Vladimir Putin would know much of, you know what I mean?
Georges St-Pierre (1:39:09.720)
I don't think the president even know, like even knows all the secret.
Lex Fridman (1:39:14.800)
The US president.
Georges St-Pierre (1:39:15.800)
I don't think so because he goes, they go back and forth, you know, every four years,
Lex Fridman (1:39:20.720)
you know, they have the terms, right?
Lex Fridman (1:39:22.980)
So I, you know, I wasn't sure before, but I think I could trust the previous United
Georges St-Pierre (1:39:29.680)
States president of Donald Trump that if he knew, he would probably tweet about it.
Lex Fridman (1:39:36.640)
So I think from the, you know, I've worked with DARPA, I worked with DOD at a clearance
Lex Fridman (1:39:45.680)
and I think from the perspective, if you, if you see the world as fundamentally a dangerous
Georges St-Pierre (1:39:51.600)
world where secrets are important to have from a military perspective, I think it's
Georges St-Pierre (1:39:58.360)
very unsafe to tell the president of the United States that you have this kind of technology.
Lex Fridman (1:40:06.000)
So if you think of the world in that way, I hate that that's how that world is viewed
Georges St-Pierre (1:40:11.120)
because ultimately I think what's more powerful than the military secrets, and I hope that
Georges St-Pierre (1:40:16.040)
actually is what will happen in the 21st century, is what's more powerful is inspire people.
Lex Fridman (1:40:23.520)
Inspire the young Elon Musk's of the world to create cool new things.
Georges St-Pierre (1:40:29.100)
If we have technology that we've have come, have encountered that we don't understand
Lex Fridman (1:40:35.800)
that should only be inspiration to develop that kind of stuff.
Georges St-Pierre (1:40:40.720)
It shouldn't be seen as military, as a military threat, as a secret to hold on to.
Georges St-Pierre (1:40:46.700)
I think secrets, I hope we more and more let go of the idea that there are secrets that
Georges St-Pierre (1:40:53.720)
give us advantage, you know, like in the tech sector, people are more and more releasing
Lex Fridman (1:40:59.720)
the software and making it open source.
Georges St-Pierre (1:41:03.240)
Like secrets don't make sense.
Lex Fridman (1:41:05.400)
They share the knowledge, right?
Georges St-Pierre (1:41:07.280)
Share the knowledge.
Lex Fridman (1:41:08.280)
Like being afraid to share the knowledge, I think, I hope is an old idea.
Georges St-Pierre (1:41:13.200)
It's more, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:41:14.200)
When you make it, things more compartmentalize, you know?
Georges St-Pierre (1:41:16.880)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (1:41:17.880)
Well, yeah.
Georges St-Pierre (1:41:18.880)
That's the other thing is the bureaucracy of government is like people only know their
Lex Fridman (1:41:23.460)
own little thing and they don't spread the information.
Georges St-Pierre (1:41:25.800)
It doesn't travel well.
Lex Fridman (1:41:26.800)
I mean, there's a lot of just inefficiencies that are, it makes me sad.
Georges St-Pierre (1:41:30.320)
It makes me sad because the science, the engineering that happens in governments, like Lockheed
Georges St-Pierre (1:41:37.280)
Martin developing the different airplanes that they use for military applications is
Georges St-Pierre (1:41:42.360)
some of the most incredible engineering ever.
Lex Fridman (1:41:45.000)
And it's secret because they're afraid to share it with the Russians and the Chinese
Lex Fridman (1:41:49.640)
and so on.
Lex Fridman (1:41:51.520)
But on that topic, I do think somebody like Vladimir Putin probably knows some stuff.
Georges St-Pierre (1:41:58.240)
My God.
Lex Fridman (1:41:59.240)
My God.
Georges St-Pierre (1:42:00.240)
I would love to know what he knows.
Lex Fridman (1:42:01.980)
But then again, you never know because even he is, you know, people think of him as an
Georges St-Pierre (1:42:06.400)
exceptionally powerful person, but he's also just managing a bunch of tribes.
Lex Fridman (1:42:12.460)
His power is very limited.
Georges St-Pierre (1:42:14.320)
He's trying to hold together a bunch of greedy, power hungry, mad men.
Lex Fridman (1:42:21.480)
That's right.
Georges St-Pierre (1:42:22.480)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (1:42:23.480)
And he's trying to establish a balance.
Georges St-Pierre (1:42:24.580)
He might not know everything.
Lex Fridman (1:42:26.060)
So I hope this changes because I think there's nothing more exciting about.
Georges St-Pierre (1:42:31.800)
I don't even know if there is a human that knows.
Lex Fridman (1:42:35.440)
You know what I mean?
Georges St-Pierre (1:42:36.440)
Like this idea that there is some civilization, alien civilization that that land on the White
Lex Fridman (1:42:42.180)
House and say, hi, I come to meet the president.
Lex Fridman (1:42:44.200)
And like, why would they do that?
Lex Fridman (1:42:46.360)
You know what I mean?
Georges St-Pierre (1:42:47.360)
It's kind of absurd.
Lex Fridman (1:42:48.920)
You know?
Georges St-Pierre (1:42:49.920)
Well, I do think that actually, I mean, that's one possibility, right, is LART, you know,
Georges St-Pierre (1:42:56.480)
if an alien civilization really wanted to contact us, I think everybody would know.
Lex Fridman (1:43:01.520)
So I think what we're, if there's any kind of interaction between humans and aliens,
Georges St-Pierre (1:43:08.240)
I think most likely what we're interacting with is a crappy like probe drone thing that
Georges St-Pierre (1:43:15.320)
kind of just like, like, it's like this, this dumb thing, you know, we're not interacting
Lex Fridman (1:43:22.140)
with the aliens.
Georges St-Pierre (1:43:23.140)
I think just like, just like for us, I think humans aren't when we venture out into space.
Lex Fridman (1:43:32.120)
The first thing that's going to meet aliens is our robots.
Georges St-Pierre (1:43:35.360)
It's not us humans because we keep sending robots out.
Lex Fridman (1:43:38.860)
So they're going to like, they're going to make decisions about humans by looking at
Georges St-Pierre (1:43:43.560)
the robots.
Lex Fridman (1:43:44.560)
I say the famous grays, the grays, maybe they are robots.
Lex Fridman (1:43:49.920)
Maybe it's all BS too, you know?
Lex Fridman (1:43:51.480)
Yeah.
Georges St-Pierre (1:43:52.480)
I don't know, I don't know what that interaction actually would look like if aliens really
Lex Fridman (1:43:58.080)
wanted to reach out, really communicate.
Lex Fridman (1:44:00.280)
And I don't know if we're able to actually communicate with them.
Lex Fridman (1:44:02.640)
That's one of the sad things.
Georges St-Pierre (1:44:03.640)
We may not be able to, that we might, the aliens might already be here and we might
Lex Fridman (1:44:09.600)
just not even know, know how to see them or know how to communicate with them.
Georges St-Pierre (1:44:16.040)
There's so much misinformation and sometimes there is peoples that are very credible that,
Georges St-Pierre (1:44:24.600)
that made crazy claims, you know, like, you don't know what to believe, you know, like,
Georges St-Pierre (1:44:29.240)
like Paul Aylor, the minister of defense of Canada said like some, that there is many
Georges St-Pierre (1:44:36.420)
alien rays that ever, that's what he said, research it and that scientists from, I think
Georges St-Pierre (1:44:43.560)
Israel recently have said something about Trump, he was keeping secret or Medvedev,
Georges St-Pierre (1:44:49.760)
you're from Russia, Medvedev have been caught in a, like during a break in between interviews
Georges St-Pierre (1:44:54.480)
to talks about like, oh, it's like men in black, so to speak.
Lex Fridman (1:44:57.240)
I don't know.
Georges St-Pierre (1:44:58.240)
He didn't look like he was joking, but I don't know if he was saying the truth.
Lex Fridman (1:45:01.400)
I didn't know about this.
Georges St-Pierre (1:45:02.400)
Yeah, you can check on YouTube.
Lex Fridman (1:45:03.400)
It's a, it's, it's, it went, it went viral.
Georges St-Pierre (1:45:05.560)
Yeah.
Georges St-Pierre (1:45:06.560)
There's a lot of things like that sometimes I'm like, or, or Bob Lazar, I'm like, imagine
Georges St-Pierre (1:45:11.880)
if it's true, man.
Lex Fridman (1:45:13.880)
Yeah.
Georges St-Pierre (1:45:14.880)
Imagine if we're like a fish in the water, we live in our own world and sometimes there's
Georges St-Pierre (1:45:19.920)
a fisherman that grabbed the fish, take him out of the water and threw it back in the
Georges St-Pierre (1:45:25.320)
water and the fish goes back to the other fish and say, Hey, there's someone that, that
Lex Fridman (1:45:30.000)
take me out of the water.
Georges St-Pierre (1:45:31.000)
Then I've seen things that I did not like.
Lex Fridman (1:45:33.880)
Imagine if it's true.
Georges St-Pierre (1:45:34.880)
Like we like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:45:36.840)
And one other thing, like I wanted to ask you because you were consciousness, how about
Lex Fridman (1:45:42.600)
dreams?
Lex Fridman (1:45:43.600)
What is a dream?
Georges St-Pierre (1:45:44.600)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:45:45.600)
Well, I, I, I more and more, I don't know if you're paying attention to this.
Georges St-Pierre (1:45:48.360)
There's no, it's become more acceptable in the scientific community to do large scale
Georges St-Pierre (1:45:52.400)
studies of psychedelics, for example, and there's a lot of connection between psychedelics
Lex Fridman (1:45:56.500)
and dreams.
Lex Fridman (1:45:57.500)
There's very similar states.
Georges St-Pierre (1:45:59.120)
There's, there's a lot our mind does when it detaches itself from reality that it can
Lex Fridman (1:46:04.120)
just explore a lot of different ideas.
Georges St-Pierre (1:46:05.880)
It's very possible that dreams is you're traveling somewhere and the same thing with psychedelics.
Lex Fridman (1:46:10.840)
You're traveling somewhere in a different, not traveling to physical space.
Georges St-Pierre (1:46:15.640)
It's the other dimensions that we're talking about.
Georges St-Pierre (1:46:17.640)
You're traveling some other through some other dimension to meet some other creature.
Georges St-Pierre (1:46:22.400)
People talk with DMT that they meet some elves.
Georges St-Pierre (1:46:24.520)
I've never done, I I'd like to, I don't know if there's a safe legal way to do it, but
Lex Fridman (1:46:31.480)
they all talk about meeting elves and creatures like entities and like, who are they?
Lex Fridman (1:46:39.480)
What's what is this?
Georges St-Pierre (1:46:42.040)
Is it because they're high or it's because they're actually meeting something and maybe
Lex Fridman (1:46:46.480)
there's no difference.
Georges St-Pierre (1:46:47.480)
I mean that who knows exactly and that's takes us right back to us not being able to really
Lex Fridman (1:46:52.000)
understand how our mind works.
Georges St-Pierre (1:46:54.480)
You know, I work in artificial intelligence.
Georges St-Pierre (1:46:58.240)
It's clear that we understand so little about intelligence, some basic things about intelligence
Georges St-Pierre (1:47:04.280)
just at the, at the very sort of basic first principles level.
Georges St-Pierre (1:47:09.740)
We don't understand what it means to, to reason, to think, to assimilate pieces of knowledge
Georges St-Pierre (1:47:17.500)
together from the, from the basics to the complex.
Lex Fridman (1:47:21.740)
We don't understand it.
Georges St-Pierre (1:47:22.740)
We don't understand how the human mind does it.
Georges St-Pierre (1:47:25.200)
We don't understand how the human mind is able to take incredible waterfall of information
Lex Fridman (1:47:30.600)
and filter cleanly into just like clean.
Georges St-Pierre (1:47:34.420)
You only see the things that are important and are able to stitch them together and be
Georges St-Pierre (1:47:37.960)
able to reason about the world.
Lex Fridman (1:47:40.280)
And at the same time have moments of like genius of creativity.
Lex Fridman (1:47:44.800)
Like what is that?
Georges St-Pierre (1:47:46.320)
That also, you know, people, writers talk about that, that they're, you know, they're
Lex Fridman (1:47:50.480)
almost like communicating with a muse, like where do ideas come from?
Lex Fridman (1:47:54.160)
This is the Joe Rogan philosophy.
Lex Fridman (1:47:56.000)
But I do know that past civilization where a lot of them were based on shamanism.
Lex Fridman (1:48:01.920)
And you know what?
Georges St-Pierre (1:48:02.920)
I think it's sad is if someone drink alcohol and when he's drunk, he's going to commit
Lex Fridman (1:48:10.220)
like create like, like murders or something.
Georges St-Pierre (1:48:13.360)
We're going to blame the person.
Lex Fridman (1:48:14.360)
Right?
Georges St-Pierre (1:48:15.360)
You're going to say that's his fault.
Lex Fridman (1:48:16.360)
It's not the fault of alcohol.
Georges St-Pierre (1:48:17.960)
However, if someone does psychedelic or any things that is illegal and you do something
Lex Fridman (1:48:23.880)
crazy, now we're going to put the fault on psychedelic.
Lex Fridman (1:48:28.760)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (1:48:29.760)
And perhaps the person itself is the reason why, you know, he's been doing these things,
Lex Fridman (1:48:36.140)
you know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (1:48:37.280)
So yeah, it's fascinating how like society, you know, like in Canada, they just legalize
Georges St-Pierre (1:48:43.520)
marijuana.
Lex Fridman (1:48:44.520)
Oh yeah?
Georges St-Pierre (1:48:45.520)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:48:46.520)
Marijuana is legal.
Lex Fridman (1:48:47.520)
But before that, before they did it, like if you talk, for example, to my dad, my dad
Lex Fridman (1:48:51.680)
is against it, like, because the whole mentality is like, it's drug, it's bad.
Lex Fridman (1:48:56.920)
But drinking a glass, you know, drinking a beer, it's fine.
Lex Fridman (1:48:59.440)
I mean, what is, you know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (1:49:02.580)
What is good?
Lex Fridman (1:49:03.580)
What is bad?
Lex Fridman (1:49:04.580)
And I guess eating chocolate could be bad as well for your health or, I mean, I'm going
Lex Fridman (1:49:09.920)
to the extreme now, but what is good?
Lex Fridman (1:49:12.560)
What is bad?
Georges St-Pierre (1:49:13.560)
If you use it for recreation, you use it for an experience, to learn about yourself, it's
Georges St-Pierre (1:49:20.400)
a, the line is very tiny, you know, there's some countries that drugs are all legals,
Lex Fridman (1:49:26.880)
you know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (1:49:27.880)
And I don't know the stats, but I would be interesting to know if they have more crimes
Lex Fridman (1:49:35.320)
there than other countries where it's more strict.
Georges St-Pierre (1:49:39.000)
I would be interesting to know about that.
Lex Fridman (1:49:41.280)
It's fascinating to me, you know?
Georges St-Pierre (1:49:43.000)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:49:44.000)
And I mean, we humans kind of just come up with arbitrary lines of what's good, what's
Georges St-Pierre (1:49:47.520)
bad that applies with drugs, that applies with anything, that applies with animals,
Lex Fridman (1:49:53.280)
for example.
Georges St-Pierre (1:49:54.280)
We talked about carnivore diet.
Georges St-Pierre (1:49:56.560)
Maybe the time we live in now will be remembered for the cruelty to animals, for example.
Lex Fridman (1:50:02.880)
And I believe this, the 21st century will be remembered for our cruelty to robots.
Georges St-Pierre (1:50:11.560)
That eventually there'll be a civil rights movement for robots where the ones who choose
Georges St-Pierre (1:50:19.000)
to be conscious, the ones who have consciousness will say, we deserve rights too.
Lex Fridman (1:50:25.080)
We deserve to be treated with respect too.
Lex Fridman (1:50:28.120)
How about the people we put in jail?
Lex Fridman (1:50:30.840)
People put in jail.
Georges St-Pierre (1:50:31.840)
I mean, I think in the future we'll look back and we'll think of ourselves being stupid,
Georges St-Pierre (1:50:38.680)
you know, to put people in jail instead of, you know, like trying to fix the problem at
Lex Fridman (1:50:45.400)
the base, you know?
Georges St-Pierre (1:50:46.400)
Of course now we're, or I guess it's our ignorance that made it in a way that we cannot sometimes
Georges St-Pierre (1:50:52.160)
understand what makes sometime a psychopath, a psychopath or a murderer, a murderer, but
Lex Fridman (1:50:58.440)
you know, if we can pinpoint the problem and take care of it before, you know what I mean?
Georges St-Pierre (1:51:03.760)
Or made it in a way that we can reestablish that person in the society.
Lex Fridman (1:51:09.400)
You know, who knows, you know, what was the future's hold.
Georges St-Pierre (1:51:12.680)
It's interesting.
Lex Fridman (1:51:13.680)
We live in an interesting time.
Georges St-Pierre (1:51:15.800)
You mentioned your father.
Lex Fridman (1:51:17.840)
What have you learned from your dad?
Georges St-Pierre (1:51:20.360)
You mentioned he was an important part of your childhood.
Lex Fridman (1:51:22.700)
My dad is amazing.
Georges St-Pierre (1:51:25.160)
I grew up, we didn't have a lot of money, but it doesn't mean if I'm born in a nice
Lex Fridman (1:51:29.060)
country that always nice thing happened, you know?
Georges St-Pierre (1:51:33.320)
My dad for me is a big role model because I see him through to my life facing a lot
Lex Fridman (1:51:40.440)
of adversity.
Georges St-Pierre (1:51:41.440)
You know, he stopped drinking when I was a teenager, he was an alcoholic and I seen him
Georges St-Pierre (1:51:48.680)
struggle through that, you know, and it was very, very hard and I've seen him work like
Georges St-Pierre (1:51:58.280)
crazy hours, like come leave in the morning, come home at night, burned out because of
Georges St-Pierre (1:52:05.240)
work through almost all his life to the point that it became a slave of the system.
Georges St-Pierre (1:52:15.040)
It became an habit and a normal way of living and it made me realize that I have learned
Lex Fridman (1:52:21.160)
a lot through my father.
Georges St-Pierre (1:52:23.340)
He taught me perseverance, hard work, you know, when you face adversity, you know, to
Georges St-Pierre (1:52:28.360)
never give up until you achieve it, but also he taught me a lesson that in a way that I
Georges St-Pierre (1:52:36.760)
don't want to be like him, even if he is happy, it's because I realized I don't think he knows
Lex Fridman (1:52:43.360)
anything else.
Georges St-Pierre (1:52:44.360)
Like he works through all his life and I don't want to live to work.
Georges St-Pierre (1:52:50.320)
I want to work for, you know what I mean, I want to decide when I work, you know, I
Georges St-Pierre (1:52:54.080)
feel like like he lived to work instead of working for a living.
Lex Fridman (1:53:00.240)
And perhaps it's because he did not have choice, he was the older of his family, they were
Georges St-Pierre (1:53:06.680)
nine kids, his dad, my grandfather died when he was young, so he had to become the father
Lex Fridman (1:53:12.240)
of the family and work to put money on the table.
Lex Fridman (1:53:16.520)
So perhaps that's what made him that way and it became like an habit for him.
Georges St-Pierre (1:53:24.800)
My dad taught me when I was at school, I was bullied at school, he's the first one who
Georges St-Pierre (1:53:30.040)
initiate me to martial art.
Lex Fridman (1:53:32.140)
He taught me karate, my dad was a black belt in Kyokushin karate as well.
Lex Fridman (1:53:37.120)
But because he was working too much, he didn't have time to teach me and I needed self defense
Lex Fridman (1:53:43.000)
in order to defend myself.
Georges St-Pierre (1:53:46.360)
I have a winning, a great career in mixed martial art, but in the school yard, my record
Lex Fridman (1:53:55.200)
is not very good.
Georges St-Pierre (1:53:57.880)
When you're a kid and you're about seven, eight years old and you're facing bullied
Georges St-Pierre (1:54:05.440)
bullies that are two to three years older than yourself, it's not the same thing than
Georges St-Pierre (1:54:13.360)
when you're 25 and the guy is 28.
Lex Fridman (1:54:15.520)
So there was a big discrepancy in terms of maturity.
Lex Fridman (1:54:21.540)
So my dad taught me, introduced me to karate, then he didn't have time to teach me.
Lex Fridman (1:54:29.180)
Then he put me in a school with a teacher, it was Jean Couture.
Lex Fridman (1:54:37.440)
And I grew up with a lot of anger and there were two persons I was afraid growing up.
Lex Fridman (1:54:44.560)
It was my dad, my dad was very severe, very strict with me.
Lex Fridman (1:54:49.360)
And I'm glad he was because I could have become very bad.
Lex Fridman (1:54:53.760)
I could have become chosen on a different path.
Georges St-Pierre (1:54:57.240)
People see me as a nice guy and I am a nice guy, I try to be a good role model, but I
Lex Fridman (1:55:02.320)
could easily have turned towards a wrong path.
Georges St-Pierre (1:55:06.520)
There's darkness somewhere in there.
Lex Fridman (1:55:08.000)
Yes, there are a lot.
Lex Fridman (1:55:09.560)
And a lot of my friends have chosen that path and unfortunately they are not with me today.
Georges St-Pierre (1:55:19.480)
Even if I'm from Canada and Canada seems like the nicest country in the world, like I said,
Georges St-Pierre (1:55:25.140)
even if you live in a nice country, it's not always a nice thing, it depends on the situation.
Lex Fridman (1:55:30.380)
But that's what my dad taught me.
Lex Fridman (1:55:32.220)
And he gave me that because I'm very good at learning by observing people and by observing
Georges St-Pierre (1:55:41.440)
him I see the struggle he had with alcoholism and what he did, the pain sometimes that he
Georges St-Pierre (1:55:47.520)
inflicted to us, to my family.
Lex Fridman (1:55:50.800)
But how he turned, he did a 180 degree and I really admire that.
Lex Fridman (1:55:59.520)
And I know it was very, very hard for him and he did it and for me that's a great role
Lex Fridman (1:56:05.480)
model for me.
Lex Fridman (1:56:07.240)
So with your dad being an engine of basically hard work and you finding a balance of being
Georges St-Pierre (1:56:13.720)
able to work your ass off, but also to be able to enjoy a piece of chocolate, what is
Lex Fridman (1:56:19.280)
a perfect day in the life of George St. Pierre look like?
Lex Fridman (1:56:24.440)
So like if you were to go through a day that's very productive, but also one that makes you
Lex Fridman (1:56:30.320)
sit back and enjoy and say that was a good day, what's that look like?
Lex Fridman (1:56:34.320)
What are we talking about?
Lex Fridman (1:56:36.080)
When do you wake up?
Lex Fridman (1:56:37.080)
What do you eat?
Lex Fridman (1:56:38.080)
What do you do?
Lex Fridman (1:56:39.440)
It changed over the years.
Georges St-Pierre (1:56:41.160)
When I was younger, I have a good day.
Georges St-Pierre (1:56:42.960)
It was like a good training session or, you know, achieving good thing in my training,
Georges St-Pierre (1:56:47.640)
you know, and that's why I was very good at it because when I, I was obsessed, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:56:52.880)
I think to be good at something, you need to become obsessed.
Lex Fridman (1:56:56.360)
And to me, performing in my training was everything, you know, like when I had a bad training session,
Georges St-Pierre (1:57:03.940)
I didn't tell my training partner, I was acting like a, like because of my ego, I didn't,
Georges St-Pierre (1:57:08.880)
you know, I didn't tell nobody, I was like, Hey, then I go in the locker room and like,
Georges St-Pierre (1:57:13.800)
man, then I'm playing the, the, the, the training in my mind and I'm saying, okay, I should
Georges St-Pierre (1:57:20.840)
have done this, should have done that, and it haunt me.
Lex Fridman (1:57:23.680)
It haunt me, man.
Georges St-Pierre (1:57:25.040)
It's a training and it haunt me until the next training session when I can redeem myself.
Lex Fridman (1:57:31.800)
That's how it is.
Georges St-Pierre (1:57:33.640)
When we used to train in, in all together, back in the day in Canada, we had David Loiseau,
Georges St-Pierre (1:57:42.280)
we had Patrick Côté, we had Dennis Kang, Steve Vignot, Jonathan Goulet, there was all
Georges St-Pierre (1:57:49.840)
like the best guy in Canada that were training with each other before we were training in
Lex Fridman (1:57:55.600)
different gyms.
Lex Fridman (1:57:56.600)
But once a week, I made it in a way that I contact everybody that we all join force and
Lex Fridman (1:58:02.960)
we exchange ideas and we train with each other.
Lex Fridman (1:58:06.320)
So a friendly, I would say friendly competition.
Georges St-Pierre (1:58:09.200)
It was not malicious, but it was hard training, you know, like not, our goal was to improve,
Georges St-Pierre (1:58:14.440)
you know, but it wasn't very competitive.
Lex Fridman (1:58:17.960)
And when that day you used to get out of the training session with a bad performance for
Georges St-Pierre (1:58:23.000)
me, it used to haunt me until the following week when I could give it back and perform
Lex Fridman (1:58:29.440)
better with the guy that I had the most trouble with.
Georges St-Pierre (1:58:33.200)
That's how it was.
Lex Fridman (1:58:34.580)
And that's how you get better, you know, but, but it was not a training where we were trying
Georges St-Pierre (1:58:41.040)
to do malicious thing to one another.
Lex Fridman (1:58:43.400)
You know what I mean?
Georges St-Pierre (1:58:45.040)
You need to be playful, but playful, but competitive.
Georges St-Pierre (1:58:49.440)
That when I had a good training session, because the sparring was on a Friday, I had the best
Georges St-Pierre (1:58:53.800)
weekend in the world.
Lex Fridman (1:58:54.800)
I was going out with my friend, drinking and partying and have fun.
Georges St-Pierre (1:58:57.840)
That that was, that was my, my, my, my ideal day back in the day.
Lex Fridman (1:59:05.920)
Today has changed.
Georges St-Pierre (1:59:06.920)
You know, my, my, my, my life has changed.
Georges St-Pierre (1:59:09.640)
You know, like I, I am not the same person I used to be when I got, went on my knees
Lex Fridman (1:59:17.500)
and beg the UFC for title shot.
Lex Fridman (1:59:20.040)
You know what I mean?
Georges St-Pierre (1:59:21.040)
I am a, I'm wealthy, I'm healthy.
Lex Fridman (1:59:25.440)
Most importantly, that's the most important thing.
Lex Fridman (1:59:28.200)
And as, and I'm going to tell you the truth, as good as my career was, man, my private
Lex Fridman (1:59:35.320)
life, man, is a million times better, man.
Georges St-Pierre (1:59:39.960)
I, and, and people ask me sometimes they always wonder, they, they try to ask me and it's
Lex Fridman (1:59:45.400)
normal.
Georges St-Pierre (1:59:46.400)
It's a lot of people is curious and the reporter and in the sport of mixed martial art, we
Lex Fridman (1:59:54.160)
say we play basketball, we play soccer, but you don't play fighting.
Lex Fridman (1:59:58.920)
So when you expose your private life, we seen that happen in the fight with sometime Conor
Lex Fridman (20:00.880)
That's, that's partially why I like carnivore.
Georges St-Pierre (20:03.440)
I like saying no to food that is delicious.
Lex Fridman (20:09.120)
But a part of the problem is that I don't know how to moderate.
Georges St-Pierre (20:12.800)
You said chocolate.
Lex Fridman (20:13.800)
I don't know how to have one chocolate.
Lex Fridman (20:15.080)
Is that something you're able to do?
Lex Fridman (20:17.560)
Have like in moderation?
Georges St-Pierre (20:19.520)
No, it's when it, when I have an opportunity, I do it.
Georges St-Pierre (20:22.600)
I don't have any, I'm an extremist person, uh, Lex, I, I, that's the thing I, when I,
Georges St-Pierre (20:29.520)
when I have a chance, I, I like, I, I just eat, I go too much.
Lex Fridman (20:33.280)
And that's why I like about my life, you know, that's what I like about fasting.
Georges St-Pierre (20:37.240)
Because probably if I would not have discovered fasting, eating chocolate would give me cramps
Lex Fridman (20:42.620)
and all sorts of problems because people on ulcer colitis, normally they cannot eat chocolate.
Georges St-Pierre (20:48.400)
They cannot drink alcohol.
Lex Fridman (20:49.660)
But I believe because I'm fasting, that's the reason why I'm medication, medicine, medication
Georges St-Pierre (20:57.400)
free.
Georges St-Pierre (20:58.400)
I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want, but I have to do that, that fasting, you know,
Lex Fridman (21:02.880)
and now it becomes to a, it became to a point that it's no longer hard for me.
Lex Fridman (21:07.440)
It's like normal.
Georges St-Pierre (21:08.440)
I don't even force myself.
Lex Fridman (21:10.440)
I don't, it's easy.
Lex Fridman (21:12.160)
You know what I mean?
Georges St-Pierre (21:13.160)
Some of my friends thinks I'm, think I'm, I'm insane, you know, but I tell them it's
Georges St-Pierre (21:17.760)
like with, when you get used to it, it becomes like an habit.
Georges St-Pierre (21:21.520)
And, and I'm, and I know that hunter gatherer, like our ancestor did not eat three times
Georges St-Pierre (21:26.920)
a day.
Lex Fridman (21:27.920)
It's, it's, it's not true.
Georges St-Pierre (21:30.160)
They, they ate one day they could, and when they eat, they, they, they, they feed themselves
Georges St-Pierre (21:35.840)
as much as they can until that, because the next time, because they didn't know when they,
Georges St-Pierre (21:39.800)
they could eat again.
Lex Fridman (21:40.800)
Right.
Lex Fridman (21:41.800)
So it's, I think that's how we're, we're, we're built, you know, to, to, to have this
Lex Fridman (21:47.760)
similar lifestyle.
Georges St-Pierre (21:50.800)
If we could take a step back to the discussion about fear a little bit.
Lex Fridman (21:54.680)
So Mike Tyson talks about this process of him walking to the ring.
Georges St-Pierre (22:00.160)
He sounds similar to you in many ways of the anxiety and the fear that he experiences.
Lex Fridman (22:05.600)
And he has this sort of story that he tells about walking to the ring and being supremely
Georges St-Pierre (22:12.600)
afraid.
Lex Fridman (22:14.140)
But as he walks and gets closer and steps in, he finds the confidence and becomes supremely
Georges St-Pierre (22:19.120)
confident.
Lex Fridman (22:20.120)
I think he calls himself like a God.
Georges St-Pierre (22:21.120)
I feel like a God in the ring.
Lex Fridman (22:24.120)
Is, is, do you go through a similar process of finding the confidence?
Georges St-Pierre (22:28.480)
Well, it, yes.
Lex Fridman (22:31.840)
And I use, I use a James Lange theory that they did.
Lex Fridman (22:38.040)
So what I do is because I'm, I'm, I'm not afraid to admit that I'm afraid.
Lex Fridman (22:44.800)
And in the beginning of my career, I really thought I asked myself, because I was very
Georges St-Pierre (22:51.720)
good in mixed martial, but I, I really thought I wasn't made for this because the idea of
Lex Fridman (22:57.880)
fighting didn't, was, was, didn't make me happy.
Georges St-Pierre (23:03.360)
It's something like I, I was, I was forced to do in order to keep that lifestyle that
Lex Fridman (23:09.140)
I have and achieve my goal.
Georges St-Pierre (23:12.080)
Perhaps one day to make enough money to retire and you know, that, that was my dream.
Lex Fridman (23:17.080)
But when I was looking around the gym where I was training, most of my training partner,
Georges St-Pierre (23:22.200)
they were happy.
Lex Fridman (23:23.200)
They were excited.
Lex Fridman (23:24.200)
And sometime I corner, I corner a lot of guys and they're happy and they're in the locker
Lex Fridman (23:27.480)
room.
Georges St-Pierre (23:28.480)
They don't react the same way I do.
Georges St-Pierre (23:30.800)
Some perhaps does, but if you see me in the locker room, like when I get like my last
Georges St-Pierre (23:37.760)
fight with Michael Bisping, just to give you an example in my last fight with Michael Bisping,
Georges St-Pierre (23:42.600)
because it's fresh, it's the one that is the most recent and, but it's always the same
Georges St-Pierre (23:46.760)
thing.
Georges St-Pierre (23:47.760)
My last fight in Bisping, I get in the locker room, I like three guys that I train with,
Georges St-Pierre (23:55.080)
Mickey Gall, Eamon Zahabi and Joseph Duffy.
Lex Fridman (23:59.600)
They all lost.
Georges St-Pierre (24:00.600)
It was like, like my, my locker room was basically cursed.
Georges St-Pierre (24:05.200)
You know, when you're in a locker room and people from your locker room leave for a fight
Lex Fridman (24:10.280)
and then they come back, it's kind of a momentum, you know, you, you, you shake and yeah, good
Lex Fridman (24:14.280)
job.
Georges St-Pierre (24:15.280)
Now it's my turn.
Lex Fridman (24:16.280)
You know, it's kind of a team brotherhood sort of thing.
Lex Fridman (24:19.640)
So the, the, the, the atmosphere in my locker room was pretty bad.
Lex Fridman (24:26.840)
It was like going to a, you know, like a funeral.
Lex Fridman (24:32.400)
So I was very scared and before every fight, I asked myself, I asked myself always, shit,
Lex Fridman (24:39.880)
what the hell I'm doing here?
Lex Fridman (24:41.320)
Why did I choose to come back?
Lex Fridman (24:43.040)
Oh my God.
Lex Fridman (24:44.040)
And I'm freaking out.
Georges St-Pierre (24:46.440)
However, I'm putting on a mask like I'm acting because if I don't do that, it will reflect
Georges St-Pierre (24:53.400)
on my coaches.
Lex Fridman (24:54.720)
And if my coach, my, my, the confidence of my coaches is affected, it will reflect, reflect
Georges St-Pierre (24:59.880)
on me.
Lex Fridman (25:00.880)
So I need to feel strong.
Georges St-Pierre (25:02.440)
I need to make them believe that I'm excited to be there and I'm happy to be there.
Lex Fridman (25:09.000)
So this sort of play start when I get, when I first step in the locker room, even though
Georges St-Pierre (25:15.560)
I feel completely different, but that's how I play it.
Lex Fridman (25:20.400)
Normally the day, the fight day, I never fell, feel a hundred percent.
Georges St-Pierre (25:24.120)
I always feel exhausted, tired.
Georges St-Pierre (25:27.640)
My highs are hitching because I don't sleep enough the few nights before, because I'm
Georges St-Pierre (25:32.360)
constantly rehearse, rehearsing scenarios that might happen in the fight.
Lex Fridman (25:37.600)
So mentally it's not that I'm not on top, but you keep all that to yourself.
Georges St-Pierre (25:43.960)
I keep it to myself and I'm lying to everybody around me.
Lex Fridman (25:48.720)
But everybody knows, you know, fair ass John De Niro, they know Freddie Rose, they've
Georges St-Pierre (25:54.680)
been with me for a long time, so they know what's going on, but at least I'm lying to
Lex Fridman (25:58.120)
them.
Georges St-Pierre (25:59.120)
I'm like, I'm feeling great.
Georges St-Pierre (26:00.120)
So, and seeing all my training partner, like very disappointed because they lost our fight.
Georges St-Pierre (26:05.680)
Some were badly hurt as well.
Lex Fridman (26:08.800)
It was hard.
Lex Fridman (26:10.480)
So I remember I started to warm up and everything.
Lex Fridman (26:15.120)
And as you start to warm up, you become a different person because we know that certain
Georges St-Pierre (26:22.660)
posture and yoga can affect your mental state.
Lex Fridman (26:27.000)
But I would say it's a little bit the same thing in fighting, you know, like when you
Georges St-Pierre (26:30.960)
started hitting the pads, your muscle memory, your instincts comes back and you remember
Lex Fridman (26:37.360)
that you're good at this, you know, and your confidence start to grow.
Lex Fridman (26:42.000)
And as seeing your trainers holding the pad and repeating your moves, it makes you also
Georges St-Pierre (26:47.300)
remember all the sacrifice you have done through your training camp and confidence come from
Lex Fridman (26:53.000)
how you prepared yourself.
Lex Fridman (26:55.200)
And even you're afraid, you can be confident in the same time.
Georges St-Pierre (26:59.860)
Being afraid and being confident is two different things.
Lex Fridman (27:03.360)
And before every fight, just right before I walk in, when I'm scared, I go in the bathroom
Lex Fridman (27:11.440)
and I look at myself in the mirror.
Georges St-Pierre (27:12.680)
I used to have a bandana and a gi, but now I didn't have this for my last fight because
Georges St-Pierre (27:18.360)
of the new Reebok deal they had.
Lex Fridman (27:22.240)
But I did the same rehearsal that I always do.
Georges St-Pierre (27:24.200)
I look at myself in the mirror and I start to compliment myself.
Lex Fridman (27:28.120)
Like even if I don't believe it, I'm starting to trying to believe it as I am.
Georges St-Pierre (27:32.760)
I'm finding all the reasons why I'm going to win the fight.
Lex Fridman (27:36.240)
And all my trainer knows that before every fight, when the guy from the UFC goes and
Georges St-Pierre (27:41.440)
Steppen Maroon says, St. Pierre, you're up next, I always take a few minutes to do that
Lex Fridman (27:46.160)
same rehearsal.
Lex Fridman (27:47.800)
And I tell myself I'm going to win this fight because I'm better and I'm very cocky about
Lex Fridman (27:52.320)
myself.
Georges St-Pierre (27:53.320)
I'm telling all the reasons that I'm going to win.
Lex Fridman (27:55.920)
I got a better team.
Georges St-Pierre (27:56.920)
I made more sacrifice, you know, I'm faster, I'm more powerful, way more athletic.
Lex Fridman (28:01.800)
My fighting IQ is better than him.
Georges St-Pierre (28:03.440)
I got a strategy on point that he's never going to be able to keep up with and this
Lex Fridman (28:08.440)
and that.
Lex Fridman (28:09.600)
And I was telling myself, I'm going to show these young kids how things should be done.
Lex Fridman (28:14.800)
You know, I'm trying to boost myself.
Georges St-Pierre (28:16.960)
Try to boost yourself and you start to believe in it.
Lex Fridman (28:19.800)
You become a different person.
Lex Fridman (28:21.600)
So when you walk out the bathroom, now rock and roll, now I really believe it for real.
Lex Fridman (28:28.320)
You know, like I'm still scared, but I believe it for real.
Lex Fridman (28:31.420)
And that's the transformation that happened for me right there.
Lex Fridman (28:33.900)
And from that from now, from from there to the fight, it's until the fight is over.
Georges St-Pierre (28:39.160)
It's called I call it cruise control because you don't have time to think in a fight.
Lex Fridman (28:44.400)
If you're trying to think, you're missing the opportunity.
Lex Fridman (28:47.080)
So that's how I see it for myself.
Lex Fridman (28:49.760)
So at that point, you stop thinking and you just go cruise control, autopilot.
Georges St-Pierre (28:53.560)
Trust yourself, you know, trust yourself because you repeated all the scenarios, you know.
Lex Fridman (28:59.040)
So everything that you have done, it's inside your computer.
Georges St-Pierre (29:02.400)
Your computer, your brain is programmed to react accordingly to certain situations.
Lex Fridman (29:07.720)
And it's not the night of the fight that you will tell yourself, oh, finally, I'm going
Georges St-Pierre (29:12.480)
to do this.
Lex Fridman (29:13.480)
If you do this now.
Georges St-Pierre (29:14.480)
No, if you have not practiced it before, you're screwed.
Lex Fridman (29:18.160)
The preparation, the repetition that makes it happen, you know.
Lex Fridman (29:22.600)
What about like the really difficult moments in a fight where you are tested to your limits,
Lex Fridman (29:31.440)
essentially?
Lex Fridman (29:32.440)
Usually it's cardio related exhaustion, right?
Lex Fridman (29:34.440)
Where you have to ask yourself that same question is like, why the hell am I doing this?
Lex Fridman (29:39.680)
Do you experience those or are you able to ride through the autopilot?
Lex Fridman (29:44.160)
And if you do, like, what do you do in those moments?
Georges St-Pierre (29:47.040)
Never in a fight.
Lex Fridman (29:48.040)
In a fight when the fight is on, I never change my mind, I go until the end.
Georges St-Pierre (29:56.560)
However, for example, my first fight with BJ Penn, I had a terrible first round.
Lex Fridman (2:00:04.280)
McGregor and Khabib, your competitor knows that he cannot get to you.
Lex Fridman (2:00:09.640)
So what he will do, he will try to get to someone that you love.
Lex Fridman (2:00:13.680)
So may I never expose my, my private life.
Georges St-Pierre (2:00:16.440)
I never post Instagram of my family or my stuff.
Georges St-Pierre (2:00:21.480)
That's the reason why, because I'm in a, I'm in a business of fighting and people know
Georges St-Pierre (2:00:26.920)
that they cannot get to me.
Lex Fridman (2:00:29.720)
And I believe because I was bullied when I was young, I didn't realize that when I was
Georges St-Pierre (2:00:37.640)
young, but it helps me deal with the mental warfare that I need, that I had to face later
Lex Fridman (2:00:44.560)
on in my life and mixed martial art, because it's a very egotistic sport.
Lex Fridman (2:00:48.520)
And there's a lot of, a lot and a lot of intimidation.
Lex Fridman (2:00:54.140)
And I was used to, I've been used to this thing when I was young.
Lex Fridman (2:00:57.520)
So it does not get to me, however, the good way to get to me, go, go, go, go try to get
Lex Fridman (2:01:05.600)
to someone I love now, man, I'm going to go crazy.
Lex Fridman (2:01:09.800)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (2:01:11.280)
And I'm aware of that.
Lex Fridman (2:01:12.280)
So in order to protect myself, I always, because I'm aware I'm a public person.
Lex Fridman (2:01:18.800)
So I try to always keep my surrounding like in the private.
Georges St-Pierre (2:01:22.880)
You know, one of the ways that like your friend and mine, Joe Rogan has been an inspiration
Georges St-Pierre (2:01:31.120)
that he's got like an incredible family and he, for the most part, it started to change
Georges St-Pierre (2:01:35.960)
recently.
Georges St-Pierre (2:01:36.960)
Actually, it's kind of interesting, but for the most part, throughout his life, he kept
Georges St-Pierre (2:01:39.160)
it pretty secret.
Lex Fridman (2:01:41.160)
Doesn't talk about it in his, he's a comedian, comedians talk about everything.
Georges St-Pierre (2:01:44.300)
He doesn't really talk about it.
Lex Fridman (2:01:46.600)
And there's something to that.
Georges St-Pierre (2:01:48.320)
It like preserves the magic of the silence of the private life.
Lex Fridman (2:01:52.160)
And I think it can affect the development of the kid.
Georges St-Pierre (2:01:57.040)
If the kid grow up being, oh, he's the son of that guy instead of being his own person.
Lex Fridman (2:02:04.360)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (2:02:06.200)
So for me, it's very important.
Lex Fridman (2:02:08.760)
Like my parents are older, it's fine.
Lex Fridman (2:02:11.800)
But it taught me a big lesson.
Georges St-Pierre (2:02:13.820)
When I'm with my friend at the dinner or anything, I talk with person, always share a thing.
Lex Fridman (2:02:18.560)
But when I'm talking, I'm aware of the audience where I'm in front.
Lex Fridman (2:02:23.160)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:02:24.160)
And I mean, but oftentimes those people are just incredible.
Lex Fridman (2:02:26.480)
It kind of makes me sad that, you know, there's a lot of people that love you, right?
Lex Fridman (2:02:31.720)
And there are a lot of really incredible people and you'll never get to really know their
Lex Fridman (2:02:35.600)
story.
Georges St-Pierre (2:02:36.600)
I mean, I don't know, for me, it makes me sad.
Lex Fridman (2:02:38.720)
You see them like at airports and stuff.
Georges St-Pierre (2:02:40.520)
People will tell me they listen to this podcast or something like that.
Lex Fridman (2:02:44.200)
And I could tell they're incredible people.
Georges St-Pierre (2:02:46.240)
It makes me it's like a little goodbye of a possible friend.
Lex Fridman (2:02:50.280)
I don't know.
Georges St-Pierre (2:02:51.280)
It makes me sad.
Lex Fridman (2:02:52.280)
All right.
Georges St-Pierre (2:02:53.280)
It makes me it's lonely.
Lex Fridman (2:02:55.320)
It's almost like celebrity is a lonely thing.
Lex Fridman (2:02:57.980)
So the higher the celebrity, the more lonely you become in some kind of way.
Lex Fridman (2:03:02.360)
But of course, you have that little gem of a private life where you can personally, I
Georges St-Pierre (2:03:06.880)
believe every relationship I like, I don't like to use this term, but it's always a give
Lex Fridman (2:03:14.540)
and take relationship, you know, like you can gain something and the person like it
Georges St-Pierre (2:03:20.880)
could be something like not materialist materialistic, like something always a good, confident like
Lex Fridman (2:03:26.560)
someone that can give me good advice or.
Georges St-Pierre (2:03:30.640)
It's a word I would say, like extensional, like if a pilot as a copilot is the copilot
Georges St-Pierre (2:03:35.800)
is extent as an extensional relationship with him, you know, so he knows if he gets sick
Georges St-Pierre (2:03:40.280)
or faint, he's there to make sure, you know, he's there to help.
Lex Fridman (2:03:45.360)
And I think in every relation it's about compatibility, but it's about extensionality, right?
Georges St-Pierre (2:03:50.600)
In a way that if that person is extensional and sometimes we talk about about love, you
Lex Fridman (2:03:56.800)
know, like sometimes I think is it is it a BS word or not?
Georges St-Pierre (2:04:01.440)
Because I myself sometimes look at I look at myself in the mirror and when I do stupid
Lex Fridman (2:04:08.080)
thing, sometimes I love myself a lot and sometimes I don't.
Lex Fridman (2:04:12.140)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (2:04:13.620)
Because I'm angry at myself, I've done stupid thing.
Lex Fridman (2:04:17.320)
So that means sometimes you could love could be fluctuating.
Lex Fridman (2:04:20.360)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (2:04:21.360)
How about in relationships?
Georges St-Pierre (2:04:22.880)
Sometimes people, they say, oh, they love each other, but then when they divorce, they
Georges St-Pierre (2:04:26.360)
go, oh, I want the house and the dog and the kids stay with me.
Lex Fridman (2:04:30.240)
And you know what I mean?
Georges St-Pierre (2:04:32.040)
If you love, by definition, if you really love someone and let's say you're an old man
Lex Fridman (2:04:38.920)
and you love a woman and she decides to leave you for a younger man, if you really love
Georges St-Pierre (2:04:43.200)
her, you're going to help her pack and leave.
Lex Fridman (2:04:47.540)
But in our society, sometimes we want to hone something.
Georges St-Pierre (2:04:51.680)
To me, love includes the missing somebody, the losing somebody, the anger at somebody.
Lex Fridman (2:04:57.520)
It's all the passion, feelings towards somebody.
Georges St-Pierre (2:05:00.440)
That's all love.
Lex Fridman (2:05:01.440)
I, you know, it's all part of the thing.
Georges St-Pierre (2:05:03.440)
It's the ups and downs.
Georges St-Pierre (2:05:05.440)
It's the sad thing is when the feelings towards a person, the ups and downs go away, the forgetting.
Georges St-Pierre (2:05:13.040)
That's the opposite of love.
Lex Fridman (2:05:14.200)
So the opposite of love isn't hate.
Georges St-Pierre (2:05:16.160)
To me, the opposite of love is forgetting.
Lex Fridman (2:05:19.520)
And that's a much bigger, that's the depth of human connection.
Georges St-Pierre (2:05:23.340)
That's how I see love.
Georges St-Pierre (2:05:25.000)
Sometimes I try to stay positive and I've been asked how I try to, because I have the
Georges St-Pierre (2:05:30.780)
image of someone who's positive.
Lex Fridman (2:05:33.200)
But I go through my own demon as well sometimes.
Georges St-Pierre (2:05:36.120)
However, when we talk about love, when I was young, you know, like, I didn't love who I
Lex Fridman (2:05:46.380)
was at first.
Georges St-Pierre (2:05:47.380)
That's how I love, I learned to kind of love myself.
Georges St-Pierre (2:05:51.360)
Like I didn't, when I was going to bullying, I was, I believe I was bullied because I didn't
Georges St-Pierre (2:05:57.360)
love myself because I project a very bad image of what I think of myself.
Lex Fridman (2:06:03.960)
I was a kid that lacked a lot of confidence.
Georges St-Pierre (2:06:06.000)
I was looking down when I was walking.
Lex Fridman (2:06:08.360)
I shrugged my shoulder.
Georges St-Pierre (2:06:10.320)
When someone was talking to me, I was avoiding eye contact.
Lex Fridman (2:06:14.120)
So I was a very easy target for bullies.
Lex Fridman (2:06:17.520)
And I think bullies are like a predatory animal in nature.
Lex Fridman (2:06:22.700)
They will hunt the easier prey.
Georges St-Pierre (2:06:25.520)
They don't go, the lion don't go for the alpha bull.
Lex Fridman (2:06:30.040)
They go for the one who's old or who's sick, the weakest one.
Lex Fridman (2:06:33.720)
And bullies are the same in society, I believe.
Lex Fridman (2:06:36.680)
And I didn't like to be bullied, of course, but I didn't like the person that I was.
Lex Fridman (2:06:42.880)
But I found out through martial art, the respect and my coach was extraordinary to me.
Lex Fridman (2:06:53.040)
He taught me discipline and self strength.
Lex Fridman (2:06:56.600)
And I found out that I needed to, in order to love myself, I needed to change myself.
Georges St-Pierre (2:07:03.080)
Because I didn't, when I looked at myself in the mirror, I didn't like what I saw.
Lex Fridman (2:07:07.040)
So I decided to become like someone that I would love.
Lex Fridman (2:07:12.680)
So I tried to look people straight up and try to showcase a more confident image that
Georges St-Pierre (2:07:23.600)
I had.
Lex Fridman (2:07:24.600)
And it was hard in the beginning because I didn't really believe in it, but I fake it
Georges St-Pierre (2:07:29.640)
until kind of I make it.
Lex Fridman (2:07:31.720)
So when I was walking at school, more and more I was learning how to become more confident
Lex Fridman (2:07:37.640)
and I was like taking charge.
Georges St-Pierre (2:07:40.560)
The teacher was asking questions, at first I was never answering, I was like this, waiting
Georges St-Pierre (2:07:44.520)
always to be the last.
Lex Fridman (2:07:45.920)
Then I was, hey, I know what the answer, this is the answer.
Georges St-Pierre (2:07:49.640)
I got out of my comfort zone, so to speak.
Lex Fridman (2:07:55.460)
And I wish I would tell you that I got out of bullying because a Hollywood story, I used
Georges St-Pierre (2:08:01.720)
martial art to beat up all the bullies.
Lex Fridman (2:08:04.120)
But it's not how it happened to me.
Georges St-Pierre (2:08:06.060)
It happened because I changed myself from the inside out.
Lex Fridman (2:08:11.000)
And I learned how to, because I didn't love myself in the beginning, I learned how to
Georges St-Pierre (2:08:18.160)
become like someone that I love.
Lex Fridman (2:08:21.200)
And even now, like I'm by no mean perfect, I do a lot of stupid things, but I learn as
Georges St-Pierre (2:08:28.600)
a person.
Lex Fridman (2:08:29.600)
And even I do as something stupid, I'm like, shoot, I did something stupid.
Georges St-Pierre (2:08:34.320)
At least I can apologize to the person if I realize, and then I know that I'm not the
Lex Fridman (2:08:39.680)
person I was in the past, I'm the person that I am right now.
Lex Fridman (2:08:45.280)
So I can learn and become that image of the person that I love.
Lex Fridman (2:08:49.960)
So in a way, the reason I'm trying to be positive and I'm able to stay positive sometime in
Georges St-Pierre (2:08:55.640)
life is because I'm always trying to be like that person that I love.
Lex Fridman (2:09:03.340)
And I think if you don't look yourself in the mirror and don't love yourself or don't
Georges St-Pierre (2:09:07.320)
see any positive future for yourself, how can you change your environment if you cannot
Lex Fridman (2:09:12.080)
change yourself?
Lex Fridman (2:09:13.080)
You know what I mean?
Georges St-Pierre (2:09:14.340)
You will never be happy if you're not happy when you look at yourself in the mirror.
Lex Fridman (2:09:18.960)
So change yourself first, then change, you know, it's not the environment that's going
Lex Fridman (2:09:22.560)
to change for yourself.
Georges St-Pierre (2:09:24.120)
You have to go from the inside out, you know.
Lex Fridman (2:09:29.520)
This I learned through martial art.
Georges St-Pierre (2:09:30.720)
I had a coach who was incredible, used to drill these ideas in my head and give me confidence,
Georges St-Pierre (2:09:38.240)
you know, like this, telling me all these beautiful things about myself and how he's
Georges St-Pierre (2:09:44.200)
dead now, unfortunately, peace to him.
Lex Fridman (2:09:46.720)
But he was incredible, incredible.
Georges St-Pierre (2:09:49.400)
He was very, very strict.
Lex Fridman (2:09:50.480)
I was afraid of him.
Georges St-Pierre (2:09:51.480)
I was afraid of my dad and afraid of him.
Georges St-Pierre (2:09:53.680)
He couldn't teach nowadays like he used to teach me because he would be probably in jail,
Georges St-Pierre (2:09:58.560)
you know.
Lex Fridman (2:09:59.680)
But I'm glad he did it because for the time being, that's what I needed.
Lex Fridman (2:10:04.960)
And I would never have had the career I had in mixed martial art without this because
Lex Fridman (2:10:10.800)
I would never have got out of my comfort zone, would have been impossible.
Lex Fridman (2:10:15.400)
And in order to improve in life, you need to get out of your comfort zone.
Lex Fridman (2:10:19.480)
It's hard, very hard to do.
Lex Fridman (2:10:22.480)
And strive to be the person that you can love, that's beautifully put, George.
Lex Fridman (2:10:28.160)
If you were to give advice to a young person today about life, what would you tell him?
Georges St-Pierre (2:10:34.520)
If he takes life with the same mentality that I do, if he has the same taste of things that
Georges St-Pierre (2:10:47.920)
I have, I would tell him, you know, for sport, for life in general, I would say, if you will
Georges St-Pierre (2:10:58.020)
have a dream, you know, like make everything in your power and work very hard, you know,
Lex Fridman (2:11:08.920)
never take no for an answer and go through hell in order to achieve it.
Georges St-Pierre (2:11:18.120)
Don't work hard only, but work smart.
Georges St-Pierre (2:11:23.200)
That's I think the problems with a lot of people, they work hard, they can work hard,
Georges St-Pierre (2:11:27.520)
they burden themselves, they don't work smart.
Georges St-Pierre (2:11:30.400)
Whether it is in science and business, they make bad choices or they're badly informed
Georges St-Pierre (2:11:38.520)
in sport.
Lex Fridman (2:11:39.520)
How many guys I've seen ruin their career in the gym, they spar so hard, they ruin themselves
Georges St-Pierre (2:11:47.000)
in the gyms, they leave their career in the gyms.
Lex Fridman (2:11:51.000)
What I would say to, for example, because my field of expertise, it's in sport of mixed
Georges St-Pierre (2:11:55.360)
martial art, I would say to a young kid, make your training playful.
Georges St-Pierre (2:12:05.760)
You know, when you get ready for competition, you need to train to recreate those elements
Georges St-Pierre (2:12:14.080)
that makes you go outside of your comfort zone.
Lex Fridman (2:12:18.120)
But in everyday life in general, make your training playful.
Lex Fridman (2:12:23.260)
What makes it like a hardcore competition about who's winning, who's losing, make it
Lex Fridman (2:12:29.120)
playful.
Lex Fridman (2:12:30.120)
So it will increase your, because you will not be afraid of getting hurt or losing.
Georges St-Pierre (2:12:39.560)
You will be tempted to try more things and it will make you become more creative.
Georges St-Pierre (2:12:49.440)
You know, that brings up another question about learning.
Lex Fridman (2:12:53.200)
So you value knowledge and you're exceptional at basically being very good at learning and
Georges St-Pierre (2:13:00.780)
figuring stuff out, new things or going deeper on the things you already know.
Lex Fridman (2:13:05.500)
So what advice would you have for how to learn effectively?
Lex Fridman (2:13:10.260)
How you say work smart, how do you figure this game out?
Lex Fridman (2:13:16.080)
I believe the best way to learn is learning from other people's mistake.
Georges St-Pierre (2:13:23.560)
However, I'm not perfect and I've learned from my mistakes as well.
Lex Fridman (2:13:30.480)
And sometimes it took me a few mistakes to learn the same thing.
Lex Fridman (2:13:37.960)
But especially in the sport of mixed martial art, because we're talking about the failure
Lex Fridman (2:13:44.600)
could have very serious outcome on someone's life and wellbeing.
Lex Fridman (2:13:51.600)
So it's crucial to trying to learn from other people's mistakes.
Lex Fridman (2:13:56.280)
Do you study others?
Georges St-Pierre (2:13:59.080)
Every fight I'm studying my opponent and I've studied myself as well to know how my strength
Georges St-Pierre (2:14:09.120)
mix versus my opponent weaknesses and how can I make the fight go in a way that I'm
Georges St-Pierre (2:14:17.920)
taking my opponent outside of his comfort zone.
Georges St-Pierre (2:14:22.020)
Very often people are good at studying their opponent, but they're not good at looking
Georges St-Pierre (2:14:25.960)
at themselves in the mirror and knowing what they should do in order to maximize their
Lex Fridman (2:14:31.400)
odds of success, right?
Georges St-Pierre (2:14:34.360)
That's why I always thought for me, it was important to not be the best at one thing,
Lex Fridman (2:14:42.120)
but be very good at everything.
Georges St-Pierre (2:14:47.120)
That's why I always seek advice, advices from the best in every discipline.
Georges St-Pierre (2:14:54.240)
I wrestle with the best wrestler I could be with, I box with the best boxers, I practice
Georges St-Pierre (2:15:02.400)
karate with the best karate fighters.
Lex Fridman (2:15:05.000)
Same thing in Jiu Jitsu.
Georges St-Pierre (2:15:06.000)
I train Jiu Jitsu with the best Jiu Jitsu guys.
Georges St-Pierre (2:15:09.800)
However, when I mix everything and mix martial art, because I'm very competent in every area.
Lex Fridman (2:15:19.220)
So when I'm fighting someone, I'm very good at identifying where is the less competent.
Lex Fridman (2:15:27.700)
And I know for a fact that because I'm competent everywhere, if I can bring the fight where
Georges St-Pierre (2:15:33.280)
he's outside of his comfort zone, it increased my odds of winning.
Lex Fridman (2:15:36.920)
There is no certainty.
Georges St-Pierre (2:15:38.500)
It's all about odds, I believe, because there is always X factor that you do not control.
Georges St-Pierre (2:15:43.320)
Yeah, it's fascinating to see you actually, because you've been a student of movement.
Georges St-Pierre (2:15:48.920)
You've been exploring all kinds of, I mean, gymnastics, all that kind of stuff.
Georges St-Pierre (2:15:53.120)
There's something reminiscent to, like Conor McGregor is one other martial artist that's
Georges St-Pierre (2:15:59.120)
kind of explored movement, been a scholar of movement.
Georges St-Pierre (2:16:03.320)
At least from my perspective, it's very sort of Bruce Lee like, it's almost making a study
Georges St-Pierre (2:16:09.000)
of the human body and all the possible things you can do.
Lex Fridman (2:16:12.440)
Is there a philosophy behind that, that you have?
Georges St-Pierre (2:16:15.820)
You talk about Bruce Lee, man, you said it best.
Lex Fridman (2:16:20.800)
He changes my life too.
Georges St-Pierre (2:16:23.680)
He was ahead of his time.
Lex Fridman (2:16:25.160)
Yeah.
Georges St-Pierre (2:16:26.160)
Incredible.
Georges St-Pierre (2:16:27.160)
A lot of people talk to me and ask me, hey, is Bruce Lee would have been able to fight
Lex Fridman (2:16:30.280)
in UFC?
Lex Fridman (2:16:33.280)
I don't think so.
Georges St-Pierre (2:16:34.960)
I don't know.
Lex Fridman (2:16:36.320)
I think he was a martial artist.
Georges St-Pierre (2:16:38.820)
He could have defended himself, but to say that he could have competed amongst the elite
Georges St-Pierre (2:16:43.400)
of the elite fighter, perhaps in his time, but for sure, if you put him in UFC right
Georges St-Pierre (2:16:48.360)
now, the sport has improved incredibly since then.
Lex Fridman (2:16:55.200)
But in terms of philosophy, Bruce, he was amazing.
Georges St-Pierre (2:17:00.320)
One thing that just to prove that he was ahead of his time, he was talking about using your
Lex Fridman (2:17:04.640)
longest weapon against your opponent nearest point.
Lex Fridman (2:17:08.080)
And we see that kick, it got popularized by John Jones, the sidekick to the tie, his longest
Lex Fridman (2:17:17.220)
weapon against your nearest point in boxing is the jab.
Lex Fridman (2:17:20.360)
But in MMA, when you can use it, all your weapon, that's the kick to the tie.
Lex Fridman (2:17:26.680)
And there is, I felt there is like kind of three dimension in martial art.
Georges St-Pierre (2:17:32.520)
There is the philosopher, like Bruce Lee.
Georges St-Pierre (2:17:34.960)
There is the choreography, the choreographed people, like for example, you see in movies
Georges St-Pierre (2:17:40.880)
that stun people.
Lex Fridman (2:17:42.240)
They're incredible.
Georges St-Pierre (2:17:43.240)
Or the one that does like forms and karate, like jumping, spin kick, back kick, like acrobatic
Lex Fridman (2:17:49.240)
stuff, mixed martial art.
Georges St-Pierre (2:17:50.600)
They are unbelievable.
Lex Fridman (2:17:52.360)
And there is also the one that competes in fighting.
Georges St-Pierre (2:17:57.240)
That's what I do.
Lex Fridman (2:17:58.240)
I personally specialize in.
Georges St-Pierre (2:18:01.120)
Well, you also do the philosophy.
Lex Fridman (2:18:03.160)
I do a little bit of philosophy, but that's the consequence of the fighting.
Georges St-Pierre (2:18:07.960)
I guess we are all like we all practice the three dimension because martial art is I would
Lex Fridman (2:18:14.800)
say it's whether you want it or not, you have to touch these three dimensions.
Lex Fridman (2:18:20.240)
But you will specialize in one.
Georges St-Pierre (2:18:21.920)
I specialize through my life in fighting like the real thing in terms of fighting, competition.
Georges St-Pierre (2:18:29.020)
Of course, if you do martial art, you'll be able to defend yourself because it's a self
Lex Fridman (2:18:32.600)
defense.
Georges St-Pierre (2:18:33.600)
However, you might not be able to fight as an elite and the most prestigious organization.
Lex Fridman (2:18:39.280)
And you might not be able to perform the stunt that, for example, the stuntman I've done
Georges St-Pierre (2:18:44.880)
in the series I was playing in the Falcon and Winter Soldier, these guys are incredible.
Lex Fridman (2:18:50.840)
They're like real life superhero.
Georges St-Pierre (2:18:52.920)
Things they do, to me, like it's fascinating.
Lex Fridman (2:18:57.420)
It's amazing.
Lex Fridman (2:18:58.640)
And also Bruce Lee, the philosophy.
Lex Fridman (2:19:01.160)
How many hours he took like thinking about these stuff, you know, I'm sure he did not
Georges St-Pierre (2:19:08.040)
just came out of nowhere, you know, like he was thinking that's mean he slept on this.
Lex Fridman (2:19:16.120)
How many hours?
Georges St-Pierre (2:19:17.120)
It's just unbelievable.
Lex Fridman (2:19:18.120)
He's like water, my friend.
Lex Fridman (2:19:19.400)
How many times has he thought about water going to bed before he said that?
Lex Fridman (2:19:24.360)
Well, let me ask a very important fundamental question about martial arts.
Georges St-Pierre (2:19:27.880)
We're both wearing a suit and tie.
Lex Fridman (2:19:30.880)
Joe Rogan thinks that wearing a tie is a huge disadvantage.
Lex Fridman (2:19:35.000)
Is it a clip on or is it an actual tie?
Lex Fridman (2:19:37.200)
It's an actual tie, I really want it.
Lex Fridman (2:19:39.860)
So do you agree or disagree with Joe Rogan that wearing a tie is a martial arts significant
Lex Fridman (2:19:47.600)
disadvantage in terms of combat, in a combat scenario?
Georges St-Pierre (2:19:51.680)
In a fight, I think it would be a disadvantage.
Lex Fridman (2:19:53.920)
Yes.
Georges St-Pierre (2:19:54.920)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (2:19:55.920)
I work as a security bouncer in nightclubs and event when I was 18 years old.
Lex Fridman (2:20:02.800)
And sometime I had to work in certain event that I was in suit and tie.
Lex Fridman (2:20:09.280)
I never had to use my force to take someone out when I was in suit and tie.
Lex Fridman (2:20:17.120)
But if I would have had to before going to the table to physically take the guy out,
Lex Fridman (2:20:22.560)
I would have removed my tie and I would have removed my vest for sure.
Lex Fridman (2:20:26.800)
And I would have called back up for sure.
Lex Fridman (2:20:29.320)
And I would have probably used the element of surprise to be first on the guy.
Georges St-Pierre (2:20:36.240)
When you're in a bar, same thing, you call back up first and you make sure you ask the
Lex Fridman (2:20:41.960)
waitress before to clean the table before you go.
Lex Fridman (2:20:46.040)
And when you go, you have to use the element of surprise.
Georges St-Pierre (2:20:49.960)
Because fighting, fighting in mixed martial arts and fighting in the street, it's two
Georges St-Pierre (2:20:54.200)
different things.
Lex Fridman (2:20:56.000)
And yes, I'm a mixed martial arts competitor.
Georges St-Pierre (2:21:00.200)
That's what I've done all my life.
Lex Fridman (2:21:01.280)
But I had a lot of street fight in my life, a lot when I was in...
Lex Fridman (2:21:04.640)
What's the difference?
Lex Fridman (2:21:05.640)
What's like the...
Georges St-Pierre (2:21:06.640)
Oh my God.
Lex Fridman (2:21:07.640)
It's a huge difference.
Georges St-Pierre (2:21:08.640)
There is guys that if I would have a choice, you know, to fight, like, for example, certain
Georges St-Pierre (2:21:16.000)
guys in UFC in a street fight and fight like other guys that are not in UFC, I would maybe
Georges St-Pierre (2:21:20.800)
sometimes pick guys that are not in UFC, not necessarily.
Lex Fridman (2:21:24.600)
Because in a street fight, there's no referee that says go.
Georges St-Pierre (2:21:28.360)
It's the element of surprise.
Lex Fridman (2:21:29.700)
And when you're a nice guy, you're not the aggressor.
Georges St-Pierre (2:21:33.020)
You always have the element of surprise.
Lex Fridman (2:21:35.340)
That's what it taught me.
Georges St-Pierre (2:21:36.340)
Oh, interesting.
Lex Fridman (2:21:37.340)
Yes.
Georges St-Pierre (2:21:38.340)
Because if the person will not come punch you without warning, it needs to, it needs
Lex Fridman (2:21:45.420)
to trigger some...
Georges St-Pierre (2:21:46.640)
It's something that needs to be triggered before.
Lex Fridman (2:21:49.340)
So if someone comes because he's looking for trouble, there is a sign that he's looking
Georges St-Pierre (2:21:54.320)
for trouble.
Lex Fridman (2:21:56.020)
So I was just talking with Bas Rutten this weekend about it.
Georges St-Pierre (2:22:00.000)
I saw that.
Lex Fridman (2:22:01.360)
Every martial art comes from...
Georges St-Pierre (2:22:04.360)
Like some martial art are from Exclusivik for competition, like sport karate, like certain
Lex Fridman (2:22:11.340)
martial art.
Lex Fridman (2:22:12.620)
But traditional martial art are for the street, are for self defense.
Lex Fridman (2:22:17.980)
And I start my background in Kyokushinkarate, so it's for...
Lex Fridman (2:22:21.040)
And I did Japanese Jiu Jitsu.
Lex Fridman (2:22:22.320)
So my background, before I even start training for mixed martial art, my background is in
Georges St-Pierre (2:22:27.280)
self defense.
Lex Fridman (2:22:30.040)
And it's very important to understand that in a street fight, the element of surprise
Georges St-Pierre (2:22:33.960)
is everything.
Lex Fridman (2:22:34.960)
And there are no rules.
Georges St-Pierre (2:22:35.960)
You can go for the eyes, the necks, the...
Lex Fridman (2:22:39.200)
It surprises everything.
Lex Fridman (2:22:40.200)
Total, total ballgame, you know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (2:22:43.040)
You have the chair, the beard, there's so much more thing going on.
Lex Fridman (2:22:48.220)
So the idea of...
Lex Fridman (2:22:50.120)
Because you are a UFC fighter, you think you're invincible.
Georges St-Pierre (2:22:52.880)
This is BS.
Lex Fridman (2:22:55.160)
Anybody can come.
Georges St-Pierre (2:22:56.160)
Like if a big guy who punch very hard, most people don't know how to punch.
Georges St-Pierre (2:23:00.000)
By the way, they don't know how to make a fist and throw it in a forward direction.
Lex Fridman (2:23:02.800)
But if someone knows how to do it, I don't care who you are.
Lex Fridman (2:23:06.380)
If you could be Francis and Genu, someone come behind your head and bang.
Georges St-Pierre (2:23:10.880)
Or let's say there's an argument and you get surprised by a punch.
Lex Fridman (2:23:14.640)
You can be drop and lose a fight, that doesn't matter.
Georges St-Pierre (2:23:17.920)
The element of surprise is everything.
Lex Fridman (2:23:20.160)
So you were saying remove all the sources of the elements of surprise, clear the bar,
Georges St-Pierre (2:23:25.400)
remove the tie.
Lex Fridman (2:23:26.400)
I still disagree with you about the tie.
Georges St-Pierre (2:23:30.800)
Just for your information, if someone comes looking for trouble and you see me do this
Lex Fridman (2:23:38.280)
and going sideways a little bit, that's my position that I'm thinking maybe something
Georges St-Pierre (2:23:43.320)
will happen and I'm about to punch you or to do something to take care of this situation.
Georges St-Pierre (2:23:52.440)
To flip the table on you then, wearing a tie is communicating the nice guy image.
Lex Fridman (2:23:58.320)
So it actually gives you the freedom for more elements of surprise by wearing the tie.
Georges St-Pierre (2:24:03.160)
If you take it off, you're limiting your options because nobody's going to expect the guy in
Georges St-Pierre (2:24:09.400)
the tie to do anything.
Georges St-Pierre (2:24:10.840)
I'm a big believer that sometimes it's not only materialism, it's what you project.
Georges St-Pierre (2:24:19.080)
Let's say I had troubles in a bar and I was able to deflect, the guy was looking for trouble
Georges St-Pierre (2:24:24.760)
talking to me and I was able to deflect his whole aggressivity by saying like, hey, man,
Georges St-Pierre (2:24:30.040)
that's a nice shirt.
Lex Fridman (2:24:31.040)
Where did you get it?
Georges St-Pierre (2:24:32.520)
Like saying like something or stupid like this, then it kind of breaks the momentum
Lex Fridman (2:24:38.160)
and he, you know, but the guy was looking for trouble.
Georges St-Pierre (2:24:40.960)
I don't want to fight you.
Georges St-Pierre (2:24:42.520)
I don't want to fight you, but I'm not going to wait until you pull, you make the first
Georges St-Pierre (2:24:48.400)
move because the minute you touch me, you push me or you touch me, you declare war and
Georges St-Pierre (2:24:54.360)
the war is unleashed, my friend, and I'm taking you out of order with the necessary force,
Georges St-Pierre (2:25:00.280)
of course.
Lex Fridman (2:25:01.280)
You know what I mean?
Georges St-Pierre (2:25:02.280)
That's the thing with martial art.
Lex Fridman (2:25:05.100)
If you use the necessary force to take care of the problem, it's okay.
Lex Fridman (2:25:09.520)
But if you, you know, you take advantage of it, that's when it's not all right because
Lex Fridman (2:25:13.860)
it's a weapon.
Lex Fridman (2:25:15.280)
So if someone comes up to me, that's my position and now I'm assessing the situation, you know,
Lex Fridman (2:25:22.940)
that's how they teach in self defense here.
Georges St-Pierre (2:25:25.120)
Never put your hands down.
Georges St-Pierre (2:25:26.120)
Always hand there because I'm down or boom, like what this is, this is very important
Lex Fridman (2:25:33.120)
and you never, you always your center line on the side like this.
Lex Fridman (2:25:38.280)
If someone knows martial art, he will recognize that pattern.
Lex Fridman (2:25:42.280)
But if you go like, if someone talked to you and you go like this, that's mean you're telling
Lex Fridman (2:25:46.720)
the guy that you want to fight.
Georges St-Pierre (2:25:47.900)
You don't want to do that.
Georges St-Pierre (2:25:48.900)
You don't want to, oh yeah, you know, that's, that's the position because your hands are
Georges St-Pierre (2:25:55.400)
here, you know, whatever you can do, you're here.
Lex Fridman (2:25:57.520)
Well, also your ear tells a story.
Georges St-Pierre (2:26:01.280)
It's not everybody that knows that, however, it's some people might think that it's my
Georges St-Pierre (2:26:05.240)
mom grabbed me by the ear and pulled me because I didn't listen to her, you know.
Georges St-Pierre (2:26:09.400)
A real fight in the street and a fight in mixed martial art is a different ball game.
Lex Fridman (2:26:15.040)
What do you think is the best martial art to prepare you for street fighting?
Georges St-Pierre (2:26:19.040)
You know, people often kind of have this discussion of Jiu Jitsu, maybe boxing, maybe wrestling.
Lex Fridman (2:26:24.360)
Do you think, when you talk about a young person studying martial arts to prepare themselves?
Georges St-Pierre (2:26:29.160)
For a street fight, it's often much different than a mixed martial art fight.
Lex Fridman (2:26:35.500)
And I know there is a lot of BS in the world of martial art, like self defense stuff that
Georges St-Pierre (2:26:40.040)
like, but I believe self defense is very important in a way to understand the situation, to understand
Lex Fridman (2:26:50.360)
those situations that might occur, how to deal with it.
Georges St-Pierre (2:26:57.920)
Because not necessarily that we talk about the technicality, we talk about the tacticality,
Georges St-Pierre (2:27:04.540)
the tactics, you know, like when I'm talking to you about the element of surprise is important.
Georges St-Pierre (2:27:09.520)
This is not technique, technique is a punch or techniques that I physically will use to
Lex Fridman (2:27:15.760)
enable my opponent, my aggressor.
Georges St-Pierre (2:27:20.280)
Tactic is the tactic I'm telling you about is in a street fight, if someone is looking
Georges St-Pierre (2:27:24.240)
for trouble and I feel the heat rising as the conversation goes, that's the position
Georges St-Pierre (2:27:28.760)
I'm going to take and I have to be first.
Lex Fridman (2:27:32.320)
I cannot let him go first.
Lex Fridman (2:27:34.700)
So I have to strike first or do something.
Lex Fridman (2:27:36.660)
This is the first thing that generally I have to agree on.
Georges St-Pierre (2:27:45.040)
After that, of course, there is the knowledge.
Lex Fridman (2:27:47.100)
If you're a professional fighter, you have a huge advantage.
Georges St-Pierre (2:27:51.580)
Once the fight is started, the war is declared.
Lex Fridman (2:27:53.760)
Now it's everything goes.
Lex Fridman (2:27:56.040)
But generally speaking, the person that will intervene, that will have the first blow or
Lex Fridman (2:28:02.160)
the first, you know, the first punch will have a huge disadvantage.
Georges St-Pierre (2:28:08.320)
It's like doing a hundred meter race and having a head start, you know, and that you can't
Lex Fridman (2:28:12.880)
prepare for with any martial arts.
Georges St-Pierre (2:28:14.920)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:28:15.920)
And if I'm a smart guy, I know how to fight.
Georges St-Pierre (2:28:17.720)
If a guy like an heavyweight champion comes to me or like, like, like, you know, I know,
Georges St-Pierre (2:28:23.920)
I know what to do to disable him, like boom or here or the neck, you know, like, and if
Lex Fridman (2:28:32.120)
you blind him, what is he going to do?
Lex Fridman (2:28:33.720)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (2:28:34.720)
So, so or a bottle, you know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (2:28:37.880)
So the element of surprise is it's everything.
Lex Fridman (2:28:40.840)
So that's why it's always, always good to be the nice guy and not looking for trouble.
Georges St-Pierre (2:28:45.760)
Because if you're not looking for trouble, you have the head start, you have the option
Georges St-Pierre (2:28:48.960)
of having a head start.
Lex Fridman (2:28:50.580)
So what you're saying is being a nice guy is the best form of self defense, maybe a
Georges St-Pierre (2:28:54.440)
little humor.
Lex Fridman (2:28:55.440)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (2:28:56.440)
And you know, I have learned that I've learned that when I was a kid, I was about maybe
Lex Fridman (2:29:01.840)
seven or six, six years old.
Georges St-Pierre (2:29:04.520)
We used to play in Montreal, there's a lot of snow, we used to play king of the mountain.
Lex Fridman (2:29:08.880)
Yeah.
Georges St-Pierre (2:29:09.880)
That's the first combat lesson that I've learned in my life.
Lex Fridman (2:29:13.540)
And I managed somehow, it was a lot of kids, I managed to get on the top of the mountain
Lex Fridman (2:29:17.160)
and another guy came in, come in on top of the mountain and he was angry that before
Lex Fridman (2:29:22.160)
I was there before him.
Georges St-Pierre (2:29:24.760)
When you play king of the mountain, it was a mountain of snow.
Lex Fridman (2:29:29.140)
You don't strike each other, we just wrestle and push.
Lex Fridman (2:29:32.160)
And I managed to be first.
Lex Fridman (2:29:33.160)
And when he came, he says to me, say, OK, you want to, you want to fight?
Lex Fridman (2:29:38.960)
And I said, yeah, I don't know what he means, like I want to fight, I want to wrestle.
Lex Fridman (2:29:43.160)
I say, yes.
Georges St-Pierre (2:29:45.020)
He punched me right in the face.
Lex Fridman (2:29:46.840)
Boom.
Lex Fridman (2:29:47.840)
And then I and then I fall on the bottom of the mountain.
Georges St-Pierre (2:29:51.320)
Then when I fall down, I remember that vision in my life because it's I will remember that
Georges St-Pierre (2:29:57.840)
for the rest of my life.
Georges St-Pierre (2:29:59.320)
I'm about to stand up and I see the blood coming out of my nose, I see that the snow
Georges St-Pierre (2:30:03.640)
is red because my nose is bleeding.
Lex Fridman (2:30:06.800)
Now I remember the element of surprises, everything.
Georges St-Pierre (2:30:11.360)
My first street fight, I lost it.
Georges St-Pierre (2:30:13.640)
I got I didn't get knocked out, but I got dropped on the bottom of the snow mountain.
Lex Fridman (2:30:19.500)
And I was like, oh, you got me because I wasn't expecting my hand, I was not expecting a punch.
Lex Fridman (2:30:25.040)
So from there, when I felt the heat of an injury, an argument or something was not right,
Georges St-Pierre (2:30:31.400)
I always stroke first.
Georges St-Pierre (2:30:33.320)
I didn't win all my fight because sometimes there were more than one guys on me, you know.
Lex Fridman (2:30:39.240)
But I think it's important to not be the aggressor.
Lex Fridman (2:30:43.940)
So you have the element of surprise and always use that in your favor.
Georges St-Pierre (2:30:47.560)
That's so brilliant.
Georges St-Pierre (2:30:48.560)
Let me go from the very practical to the most impractically huge question about the meaning
Georges St-Pierre (2:30:54.840)
of life.
Georges St-Pierre (2:30:56.000)
You said that when great depths of unrelenting sorrow are punctuated by great peaks of joy
Lex Fridman (2:31:03.160)
and liberation, the result is delicious.
Lex Fridman (2:31:07.740)
So what do you think is the meaning of this whole journey that we're on this life?
Lex Fridman (2:31:13.840)
What makes life delicious?
Lex Fridman (2:31:16.400)
To me, you know, satisfaction is the M for me.
Georges St-Pierre (2:31:23.200)
Like I always, if I'm satisfied, that means I have nothing to live for.
Lex Fridman (2:31:30.160)
I'm not talking only about my career, I'm talking about my life.
Lex Fridman (2:31:33.680)
What do you want in your life?
Lex Fridman (2:31:35.400)
You want kids, you want a family, you want to be champion.
Lex Fridman (2:31:37.960)
What do you want in your life?
Lex Fridman (2:31:38.960)
You have like a long term goal, short term goal.
Georges St-Pierre (2:31:45.000)
In mixed martial arts, I achieve what I needed to achieve.
Lex Fridman (2:31:48.520)
I'm satisfied.
Georges St-Pierre (2:31:50.400)
I'm no longer the same George St. Pierre than when I was begging for a title shot on my
Lex Fridman (2:31:54.440)
knees.
Georges St-Pierre (2:31:55.760)
I move on from it.
Lex Fridman (2:31:59.320)
Now I had a chance to go into movies.
Georges St-Pierre (2:32:02.400)
Now that same insane drive that I had to be the champion in the world, now I put it into
Lex Fridman (2:32:14.040)
acting.
Georges St-Pierre (2:32:15.040)
Like I'm having a lot of acting class now and luckily for me, the timing was amazing.
Georges St-Pierre (2:32:20.480)
I got cast for the Falcon and the Winter Soldier that is on Disney Plus channel.
Georges St-Pierre (2:32:26.480)
It's a huge, huge project to be part of for me because it's like you play basketball,
Lex Fridman (2:32:34.840)
you have a chance to go for the NBA right away.
Georges St-Pierre (2:32:37.080)
I was very lucky.
Lex Fridman (2:32:38.760)
The timing was just too perfect.
Lex Fridman (2:32:41.360)
And so you need to constantly challenging yourself and having goals to achieve, you
Lex Fridman (2:32:48.160)
know, like that.
Georges St-Pierre (2:32:49.160)
Keep your brain activated, like keep working.
Lex Fridman (2:32:53.920)
And the proof of that is that you see sometimes some old people, like when they retire, very
Georges St-Pierre (2:33:00.720)
often sometime you see that they got sick and they die or because they it's either because
Georges St-Pierre (2:33:08.040)
sometimes we think we we certainly may benefit, we do something good for them by making that
Georges St-Pierre (2:33:18.720)
work and giving them a break.
Lex Fridman (2:33:20.200)
So in our mind, we're like, oh, he's going to be able to relax.
Lex Fridman (2:33:23.880)
But in their mind, it's not good because they're not busy.
Lex Fridman (2:33:26.960)
They have nothing to live for.
Georges St-Pierre (2:33:28.080)
Like my dad is used to work all the time and he has always something to do.
Lex Fridman (2:33:32.920)
He's retired now.
Georges St-Pierre (2:33:34.880)
I myself now call him by force to find him some job.
Lex Fridman (2:33:39.440)
Hey, dad, can you come in my house?
Lex Fridman (2:33:42.480)
Have this thing to repair?
Lex Fridman (2:33:44.040)
I don't know how to do it.
Lex Fridman (2:33:45.040)
So it gives him it gives him a reason not to live on because he has other things to
Lex Fridman (2:33:50.040)
do.
Lex Fridman (2:33:51.040)
But but what I mean is also in life, I think you always don't be afraid to aim high.
Georges St-Pierre (2:33:58.040)
Don't don't be afraid to fix your objective very high and never be able to reach it.
Georges St-Pierre (2:34:03.560)
Be afraid of reaching your goals, essentially.
Lex Fridman (2:34:06.000)
I mean, you always have to keep moving it out.
Georges St-Pierre (2:34:08.320)
You think there's a it's an interesting question because you've been acting in some really
Lex Fridman (2:34:13.040)
exciting things.
Lex Fridman (2:34:14.680)
Do you think there's a dramatic role where it's basically, you know, you go full Robert
Lex Fridman (2:34:21.580)
De Niro in Taxi Driver?
Lex Fridman (2:34:24.600)
Do you think there'll be a full length feature film with George St. Pierre?
Lex Fridman (2:34:28.080)
I liken there is level to this thing.
Lex Fridman (2:34:31.880)
Am I aware that I have to restart as a white belt white belt?
Lex Fridman (2:34:35.720)
And for some people, it could be discouraging.
Lex Fridman (2:34:38.480)
But for me, man, it's great.
Lex Fridman (2:34:39.760)
I love it.
Georges St-Pierre (2:34:40.960)
I freaking love it.
Georges St-Pierre (2:34:41.960)
I embrace it because everybody told me like I would never be able to do it and it's fine.
Lex Fridman (2:34:47.460)
But the and also the outcome of a failure in the sport of mixed martial art is much
Georges St-Pierre (2:34:55.200)
more serious than the outcome of a failure for a movie, for example, for for if you think
Georges St-Pierre (2:35:01.680)
when you should zag in a fight, you get knocked out if you zig when you should zag and on
Lex Fridman (2:35:05.480)
set.
Georges St-Pierre (2:35:06.480)
Oh, cut.
Lex Fridman (2:35:07.480)
We'll do it again.
Lex Fridman (2:35:09.080)
And I know that I will be most likely be to chosen for action martial art roles because
Lex Fridman (2:35:18.240)
that's my background.
Georges St-Pierre (2:35:19.960)
There's this new trend in Hollywood now when they want someone to play an Italian guy,
Lex Fridman (2:35:24.840)
they're going to choose a real Italian person.
Georges St-Pierre (2:35:27.960)
When they want someone to play a Russian guy, they're going to choose someone who has a
Lex Fridman (2:35:31.200)
real Russian background.
Georges St-Pierre (2:35:33.320)
Now they want a real martial art fighter.
Lex Fridman (2:35:36.600)
I've done fighting all my life.
Georges St-Pierre (2:35:38.240)
I just need to improve my acting skill.
Lex Fridman (2:35:41.440)
But when I train in acting, I get myself out of my comfort zone.
Georges St-Pierre (2:35:46.200)
I'm not playing a role of a martial art guy.
Lex Fridman (2:35:48.400)
I'm playing like romance, comedy, drama.
Lex Fridman (2:35:52.600)
So when I go on set and playing the role of a badass martial art guy, it's it's easier.
Lex Fridman (2:36:00.320)
So like in training for a fight, I always make my preparation harder than the actual
Georges St-Pierre (2:36:07.080)
task.
Georges St-Pierre (2:36:08.640)
I would love to see where I don't know if you've seen the wrestler with Mickey Rourke.
Georges St-Pierre (2:36:13.040)
Oh, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:36:14.040)
Those types of films.
Georges St-Pierre (2:36:15.040)
I would love to I would love to you do something like that.
Lex Fridman (2:36:19.400)
If not now, then in 10, 20 years, I could see that that would be amazing.
Lex Fridman (2:36:23.920)
It's levels to the game, right?
Lex Fridman (2:36:25.480)
Yes, it's gradual.
Lex Fridman (2:36:26.480)
And I don't and I'm aware that I don't want to take something on my shoulder that I won't
Lex Fridman (2:36:31.080)
be able to deliver.
Georges St-Pierre (2:36:32.600)
It's like a fighter wants to go for a title shot right away.
Georges St-Pierre (2:36:35.440)
It could very well break him, you know, and I don't want to do that because I know I've
Georges St-Pierre (2:36:41.360)
done some gigs in the past, but I was not focusing on it because I was focusing on competing
Lex Fridman (2:36:47.360)
as a martial art martial artist in competition in MMA.
Lex Fridman (2:36:52.080)
But now I take it very seriously.
Lex Fridman (2:36:53.680)
So I cannot do the same mistake again because I've done some stuff.
Georges St-Pierre (2:36:57.040)
I've done it for the money and it was good.
Lex Fridman (2:37:00.160)
It was fun to be beat up by Jacque Van Damme, Steven Seagal and everything.
Lex Fridman (2:37:04.540)
But my acting was not on point, you know, at that time.
Lex Fridman (2:37:08.660)
So if I ever every time I'm going to come back from now on, on screen, you need to be
Georges St-Pierre (2:37:14.040)
sharp because you cannot mess it up.
Lex Fridman (2:37:16.360)
If you mess it up, it's like a loss on your record.
Georges St-Pierre (2:37:19.440)
You're not taken seriously.
Lex Fridman (2:37:21.400)
So so that's how I see it.
Lex Fridman (2:37:23.280)
And it's very fun because I had a chance to talk to a lot of guys on top of all the class
Lex Fridman (2:37:29.960)
that I'm having.
Georges St-Pierre (2:37:31.520)
Like a few days ago, I was with Danny Trujo.
Lex Fridman (2:37:36.040)
And I always seek the advice of actors when I when I see some of them that because I really
Georges St-Pierre (2:37:41.040)
admire how they do, you know, how they project their emotion.
Lex Fridman (2:37:44.120)
And I asked him, Danny Trujo, I said, I said to him, he's an amazing guy, by the way.
Georges St-Pierre (2:37:48.960)
Very nice guy.
Lex Fridman (2:37:50.460)
And I asked him, I say, how how do you do to be?
Georges St-Pierre (2:37:55.440)
Because you scared the hell out of me.
Lex Fridman (2:37:57.800)
How do you do to be so scary?
Lex Fridman (2:38:00.900)
Like what is your trick?
Lex Fridman (2:38:03.000)
And he tells me, he's like, George, if you're threatening, if you're threatening someone
Lex Fridman (2:38:08.000)
and you scream at him, I'm going to kill you.
Georges St-Pierre (2:38:12.320)
It's not as scary if you're smiling and you say, I'm going to kill you like and he says
Georges St-Pierre (2:38:19.880)
also to me that another advice he gave me is like when you say this, think about you
Lex Fridman (2:38:26.600)
killing him for real, that how you hate him and how you're going to kill him.
Lex Fridman (2:38:31.160)
So the camera will take the emotion out.
Lex Fridman (2:38:35.200)
Don't try physically to do that.
Georges St-Pierre (2:38:36.960)
That's the mistake I used to do before.
Lex Fridman (2:38:38.800)
I used to physically show that I'm strong and angry and to be mean.
Lex Fridman (2:38:44.240)
So these are just an example of tricks that I learned sometimes when I met an actor.
Lex Fridman (2:38:49.920)
I always try to learn from everybody that I met in my life.
Georges St-Pierre (2:38:53.260)
It's a difficult journey because then you have to go to some dark places as a person
Lex Fridman (2:38:57.120)
because you really have to imagine imagine some dark things.
Georges St-Pierre (2:39:01.360)
It's fascinating, actually.
Georges St-Pierre (2:39:02.720)
I think a lot of the actors, they have sometimes problems because of that, because now I understand
Lex Fridman (2:39:09.400)
why it's like if you work on your bicep, your bicep will grow.
Lex Fridman (2:39:13.880)
Right.
Georges St-Pierre (2:39:14.880)
It's because it is the stress that you put on it that will make it grow.
Lex Fridman (2:39:20.240)
Right.
Georges St-Pierre (2:39:21.240)
Emotions are, I believe, are the same way.
Georges St-Pierre (2:39:23.240)
If you used to dig inside of you down deep to to to to make your negative emotion, depressive
Georges St-Pierre (2:39:32.200)
emotion comes out, if something bad in your life happened, you will fall into those emotion
Lex Fridman (2:39:39.240)
much more rapidly than someone who does not that every day.
Lex Fridman (2:39:43.480)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (2:39:44.480)
Because it will.
Georges St-Pierre (2:39:45.480)
It's like a muscle memory.
Georges St-Pierre (2:39:46.480)
Like if you program yourself to react a certain way, you will reach that point very often.
Lex Fridman (2:39:51.640)
So that's why sometimes you see some some guys that we often blame it on drugs.
Lex Fridman (2:39:56.800)
But I think it's also because of the acting that I used to be so hot on the hot tub and
Georges St-Pierre (2:40:02.200)
sometimes they go to the down deep so they they they they they the boat extreme, you
Lex Fridman (2:40:07.760)
know.
Georges St-Pierre (2:40:08.760)
You got to be psychologically tough.
Lex Fridman (2:40:09.760)
And that's life.
Lex Fridman (2:40:10.760)
So I'm so excited to see you challenge yourself in that direction.
Lex Fridman (2:40:14.280)
That's one thing that I'm a little bit afraid.
Georges St-Pierre (2:40:18.260)
That happened to me.
Georges St-Pierre (2:40:19.260)
I really hope I'll always be, you know, like a problem, having a problem to control my
Georges St-Pierre (2:40:26.000)
emotion be too much extreme.
Lex Fridman (2:40:29.040)
I hope it does not happen to me.
Lex Fridman (2:40:31.200)
And if I feel that I'm going towards that, I'm going to, you know, give up on my new
Lex Fridman (2:40:39.800)
objective and find something else to to achieve.
Lex Fridman (2:40:43.800)
But in your personal life, you want to be real with your emotions.
Lex Fridman (2:40:46.520)
You don't want to.
Georges St-Pierre (2:40:47.720)
It doesn't, you know, just like with biceps, you don't want biceps that are too big.
Lex Fridman (2:40:52.600)
You are real, but you are extreme real.
Lex Fridman (2:40:56.720)
And that's the that's the that's what I think something that could happen to actors sometimes
Lex Fridman (2:41:02.120)
when they go too much into their emotion.
Georges St-Pierre (2:41:04.360)
Like we talk about like something guys that that that commit commit suicide, perhaps,
Lex Fridman (2:41:09.400)
you know, I don't know.
Georges St-Pierre (2:41:10.400)
It's because I don't know their real life, but it could be something that they get so
Lex Fridman (2:41:15.400)
much into their character.
Georges St-Pierre (2:41:17.160)
I didn't understand it at first because I never had acting class.
Lex Fridman (2:41:20.840)
But after a while that you have acting class, now you start to realize that, yeah, I understand
Lex Fridman (2:41:25.240)
why some actor get caught up in their emotion, because that can have an influence on their
Lex Fridman (2:41:32.140)
life.
Georges St-Pierre (2:41:33.140)
Right.
Lex Fridman (2:41:34.140)
You're on a fascinating journey, George.
Georges St-Pierre (2:41:36.960)
I can't tell you how much it means to me that you'll be so nice to me, that you'll give
Lex Fridman (2:41:41.040)
me so much respect.
Georges St-Pierre (2:41:42.520)
Just that that tells everything I need to know about you as a human being with everything
Lex Fridman (2:41:46.240)
you've accomplished.
Georges St-Pierre (2:41:47.720)
You waste all your time and you're so nice to me just as a fellow human being, man.
Georges St-Pierre (2:41:53.080)
I have so much respect from so honored and the energy you give me by just even showing
Georges St-Pierre (2:41:57.660)
up here.
Lex Fridman (2:41:58.660)
I'll carry that forward for a long time to come, George.
Georges St-Pierre (2:42:00.920)
I love it.
Lex Fridman (2:42:01.920)
Thank you so much for talking to me.
Georges St-Pierre (2:42:02.920)
Now, thank you, Lex, for having me on the show.
Lex Fridman (2:42:05.040)
You know, I've been looking to talk to you for a long time.
Georges St-Pierre (2:42:07.920)
For me, talking to a guy like you, it's it's a great learning experience because I always
Lex Fridman (2:42:12.800)
learn.
Lex Fridman (2:42:13.800)
And it's life is fascinating to me.
Lex Fridman (2:42:16.680)
And all the experience that we have in life, you know, it's something that can make us
Georges St-Pierre (2:42:21.840)
grow.
Lex Fridman (2:42:22.840)
And this experience for me just, you know, make me grow as as well.
Lex Fridman (2:42:26.720)
You know?
Lex Fridman (2:42:27.720)
Plus, we look pretty damn sharp today.
Georges St-Pierre (2:42:28.720)
So.
Lex Fridman (2:42:29.720)
Man in black, my friend.
Georges St-Pierre (2:42:30.720)
Man in black.
Lex Fridman (2:42:31.720)
Thanks, George.
Georges St-Pierre (2:42:32.720)
Nice.
Lex Fridman (2:42:35.320)
Thanks for listening to this conversation with George St. Pierre.
Lex Fridman (2:42:38.200)
And thank you to Allform, ExpressVPN, Blinkist, Theragun, and The Information.
Lex Fridman (2:42:45.600)
Check them out in the description to support this podcast.
Lex Fridman (2:42:49.200)
And now let me leave you with some words from Miyamoto Musashi.
Lex Fridman (2:42:53.640)
Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.
Georges St-Pierre (2:42:57.640)
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.
Lex Fridman (30:03.200)
So I had to switch gear.
Georges St-Pierre (30:05.280)
That happened sometimes, but it's part of my plan.
Lex Fridman (30:08.400)
I always have a plan B, plan A, plan B, plan C. You need to have that.
Georges St-Pierre (30:13.800)
If fighters go into a fight thinking, oh, I'm going to do this, this, this, and they
Georges St-Pierre (30:18.160)
don't have a plan B, if this doesn't work, that means they're not well prepared.
Georges St-Pierre (30:22.960)
If you talk to me before every fight, I can, like in 30 seconds, give you my old strategy.
Georges St-Pierre (30:29.080)
You know, for BJ Penn, my first fight with BJ Penn was, oh, I'm going to keep it standing
Georges St-Pierre (30:33.800)
up, keep the fight from the outside, you know, because I'm faster than him.
Lex Fridman (30:38.880)
Then the fight with BJ Penn started.
Georges St-Pierre (30:40.560)
I found out that I was not faster than him.
Lex Fridman (30:44.360)
And I found out that his reaction time was better than mine.
Lex Fridman (30:49.580)
So I got beat up the first round and I got a bloody nose and everything.
Lex Fridman (30:54.920)
So my plan B was now I'm going to wrestle him, you know, I'm going to wrestle him and,
Georges St-Pierre (31:00.080)
you know, make him tired and trying to put him down.
Lex Fridman (31:02.880)
And that's how I beat him because I switched gear, you know?
Lex Fridman (31:06.580)
But if you can't do that, if you cannot find a way to become the perfect nemesis to your
Georges St-Pierre (31:10.920)
opponent, you might win a few fights, but you're going to find, you're going to fight
Georges St-Pierre (31:17.560)
someone sooner or later that will, that will give you a lot of, a lot of trouble.
Lex Fridman (31:23.520)
So that's where the anxiety pays off.
Georges St-Pierre (31:25.220)
You're anticipating all the ways it goes wrong.
Lex Fridman (31:26.960)
So you've developed a plan B and plan C. You know, we talked a lot with, like John Donoher,
Georges St-Pierre (31:34.800)
who you work with.
Lex Fridman (31:35.800)
It's interesting.
Georges St-Pierre (31:36.800)
I don't think I've heard him talk about plan B and plan C. He usually has a really clear
Georges St-Pierre (31:41.920)
plan A, an entire system of plan A. I don't think I've heard him, we've had a good discussion
Georges St-Pierre (31:50.400)
about it in, over some cheeseburgers.
Lex Fridman (31:56.040)
And he's, he was kind of espousing the value of mastering escapes.
Lex Fridman (32:02.200)
So when you find yourself in bad situations, being exceptionally good at finding ways out
Lex Fridman (32:08.120)
of those bad situations, and that's a way of dominance.
Georges St-Pierre (32:11.540)
There's nothing, there's no better way to dominate your opponent according to him than
Lex Fridman (32:16.680)
to show that they can't possibly hurt you no matter how bad the position is.
Georges St-Pierre (32:21.480)
It's like, it's a, as opposed to a physical dominance, it's a psychological dominance.
Lex Fridman (32:25.520)
It's very interesting.
Lex Fridman (32:27.380)
But I wonder if he has plan B and plan C in his mind too.
Georges St-Pierre (32:32.680)
You know, in mixed martial arts, sometimes it's like in science, sometimes you can make
Georges St-Pierre (32:36.600)
a mistake, you know, like every human can make mistakes, you know.
Georges St-Pierre (32:42.000)
There's certain sport or a certain situation that you, if there's a mistake made, that's
Georges St-Pierre (32:48.960)
it exactly.
Lex Fridman (32:49.960)
Sometimes it's the case in MMA, but sometimes you're able to redeem yourself.
Lex Fridman (32:55.640)
And if you look the fight with BJ Penn 1 that I had, which was probably one of the most
Georges St-Pierre (33:02.840)
competitive fight and it was probably the, it was the fight that I got the most damage
Lex Fridman (33:08.760)
and I was messed up.
Lex Fridman (33:09.760)
It took me three days, like two, three days to recuperate from that fight.
Georges St-Pierre (33:13.120)
I was really damaged.
Lex Fridman (33:15.200)
And my first fight versus my second fight, I made a lot of adjustment because I have
Georges St-Pierre (33:20.560)
learned from my first fight.
Lex Fridman (33:22.860)
And also I had a guy, one thing people don't know, like they talk about fighters having
Georges St-Pierre (33:28.000)
secret weapons.
Georges St-Pierre (33:29.000)
See, for me, my secret weapons was not like some is that they use like certain, like different
Georges St-Pierre (33:34.880)
things.
Lex Fridman (33:35.880)
For me, it was knowledge.
Georges St-Pierre (33:36.880)
I had a guy in Montreal, he was measuring frames.
Lex Fridman (33:40.000)
He's not a scientist, he's a friend of Ferras and I.
Lex Fridman (33:44.120)
And what he does, he watch fight and he measure frames.
Georges St-Pierre (33:47.800)
The way he does it is when you watch a fight and one of the guy throw a punch, he cut
Georges St-Pierre (33:52.840)
the picture by frame, the video by frame.
Lex Fridman (33:56.680)
So he's able to see which fighter has better reaction time than others.
Lex Fridman (34:02.960)
And BJ Penn, he found out that BJ Penn of all the UFC roster at the time when he was
Lex Fridman (34:08.560)
in his prime, he had probably the best reaction time of all.
Georges St-Pierre (34:13.000)
According to him, Lyoto Machido was the second one, but BJ Penn was the first one.
Lex Fridman (34:17.960)
So I knew that if I would try to go first, because I always been the fastest guy normally
Georges St-Pierre (34:23.960)
when I fight someone.
Lex Fridman (34:25.800)
But when I fought BJ Penn, I tried to go first and he was always able to like, I never was
Georges St-Pierre (34:32.040)
never able to touch him with my jab and he came back with a counter punch.
Georges St-Pierre (34:37.760)
However, because of what he told me, I knew that BJ Penn has a very fast reaction time,
Lex Fridman (34:43.600)
but had a very poor reset time.
Georges St-Pierre (34:47.140)
To him, the way he described it to me is like your nervous system is like a muscle.
Georges St-Pierre (34:52.000)
BJ Penn was so fast, but he's like more like a sprinter.
Lex Fridman (34:55.380)
So when I did the second fight, when I fought BJ Penn, I made him flinch.
Georges St-Pierre (34:59.480)
Like I fake a lot.
Lex Fridman (35:00.480)
So I make him react and flinch.
Lex Fridman (35:02.240)
So all that reaction time that he used to flinch was not used properly to avoid my punches.
Lex Fridman (35:10.240)
So I burn, I load up his nervous system with a lot of information and fake and to make
Georges St-Pierre (35:17.420)
him flinch and pretending I was kicking and wrestling.
Lex Fridman (35:21.720)
So he got overwhelmed and he got tired very, very fast.
Lex Fridman (35:25.740)
So that's how I beat him.
Lex Fridman (35:27.080)
People sometimes they don't know really what's the strategy behind the thing.
Georges St-Pierre (35:31.080)
They only see the physical part.
Lex Fridman (35:32.560)
But when you fight someone, if I fight you, I look at you in the eyes, there's a lot of
Georges St-Pierre (35:36.400)
things that going on between you and I.
Lex Fridman (35:39.000)
I can look down here, bam, jab you in the face.
Georges St-Pierre (35:42.680)
The audience will not see these little detail, but you will see it.
Lex Fridman (35:47.340)
And that's what makes the magic during a fight.
Georges St-Pierre (35:50.640)
The relation that you have with the opponent, you know, like the mental game, what you make
Lex Fridman (35:55.040)
him believe.
Georges St-Pierre (35:56.040)
Those little things, I use a lot of those.
Georges St-Pierre (35:58.680)
If you talk to a lot of my opponents, they'll tell you, like, I use a lot of these little
Georges St-Pierre (36:02.760)
things, you know, like I look down at Banner, I go up or I am pretending I want to attack
Georges St-Pierre (36:06.680)
you so I make you flinch, but in reality, I'm just doing this because I want to rest.
Georges St-Pierre (36:12.480)
I want to recuperate and I'm tired.
Lex Fridman (36:15.560)
How much is, you know, people talk about that with poker, for example.
Lex Fridman (36:18.720)
How much is the value of this?
Georges St-Pierre (36:21.420)
You know, so like some people argue that poker is more about the betting, you know, just
Georges St-Pierre (36:26.640)
the money.
Lex Fridman (36:27.640)
It's just how much you bet and so on.
Lex Fridman (36:29.200)
So that would be more like the analogy there with with fighting would be just strictly
Lex Fridman (36:35.600)
the physical movement of your body.
Lex Fridman (36:37.600)
And then a lot of people argue that there's a lot here in the way you look and the little
Lex Fridman (36:41.440)
movements in the face.
Lex Fridman (36:42.440)
So do you think there's, do you think you're communicating with your opponent when you
Lex Fridman (36:47.240)
look at them?
Georges St-Pierre (36:49.000)
There's no way to know for sure, 100 percent.
Lex Fridman (36:51.320)
And I'm by no, no mean psychic, nothing like that.
Lex Fridman (36:54.640)
And I don't believe in that at all.
Georges St-Pierre (36:56.280)
The only thing is I know through looking through the eyes of my opponent when he's afraid and
Georges St-Pierre (37:01.720)
when he gives up on me.
Georges St-Pierre (37:03.600)
I've been accused very often in my career to not take enough risk, to not finish my
Georges St-Pierre (37:09.480)
opponent.
Lex Fridman (37:10.480)
But the reason why I didn't finish my opponent is because I saw in his eyes that he gave
Georges St-Pierre (37:14.840)
up.
Lex Fridman (37:15.840)
He gave me the fight and I'm winning the fight.
Lex Fridman (37:17.920)
So it's not up to me.
Lex Fridman (37:21.720)
It's not to me to make it, to try to sacrifice myself trying to finish him.
Georges St-Pierre (37:25.720)
Perhaps if I do that, I will open up for him to capitalize on my mistake.
Lex Fridman (37:33.260)
It's up to him to make a risk.
Lex Fridman (37:35.960)
So people sometimes they don't understand that is the art of fighting, my friend, you
Georges St-Pierre (37:40.440)
know, like if I'm winning the fight like an hockey, an ice hockey, if you're winning the
Georges St-Pierre (37:45.200)
game and it's the third period, it's at the end of the third period, you're not going
Georges St-Pierre (37:49.460)
to take out your goaltender trying to score another goal because winning five to three
Georges St-Pierre (37:55.240)
or five to four is the same thing.
Lex Fridman (37:58.060)
Same thing in MMA.
Georges St-Pierre (37:59.060)
We make a living out of this.
Lex Fridman (38:00.840)
And sometimes as bad as it can be, you want to save yourself for another day, you know,
Georges St-Pierre (38:06.800)
you want to minimize the damage.
Lex Fridman (38:09.120)
But if he knows he's losing the fight, it's up to him to take the risk.
Georges St-Pierre (38:13.760)
It's not up to me.
Lex Fridman (38:15.580)
So I'm a good counter fighter.
Georges St-Pierre (38:17.360)
I use a lot of my attack or counter strike or reactive take down or proactive take down.
Lex Fridman (38:23.960)
That's my specialty.
Lex Fridman (38:25.540)
So I'm not going to I have no desire to sacrifice myself trying to try to finish my opponent
Lex Fridman (38:31.720)
if he want to, if perhaps I might give him the opportunity to capitalize on me.
Georges St-Pierre (38:38.160)
It's not it's not smart to do that.
Lex Fridman (38:42.080)
And very often when I fight someone, I can read him, I see the fear in his eyes.
Georges St-Pierre (38:46.760)
Now I'm like, I got you now.
Lex Fridman (38:48.680)
He's very desperate.
Georges St-Pierre (38:49.680)
That doesn't mean I have to put my guard down because he's going to be desperate.
Lex Fridman (38:54.280)
But I know I'm beating you.
Lex Fridman (38:56.080)
And I know I'm beating you.
Lex Fridman (38:57.080)
I'm just going to do what I need.
Georges St-Pierre (38:58.080)
You know, if I have a chance, of course, I'll knock him out.
Lex Fridman (39:00.420)
But I'm not going to try to sacrifice myself to knock him out.
Lex Fridman (39:04.320)
And if you do that, maybe one day you'll make a mistake and you'll get dropped and you'll
Lex Fridman (39:10.800)
you'll tell yourself, I shoot, I just got brain damage.
Georges St-Pierre (39:14.440)
Maybe I'm never going to come back the same.
Georges St-Pierre (39:16.040)
Maybe you know, I ruined my career or, you know, it's a it's a very serious game that
Georges St-Pierre (39:21.320)
we're playing.
Lex Fridman (39:22.320)
It's very dangerous.
Georges St-Pierre (39:23.640)
In the face of that risk, I mean, Mike Tyson talked about, you know, when the opponent
Lex Fridman (39:30.120)
looks away, he knows he's got him, right, that that he's broken.
Georges St-Pierre (39:38.120)
For a person like me who has trouble making eye contact with people, there's truth to
Lex Fridman (39:44.080)
that.
Georges St-Pierre (39:45.080)
I mean, there's truth to that, that there's an animal nature to us looking away.
Georges St-Pierre (39:49.400)
I mean, you could see that the way the body language, the way the eyes move between two
Georges St-Pierre (39:54.800)
animals going at it in the wild when like two lions fight or two whatever fight.
Lex Fridman (40:01.880)
There's a certain beta move when you've you've been defeated.
Georges St-Pierre (40:06.520)
Yes.
Georges St-Pierre (40:07.520)
Or one thing when I know that, that when it happened, one of the signs is when I just
Georges St-Pierre (40:13.040)
like make a faint and the guy flinched like crazy.
Lex Fridman (40:16.200)
That's mean he's really scared of me.
Georges St-Pierre (40:17.960)
It's a little bit like you're you're you're doing this, that guy flinched a little bit
Lex Fridman (40:21.320)
or you're doing this.
Georges St-Pierre (40:22.320)
He's like, oh, that's mean you hurt him and he doesn't want to get hurt again.
Lex Fridman (40:26.920)
So he's really trying to run away and not not winning the fight anymore, but not losing
Georges St-Pierre (40:34.060)
sort of surviving the five round.
Lex Fridman (40:36.780)
And it's hard to to finish a guy who does doesn't want to fight a guy who's not fighting
Georges St-Pierre (40:42.680)
anymore to win in this fighting to not lose.
Lex Fridman (40:45.600)
And the proof of that, if you don't believe me, just look the reign of all the greatest
Georges St-Pierre (40:48.820)
champion in UFC.
Georges St-Pierre (40:49.820)
I don't care who they are, John Jones or like you could clearly see that in the beginning
Georges St-Pierre (40:55.880)
of their reign, they could, you know, finish a lot of their opponents, the same as me in
Lex Fridman (40:59.860)
the beginning.
Georges St-Pierre (41:00.860)
I was finishing a lot of my opponent.
Lex Fridman (41:02.120)
But there is a time that the entire UFC roster is studying you and they found ways to perhaps
Georges St-Pierre (41:08.720)
not beating you, but they found a way to navigate to the fight in a way that they minimize the
Lex Fridman (41:15.360)
damage.
Lex Fridman (41:16.360)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (41:17.360)
So it's a big difference between fighting to win and fighting to not lose.
Georges St-Pierre (41:22.560)
You said that there's a difference between a fighter and a martial artist.
Lex Fridman (41:26.040)
So now we were talking about fighting.
Georges St-Pierre (41:28.440)
You're considered by many to be one of the greatest fighters of all time.
Lex Fridman (41:32.960)
But you said that there's a difference between a fighter and a martial artist.
Georges St-Pierre (41:37.760)
A fighter is training for a purpose.
Lex Fridman (41:39.680)
He has a fight.
Georges St-Pierre (41:41.320)
I'm I'm a martial artist.
Lex Fridman (41:43.680)
I don't train for a fight.
Georges St-Pierre (41:44.960)
I train for myself.
Lex Fridman (41:46.440)
I'm training all the time.
Georges St-Pierre (41:48.120)
My goal is perfection, but I will never reach perfection.
Lex Fridman (41:52.640)
So what to you does it mean to be a martial artist?
Georges St-Pierre (41:57.220)
Martial artist is because that lifestyle that I have has been introduced to me and the seed
Lex Fridman (42:04.120)
has been planted to my mind a long, long time ago by my father.
Georges St-Pierre (42:09.440)
I am I do not train because I have a fight.
Lex Fridman (42:15.040)
I will always train.
Georges St-Pierre (42:16.440)
Even now, it kind of amused me that to see that a lot of people, because I'm still training,
Lex Fridman (42:23.880)
because I love the science of fighting.
Georges St-Pierre (42:25.700)
I do not like to fight, but I love the science of it.
Lex Fridman (42:28.240)
And I will always do it as long as I can do it.
Georges St-Pierre (42:31.480)
People think I'm going to make a comeback and everything.
Lex Fridman (42:33.440)
I'm I'm about to get to have 40 years old.
Georges St-Pierre (42:36.720)
You know, like it's I'm, you know, like I don't want to fight in a cage at 40 years
Lex Fridman (42:44.440)
old.
Georges St-Pierre (42:45.440)
I mean, some people have done it.
Lex Fridman (42:46.440)
They did it very well.
Lex Fridman (42:47.440)
But I'm not one of them.
Lex Fridman (42:48.760)
I'm I feel a little bit to me that.
Lex Fridman (42:52.880)
And you never say never feel like to me like it's a little like a kid that you play with
Georges St-Pierre (42:57.840)
the strain when he's young, like when he's five years old, six years old, seven years
Georges St-Pierre (43:02.560)
old, eight years old.
Lex Fridman (43:03.560)
But then I was like, what the hell I'm doing here?
Lex Fridman (43:07.000)
And I'm too old for this.
Lex Fridman (43:08.000)
I like it.
Lex Fridman (43:09.000)
So I have done it, you know, and and I got out of it on top.
Lex Fridman (43:16.520)
And I'm I'm healthy, which is the most important thing right now, touching wood.
Lex Fridman (43:20.920)
And I'm I'm wealthy.
Lex Fridman (43:22.760)
I beat the game.
Lex Fridman (43:23.840)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (43:24.840)
In a way, like that's not to be cocky, but I did it.
Lex Fridman (43:27.520)
And I wish more more fighters could do the same thing.
Georges St-Pierre (43:31.040)
I wish, but it's unfortunate because a lot of them, they stay there and hang out for
Georges St-Pierre (43:36.960)
too long and they get badly hurt.
Georges St-Pierre (43:39.160)
They get beaten and broken, you know, and they finish broke as well, because the lifestyle
Georges St-Pierre (43:48.600)
you have when you're a pro athlete, it's crazy, you know, it's it's it's unbelievable.
Georges St-Pierre (43:53.560)
However, everything that goes up and life goes down and you need to plan your future,
Georges St-Pierre (43:59.160)
you know.
Lex Fridman (44:00.160)
And for for me, what if some guys have the same mentality as me and they're watching
Georges St-Pierre (44:04.600)
us right now, I would say if you do it because you're just good at it, you like the money,
Georges St-Pierre (44:10.160)
the advantage, the freedom that it gives you, but you don't necessarily like to fight.
Georges St-Pierre (44:14.800)
When you're done, you finish on top, you know, go go cash out and get out of the way.
Lex Fridman (44:20.360)
Yes.
Georges St-Pierre (44:21.360)
Hard to do.
Lex Fridman (44:22.360)
However, actually, it's not everybody that does it for that reason.
Georges St-Pierre (44:25.500)
Some people generally love to fight, love to compete.
Lex Fridman (44:28.940)
So they do it because they love it, you know, or they do it because of the money.
Lex Fridman (44:32.520)
But if you don't love it, if you don't like to fight because it's very stressful and you
Lex Fridman (44:36.400)
don't enjoy you, you enjoy the training, perhaps, but you don't like to fight.
Georges St-Pierre (44:39.740)
You do it because it's part of what you need to do in order to keep that lifestyle.
Lex Fridman (44:44.520)
And you know, like you don't need the money to get out of here, man.
Georges St-Pierre (44:49.640)
If you're in your you're in your prime, get out of here.
Lex Fridman (44:51.860)
Because if you don't, you'll hurt your own legacy, you'll damage your health.
Lex Fridman (44:56.780)
It's very sad and it's a it's a sad business, you know what I mean?
Georges St-Pierre (45:03.560)
It's like a lot of what one of the place where is the one of the most happiest place for
Georges St-Pierre (45:12.160)
me to go and the most saddest place for me to go.
Georges St-Pierre (45:15.320)
It's in the gym, Tristar in Montreal, because it's one of the happiest place for me to go
Georges St-Pierre (45:20.800)
because I can go train and do what I love to do.
Lex Fridman (45:24.820)
But it's also a very sad place for me because after when I'm about to leave, there's always
Georges St-Pierre (45:28.860)
a bunch of young kid that comes or guys that are around 30, 33 years old.
Lex Fridman (45:35.440)
And they come to me and say, hey, George, you have some advice for me.
Lex Fridman (45:38.960)
And I look at them.
Lex Fridman (45:41.680)
And if they're my friend, they're real close friend of mine, I'll tell them the truth in
Georges St-Pierre (45:45.040)
their face.
Lex Fridman (45:46.320)
And I've done it many times and it was not well received.
Lex Fridman (45:49.000)
But if they're not my friend, I have to, you know, you know, it's always an advice about
Lex Fridman (45:53.200)
fighting and I answer their question.
Georges St-Pierre (45:55.380)
It's my pleasure.
Lex Fridman (45:56.560)
But the truth, if they they want me to tell the truth, the big majority of them, I would
Georges St-Pierre (46:02.960)
tell them, I said, listen, man, you're in maybe three, like on a losing street of three
Lex Fridman (46:10.160)
fight.
Georges St-Pierre (46:11.160)
You're 30, 33 years old, you know, I think you should think about doing something else
Lex Fridman (46:16.880)
in your life.
Georges St-Pierre (46:17.880)
You know, I have other goals, you know, because you're not going to make it.
Lex Fridman (46:21.480)
And, you know, I've seen that movie before and it's a very sad ending.
Lex Fridman (46:26.720)
And I'm I'm sad to tell you the truth because you're not going to make the money.
Lex Fridman (46:31.120)
You just choose some.
Lex Fridman (46:32.560)
But if I tell them that they're going to be angry at me because they'll be like, oh, you
Lex Fridman (46:35.960)
you make it and you think I cannot make it.
Lex Fridman (46:37.780)
So it's kind of they're going to think I'm cocky.
Lex Fridman (46:40.400)
But I was lucky to make it.
Georges St-Pierre (46:42.000)
You know, at the start, we're all aligned.
Lex Fridman (46:43.640)
But at one point, you need to be able to to have a plan B, you know, like like some parent
Georges St-Pierre (46:49.320)
they come to see me with their kids and this is the future world champion in the UFC.
Lex Fridman (46:56.080)
And what advice would you give him?
Georges St-Pierre (46:57.920)
I always tell the same thing.
Lex Fridman (46:59.540)
And it does not make everybody happy.
Lex Fridman (47:01.440)
When I said I say I go to the case, a are you good at school?
Lex Fridman (47:05.740)
Say stay at school.
Georges St-Pierre (47:07.000)
School is very important for you.
Lex Fridman (47:08.560)
Stay educated.
Georges St-Pierre (47:09.560)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (47:10.560)
Do boxing, martial arts, a great sport.
Georges St-Pierre (47:13.040)
Stay in shape, but don't put your eggs all in the same basket.
Lex Fridman (47:17.320)
And the parents sometime are angry when I'm not angry, but I can see in their eyes, they're
Georges St-Pierre (47:20.360)
like they kind of surprised.
Lex Fridman (47:24.560)
And it's not because I made it that I will tell the kid to follow the same path that
Georges St-Pierre (47:30.440)
I did.
Georges St-Pierre (47:31.440)
I went to school to I've studied, I dropped off school when I had my first world championship
Georges St-Pierre (47:37.360)
fight against Matt Hughes.
Lex Fridman (47:39.400)
But before that, I was in school.
Georges St-Pierre (47:41.480)
Quite another, you know, another way to go if things would not have gone the same, the
Lex Fridman (47:48.120)
way I wanted.
Lex Fridman (47:49.120)
But the problem and I'm saying that it's not only about boxing in MMA, I'm talking about
Lex Fridman (47:53.440)
hockey, basketball, baseball, same, same thing.
Georges St-Pierre (47:56.660)
Maybe it's the one on the hundred thousand that make it.
Lex Fridman (47:59.820)
And I'm saying I'm saying that make it when I'm saying I make it.
Georges St-Pierre (48:02.920)
That's mean they can retire and have enough money for the rest of his life because it's
Lex Fridman (48:08.360)
a sad story.
Georges St-Pierre (48:09.360)
The only people only heard about the people that makes it.
Lex Fridman (48:13.000)
But a lot of fighters, even a UFC champion in boxing, champion, even in football, basketball,
Georges St-Pierre (48:18.440)
I don't I don't I don't care.
Lex Fridman (48:19.720)
Big names when they retire, they have zero.
Georges St-Pierre (48:22.120)
They're bankrupt, my friend.
Lex Fridman (48:23.940)
And it's a very sad, sad story and a sad reality that most people are not aware of.
Lex Fridman (48:29.660)
But having other paths in life actually can also increase the chance of you dominating
Lex Fridman (48:36.160)
and like reaching the highest peak in your main thing.
Georges St-Pierre (48:39.520)
I mean, Jimmy Pager, I don't know if you know who that is, is a judo coach in in America.
Lex Fridman (48:45.020)
He was he says that to all of his athletes is to make sure that you go.
Georges St-Pierre (48:49.120)
He has a lot of, you know, Kayla Harrison, two time Olympic gold medalist.
Lex Fridman (48:52.600)
He has a lot of Olympic medalists.
Lex Fridman (48:55.220)
But basically, there's something about going to school, like having an forget school, any
Georges St-Pierre (48:59.740)
other avenue in life that gives you the freedom to go all out in your main like that, you
Georges St-Pierre (49:07.280)
know, you're doing it for the right reasons.
Lex Fridman (49:09.520)
You're not stuck.
Georges St-Pierre (49:11.080)
It clears the mind to where you're free to be the best in the world as opposed to kind
Lex Fridman (49:17.320)
of you have to.
Georges St-Pierre (49:18.320)
I mean, different people are motivated by different things.
Lex Fridman (49:21.320)
So sometimes some people like having their back to the wall and that's the only option
Georges St-Pierre (49:26.160)
they have.
Lex Fridman (49:27.160)
But most people, I think, excel when you have other options.
Georges St-Pierre (49:30.400)
I think it's a distraction and I think it's important to have a distraction.
Lex Fridman (49:35.160)
When you say that, I think about one of my coach, John Danaher.
Georges St-Pierre (49:38.720)
He put his academic background experience into jiu jitsu.
Lex Fridman (49:43.840)
And that for me, that's why he's the best teacher I ever had is incredible.
Georges St-Pierre (49:49.560)
He start teaching me when I even couldn't speak much English at the time and I was able
Lex Fridman (49:56.020)
to communicate and understand, you know, that's how good he is.
Lex Fridman (50:00.680)
But I truly believe that most of the athletes, especially in sport like mixed martial arts,
Lex Fridman (50:07.040)
train way too much.
Georges St-Pierre (50:08.440)
If I could go back and talk to a young George, I would tell him, you do way too much volume.
Lex Fridman (50:16.660)
You train way too hard, train smarter, it's more important.
Lex Fridman (50:20.780)
And I think sometimes we underestimate the benefit of recuperation because I think we
Georges St-Pierre (50:29.160)
assimilate the information that we learn during a training when we recuperate and not during
Georges St-Pierre (50:35.920)
the training itself.
Lex Fridman (50:37.800)
And this whole mentality of harder, heavier, you know, it's good for someone who's lazy.
Lex Fridman (50:47.120)
And if you're an elite athlete, most of the time, you know, like you're not always, but
Lex Fridman (50:51.440)
most of the time is because you're not lazy.
Lex Fridman (50:54.760)
And a lot of guys, sometimes they're elite athletes, champions, and you'll hear people
Lex Fridman (51:00.360)
say, oh, I can't believe he's very gifted, but he doesn't work.
Lex Fridman (51:05.040)
But perhaps it's not really because perhaps it's because we don't understand, perhaps
Lex Fridman (51:09.880)
he's doing the right thing and it's us who's working too much and too hard.
Georges St-Pierre (51:14.980)
That's what I think.
Lex Fridman (51:17.100)
There's a guy I train with, he made me think about it.
Georges St-Pierre (51:21.720)
His name is Mansour Barnaoui, he's going to be a future star, he's an incredible fighter.
Lex Fridman (51:28.000)
He trained once a day.
Lex Fridman (51:31.260)
And he asked me some time advice when he came to Montreal, he's from France.
Lex Fridman (51:34.120)
You'll hear about him, he's very good.
Lex Fridman (51:37.920)
And I saw him in the morning at TriStar and I said, okay, I'll see you perhaps later in
Lex Fridman (51:43.080)
the other trainings.
Georges St-Pierre (51:44.080)
He said, no, I only train once a day.
Lex Fridman (51:46.680)
And he kind of waits for me to give him like, not an approval, but like to see how I react
Georges St-Pierre (51:54.880)
or, you know, I don't know, it was kind of a strange feeling, but I told myself at that
Georges St-Pierre (51:59.680)
point I kind of had an awakening and I told myself, man, maybe he's doing the right thing.
Georges St-Pierre (52:08.560)
Because a lot of people would say, for example, oh, that's a lazy way of doing it, but perhaps
Lex Fridman (52:14.120)
it's the best way to do it.
Georges St-Pierre (52:15.680)
I'm not saying that training once a day is the best way to do it.
Lex Fridman (52:18.640)
That's what I'm saying.
Georges St-Pierre (52:19.640)
I'm saying that everybody's different, but for him, it works beautifully.
Lex Fridman (52:26.100)
And I wouldn't change anything, you know, like if I would be him because he's improving
Georges St-Pierre (52:31.800)
like crazy.
Lex Fridman (52:32.800)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (52:33.800)
And ultimately the bigger picture there is to do something that everyone else says is
Lex Fridman (52:39.920)
stupid.
Georges St-Pierre (52:40.920)
It's like the fasting thing that a lot of people would say, a lot of nutritional experts
Lex Fridman (52:45.580)
would say that that's a dumb way.
Georges St-Pierre (52:48.480)
You know, if you want to be an MMA fighter, you should be eating like many times a day.
Lex Fridman (52:52.600)
You should be starting every day with oatmeal.
Georges St-Pierre (52:55.080)
You should be carving up constantly, but that's not necessarily true for everybody.
Lex Fridman (53:00.120)
And it's possible.
Georges St-Pierre (53:01.120)
I'm sure there's actually now a few MMA fighters that are carnivore only.
Lex Fridman (53:04.320)
It's possible.
Georges St-Pierre (53:05.360)
I used to eat right before training and it didn't bother me.
Georges St-Pierre (53:11.440)
However, now my first training that I do normally in average around noon, 11 a.m., I haven't
Georges St-Pierre (53:23.960)
eaten anything when I do my first training.
Lex Fridman (53:26.000)
And it feels to me that I'm much more clear in my mind.
Georges St-Pierre (53:32.200)
I'm much more creative.
Lex Fridman (53:33.800)
I feel better.
Georges St-Pierre (53:34.800)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (53:35.800)
Yeah.
Georges St-Pierre (53:36.800)
It's a big difference.
Lex Fridman (53:37.800)
I just wish I would have known that before.
Georges St-Pierre (53:38.800)
Well, it's fascinating, the role of the mind in all of this.
Lex Fridman (53:42.080)
How important is it for your mind to be clear, to really think deeply?
Georges St-Pierre (53:48.440)
There's a judoka American named Travis Stevens.
Georges St-Pierre (53:53.600)
I remember he said something that the right kind of practice is when your mind is exhausted
Georges St-Pierre (54:01.840)
at the end of it, that you were constantly thinking through things like your body shouldn't
Lex Fridman (54:08.640)
be exhausted first, your mind should be exhausted first.
Georges St-Pierre (54:12.160)
It's really fascinating.
Lex Fridman (54:13.360)
So people think about training hard, you know, a successful practice is where you walk away
Georges St-Pierre (54:20.120)
just overwhelmed how much you had to think.
Lex Fridman (54:23.760)
It's fascinating framing of a successful practice.
Georges St-Pierre (54:27.360)
It's true.
Georges St-Pierre (54:28.440)
Travis Stevens was one of my main training partner when I got ready for my fight with
Georges St-Pierre (54:32.920)
Nick Diaz and Carlos Candit.
Lex Fridman (54:38.080)
He drove every Friday from, I believe, Boston.
Georges St-Pierre (54:44.600)
It's like a six hour drive.
Lex Fridman (54:47.600)
Drive to the gym in Montreal, train with us an hour and a half, drive back.
Georges St-Pierre (54:58.480)
He's got such an amazing discipline.
Lex Fridman (55:01.320)
I was so happy for him when he won the medal at the Olympic game.
Lex Fridman (55:06.200)
And what a well deserved, you know, accomplishment.
Lex Fridman (55:12.640)
It's unbelievable.
Georges St-Pierre (55:13.640)
It paid off.
Lex Fridman (55:14.640)
You know, I was so happy for him.
Lex Fridman (55:16.680)
And every time we got to the gym, he was waiting for me in the kneeling position like a soldier.
Lex Fridman (55:26.160)
I was like, my God, this guy is made of steel, you know.
Lex Fridman (55:31.720)
And after training, I always offer him, I say, Travis, I know you like to train with
Georges St-Pierre (55:36.160)
that because in Montreal, they have very good judo team, Nicholas Gill and all those guys.
Lex Fridman (55:41.720)
And I say, if you want to stay, I'll get you at the hotel, you know, like anything
Lex Fridman (55:45.040)
you want.
Georges St-Pierre (55:46.040)
He's like, no, no, I got to go back.
Lex Fridman (55:47.040)
I have another training later.
Georges St-Pierre (55:48.040)
I'm like, not only did he train with us, he had to go back because he had another training.
Lex Fridman (55:53.200)
I'm like, this is insane.
Lex Fridman (55:55.440)
And he's gone through a huge number of injuries.
Lex Fridman (55:57.880)
So he's also an innovator because, I mean, it's difficult to say, but for American judo,
Georges St-Pierre (56:04.200)
there's not many high level judoka.
Lex Fridman (56:06.820)
So if you want to be the, like fight with the best in the world, you have to be alone.
Georges St-Pierre (56:12.760)
It's a lonely journey, actually.
Lex Fridman (56:14.600)
It's kind of sad.
Georges St-Pierre (56:16.680)
It's much easier to be in Japan where everybody's a killer.
Lex Fridman (56:19.880)
When you're alone at it, it's a difficult journey.
Lex Fridman (56:23.320)
And you know, it's funny we talked about kind of, there's some sports where a mistake is,
Lex Fridman (56:31.640)
that's it.
Georges St-Pierre (56:32.640)
You can't recover from a mistake.
Georges St-Pierre (56:34.520)
I think judo oftentimes is one of those sports and added on top of that is the Olympics only
Georges St-Pierre (56:43.360)
every four years.
Lex Fridman (56:45.480)
And Travis's story, he's the reason I, when I saw him in 2008, cause I started martial
Georges St-Pierre (56:50.640)
arts.
Lex Fridman (56:51.640)
I switched from like wrestling and street fighting to doing jiu jitsu and judo.
Lex Fridman (56:58.200)
And I just saw so much guts.
Lex Fridman (57:00.200)
And the, in 2000, I might be messing up the years here, but in the next Olympics he fought
Lex Fridman (57:07.400)
and he lost on just the referee call.
Lex Fridman (57:11.280)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (57:12.280)
And just, he went to war and he just so much guts and just everything on the line and to
Georges St-Pierre (57:18.840)
lose and then to still persevere through all the injuries, through all of that, through
Georges St-Pierre (57:23.400)
incredibly difficult training sessions to go another four years and then compete and
Lex Fridman (57:28.200)
then win a medal.
Georges St-Pierre (57:29.200)
I mean, that guy's just, and like he clearly could have been very successful.
Lex Fridman (57:35.320)
He's also an incredible jiu jitsu competitor.
Lex Fridman (57:37.560)
So he could have switched to that, but he's stuck.
Georges St-Pierre (57:41.520)
In a lot of sport, when you're in elite, like for example, in Canada, ice hockey is the
Georges St-Pierre (57:49.160)
number one sport of the countries.
Georges St-Pierre (57:52.520)
Kids when they're in elite, when they're young, they get chosen and they're kind of already
Georges St-Pierre (57:57.680)
known as a superstar.
Georges St-Pierre (58:02.080)
The school where they go and the program they follow, like I'm sure it's the same thing
Georges St-Pierre (58:06.200)
in the US and basketball, baseball, perhaps American football, because they already chosen.
Lex Fridman (58:14.040)
So they grew up with that, that it's secure, that superstar stardom, so to speak.
Lex Fridman (58:21.760)
And it's already sort of glamorous.
Georges St-Pierre (58:25.440)
However, in MMA, there's no MMA, judo, wrestling, like in America, because it's not our national
Georges St-Pierre (58:34.680)
sport, it's actually, it's not like, even when I first started, it was not really well
Lex Fridman (58:40.400)
received by the media.
Georges St-Pierre (58:42.680)
There's no glamor into it.
Lex Fridman (58:45.360)
Now I don't know, it seems like it's another era now.
Lex Fridman (58:48.840)
And I feel sometimes that some people do it for the wrong reason.
Lex Fridman (58:55.120)
You know, some people do it because of the glamor, because of the money.
Lex Fridman (59:00.160)
But even if you're an elite and very good, the glamor and the money won't come in the
Lex Fridman (59:06.080)
beginning.
Georges St-Pierre (59:07.720)
It's a very long grind before, you know, it starts to come in.
Lex Fridman (59:13.480)
And you need to make those sacrifices.
Lex Fridman (59:16.280)
And it's a journey where you will be tested, you will be hurt repetitively.
Lex Fridman (59:23.520)
And you're going to have to reach the down deep and come back up.
Lex Fridman (59:28.920)
And then once you finally think you made it, you're going to go back in the down deep again.
Lex Fridman (59:33.720)
It's a very exhausting and decaraging adventure sometimes.
Lex Fridman (59:39.880)
But if you hold on to your dream and you believe in it, you know, and you have the stars aligned,
Lex Fridman (59:46.160)
you're going to make it.
Georges St-Pierre (59:47.720)
That's why it's only a few people that make it, you know.
Lex Fridman (59:51.800)
And that's why I feel sometimes that a lot of people in the new generation do it for
Georges St-Pierre (59:57.360)
the wrong reason.
Lex Fridman (59:58.360)
In my generation, because of sport, at first there were no rules.
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