This week’s conversation is with Georges “Rush” St-Pierre, also known as “GSP,” a Canadian professional mixed martial artist and UFC world champion who holds black belts in both Kyokushin karate and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Georges is recognized as one of the planet’s best pound-for-pound MMA fighters and all around athlete.

He retired from the sport on December 13, 2013, holding the UFC record for most wins in title bouts.

Georges then returned to the octagon after a four-year layoff, on November 4, 2017 at UFC 217 in New York City, where he defeated Michael Bisping by submission in the third round to win the UFC Middleweight Championship title, becoming the fourth fighter in the history of the organization to be a multi-division champion.

On December 7, 2017, after being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, Georges vacated his UFC middleweight title and officially announced his retirement from professional MMA competition on February 21, 2019.

I found this conversation fascinating and I think you’ll be surprised to learn that while Georges may arguably be the greatest MMA fighter of all time, he actually doesn’t really like to fight.

Wild.

Georges also shares why the key to his sustained success is also the same thing that drove him into retirement.

“When you want to be champion or the best at something, you need to be more than dedicated to this thing. You need to be obsessed. You need to dream about it, think about it, breathe it, eat it. That’s how I always was during my career.”

In This Episode:

• What got him into fighting from an early age
• Lacking confidence as a child and how martial arts helped with that
• How he approaches failure
• The thoughts that go through his mind when he enters the cage
• What it feels like to enter the zone, the most optimal state
• How he prepares his mind for a fight
• What his visualization practice looks like
• Learning to accept and become comfortable with fear
• The keys to his success
• What drove him to retire
• The cost of being the best
• The truth is he doesn’t really like to fight
• His thoughts on mastery