Forrest Griffin, UFC Hall of Famer
Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais
Dr. Michael Gervais
4.6 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 28 November 2018
⏱️ 109 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week’s conversation is with Forrest Griffin, a retired mixed martial artist and a UFC Hall of Famer.
A former Georgia Police Officer, Forrest got his shot at UFC Stardom on the first season of the Ultimate Fighter.
He won the first season in a fight against Stephan Bonnar that helped put MMA on the map.
The Ultimate Fighter Finale was a wild success and brought a lot of new attention to the UFC at a time when the sport was at a make or break point.
Forrest went on to become a UFC Light Heavyweight World Champion and eventually was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame.
I had the pleasure of meeting Forrest for the first time at an event this past July - “Evel Live,” where motorsports icon Travis Pastrana honored legendary daredevil Evel Knievel by attempting three of his most dangerous feats in Las Vegas.
We had a great conversation around what it takes to be mentally prepared inside the Octagon and I knew we needed to follow up with a podcast.
Fighting can be a great metaphor for life.
You get hit, you get knocked down, mistakes are made, but as Forrest makes clear, it’s all about how you react, how you adjust in those moments.
Are you going to focus on the mistake or figure out how to survive and flourish from that point forward?
Forrest has a unique perspective on life - while fighting can be an intense and violent sport, he’s light-hearted at his core and that definitely stands out in this conversation.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We're doing a film study and he's like, man, I don't know if that woman's going to come off the stool. |
| 0:04.5 | She got her ass beat. Like, I don't even know why she's coming off the stool. And I said, man, I don't even sound like a jerk, |
| 0:10.4 | but that's why you're not a fighter. I'm coming off that stool if I'm her saying I want to punch that bitch in the face. She just whooped my ass. You know, she just took me down and elbow be in the face ad nauseum. I want to get up and go punch her back so you know you hit people you |
| 0:26.0 | get hit by somebody you rightfully get mad the thing to do is hit them back cool it's |
| 0:31.6 | mMA that's what you're supposed to do. |
| 0:47.0 | Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast. I'm Michael Jervay. By Trade and Training, I'm a Sport Performance Psychologist, as well as the co-founder of Compete to Create, |
| 0:53.6 | where we're taking the insights from my partner, |
| 0:55.6 | head coach Pete Carroll, and how he's developed |
| 0:58.9 | cultures to help people become their very best. |
| 1:01.2 | And then my insights from the psychological framework on what |
| 1:04.3 | are the best practices to help people who are hungry to find their best to do just that. |
| 1:09.6 | What are the ways that we can train our mind to excel, basically. |
| 1:14.1 | So the idea behind this podcast, Finding Mastery, |
| 1:17.0 | is to learn from people who are on the path of mastery, |
| 1:20.3 | to better understand what they're searching for, |
| 1:22.2 | how they organize their internal world, |
| 1:24.4 | their external world, to understand the nuances of what it means to be human and what it means |
| 1:29.4 | to express oneself through a craft. |
| 1:32.0 | And we want to dig to understand what are they searching |
| 1:34.9 | and aching for in life what are they driven by where does that come from the deep |
| 1:40.4 | stuff as well as the more mechanical mental skills. How do they use those mental skills to refine their craft? |
| 1:47.0 | Finding Mastery is brought to you by Vitruvian. |
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