Mark Bell's Power Project - He Defies the Aging Process With Habits and Intuition - Alain Ngalani || MBPP Ep. 874

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

In this Podcast Episode, Alain Ngalani, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how Alain is working on his flexibility, strength and health to defy the aging process. Follow Alain on IG: https://www.instagram.com/alain.ngalani New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin! ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!! ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en  Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Hey, so what's up with this compression thing you gave me here? Yeah, I've got, you know, I think that if you are into sports of all sorts, for me, martial art, I think you want to protect your joint because you're in it for the long run. So for me, I've been doing it for so many years. I want to protect myself. I want to make sure that I don't get injured. So, you know, especially in a full contact sport, like the one that we're doing. So I make sure to have all the tools on my side.

And I'm very lucky to have this company, G.A. Gym Aesthetic, who is supporting me and providing me with all the tools that I need. So we have, like, when I'm doing kickboxing, I like to protect my shin or keep my body, like, really warm and tight. So I'm having this compression.

I was looking for a compression that's really breathable, you know, something that's really agile. Doesn't get in the way. Yeah, doesn't get in the way of my training. You know, give me enough support. And also, you know, when I'm sweating, because I'm sweating a lot. So when I sweat, it doesn't absorb it. That's what I mean. So, you know, I always finish and it looks like it's dry.

You know, after I'm done with my training, I feel like, you know, I didn't even sweat. What I think is really amazing about you is, I mean, your athleticism, mobility, all these different things, but your willingness to pick up new things. Last time you were here, you were riding around on a horse with Nsema. And it seemed like you guys had a lot of fun. But on top of that, you did something else new recently, and you mentioned that you felt a little something in your knee when you were doing it. And yesterday when I came in, you had some of this compression gear on your knee, I believe, right? So I went skiing in Europe, and this was the first time for me.

I never skied before in my life. And I think it's important to get into new challenges or come out of your comfort zone, not doing kickboxing or MMA and trying to do something that's completely different. So I went skiing. I never skied before. I'd be scared, honestly, to do either one of those things, get up on a horse or ski at this point.

Last time? I would do it if somebody knew what they were doing and they helped me. I would be down to try it, but I would be kind of nervous. Yeah, last time it was like riding horses, and we went riding horses, and I really appreciate that. I love it. I was always scared of horses. I think they look, they're such powerful animals. And when I was a kid, I was always scared of horses. I think they look, they're such powerful animals.

And when I was a kid, I had this fear of horses. So I needed to, you know, break that and, you know, make up with them. So we went to ride horses and it was good. You know, I had, I finally, you know, broke that and then we got along with each other. You know, I found a really nice horse. It was good. So this time I went to Europe and I was doing skiing. And that's a new activity.

And I'm very happy that I came out of it. I had a lot of, a few accidents, but nothing major. You know, I had my compression with me. And I went back to, you know, doing some rehab exercise and, you know, weight training. And I know, especially, I'm especially a fan of the Poloquin. I don't know if you know the Poloquin exercise, where you go on one foot and you bend the knee, you know, you go down and bend.

Yeah, Poloquin step. I'd really like it. So I've just been practicing that and strengthening my knee again. And yeah, I'm okay. What are some go-tos for you when you do get hurt? Like if you get banged up in a fight, where do you usually start the next day? What do you try to do?

Well, I do. Yeah, if you just step. There you go. If you just stay right there. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I like to do cold and hot therapy. I think it works for me.

So when I'm done with the fight, it's a lot of ice going on. So it's ice therapy, cryotherapy, and just resting. And for me, it works. I have, with all the swollen involved, because you always feel my ankle is swollen, my hand is probably swollen.

But with the cold, after a good night of sleep, I feel much better. A couple of days, you know, later, you know, I recover. So I think I'm very lucky to be able to recover, you know, easily. So, you know, I don't take that for granted. I appreciate, you know, that just with a bit of rest, you know, I can recover. Yeah, we've found personally, obviously sleep being huge. We're big fans of cold therapy, but also just movement. And I know that you're moving all the time,

especially with all the different mobility exercises that you're doing. So I found that if I'm really screwed up, I know that the best medicine for me is probably a walk. Yeah. I think that we have to create, we have to be able to create good habit. I think that I just, you know,

I just make sure to create good habit for myself, things that work for me, making sure to, to have a certain number, a certain number of hours of sleep, you know, and making sure that it's regular and drinking enough water, making sure to do a lot of walking, to, you know, just to make

sure to burn, you know, do your miles every day. I think doing your miles every day, you know, gets you into a very healthy, you know, state. I think there's a few things that one has to do to keep this habit and stay in shape and stay healthy. Personally, I say that, you know, I've got a lot of people who always tell me, you know, what if I don't have time? What if I don't have time to do, you know, like to go for miles and walk and whatever? And I say, wherever you are, if you think that you're in an office and you have a 9 to 5 or 9 to 7 job or whatever and you don't have time to exercise,

if you are in your office, quit sitting longer hours like Andrew over there sitting. Andrew. You could stand up. Instead of sitting like us here, you see what we're doing. We're standing up, you stand up and move around, adopt the correct posture, you know, chest up, you know, tensing up your abs.

And yeah, and these are things that you could do and, you know, help yourself, you know, and stay healthy. Do you think people don't pay attention to some of the things you say because they're so simple? You know, when people talk about some of these habits, there's supplements, there's all these different things to do. And do you think that because they're so simple, people don't tend to pay attention to it? I think so. I think you're definitely right. I think they are really simple and you will not,

they're so simple that you don't pay attention and you don't do them. I see looking at your phone, for instance, you know, a lot of people, you know, always head down, you know, you know, you see what I mean? Hunched over, yeah. Hunch over all the time to look at your phone. And I say, all you have to do is just lift your hands a little bit, have a straight eye contact, you know, with your phone this way without bending. And that would do a lot of good, you know. So I think you just have to be conscious about your habit. I say, for instance, that every time I'm walking around, I'm trying to engage my core.

You know, I'm being conscious about engaging my core. A lot of people don't do that. And engaging my core is something that I speak to myself. I think about it. Every morning when I wake up, when I'm about to get out of the door, I'm saying to myself, okay, engage your core. Don't forget to engage your core. So I speak to myself and I remember to do it.

So if you see me anywhere, try to poke me in the abs, you're going to see my core engaged. And I think that helped. You might get a kick to the head. Whoops. My core engaged and then you will feel it. So it's a challenge that I gave, that I took, you know, when I was, I don't know if I spoke about that last time here. I don't know if I spoke about that last time here, but in,

you know, with my family and my brother and I, we had this challenge of, you know, if you don't keep your core engaged, you're going to get punched in the stomach and you're going to get surprised. So if you don't want to get, you know, the wind knocked out of you,

you know, engage your core all the time, especially when you're at home, because one of my brother will not miss you. So, yeah. Do you ever worry about like uh holding because like for me i i used to always try to suck my gut in to make make my like stomach look a

little bit flatter and just hold everything nice and tight but as we've learned about like uh breathing through your diaphragm it might not be the best move to kind of always keep it locked in do you ever focus on like expanding the diaphragm just to get air in there to kind of move things around or is it always just locked in but you see you're saying you're sucking in yeah you have to do it that way you have to do it like right now i don't have to to engage my core i don't have to actually i expand my diaphragm and engage my core okay yeah um you're 46 yeah and we're seeing more and more uh people talking about longevity not just longevity in life but longevity in their career um you got people like tom brady leading the charge but this year in professional football here in the united states um the guys that advance to the playoffs the guys that are in line for the biggest game, the Super Bowl, they're all in their 20s.

All the older guys, they didn't quite make it this year in terms of the high-level quarterbacks that we have. But you're seeing more and more people. I think Glover Tashir just fought for the UFC title a couple days ago. And I think he announced his retirement. I think he's like 44, 46. Andrew, if you can pull up Jordan Burroughs, you can pull announced his retirement. I think he's like 44, 46. Andrew, if you can pull up Jordan Burroughs, you can pull up his Instagram.

He had a recent reel, and I would love to get some of your perspective and reaction to some of what he said, but he's talking about how he's like 36 years old, which is not old by any means, but in athletics and in wrestling, it is getting up there in age, and he's been dominant for over a decade, which is really interesting. I'm not sure exactly which one it is.

It's him kind of messing around on the mats, and he walks up and talks, but it might be that. If that top one's a video, it might be that one. Yes, it is this one. Just to get an opportunity, just throw the audio on there. But yeah, you being 46, I'd love to get some of your perspective because you're still performing at a high level. Got a fight coming up. So Nassim doing some drills right there.

And then in a moment he's going to come up and talk to the camera. That's a hell of a physique right there. Yeah. Workhorse. Man, I love to see that. I came to training center for the very first time when I was 22. I'm 34. This is year 13.

I've learned a lot. I struggled here. I've cried here i'm glad i had surgeries here with the one thing that i can always cling to is that i got tougher here i became a man here i established myself here all the summer spitting this gym, this very gym, the same exact mats from day one is where I became a champion. And the beauty of being back is you get to remind yourself of all the challenges that you've been through. All the things that you overcome, all the obstacles, all the adversity,

it's been done here. And so whenever I'm feeling bad, tired, down on myself, fatigued, I remind myself by being in this exact room, I can do hard things. Woo! I snap myself back into that mindset. Giving me goosebumps.

Feel like running to the gym right now. Let's go, baby. Let's go. I love that. That's awesome. That's really motivating and this is the kind of thing that you want to hear. I think it's important to be on this for the long run. It's important for us to take care of ourselves and to, you know,

to have a correct mindset and adopt just a healthy habit. And I think with healthy habits, you're going to go far. Yeah. I think with healthy habits, you're going to go far. Yeah. There's no secret to it there's no hidden you know medicine it's just healthy habit and just being

consistent with what you do and yeah in our space in fitness like there's a lot of different diets there's a lot of different ways of eating carnivore keto all that stuff and we were talking yesterday and you mentioned you still utilize fasting there are days that a lot of days that you eat one single meal

and one shocking thing is you're still maintain a lot of size and muscle you actually even mentioned to me that uh your girlfriend was making fun of you because she said that she eats more than you so my question is like why do you choose to fast, even though there are so many people that think it probably is not going to be beneficial for sports, athleticism, and maintaining muscle? Yeah, I think that it makes me feel good. It gives me clarity of mind. It gave me clarity of mind and I think it makes, yeah, it gave me clarity of mind and I just feel overall good when I fast.

So never mind what people are saying, never mind, you know, how it's going to affect my sport. I feel good when I'm fasting. I feel good when I'm going for my training. I feel energetic. I don't feel like I'm missing food or anything. And you train fasted too? Yeah, and I do that. So do you have like any electrolytes?

Do you do anything like that? And also, do you eat one meal a day generally? Or are there some days where you eat more? No, there are definitely days where I eat more, where I decide to go for a multiple meal a day. And there are days, you know, during the week, like maybe I'll take two or three days where I'm going to fast. Two or three? Yeah.

So two or three full days? Two or three days where I'm going to do, for instance, intermittent fasting. I'm going to do one day where I'm having just water. Then the next day I'm going to have no water. And then the following day I'm going to have, you know, I'm going to go back to eating but very slowly getting back to eating again. And then I eat maybe a few

more meals the next day. Damn, yeah, because you're 10 pounds lighter than last time we saw you. Yeah. You dropped some weight and you just did it through that. Just eating less food. Just eating less and I just keep my activity mode up. So I'm really active, and yeah, and I drop weight. I think it's hard because of the way you look, you know?

You look so good that people are like, no, no, that's not it. You know, no, no, no, that's not it. Because they see the stuff you do on Instagram, and they're like, that can't be it. It can't just be simple. It can't just be simple. It can't just be that this guy has been doing it every day. And you know what? When I, when I wake up in the morning, I don't know about you, you know, when you wake up and you want to, do you eat first before you train or what do you do?

Because some day, for me personally, some days I eat before I train, but like today, no, I didn't feel hungry this, I didn't feel like eating today, this morning. For me, I took the habit of not eating before I'm training. So I wake up in the morning and I have like maybe I meditate a little bit. Then I get ready to go for my training. And I like to go and have my training, you know, empty stomach. And I feel very good. How long have you been doing that for?

For quite some time. Yeah. Your body gets used to it, right? Exactly. You get acclim used to it, right? Exactly. You get acclimated to it. Do you remember how long ago it was that you started doing that? Like how many years ago? I think I've been doing that for already, I don't know, more than seven, eight years.

Seven, eight years. Wow. You know, if anyone's listening about this part of it, it's interesting because even George St. Pierre has said that he does a lot of intermittent fasting now. And when he was fighting, he said that he wished he utilized it a bit just because he noticed that he was mentally sharper when it came to fighting, when he utilized a bit of fasting. I think mental clarity is very important. I don't want to feel myself and to eat like there was no other food tomorrow. I just want to feel good. So I'm not

people think, people tend to look at me and think this guy must be eating the whole house. It's not true. I think I eat less than a lot of people. Maybe everyone here in the room probably eat more than me. Even Andrew.

No, I think I make sure to have enough nutrient. And of course, when I want to eat, I go for it, right? When I want to eat, I go for it. I'm not saying that I deprive myself all the time.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I'm very relaxed about my approach with food. So I go for intermittent fasting, I go for fasting, and then I go for eating. So sometimes I'm a pescatarian, sometimes I go back to eating meat, and sometimes I'm, yeah. Yeah. Power Project Family, how's it going? Now, we talk about sleep all the time on the podcast because it's one of the biggest things that helps you with your health and fitness, your recovery, your muscle gain, your fat loss, everything.

That's why we've partnered with Eight Sleep for such a long time now because the technology behind the mattress allows you to track your heart rate, the amount of times it takes you to fall asleep, your tosses and turns, your heart rate variability. It changes its temperature through the night based off how you sleep, but not only yourself, but maybe your partner on the other side of the bed. It is an amazing mattress. Andrew, how can they learn more? Yes. Head over to eightsleep.com slash power project. That's 8 spelled out E-I-G-H-T sleep.com slash power project. Along with more information, you guys will actually save $150 off of your entire order automatically. Links to them down in the description, as well as the podcast show notes.

You're pretty intuitive with it. Do you do the same thing? Do you feel that you do the same thing with your workouts and with your mobility work? Like are you, when you're stretching and showing us some of these moves or doing some of the things on Instagram, are these things, are they like the end ranges of motion for you or are they, they feel comfortable? They feel comfortable. I'm always testing myself. I'm always, you know, seeing how far it can go. The human body is a very powerful machine. There's so much that one can do. And I think that a lot of us or a lot of people

are not using, you know, themselves or their body to the full capacity. You know, there is so much we can do. There's so much one can do. And you have to be able to, you know, to open yourself up to exploring your body. Explore, you know, your potential. You can do so much.

You know, I remember I was training with someone who told me they were so tight, right? They were so tight. It was impossible for them to do. And they say, I will never be able to do the split. And I'm telling you, anybody can do the split. Anybody can walk on the flexibility, the mobility

and achieve it. Anybody can do that. So it's all about, you know, adopting, you know, and putting hours. That's all.

And when I say hours, I'm not saying that in one day you have to do, you know, immediately, you know, hours. I think,

you know, gradually, a little bit every day and gradually you will do that. You know, there's a quick thing. I think that when I'm stretching everywhere I go, I'm stretching anywhere. I'm stretching when I'm, if I'm, yesterday you were driving me and in your car while we were driving, I was stretching, but you didn't even notice. I didn't.

Exactly. So I'm stretching anywhere. So I'll just cross my legs like this and then I'll pull one down and I'm walking, I was stretching, but you didn't even notice. I didn't. Exactly. So I'm stretching anywhere. So I'll just cross my legs like this and then I'll pull one down and I'm going to walk on my glute and my hips, you know, flexor and I'm stretching all the time. And when I'm at home

in my living room, I'm stretching. When I'm watching TV, I'm stretching. When I adopt a position, that's going to make me stretch some part of my body. So I'm always active and I'm always make sure to use any time or any hours that I have in this world to make it productive. Do something, you know. Why do you think people don't get close to the capacity? I think it's a mindset.

I think people think less of themselves. They don't think they can do it. I think it's a mindset. You know, I've been training and spent a lot of time in the gym and I see how people behave. You know, if I say, okay, let's do this. You're going to jump up to this high. Oh no, I can't do it.

No, no, no, impossible. I can't do it. You say you didn't even try, but you already say, no, you can't do it no no impossible i can't do it you say you didn't even try but you already said no you can't do it it's a mindset if you are so dead set on not being able to do anything then you won't do anything right you won't do anything because you're so negative and your mindset is like so you know like so negative about anything so you won't do it but if you are positive if you are if you want to do it, if I say let's jump and let's reach that high and you say, let's do it, I think I can do it.

And you do it and you fail. But your mindset, that's exactly what you need. You did it, you fail, you're going to try again. And I think with that mindset, you will achieve, you know, much more. For me, my mindset is about, I'm always keen to try. I always want to do, and I want to do more, and I want to try a little bit more. So when you see everything that I'm doing on my videos, on my Instagram, this is just me being me. This is me trying things. This is me, you know, trying with my shoulder and seeing how far I can go. If I stop here today, tomorrow I'll try again. Then the next day I'll try again until I reach, you know.

And same thing with the split. I did the split. Then I do it. Then I next day I try again until I reach, you know. And same thing with the split. I did the split. Then I do it. Then I wanted to go a bit further. Then I put like a brick here and a brick here. Then I go a bit further. Then I'm thinking maybe I could even go further. Then I go a bit further.

So I'm always trying. And I see that, wow, my body has, you know, I'm achieving so much. I can do so much. It's unbelievable. And then I say, okay, I'm going to do the split and I'm going to stay there and see how long I'm going to stay in that position, like with my foot

suspended somewhere. And I can stay, you know, for as long as I want. And I tell you, with meditation and with meditation, I can achieve so much. I'm doing that. I do the split and I stay there and I concentrate and I just relax myself and work on my breathing.

And I'm at peace. I'm okay. And I can stay there for really long. And last time you were doing a demo in Hong Kong and I did the split and I wanted to show, and I said that I'm going to do patchwork, right? I'm going to do patchwork

while being on a split suspended on two chairs. I never done that before but I thought I want to challenge myself. So I did that and the crowd was there and I did the split

and I put the gloves on, took all my time to put the gloves on while I was suspended on a split position. You see, okay, look at that.

Doing the split, not doing what painting, the gym. It's mindset. That's so good. So the mindset, I agree, is a huge part of it.

But what about also just like treating yourself like kind of nicely too, right? Like we, like for you, do you think a lot of these things that you're doing, right? Like we, like for you, do you think a lot of these things that you're doing, do you think they're like, they represent like 80% of your capacity

or do you feel like you're going 100 a lot? I feel like I'm not even going 80%. Okay. I feel like there's so much more that I can still do. You know, I feel like at my age now, and a lot of people are telling me, and I thought I was going to retire when I was actually, in fact, I feel like at my age now and a lot of people are telling me and I thought

I was going to retire when I was actually, in fact, I retired when I was in my 30s when I was doing kickboxing. I won, I achieved all the goals

that I set ahead of me. I said, I'm going to be world champion in kickboxing. I was. World champion in Muay Thai, I was. Then I thought,

okay, I have nothing else to prove so I don't even, I'm not, okay, I'm going to stop it. And then I felt like, you know, like after a while stopping, I felt like, why am I stopping for?

You know, I feel so good. But it's because when I was in my 20s, I thought in my 30s, 30 is like much older and you should be retired already. You know, 35, mid 30s, you should be like retired. But you see, this is something that, this is how people think. You think, oh, you know, our friend who retired when they were in their 20s,

they were broken up already, injured and so on. And then they quit, right? And you think, okay, I think in my 30s, mid-30s should be it. You know, I should stop. But it didn't have to be it. You know, I'm capable. I'm fully capable and I took care of myself and I can do much more. So I started again. And then I said to myself, when I'm reaching 40, I stopped. Then I reached 40 and I said, why do I stop?

Why do I need to stop? I'm feeling good about myself. I'm fully capable. I can run. I can jump. I can do the split. I can kick. I can stand in there. I'm, you know, I'm clear-minded. I can run, I can jump, I can do the split, I can kick, I can stand in there. I'm clear-minded. I can do so much more. Why do I need to stop? And so therefore, I feel like there's no, I think you have to do what you want to do or what trigger you, what bring you happiness. And I think it would be such a pity if you are good at something to stop it because you, you know,

thinking about your age. I think if you are capable, if you are healthy, if you are capable, if you are happy, then do what makes you happy. There's probably quite a few people, like coaches or people in your life who have mentioned,

hey, fasting is not a good idea for your performance. Or, hey, you're 46 years old. You probably shouldn't fight anymore. And even though these people might, I don't know, they might know what they're talking about. How have you been able to, I guess, ignore the things that other people are telling you to do that's in your best interest, telling you to do that's in your best interest, but you don't believe is in your best interest? I don't believe it's in my best interest because I see how I feel and I listen to my body. I feel, you know, if my body, if I've,

you know, if I'm feeling my body and I feel like I'm too tired or too injured and I can't do it, I'll listen to my body and I'll stop it. But as we're speaking right now, I'm saying you have to listen to yourself. You have to listen to your body. You need to know yourself, right? You could be in your 20s and be so broken down that you cannot compete at a high level or not even at a small level, not even at a you know a small level.

Not even at an amateur level. You could be in your 20s and be out already. And I know people that I met. I know athletes that were in their 20s and they were out already. They were done. So I think it's on the matter of age because why would it be done when he's in his 20s?

Why? Why would he be done? Because he's broken down. If you're broken down, then there's nothing I can do for you. But if you're not, then why will you stop? That's what I'm saying. If you're not, why will you stop? I say, you have to keep moving, you have to keep going, you have to do what

pleases you, you have to do what, you know, if you're capable, go for it. If you are capable, if you are not, then stop. You know, I know a lot of athletes also who stopped when they're 30s or late 30s or early 40s and who decided that they don't anymore have the

drive, the passion, you know, to do it, you know. Maybe they're still capable, but they don't have the drive and the passion. Then that's fine. That's understandable. You know, but they don't have the drive and the passion. Then that's fine. That's understandable. You know, if you don't have the drive and the passion,

then don't do it. I would advise anybody that feels like they're losing drive and passion for stuff to pull way back on it first, before you go and like, you know, pack it all in and say, I'm not going to fight anymore. I'm not going to wrestle anymore.

I'm not going to lift anymore, whatever it might be, just reduce, you know, reduce the frequency, reduce the intensity. Maybe try something that's similar, but slightly different for a little while. And you might find that passion starts to come back because you may have like just, may have just burnt out your flame. You may have. And it happens. You don't need to feel like a chump about it, you know?

You're so right, man. You're so right. Because I think anytime you feel too much about something, take a step back, you know, take a rest, you know, go for a holiday, you know, travel, you know, take a break. And you come back maybe even stronger. You'll find that flame again. And if not, then that's fine. Yeah.

Have you had layoffs before with fighting? Have you had time periods where you didn't fight for a while and then you came back? Yeah. And how did you do? I think that it was actually the best thing. I think it was the best thing. Oh, wow.

Because at first I didn't want to have it. I'm always rushing things. I'm always rushing things. Sometimes you, you know, you learn from your own mistakes. So I made this mistake where I did the fight and I broke my hands and I went for surgery and just one

month after surgery I was there fighting again. I'm always excited. I'm always keen. I want to do it. I don't want to stop or anything. But with time I learned that it wasn't the right thing you need to take a break

take some time you have your whole life ahead of you take the time to think things through heal properly and then come back stronger so I learned that it's okay to make mistakes and I think the best thing to do

is to learn from those mistakes. Has there been a time, because I know you mentioned that you retired when you were in your 30s, but has there been a time where you just felt like you wanted to actually stop fighting? Where you felt like, okay, this is the time where I'm going to stop? I think that I've always said that I'm going to retire because people, people, you know, society and people and my family and everyone else just thought that I should stop because I'm older. Because we are all older and we're all going to get older. If you're 20, you're older than when you were 19, you're older than when you were 18 and so on. So you're always going to get older. But I didn't stop because I wasn't capable anymore

or because I was, you know, broken down or injured or whatever. I wasn't. So I stopped because, you know, society, my family, everybody says, I think you should stop now. I think, you know, we're scared for you and whatever. So if you just listen to that, you won't do it. You know, I heard someone saying, you know, I don't want you to take that much risk.

You know, you're stupid enough already. You know, you don't want to go there and get beaten up and have become even more stupid. But no, what I'm saying is that

people are afraid and people are, people care about you. So, of course, they'll say that. But I'm doing what I love. And as long as I'm capable and I feel good about myself, I think I'll have, you know, the, the, the, I'll be clear-minded enough and have the, the, how do we say that? Vision maybe. The vision to stop. I'll have, I'll, I'll, I'll realize that.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm curious about this from both of you guys, because like a lot, you've mentioned so many things when you said, you know, I trust the way I feel. I pay attention to the way my body feels believe you should make. Sometimes you may seek guidance from other people that you believe might have some insight or might know better than you do. And sometimes you might go that direction and it ends up being the wrong decision. But it seems that both of you guys are very good at trusting your gut instincts and your intuition and the way you feel, despite people thinking that the way you feel about something is wrong or it doesn't it's not the truth so how do you guys like how do you guys fundamentally allow yourselves to trust your intuition i think for me i like to prove my own theories like wrong or right so i am gonna like take this idea and i'm going to like run with it.

And once I start running with it, I want to, yeah, I want to find out for myself, you know, I've been running every day for, it's been like 150 something days, 153 days in a row. And, um, I still don't know if that's right or wrong, but it's felt right for me. It's leading to a lot of progress for me. Um, over 150 some odd days ago, I was a completely different runner. Was barely a runner, I guess you could say. And now, you know, being able to run 20 miles and I feel like I can run a full marathon right now and not have any setbacks. I ran 18 miles a couple of days ago and didn't even feel sore or anything the next day. Yeah, I mean, that's impressive. It took a couple of hours to recover from it.

Like probably took six hours of eating and just kind of chilling and relaxing, but I felt like I recovered from it. So, uh, for me, it's like, well, let me see,

you know, what lifting like this will be like, or let me see what running like this will be like. Let me just kind of feel it in my own body. Let me pay attention to it. I've always liked to be in tune with my body. I like to feel things out. And so sometimes when I'm lifting, sometimes when I'm running, I'll close my eyes and kind of go inward. I pay attention a lot to how I feel. I pay attention a lot to how I'm breathing.

Like, oh man, like I'm really, I'm really breathing like crazy right now. Is this really this hard or could I, or is this mental? Could I back that up? Could I breathe more calmly? Could it be more common to situation? And the same thing with lifting. I've always kind of felt the workouts are great. The intensity is great. All these things are fun. It's fun to get fired up and everything, but truthfully, the workouts are only as good as your recovery. And that's why I was asking you earlier about like, what percentage do you feel like you're going at? And it sounds like, I think that some people might interpret it. Like if you were to say, I go about 75% on a lot of stuff, they might think that you're not putting in a hundred percent. And that's not really what I'm talking about. You're still putting in a lot of effort.

You're still putting in a lot of time, but you're not going to your maximum capacity all the time because that is not realistic to be able to recover from that. So yeah, for me being able to trust the instincts and intuition has been, uh, me just really learning, I guess what I can do and, uh, what I'm capable of and sometimes not capable of. Yeah, definitely. That's so interesting what you said, Mike. It's very interesting. I mean, I think I also learn a lot from doing things and just listening and seeing how I react to things

and try to do a little bit more or a little bit less and so forth and so on. I think that's how I've been learning about myself. You're not supposed to be that mobile and that muscular. Yeah. So I try and then I see that I can't. And I'm like, then cool, I can. So I'm trying even more, right?

So I'm seeing, I'm just trying to test myself. And again, you know, the human body is so powerful and we can do so much more. And I think the only limitation that we put is the one that we put ourselves. At any point in your career, since you're getting older every year, you just said you can't avoid it. Has the phone stopped ringing from promoters that don't want to put you in fights anymore? Has that slowed down at all? No.

No? No. Yeah. No, it hasn't. It hasn't yeah but um i don't think um it's not what i'm looking at um i think when i was younger i was i wanted to be a world champion i wanted to be successful i wanted to earn a lot of money and uh and fighting for me was like a life and death situation i needed that i really needed that and as i as I age and as I earn and I invest it,

I had all that I achieved, all that I wanted to achieve. And therefore, things change. So I'm not fighting anymore to earn that money that's going to make me pay the bills and whatever. It's not the same motivation anymore. I'm doing what I like to do. I'm doing because I'm capable.

I'm doing because, you know, I want to do it. So it's different now. So I think I'm just enjoying myself. And I think for me, I want to be as agile and beautiful as a ballerina. I say it again,

as agile and beautiful as a ballerina and as strong as a powerlifter. So that's my goal, whether I'm competing or not, this is my goal and this is my world championship that I said to myself, you know, being as agile and beautiful as a ballerina and being as strong as a powerlifter. So that's what I'm learning to do every day. And I think adopting some habits,

good habits are very helpful. I want to share with you that simple habit, like taking a shower and I'm using my left hand to scratch my back, right? And I know that my brother use a towel and then he like, he scratches back this way. And I thought, instead of doing that, I want to test my flexibility.

I want to, you know, use it and still work out. So I'm taking a towel and I use one hand and I'm scratching my back this way, you know. And I realized that by doing that, when I started I couldn't go as high, right? But I just tried. And by doing that, I managed to go as far

up as I could. And it made me walk my shoulder. And I realized that the mobility that I create, you know, by just doing that was great. And then I noticed that I was doing that with my left all the time. So my right wasn't doing the same. So I realized that the mobility

that I had was greater on my left and less great on my right. So I started doing the same now to balance it. But what I'm just saying is, look at how little things that we do could affect or impact our body.

So there's so much that we can do if you just pay attention. I can see one of the key factors for you is just being like a little kid. Exactly. Is that something like only a little kid would kind of think that way? I only jump on the curb with my left foot.

Let me try it on the right foot. Yeah, adults, we'd be like, well, I need to see this study that shows that that actually happens. And I won't switch it. Yeah. Yeah. You were talking about, you know, some of the fighters that lost some of the passion and some of the drive and some of the motivation to keep fighting. But what if somebody hasn't even gotten in the ring? You know, somebody that's like, like oh i want to be more flexible but even when i start stretching it's already too hard so i'm

not even motivated to try so if somebody doesn't even have the motivation to do x y and z how can they get into the you know get into the flow of things yeah well if you don't have the motivation then that's that's where it all starts right so you need to have a little bit of motivation. And I say, one of the things that is really helpful is having your attitude with people around you. I think if you surround yourself, if you are surrounded with people that can motivate you, or if you have people that you're looking at, I always say to people, to most,

that find someone that motivates you and get close to him. people that you're looking at. I always say, I always say to people to, to, to, to most that, you know, find someone that motivates you and get close to him. Find someone that motivates you, find someone, you know, read a lot or, or watch, you know,

on Instagram. I'm sure you're going to have like some, some people that motivate you and some, some, I don't know. And, and you just follow them and you get motivated. Like just earlier,

you showed me a video of, Jordan Burrows. Exactly. just follow them and you get motivated. Like just earlier, you showed me a video of... Jordan Burroughs. Exactly. It's motivating what you just said. I'm just watching that and I feel like training. I'm fired up. You see what I mean? So it takes like less to fire up people.

So I think it's important to be surrounded, to be in a good environment. So I think what I see when I watch his video running every day, it motivates me to go and run. So I just watch him running and talking while he's running and I'm like, dude,

I need to run. What's my excuse? So this I think, this is what you need. I need to, I need people that are around me and people that I follow. I don't follow a lot of people. So I follow people. I only follow people that matter to me. People that influence me or affect me one way or another. So when I see people on Instagram, they follow like 7,000 people or whatever just to follow.

No, I follow people that impact me or that motivate me, have an impact on me one way or another. And I think that's really important. So I don't want to waste my energy. I don't spend, you know, my whole time on Instagram or on social media. I look and I see, you know, what needs to motivate me. And then I'm out there and I'm busy doing what I need to do because, you know, you have to get things done. To kind of add on to that too, because I've been seeing some things recently where

people have been mentioning how, like, if you need to watch a video to get motivated or if you need to pay attention to something to get motivated, that's weak. And I don't necessarily think that's, that's a weak thing to do because I remember when I was younger, I would, uh, do you remember Simply shredded? Do you guys remember any of those videos? There was this gym video from this, uh, company simply shredded. And I would watch that video every time before I went to go lift in the gym and it would motivate me. A lot of videos like that with Ronnie Coleman and stuff and people, you know, somebody giving a speech and these guys lifting these crazy weights and stuff, right. And screaming and things like that. Absolutely. And I don't think there's anything wrong

with using something like that. Before I go to jujitsu, there's this young athlete I'll watch. His name is Mika Galvao. And I'll watch him because the way he moves is beautiful. And I want to kind of record that before I go and I roll, right? And it's motivating.

So I don't think there's anything wrong with paying attention to something that kind of pumps you up before you need to go do something. You might not need it all the time, but if it gets you going on a certain day, that's a good thing. There's, I think, motivation. I think there's also inspiration. And I think there's also just like knowledge.

Like the more that you know that something is reassuring and it's in your best interest, the more likely you are to probably do it. The more likely you'll probably be motivated to do it. So if you just, if you know the benefits of zone two cardio, maybe you don't really like, maybe you don't like going on the elliptical, maybe you don't, you know, but you're just like, well, it's supposed to be good for my heart, you know? And you, you listen to someone like Andrew Huberman, who you might not think that Andrew Huberman would be someone that's going to like really hype you up. But having that knowledge of getting the sunlight in the morning, uh, cold therapy, all these different things, we know that there's like massive benefit to that. So sometimes even just that can be motivating. Then

once you start to do these things, start to feel better and feeling better or making small improvements is like probably the most motivating thing you'll ever feel. Would you guys say it's almost similar to like kind of how pre-workouts have been kind of shitted on lately because it's like, well, if you need pre-workout, then are you really, you know, you're not getting enough sleep. I know we say that you're not getting enough sleep or whatever, but like, I don't know, having a little bit of caffeine might go a really long way for that workout.

I think it could be really helpful for in a lot of cases. I, I would also just say again, like, I do think that it's hard to kind of communicate about this because there's a lot of times people just aren't putting in enough effort and they don't believe in themselves, as you're pointing out. But I also believe that sometimes people are like redlining too much. They just go too hard. And then they need a pre-workout to lift. They need a pre-workout for jujitsu. And now they're like, man, I had a pre-workout then. they need a pre-workout to lift. They need a pre-workout for jujitsu. And now they're like, man, I had a pre-workout then.

I had a pre-workout then. And it's like you need a pre-workout just to like read a book at night or something. I got to brush my teeth. Hold on. It's a pre-workout. So you have to probably maybe take a step back and just ask yourself, like, am I legitimately recovering from these things? Because I shouldn't necessarily need this stuff just to have the energy to go and do this thing that I want to do. Perfect. Yeah, I think it's a creative habit.

I think people just, I think it was just very trending and people got to it and they don't want to stop. I don't think, I'm one for, I don't think people really need that. I don't think people really need that I mean maybe there's exception and some people are sick

or they have like issue they're not sleeping right and for me if you have a good night's sleep and you wake up in the morning

you should be able to have you know a very good and productive day I picture you sleeping with a big smile on your face

you're only so you're like the happiest guy in the world yeah you sleep like this just nice and nice and tucked in blankets right to his neck just wake up in the morning i don't need i don't take a sleeping tablet i never did i never have um i uh i i'm all about you know being natural with what you do and just getting used, letting your body,

with all the training that I had during the day or all the hours that I put, the miles that I put, I sleep nicely. I think it's very important. If you're active, you should be able to... Jumping right out of bed. There you go. That was probably kind of hard to do off the bed no and then

so when I finish I'm still sleepy and the affirmation are I'm feeling like a million dollar baby even though I'm not feeling too half you know I like to do this affirmation I like to wake up and and say to myself it's all good

look you you know you you woke up this morning that mean I like to do this affirmation. I like to wake up and say to myself, it's all good. Look, you woke up this morning. That means everything is good. You seem healthy. So you're going to have a great day. It's going to be strong. Come on, let's go. Let's get out there and let's conquer it. So I like that.

How do you think Bones Jones is going to do? He's got a fight coming up and he's had a really long layoff. I don't even know if he's fought as a heavyweight yet. He's got a really brutal opponent. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I know his opponent. I was training with him. Cedric Gagne is my friend and

we've been training together. What a monster that guy is. Yeah, but both of them are really talented athletes and with a very similar style. And I think the only thing John has ahead of Gane is the experience. John has been there for that long. So the experience must come for something. But otherwise, Gane, he's really keen.

He's really talented and he moves just as good as John. Yeah. That should be interesting. It's going to be a good match, yeah. It's going to be a good match. Interesting fight. What fighters really inspire and motivate you over the years?

I think that I look around a lot. I watch a lot of movies, and I think I got a lot of my inspiration from the like of Jean-Claude Van Damme Bruce Lee of course I love Bloodsport that's such a funny movie to watch now it's so cheesy

but it's so good no way that thing's great that's Jean-Claude Van Damme and then what was that that big dude like the main boss guy I think his name is I think his name actually

is Chung Lee oh wow yeah I'll look it up I'll put his picture up here and you guys will know oh like the bodybuilder guy yeah I think it

I think it's Bolo Young I think it's that guy's name maybe I was way off but I might be way off that's not the movie where he's like in the the restaurant dancing is that the I think it is oh wait maybe that might be that off. That's not the movie where he's like in the restaurant dancing. Is that the one?

Yeah, I think it is. That's Kickboxer. Sorry. I think that's Kickboxer. Kickboxer's good too. Oh my gosh. I'll go on. Let me find it.

Blood Spore is like when the guy has like the red bandana from the, from. Blood Spore is when they're doing the. Van Damme's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. From Van Damme's buddy. Knock Sue Cow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. From Van Damme's buddy. Knocks a cow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You remember.

I love that movie. I've seen it at least 10 million times. So you were watching these movies a long time ago and getting kind of motivated to do some martial arts back then? Yeah, yeah. You know, as a kid, we watched the movie. And before even the movie finished, I get out of there. I go in the yard and I start practicing and I'm doing like

kick and push up and it was crazy, but it was really fun, you know. I remember watching Jean-Claude Van Damme movie when he did the split and I went outside and just did my split and stayed there for like I think I was there for hours.

And it's crazy, but I think this thing really forged me, you know. It really forged me. I was there for hours. And it's crazy, but I think this thing really forged me, you know, it really forged me. I was, I was, um, so,

so focused and so excited, excited about, uh, you know, being a martial artist and that this was the thing for me. Did you get into the, some of the movie stuff, like the Chinese stars and the nunchuck things and stuff like that?

I remember like looking at that, like the back of the magazines whenunchuck things and stuff like that i remember like looking at that like the back of the magazines when i was a kid i was always i never like messed with them because i was always like these seem super dangerous my parents wouldn't let me have them and stuff like that but i was like really cool magazines yeah the back of like some of the martial art magazines and even i think maybe even some of the bodybuilding magazines you'd see like little um like ads for them or something. I think you could like mail in like money or something somehow and get them. I don't know how the hell you get them.

Just didn't have like, no internet type stuff back then. So, yeah. So my parents knew how to get to me and they just say, uh, okay, so this guy love martial arts.

So what are we going to do is as long as you bring good grades from school, uh, if you perform well, you're going to continue to finance your training and you can train. And, you know, that was the deal. That was the deal. Yeah. Power Project family, your normal shoes are making you weak.

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vivo barefoot.com slash power project links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. How about your, um, that last fight that we were talking about in the gym. Did you ever, did you ever feel like that level of discomfort before a fight? Cause you mentioned you felt a little bit off when it started.

Um, no, I always do. You always, I always do actually. Okay. before a fight? Because you mentioned you felt a little bit off when it started. No, I always do. You always do? Yeah, I always do, actually. I'm always a little bit off when it starts back. A little bit bigger. And you're a big guy. I'm a big guy. Right there, he could have shook his hand and he could have

said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let's forget about it. Yeah, yeah. I don't really like fighting that much. Dude. You find sometimes the bigger guys are He said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let's forget about it. Yeah, yeah. I'm freaking out. I don't really like fighting that much. And what? Dude. Yeah. Do you find sometimes the bigger guys are kind of like literally like a bigger target in a way? In a way.

But so it can also be very dangerous because they're quite big and strong, right? So if they catch you, it could also be the end of it. So you have these two. So, you know, you have to be, you have to know what you want to do. So this, the difference between this fight and me fighting with Bob Sapp, who was also a giant, you know, like I knew that with one blow he would have, he would finish me. Trying to strategically maybe take his legs away a little bit, throw some kicks at the legs. Yeah, you go low, you go middle, you go high. I wanted to go for the head kick. I thought, you know,

when I'm fighting, I always do this. When I'm fighting, I make a bet with myself. I say I want to kick him in the head as high as he, as tall as he is. I want to get him in the head. How flexible and how high I can kick. It's a bet that I make with myself.

And I go for it. But with him, I didn't manage. didn't manage to to place it yeah I don't know shit about fighting anybody let alone a fucking monster like that but I'd imagine most people would want to chop him down and you know leg kick and kind of do things like that but you're like no I'm gonna go for the tallest part of him and try to you know do some damage that way it's challenge so was it kind of like the opposite of what people would traditionally do exactly you're looking for a challenge right you're looking for a challenge you don't want to go for the easy but you know doing the the leg kick is not always um you know you have to i try the low kick i see that you know he's he's taking them you know and i'm thinking with a head kick i would love a knockout with a head kick

yeah i love that yeah oh yeah I love that. I love that. So I try that. And you ended up winning this fight via? Yeah. I mean, he gave up at the end, but I got the fight. Okay. Yeah, I would imagine sometimes some of these guys, especially someone that's that tall,

maybe he's not used to somebody having the ability to even kick him in the head. So maybe he hasn't had to defend it a lot. Yeah. If you can see this one fight there, if you can pull up, I don't know, on Instagram or something, where I posted not long ago about Bob Sapp. I think it was the first round with Bob Sapp. The danger that I felt, like you spoke earlier about how I feel in the moment,

especially in the beginning I was off I think I'm I'm I can be off from time to time especially when the opponent is like like there's such a difference in in size you know you you don't really know like how to start you're not in the fight yet you know you need to figure it out so you're a little bit off and you need a little bit of time to get into it so yeah Do you generally feel that like smaller guys tend to have better technique? The reason why I ask is in jujitsu, that's like a theme. Like the middleweights or the smaller guys generally have much better technique than the ultra heavyweights.

Do you feel that that's the same with MMA and fighting? No, I don't think it's a rule. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think it's a rule. Yeah. I don't think it's a rule. I think that it could depend. It depends on the person. It depends on the person. So I could be bigger than a smaller opponent and he would think that maybe I have less

technique because I'm bigger than him. I don't think so. So I think it depends. I don't think you can categorize it and say that any small opponent should have a better technique. Maybe not. You mentioned in the gym that you like to be pretty aggressive in your fights.

Has that been something that has just worked well for you? You put on a lot of pressure early? Yeah, it worked a lot for me, especially early on in my career. Naturally, I was really intense, an intense, really intense fighter. So I always start really fast and I go like really strong earlier. And I always end up the fight really early. I had like some of the fastest knockouts in most of my fights early on in my career.

And I think when I went to Thailand and I was fighting for the world championship, I finished the fight also in the first round for the Muay Thai world championship. I finished the fight in the first round. And I think the promoter weren't happy about it because most of my fights, you used to finish too early. And yeah, they weren't happy about it.

You want to be in the ring for longer huh? Yeah I mean I thought that they would rate me you know according to how quick I finish my opponent but I learned in Thailand that it was completely different. They need the fight to last. They need the advertising in between. They need the entertainment and so on. This kick right here just clipped the guy huh yes you could barely could barely really see i mean he definitely felt it that's for sure you barely even see it uh hitting but when it when they're hit with precision probably makes a big difference have you noticed over the years for yourself

maybe there's a difference between like if you try to hit really hard, is that like less effective than you just having good technique and good flow? I think you have to focus on speed rather than power. I think rather than strength and power, you have to focus on speed. So you just relax yourself and go with speed. Don't think strength. Don't think that you want to hit hard or you want to, I think it's the same thing in jiu-jitsu, right?

You have to be, you know, really calm and really light in your movement, right? You don't want to dancing up and to hold like too strong and you burn yourself for no reason.

And it's not really, it's not really that effective. What happens when you do deliver a shot where you're pretty confident that you landed it pretty clean and pretty hard

and then the guy just keeps coming forward. Are you like, holy shit? Yes. There's a fight like, I mean, you have to be careful because sometimes you deliver. And if you hit too hard, you get tired as well, right? So you have to be careful. And you don't end the fight, you end up, you know, gassing yourself out. And I think in this fight, the commentator was saying that Alangalani has to be careful

because he started going so powerfully and so strong that he's going to maybe gas out. He's going to end up the fight. But in this fight, I was just in the zone. I was on a mission. I just wanted to finish it. I just didn't care. It was my way or the other way. You kind of almost black out in these moments and just kind of like you're on like a free flowing or is there like a lot of thought going on?

In the beginning, there was a lot of thought. And I realized that I got him. I gave him a liver kick that got him and then he flinched. And I knew that I have him. I just wanted to finish it. I knew I could. And when you have somebody compromise like that, you got to put that pressure on.

Yeah. See where you're at. There's a fight that I did with, I think, a Mongolian guy. I think, yeah,

I think it was from Mongolia. And, and yes, and that's the, that's the fight where I gave him headshot after headshot and the guy

just kept coming. The guy just kept coming. Like a zombie. Yeah, like a zombie. And that's when I broke my hands even. Do you notice that with some of those fighters? Because I've watched a bit of like some fighters from like Mongolia or from Thailand. And it seems that they can take hits better than other fighters.

Before the fight, they told me that that guy in Mongolia he used to when he ran with his horse when the horse is tired he get out he get up he get down and he carry the horse and come back with the horse

the fuck some mythology he carry he carry his horse back home so just just think about you know

people being tough you know in this region people are tough you know they have like the condition of the living condition are really rough. So,

so yeah. Is this the guy or? Yeah, that's the guy. I think you have a highlight where they showed fast because this is quite slow. I think that's the highlight there. You know, your,

your business does well. And as a fighter, you've made like, you've done really well for yourself. Do you feel that any of that has maybe has it tampered your hunger as a fighter because you know when like you mentioned some of those fighters they come from places where they don't have as much money um not great living conditions they're hungry yeah do you feel that any of your hunger has dissipated at all when it comes to fighting or no? If I'm honest, yes, it has.

And I think it's just normal. If you have someone who's living in this condition and they need the money for their family or for themselves because, you know, it's a matter of, it's like if they don't have it, they won't be able to eat. It's different for me now. So whether I win the fight or not, I'm fine. You know, I have a home,

I have a, you know, a situation, I'm okay. So I'm not desperate anymore. I'm not that, you know, like hungry anymore.

I'm still an athlete. I'm really capable, but, but that, that is missing, you know, that, that being that comfortable,

just, you know, balance it a little bit differently. Yeah, it's happened to almost every great fighter that there ever was. It happened to everyone, exactly. They get kind of like domesticated, you know, and then you have better means and better living conditions. And I think it happened to Ali and Tyson

and it's part of the Rocky story. Exactly, it's just the way it is. And I think things happened to Ali and Tyson and it's part of the Rocky story. Exactly. It's just the way it is. And I think things just become different. You don't have the same hunger anymore. And sometimes, you know, if you don't have a good mindset, you give up easily. You give up easily because you're in there and you think, why do I have to push? You know, we saw Glover Teixeira fighting

and he went, he didn't have to, he could have stopped anytime, but he didn't stop and he went, he carried on, you know, until the end.

Now that's someone with a mindset. That's someone, and he's probably well off, right? So he's been fighting for quite a while. He earned a lot of money and he doesn't need that.

He didn't need that to take that much punishment, but he stood there and he took it and he just kept coming until the end. I think it's a mindset, like we said earlier. It's a mindset and some people just have that different attitude. What's the ideal situation for you to walk away from fighting? Like how would you, if you could write it, how would it end for you? I would like, I would, you know, I would love to give it my all.

You know, I always say this, when I'm fighting, if I get, if I lose, or if I get beaten up, I want to lose or get beaten up against someone who's, like, who gave me, that I gave my all

and he gave me, like, a good fight. And I respect that, you know, and the fight ends and I lose and I get out there and I'm like, dude, thank you. I respect that. You know, you know,

we, I appreciate that for me. I appreciate that. I don't want to get injured and finish the fight because I got injured. That's something that no one wants, right? I don't want to get injured. I want to,

to, to get out there and finish the fight. And, and if I lose, you know, I respect that my opponent gave me, you know, a tougher time and he was the better person that night. You know, I respect that more.

That's something that I like. I fought against someone from, a Moroccan guy, I think. And that's straight from, I don't remember his name, the Moroccan guy, but he won the fight. And that was after my operation. You know, I had one month after the operation, I went to fight and I couldn't use my hands properly, but with no excuse, he gave me the hardest of time.

And I just couldn't. But when we finished the fight and he won the fight, I was like, you know, fair enough. Yeah. Yeah, I never forgot that. It was, you know, with all due respect, you know, I appreciate when, you know, someone gives you the toughest of time and you give it your best and you know that you trade with him

and he was the better person. There's no shame in that. Is there anybody that you have to kind of settle the score with? Do you need like a rematch against anybody in particular to end or do you have a certain opponent in mind? You know, there's a guy from Brazil

who won a fight against me some years ago and he always called me out. When you say that, I quickly have in mind, when I was fighting him, I think I knew nothing about Jiu Jitsu.

And I knew that I was going to, I was just going to come and just knock him out. And I think when I started the fight, I came forward and I gave him the first lever kick and he flinched and I thought, oh, I got him. I'm just going to go and end it. When I stepped forward to end it, he just dropped and he grabbed my leg. And he tookinched. And I thought, oh, I got him. I'm just going to go and end it. When I stepped forward to end it, he just dropped and he grabbed my leg.

And he took me down. And I just wrestled with him to get back up. And I think that what I did was like a bench press. I bench press him. And then I got up. And then I came again because I was so, I just wanted to finish it. And I came again and he just dropped and he took me down again. And I was so annoyed.

And I bench, I think I bench press him maybe two or three times in that round. I didn't know how to get an opponent out of or how to get, you know, under an opponent, you know, in Jiu Jitsu. So I used all my strength and I bench press him. And everyone, like the commentator was like, this is crazy. He just bench pressed the guy and then he got up, you know. And I did that maybe two or three times and I got so

tired that I think towards the fourth minute, I could not move anymore. I was completely my arms, I was tetanized completely. Yes, this fight. I was just coming to finish. Look at this. Yeah, he's kind of sick too.

And the guy's black belt in Jiu Jitsu. And I knew nothing about Jiu Jitsu. I just wanted to finish the fight. I got so tired during this fight. Look how I'm going to get up. For you, who is like brown belt or what is it you probably see it and you I mean now I know what I could have done better

but that was nice though still got up I mean if you use a black belt to still be able to stand up like that I mean shit demoralizing you took me down again. You see that?

Mm-hmm. Mentally, that's got to make you tired, too, on top of the physical. So this is a guy that you would like to maybe fight one with. Now, for instance, I know that if I grab his arm like that, I could go for, how do you call it? Kimura. Yeah, exactly. But then I had no idea. You're like, what do I do with this arm that's in front of me? I'm just pushing him and just trying to get out.

Look at that. Jeez. Yeah, that's energy. So this would be a guy that you would like to maybe... No, not really. Because to be honest, every time he called me he sent me a message all the time

to be honest I know deep inside that he cannot beat me I know I know that he got it because he has

a new Jiu Jitsu and I didn't and I didn't know what I was doing there in Jiu Jitsu other than that I don't see how he can beat me

so you know I sleep in peace I don't need I have nothing to say. If we meet again, okay, but otherwise he can't.

And I have nothing to prove. I'm not thinking that if I don't go and beat him or reverse the situation, I'll be less of a man. No. Is there end in sight with fighting? I think I'll just enjoy myself and, and just do as I feel,

you know, how I feel. So there's no, I don't put any, uh, uh, any stop or, or any deadline.

I just, you know, just enjoy myself and live the best life that I can and that I could. Yeah. Yeah. You've mentioned, uh, we were having a conversation once about in Hong Kong,

how you have clients that literally will come to your gym and they want you to fight with them. Why? Like, can you kind of explain some of that? Because like, that's wild to me. I think, and I'll say that without definition, people will literally pay me to get a beating. Okay. People literally pay me to get a beating. Okay.

People literally pay me to get a beating. But I think there's two things to it. One is some sort of therapy, right? So for them, yeah, for them it's some sort of therapy. I mean, you can go to, you go to a therapist, you know, and the therapist could transform your session differently. The therapist could say, let's go and play tennis. And then this is how you're going to deal with your whatever.

And instead of saying that, I say, I will be your therapist. I'll beat you up. And this is how I'm going to heal you. I'm going to take care of you. I mean, there's a different way of doing therapy. You can go to a therapist and you guys play, I don't know, whatever to help you. Or you could go painting to help you. And I say,

for me, and I think it's been working, I think I'm a pretty good therapist. You know, I'll take your money, I'll beat you up and that will make you feel better. And ultimately, a lot of people came

and I think I gave them a very good therapy because, you know, I was, I've been very successful at that. Yeah. Yeah. Do they learn how to defend themselves a little bit too because, you know, I was, I've been very successful at that. Yeah. Yeah. Do they learn how to defend themselves a little bit too?

Yeah, they learn how to defend themselves, but never good, never enough. I mean, I, you know, against me, but they do defend themselves. And, and I think, I think martial art or doing boxing or kickboxing or doing jiu-jitsu or whatever, I think it's a good therapy for a lot of people. I think, you know, people go out, you know, people from all sorts of work, you know, executive, bankers, and all these people, people who are in a very stressful job, you know, they want to do CrossFit,

they want to do a bootcamp, you know. They come to me to design, you know, one of these, like, all kind of torture things, you know, they come to me to design one of these like all kind of torture things, you know, to put them through. And I think this is like for them getting therapy. Yeah. Yeah. All these things that I came up with, like picking

stone and making them pick rock for like, for I don't know, for half an hour and whatever, just torturing them, you know, all the, you know, all kind of way that are cool. I think they love it. And this is some kind of therapy. I think people, people come and they get hurt.

Not in that sense, but they get into this hardcore training and they feel good after because they put themselves into some sort of torture or some sort of difficult situation because they don't have that. A lot of these people, they didn't, they never dealt with, uh, physical, uh, extreme situation or,

or they never, or they're too comfortable in their life. You know, you know, you have a kid who grew up in a well off and he always had a driver, a helper. He never had a problem. He never had a debt.

He, he didn't have a credit card unpaid because everything was paid for him. And he get to where he is and he's like now stressing and he had like this high level job having like hundreds of people you know, under him and he losing like millions of money because

you know, of whatever investment or whatever. Now this person who doesn't who never been into like a life you know, a difficult situation, you know, he never had a life and death situation or he never missed a meal in his life. He's missing something. So this person will probably sign up for bungee jumping, you know, jumping off a plane, you know, all this hardcore thing because he's looking for that. He's looking for that.

Danger or an edge. That danger or edge, exactly. Or he's going to come to me and say, let's do sparring. Why do you expect Payne to do sparring with me? Why do you expect? You think you're going to beat me? Of course not. I wipe the floor with ice and then I, and yeah,

and I think he feels good after. Yeah. And I don't feel bad either. What you're saying sounds outlandish, but it makes tons of sense actually, I think. It's pain management, pain mitigation. When people have stress and depression and things like that,

they're trying to figure out stress mitigators, ways of dealing with pain. Some people even say that pain is like the only thing that we can tell that's real. And it's a hard thing to interpret any other way. If someone's to, you know, stick a pin in your hand, it's like it's going to hurt. And I think that people are looking for ways to deal with these stressors in their life. If somebody was to come to you and say that they have all these situations going on in their life and they want to try to figure out ways to get through them. Well, a way to get through them is to be better conditioned for these things. So just as we talk about on this show with our feet, doing things barefoot, getting your body more accustomed to pain, walking on rocks or walking on gravel or walking on hard surfaces can get your feet.

It can help get your feet out of pain, which is hard for people to have register in their brain because they're like, no, I need more cushion underneath my foot. But just to give another example, if somebody was just had a lot of psychological stress, if they go into the gym and they do a couple sets of leg extension with very little rest in between, all they can focus on is the legs. Just the same way as we talk about cold therapy. It's like, boom, you're forced into that moment. You don't have time to think about your past and you don't have time to think about tomorrow. You have to think about right now. I think that's how they feel when they do, when they into the, that situation into the zone.

I just hit you in the stomach. They're like, okay, let's go, you know, let's do sparring. I'm like, no, but you need to,

no, no, no, no, no. I just want to do sparring. I'm just paying for that. I just want to do sparring.

And then, and yeah, and, and I have, I have this person who, who doesn't want to stop and then I feel like I'm going to hurt you

you know I kick you and you're limping you can't get up again but you want to kick you want to carry on so I have to put an end

I have to give you you know the remedy and I have to yeah and I do it and then you can go back to your friends and say

hey I sparred with a longer line exactly right yeah and that's true you know you have a lot of people you can go back to your friends and say, Hey, I sparred with a longer line. Exactly. Right. Yeah. And that's true. You know,

you have a lot of people and I see that, you know, you have one want to do it because, uh, you know, it's some sort of therapy and the other one want to do it because they just want to be, you know, around me.

They want to, to say that, you know, I was training with Alan Galani or I was fighting with Alan Galani. So, but whatever the case, whatever help you or whatever suits you, you know, I was training with Alan Galani or I was fighting with Alan Galani. So, but whatever the case, whatever help you or whatever suits you, you know, whatever. Andrew, want to take us out of here, buddy? Sure thing.

Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode. Please drop those comments down below. Let us know what you guys think about today's conversation. For everything podcast related, head over to powerproject.live and make sure you're following the podcast at MB Power Project on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. My Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter is at IamAndrewZ. And make sure you guys like today's episode and subscribe if you guys are not subscribed already. Nseema, where are you at? Discord's down below.

At NseemaNyang on Instagram and YouTube. At NseemaYangYang on TikTok and Twitter. By the way, when's your next fight? Coming in May, I think. May. Okay. Where can people find you? Well, on Instagram, they'll see, you know, I'll be sharing everything, you know, regarding

that. Awesome. Adam Galani. And let's not forget the challenge where we're shooting that after. Huh? I have a video that I want to do, but we do it after. Oh, okay. Cool.

More stuff to come. I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye. Bye.