Nuanced. - 111. Aiemann Zahabi: Canadian UFC Fighter on Fitness & Mental Health

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

Join host Aaron Pete in an exhilarating conversation with Aiemann Zahabi, the Canadian UFC fighter, as they delve into his highly anticipated upcoming fight in Vancouver, BC for the UFC 289 PPV card. Aiemann reveals valuable insights on what viewers can glean from MMA fighters and the profound lessons they can teach us. Discover Aiemann's perspective on the crucial role of physical, mental, and spiritual health in leading a meaningful life and uncover how Aiemann copes with nerves and manages the pressure leading up to such a high-stakes event.Aiemann Zahabi is a bantamweight division of the UFC and the younger brother of renowned Tristar Gym head trainer Firas Zahabi.Chapters:0:00 Introduction1:24 How MMA Impacts Confidence9:29 Weight Classes & Size14:27 Physical Fitness19:24 Mental Health & Wellness30:03 Spiritual Wellbeing34:17 UFC 289 in Vancouver Canada44:15 Tim's TakeSend us a textThe "What's Going On?" PodcastThink casual, relatable discussions like you'd overhear in a barbershop....Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Welcome back to another episode of The Bigger Than Me podcast. Here is your host, Aaron P. What can we learn from UFC fighters? They put so much on the line, their physical health, their well-being, all to test themselves against the best of the best. And I find that to be absolutely inspirational. My guests and I dive into what a UFC fighter needs to do in terms of their mental health, physical health, and spiritual health to reach the pinnacle, to test themselves against the best.

and I believe there's a lot we can learn from them. So I have a great pleasure in announcing my guest today, Amon Zahabi. Amon Zahabi, I am so excited to be sitting down with you today. I'm so excited for UFC, Vancouver. Would you mind introducing yourself for people who may not be acquainted? Yeah, hi, everyone. I'm Eman Zahabi.

I'm a UFC fighter. I'm currently going to be fighting on the UFC 289 car next week in Vancouver for June 10th. And I have a long history in training in MMMA. and cornering other fighters in the past who fought in the UFC and other promotions around the world. I'm really excited to dive into, I think you're a very thoughtful individual. When you interviewed with Spencer Kite,

you talked about how your dad put you into MMA at an early age. It maybe wasn't at the top of your mind at the time, but he did it to protect you from bullies and to help bring you and help give you kind of that sense of confidence. I'm just curious, can we dive into how MMA impacted your mindset in terms of your confidence, when it came to bullies, how did you start to think about things and how did you start to, like, shape yourself? Well, yeah, well, it obviously increased my confidence because when you know that you can

handle someone who is bigger than you, you get to walk around with a lot more confidence in yourself because me, like I was saying in that other interview, when I arrived to high school, I was very short. I was short. I think it was like five foot and it was very light. It would be 120 pounds. It wasn't very big guy. so when now when you're going to high school it's a larger pool of people right and my dad was

kind of worried that maybe I'd get picked around or stuffed in lockers I don't know what he had in his head you know so he decided to like make sure that I started training and I always horsed around with my brothers you know like WWF style stuff in the basement or whatever that I didn't really know how to fight or anything like that so I started training with Farras at TriStar and then ever since then like it's always been um it's always given me a good self-esteem team right so i'm never shy to walk in a room uh i'm not like when i walk into a party i say hi to everybody i look everyone in the eyes they say how did everyone not to intimidate them but to show that you know i'm here you know i say guys i don't like walk into a party it's hide in a corner

or anything like that you know so those are the kind of benefits it also gave me and when you when you're trained to be able to defend yourself when bullies step to you and they know that you could stand your ground they don't bully you for long you know because the bullies they're not really tough guys you know it's not a tough thing to do to pick on someone weaker They're just looking for that easy guy to push around. Right. So that's something I learned. And then one other thing I learned is that if you bring a bully also to the gym, it humbles them.

Right? Because there's always somebody bigger, you know, or they know they're not actually good at fighting. And then they realize, you know, maybe we shouldn't pick on the little guy, right? Because to be good at martial arts, everyone starts terrible. And nobody's just good, right? Everyone starts at the basics at the beginning. And they have to evolve to a better fighter, right? So there's nobody just naturally good at fighting.

So I feel like it's good for people who don't have self-confidence and for bullies to kind of like teach them some humility also. I really like that because one of the things you've mentioned was this idea of feeling comfortable in your own body. And when you're growing up, when you're kind of going through your teen years, there can feel this disconnect between you and your body and what you're able to do and what you're capable of doing. And I feel like mixed martial arts is unique in that you get familiar with your arms,

your legs and like how they all function where in soccer, Maybe you're more focused on your legs. In basketball, maybe you're more focused on certain things. Did you notice a connection, a deeper connection with your body? Yeah, of course. A huge connection to the body, right? Because it takes, let's see if you're doing boxing, kickboxing, or jih Tjitsu all individually. Like, you can see, like, the body shapes really looks, like, you could tell a guy who's a grappler.

It doesn't really lift too much weights. You know, maybe it does a little bit more yoga, is a little bit more flexible. And a boxer is really nice upper body. The Thai guys are slim and lean and muscular, you know. So they have a different type of body. So MMA is nice because you get to cross-strain a lot, which is beautiful. And cross-training is the best way to stay fit, right? Because you're always changing.

Your body doesn't have a chance to adapt. So, you know, it's really good in that sense. And also, martial arts is really good for the mind. You know, it's really great. If you come, like, from a real school that has, like, some traditions in it, it's nice because they give you also of a discipline, like a certain amount of discipline. Whereas if you go to, like, just a boxing school where they don't have any type martial arts connection, really, you don't really see that.

Like, you know, if you watch videos of, like, people who go to the Mayweather gym, the trash talk that goes on, the live betting in the gym, all this brouhaha science, there's nothing with, like, traditional martial arts, traditional values, you know? But if you go to a jitsu school and MMA schools, there's still that traditional value coming up with a certain good character. You know, we try to train the kids to have good character, whether the boys or girls, we raise them to be good people also. I love that.

Can you talk about some of those lessons because it seems like they're harder to access maybe now. There's less mentorship among young people to kind of give them these basic values of honor, respect, consideration, good manners. That seems like something it's harder to kind of get people that full understanding of how to be a good, well-rounded individual. I think that has a lot to do with people getting away from like a lot of things that are traditional, you know? Like everyone's always looking for the new thing and now most people are. they plunk their kids into stuff to do with phones or video games and like I don't know what the traditional

values of video games are video game culture like video game culture now it's huge multi-billion dollar industry right like if you look at the games that they have going on in Korea and all these different countries in Asia where they have these huge tournaments for millions of dollars it's interesting but like

what's going on on the online chat rooms there right it's like kind of a toxic place you know a little bit of a toxic place whereas I feel like before that era more kids were getting put into, like, you know, like soccer, baseball, martial arts. Karate was huge. Like, in the 80s, 90s, karate was a big thing. Karate kid came out, you know, like, we had a generation of kids going through that.

And I feel like, you know, karate kind of got a bad rap because I ended up getting watered down a lot. And there was a lot of, like, fake black belts or black belts who don't actually think you to be a good fighter, you know, they do a lot of the, let's say, the catas and whatever. And then there's no sparring and there's no none of this and blah, blah. So it kind of like lost its value in a way. And I feel like Jitsu may be going down that route as it gets more popular. So we have to be very careful to not water down our Jiu-Jitsu or our MMA gyms. And we have to keep that old traditional discipline, respect, and values.

Can you describe the person you were pre-MMA? Like, if you were to look at that person as another individual separate from yourself, how would you describe that person before getting into MMA? I mean, I was just a kid. So I don't know, like before 12, 13, I don't know. I was just a happy-go-lucky kid. I played a lot of sports. I played soccer.

I played American football. I was always on the street with my friends, biking, having fun, playing street hockey, ball hockey, you know, playing basketball. I was just all about sports. Like, I grew up, sports was my life. Like, everything, all I wanted to do was play sports, play sports, play sports. That was kind of who I was. So, like, making that transition was very easy for me because I was already very competitive

in that sense. Were you worried about bullying the way your father was? Or did you know, like, you would have been able to have. handle yourself. I wasn't really worried because like my brothers are older than me and I went to the same school as they went to. And so like everybody, you had three older brothers. So nobody ever really messed with me because they were worried in a case I called my brothers. So I said, nobody wanted to mess with me since I had older brothers or whatever also. And also have like a ton of cousins. And a lot of them live in the area, right? So it's like I wasn't really

bothered in that sense really very much. I had to meet only a couple of bullies in my life and me and my friends were hired with it at school. Is there a lesson you felt like you took away from mixed martial arts in the early days that sort of changed your perspective or helped shape you?

Well, I always looked out for the little guy once I started training. Like in my high school it was different when I was coming up. There was a certain point where we would have let bullies bully you know. And I was training and my friends were athletic and I would teach them some stuff and if so not

and whenever we knew a kid was bullied we'd always go talk to the guy like what's your point what's going on like I don't understand why you're bothering this guy you know why is this happening what's going on here you know so that's the kind of thing that like I didn't turn around and shove people in lockers ever like I was a jock but they let other jocks do that stupid stuff like if I was on my soccer team at high school and any of the guys want to do something stupid to that we just don't do it what are you doing you know that kind of thing so that's kind of like how I grew up, that's why I took from martial arts and I brought it into school for me and to my friends, you know, and I never let anybody rip anyone off in front of me or anything

like that. You know, we've always tried to keep things amicable. Interesting. You talked about how you were small physically that you didn't weigh much. I'm just curious. That seems like it puts more weight on the technique and we see this in the UFC where people, the smaller individuals are often way better with their technique. How did that sort of shape your understanding? well for us our school of thought on our team is you can get your blue belt which is the first belt you would get so you go white and blue right you can get your blue belt until you can beat a guy who's bigger stronger and untrained right right so that's like level one so you have to work hard because weight makes a difference size makes a difference but there is a certain amount of skill that can overcome a certain amount of size difference right and then if the guy has some skill, then you need even more. And then that thing is always changing. So when you walk around

in real life, let's say, and you get into an argument with someone on the street, you have to think, you have to guess, okay, this guy's this size, how good can he be at fighting? And you're going to judge this situation properly. Do you have a gun? Does he have a knife? Does he have all these things, right? So when growing up or living life all the

time, I'm always sizing people up, but I'm also trying to figure out, man, does he look like he is he a fighter? Does he have cauliflower? our ears. How is this posture? What's his muscular life? Like, how strong is this guy? So it's like, you have to really always be careful of what you say and how you act around everybody, you know? And I feel like now these days, with people spending less time in gyms, like either karate, kickboxing, boxing, like, I'm sure there's less people going through those stiff stuff now because when you see online, how much trash people talk.

Yeah, and imagine, imagine that guy was trained and he decided, you know what, the night I'm stepping up to you and we're fighting right now. Like how much trouble people will be into because there is violence. The violence is a real world thing. You know, like, I remember my kids are at daycare. They're young. And a couple of years ago, one of the other teachers at the daycare was telling me that her eight-year-old daughter and she wants to put her in lessons of something for self-defense.

I said, why? What's happening? She's like, she's eight years old. And we're at the point where we're so fed up with the bullying. Now it's at the point where they're shoving her on the ground. You know, every couple of days, one of the girls, they shove her to the ground. It's getting physical and we talk to the teachers but they won't tell us which kid it is

and they won't tell us who the parents are and there's nothing that's stopping it and now we're at the point where you know what, let's train her to at least fight back even them and we're talking about girls here right?

It's a natural thing that kids you know that there's going to be bullies and there's always like a fight for like I don't know position of hierarchy in school and who's cool and who's not so I feel like whether it's boys or girls they need to be trained to be able to handle a situation And that's something that's priceless.

It's something you should give you a child that is priceless. There's almost this fear around that with some parents, this idea that you're going to teach them how to fight, how to be aggressive. And there's almost this mindset for people who don't know that you're going to be more aggressive because now you know how, now you know what to do.

And I think it's often the reverse. I'm just curious about the type of peace that you can find after a tough workout. There's almost this sense of like after a long workout for me that like nothing's going to bother me if I have to deal with this or that, that it's not going to be as annoying because I've kind of led out that excess energy, that excess stress. Well, yeah, of course, plus you're getting a rush of endorphins after a workout, right?

You know, there's that old saying that says, you know, you never regret doing the workout. You only regret not going to do the workout, right? It's always a positive to go and do your training. Like, let's say for me, you know, I do a lot of reading. And if you want to actually be happy in life, okay, you have to be fulfilled. And you can never be fulfilled if you don't master your body physically, you know, master your spirit and you master your mind. Can you get some kind of education, stuff something? You know, it can all be different.

Some guys are our electricians. Some guys are doctors. Some guys are a lawyer. Some guys are plumbers. It doesn't matter what you do. But you have to educate yourself. And you have to try to reach the highest education of your capacity in what you like, you know. And then you have to have some sort of beliefs that hold you.

to a higher standard, and you also have to be in shape. You can't just be overweight your whole life, right? So many diseases are preventable if you just took care of yourself. And if you have a child, like me, my father, I have two kids. You have a child, wouldn't you want them to have all three, all three aspects of life, you know? So how can I push on them to be healthy, physically, mentally, and spiritually, and I'm not. You know, what do I want to give them? I don't want them to chase happiness, them to chase fulfillment, right?

So they have to do things in life that are hard, that take hard work, that take effort. and they're going to have to overcome obstacles. Whatever the type of obstacle it's going to be, there are hardships in life that you need to be fulfilled. If you went through life without any hardships, you would be depressed and miserable. It would be hell. I don't wish that on anyone.

I couldn't agree more. You talk about this idea, and I actually had a counselor on who talk about this idea that happiness is fleeting. What you should chase is what's meaningful, purpose, what keeps you going. When did you start to develop this philosophy? or was this just a part of your family dynamics?

Well, it's a part of like our culture, I guess, our family culture and the way we see things. And also like I've always been into reading a lot of like philosophy books, self-help books and stuff like that. You know, my brother for us, he's a bachelor's degree in philosophy. And when I was young, when he was, because he's like eight years older than me. Yeah. Right? So every time he was learning something at school, you'd always be coming home and discussing it with me and like trying to teach me and give me a one-up. give me a one up and open my mind to the different things, the different ideas that are around, you know?

And it's the type of things we talk about between brothers, you know, like even like raising kids, like me and my brothers, we always talk about what we're doing, how it's going. Oh, what situation has happened with which kid, which nephew and niece and whatever and, okay, how we brainstorm this way out of this. You know, it's, you know, the human psyche is something that we're very interested in. It also has a lot to do with martial arts too, right? And like trying to get people to reach their potential, you know, because we're all coaches. Right? Three of us are coaches. So we're always looking to try to get people to become their best. And whatever they want to do, how can we help people more? You know, so that's kind of like my interest in the whole thing. I love that. What do you think is often people's barrier to reaching their full potential? What do you see when you're in the gym, when you're hanging it with friends and peers? What do you see as something that often stands in their way of going and reaching that full potential, taking care of themselves in those three ways? comfort. Comfort is the biggest epidemic in this country, in this side of the world.

Things are very easy and very convenient. And convenience is killing us in a sense. You know, there was a famous box. I forget which, what his name was, I think it was Hagler who said, it's hard to wake up in the morning when you sleep in silk sheets. You know what I mean? And there are a lot of easy comforts that we can get, even if you don't make tons of money. You know, if you're working, you know, consistently, whatever, there are certain comforts you can have in life that you know what maybe I don't need to go out and work that much harder to get to the next level you know I'm fine things are fine you know there's that famous quote I think it was George Washington he said most people died 25 but we don't bury them until they're 75 you know what I mean

so that's kind of something that I always remember like I feel 25 now I'm 35 I feel great and I feel fantastic you know and I don't feel like I'm getting that much older that fast I feel fantastic I tell my wife all the time like listen you better stay young because I'm staying young. You better not get old on. I'm busting the move. I'm going to stay in shape or doing our thing, you know. So I think it's really important for people not to stay comfortable and to always have that next goal. You know, you got to push yourself to that next goal. I'm not talking about necessarily financial. But, you know, if like, if your problem is a weight issue, give yourself a goal, but you have to give yourself a timeline. Because, you know, if you don't put that timeline, there's no urgency. You know, you're just going to keep pushing it down. You know, and if it's education, you know, give yourself a timeline. Okay, you know, I'm going to finish this degree. I'm going to finish the certificate. I'm going to finish this program. I want to be done by this time. And by this time, I'm going to have this and I'm going to get to this step. That's my next, that's my future. But there has to be some thought into what are the next steps because once you stop evolving, it's over. Life's old. It's finished.

What discipline in terms of mixed martial arts or exercise or physical effort stands out to you as something where you really started to connect with your body and really started to see that progress and get excited about setting new goals. Was there, I know you're passionate about BJJ, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. What stood out to you in terms of your athletic performance? My first love was Muay. I loved the idea of knocking someone out much more than submitting them when I was really young. And that's like my love.

You know, that's like my first love in martial arts. And I just thought the Maitai guys looked cooler and there was more of them around, you know. Like back in the, like when I started Jitsu, there wasn't that many BJJ schools in, in Montreal, like the highest ranked belt we had was a purple belt at the time. So, you know, just Muay seemed a lot cooler and it was a lot funner. And I had a very, very old tradition compared to BJJ. Like, Muay's been around for so long, right? And so that was kind of like my first love.

And I just liked the idea of like how you protect yourself and how you could use all eight limbs to attack someone. You know, it was cooler than boxing to me. Because boxing, one thing I find weird about boxing was like, if you get behind your opponent, that you can't hit them, right? You have to stop hitting that, which is so weird because, you know, if I got behind you in a real fight, so it's, you're a danzo. And if I hit you from the back, the punch you don't see is the one that finishes, right? There's all these different things that can happen.

And you're all spinning and boxing with so many limits, so many limitations to boxing, right? So I really love the Muay Thai first. Interesting. For mental, you talk about these three areas. The next one is mental. I'm curious, what stood out to you in terms of increasing your mental game and understanding yourself you've gotten an education you talked about your brother and how you two talk about things what stood out to you in terms of sharpening your mind um i would say like having the

growth mindset you know he told me to read that book mindset i figure by the girl's name carol something and uh you know and it's it's true it's the most true thing you can read either you're always going to be looking to evolve and better yourself or you're going to stay stuck and everyone's going to pass you by you know so that's something that's super important that's something that we always take into consideration of the way we run our gym. Like, we don't do the same program, you know, every year the same way. We're always adapting. And as BJJ is evolving, because BJJ is a very young sport, we're evolving in two.

Even our wrestling, you know, because you can wrestle for, you know, for a wrestling tournament and you can wrestle for MME. And there are two different things. So look at, let's say, GSP, he's not a Division I wrestler, you know, in the United States college, university level, whatever, blah, blah. But he has the most takedowns in the UFC, the best ratio, you know, the most successful wrestler in the UFC is a non-wrestler, right? So that's the kind of thing.

Like, we're always adapting, even our wrestling style. We're always trying to make it better for our sport. Let's say, for example. Like, how can we make it better for the street? How can we make it better for the cage? How can we page wrestle better? How can we do all these things? So there's always that progress to always improve and to never stay stuck where you are.

And if something is no good and we realize that, oh, we don't need this anymore, it's okay to let it go and throw it away. You know, that's another thing, is that people sometimes have a hard time of letting go of things that are obsolete. And that keeps them back, you know? So sometimes you have to shed certain things to accept you. Can you talk about this idea of having an empty cup and going through things and being willing to learn? It seems like people often get in their own way and go into things thinking they know things and they've got some things figured out. And then that inhibits their ability to learn.

Can you talk about that philosophy? Yeah. Well, for me, it comes down to the ego. And sometimes when people achieve a certain level of mastery in their department, let's say, they don't want to hear anything about any other subject. You know, like sometimes, you know, you get a guy who he's a master, you know, a striker, let's say. And now he wants to cross over to MMA. And he comes and he does a wrestling class or he comes and does BJG class.

And then he realizes like, oh, my God, I have to go back to the beginning and be not good at something. And it hurts the ego, man. And it really, like, you can see that they have such street credit, you know, journalist credentials, like, all these things. Everyone's, like, praising them in this one thing. And then now, once they cross over to this other skill, they're complete beginners. And it hurts, man. And it hurts, and not a lot of guys can restart from the beginning.

And, you know, you see it sometimes also in, like, their real world, you know, you know, doctors know what they know. But they don't know everything, you know. They're not, they're a master's of finance. You know, they don't know anything about electricity. You don't know anything about carpentry. They don't know all these other things, you know. But some of them develop an ego.

Some of them don't. I'm not saying all of them do. But you can see some doctors, you know, after a certain amount of years in doing what they do, they have a certain arrogance when they speak, you know? And I just feel like martial arts is a great way to humble people. And it's that type of thing that, you know, levels the playing field. And every walk of life goes to the gym at some point. You know what I mean?

Like at TriStar, we have lawyers, doctors. We have people who work in construction. Every level teachers, professors, firemen, police officers. You know, and when it comes to the mat, there's nothing about respect for everybody. You know, a lot of people, they leave their egos at the door. Like, when they come to the gym, they leave their eagles on the door. And I feel like sometimes if you're someone who's never been in that kind of world where you cross over to something that you're not the master of and you spend time there,

you don't shed that ego, you know? And that makes for like a hard. harsh reality, if ever you go to try something new, you're very afraid to always try something new. You get rigid in your schedule. And I just feel like if you're always humble and you're always willing to try new things and to experiment and to do new things, you know, it keeps a certain level of humility in your life. You mentioned Alexander Volcanovsky in your other interview. And I'm very curious, he's a person who seems to exhibit some of what you're describing. He seems to share this philosophy when we talk about his willingness to go up a weight class and be

flexible on being the backup fighter in circumstances, being willing to test himself against the best. I'm just curious. He seems to be someone you have a certain level of admiration for. Can you talk about what your thoughts on him as a champion? Yeah, because what it shows me is that he's not worried about the money, you know? His focus is on himself, improving himself, testing himself against the best. You know, and he kind of encompasses what martial arts is about in that sense, you know?

And yeah, it was a big money fight going up against Islam, but that fight could have went horribly wrong for it. You know, like, you're actually, you know, when you step into the cage, it's a real bite. I remember my first fight back during COVID, I was fighting Draco Rodriguez, and I was like the second fight of the night. I can't remember second or third. And the fight before me was a bloody mess. And where I had to stand in the corner, right, like, where you stand in the cage while they announce you,

I look at the floor and it's just like a pool of blood that's dried on the canvas. And, you know, I'm like, man, this is for real. Like, don't forget, this is for real. You know, like, your physicality is on the line, you know, and you're mental, too, because if you think a certain amount of a beating or a certain amount of a traumatic loss, it can really affect your future, you know? So doing something like he did, going up against Islamakshed, who's considerably one of the best ever, and he's just, you know,

I know he just won the belt, but he's going to, I have a prediction that he's going to dominate for a long time and for Volkanowski to go up there and test himself. being the smaller guy, you know, for me, it was very impressive, you know, and he, you know, very debatable how that fight went. It was too close for my liking, you know, but Bob's Stu Volcanovsky, man, I'm very proud of his performance. You know, I don't even know him. We're not even friends, but it's just one for the little guy, you know? I love that. This idea within improving your mental game comes with this, this willingness to admire other people. Some people, when they look at someone who's very successful, they kind of get jealous or jaded. I think,

about that a lot when we think of the Elon Musk's. You might not agree with every decision, but he's done very well for himself. And there's something admirable about putting in that kind of effort, sleeping in the in the storeroom in order to improve your product. And I think sometimes people get hesitant to say, this person's admirable. They're doing something really well because it takes away in their mind from themselves. You seem like you're surrounded by people who have made a difference in their own lives. I'm curious as to who you find admirable and how you kind of think about admiring other people. What do you look for?

Well, I'm very blessed with role models. My brother, Fras, a great role model. And George St. Piers are a great role model. We have a lot of amazing fighters at the gym. We've always, you know, have carried themselves very well, you know. And we're the type of team. We're always trying to elevate each other, you know, by pushing each other to do more and to do better, you know.

My older brother Ahmed is a great role model as well. My father is fantastic role model. Like, my father came here with nothing. Like, absolutely nothing. And, you know, and he made it work. He made it work. So, you know, I've seen hard work. I've seen hard work.

I'm just trying to make sure my daughters see hard work. So I bring them to the gym. They watch me train. I have a gym in my garage, too. I make them train. I make my heart train. And, you know, like, they need to be exposed to hard work. And I just feel like seeing people go through it, go through adversity is something that's

very important. And I've seen a lot of people overcome adversity. You know, I've seen a lot of people overcome a lot of challenges. And I feel like that's a blessing in itself. You know, I didn't just grow up in such a privileged place where that I've only seen prosperity and I haven't seen anybody go through anything hard. I've seen a lot of hardship and I feel like I need to create some kind of hardship illusion for my daughter so that the kids continue to go through hardship, you know, so I have this funny

story. Like one time I called my wife Hitler and it was actually pretty funny. We were going to go out of vacation last year and I was thinking like, you know what, okay, buy the kids iPads for the plane, you know, because it's like a long flight in all these things, and I don't want them to cry on the plane. It's like, be bothersome to other people. I'm like, we've got to figure out a way. We're going to have snacks. We're going to have coloring books. We have all these things. I'm bringing an iPad too just in case load it up with her movies or something, you know? Well, I said, okay, great idea. So we go to the

store, it's three weeks until we fly out, and we purchase the iPads with the kids there. Okay? And as we're walking to the car, I'm always like, we're not giving them to I'm like, what do you mean? She's like, no. She's like, we're going to make them wait three weeks. I'm like, going to make them wait three weeks. And we took them to the store. They picked out the iPad.

They picked out the color. We told them what it could do, blah, blah, blah. Me like, threw all this hype into the game, got them exciting. She's like, yeah, she's like, you know what? You know, they need to learn how to wait. And that buying an iPad is not easy. I said, you know what? That's a great idea.

It was pretty funny. You know, I was joking at all, calling your headlay or whatever. But the kids waited, man, the three weeks. They didn't touch their iPad still. so we got on that plane. But they had a great time. And they ended up. And that's the kind of thing.

You know, we're just trying to find ways to, try to over spoil them in a way. Instilled discipline. Discipline. Learning how to wait, learning that, okay,

if we're going to buy something big, doesn't mean you're going to get it right away, you know, or you got to earn it somehow. You got to do chores. We're going to find things to just make life of hard for them. Yeah.

And it sounds like delay that sense of instant gratification. That seems to be the concern with one minute reels, one minute short, minute videos is this idea that you're going to get instant gratification whenever you want you're going to get that burst of adrenaline when you're watching this video and there's an immediate payoff and you're sounds like you're trying to instill your young people to do that yeah exactly

and i've seen like some videos on instagram when they talk about this study where the kids who who are going to have the most success when they grow up is those who can wait you know like they put candy in front of them so the ones that eat it right away end up not being as successful and the ones that can control themselves that have discipline and whatever. So I'm just trying to install, instill those kind of values and characteristics in the girls, you know, I'm just trying to, you know,

let them, one day they're going to fly on their own, right? For now they're under my wig, you know. It's just trying to make sure they can fly on their own. There you go. The third one you mentioned was this idea of spirituality, finding us maybe a sense of peace. I'm curious as to how you approach this idea of spirituality, maybe finding peace for yourself when you've got so much on the go.

Yeah, well, for me, like, you know, as a Muslim, I grew up Muslim, and I take a lot of the beliefs from there, of course. And, you know, the way we think about it is it's God's will in the end of the day, you know, and what's going to happen, it's already written, you know, and the only thing we really have control of is how we take things, you know. That's really our free will is our choices that we make, you know, and how we're going to sit with them after, you know, but the things that are going to come about

are going to happen whether you like it or not, you know, and you're going to have to deal with these adversities, you know, and it's a weird thing because it's a hard concept in the center. Even me, like, I don't fully grasp it. I'm not a scholar of some sort, but we're also, we believe in things are predetermined,

but we have free will, you know, and it's just two things that are very hard, two ideas that are very hard to connect together. In the end, you need to have faith, right? That's what being, that's what having belief in religion is. in the end, you're taking a leap of faith. There's not really anything really too concrete. And that's just something I accept as a believer, you know,

and I have faith in that what God has for me in the end will be good. And sometimes hardships, you know, no matter how difficult they are, in the end there will be a silver lining to it. Something great will come out of it, you know, and you just got to hope that you get to the other side of it. That's how I take it. That's one of the things I think is courageous about individuals like yourself is that you bet on yourself.

You invested years prior in order to improve yourself, develop your understanding of mixed martial arts. But you talked about in the other interview with Spencer, this idea of during your 20s, you were going to focus on mixed martial arts. You were going to invest in that and you were going to push forward on this goal. But it didn't come out of nowhere. It wasn't like you just rolled out of bed one day and you're like, I want to try this MMA thing. You put in years previously to get there and really push yourself forward. I'm just curious if you have any advice for individuals who have that lofty goal, have that, that, that, that, dream of theirs, how do they make that a reality in a tangible way?

You can't achieve anything without discipline, you know? So you make sure you have a structured life. It's very important because if your life is pulling you in a hundred directions, you'll never be able to go forward in any meaningful way, right? So you need to structure your life. It needs to be stable. There needs to be some kind of stability. Whether you're a best or you have a family, you have some type of structure

so that you can move forward. And now you're not moving forward. backwards, left, right, diagonal, getting pushed around that. Every which direction the wind blows, you get pushed in that direction. No, no, no. And another thing is, like, if you want to have some kind of routine, you need to respect your routine. Because too many times people make excuses to change up what they have planned

for something that comes up last minute, you know? And then when you show to people around you that you don't respect your own time and your own schedule, people are going to disrespect your schedule every day. Like, oh, yeah, but last week you missed training just to come watch a movie. Why don't you just skip it again? You know, but if you never skip training, people would be like, oh, let's invite Jimmy. Yeah, but Jimmy's got practice at this time. He won't make it.

You know what, let's tell him for the next time. We know he's not training. We'll invite him to this. And, you know, oh, like, we're going to go do this, whatever, blah, blah, blah. Oh, but Jimmy's saving to buy his house. So you know what, let's not pressure him into doing it or whatever. You know, like, don't be shy. Don't be shy to...

have parameters that you live by and let people know that this is how I live and don't let people push you around and tell you oh yeah no no you should really update your car but no you don't necessarily need to update your car why because the goal that you will reach is going to be better than this tiny little update man you know so don't be afraid to say the word no

don't be afraid to build your life to achieve something that's beyond what people think you can achieve you know that's something that's very important and you can only do it if you have self-respect And you respect the work that you need to put in to get to that goal. If you don't respect what it takes to get there, you're not getting there. Incredible. This leads perfectly into UFC 289.

You're heading in. It's very rare that somebody has the opportunity to challenge themselves, to set a goal, to test themselves against another person in front of a crowd of people, in one of their home country, which you're very connected to. I'm just curious. What is the thing that stands out most to you heading into fight week? Stress. Lots of stress, stress, there's stress is, there's nothing like it, you know?

There's nothing like it. I remember my first fight in the UFC, my sister-in-law, she flew out to come watch so she could sit in the stands with my wife, and she came to the hotel room before I was going to leave to go to the venue, right? and like when she walked into the room she had never been in a room like that before a fight right she's only ever seen me after the fight so she walks in and she's like she didn't tell me at the time she told me after she's like there was so much tension like you're gonna go up like you're literally going out to die or like you're going out to like fight a sumo war she's like everyone you can feel the stress of like my coaches my brother my teammates that are in the room like there's stress like because we don't know the outcome right like we did our best You know, we trade to our best. Okay, we did everything we can't compare. But in the end, anything can happen in the cage.

You know, so many things can go right and so many things can go wrong, right? So the unknown is the anxiety. It's the unknown. And I was trying to, and I explained to her after, I'm like, yeah, you know, like when we win, it's all fun in games. But the moment is leading up to get into the fun in games is highly stressed because we can end up on the other end of it. Like when I got knocked out in New York, you know, It was a brutality. You know, it was not easy to watch for my wife, from my family, for everyone, and whatever.

You know, hundreds of thousands of people, man, watched that happen. And the video went viral, brutal. You know, so, and it's a lot of baggage to deal with afterwards as well if it goes wrong. And if it goes well, it's great. It's fantastic. You know, most people, I didn't lose for, like, I don't know, 10 years, 12 years. So, like, she's never experienced that until the New York event, right? And then when I heard, my first fight, she saw the stress, but then she didn't experience the downfall.

I lost in New York. But, you know, everything has its ups and downs. So next week, I'm just going to be dealing with the butterflies all the week, you know, trying not to focus on the outcome, just trying to focus on being myself, having the performance and winner lose, put on a great show, and, you know, just try to build my fan base here in Canada and in the United States and around the world. One of the big questions, I have a favorite rapper. His name is NK-47, and he talks about this idea that when you set a goal to climb that mountain,

when you aim for something high, there's going to be stories. And I think that that's true. I'm just wondering how you kind of process going through this storm. Is there ways that you cope? Because, again, nobody knows what it's like to go through what you're going through. Average people have no idea to test themselves at the highest of heights. How do you manage that stress? Well, you just got to do the work.

In the end, it's not pretty. It's every day I go to the gym. I do my skill work. Sorry, I do my skill work. I do my fitness work. I read or I listen to audiobooks for my mental game. I talk to my teammates about the mental game. Guys have different experiences.

You know, we try to always keep open lines of communication to see what's going on. Because, you know, mental health is across the board for everybody. You know, whether you're a police officer or an emergency doctor or fighter or a nurse or secretary, we all deal with our mental hardships for sure. But the only thing you can focus on is improving yourself. And that's why I feel like you need to have that growth mindset because if you're not always looking to get better, eventually everything is going to be too much and you're not developing enough or you're not talking to enough people or you're not reading enough and you're not expanding your horizon enough to deal with the problems because the problems only get bigger as you age, right? So, you know, you go to school for, you know, from like five to 20. So that's 50 years of school.

Let's say, for example, I don't know how many years really it is to finish university. But then that's it. You're going to stop learning. It makes no sense. Now you've got other 50 years to go. you have 50 to live man and life can be beautiful life can be great if you're always

getting better and life becomes easier eventually you know that's how I deal with it every day I just put my head down and I do the work beautiful with all these upcoming fights there's other Canadians on the card is there a fight is there an individual fighting that you're excited to see test themselves

besides just yourself I mean I don't sound like an egomaniac but the stress is so high on my fight that just until this fight fight's over, it's about me. And then, you know, it's like one of those few times, I'm a little bit selfish in that sense. You know, like I can't take my thought off the fight.

You know, I have to finish this fight, and then I can enjoy watching other people and look out for other people. But right now it's about getting past this opponent, coming out safely, getting the win, putting on a performance, all the things that are important, then after I can enjoy. Right now, not much enjoyment. I'll enjoy this after. Like, I love being in training camp.

I love everything about it, but now most of you get through the fight, the stress is elevating, and now it's a little bit more just about like, focus, staying calm and staying focused on a task at hand. Brilliant. You talked about this idea before of staying out of comfort zones, and this certainly sounds like you're right outside your comfort. I'm outside, right? And I think my sweater is apt because it says comfort zones are prison. I'm just curious, how do you think about this when you think about heading into something that's so stressful? before you're anywhere near

a training camp I'm just thinking about this idea of being willing to go into the discomfort willingly. What is that mindset require? What is it required?

It takes a lot of self-discipline but also there is an immense pleasure that I wish like Israel Isaiah said it I wish people could know

the feeling man. I wish people knew the feeling of overcoming something you know actually it's so small like the comparison is tiny

Okay, the comparison is tiny. But I went to, took my daughters to the dentist. And it was the first time visiting the dentist. I thought they were going to be scared and all these different things. And so I'm talking to them to their mind. I said, you know, like, the dentist is our friend. You know, she's going to take care of you. She's going to make sure you're safe and make sure it's for your benefit.

You know, like, yes, you know, it's going to sound weird. It's going to be loud. There's going to be all these different noises and different new experiences. But your teeth will be better for it and your health will be bad. I was trying to get into their mind, you know. And I'm like, you know, I thought, listen, if you get over it, Without crying once, if you don't shed a tear, if you don't make a sound, if you don't do any of these things, it's going to be a nice surprise, you know?

Because, you know, there's got to be some kind of reward, you know? So I tell him this, and my first daughter is going, and they're twins, right, to the same age. The one's got to go first, and the other one's sitting back. And the one that's sitting with me, she asked me, and I'm telling my first daughter, I'm telling Mila, I'm like, Mila, you're being so brave because Mila wasn't crying. And Alia asked me, she's like, Daddy, what does brave mean? I'm like, well, when you're afraid of something or you're not sure how something's going to go

and you face it anyway and you do it properly, you do it the way that it's meant to be done, that's bravery. You know, you didn't cower, you didn't get scared, you didn't cry about it, you went, you knew where it was going to come

and you faced it and you got through to the other side, that's bravery, you know. And not a lot of people get to know that feeling of overcoming such a high hurdle, you know, and I feel like I wish people went out of their way face those hurdles. Why? Because the payback is huge. There is nothing like it. There's really nothing like it, man. You know, setting yourself mini goals is good too to eventually work your way

up to be able to face something larger, right? So you can build yourself to something that's really, really exceptional. You know, like guys who go mount Everest, they don't just go climb Mount Everest like that, right? You start with a smaller mountain and they work their way up. But by the time they climb Mount Everest, man, they're so happy, they're so accomplished. These are the type of things that like people, I wish more people pushed on their friends and their families. Like, you know, don't ever stop being goal-oriented and climb that next mountain. Get to the bigger mountain. Get to the bigger mountain. The payback is huge. I couldn't agree more. I often think about the idea that some people get up halfway up the mountain and realize that that's not the

way to get to the top and they just stay there rather than heading back down and being willing to go back up. And I think that sort of goes to that idea of empty your cup, head back down the mountain and find a different way up, find new opportunities to see that self development and that self-growth because you respect yourself more after overcoming those things. And I think sometimes we miss out on that because we go for these fleeting ideas of finding happiness rather than finding that sense of self-fulfillment and self-growth. Yeah, I agree, totally. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. I've learned so much. I love your mindset. I think you could be a philosopher after you're done because I think that these are such important

ideas and exactly what I was hoping to discuss with you today in terms of how does fighting connect with everyday life? How can we learn from individuals like yourself who put it all on the line? I can't thank you enough for being willing to do this. Can you tell people how they can connect with you? Yeah, if you guys want you can check me on on Instagram. That's I do most of my social media. I'm a little bit on Twitter, but not as much and I'm like a ghost on Facebook. You won't see me much on Facebook. But Instagram, I'm on there a lot. So I just want to say, thank you, Eric, for having me on. It was a breath of fresh air doing an interview with you. You know, it's very different than the usual questions I get.

So I really appreciate. And I'm glad that we got it to go in depth into some questions. I can't wait. I'm so excited for UFC 289. I'm excited to watch you live in the arena. I'm sure I'm going to have those nerves. I had those nerves when you started talking about. My hands were getting all sweaty at the idea of watching you go out there and perform.

I wish you the best of luck. And again, I just can't thank you enough for this. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. So I've got a question for you. Let's go. A UFC fighter. A rapper and a political scientist wander into a podcast.

Which one are you going to invite to stay? Walk into my podcast or walk into a... Walk into your podcast. You can only pick one. Do we have names? No. I just get generals. You get a category. I think I'm going to go with the mixed martial artist, the MMA fighter. Just as he sort of described, this idea that you have to put your body on the line,

that you could get knocked out, that your mistake could go viral on Twitter, on YouTube, that it could be replayed for the rest of your life. That riff is incomparable to the risk of the political scientist or to the risk of the rapper. Yes, both of them can put in years of work, but the risks that they're willing to take on, the damage to their body they're willing to carry, and there's one individual Ben Asgren, the clip of him will be played forever. It's the fastest knockout in UFC history and will likely always be. It was like eight seconds.

And his whole career took a trajectory turn after that fight. And so I think the risks they take are unique to them. That's why I think they're so inspiring and why I love being able to talk to them and listen to Ariel Hawani is because it's just that risk is just absolutely incredible. that makes sense I hope that the UFC fighter that wanders into the podcast is all set up with technology

there you go I really enjoyed this episode I learned a lot I cannot wait to tune into his work but as always go find him on it sounds like Instagram is the best place to locate him for us please share this episode

with your friends and family let them know if you enjoyed this that's the best way to promote this As always, tune in to the next episode.