Georges St-Pierre: When I want something I become completely obsessed

Georges St-Pierre on obsession and success:

When I want something in life I become completely obsessed to work hard until I obtain what I want. And I believe it's the same thing for everybody in life that have very high goals. They need to be completely obsessed to reach their goal...Same thing in every sport. I'm sure Wayne Gretzky was completely obsessed of working hard and becoming the best hockey player all time. I'm sure Michael Jordan, same thing. I'm sure Tiger Woods, all great guys in every discipline, every field of work is same thing.

Georges St-Pierre on being a Samurai

Georges St-Pierre on overcoming problems

Georges St-Pierre comments about his recipe for overcoming obstacles in his book The Way of the Fight:

“No matter what is thrown into your path, with training and self-discipline, with clear focus and confidence, problems can be overcome”

Rashad Evans on GSP's dedication to his craft

Rashad Evans on Georges St-Pierre's dedication to his art:

GSP was one of my best training partners. I never met an athlete so dedicated to his craft! After every training session he would stay there and drill for another hour.

Interestingly enough the thing that Georges St-Pierre says he's best at more than anything is in fact dedication. He notes in The Way of the Fight:

Do you want to know what I like best about myself? The truth is, I’ve become “great” at maybe only one thing: dedication.

Georges St-Pierre on suffering and appreciation

Georges St-Pierre speaks on the relationship between suffering and appreciation in his book The Way of the Fight:

Suffering allows you to truly appreciate release, which means there’s an odd relationship with balance. When great depths of unrelenting sorrow are punctuated by great peaks of joy and liberation, the result is delicious. It’s about appreciating the little things that make my life so great—a glass of water, eggs and bacon, a slice of chocolate cake. Getting tipsy. To truly understand the greatness of these things, I have to suffer. I have to suffer and live through it, and then I can appreciate more. It's why they say that true pleasure does not exist; it’s just the temporary release from suffering.

GSP on keeping a Whitebelt Mentality

In this great book "The Way of the Fight", Georges St-Pierre talks about keeping a whitebelt mentality, staying humble, and learning from everyone. This is a concept which has allowed GSP become the greatest welterweight of all time:

I keep the white-belt mentality that I can learn from anyone, anywhere,anytime. For those of you who have never tried martial arts, the white-belt mentality is the first thing you understand, on your first day as a beginner when you receive your white belt: everything is knowledge, all must be learned. I try to maintain that mentality. When I discover an element that I think can be useful to me, I adapt it to my routine and my outlook; I submit it to a trial-error-and-refinement process. If it passes the test, I incorporate the new knowledge into my arsenal. I practice it and build up my muscle memory to perform it properly. I enter the octagon with an open, fresh mind,and with support from my handpicked team. And finally, I apply the innovation at the right time. It becomes who I am, and it means that innovation keeps me ahead of my competition. It means that my foes must adapt to me, not the other way around.

Georges St-Pierre on the story of his life

GSP describes his key to success:

There is no luck in life, everything happens for a reason. Every little thing that you do...leads up to a bigger thing. And that's the story of my life.

Firas Zahabi on Hard Work

 

In Georges St-Pierre's autobiography "The Way of the Fight", GSP's coach Firas Zahabi gives an homage to his prize pupil's work ethic, as well as to the concept of hard work as a whole:

 

His greatest ability is his perseverance. There’s an understanding we have between us that results and success come from one place: hard work. We agree with Holmes. We think it’s fair: you get back what you put in. People can cheat or rob you of almost any possession, but hard work belongs to you, and you alone. Georges knows that better than anyone I've ever known or heard of. So Georges’s work ethic is his greatest gift

It's a very profound passage by Zahabi. Indeed many people revere hard work above anything else and oftentimes many people don't even feel they deserve something if they haven't toiled for it immensely. 

Ronda Rousey and Georges St-Pierre on Courage

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."

A quote by Nelson Mandela highlighting that fear is an essential part of being brave. UFC champions Georges St-Pierre and Ronda Rousey note the same thing. GSP likes that courage requires fear because it shows character in a person. Ronda also notes that it's her fears that allow her to demonstrate her courage. The two rely on one another.

The Winner's Road to Success

B.C Forbes (May 14, 1880 – May 6, 1954), the found of Forbes Magazine, had a great quote about winners:

History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats. 

You often hear this type of statement said by a lot of the champions in various fields, including mixed martial arts. If you read Georges St-Pierre's autobiography "The Way of the Fight", he had to overcome a lot of obstacles on the road to becoming one of the greatest fighters in the history of the game. Not only is his ability to win the belt amazing, but even more impressive is to regain it after losing it, and then defend it eight times.

4 Lessons from GSP's early days

In Georges St-Pierre's book The Way of the Fight, he talks about how it was a humbling experience getting beat by smaller guys in Jiu Jitsu and notes how he had a lot of doubts when he trained with BJJ instructor Sean Williams when he was first coming up:

In those days, despite the fact that he was smaller than me, when he and I fought, Sean would easily finalize me six or seven times in five minutes. That’s more than once minute, which is clearly inferior and pathetic. And to top off the humiliation, my girlfriend at the time —who had come to New York a couple of times and watched us spar—told me Sean was very good-looking. Let’s just say I started going to New York alone after that trip. But Sean was the only guy who didn’t target me; his students did that. Despite finalizing me so easily so many times, Sean was the one telling me not to be discouraged because he could see in my eyes that I was losing hope. I was ready to quit, but he caught me just in time. We’re still friends and train together when I’m in Los Angeles. I affectionately call him my worst nightmare. He still can't believe I almost quit back in the day, and he still reminds me of that all the time!

There are four good lessons which can be learned from this experience GSP had back in the day in NYC:

1. Everyone goes through a tough time in the beginning and has a lot of doubts. These feelings are normal. Georges St-Pierre wasn't superhuman, he went through the same growing pains and humbling predicaments.

2. If you stop you will prevent yourself from becoming great. If Georges St-Pierre quit back in those days when it was too hard and he was getting tapped out by small BJJ players, then he wouldn't go on to become of the greatest fighters of all time in the UFC and in the sport as a whole.

3. You can handle it. You can handle getting tapped out by small people, you pride will be able to sustain that blow, and your ego will be fine. These bruises are not real, just psychological mental formations which are getting "hurt". If the goal is to become great, part of the process is sucking very badly in the beginning. Just hang in there and you will eventually be the master.

4. A champion is just a guy who didn't quit and kept on going. If you just keep on going you will eventually improve and get past any perceived roadblocks and obstacles. Renzo Gracie shares this point of view that if you just stick with it you will eventually become great, become a champion, realize your dream.

Georges St-Pierre on doing VADA testing for UFC 167 fight

 

Georges St-Pierre will undergo VADA (Voluntary Anti-Doping Association) testing for his UFC 167 fight with Johny Hendricks to put aside any questions about him using steroids or any other performance enhancing drugs (PEDs):

Of course I've been accused by my opponents in the past and for me it'll be a way to show I've been honest my whole career...I think the best in our sport should be decided by mental and athletic skills instead of the doctor's abilities. Not only in our sport and every sport. 

Ronda Rousey and Georges St-Pierre hug it out at UFC press conference

Ronda Rousey and Georges St-Pierre hug it out at 31:40 into this video. This was at the UFC World Tour New York City Press Conference

Quotes from the above fighters linked below:

Alexander Gustafsson
Jon Jones
Johny Hendricks
Georges St-Pierre
Cain Velasquez
Junior Dos Santos
Ronda Rousey
Miesha Tate

 

 

 

 

Georges St-Pierre being like an Ant and always working

Georges St-Pierre is someone who has a strong appreciation for the animal kingdom. He discusses evolution and efficiency and references animals from time to time to make analogies to his mindset and fighting. It's not necessary the big animals he admires though. He has a deep reverence for the cockroach, which has been able to adapt better than any other creature on the planet, and survive seemingly forever. And GSP has a great respect also for another insect:

"The ant is always working...that's how I am...I never waste a second of my life, I always do things that help me advance in my life."

Pierre takes a martial arts mentality to his entire career and works towards perfection. Little improvements on a constant basis, like the Japanese concept of Kaizen; which refers to making things better. And Georges St-Pierre isn't afraid to try new things to sharpen his skills and hone his craft. He will learn to refine his spinning-back-kick with Joe Rogan; train gymnastics to improve overall athleticism; and generally just seek out knowledge from all disciplines and try and see if that intelligence can be applied to his art.

GSP: The best fighter doesn't always win

It seems kind of elementary, but it's a concept that can sometimes elude fans: The best fighter doesn't always win, but the fighter who fights the best. Sometimes it's just who strikes first and capitalizes on an opportunity before his opponent. For Georges St-Pierre, he sums it up as follows:

It's not always the best team that wins the game in baseball, or in football, or in hockey. It's the team that comes the most well prepared and played the best match. Same thing with fighting. It's not always the best fighter. It's the fighter that will fight the best fight that will win.

Georges St-Pierre on training on the days you don't want to

Georges St-Pierre holds to the theory that he gets better not on days that he wants to go to train, is motivated and exciting and feeling good about going to the gym; rather he feels that he gets the most improvement from days where he doesn't want to go, can't stand going, but overcomes that blanketing negative aura and energy within him and musters up the will-power to get up and give his all in training. GSP mentions this in his book The Way of the Fight:

...if you can overcome the negative energy coming from your tired body or unmotivated mind, you will grow and become better. It won’t be the best workout you have, you won’t accomplish as much as what you usually do when you actually feel good, but that doesn’t matter. Growth is a long-term game, and the crappy days are more important. The best part is at the end of your workout on the crappy day. You feel better about yourself, happier and proud.

How your mood, mind, emotions impact the feeling of Pain

In Georges St-Pierre's work The Way of the Fight, he notes an interesting and comedic line about how pain is impacted by mood:

It's bizarre, a punch in the face hurts less when you win than when you lose.

That line is a great one which really takes you to the essence of the idea that the mind can really enhance and lessen the amount of pain one feels. How you view something, your mental state and overall mood can have an immense impact on the pain you feel. An article from Science Daily touches on this concept:

Dr. Chantal Berna and colleagues used brain imaging to see how healthy volunteers responded to pain while feeling low. Their findings revealed that inducing depressed mood disrupted a portion of the participants' neurocircuitry that regulates emotion, causing an enhanced perception of pain. In other words, as explained by Dr. Berna, "when the healthy people were made sad by negative thoughts and depressing music, we found that their brains processed pain more emotionally, which lead to them finding the pain more unpleasant."

GSP: Set your goal and always move forward

Georges St-Pierre on moving forward constantly after setting a goal.

Georges St-Pierre on becoming the best you can be

With discipline, belief, and the right knowledge, we become the best we can be.
- Georges St-Pierre

The psychology of dressing well and looking good

A lot of people feel that creates a positive mindset, a feeling of increased self-esteem, self-worth, and generally optimistic mindset both on a conscious and subconscious level. So that in turn generates greater positive results.

A Forbes article in 2012 makes reference to this concept:

A study this year from Northwestern University examined a concept called “enclothed cognition.” Researchers define it in their report as “the systematic influence that clothes have on the wearer’s psychological processes,” meaning what your clothes are saying to you, not about you. And how they make you feel.

Sharp dressers such as a Georges St-Pierre, Eddie Alvarez, Anthony Pettis, and Rory MacDonald, try and zero in on this fashion psychological phenomenon.