Georges St-Pierre recounts a 1994 spinning disc sighting in Albuquerque with Mike Van Arsdell and Rashad Evans, later discussing it with military officials who validated his sanity. He details a 2010 gravity-defying encounter and an ayahuasca-induced out-of-body experience where an eyeless entity showed him galactic maps, curing his lifelong fear of heights. St-Pierre argues consciousness transcends materialism, noting that while the physical world offers growth through hardship, non-physical realities allow instant manifestation without learning. Ultimately, he retired from fighting not just for health, but to embrace empathy and business opportunities, proving true courage stems from acknowledging fear rather than its absence. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, Qwen/Qwen3-ForcedAligner-0.6B, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Five Houses and UFOs00:02:44
15 years ago, I was in Albuquerque and we weren't on a road and we experienced something that night.
We rolled on our windows and we look out and we just see like this, I mean, UFO sort of coming towards us.
And then it changed direction and then it changed again the direction and it skipped and it disappeared.
Because this is also something mentioned by Bob Lazar.
And you had an opportunity to meet Bob.
Yeah.
Did you bring this up to him?
I did.
Fast forward a few years.
I'm in Washington.
So I'm like, you know what?
I'm going to ask a big question.
So I told the lady in front of me.
And as I'm talking to her, the entire table stopped talking.
All the attention turned on me.
You know, I just want to ask you Is there something out there?
And she told me, You're not crazy.
There is something out there.
I was like, Boom!
Like, oh my God.
During COVID, after I retired, I decided to go on a journey.
I decided to do ayahuasca.
When it started, I started leaving my body.
I started levitating, and I'm not leaving my body going up like this.
I'm leaving it going up like this, looking down.
You're seeing yourself?
Yeah.
I even see my friend.
He was texting someone.
I told him, I said, You were texting this person.
And he said, How did you know?
I said, I went over your shoulder, man.
I saw it.
And I'm not alone.
There's something that sort of lifts me up.
And can I use it?
I'm going to draw it to you.
No eyes, no mouth.
And it was communicating with me, you know, who are you?
And it says, I'm you and everybody at the same time.
I'm the air you breathe and the water you drink.
I'm the air you breathe and the water you drink.
I know why you're here.
You're curious to know about what is consciousness, and I'm going to show it to you.
And then I see the map, the planet, the solar system.
It's like I'm going out.
Like, I zoom out, you know, from where I was, and I see the entire galaxies, the universe, the different universe, the different dimension, to the point that at one point I'm like, it's too much, I can't take it anymore.
1994, I was probably about six years old, and I remember my big sister running outside from inside our house.
I follow her out into the street.
We get out into the street.
The neighbors are out looking up at the sky, four or five houses.
Down, there's a spinning disc with spinning lights all around it and a spotlight coming down from the center.
Dinner with High-Ranked Military00:05:29
It must have been like, I don't know, 40 feet above this house that was like five houses down from us.
Don't remember anybody talking about it afterwards.
The memory just ends right there.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back.
Today we are joined by an amazing guest, Josh St. Pierre.
George, thank you so much for doing this.
This is unexpected, I think, to a lot of the viewers.
They're like, what is George St. Pierre doing on this podcast.
I'm happy to be here.
And I mean, thank you for having me a few weeks ago with Louis Lisando.
I mean, really happy that you allowed me to come here and have a conversation with him.
Yeah, it was incredible.
And, you know, obviously the things that are spoken about off camera often, like we get into some deeper stuff, right?
And more things that are speculative.
So it's not, you can't really say it on camera because it's not sure.
And so, but those are the fun conversations.
Yeah, it's a lot of stuff sometimes that when you talk about it, a lot of people will roll their eyes back and it will touch your credibility.
But, you know, I'm passionate about UAPs and it's a subject that I'm very interested in.
And when I found out that Louis Lisando came here, I was like, man, he's one of the guys that I always wanted to meet.
And to have the opportunity to do it, to have a conversation with this guy, it was amazing.
And when that happened, the conversation.
Weekend, just the weekend before, I was in Washington.
That's right.
I had an opportunity to meet with some high rank military in the United States because it was during the inauguration weekend.
I was not there really for the inauguration.
I was there because of the with some other guy of the UFC.
John Jones was there, Bo Nicole and Connor.
Yeah, exactly.
A lot of guys were there.
A lot of the professional athletes were there.
So I had an opportunity to go.
And I took it because I had the chance to meet different people.
It was a great opportunity.
I would have been a fool to not take it.
I would have taken it.
I think most people take that opportunity.
Of course.
I mean, it's a chance of a lifetime, an opportunity of a lifetime.
So I met a lot of people, but of all the celebrities that I've met that weekend, I met Zuckerberg.
I met a lot of celebrities, but for me, the thrill of my weekend was to be able to sit down with some of the high ranked military, some of the guys that.
You know, when you want to talk about UAP's secret program and stuff like that, these are the guys that know the answers and had amazing conversations.
And still to this day, I'm, you know, a lot of these guys I'm friend with, we text each other and I made some great friends there.
And it was just an amazing weekend.
Wow.
That's so, wait, how are you okay saying how did you get into that?
Like, what happened there during those like interactions that, like, because, you know, it's weird to go up to someone and be like, so.
What about the UFOs?
Like, how did that conversation start?
Well, so the way it started is the first dinner, it was a Friday night.
The first day that I arrived in Washington, I had a dinner at night and I got introduced to these guys with Tim Kennedy.
Tim Kennedy is a former USC fighter.
Green Barrett.
Green Barrett.
On the field, you know, like he's a cat, like a cowboy, you know, he's the one who does the dirty job on the field.
And he introduced me to a lot of these guys and to Sarah Averano.
I get introduced to a lot of the people in a different branch of the military there.
And we had dinner.
And a lot of the veterans, a lot of the military people are big fans of mixed martial arts.
So they knew who I was.
I mean, to be fair, a lot of people know who you are, not just in Milton.
But that's one of the reasons why I was able to get in touch with these people.
So, the first dinner that we had, it was like about maybe 12, 15 people around the table.
And, you know, we didn't know each other.
You know, some of these guys, like, almost, I mean, actually, except from Tim that I know for a few years, all the other people around the table I had never met before.
And we all introduced each other, you know, like, And I didn't realize with who I was sitting until at one point during the dinner, I was thinking, I was like, you know what?
If I want to ask the question, that's the time to do it because I might never ever had another opportunity in my life to ask this question.
Maybe I'm going to look like a fool and they all going to make fun of me thinking, oh, I'm brain damaged or whatever.
Or maybe they're going to tell me what they are allowed to tell me.
So everybody was talking to the people next to them because it was a big table.
Different Descriptions of Sightings00:11:41
At one point, I was like, you know what?
I had a conversation with different people, but I talked to one of the persons that was in front of me.
I asked, she was a lady, and I asked her, I said, I always wanted to ask you this question.
I, you know, one day, and I told her one of the adventures that I had that one day, and I was in a few years ago, before my fight with Matt Serra.
It's about 15 years ago, I was in Albuquerque, and I was in a car.
And I was with Mike Van Arsdell, who's a former USC fighter, Rashad Evans, Ali Abdelaziz, who's Kabib and Islam Makachev manager, who was a training partner of mine, and another guy named Alejandro.
He's a Mexican, but I don't know what he became.
I lost contact with him.
And Ali, Alejandro, and I were in the backseat.
Mike Van Arsdell was driving, Rashad Evans was on the passenger seat.
And We weren't on the road and we saw something.
We experienced something that night that all five of us, like, it's undeniable.
Like, something, we saw something.
Like, and.
Well, what did you see?
Was it like lights in the sky or was it?
Yeah, it was a light sort of coming towards us.
And when it happened, I had an impression.
I don't have the cert, it's not a certainty, but I was under the impression that sort of the time sort of stopped.
Not the car, but the car kept rolling.
But like, you know, when you get so intensely.
Like you're mesmerized.
Yeah, yeah.
Like all of us were like, like, we only had focus on that thing.
So it came towards us and then it changed direction and then it changed again the direction and it skipped and it disappeared.
And for that brief moment, it's sort of like everything else around us didn't matter.
It was only this.
Like we were like, all of us, like silence, and we saw this thing.
And after that, when it skipped and it disappeared, all of us were like, oh my God, what is this?
And the crazy thing about it is the way I saw it and the way my friends saw it, it was different because there's no point of reference.
I saw something that I, there was no wings, there was no, like, it was no noise, but we're inside of a car.
But I remember seeing an interview of, I think it was Rashad or Ali Abdelaziz talking about that thing.
Like around 2010, I'm in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
And I'm with GSP, Ali Abdelaziz, who's now like the manager of most of a lot of UFC fighters.
And we're right on the highway.
The traffic is starting to slow down.
It like slows down to like almost a crawl.
And we're like, why is everybody stopping?
Why is everybody stopping?
And then we start to look and see where everybody's looking.
And then we roll down the windows and we look out and we just see like this, I mean, UFO.
Because of the way it was moving, it just didn't see, I mean, it was that typical UFO movement where it was like moving and then it like, Was stopped and like defined gravity for a bit, and then it just stayed there for a second.
And you know, the light pattern was weird as well.
And as everybody's sitting there watching it, it then just like shot off.
And the time that it lasts, and it didn't correspond to exactly what I saw.
So I was thinking, if I talk about it perfectly, I'm gonna look like a liar because they don't describe the same thing.
They all have their.
A different description of what they've seen.
I remember, I think it was one of them said it was like almost a minute.
And for me, it was only maybe 10, 15 seconds, if I remember correctly.
So we all have a different experience from that moment.
So fast forward a few years, I'm in Washington.
So I'm like, you know what?
I'm going to ask a big question.
So I told the lady in front of me.
And as I'm talking to her, the entire table stopped talking.
All the attention turned on me.
So I told her what I. What I saw, and I asked her, I say, I, you know, I just want to ask you, am I crazy, or are we, did we all collectively become crazy for a few seconds and saw something like an illusion, or is this, is there something out there that are not, you know, are not, are not us, you know?
Yeah.
And she told me, you're not crazy.
There is something out there.
I was like, boom, like, oh my God.
And these are the people that, that knows, you know, like, because they're, they're, You know, that's what they do, you know?
Like, if someone would know what that is, it's those guys.
What was the atmosphere after that?
Man, I'm not going to lie.
That we since that weekend, I mean, I mean, now I sleep good, but the next few days after that weekend, it got me thinking so much I had a hard time sleeping at night because these are the sort of questions that keep me up at night, yeah.
And um, I talked to you know a lot of these guys, you know, I asked them a lot of questions, and man, this is insane, it is so crazy that I would be very reluctant to publicly.
And it's not me, it's them.
A lot of them, what they told me, and a lot of stuff that I've read are like seen as conspiracy theory, but what they told me fit what I've read.
And I'm like, that can't be true.
But I would be very reluctant to go publicly and talk about what I've read and what they told me because it will attack my credibility.
People will roll their eyes and will like, GSP just lost his mind.
He's brain damaged.
This is no way.
But I mean, it's just crazy.
And I know you dive deep into this stuff, so you can understand a little bit.
This is pretty insane.
It is.
And it's one of those things that, like, when you say it out loud, you're like, God, that sounds just absolutely made up.
Like, it sounds like science fiction.
But the truth I've found in my research is often much stranger than fiction.
And that's something that, More I look into it, the more that's becoming true.
And one of the things is like, first of all, like the fact that you're even just talking about this and being open about it, I think is really healthy.
I don't like maybe 10 years ago, this would have been considered a really touchy podcast to do.
But I think in today's landscape, isn't that surprising to a lot of people?
They're kind of like, well, it's good.
It's good that more people are understanding.
Because I do believe that in 10 years' time, maybe even less, that if you don't believe that there's something going on, you're the conspiracy theorist.
Mm hmm.
I think that more people are kind of coming around to this idea that, okay, all right, we're being visited or they're already here or something.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And another thing that I think I consider this very important is, you know, because of what's going on in the world, there's a lot of wars.
There's a lot.
And I feel that if we found out that we're not alone, it will kind of unite us.
We will stop fighting over some stupid differences.
You know what I mean?
And we'll get together better.
And there's a lot of things that could change the entire world.
The energy thing, you know, like if this thing is true, this technology is true, this can be used for the benefits of mankind.
You know what I mean?
And man, it can change the world.
And for me, I think it would be important to have a.
Maybe not a full disclosure on this thing, but at least more disclosure on the matter because it will be beneficial to the world.
Yeah, great point.
You know, something you just said there too is like not full disclosure.
And I agree with that.
I think most people who are familiar enough with the topic also agree with that, that there needs to be, we just need to get it out of the way that this is real.
Yeah.
Like just that.
Let's just get past that barrier right now because we're so slowly approaching it.
And what's happening is that, More things are coming out faster than we're able to disclose it.
Right.
And so there needs to be like, we need to just bridge that gap and say, hey, these things are real.
This is happening.
We are being visited.
We're not alone.
Start there.
You know, Chris, most people, like if you talk to most people, are not even aware that, you know, you say UAPs, there's things that flies and not only flies, that goes under the water that are picked up by very sensitive military instruments.
And they don't know what it is.
I mean, it's been disclosed.
It's been declassified since I think it's 2017.
It was in an article in the New York Post.
But most people are not aware of that.
Most people still think it's not true.
Like, I mean, you can research it, it's true.
It's been out.
The cat is out of the box, so to speak.
But most people are not aware of it.
And I don't understand why the media don't talk more about it.
I mean, it's one of the.
I mean, are we alone?
Are we like even if we don't have the evidence to really know if we're alone or not?
But this is very important.
I mean, you have a certain object that flies over a sensitive military installation and are picked up by an instrument.
I mean, man, it's something to talk about and nobody talks about it.
I'm like, you have to dig in to find out about it.
Yeah, that's true.
It's crazy to me.
It's important.
Very important.
Arguably, the implication of it is huge.
Yeah, the most important thing.
It's, you know, and this is interesting because it also ties into, you know, a lot of the other stuff that you're interested in and, you know, ancient civilizations, you know, this sort of idea of, you know, maybe the cyclical civilization thing happening, perhaps, or like our lost technology that we might have had because you've been traveling the world recently.
Yeah, doing side quests, which is pretty cool.
You know, you did your homework.
You know, you know, yeah, because I mean, you've been, you know, you did the main quest, you know, greatest pound for pound fighter, UFC champion.
You've done all these amazing things.
And I think, you know, it's kind of cool to see what you're doing now because you're like, man, I did all this stuff.
Now what?
Right?
Religious Texts vs Flying Saucers00:09:40
What next?
And now you're looking deeper.
Now you're like, well, what's the meaning?
Where do we come from?
What's happening?
And you're going to places like Baalbek, Egypt, and all these amazing places.
So, what kind of fuels that quest?
Knowledge.
Knowledge.
And I know that a lot of these archaeological sites, it's still an enigma.
You know, they have a rough idea of when it was built and how it was built, but there's a lot of mystery surrounding it.
And if someone says that they know everything, that's not true.
And the weekend I had in Washington, too, one thing they confirmed to me is that, and I knew that before, but they just told me that is that.
A lot of the ancient texts, a lot of the religious texts that we read, and a lot of the ancient texts that talk about angelic beings, flying chariots, and stuff like that are probably account of UAPs and things that they, but they didn't say flying sorcerer or spaceship because it was outside of their vocabulary, it was outside of their frame of reference.
So they couldn't, the way they, They describe it.
It was the way they use words that they knew to describe it.
Yeah, chariots of fire, shields, drums.
A lot of people said drums.
Angelic beings, you know, things like that.
Well, there was one actually that said earthenware was the name.
And earthenware is literally a plate.
You know, so when you think of saucer, their word was earthenware.
So like flying earthenware, you're like, well, that's a flying saucer.
And, you know, Jacques Valet, are you familiar with Jacques Valet?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, he's like just like the goat when it comes to looking at that.
Ancient stuff because he looks in weird, obscure references like fairies and goblins or whatever it is, right?
And he'll find stories where there's missing time, where people have been, you know, taken, transported, and they're describing, like you said, a lot of the same things, but they just didn't have the vocabulary.
Exactly.
It's fascinating to me because a lot of it is subject to interpretation.
So it's hard to differentiate what it is.
You know what I mean?
Like in a lot of religious texts, for example, it's subject to interpretation.
And that's one of the reasons why there is, for example, in Christianity, there are the Catholic, the Protestant, the Adventist, because they have a different interpretation of what it is.
And you can make a case for a lot of these ancient texts.
To be an account of, you know, of something.
A close encounter, yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
That could be an interpretation as well.
I think so.
And I think that's a valid thing, and that we're discovering that more and more.
You know, you have like Cherries of the Gods or whatever.
And, you know, Diana Pasolka as well puts out a lot of work.
She's a theologian or studies theology and has found that like UFO is kind of like the new religion, where we're following the same symptoms as a new religious coming.
Like when, Christianity was coming to be, it was very rebellious.
The Romans were pushing against it.
You would get killed for following the word of Christ.
And until the revolution was so big that it became the thing, right?
And that revolution, when that happened, there was a lot of sightings.
There was a lot of angels coming down with messages, prophetic images, all of these things.
And if you look at now, That's kind of happening as well.
We have some characters out there that are also getting these images or that are getting these sightings on command.
And so, yeah, if you were to take these texts and bring them back 2,000 years, they would almost be identical.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, it does leave you questioning is UFO and ufology and this the new religion?
Are aliens the new angels, not just are aliens the old angels?
Are we going to worship aliens?
That's right.
Because before they used to believe in the spirit of the forest, whatever it is.
Now they became.
Maybe religion, now it was gods, and now not everyone, but a lot of people don't believe so much in religion anymore.
So if they try to make sense of it, they will say it's maybe coming from another planet.
We don't know what the truth is.
It's crazy, but there's certainly something going on.
There's certainly a phenomenon that it's hard to explain.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And for anyone who hasn't had a sighting, I've had some multiple sightings in my life that I can't explain.
I can't tell you for sure if they were.
UFOs or extraterrestrials, but I can tell you for me at the time, it felt like it was, you know, so that feeling I know, I understand that feeling.
And when you experience something, it kind of shakes your foundation, you know, you kind of that's the starting point where you're like, okay, hold on, like you didn't see what I saw, you didn't feel what I felt, you know, and that's very personal.
We create it, we're, I'm like from what I saw, I'm easy to be discredited because I'm not an astrophysicist, and a lot of people will say, oh, yeah, you don't have the, The knowledge, the credibility, the competency to say that what you say was an unidentified flying object because maybe it was Venus that, you know, or I don't know, an asteroid that bounced back or a satellite that fell off.
I mean, I've seen something that changed direction and it skipped.
I mean, it's.
Yeah.
I mean, if it's Venus or something that could be explained, I will be like very, very, very, very surprised.
And the fact that all of us saw it in a different way was like, man, I don't know what to make of it.
Have you ever spoken to any of them afterwards about it?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
All the time.
Like, we've talked about it.
And a lot of them, like, I'm sure they're like me, they're a little bit shy to talk about it, but I think it's important.
I think it's.
I think, yeah, it could attack our credibility a little bit, but it is important.
Yeah.
Because I'm sure there's a lot of people that have seen stuff that are shy to talk about it because they're going to be like seen as crazy.
Yeah.
Especially when you spend a lot of your life in a full contact sport, a lot of people will say, oh, he's brain damaged.
But now, how do you explain that the five of us see something?
I mean, collectively, it's kind of crazy.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I don't think that that's the case so much anymore.
I think maybe again, like 10 years ago, prior to 2017, I think that that might have been the case where it's like, oh, who are these guys?
They're just crazy.
They're conspiracy theorists.
But I think now we're in a really new landscape where talking about it isn't so sure.
There are some people, but I really do think that most of the people that matter in this subject and who are trying to push this forward, I mean, we're all in agreement here that something's going on.
And what you described too, which is really interesting the skipping part, I want to talk about that for a second.
Yeah.
Because this is also something mentioned by Bob Lazar.
And you had an opportunity to meet Bob.
Yeah.
Did you bring this up to him?
I did.
I met Bob.
And for people who are not aware, Bob is, he claims that he worked on a secret project in Area 51 in a place called S4 in a secret base.
And he worked on trying to back engineer an object that is not from this world.
That's what, that's what, that's his claim.
And I've talked to him.
I don't have any certainty, but I believe that he believes that he tells me the truth.
That's what I believe.
Same as Louis Lisando.
So, you know, I'm not perfect.
I've been fooled before, but when I talk to them, I trust them that what they're saying to me is what they believe to be true.
You got a good read.
Yes.
And Bob was explaining to me that, and he used to describe these flying discs a long time ago, like more than.
Like, maybe almost 40 years it's been like, like when he came out, yeah, 30, 30, yeah, 35, like, yeah, almost 40 years.
And used the way he used to describe them, if I may, let's say it's a disc, he was describing them at when they fly locally, they go like this, but when they have to whatever return from where they're from, they point their belly, and the reason why they skip is because of the distortion in space and time.
So, that's from our perspective, we've seen.
The object skipping, but from maybe perhaps their perspective inside, they don't skip.
Maybe they go.
So I don't know because I never experienced it being inside these things, but that's how we explain it.
And I found it fascinating.
Then when I talked to him, he explained that to me and it made more sense.
And I always been very curious about also consciousness.
What is consciousness?
Because we cannot even define what.
The Illusion of Free Will00:02:24
Is consciousness.
Religious people will say, oh, it's your soul.
Scientists who are atheists will say, oh, it's the chemistry of your brain, you know.
And the argument, they will be like, oh, you say you're a good or a bad person, but let's say you get in a car crash, boom, and you wake up from a coma, maybe you won't be the same person anymore.
So that's their argument.
They say, oh, that because your brain, the chemistry of your brain is affected.
So we're You know, in a way, we're all there's no soul, it's only matter, it's only material.
And that's one of the questions that keeps me up at night.
Are we, you know, do we have sort of a soul or are we only material?
Are we more than our physical body?
And one guy that made me change my mind on it is a friend of mine, Lex Friedman.
Yeah, he had a podcast and he works in AI robotics.
And one day I asked him, I said, because I used to believe about determinism.
I thought that there's no, I used to think that there's no such thing as free will, that everything is, you know, come from a cause, the causality.
We have the illusion of free will, but everything predetermined is predetermined.
And by definition, if there's a cause, there's no free will because a free will is something you do spontaneously without cause.
So I asked Lex, because if someone knows it's him, he works with robots.
And I asked him, I say, hey, do you believe in free will or determinism?
And he said something to me that changed my way of thinking because he's so smart and educated.
When you talk to guys like him or even Elon Musk, I had a chance to talk to him.
I was like, these guys, they make me think for freaking months and years after I've talked to them.
I have to process what they tell me.
And he says, George, we don't even know what is consciousness.
Therefore, we cannot know if there's free will or determinism or both.
We don't know.
So, even him, he doesn't, you know, he doesn't.
That's the right answer.
That's the right answer.
You know what I mean?
When you don't, until you don't know, you have to remain like this.
Ayahuasca Adventures Begin00:08:23
So, I've always been fascinated by that.
And that's why during COVID, after I retired, I decided to go on a journey.
I decided to do a Ayahuasca.
And I never talked about it because as an athlete, I was always anti drugs.
Because I fought for me in martial arts, one of the values is respect.
And if you're respectful, you're going to fight fear.
You're not going to use performance enhancing drugs.
So I never wanted to use drugs.
I waited after I retired to do that experience.
But I always wanted to do it because I always, I'm a very, Curious about consciousness.
You know, we all have dreams sometimes that we can remember, but what does it mean?
Because we were sleeping and we have dreams that seem so real.
So, what is it?
Like, is it the only imagination, material from our brain, like circuitry, or there's really something?
So, I decided to do an adventure, ayahuasca.
Ayahuasca is a psychedelic, very strong psychedelic.
Extremely strong, yeah.
And I never take drugs, I never.
Snore cocaine or did anything else.
I've tried marijuana before, but it's not really my thing.
It makes me paranoid.
I've drank, but I never did that.
So I start from zero to 100 kilometers per hour.
And I got in touch with this guy because, for a reason, I'm not allowed to say who it is and where it is.
But so one night I decided to do that.
And because of my name, I don't want to be, you know, when I did it, I was kind of scared.
I decided to bring a friend of mine who's.
With my bodyguard.
His name is Eddie.
He's a friend of mine.
And I decided to bring him with me alone just in case something happened.
Because people will laugh at it, but I'm afraid I've never done drugs before.
So I told him, if something happened, bring me to the hospital right away.
Best thing to do, probably.
Yeah.
So I was alone when I did it.
I was with him and the shaman and one of his apprentices.
And I had a friend with me that I've done ayahuasca before that did it with me.
That's it.
Because normally when you do that, you have a room with maybe six, eight people, but I didn't want to do it because I wanted to be private.
So when I first started, I took it's a cup and it's made of, I think it's made of leaf and it's a mixture of natural ingredients that come from the Amazon and it had been boiled.
So you take it.
And what I did is I took it and I lay down on a mat.
And I'm in the basement of a house.
And I didn't do it in South America.
I did it here.
So when it started, after a few minutes, I started leaving my body.
I started levitating and going towards the ceiling.
And when that happened, I felt like I sort of lost control.
So I kind of resisted and I came back into myself.
And for the next, Maybe 20, 30 minutes, nothing happened.
And now I, then I start thinking, I'm like, shit, I might have ruined my entire adventure.
And it made me sad a little bit.
Then the shaman came to see me.
He's like, Are you okay, George?
I'm like, I explained to him, like, Yeah, I resisted.
I left my body, but I kind of resisted because I didn't like the sensation of losing control.
And he looked at me, he's like, George, you have to let yourself go.
And for me, it's hard.
It's something I've never done.
You know, I always like to be in control because, You know, where I had my background in mixed martial art, you have to be in control and control all the data in order to maximize your chance of winning, you know, in a fight.
But now I have to let go, to rely on something that I never, you know, I never done and let it go.
So he says to me, He's like, let it go.
I'm like, okay.
He's like, can I take some more?
He's like, you can take more as long as you feel good and I see that you're good.
I'm like, all right.
So I take another cup and I lay down again.
And then I, I left the.
I'm not leaving my body going up like this.
I'm leaving it going up like this, looking down.
You're seeing yourself?
Yeah.
I'm seeing myself, but I'm seeing myself and I'm still aware.
I'm still aware that I'm in the bed.
It's like I'm in two places at the same time and I'm not alone.
There's something that sort of lifts me up.
And can I use?
I'm going to draw it to you so you can.
So, this thing that I see appears to me under this shape.
It's called a keyhole shape, they call it.
Whoa.
No eyes, no eyes, no mouth, no like this shape.
What color?
Was it black?
Was it like see through?
It was no color.
Like it was just translucent.
Like, it's not like I could see it with my eyes.
I was seeing it inside my head.
You were perceiving it.
Right.
Yeah.
And it was communicating with me, not like I'm talking to, hi, how are you?
Like in my head.
Like an airdrop, you know, like a jook and jook.
And everything he was thinking, I was receiving, and everything I was, he was thinking, I was receiving.
So it was like a connection, you know.
And as I'm going up, I see myself.
I even see my friend.
He was texting someone.
And I told him, I'm like, I know you were, after the adventure, I told him, I said, you were texting this person.
And he said, How did you know?
I said, I went over your shoulder, man.
I saw it.
And I'm lifting, I'm lifting, I'm lifting.
And I go through the ceiling, I see the house, and I'm like, and to the opposite of what happened a few minutes before, the first time when I didn't want to lose control, now I feel very confident because this thing is carrying me, and I feel like the best feeling in the world safe, love, successful, confident.
I feel like I'm in the up top emotionally.
I feel like I'm the best feeling in the world.
Not physically, like high, but mentally, like man, feel like in perfect harmony.
And as I'm going up, I'm like, who are you?
You know, who are you?
And it says, I'm you and everybody at the same time.
I'm the air you breathe and the water you drink.
And it didn't say that, it drew my mind.
And as I'm going up, I see the town where I am, I see the planet.
Then it made me understand that it says to me, I know why you're here.
You're curious to know about what is consciousness, and I'm going to show it to you.
I'm going to show you what is consciousness.
And then I see the map, the planet, the solar system.
It's like I'm going out, like I zoom out from where I was, and I see the entire thing.
I see the galaxies, the universe, the different universe, the different dimension.
To the point that at one point I'm like, I couldn't explain.
It's too much.
Okay, it's too much.
I can't take it anymore.
It's like, please, I don't want to know more.
I just can't take it.
And it was very weird.
Realizing the Hurt We Cause00:05:11
I'm the one who sort of tells him, and the whole time this thing is with me, sort of guiding me.
And I'm like, because I'm in a great arm, I'm in a feeling of harmony, and I'm I'm telling it, I'm like, is it only for this adventure?
Will you leave me after this?
Or he's like, no, I'm going to be always with you.
And when things don't go well, close your eyes and remember me.
I was always going to be there, even after this adventure ends.
I'm always there with you.
And I'm like, okay.
And then it sort of says to me, it's like, now that you know what you came for, I would like to share something with you.
There is a lot of time that you do things that you don't realize that you hurt people.
And I'm like, okay.
And it's like, I'm going to show you things.
But after you've seen it, it's up to you to make the effort to change because I cannot make the effort for you.
You have to make the effort if you want to change and become better.
I'm like, okay.
And then it starts going into some of my past memories on my memory, but not like memory.
Like, I was reliving certain memories that I pushed so deep inside of me, like, I didn't want to remember.
And stuff from my childhood, stuff that are so personal that I even cannot talk about, but stuff also that I've done, certain things that I've done to people, like stuff that I've been done to me, but also stuff that I've said, I've done that I didn't realize at the time how much I hurt certain people.
And I didn't mean to hurt them, but it made me, this thing made me sort of go through the perspective of the person that I was hurting and live the emotion of that person live when I did that.
And I lived it and now I understand.
And I, shit, I really hurt that person, you know, when I did this.
And like a mirror, like if I would have done it to myself.
And I felt the emotion running through.
And now I realize I'm like, shit.
I feel bad.
I've done this.
And I didn't even realize that I hurt.
I hurt that person.
And you're so caught up with what you do.
You only focus on, for me, when I was young, the most important thing was to be the strongest man in the world.
And all my focus was on that.
Everything I did was about to be champion.
And that's what it was.
The other thing around, I was seeing it.
Not only as a distraction, because I had great, great times.
You know, a lot of the people I've met, I really genuinely love those certain people and I love them.
But because my focus was not on prioritizing them and more prioritizing my goal, I hurt them in the process.
And I did not realize that.
And this adventure made me realize that.
And man, it was crazy.
And a lot of things, that's just one example, but a lot of things like this, I relive through my mind.
It made me realize that sometimes I've said stuff to another situation, to other people, and I hurt them.
It made me very sensitive about stuff that I've done.
And I was like, shit, I really did that.
And I didn't realize at the time how much I hurt certain people.
And now I do.
And even after my adventure was done, I called certain people and I apologized to them.
I said, hey, sorry, I know I did this, I did that.
Amen, I did it.
You know, like certain people that I noticed that I hurt.
And I thought they would have found it weird that I called them.
But a lot of them, they were like, oh, I. They're like, oh, thank you very much.
I mean, you come a long way and I appreciate you.
You realize, and I'm, you know, it means a lot.
And it sort of made peace.
I made peace with it and it felt great.
And that was one part of the adventure.
And at the end, because it lasts about four hours, you know, it's a strong drug.
They call it medicine, but it's really a drug.
And towards the end, this thing again, I always point it out because I want people to see.
It says to me, it's like now, George, I know you hold a lot of grudge, a lot of anger.
You know, you grew up with a lot of anger and you didn't let it out.
It served you for what you did for your fighting.
Finding Peace After the Drug00:14:50
But now you have to learn how to let it go.
And when I did this adventure, I was always contemplating an opportunity, maybe to make a comeback, or because I still had that thing inside of me.
So it says to me, is like, now you're going to have to do like a detox and it will manifest physically.
And I'm like, okay, you have to release all the negative emotion and it will manifest physically.
Are you ready?
I'm like, yes, I'm ready.
And it says, if you need my help, I will always be there.
So I said, okay, and I'm ready.
And then I went to the bathroom.
And that day, before you do ayahuasca, they advise you to not eat, to not eat anything.
You know, if you eat very light, and I didn't eat that day, I fasted.
So I go in the bathroom because I start feeling a little bit sort of sick.
And I have a bucket.
And I told you early on in my adventure, I had the hot top in terms of.
Emotion, I felt very good.
But now, my friend, I dive down deep to the point that I have nothing to live for.
Like, and I'm a very happy person in life.
I, I, and, but now, man, like, nothing to live for.
Like, basically, I want to die.
And I start having very negative thoughts, and, and it manifests physically.
It comes out.
I'm on the bathroom in the liquid.
It comes out crying, like, Like, like, depressed, depressed, you know, like to the point, like it's insane and throwing up.
So, and I'm sweating like I'm in a sauna, like, like, like down, cry, everything, sweat, like everything comes out.
And to the point that I can no longer take it.
And now I'm thinking about this thing.
I'm like, please, I can't take it.
I can't take it.
And it comes back to me, lift me up, like a little bit like I'm drowning and I cannot breathe.
And they lift me up, like, Take a few inhales.
Okay, okay.
Are you ready to dive back into it, George?
You have to let it go, let it go.
Like you have to clean it up.
I'm like, okay, I'm ready.
I'm ready.
Okay, go back in it.
And then I cry.
And then when I can no longer take it up, it comes back.
It lifts me back up.
Okay, take it.
Take a break, take a break.
But we have to go back.
It's almost done.
Okay, okay, okay.
I'm doing it again.
Okay, go.
Like a few times.
It lasted for about 20 minutes.
Wow.
And even my friend who was outside, He knocked in the bathroom.
And the whole time I was conscious that I wasn't two places at the same time.
I was on the toilet, but I was also somewhere else, like doing like a purge.
And he knocked at the bathroom.
He's like, George, you okay?
I'm all right, man.
I'm all right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Things go well.
I just need to let it go.
He's like, okay.
If something happens, let me know.
We break the door and we come get you.
I'm like, no, no, no, I'm okay, I'm okay.
So I was able to talk during that adventure to the point that when it was done, I took a shower, I changed my clothes.
Man, I felt so light.
It was just like a relief.
It felt so good physically and mentally.
And I have no evidence to prove you that, yes, I really did lift my body, I went somewhere.
Outside that, the experience that I live in my mind, maybe I really did it, or maybe I was so freaking high that I think that I did it.
I think I went to people's heads and I had like a mirror emotion experience.
I made it all up because I thought, I can't tell you.
But I'm under, after living the adventure that I lived, I'm under the impression that a strong impression that there is something to consciousness that is.
Not only measured by materialism.
Now I used to be sceptic, like how do you say agnostic?
Agnostic.
But now I lean more towards a believer.
Like a believer.
No, no.
Now I'm really convinced that there is something.
And a lot of my friends that are atheists that I told them that they say, oh, you were just so fucking high.
You know, like, yeah, maybe, maybe I was.
But it shaked me to my core so much that.
I think there is something, you know, and it's, and I think it's a beautiful experience.
I don't encourage people to take it because it's a drug.
And I did it once, and I don't have the desire to do it again because I love my brain and I don't want to damage it.
But I'm happy I've done it.
I'm very happy I've done it because it's an experience that changes my life.
Wow, George.
Thank you for sharing that.
No, it's something that I never talk publicly about it, but it's something that really changes me.
And I'm very happy I've done it.
It's crazy.
It is crazy.
And if some people sometimes wonder, should I do it or not?
You have to listen to yourself.
Don't force yourself.
If you force yourself, it's not going to be good.
You need to do it because if you're, Ready to do it, you have to let it go and you have to treat that with respect.
I know it was used heavily by ancient culture in a way to perhaps communicate with something or to get deep inside your own consciousness.
But it's really something that you need to treat with respect and it's not a recreational drug.
It is absolutely not.
And it's an experience I've done.
I'm very happy I've done it.
And yeah, it changes me.
That is really, really profound.
That sounds like, you know, a lot of people, we talked a little bit before this podcast about, you know, my experience when I did DMT.
And I had a lot of people say, you know, you should, after my out of body experiences, and I had like half a dozen of these where I'd leave my body through meditation.
And, you know, a lot of people were like, you should do ayahuasca or you should do DMT.
And so I did DMT.
Albeit my experience was nowhere near as profound as yours, there was the same element of phasing out of your body and kind of lifting out.
And I felt a very familiar sense to that.
And so for me, it was very validating because, like you, through my experiences, I was changed.
I was also, I grew up Catholic.
I became atheist, moved towards agnosticism because I started being like, I don't care.
There's something, I don't know, maybe there's something, maybe there isn't, I don't know.
And then through these experiences of seeing my own self, I'm convinced that I'm more than my physical body.
Yeah.
And like you said, like there's no hard evidence anywhere, but the hardest evidence, I don't need.
I just, there's a knowing now that I can't ignore.
There's one thing that is very important to mention.
It is because sometimes, like you read René Descartes, he says, like, let's say you put a straw in a glass of water, you see the straw bending.
So your senses can fool you.
If they can fool you once, they can fool you twice or forever.
So, because of that, for me, it was very important that I was like, how do I know this experience is real?
After when I'm done.
So I asked this thing, I asked it, I say, How would I know?
And it says to me, I will give you a gift that only you will know.
And I didn't realize what it was the gift, but now I know.
I used to be scared of height, like crazy scared of height.
I've done stuff in my life that require me to step over my fear, to challenge my fear, like skydiving, or, you know, even when I was in Singapore, I did some.
Climbing under a bridge.
I was terrified.
I've always been terrified of height.
I know when I changed the, you know, when the leaf in your, when in spring, when you have to go on top of your house for the gutters, the gutters, clean the leaf.
I'm terrified of doing it.
I freaking hate it.
I'm like, I feel the feeling like I'm about to fall.
Like, even when I go up in a building, I look down, I feel like it shakes me to my core.
But now, I know since my experience, I don't have that feeling anymore.
Whoa.
Yeah, I swear, I swear it's true.
So that's like a personal.
Yeah, it's crazy.
Like a personal confirmation that what I live is real.
So there's an argument to counter that.
They would say, oh, the drug you took maybe break your brain and break that part of your brain that gives you the fear.
Maybe it's the drug that done it.
Maybe.
Or maybe it's really this thing that gave me it.
I don't know.
But I know for a fact that now, When I go on, for example, in height, I'm aware of the danger, but I'm not paralyzed and stiff.
I'm not like I used to be before.
Right.
I'm more comfortable.
But I'm aware it's dangerous, but I'm not.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
We say in French, je suis figé, figé, you know, like I'm.
Frozen, yeah.
Frozen, yeah.
And this is something that sort of, for me, confirms.
That was like a little wink.
Yes, because for me, it's important that I have a confirmation that it's deeper.
Not only my senses, I've seen something, I hear something because this could fool you sometimes, you know?
And it's almost like I knew that.
I was like, I'm going to give you something because I know your senses.
Because I asked the question, I said, How would I know if it's real?
It says it to me.
And it sort of made me understand like, you will have a gift.
And I didn't realize what was the gift.
And now I know that's the gift.
That's interesting.
I made it all up in my mind.
Who knows?
You know what I mean?
Yeah, definitely.
That's the counter argument.
But I also counter argue that with why do we associate the physical with the real?
What if this isn't real?
And what if everything else is?
Because that seems to be the trend.
It seems to be like if we're looking at interdimensional beings or even the existence, the non existence of space time, like the way these things operate behaves differently.
When we sleep, time behaves differently.
When our brain shuts down, it's like it seems like this astral or this whatever this space is might be the real in like you know, much like the simulation theory.
And I don't like that word because it makes us feel like a video game, which I don't think that's at all it.
But this is some type of lower density 3D avatar that we're sort of learning lessons through.
So the way that I always see this is that that's the reality.
Okay.
This other place is the reality.
And there you have instant manifestation.
You can manifest anything, you can go anywhere, anything just happens instantly.
It's so easy.
But when you do that, you don't learn anything because everything's too easy.
You have it all.
So we're put here into these 3D reality and everything's hard and slow.
And we move like through molasses here.
And if we want to manifest something, it takes years or months and we have to think of it and we have to really like and move things to make it happen.
So it's like a slow motion version of what's really going on.
But this is the only way that we can learn hardship and we can learn lessons that we take back to the reality, right?
So when people say, you know, is it real?
Is it not real?
I think what we're asking is, is it physical or non physical?
And I don't think non physical means it's not real.
I think there are different reals.
Yeah.
What I get from my ayahuasca adventure also is the fact that I'm under the impression, and that's only me, that consciousness is something that linked everything together, that we're all ones.
In the same time that we're all different.
Yeah.
You know, in a materialistic world, we'll say, like, let's say I die, you bury me naked underneath the soil.
I will stop existing as an entity walking around, but I will not end.
I will be transformed.
The worms will eat me.
Perhaps the grass on top of me, the herbs will grow faster because the organic material.
So I will move.
From that state of walking around to another state of different things.
And I'm under the impression that that's what consciousness is about.
And it made me, it gave me also the impression that, you know, when someone dies, we're all very sad, you know, and it's normal, we're sad.
But it gives me the impression that there's something that, you know, that person died that became part of something else that one day will join, will join it as well to be part of that.
Thing and we're all sort of together.
I don't know how to explain.
It's a freaking profound experience.
And they say, you know, we saw a certain clip online, like Rick James says, hey, cocaine is a hell of a drug, but ayahuasca is a hell of a drug, too.
So I don't know what to make of it.
Yeah.
Yeah, they should have, yeah, they should definitely make that a meme instead.
They're going to make some meme now, Jay.
Ayahuasca is a hell of a drug.
So, Joe Rogan saying it or something.
Rick James.
Yeah.
That's, I mean, that seems to be on par with a lot of beliefs.
And that's the thing.
It's like, this isn't the one thing that I keep understanding is that none of this is new.
Right.
Sleep Paralysis and Wisdom00:06:36
And that's the feeling that I got when I was sort of leaving my body as well.
The very, I started vibrating before it happened.
Right.
I started getting, and I thought, I documented this.
I thought there was a truck on the property.
And I was like, how rude that, like, there's this giant truck on the property when we're trying to meditate.
Turns out, no, that was me.
There was a vibration in me, and it wasn't physical, but it felt physical.
And when that was happening, it was just so strange.
And the feeling that I got, the overwhelming, like the only way that I can explain it is this is ancient.
That's it.
Whatever's happening to me right now, I felt tied me, connected me to thousands of years of humans, that this specific moment right now, you know, links me to them.
Not, not, not.
Me researching something, not something I'm eating, not the air, not nothing, this feeling, this is a very human feeling.
And this is something that links me to all of that.
Like we all have differences over time and knowledge and intelligence, experience, but this we have in common.
And that was a really powerful sensation to feel that because it felt true.
It felt like, hey, this is true.
This is real.
And I even told you before the interview, before the podcast, that I would be very interested.
To go back into that state, but I'm no longer interested to do it using drugs to get there.
I feel it's sort of a shortcut.
And sometimes, with shortcut, I feel sometimes it's like giving a gun to a child, you know, or he doesn't have the wisdom to use it.
And maybe I did ayahuasca, but I didn't have the wisdom.
I didn't work together.
I just took something and boom, I get there.
I cheated.
You know what I mean?
And I feel I did it once.
It was okay.
But I'm very interested if there is a way, because I heard monks get there because your brain produced the empty.
If there is a way to get there naturally, I would really love to learn it.
And I know you're going down that rabbit hole, and I'm really interested to learn these.
When I was young, when I was a kid, I used to have an experience called sleep paralysis.
And that's how they called it.
I don't know if it is.
And that's one of the reasons why I first started getting interested in UFOs.
Even before I had the encounter with my four friends that I've seen something in the sky, it started way earlier.
You know, I used to be in bed at night and I used to have nightmares of, you know, of things that came and get me.
And I used to tell my parents, I'm like, man, I was scared.
And for a long time, I was terrified.
I thought like something came to get me.
And I met, you know, when I met Joe Rogan and he talked to me about a phenomenon called sleep paralysis.
He says, like, there's a phenomenon that you're in bed and.
You cannot move, and your brain produces DMT and it starts hallucinating things, and that could be it.
And I, but man, it really traumatized me when I was young to the point that even now I'm an adult sometimes.
And I'm in, let's say I'm in bed and I'm alone and I start thinking about it, it makes me remember the fear and it scared me.
Even when I'm a grown man and I can't defend myself, it traumatized me to that point.
Wow.
And that's one of the reasons now I would be very interested to learn how I could.
Perhaps get back into that mental state if there's ways to do it naturally.
I used to be very skeptical.
I used to learn to hear all those stories.
Oh, yeah, this, that.
They go, I'm like, yeah, right, right.
But now that I did ayahuasca, I know it's possible to do it on drugs.
I would love to know how to do it naturally just to perhaps increase my knowledge and maybe help me be a better person, you know?
Yeah.
And that's probably the best intention to go into it with.
And that's probably the strongest intention as well, because when you rule out.
This is just something in my experience as well.
And this has been echoed by a lot of people who study this.
But when you rule out the ego part of it, that's when things happen, right?
If it's not for monetary gain or it's not for any other purpose, but like once the ego is out of the equation, that's when you're more receptive.
That's when the intention is sort of pure and it kind of picks up on that, the phenomenon.
It's a very interesting thing that you just mentioned ego.
And that's one of the things I had a hard time to let it go in the fighting world.
Yeah, it's a very egotistic industry.
Everything is about being the alpha, not being scared.
Very physical, lower density.
Like everything is.
Yeah, 100%.
It's a lot of bullying and mental warfare.
And you never want to admit that you're scared, even though deep down inside you are, because it shows signs of weakness.
But it's not, in a way.
In a way, admitting that you're scared, it showcases that you're strong because you're allowed to talk about your fear.
And if I'm talking, if I'm an open book and I talk about my fear, I'm not afraid of you.
You know what I mean?
Like, because I've shown my most vulnerable part because I'm confident that I'm better than you.
True strength.
Yes, yes.
So, yeah, but the ego, letting go of your ego, that's the ego in the same time, it's your pride.
And it is what makes you.
Stand up and being strong towards adversity.
But in the same time, it's a double edged sword because if you let it go, it can make you a better person.
It'd be more open to people.
And, you know?
Yeah.
And that's something you've actually talked about.
Like, I remember hearing that too, like admitting you're nervous or admitting that, like, yeah, no, I am going into this fight.
You're not like just everyone else where they were like, you know, this is it.
I'm going to, you know, there was a certain, but that helped you that like made you a more intelligent.
Confidence Amidst Fear00:14:02
You know what happened, Chris?
Early on in my career, I mean, the way I describe it is we're not all born with the same set of cards, you know?
We all have different skills, you know?
If I would have been born with an anti-cap, I would never be able to be champion.
I'm a very athletic person.
I've always been good in sports, and I developed a passion for martial art early on.
Watching movies, you know, Jacques Lowe Van Damme and all these guys, Chuck Norris, they really inspire me, Steven Seagal, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stevester Stallone.
And I was bullied at school.
So I first started karate.
I started with Kyokushin karate as a self defense to defend myself in the schoolyard.
And then it transformed into a passion because things back then were not well, things were not going well at home.
My dad at that time was drinking and Things were not going well at school because I was getting bullied.
Instead of focusing on what the teacher was saying, I had to try to think about how I'm going to reach out my locker, pick up my book, and get to the bus before the guys get to me and beat me up.
And that was something that was happening to me on a weekly basis.
So I was not happy.
I was not good anywhere.
I felt bad everywhere.
The only place I felt good was the dojo because I was doing well in karate.
I was starting to collect metal.
That was the only place where I feel like, hey man, I'm good here.
You know, I'm doing something well.
And then later on, my dad did something that really inspired me and brought back my family together when he stopped drinking.
And it really inspired me.
And it changes my life because I saw how hard it was to fight the thirst.
And not only did he stop drinking, he started to mentor younger people that try to stop drinking.
I remember at night, sometimes the phone was ringing at 11 at night, and was my dad picking up the phone?
It was a maybe a younger guy.
It was like, Hey man, I'm thirsty.
And my dad was like, I'm coming, I'm coming to get you.
Don't and he left.
So it really inspired me, you know, because I saw how hard it was.
And I realized it only later when I was an adult, not really at the time.
It was like sort of a delay, and it really inspired me.
But I remember even early on in my career, we talk about ego and pride.
I, I would when I was looking around.
I never felt, I never fit.
I felt I never fit where I was.
I loved the purity, I wanted to be champion.
I did it for the right reason.
I didn't want to do it because I wanted to be popular with the money because they didn't have any money and popularity back then.
I just wanted to be champion.
I wanted to be the best.
I did it for the pure reason.
But when I was looking around and I was looking at my training partner in my environment, I didn't fit in.
Because all the guys I was with, they were like, Yeah, I can't wait for Saturday night.
I'm like, Man, I'm scared.
I'm not happy to be here.
I'm happy to be in the gym to train and to have that lifestyle.
And I know if I want to continue to have that lifestyle, the sacrifice is that I need to fight Saturday night and win the fight in order to do it.
But I don't enjoy this process.
I'm not happy to do it.
I'm happy to have that lifestyle for free, but I'm not happy to go fight.
I never liked to fight.
So I decided to seek the help of a sport psychologist.
Because, man, I felt I never, I didn't fit in.
And some sports psychologists tried to brainwash me.
They were like, George, stop saying you're afraid.
You're not afraid.
You're excited.
And one of them, it was like, it was, my English used to be very, like, it's still bad, but it used to be way worse before.
And I was thinking, I was like, is it a language barrier?
Excited?
Like, I don't think I'm excited.
I would be excited in a different situation, but I'm not excited to go to know that I'm going to fight Saturday night, not knowing if I will be.
Badly injured or humiliated.
I'm afraid.
And then I realized that, man, I need to make peace with it.
And there is no shame to admit that you're afraid because there is no courage without fear.
And when I made peace with that, it changes everything in my life because I made peace.
And I said it to even in my openness like, yeah, I'm scared of you.
But no matter what, I'm going to freaking walk the walk on Saturday night and there's nothing you can do.
And the way you counter fear, whether you're a fighter, an entrepreneur, or whatever, It's with the preparation.
The more well you prepare, the more you will build up your confidence.
And if you have confidence, remember, confidence is not the absence of fear, it's knowing that you have what you need in order to succeed.
A good analogy is if I talk to young students at school, I'm telling them if you have an exam on a Friday and you study very hard, yes, you will still be afraid Friday, the day of the exam, but you have the right to be confident, to walk in there with confidence, even though you're afraid.
But if you have not studied, you will be afraid.
But you don't have the right to be confident because you know you didn't do the work.
You didn't put in the work.
And confidence, whether you're a fighter, an entrepreneur, whatever you do, whether even in any situation, even if you go ask a girl on a date, confidence, whatever you do, it's the most important thing.
One of the most important things.
You need the skills, the preparation, and the confidence.
Because if you don't have confidence, it's a little bit like it's a good analogy that my sensei was saying to me is that if you don't have confidence, It's like someone who has a lot of money in his bank account, but no way of accessing it.
You can never reach your full potential.
And the way you build confidence is through preparation.
And when I made peace with it, I knew I was afraid.
I made peace with it.
I remember when I was young, I thought the fear will go away over time, that I will get used to it.
I will no longer be afraid.
But that's not true.
It's the opposite.
It gets worse because every fight is bigger than the last one.
And it gets worse.
But I made, because I made peace with it, I was like, man, I know this is normal.
I need to be afraid because I know when I'm afraid, it highens my reaction time, my reset time.
It makes me better.
So I embrace fear.
I know it's a normal thing.
And if my opponent is like, you're afraid of me, I'm like, yeah, man, I'm afraid of you.
But I'm going to fucking do it regardless.
And I think, from my perspective, it's way scarier than saying, no, I'm not afraid of you.
99% of the people in my field of work, like, no, I'm not afraid.
I'm going to kick his ass.
Like, bullshit, man.
You're scared.
Or you're scared or you're a psychopath.
Or you're a liar.
That's the three possibilities.
You're lying or you're a psychopath.
You know what I mean?
Or you're dumb as hell.
Because if you're not afraid, that means you don't know the consequences of what can happen.
You know?
That's true.
Yeah, wow, man.
Because you never control the entire data.
When you go into a fight, you have to focus on things that you have the power to control.
You don't want to focus, and that's the hardest thing to do because there are so many distractions.
You don't want to focus on things you don't control.
For example, what the people are going to say.
Am I going to win or lose?
What my opponent is going to do?
This needs to be wiped out of your mind, only focusing on things that you do control, things that I do.
Me as an entity, I don't exist.
Am I going to be sick the morning of the fight?
Am I sleeping well or not?
I don't care.
It's out of my mind.
The only thing that matters is the objective.
And the objective is the only thing that matters because that's what's going to lead you to the path of victory.
And this needs to be done at all costs.
That's the spirit.
You know, you need to go in.
It's hard to think about it, but that's the way it is.
Like a soldier, it's objective, no subjective.
But that's such a big contrast.
Between being there, preparing yourself physically, mentally for a physical and mental bout.
And on top of that, all the other obstacles that are being thrown your way, not only like health wise, but also like, you know, emotionally or personally, the things that you're dealing with or like the media and all this stuff, right?
It's a big battle.
Going from that.
Oh, yeah.
To what happened after this, you know, ayahuasca trip, which is completely almost like, 180 degree.
Yeah, the opposite.
Oh, yeah.
It's like, it's like, okay, you've done that.
Now forget all that.
And you're like, how do I forget all that?
That's, you know, that's your identity.
That's everything.
And you had to come to terms with that too.
So that must have been just like, I mean, I can even hear you telling a story and I know that you've, it's changed you.
Like, if you were, let's say, let's put this scenario.
If you were to somehow have a time machine, right?
And go back into the ring.
But after having this experience, do you think that would make you a better or worse fighter?
It's a good question.
I think it would make me worse.
I think there's a chronological way to do it.
I think you don't want to do this before you finish your career.
Right.
And what I'm saying is only what I, from my field of expertise, my experience, but I know that there's some other professional.
Combat athlete, for example, Deontay Wilder mentioned, I believe, that he did ayahuasca and he believed that's why his career went down.
He said it publicly.
And I can understand why.
Because that ego thing that we talk about as a fighter is the most important thing.
That's your spine.
That's what holds you up against all odds, against all the adversity.
It's your ego, your pride.
But in society, It could be an obstacle because, you know, sometimes you have an ego, you have to let your ego aside.
It makes you put it down, it makes you a better person, I believe.
And even the people that know me personally say that when I did ayahuasca, it really changes me.
It made me more empathetic, more in touch with other people.
I'm by no means perfect.
I have a lot of issues and I need to work on myself a lot, you know, but I'm a little bit better than I used to be.
Yeah, and I can see that as being a problem too, going into the ring with empathy.
You don't.
Feeling bad for hurting your opponent is not something you want to think about.
You want to be like, I mean, I don't like that to say it.
Yeah, like an alpha bull, you know, like, bro, you're here to destroy and kill everyone.
You know, that's how it is.
That's how you need to be.
But you can't stay like that all your life.
And I believe one of the reasons why a lot of athletes in combat sport have a hard time letting it go.
And you see a lot of athletes sometimes, they should have retired maybe a decade ago, but they're still out there fighting.
I mean, it's very sad.
Yeah.
It's very, very sad.
You see that happening all the time.
And they hurt themselves.
CTE.
Oh, CTE physically.
They hurt also themselves business wise.
Because when you finish on top, for example, for me, yeah, the best reason why I stopped is because it's my health.
I wanted to finish healthy, to have a future, to be healthy for the rest of my life.
But also, the second reason is business wise.
When you finish on top, I compare, for example, entertainers or athletes like stuck in the market.
If you finish on top, you're stuck worth a lot of money.
So there's a lot of opportunity when you retire and you turn around, a lot of business opportunity opens to you.
Those opportunities will not be there if you retire on a four loss, four losing street because your stock will go down.
And it's something to think about.
So a lot of people, they told me, Yeah, you must have, George, you should have kept on fighting.
You left a lot of money on the table.
Maybe I left some money on the table, but I think I catch it up on the long run.
And on top of that, I didn't damage my health because it's not only the fight.
Think about it.
When you get ready for a fight, you have to go into a training camp, get hit, and all that.
It's even worse than the fight itself and all the stresses that you have.
And for me, the stress was the most damageable thing, the stress.
I've always been very open about it.
Like I was stressed, I was scared, and it took a lot out of me, a lot more than the physical damage.