MMA Fighter Vitor Belfort on Belief, Mindset, Overcoming Fear

Vitor Belfort (0:00)

When you're so afraid, that's when you're the most courage.

When you realize, when you accept, you are afraid, and you deal with it. So my wife taught me something so important, she said, face your fear, the only way you're gonna leave your dreams if you face your fears, it's so true.

Michael Gervais (0:26)

Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast. I'm Michael Gervais. And these conversations are designed to learn from people who are on the path of mastery, who have dedicated their life to understanding the nuances of their craft and in return, understanding the nuances of what it means to be fully alive and to potentially walk the path of mastery of self. And in these conversations, we want to understand the mental skills that they've used. We want to understand the psychological framework, which is how they make sense of the world and themselves and other people. And the whole design is for us to learn from very switched on people so that we can live a better life ourselves. And that's the gift that they're giving us in this conversation.

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Now, this conversation is with MMA fighter and legend Vitor Belfort.

Vitor presents himself in an unbelievable way. He is a beautiful soul and he's in one of the most ancient and rugged and difficult sports that we have today. It is brutal and it is violent and it's one of the most ancient arts of martial, the art of fighting and the art of war, if you will.

And it's intimate and it just really challenges people that watch it and people that are in it and people that are supporting it. Like it really challenges a deep part of the human experience to watch it and be part of it. And I wanted to understand from Vitor how he has so much love and so much compassion and so much passion for people. And at the same time, he has the ability to be very destructive, very violent and how he's contained the two of those and how he's formulated ways to think well in both of those environments and to be able to feel well in both of those environments. He's a beautiful man. I love having conversations with him. And as a little quick little gem for you is that if you're listening to these podcasts in a timely way and you're up to speed, which I know not everyone is, that's cool. But Vitor is singing his swan song on UFC Fight Night 124 on January 14th. So you might get to see somebody for their last event, their last approach to mastery on a world stage. And I hope you love the man that Vitor is working to become and who he is as much as I do. And with that, let's jump right into this conversation with Vitor Belfort. Vitor, how are you?