As the two fighters stood facing each other in the Octagon, they knew the time for talking was over. More than 15,000 fans were on their feet in anticipation of what was about to unfold in the MGM Grand Garden Arena. The UFC featherweight Champion Jose Aldo – a man who hadn’t been beaten in over a decade – and his challenger, the unprecedented crowd favourite Conor McGregor were about to create history.
As the referee signalled the commencement of the fight McGregor rushed to the centre of the ring to meet the champion. The 29-year-old Aldo feigned a jab with his left, keeping his right fist wound tightly, ready to unleash it at any moment.
The southpaw McGregor threw the opening shots, a left cross to bridge the distance between the two, followed by a right kick to keep Aldo at bay.
The Irishman McGregor bounced in position, smiling, daring the Brazilian Champion to advance towards him, and in the next moment, Aldo took his invitation. He lunged at McGregor, opening his shoulders to throw a right-left combination straight toward Conor’s chin.
McGregor motioned backwards inviting the champion into the void, then, slipping by the now unwound right fist he swung his own left hook which connected directly on the Champions unguarded jaw.
Aldo was unconscious before he hit the floor, his left fist unravelling through the air, thudding into Conor’s face like a sandbag as he fell tranquillized to the mat.
The crowd ignited, the fight was over moments later. McGregor had just done the incredible, winning the UFC featherweight title in thirteen seconds.
But what was even more incredible about this exchange, was that just days earlier the new champion had told everyone who would listen exactly how he was going to win the fight.
Predicting the Outcomes
In the world of professional fighting, there’s no shortage of cocky fighters willing to make bold predictions to grab a headline and promote themselves. It’s all part of the show. And McGregor has certainly played that role throughout his career.
But he’s also made a string of eerily accurate predictions about his career on his rise to the top.
In 2008, seven years before the Aldo fight, a 19-year-old McGregor said the following when asked about his ambitions in MMA.
“My dream is to be world champion in the UFC, have more money then I know what to do with, and have a great life for my kids, my grandkids, everyone in my family that has come up with me… my dream is to be the number one in MMA”
He followed this up over the coming years by predicting when and how many of his fights would unfold, the specific round he would win in, and how he would win. He also predicted that he would have the highest pay-per-view numbers in the company’s history.
Every now and again a person comes along who makes you think twice about the way things work. Like they know something everyone else doesn’t, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of thin air.
Muhammad Ali was famous for consistently picking the exact rounds he would end his fights in, so much so that the New York State Legislature brought him in for questioning as they suspected his fights were being fixed.
He also once said he felt he could predict things like airplanes falling out of the sky.
What is it that allows these people to seemingly predict the future, or create an outcome like this? Is it a show? Is it the law of attraction? Is it luck?
Finding the Truth
The things we tell ourselves can have an impact on the way we perform, and the results we achieve. But there’s a subtle art to the language people like Conor McGregor use when speaking a vision into reality.
Positive affirmations often get a bad wrap, and studies have shown that positive self-statements can backfire, causing more harm than good to people who don’t truly believe the things they are telling themselves.
But, those same studies also show that people who consider both sides of a positive statement; and how it both does and doesn’t apply to them, experienced better outcomes than those who just thought about only the positive side.
Observing both sides of a statement helps to bring it into balance in our mind. If someone says they are always positive and never negative, or always happy and never sad, your internal BS detector should go off straight away. No one is positive all of the time, just as no one is negative all of the time. We are constantly moving into different states of change, the key is to find balance.
In the lead up to the fight against Jose Aldo, when asked about his prediction McGregor said the following.
“I felt when we stared down, that his right hand was twitching, which was a subtle tell for me. He is ready to unload that right hand and I feel that could be a downfall for him. If he lets that right hand go, I will not be there, I simply enter the way I enter, and that is enough. They either overextend, or they shrink away, but either way it is not good for them. I will create traps and dead space inside that octagon, and I will walk him into that dead space, and all of a sudden he will be in danger.”
What’s interesting about this is where he says ‘I simply enter the way I enter, and that is enough. They either overextend, or they shrink away, but either way it is not good for them.’
McGregor didn’t say, “I’m going to steamroll him inside of 13 seconds, he’s toast, I’m the greatest lightweight who ever lived.” Instead, he put himself in the middle, between an opponent who overextended and one who shied away.
It was a statement that was completely balanced, you could tell he had closely observed his opponent at the stare down and he truly believed every word of what he was saying. His BS detector was silent.
The Balance
Our thoughts are like nutrients, when we eat a balanced diet our bodies remain healthy and strong, but if we move to either end of the spectrum, by either forcing ourselves to eat super healthy all of the time, or lapsing into unhealthy foods, our bodies inevitably revert and crave the opposite.
Whole industries, fad diets and health programs are built on the knowledge that we will inevitably swing between these polarities to varying degrees.
It’s the same with our thoughts. If we spend our time thinking ‘I’m always positive’, ‘I’m always happy’ or ‘ I’m always a good person’, our minds intuitively know this isn’t true all of the time.
That’s why some of the most positive, happy, or funny people we see on TV or social media are often miserable and depressed in real life.
The thoughts we tell ourselves need to have a level of balance to them and avoid the polarities of ‘I always do X’, or ‘I am never Y’.
When we observe the other side of X and Y and see we can be both of those particular traits, we are able to settle on what we truly believe in. The BS detector in our brain remains silent, we see things more clearly, and we can have the true confidence to put our vision into the world and act on opportunities to make them happen.
At his post-fight press conference after the fight, McGregor said this about his predictions.
“If you can see it here [in your mind] and you have the courage enough to speak it, it will happen. I see these shots, I see these sequences, and I don’t shy away from them. A lot of times people believe in certain things but they keep to themselves, they don’t put it out there. If you truly believe in it, if you become vocal with it, you are creating that law of attraction and it will become reality.”
Whether it’s showmanship, truth, or luck, the words we use have the ability to prime us to achieve our goals and turn our thoughts into reality. If they’re balanced, avoid polarities and we have the courage to speak them into the world then we give them every chance to eventuate when those opportunities arise.
