Forrest Griffin: Got Fight: The 50 Zen Principles of Hand to Face Combat

Transcript

[0:00:28] Charlie Hoehn: You’re listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about books with the authors who wrote them. I’m Charlie Hoehn. Today’s episode is with Forrest Griffin, author of Got Fight: The 50 Zen Principles of Hand to Face Combat. Forrest became famous after he won the very first season of the Ultimate Fighter TV show. He went on to become the UFC light heavyweight champion and now, he’s a UFC hall of famer. In this episode, Forrest tells stories about the fights he’s been in throughout his life, back when he was a kid to when he served as a police officer. We also talk about how to be a good parent, how to improve your writing and what it’s like to go from broke to poor, to rich and back again. Forrest is exactly the way you’d expect him to be, down to earth, fun and hilarious. So now, here is our conversation with Forrest Griffin. The way I want to start Forrest is just hearing about your personal story like how did you first begin getting interested in fighting?

[0:01:42] Forrest Griffin: Okay, alright. You know, I never even liked boxing as a kid, I did taekwondo for like two weeks and I was like, I started to beat these kids up, I’m tough I play football, you know, I grew up in football, basketball and I would get in a lot of fights not because I was mean or aggressive just because I was kind of big. When you kind of big you just kind of get right, you know, if an argument breaks out and you sort of get involved in it and also we got that in the most fights is because I did not understand the concept of how to play basketball differently on asphalt. I would like try and shake charges and pickup games, I remember being like 15 years old and getting punched by a grown man, it was a brick mason. One Saturday morning playing ball and I was like wow that guy can hit really hard. I guess it means that I don’t really like fighting, it was just you know, the same with me in public speaking, it’s not that I like it, I just – it doesn’t stand me to intimidate, I don’t mind it at all whereas with most people don’t really like public speech.

[0:02:48] Charlie Hoehn: Right, you grew up around it being sort of a normal thing and just who you are, it wasn’t that you were necessarily drawn to it as something that you wanted to do, it just happened?

[0:03:02] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, it’s kind of fun you know? It’s very brilliant in that moment when you’re in a fight you know? I kind of equate it to the way that that guy talks about that gone in 60 seconds or whatever, you’re not really thinking about anything else you know? You’re in a fight, all your other problems are put on mute, at least that time or even if you’ve ever had to fight somebody at 3:00 into the school day, you cannot think about all your other life problems. They become very pale in comparison to somebody punching and kicking you in the face, that immediateness.

[0:03:39] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, do any of your fights from when you were young, really stand out to you? Apart from the brick mason on the basketball court?

[0:03:49] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, I was in third grade and I just lost fight with a fourth grader and I have no idea how I lost it so bad and I jumped on top of him, it was his own fault and I just remembered being in the principal’s office and I was kind of you know, just a big goofy kid, a lot like now. Not mean or malicious and you know, I just remember like the teacher was like real – it was the principal and I started giggling when she was talking to me and she was like come on Forrest, I’m so sorry, so I was kind of good together.

[0:04:26] Charlie Hoehn: Do you think if you’d gotten like really punished for that behavior, it would have stopped you from doing it more in the future? Did you see that reaction that she had as kind of like –

[0:04:26] Forrest Griffin: No, I didn’t set out to get in a fight you know? I didn’t know that was going to happen, it’s beyond my control so it’s not like that was you know, I was never trying to get in a fight but was trying to hold down the space you know? You don’t let people push you around and it becomes physical, these things happen, it happens anywhere.

[0:05:01] Charlie Hoehn: Tell me more about like where you grew up, what your family life was like? I mean, everybody Identifies you with fighting but like paint the picture of who you are more outside of that?

[0:05:15] Forrest Griffin: Well you know, if you read my first book, that was – nah I’m just kidding. No man, I grew up in Aguste Georgia, you know, I grew up a little bit poor and I got out of poverty like everyone should, my mom remarried pretty well, not like super well but somewhat well. I was like carnivore’s milk and I climbed out a lot of poverty with my boot straps. My mom remarried and got a job. I was very fortunate, you need to be poor when you’re young and good to be poor and then go to not being poor right? The same thing in my career you know? At some point, especially a good story about it in my book but you know, I ended up, I would have been homeless without my friends and family and that’s kind of what makes you realize like, if I didn’t have a social support group. I really would have you know, not done well but I never – I never really understand what people through poverty of your life with their circumstance because they don’t have parents to bail them out when they’re broke, they don’t have friends that are like you can sleep on the couch or, we’ll give you food and money you know? I did. I was poor but I was never like so bad off that I didn’t have friends that are poor you know? I think true poor people and I know what that was, there’s nobody to ask for anything. Whenever you saw something about the level of how you grew up, you kind of have to take that into account.

[0:06:54] Charlie Hoehn: I agree.

[0:06:56] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, I broke myself a couple of times but that was real stupid and I wanted to make an impressionable face about it, in my twenties I ended up with no money and no ability to get a job and you know, I got a temp job once, I got a temp job through a temp agency and it was – I was putting penis pumps in boxes all day.

[0:07:19] Charlie Hoehn: Penis pumps? Is that what you just said?

[0:07:21] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, medical grade, not like fun, like medical grade ones, not the bright purple ones. Medical grade penis pumps, in boxes, all day.

[0:07:30] Charlie Hoehn: What do they do? I have no idea what a medical grade penis pump does.

[0:07:36] Forrest Griffin: It literally pumps up your penis and enlarges your penis.

[0:07:40] Charlie Hoehn: Wow.

[0:07:41] Forrest Griffin: You put this like, it has these little bands on and then you lock in the erection and bust in there. I’m assuming then to have sex.

[0:07:48] Charlie Hoehn: Wow. That was your temp job?

[0:07:51] Forrest Griffin: I was going in there for three hours. So I walked off the temp job. When you walk off the temp job, I just went to lunch because it sucked so bad.

[0:07:59] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:07:59] Forrest Griffin: You can’t use that agency anymore so I kind of screwed myself on that one.

[0:08:04] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, no joke.

[0:08:07] Forrest Griffin: Don’t walk off jobs on some temp agency and they won’t use you anymore.

[0:08:11] Charlie Hoehn: No, what did you do after that?

[0:08:14] Forrest Griffin: I don’t know, well see, I had been – I start at the top and I was an impressionable fighter. I was kind of in school, pay your class or so. I was working security doing gigs, I worked for some lap birds but I broke my arm and you can’t work security in a cast. I broke my arm in a fight. I severed my right hand. Which is funny, I don’t know that that ever would have finished college if I hadn’t shattered my right hand. Nothing else to do and so a lot of people don’t really understand how medical insurance works but I do. You go into the emergency room with a spiral crutches and your third and fourth meta carpal which I did. They don’t like to restrict you, they task you and we’re in surgery and I said okay, do the surgery. No, we don’t – surgery’s not through it. They gave me a bunch of paperwork which is the irony because my right hand’s broken, I could not fill out the paperwork. I’m a resourceful guy, they follow me. I took out student loans and then I withdrew from all my classes so I got the cash and I bought myself a new hand, good investment but I also finished college.

[0:09:40] Charlie Hoehn: I didn’t realize that would be a felony but yeah, that makes sense.

[0:09:46] Forrest Griffin: You can’t use student loan money for anything else. I know that because they told me, the university of Georgia offices, I would do it with stuff, what I was doing was technically a felony. I was like, cool, I’m doing it.

[0:10:01] Charlie Hoehn: Right, yeah. Wow, you finished up college and did you have any idea what you wanted to do after you were finished with college?

[0:10:14] Forrest Griffin: I mean, I wanted to work in law enforcement but I wanted to work specifically for the DEA, to be on a mission, just because I was young and they are the agent that kicks down the most doors and built the most stuff. I wanted to be a SWAT guy really.

[0:10:28] Charlie Hoehn: Right.

[0:10:30] Forrest Griffin: Why?

[0:10:32] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:10:33] Forrest Griffin: It was like fun you know? Kind of like being a soldier but you get to go home and sleep in your own bed at night and if you get shot, you don’t have to be flown somewhere, you just drive to the hospital you know? You get some of the perks of being a soldier without the threat of being set out and not being able to shower or have coffee for months on end.

[0:10:55] Charlie Hoehn: Right, yeah, that’s true. Did you think about ever going into the military or the army?

[0:11:00] Forrest Griffin: Man, you know, again, I had the craziest respect, the most lucky, like I said, I finished college because I broke my hand. I bombed the asphalt so I did not qualify, I was trying to get them to send me to nursing school and I did not qualify permission school so I didn’t join. I basically didn’t qualify for anything else and that was like in ‘99. Because I want to join the military. That was in ‘98, ‘99 and then in college after 9/11, I was trying to sign up and the science teacher did not give me my extra credit that he was supposed to give me so I got a B instead of an A and it was catastrophic and didn’t follow through. He was the guy that was going to like sign me up and I was like, he just pissed me off so I just didn’t follow through with it. Because he gave me a B when I should have had an A. Bullshit.

[0:11:59] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, well, I mean. All things tend to work out in the end but yeah, in the moment, it’s definitely frustrating.

[0:12:10] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, I love that saying everything works out for the best in the end butnot necessarily the best for you.

[0:12:15] Charlie Hoehn: No, definitely not.

[0:12:19] Forrest Griffin: It’s just the best overall, yeah.

[0:12:21] Charlie Hoehn: Right. After college, you spent some time in law enforcement you said? You were a cop? What was that experience like?

[0:12:31] Forrest Griffin: It was fun, it was alright and I have to get up 4:15 every day to get to shifts on time but it was okay. I was still finding my feet and didn’t know the locations, didn’t know what I was doing that much, I’ve always been a good talker and a good interviewer. On numerous occasions, even getting on the tough shell, I’ve been able to bullshit people to let me do things that I’m totally unqualified to do and you know, that was just another occasion of that.

[0:13:00] Charlie Hoehn: Where did you learn that?

[0:13:01] Forrest Griffin: It’s just natural. It’s just a matter you know, you’ve met me, I’m moderately personable.

[0:13:09] Charlie Hoehn: Super personable. I should mention, you and I met at a speaking event and I was really surprised because I knew a little bit about you but you got on stage and you were one of the most relaxed and funny speakers I’d ever seen. It really surprised me because I didn’t know how funny you were so I could totally see you being able to BS your way through a lot of the situations and –

[0:13:40] Forrest Griffin: I mean that’s literally been my primary skill in life thus far.

[0:13:47] Charlie Hoehn: Tell me about your experience as a cop, what stories come to mind about you being in law enforcement?

[0:13:57] Forrest Griffin: Well, you know, I didn’t do it that long and – well two years of round and a little over a year the second go around. If you don’t work a certain amount of time, you actually owe them back for the academy. You have better monetize.

[0:14:12] Charlie Hoehn: Right.

[0:14:13] Forrest Griffin: That’s why I’m so low, for us to low. Just this one test money but I left with 17 days noticed to go to the Ultimate Fighter.

[0:14:21] Charlie Hoehn: Wow.

[0:14:24] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, that’s a cool thing in life, you have to take chances, you’d rather do the things – you’d rather regret the things you did do than the things you didn’t do.

[0:14:36] Charlie Hoehn: Right.

[0:14:38] Forrest Griffin: I was actually a replacement to be on the first Ultimate Fighter, it was like the last minute replacement, I only had 17 days so basically I was leaving my job with a do not hire reference because I had not given 21 days to leave them. You know, it was tough for me to reach.

[0:14:57] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah. Well before we jump into that, I didn’t mean to cut you off. Can you tell us some stories about your time as a police officer and maybe what you learned while doing that?

[0:15:12] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, I don’t know if I learned that much, I learned a little bit about code but you know, I learned that I write formal reports really good, testifying them in court. You know how I like to bullshit the court a bit so I have some good ones — I had this one for drunk driving and you know, the breathalyzer but you know, he was on like, pain medication and he only had one tier and you know, the lawyers trying to setup the defense and they said to me don’t you think and I said well judging from the field of that to have enough information to know he was to upgrade the vehicle. Don’t you think that the prescription medication that he got from the hospital may have impaired his ability to take your deal and sobriety test and I said absolutely. I believe it impaired his driving and everybody was like oh cold. It’s funny when you hear a courtroom go ooh — that’s like when you know you’ve made it live, that’s it. He actually slipped out the road.

[0:16:16] Charlie Hoehn: When you win the audience, you win the argument.

[0:16:19] Forrest Griffin: Yeah. Hey Paul fix today, who cares. Now, let’s see, I guess I saw a couple of things I don’t really want to see as far as you know, products on that. You know, some more things but here’s the other thing. You know, when you’re young, I wasn’t – I’m a father now and I’m old and my level of empathy is just huge. Honestly, at 22, 23, 24 even, I didn’t have much empathy. I’d be like that sucks. Then I can just go about my day you know? I don’t know if I would do that now like nurses or something that see people in bad states, day in, day out you know. That would be tough for me now but when you’re young and you see people in a bad way, it’s not that tough.

[0:17:07] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah but every now and again you get soppy. I remember kind of like on, just shooting in progress and I literally passed the guy in that mobile, they were doing a shooting to them like sirens on slow-mo the adrenaline bubbling up and then like at the relay in the description and it was like 15 minutes, I realized that I literally passed that part two seconds ago. I’m like man, that’s my apologies. I was like, well, that’s your wrecking. Did that job give you more empathy or was it becoming a father and age?

[0:17:51] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, age, just getting older and being a father you know, that’s your energy. Once you have a daughter, it makes you kind of a sissy.

[0:17:59] Charlie Hoehn: You know, Forrest, this is true. A few days ago, my baby daughter was born so.

[0:18:05] Forrest Griffin: Wow.

[0:18:06] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:18:06] Forrest Griffin: That is so awesome, yeah.

[0:18:08] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:18:11] Forrest Griffin: Through the roof right now.

[0:18:12] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, exactly. Tell me about –

[0:18:18] Forrest Griffin: You do develop estrogen when your wife has a kid though.

[0:18:22] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, believe me, I was very aware of that, especially because we did a home birth and we had four midwives, her mom and her best friend here. It was seven women and me and our baby daughter being born. Yeah, I’m very aware of that dynamic. Yeah. It mellows you out.

[0:18:51] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, for sure, midwifes, good on you.

[0:18:54] Charlie Hoehn: Thanks.

[0:18:54] Forrest Griffin: That’s impressive. I stare easily about yeah, that stuff, that would have been like our ideal birth – but now we were like walking to the hospital like six days earlier, you know. Me and my wife were both kind of OCD.

[0:19:10] Charlie Hoehn: Really? Just about health stuff?

[0:19:13] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, whatever like that, you know, we read everything on that thing and then we just don’t give our kid junk and let her watch more than hour’s screen time. Crazy stuff like that. I’ve discovered a lot about parenting, I think you’ll agree. If I do right, it will be a somewhat of a guide to constant. Parenting can be as easy or as difficult as you make it.

[0:19:36] Charlie Hoehn: Very true. I already know that.

[0:19:42] Forrest Griffin: You’re like, of here’s the sugar treat you want which is bad for you and her is my phone whith YouTube of a picture of a lady opening eggs repeatedly, eggs, you know. That mixes all of this. Opening her eggs with that weird voice, weird manicure, I don’t know if you know what I’m talking about but you will at some point as you have a daughter. You just like go do your own thing for an hour and you’re just kind of like, watch some shows you know? TV’s great it’s just like a baby sitter.

[0:20:16] Charlie Hoehn: Tell me what you feed your kid? What is your focus? Do you make sure she’s staying active, I mean, you’re a high performance athlete so what do you do for your kid?

[0:20:32] Forrest Griffin: She’s naturally active, she’s got my energy, she’s got a great capacity, she’s got high energy load for a five year old you know, she loves to play, she’s physically very tough but emotionally very sensitive so I do jiu jitsu and when she can’t do the moves or something she gets upset like when six year old’s that have been doing it longer than her can. I’m like, that’s not really – that’s not a functional mindset but no, as far as like what she eats, what she does, her sleep even like you know, we chose schools based on we don’t want her to get up too early you know? You think about it like why do kids always get growth spurts in the summer? Because they sleep later, your body’s allowed to sleep a little later at that age you know? We really mind everything, you know, we did the vaccinations, we did the Dr. Sears method you know to walk slower, not ahead of time. You know, you’re just still finding out, they start funneling you just to make it convenient not because it’s necessarily the best thing for you. We’ve done our homework and I’m prepared to argue with anyone on the vaccines and on the sleep so.

[0:21:46] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:21:47] Forrest Griffin: The thing you got to remember like there’s stuff in the food we eat that they do not know what it does, the FDA says it doesn’t kill you but they don’t actually know like they just tell us to have less fat and less alcohol. We don’t know. You know, the problem is Immelt, it’s a laxative in some people, we don’t know what it does, it’s new. Aspartame, screamers like that. We don’t know.

[0:22:09] Charlie Hoehn: Right.

[0:22:10] Forrest Griffin: We don’t know. That’s throughout –

[0:22:12] Charlie Hoehn: Right, exactly. Long term studies, not so sure.

[0:22:17] Forrest Griffin: You know, I watch all those shows, human experiments and stuff like that you know? We don’t really know what any of this stuff does. And I’m a hippie at heart.

[0:22:27] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah. You keep your daughter off sugar, aspartame of course and what else do you really focus on, do you focus on a number of servings of plant based foods a day or what do you do?

[0:22:43] Forrest Griffin: Food, you know, organically meat and organic vegetables as much as possible and I’m a big fan of eggs, I don’t know if that’s a real thing but I just love – I figure like I buy the seven-dollar eggs right? For the carton. So it must be great I hope. Either that or I’m just wasting my time one of those two.

[0:23:01] Charlie Hoehn: Right. Cool, how did you meet your wife? Sorry, go ahead, what were you going to say?

[0:23:10] Forrest Griffin: No, I was going to say that it’s funny that I will drink alcohol every day and I eat dark chocolate every night and I will eat gingers occasionally when I travel and you know, I don’t know, you travel a lot, there’s just a time at the airport at nine in the morning, you’ll just put anything in your body, you have no discipline but like I always have discipline with my daughter.

[0:23:34] Charlie Hoehn: That is good.

[0:23:35] Forrest Griffin: It makes your life hard when other kids are eating you know, McDonalds, ice cream and you’re like, no baby, we bought you this granola the treat, it makes your life hard but it’s still going to pay off or my daughter’s going to freak out and forget and just do her own thing.

[0:23:53] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:23:53] Forrest Griffin: It’s like probably unhealthy, one or two decision.

[0:23:59] Charlie Hoehn: What would you say Forrest is your favorite like go to resource that you point people to as the thing that’s had the biggest influence on your parenting? Do you have a book or a documentary?

[0:24:12] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, no, let’s see. I mean, I can tell you the most expensive documentary was that Food Inc you know? That really changed the way me and my wife, you know, I haven’t seen that, that was a really expensive mistake that my wife screwed that too. As far as parenting. The Doctor’s Black Book, I don’t’ know, honestly, I’ve not read a lot of art books, I don’t know that I’ve read that many books. That’s what my wife knows what I’m saying, I want to refer to my wife, she’s the brains of this this operation.

[0:24:43] Charlie Hoehn: Fair enough, tell me about the brains of the operation, how did you two meet?

[0:24:48] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, I met her in the gym, she was working at the gym and I just kept bugging her, I was still literally like make fun of her. What you do? I mean it worked for me when I was 12 and I like the girl, I’d make fun of her so I spoke at that you know.

[0:25:05] Charlie Hoehn: How did you tease her? What did you say?

[0:25:08] Forrest Griffin: Well, she was like walking on incline and hey, you’re climbing Everest later? Smart or something? What you did writing for? Then you know, Id’ go up actually to do that and like incline of just being – hey, do you want me to put some padding there in case you fall? You know, I was like moving through the basketball behind her, how did you sink there?

[0:25:31] Charlie Hoehn: Right.

[0:25:35] Forrest Griffin: Very pedantic stuff.

[0:25:37] Charlie Hoehn: Sure.

[0:25:37] Forrest Griffin: It worked. I left her a note, it was like you know, hey, what’s up, sorry I missed you at the gym, to pick the gym. You know, for a call and be like yeah, I tend back and that part off. Let’s make it more like for a mediocre time but not all the time. She didn’t call but then I saw her and we were both on dates with other people and like, for whatever reason, I guess by chance both our dates were gone so we started talking then I don’t know. One thing led to another and now we’re going to get into 12 years of marriage to like I don’t know how long we’ve been married like nine years okay? Eight years? But we bought a house together until seven. That’s actually kind of a better deal than getting married. We do that first. Yeah, big time.

[0:26:26] Charlie Hoehn: That’s great man, I love that.

[0:26:30] Forrest Griffin: I’m actually pretty good at being married.

[0:26:32] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah? Tell me about it.

[0:26:35] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s – you have to just keep doing the work and its tough. For me, especially right now because you know, I work a lot and I’m tired and frankly, when I get home, and all you want to talk about with your significant other one when you get home, if ever I write that book I’ll put this in it. That book that I’ve been writing for like 10 years, your primary concern is all right, let’s get the bills out of the way, tell me what the bills, what time with our parents you know? What decisions would make you work? It’s all stressful shit right? It’s not fun stuff like when you were dating. I don’t think a day out or whatever, a week out, we’ll do the date night, I don’t know that that’s enough, you have to have the rule that on date nights, you don’t talk about real life, you pretend you’re on the first date again and you talk about like your life. Not like hey, I’m sorry but do I have auto insurance? You know, nobody wants to talk about that. Me and my wife at 9:00, we have a no – we just don’t talk about life after 9:00, I don’t want to hear about it. If you have to tell me something, we literally like text it to each other for the next morning just so you don’t forget. You have to have a couple of hours, you just like, all right, let’s just kind of chill and not worry about the fact that life is harsh.

[0:28:07] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, I feel you on that. My wife and I have – I got this idea from another guy who is - he’s like the CEO of this company and he’s like yeah, every quarter, my wife and I have marriage meetings or family retreats or something like that. I just thought, every quarter, every three months, how does that work? My wife and I do just like marriage meetings every Sunday where for at least a couple of hours, we talk about life, the harder stressful stuff and that’s all we talk about and we make what’s nice about it is we make a list throughout the week, we don’t bring this stuff up to each other on the spot. We just add it to the calendar event so when we get there, to that date, we have a full agenda of all the things that we wanted to discuss. We can just lay it all out and stuff doesn’t pile up, it just gets out in the open and it’s really been – each week we’re like, this is so good that we do, we’re always grateful that we do it.

[0:29:22] Forrest Griffin: Cool. That is a great idea, maybe I’ll do that too. I sort of have the micro cycle, the daily cycle. As of cycle back, kind of inverse you know?

[0:29:33] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, exactly.

[0:29:35] Forrest Griffin: That’s smart. Let’s go through those life altering things right now. You know, another thing that might happen is as you talk about like you know, stuff, you might take care of stuff on your own or you might realize, it’s not a big enough deal to bring out on Sunday you know?

[0:29:56] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:29:56] Forrest Griffin: Whereas if you’re thinking of the problems there and then well then you know this is no problem.

[0:30:03] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, exactly. I want to talk about like your transition and I might just steal the audio from this clip on YouTube of like your story of transitioning into UFC, doing the Ultimate Fighter show. Can you tell us like the story behind that?

[0:31:16] Forrest Griffin: Which one? Like –

[0:31:18] Charlie Hoehn: How it all happened, how you transitioned from law enforcement to you got called on to the show and I know that right before you were going to get on the plane, you called the producer and basically said please convince me to go on this.

[0:31:35] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, I had already called my boss and said hey, is there any way we can just give me like three days leave and you can pull my letter of resignation and he’s like yeah, and I was like, well don’t do it yet, hold on, let me – yeah, it’s funny, like everything condensed into one moment with you – you’ve made this life altering choice and you have to either go through with it or you know, go back to your old life. For me, imagine if I don’t get on the plane and then I never find out that I could be the first Ultimate Fighter and then I would always think to myself, you know, those guys on that show aren’t that great, I could have probably have beaten most of those guys. You know, I could have gone ahead on that right? You know, my life would be really incomplete, again, you’d rather have the choice as you made from the choices you don’t. With that said, I cannot tell you how many grown men with children or with wives, with dependents, I meet out in Vegas they’re like hey Forrest, I saved up three months, I quit my job, I want to become an Ultimate Fighter and they’re mediocre talented, they’ll never be great. You know, maybe if they work real hard to be average, maybe get to see when a fight to maybe, probably not and they’ve given up everything you know? Again, I would encourage young people to get it out there, you know, get out there more and to start – I don’t know, I think the new generation takes a lot of me time, you know, my little brother does, he’s 25. That’s the time to get out and live life and make mistakes you know? I think it was – I forget who – I think it was maybe Chuck Lonic that says you know, you make your story in your 30’s and then you talk in your 20’s and then you talk and write about them in your 30’s or 40’s right? You should be out making those stories.

[0:33:32] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:33:34] Forrest Griffin: You’re kind of a – your podcast is leaned towards writing. I will say, the most inspirational book and the only book I’ve ever read on writing. It’s pretty easy, Stephen King’s On Writing.

[0:33:45] Charlie Hoehn: Yup, it’s a classic.

[0:33:46] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, that was a great, you know what it is? It’s how to write a book for dummies, it’s what it is. This is what you should be doing, take notes about life but don’t over analyze. It’s really a pretty powerful book but nevermind my stupid books, read that book if you have been listening.

[0:34:06] Charlie Hoehn: Absolutely, agreed.

[0:34:09] Forrest Griffin: There’s nobody who can beat Stephen King.

[0:34:11] Charlie Hoehn: No, you can’t top them. You just can’t. So how did reading that book – sorry go ahead.

[0:34:20] Forrest Griffin: No, it’s just that I think it’s funny that he wrote a book. I don’t think a lot of people took it seriously because he’s a sci-fi author, he’s a horror author but then he wrote a book about I’m not like the biggest Stephen King fan but then he wrote a book about writing a book that turns out it’s really good, anyway go ahead.

[0:34:37] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah and what a lot of people don’t know about Stephen King as well is he has written some of the most popular and beloved movies of all time. He’s the author of Shaw Shank Redemption, it was a short story called Rita Hayworth in the Shaw Shank Redemption. So even if you’ve never read a Stephen King book and assumed that he’s a sci-fi author, you’ve definitely seen his movie which is considered the greatest. It is considered I believed the number one greatest movie on IMDB. So by popular vote, how did he influenced your books which I’ll mention now, the first one is called Got Fight and the second one is called Be Ready When the Shit Goes Down: A survival Guide to the Apocalypse and that one is more just fun goofy, right? But Got Fight is more of a serious obviously like a fun book like you’re a fun person but you look at the cover and you’re like there’s some life lessons in here.

[0:35:47] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, so it really had great style of writing for me. Every chapter is short, I call it like a four shitter, you sit down you read a chapter and it goes by quick but it’s really meant – I am not a good writer obviously but I’ve always been a decent storyteller. So I got to then sit and do what was –

[0:36:09] Charlie Hoehn: That’s the important part.

[0:36:11] Forrest Griffin: Yeah and tell you that story so I’d try to make it as informal as possible and I wanted it to feel like you are just listening to stories from your buddy and that is kind of something that I picked up earlier that there’s really is one of the reason why I’m still here working at GMC and why I’ve never reached far as I have is that I found my identity. When I looked around I said, “What makes me special? What am I? Am I this?” and I couldn’t find anything. I’m like, “Oh my god I am not special” I’m not a good athlete, I’m not really that smart and you know what I am? I’m the every man, I’m the kid next door, I’m the kid that mowed your grass growing up literary I used to mow grass growing up that’s why that’s who I am, I’m every man. So I immediately you’d figured that that’s me and all I have to do is be moderately affable and I found my niche. I found my persona and I just use that as my writing force as well.

[0:37:08] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah and you actually that’s a really good realization that you had because people in storytelling and in screen writing, people want more than anything to identify with the hero. They don’t want to necessarily admire the hero first before anything else they need to identify with them and say that’s just like me because when you read a book or when you watch a movie, you’re pretty skeptical and hesitant at the beginning. It’s a feeling because you’re looking for reasons to not like the story basically right? Because you’ve been burned before or we all have by a bad story but when you identify and you are very identifiable and you’re funny so you are likable. So yeah, I could see that is the most important part of storytelling is to have a character, a hero that the audience identifies with and when you were writing this book, what is the one story, if you could only pick one from Got Fight that you would want to stick with people?

[0:38:24] Forrest Griffin: You know man, I don’t know. Now looking back I don’t know, at the time I had another great series too because I know people like me. I started with my best stuff upfront. I front loaded the book and then I finalized it as the stories has lots of lines but because people have short attention spans, you have to catch them early and that story about the kid, the world’s toughest nerd, that’s kind of the story and if you noticed, I paint myself as the villain in that story because I am. I’m the bad guy.

[0:39:02] Charlie Hoehn: So tell us the story.

[0:39:05] Forrest Griffin: So me and a couple of big – I was like 240 I’m the smallest guy there. We’re driving on a jeep in Atlanta in the Georgia to Stanford. A bunch of football players from the University of Georgia, a bunch of wannabe football players from UGA and we see this kid and he just like, I don’t know man, he just had these pockets and glasses on. He’s a real skinny kid and for some reason, we decided to pick on him because my friends and I were in style. And he walked in front of us, he’s taking his sweet time. So my friend gets out and starts messing with him. I don’t really remember what happened but it ends with my friends just throwing him down this hill and while he’s up, he screams “I’m ready to die” charges my friend flailing but had no idea how to throw a punch but he is trying and my friend throws him against the jeep and then my other friend gets out and says, “Don’t hurt my jeep” it was squared ensues. Anyway the story ends with my two friends rolling him down the hill. Us all running back to getting the jeep to drive away because the beat up door on my side coming at us like walking dead style you know and he was like, “They’ll make us hurt him” and so we’re driving away like what the hell and I turned quietly, all feeling like douchebags and I saw the kid in the most amazing thing. He puts his glasses back on and he wipes himself down and he wipes the grass off himself and he tries to shake it out. He tucks his shirt in and then the goes back to holding this books across his chest like a teenage girl and walks off and I just thought that’s the coolest guy in the world. That says literary just like, “Okay that happened. Now I’m going to class” you know?

[0:40:49] Charlie Hoehn: Wow.

[0:40:50] Forrest Griffin: Yeah like just the way he walks off, he was just like, “All right, cool. I should go put my glasses on, fix my hair” and brushed himself off and like it hadn’t happened. I can’t even explain like how I was like, “that guy is the coolest guy in the world”.

[0:41:10] Charlie Hoehn: Wow.

[0:41:12] Forrest Griffin: I mean it was obvious when he was trying to punch my friend he was never going to punch him, he’s never been in a fight in his life.

[0:41:19] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:41:20] Forrest Griffin: But most people wouldn’t have messed with him because they’re not assholes.

[0:41:23] Charlie Hoehn: Right of maybe had been messed with and it was something he’d gotten used to.

[0:41:29] Forrest Griffin: Yeah or maybe that was the day he broke, I don’t know man. I’ve got all kind of fantasies about what or where that guy ends up but I don’t know. I would just want to find him.

[0:41:43] Charlie Hoehn: Right, so you mentioned he’d looked like he had never been in a fight before in his life, I’m curious for people who haven’t been in serious fights like I have been in bar fights. I’ve come really close to having one like serious fight but I ended up walking away from it and I remembered –

[0:42:05] Forrest Griffin: A bar fight is a bit of a fight. I mean how do you go in on a bar fight?

[0:42:10] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, I know. Yeah they can be but I mean I don’t remember being scared at all right but –

[0:42:17] Forrest Griffin: That’s the alcohol. I think it’s just the alcohol, yeah.

[0:42:20] Charlie Hoehn: But it actually wasn’t that. It was the feeling that there is less risk because there were more people involved and I felt I had a better odds or whatever for some reason and whereas with the other fight –

[0:42:35] Forrest Griffin: Somebody is going to call the shots, somebody is going to step in but there’s no idea how to do that.

[0:42:39] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, exactly like this is somewhat controlled whereas the other one, I had to walk away because it was three guys older than me and bigger than me like in the middle of the street no one was going to step in. I just knew I was going to get destroyed similar to that guy except I just didn’t have like the “I’m ready to die” like what have you seen I guess about – what have you learned about human nature in fights? What do you see in people who haven’t been in fights versus those who have?

[0:43:15] Forrest Griffin: Man a good question, you know I think. So what I tell people is you are nervous but you’re never afraid. You stress and distress right? I was always very nervous before a fight and that nervousness made me live right, train hard, not drink, go to bed on time, not be out and about. So I was living a pretty exclusive lifestyle because I want to be able to fight in one and because I was afraid but I would never say afraid. I would be just concerned so I did everything in my power to use that as the motivation to work hard. What I don’t understand is people that don’t really train hard and work hard and then the day out, they’re nervous and I’m like well you probably should be nervous you know? Because you didn’t do any of the work, so the answer to that is that you are never scared. That’s just adrenaline. That is literally the feeling that you feel. You have to embrace that, that’s your body getting ready to fight. Not only is your body on the same page as you. If you don’t feel butterflies, if you don’t feel something that’s almost worse which is your body is not getting ready for it. You find in real fights you get highest, faster than you think you should but you also react quickly than you used to. You do extraordinary things that maybe you couldn’t do without that. That adrenaline and that mental block which is why these guys get tired so fast and I love that feeling too and it’s better than anything than jumping out of a plane because if you’re jumping out of a plane like you really might die. I guess you might like that. You might die in a fight but it takes a lot less likely.

[0:45:03] Charlie Hoehn: Right, that’s funny to hear you say that because I’ve jumped out of a plane, I have done bungee jumping twice. I love that feeling. Would you say that everyone should experience the feeling of being in a fight?

[0:45:21] Forrest Griffin: Man I don’t know. I don’t think everybody needs to necessarily, no. I wouldn’t say that you know what I mean? It’s like I understand that not everybody is going to like fighting. I love fighting, I think it’s the epitome of human confrontation. It’s the first sport there ever was but at the end of the day, there’s a limited demographic of people that like fighting and I’m fine with that and so no, everybody doesn’t need to be in a fight. There’s a million other ways to prove yourself worth to yourself, you know? Make yourself jump out on a plane or make yourself get inside a tank with sharks. I mean in a cage, it’s not intank with sharks because that’s really bad unless they’re little sharks then I guess you’d get in the cage, I don’t know. You know what I mean? No, I think there’s a million ways to find your personal, what makes you – you. You don’t have to necessarily be in a fight. It was just my path.

[0:46:15] Charlie Hoehn: Right, yeah. So you went on to win the Ultimate Fighter, I’m sorry I forget the name of the show it’s blanking right now.

[0:46:25] Forrest Griffin: The Ultimate Fighter.

[0:46:26] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, you went on to win the Ultimate Fighter and your life changed forever. How have you noticed your life, your work impacting other people? I know you mentioned some mediocre fighters had quit their job and sold everything so that they could go on to fight. Tell me about the good and the bad of how you’ve impacted people who have followed your journey?

[0:46:58] Forrest Griffin: So that will be in the bad, the bad is that people kind of look at guys like me and Jeremy Horn and say, “Man if they could do it, I could do it” and then they dedicated themselves to that. I’m going to tell you something the reason I don’t fight anymore is fighting unlike dancing and sex is not fun if you are not good at it. That can only be fun if you are winning you know? So if you’re not going to be good, if you don’t have some natural potential. There’s a crazy movie out there with Mark Walberg called The Gambler and I saw it. The movie is not that good or anything but there’s a lot of fuse – you know we talk about it as like all the will in the world will not give you an ounce of natural ability. If you don’t have that all natural ability but you have to have some natural ability. If you have no natural ability in say fighting or your passion like hey, maybe you are not meant to play the piano. It’s like with my daughter, I tried to get to do every sport and find the one that she’s passionate about first of all and then second of all, has some natural inkling to do so that would be the first one. Don’t quit your job or leave your family to become a professional fighter but how have I impacted people positively, great question. I don’t know, I think I’ve made it easier to be a fighter that’s not “Oh I’m a bad ass” I think I was one of the first guys who wrote just to do it. So I think I have seen a lot of guys kind of not feel they have to prove and many women that they don’t feel they have to prove and put that bravado on. You can just be an average guy and fight people. You don’t have to necessarily be in the angriest man around or angry and a mean person, you know?

[0:48:46] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah and that is a tremendous thing to add and influence that fighter culture because it eases everybody up.

[0:48:56] Forrest Griffin: I don’t have to be good, I just made that up on the spot because you are asking for two things.

[0:49:02] Charlie Hoehn: No, I think you’re right. I really do. I mean it’s easy to see when you watch clips of that show that being like acting goofy and stuff like that and just being yourself lowers everybody else’s defenses. So what are some misconceptions as we are getting to the end of this, what are some misconceptions about UFC, fighting? I’m sure you’ve been asked this question a lot but I am curious to know, what do people think is going on versus what is actually going on?

[0:49:46] Forrest Griffin: So there’s two things, you know people that are unfamiliar with this sport, I honestly threw something out there the other day and just people who don’t know the sport and they’re like talking about ways to kind of lighten the scoreboard and make it more accessible to everyone and they used a verbiage that all this implies that people would do is be afraid of fighters and they wanted to make people less afraid of fighters. People that actually watch, they’re not afraid. I’m not going to fight you on the street unless I have to because I am going to lose money. The other one is professional. Once you are good with something you don’t do it for free no more you know? You get paid to do it, you are not going to do it for free so it’s just that and I guess the other thing is I haven’t been on both sides of the fence I think some of the hard core fans and hopefully they have the players best interest at hearts, But they think that the UFC is kind of almost out to get the average athlete, the average UFC athlete. What they don’t realize is that the UFC is a business like every other business in this country and in the world and their job is to make money, yes but they realize that the product is the athlete and so we generally want what’s best for the athlete. They want the athlete to stay healthy, to make as much money as possible. UFC doesn’t make money to pass themselves to become superstars. The UFC is just in a very unfortunate business of holding the first ranks of saying, “Well look when you fight people tune in, people will pay money to see you fight. When you fight and people don’t come in to see you fight, we don’t pay you as much” so people have to realize one that it’s showbiz. So you get paid based on how skilled you are but two, you get paid based on how much you – you reap what you sow you know? If a million people will pay money to see you fight, you will make a lot of money. If your friends and family are the only people who ended up paying for you because you’re on it, you are not going to make that much money. So I think there’s just false sense, people think you’ll see just trying to intensely help fighters. No that’s going to be far from the case but again, limited resources, there is never enough to go around so the big dogs get fed and the people that don’t bring it in, they don’t make what guys like myself, super fans of the sports feel like they are earning. So the fights may be more or less the same you’re still taking the same amount of damage in your body right? .

[0:52:34] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:52:36] Forrest Griffin: The other thing that I’d like to tell fighters is that you have to be very serious about this. This is not your forever job. If you make $80,000 this year while fighting that’s cool but how much can you make in your real life? You’re not going to do this forever. 50% of guys like me I don’t sell or an NBA approach and they make millions. They are making $100,000 a year. When that’s over what are you qualified to do and can you start living off of that now and what’s your exit strategy? I don’t want you to think about that when you are on you’re way to that one. When you are on your way to the Octagon, your job gels, you’re Anderson Silva, you’re about to go that’s ever going to be that’s fine but when you are on your way to the banks, I want you to think like me. This is not your forever job you know?

[0:53:22] Charlie Hoehn: Right so that segways nicely into what are you doing now? What are you doing the rest of the year and what was your exit strategy?

[0:53:32] Forrest Griffin: So one thing that I always liked is law enforcement. I wanted to teach defense tactics to police and military and host shows. So we’ll go to LA and do auditions and I quit doing that because my job at UFC and trying to be candid so there isn’t enough time but you know that was my exit strategy and I saved a lot of what I make. You know taxes and I had to buy stuff too but I didn’t live extravagantly. Another thing I can tell you, a personal experience when you go from first class to coach it kind of sucks. When you are used to spend a couple of years in the penthouse suite, it’s just hard to go back to the regular room to be honest but I was prepared for that. I knew it would happen. I knew that I wasn’t going to stay in the jet forever you know? That is the way of the world man. When you are earning, you’re making money, your on the jet. One thing slowed down for you, you’re coached on United or whatever other airline. All these fail sucks you know? That is just the way of the world, you don’t take it personally. Don’t fight it, you know what I’m saying? There’s nothing you could do about it. It’s that way in every job in the world ever. That is the way of the world, you know? Guys don’t work for 30 years anymore and then retire with a pension. Pensions are unheard of these days, right? I mean do you know a guy with a pension still?

[0:55:04] Charlie Hoehn: Not anymore.

[0:55:05] Forrest Griffin: I don’t. Yeah it’s gone.

[0:55:07] Charlie Hoehn: I mean actually may be working for airport, I don’t know. I think but that’s all I could think of right now. Yeah.

[0:55:19] Forrest Griffin: Yeah and the state jobs those are underfunded anyway. I’m sorry what was the crux of the question there?

[0:55:28] Charlie Hoehn: To your point, I think it’s for the good to have that happen, there’s a great article that was written a long time ago by Tennessee Williams who wrote Street Car Named Desire and I forgot the name of the article or the essay but he talks about how dramatically his life changed when he was living the penthouse life and how it did affect the quality of his work because for so long, he felt as a creative person, as an author that he was metaphorically climbing up a mountain. And just grasping every little inch that he could as hard as he could, working as hard as he could and then when he got to the top, he was just like, “Okay I can relax now” and he felt like when he started letting that stuff go and getting away from it, his work was able to improve again and there’s also another author Dostoyevsky who wrote The Brothers Karamazov and some other books, he used to I believe it was him. It was one of those Russian authors, he used to gamble all of his earnings away so that he was always poor.

[0:56:53] Forrest Griffin: Right, stay hungry.

[0:56:54] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, just to stay hungry.

[0:56:56] Forrest Griffin: It’s funny, I had a friend who did sales and basically hustling people at the time he hated the job but he made good money and he would say and he told me what he intends and I was like, “Man what are you doing?” he would be buying nice things with big bells because that was the only way he can make himself go to work and do his job and hustling people all day, you know? It’s a crazy life.

[0:57:21] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah. I look at my daughter actually as a blessing in that regard of its renewed motivation for periods where I feel like “Okay I can take it easy for a while and rest” and like nope, I’ve got some other people to take care off. Apart from myself and I think that’s a huge blessing. So what do you –

[0:57:47] Forrest Griffin: It depends basically, you know you have people dependent upon you. Less afraid but you are motivated, distress that’s what that’s about.

[0:57:56] Charlie Hoehn: And you know I think for a long time I resisted that because I don’t know. Kind of like what you are saying when you are younger you didn’t feel as much empathy. I think when I was younger I was just self-interested, more selfish and I look at that as something that would put an end to my fun or whatever but I’ve never gave as much thought into how much more fun or richness it could add and yeah that was a big misconception on my part.

[0:58:36] Forrest Griffin: Well there you have it telling it across the bat, that just that nothing really easy is worth doing. Do you know that single life, going out, actually hits to the heart man. You know kids are a 24 hour a day job. You have to provide for them. Again, you come and look at athletes that’s under natural ability and they squandered away where some of these like myself, mediocre abilities would live straight and narrow because you know how hard you work for that little bit.

[0:59:11] Charlie Hoehn: Absolutely. So do you have a parting piece of advice for people who, I don’t know – not from the fighting standpoint, people who want to write a book, do you have a parting piece of advice for them apart of go read Stephen King’s On Writing?

[0:59:31] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, you know your 20 years is for living and reading, your 30 years is for reading and writing, your 40 year is for writing but being successfully true writing advice for that is just to get your thoughts on paper as horrible as they could be get them on paper. If they are on paper then look back. So I have actually written two amazingly horrible movie scripts so bad that it’s awful and they will never see the light of day because they are horrible but I’m still glad I write them down. So I can still go back on them and maybe something comes up and I can use a little piece of that work in something I did and I don’t think without writing I can really improve on that you know? Of course you are going to figure it to kill your babies are whatever, to kill your darlings that comes later. The hard part is just to write.

[1:00:26] Charlie Hoehn: The editing, yeah.

[1:00:27] Forrest Griffin: Who’s that crazy - there’s this guy who writes for four hours every morning, who is that?

[1:00:33] Charlie Hoehn: Oh I mean there are a number of authors like that, yeah.

[1:00:37] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, he was a guy, emo guy, where all the emo kids liked him, I don’t know if I like him myself special on – I read a book post office, she was then. Anyway, he writes four hours every morning and it would be horrible. He is like a hipster guy.

[1:00:53] Charlie Hoehn: Oh Bukowski, yeah.

[1:00:56] Forrest Griffin: Bukowski, yeah Charles Bukowski.

[1:00:58] Charlie Hoehn: I am not a fan of his stuff either. I have read a few of his books and I just – eh.

[1:01:02] Forrest Griffin: I don’t like him either but yeah and I don’t love it but you know you just got to write and read. I don’t watch standup comedy on the off chance that one day I do standup comedy and I want to do my own thing, you know? But I don’t know if writing is that’s about. I think you have to write and you have to read other people’s voices and it will shape yours but as long as you’re going to pay any – sometimes that actually gives piece of advice that have stumbled upon us. Read and read a lot of different things to find your own voice but don’t take too much from any one author right? So I feel if I am going to give you a piece of advice, that’s all I got there.

[1:01:46] Charlie Hoehn: Do you write jokes by the way? Do you write down standup material?

[1:01:53] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, I just tweet a lot of them but yeah, I’ve got standup jokes. The ones that are a little too risky for the internet. So I actually – there is a commercial. One thing that I’ve always said is that you are what you eat as far as you eat animals that are fed GMO corn, you’re not going to be healthy. It’s what you eat and then all it eats are natural diet and I tweeted years before, I think it was the Tyson commercial is that you are what you eat-eat. And I was like, “I should have patented that three years ago” I’ve got to somehow good eating that is, he stole that from me. So I just almost try to use that like you hold off and this would send the letter to himself and then has a feel to it and post marked on the date.

[1:02:46] Charlie Hoehn: Right, the poor man’s patent.

[1:02:50] Forrest Griffin: The poor man’s patent, right. So now that you’ve thought of that I’m going to tweet that right now before there’s a poor man’s patent and someone might take credit for it. There you go.

[1:02:58] Charlie Hoehn: There you go, enjoy it. Yeah, alright that’s a great place to wrap. How can our listeners connect with and follow you on Twitter obviously?

[1:03:10] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, I am on Twitter. I watch the exciting stuff, UFC draws and take still. So we either got to get my day job which I didn’t mention but we got to get things going.

[1:03:23] Charlie Hoehn: Mention it now.

[1:03:24] Forrest Griffin: I’m around just you know some performance of it. I gave the CNN the tour just a matter of newly that you could find as well with that. We got all the guys fighting on the cards, figuring the heroes out, who they’d ask so to be found.

[1:03:39] Charlie Hoehn: Excellent. Forrest this was great man, thank you so much for being on.

[1:03:43] Forrest Griffin: Yeah, thank you very much. Great talking to you.

[1:03:47] Charlie Hoehn: Likewise. Many thanks to Forrest Griffin for being on the show. You can buy his book, Got Fight, on amazon.com. Also I want to give a big thanks to our listeners who wrote reviews for Author Hour on iTunes. I want to read one of them from Seth Haynes. Seth writes: “Wow, I’ve loved just about every episode of this podcast but with the episode with Honoree Corder blew my mind. Charlie helps unpack strategies that any author can use to ensure their book is a success. My number one take away was how much can be achieved through just pure effort of strategically reaching out to the folks in your space that could benefit from your book.” Thanks so much Seth and if you have a suggestion for someone we should have on the show, an author that you’d love for us to interview, leave us a comment on Facebook.com/authorhour or send us a message on Twitter @authorhourpod. Thanks again for listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about book with the authors who wrote them. We’ll see you next time.