Why Fear Is Not a Weakness: UFC Champion Tom Aspinall

0:00Unlock it early on the High Performance app, Gareth Southgate, England's former manager who opens up about life leading his country. me it's very rare that like you'll get a ufc fighter who will talk about fear fear is there and i think the main thing that i do is i just try and embrace it and enjoy it welcome to the essential habits of high performance the podcast where we explore what some of the world's most successful performers do differently and what we can all learn from their habits Now today I want to begin with a four letter word, one that starts with F. No, not that one. This one is fear.

0:41The one word that no UFC fighter ever wants to talk about. The one emotion that every fighter feels but very few are brave enough to acknowledge. Today's story comes from someone who does exactly that. A man from Wigan who has risen to become one of the most formidable heavyweights in the UFC and who has done so by not pretending to be fearless, but instead shaking hands and making friends with fear. This is Tom Aspinall. Hey, I'm Damien Hughes, and I've been co-hosting the High Performance Podcast for nearly six years now. I've worked as a trusted advisor to dozens of elite leaders in sport, business, and the arts who've been looking to create, curate, and maintain high-performing cultures.

1:31But above all this, I'm someone who just loves exploring how high performance works and, most importantly, how every one of us can take the lessons from our guests and apply them into our own world. Well, I'm actually one of the rare UFC fighters that I'm aware of that will sit here and look you in the eyes and talk about fear because a lot of UFC fighters like to pretend they're not scared. Now, I basically spent my life in gyms and backstage at events and in these changing rooms. And listen, I'm yet to see a person who isn't scared. But it's very rare that you'll get a UFC fighter who will talk about fear.

2:12Think about that for a moment. In a sport that's built on bravado where walkouts are choreographed like gladiatorial theatre, you've got a heavyweight fighter refusing to play the role of the invincible alpha. Instead, what he's doing is something much harder. Being honest. Tom put it plainly I'm willing to step in the cage with we're talking about John Jones here who is the most dangerous guy to ever fight in MMA so I'm talking about potentially the most dangerous man unarmed on earth right who I'm potentially going to fight with now if I'm sat backstage getting my hands wrapped knowing that he's over the opposite side of the arena getting his hands wrapped we're both going to walk into the arena in front of 35 ,000 people with millions watching around the world and one of us is going to get separated from our consciousness quite literally and you're not scared of that then like I said you're either a complete idiot or you're just lying so fear is extremely present in what I do and what strikes me is not just his admission but the courage of that admission Custamato the legendary boxing trainer of Mike Tyson and Floyd Patterson had this great quote Fear is like fire It can cook your food and it can keep you warm But it can also burn your house down It's what you do with it that matters For Tom Aspinall, for years fear was his opponent As much as the man he was facing across the Oxygen I used to have two fights, I say it all the time I used to have like two fights I used to be fighting my opponent but fighting myself Mainly, trying to push that fear away And I just realised after a bit like this is never going to go away because pre-UFC, when I was like, even pre-professional fighting, when I was like an amateur fighter and stuff, I used to watch UFC fighters and think, I can't wait to get to that level because these guys have no fear and that'll just go away.

4:11But what you realise is, the higher in level you go, the more pressure is on you. Like, the more's at stake. Now, the higher you go, the more pressure there is on you. There's more stake and obviously more to lose. Isn't that true of life in general? The student who once feared a classroom quiz now fears the university finals. The junior manager who once feared giving feedback now fears presenting to the board or the athlete who once feared making the team now fears letting down their whole country. The more we grow, the more that is often at stake, which means that fear doesn't vanish with success.

4:46In many ways, it grows alongside it. Tom described fighting not just for pride, but for his family, for their financial security, for the future he wanted to build and that weight of responsibility made fear feel heavier, not lighter. And yet, somewhere along the way, Tom changed his relationship with fear. He stopped wishing it away. He stopped pretending it wasn't there. And instead, he began to see it for what it really was. It was a source of energy, a signal, a pillar of strength if he used it correctly. Fear's there. And I think the main thing that I do is I just try and embrace it and enjoy it.

5:30Because when you're like an older guy, like grandfather age or whatever, I like to think that's what I'll be telling my grandkids about. Now, a lot of the times I was like wishing those moments away. The hand-wrapped moments, the walking out moments, the stood in the cage, waiting for the referee to get out of the way and tell you to go. Like I was wishing all this away and just having the fight over with. And they're very, very special moments. And there's very, very few people walking around on planet Earth who are privileged enough to be able to do that, to privilege enough to be able to sit in a chair and tell their grandkids about it one day in 20 years' time or whatever, that this is what I used to do.

6:09So why not try and enjoy them? Evolution built fear into our wiring because it kept our ancestors alive. If you heard a rustle in the bushes, your heart rate spikes, your muscles prime, your pupils dilate. Fear gets you ready for the lion, or in Tom's case, the opponent standing across the cage from him. Neuroscientists call this the flight, fight, freeze response, the amygdala. It's a small almond-shaped part of your brain, triggers a flood of adrenaline and cortisol. Blood's pulled from the digestion and it's sent to your muscles, your reaction time sharpens and your pain threshold rises. That's why in Tom's words, a friend could suddenly lift the wardrobe off a child, even though moments later he realised he wasn't strong enough to shift it on his own.

6:55Fear can make us capable of extraordinary things. But here's the paradox. That same system that sharpens us can also sabotage us. If the fire of fear runs wild, it can overwhelm the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that controls judgement, tactics and composure. That's when a fighter freezes or overcommits or just abandons their strategy entirely. So the message is clear. Fear is not your enemy. It's mismanaged fear that is. Sports psychologists have long studied how elite performers cope with fear. One of the most powerful shifts is our ability to reframe it. Not as a weakness or not as a shame, but make it normal, even a useful companion to us.

7:45Alison Woodbrooks at Harvard Business School ran a fascinating study on this. She asked people to take on stressful tasks, but some of them were told to say, I am calm, while others were told to say instead, I am excited. The result? Well, those who chose excitement performed significantly better. Why? Well, the excitement, it seems, used the same physiological arousal as fear, but directed it towards opportunity rather than perceiving it as a threat. And isn't that exactly what Tom Aspinall's doing? I want to feel that theory told us because when I know that my senses are at the sharpest Let me tell you about another fascinating study from the University of Bergen in Norway It was led by a psychologist called Aslak Hightens They worked with a group of 29 university students who all had one thing in common They were crippled by exam anxiety Now we're not talking here about a few nerves the night before, we're talking about serious full on panic attacks before walking into the exam hall.

8:47Sleepless nights that started weeks in advance and in some cases avoiding courses altogether because the fear of failure was so overwhelming. Now, what do you think these students have been trying to do with their fear up to this point? If you've been listening carefully so far, you'll know they've been trying to fight it, push it down, pretend it wasn't there. And what they found is the harder they fought, the stronger it came back. So the researchers tried something very different. They put the students through an eight-week mindfulness programme. So instead of teaching them how to get rid of fear, they taught them how to sit with it, how to notice the racing heartbeat, how to observe the sweaty palms, how to let the nervous thoughts rise and fall without immediately judging them or running away from them.

9:34And here's what happened. At the start, most of the students spoke about fear as if it was something to be ashamed of, something that proved that they weren't good enough. but as the weeks went on they began to make a subtle shift. They stopped seeing fear as an enemy that they had to defeat and instead treated it as an experience that they could notice. One student for example described how instead of panicking before an exam they caught themselves thinking, this is fear, my body's preparing me to get ready and focus. What if I could be curious about how it feels instead of terrified by it? Another student said they used to avoid even opening their textbook because the fear of failure was so strong.

10:15But after the training, they found themselves able to sit down, open the book and think, yeah, I feel anxious, but that doesn't mean I can't learn. The result was a profound shift from avoidance to curiosity, from panic to presence or from shame to acceptance. And here's the key point for you. Their performance improved. Not because they'd eliminated fear, but because they'd normalized it instead. It's like they took the stink out of it. Now why does that matter for us? Well it matters because this is precisely what Tom Aspinall embodies. Fear never vanishes or goes away. It'll always walk into the arena alongside you.

10:54Now whether your arena's a cage fight like Tom's, an exam hall or a big meeting you've got at work, the question is whether you're going to run away from it or whether you can learn to sit with it and eventually transform your relationship with it. The context might change but the physiology doesn't. In each case, fear is always the same. It's a rush of adrenaline, a racing heart, a sense of feeling exposed. The temptation is to suppress it. But the path to high performance is instead to acknowledge it, to normalise it and to use it. And this is why Tom's candor matters so much. In a culture that equates fear with weakness, he's showing us the opposite is true.

11:37Fear is simply proof that you care. fear is the energy that we can harness fear when we shake hands and make friends with it can be our ultimate strength so what can we learn from Tom Aspinall's story well I'd like to share three habits that can help you turn fear into focus the first one is name it and don't numb it Tom used to think admitting it made him weak but when he finally said yeah I am scared it lost its power. Labelling fear activates the rational part of your brain and puts you back into control. Next time you feel it, say it out loud. I'm scared because this really matters to me. The second essential habit is reframe fear as fuel.

12:22Fear and excitement feel the same in your body. The difference is the story that you tell yourself. Tom tells himself, this is the moment when I'm at my sharpest. And research backs it up. People who say I'm excited before the challenge perform far better than those who try to calm down. Your nerves aren't the problem, they're the energy that you need. And our third habit, practice the moment before the moment. Tom visualises every step before a fight, the hand wrap, the walk out, the cage and when it happens for real his mind has already been there. Rehearsal makes the unknown familiar, whether it's an exam, a speech or a tough conversation you've got to have.

13:03Play it through in your head until it feels normal. So your challenge for this week is to think of one situation that makes you nervous and then say out loud what you're afraid of. Reframe it as excitement and then visualize yourself handling it with calmness. Do that and fear can stop being the enemy and instead it can become part of your preparation. Now I'm going to be joined by our brilliant producer Will and we're going to have a listen to Tom talking about how his dad's belief in him has been absolutely pivotal to his success. Why being prepared to die in a UFC octagon gives him an edge and what he believes is the key to his own high performance.

13:50We've just announced the latest book from high performance, micro habits which study the tiny changes that supercharge high performance before the book's full release in january we've got a really special opportunity for our listeners to win a behind the experience here at high performance on an upcoming record day all you've got to do is submit your proof of pre-order purchase of micro habits and submit it via the link in the description if you do that you'll also get an extra 20 % off the price of the book too. Try it. We hope to see you joining us here in the studio soon. I love Tom Aspinall.

14:29Yeah brilliant great bloke. Yeah really good wasn't he? Yeah really decent man. I think that's a thing that I'd want to emphasize to about him that you know given somebody of of his size and his presence and his power. He's absolutely huge I didn't expect him to be as... I think I've seen him on telly and he's not been as big as some of the other guys. He was massive. Yeah, yeah. But he carried it with grace. He carried it with gentleness. He was kind. He was a really decent man. He was. And really, really open about what it takes to succeed in that sport and how to get there. And had a lovely entourage with him, including his dad.

15:10Yeah, that was lovely, that. To have his dad. He's obviously got a relationship with him being his dad, but also being his coach as well and his confident. And as we're going to hear, his cheerleader. Yeah, I mean, he was actually on the podcast as well. So if you listen to the full app, his dad comes on at the end. Great, that one. Yeah, and jumps into it. But yeah, the first clip really kind of tells a great story about the influence that his dad had on him. Well, it reminds me of the research of a guy called Robert Rosenthal that in the 1960s, this guy was a Harvard psychologist and he came up with this test called the Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition, which sounds really grand, but he said if you apply it to kids at a certain age, you can find kids that are late bloomers, that can flourish with the right conditions.

15:55And the education authorities were excited about it. He applied the test, found late bloomers, and he proved that these kids outperformed the others on every metric she wouldn't. And then he revealed he'd made the whole thing up. Wow. He said all that's changed in this classroom is the belief of the teacher. because the teachers believed that these kids had this latent talent. He could prove that they changed the way that they interacted with the child and therefore he changed their perception and changed the results. So it's a great example of sometimes we need people to believe in us before we necessarily believe in ourselves.

16:29And Tom offers a really lovely example where his dad was the guy believing in him and championing him and telling everybody about his potential. Sometimes when he was blind to it himself, let's listen to it I'm very lucky so I started the journey with my dad he's always believed in me but not only has my dad believed in me he's also convinced the circle of people around me that I'm going to make it as well so like luckily my wife was on board my family were on board friends like everybody was convinced that yeah Tom might be struggling now but he's going to make it and at some points I wasn't even convinced of that myself if I'm being honest but I'm very lucky that I have that you know my dad in the close circle who did believe in me how lovely is that that you've got somebody that sees who you could be and is relentless in championing that and reminding people and encouraging people be patient here we can't see the results today we might not see it tomorrow but we will do at some stage I think we all need somebody in our life that can act as a cheerleader to us and I think that was a really moving example of the role of a dad and how important they can be for young men especially it's so i know there's an element of maybe success story bias when you hear stuff like that and it's like well tom made it and his dad believed in him but there might have been a lot of people who didn't make it yeah but i think it's relating to that study you said earlier of how powerful it is to have that people believing in you I can see that in grassroots sport a lot with kids isn't it well your boys are active Sunday footballers active Sunday footballers I would say and they're young as well so the idea that anyone's a complete package is completely over-egged I think at this age the idea of elite and academy and all this language being used for an 8 year old I don't necessarily think that's very healthy.

18:39But, you know, I might be wrong on that. It's just an opinion. But I definitely see the role of confidence and how that plays. It basically transforms people. We've seen it so often, Will, haven't we? It was Sigmund Freud who said that everybody that goes on to achieve a life of success, however we define it, needs somebody at an early enough stage to plant the golden seed. that golden seed of potential to see something in you before you do and Freud says it could be a teacher it might be a parent it might be a family friend it might be a priest that he offers in in in his case but you just need somebody that sees your potential and just reminds you of it and I think there's a nice reminder for us all here that we can do that we can plant the golden seed for people in our lives and question are we doing that enough are we telling people that we recognize them for their potential and we recognize that they've got the opportunity to flourish and go and be late bloomers tom was uh wasn't necessarily a late bloomer but his dad believes in him and he keeps going and he becomes obviously the ufc heavyweight champion of the world um but the next clip we're going to talk about kind of was the thing that kind of, not shocked me the most, but it's the most click-worthy bit of this conversation is where he talked about being willing to die.

20:06Let's have a listen to this. If you're passionate about something you love something, that's the most important thing is that love for it. Like I absolutely love mixed martial arts. Like more than most people who are involved with it. I love it, everything about it, from the mental aspect to the physical aspect to the tactical aspect to the almost, I'm going to get a bit weird and say the spiritual aspect, because there is a spiritual aspect to it. I love everything about it. And it would be a shame for me to love something that much and walk away from it for financial reasons or whatever. What's the spiritual aspect?

20:41It's quite difficult to speak to two quote unquote normal people and for you to relate to it, if that makes sense. Try us. if I were I'll try you if I I feel like if I was to speak to any other combat athlete and say you need to get when I'm talking about spiritual I'm not talking about like God or any you know any religious stuff I'm talking about you need to get into a space mentally and this is going to sound really brutal where you're willing to die in there people will be watching this and thinking this guy is over exaggerating a little bit yeah but when that door closes is you need to be willing to die.

21:21I'm not saying it for clicks. I'm not saying it to be over-exaggerated and make me look like some intense person that I'm not, but that is the reality of it. Why? Because that's how bad you need to want it. Oh, that is special. I love that. It reminds me of, you know, there's a story, you'll have to forgive me, I don't remember the name, but there's like a, I don't know if it's an apocryphal story of a Spanish invader in Mexico and when they landed on the coast of Mexico, the army was out fighting them, the locals were presenting difficulties and they were sort of battling their way off the beach and then they battled their way onto the mainland and when they turned around, they realised that all their ships that they'd arrived in had been set on fire and it was a deliberate strategy from the leader that went, burn the boats.

22:09If we burn the boats, the only way out of here is we've got to fight our way through this and I love that idea that at some stage, you burn your boats, you go there's only one way out of here now which is victory there's no escape route and i think stephen gerrard told us that his whole philosophy of life was all in yeah do you think though like i mean and you obviously you have grown up in a you know combat sport environment in boxing yeah written books on people that level of commitment that level of intensity is that a unique thing to those sports? Is it even sustainable? Is it even healthy?

22:48Well, that's a different question whether it's healthy. I don't think, I think it's, I think you do see it within that world. I remember I wrote a biography a few years ago on marvellous Marvin Hagler. Yeah. And when I interviewed his corner man, a guy called Goody Petronelli, he was recounting to me when Hagler won the world title in London against Alaminta in 1980. And Hagler had said to him, when they were in the corner of the ring, he said, whatever happens tonight, I'm willing to die in this ring. So I don't want you to interfere. I don't want you to stop the fight. I don't want you to protect me.

23:23I'm willing to die in this ring to win the title. And Goody Petronelli said it was one of those, hairs on the back of your neck, stand up where you go. Wow, the level of intensity this guy's bringing. Well, the level of responsibility as well. Yeah, and I found that interesting when Tom was saying it because he's saying that to his dad. and his dad ultimately, that sort of primitive paternal instinct, how do you switch that off to go, I'm going to allow my son to go in that ring and accept that he might not come out. But what it shows you is sometimes, I think this is a level of obsessiveness that it sounds really impressive, but I don't think it is.

24:02Like Tom said to us, it sounds weird telling to quote unquote normal guys. I think he recognises that that does sound scarily dangerous. It's like that level of obsession of feeling that I have to win here and I'm willing to trade my life. You know when he thinks for himself as a father himself or a husband or even a son for his dad and he's still willing to trade all of that just for a victory in the ring. I think I can admire it to a degree, but also that lack of perspective. I suppose it's what you need to do if you're going to go to the extremes, but it does chill me a little bit to hear it.

24:46It was chilling, definitely. And, you know, that level of commitment, maybe, you know, we're not saying it is necessary. That isn't necessary for everybody in what they do. But I think there is an element of high performance and elite sport in that category where it is all in. for most of us it's a case of we can look at it we can sort of admire that level of commitment but we can recognise that it's probably not worth it where should we end this I think there was a wonderful it was the end of the episode when this came out yeah let's include this there's a great Woody Allen quote that says 80 % of life is about just showing up let's have a listen to Tom Aspinall's golden rule for high performance well I think you've got to show up it's so underrated so underrated sometimes just showing up beats anything else especially these days I mean I am unlike my dad I am on social media and I think people have a lot of resources to find the best way to do something and they can google what's the best way to be good at MMA for example what's the best way put it in YouTube, how do I swim faster listen swim faster by swimming that's how you swim faster sit in there and YouTube it just show up show up get in the pool and swim that's one of my favourite rules in general on high performance because I can relate to that I think in most things you can talk yourself out of something very very quickly or a reason not to do something why shouldn't just begin yeah just start you've got to begin you don't have to be great to start but you do have to start to be great yeah and I think that's the point that if you want to learn how to swim, swim.

26:29You can read about it in a book, but ultimately you've still got to jump in and swim. And I think for all of us, I hope that we can take that out of this lesson, that whatever we want to go and achieve, if we've got a dream, an aspiration, an ambition, you've just got to get on and start it. I do think there is sometimes we do have a bit of analysis paralysis. There's a lot of information. There's a lot of things for what's the best way to do something. How do I become the best at something? which, you know, can stop you before you start. You're not going to be good at anything when you start.

27:03And we've had a lot of people come on and say that. So as a, you know, consistency always beats intensity. Absolutely. And I think that's an appropriate place to sort of wrap up this episode. I think we've heard some incredible insights there from Tom around how you manage fear, your relationship with your inner circle of people that believe in you before you believe in yourself. the willingness to go all in and then the importance of showing up they're lessons that we can take even if we never ever consider stepping in the oxygon and fighting john jones listen if you've enjoyed this episode and you think that it'd be a benefit to somebody in your life why not consider passing it on to them and encouraging them to give it a listen to but above all thank you for joining us and giving us your time on the essential habits of high performance.