John Kavanagh is an Irish MMA coach and trainer. One of his most famous students being UFC Champion, Conor McGregor.

John is the founder and owner of SBG, or Straight Blast Gym, where John trains Conor and his other students in Ireland. He’s also the co-founder of MMA training program Wimp2Warrior, which takes complete beginners, and trains them to be able to step into the ring, building physical and mental fitness, strength, and resilience.

A huge fan of boxing and fighting, Mark Bouris sat down virtually with John ahead of Conor McGregor’s clash with American fighter Dustin Poirier. Together they discuss the attitude behind training and success, whether champions are born or bred, the joy of fulfilling a purpose in business, and of course, how Conor is shaping up before he steps in the ring.

For live events and sports, COVID has meant a lot of changes. For the UFC, fighters now step into the ring in a relatively eerie silence. Ahead of Conor McGregor’s fight against Dustin Poirier, Mark Bouris asks Conor’s coach, John Kavanagh, how Conor is preparing to fight in a ring with no crowds.

“We have to setup a gym environment where it is safe to fail.” The mindset of a winning coach counter-intuitively, expects and encourages failure. With anything, as John Kavanagh describes it, you want to be be “failing up”. Consistently improving and learning from failure.

“What you’re doing in business is paying it forward. Paying forward that self confidence to those people that probably don’t have it'” – Mark Bouris

Mark and John discuss the reward and satisfaction that John gets from seeing the self-confidence that develops in the people who take part in his Wimp2Warrior training program. A great example of a business delivering on it’s purpose.