
How “Conor McGregor Certainty” Can Get You More Attention
(and more trouble)
He didn’t hedge his bets.
“Floyd’s got little legs and little hands. I’m going to knock him out inside four rounds. Mark my words.” — McGregor
He was 100% certain of victory.
“Him turning into a frozen statue and hitting the floor and crashing — that’s what you can expect.” — McGregor
And this certainty was magnetic. It drew people in. It transformed critics into supporters.

Who are you more likely to pay attention to?
The guy who says…
I’m training really hard. I will do my best in the ring and I think I have a really good chance at knocking him out, but there are no guarantees in life.
or the guy who says…
I will knock him out in 4 rounds.
It’s natural for us to pay closer attention to the second guy because guys want to be him, girls want to be with him. We think he must know something that we don’t, which builds up intrigue and talk around him.

People with that degree of certainty pray upon the naive, which in this case was me.
I don’t know much about boxing or MMA.
In factoring who I thought was going to win all I had to go off of was what the pundits and fighters said in the lead up to the fight.
“Floyd will be unconscious inside of four rounds. The power and ferociousness that I have, he’s never experienced it before. I don’t fear him.” — McGregor
And Conor McGregor spoke with such wit, eloquence, and most importantly, certainty, that I thought for sure he was going to win.
Spoiler Alert: McGregor lost

Like a lot of people, I agree the referee called the fight too soon, but regardless McGregor didn’t live up to the high expectation he set for his fans.
And you can’t hedge expectations after-the-fact.
I hear a lot of pundits saying how McGregor exceeded expectations in the ring, but whose expectations? Not his own.
Judging by the man’s own expectation-setting, he failed miserably.

Certainty is such a powerful weapon for a fighter, but even more so for a politician, because whereas the former could lead to self-destruction the latter could lead to national annihilation.
Like McGregor, Napoleon Bonaparte rose up the ranks and achieved a lot of early success…

But then Napoleon’s arrogance got the best of him with his invasion of Russia, which led to the death of 340,000 frenchmen and his exile.
How Can Someone Be So Certain and So Wrong?
Naive (Deceiving Self)
- Arrogance: A person overestimates his own abilities and underestimates his opponents.
- Self-Motivation: When we feel certain we feel empowered. And if we add smack talk to the mix then it can be even more motivating because now our “word” is at stake.

Deceiving You
- A person may actually be less certain then they’re portraying because they want to strike fear in an opponent or they want to attract more money, views, power, etc.

I think McGregor was a little of all three, but to his defense he had to be to a degree because I think the greatest fighters need some arrogance, and at the end of the day, the fight is for entertainment so he also needs to put on a bit of a show, but just because I empathize with his inner/outer deception doesn’t mean he gets to keep his credibility after he failed to live up to his word.
How Certainty Affects Credibility
You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
If McGregor won the fight then he would have been rightly hailed as prophetic.
One of the benefits of being 100% certain is if you turn out to be correct then you’ll be empowered in the future to undercut criticism.
But the reverse must also be true.
If you’re 100% certain and turn out to be wrong then you should largely be ignored in the future.
Based upon how far he missed the mark, the next time I see McGregor step into a press conference I’m changing the channel.
“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.” — Andrew Carnegie
Don’t believe a person simply because he or she is certain. Gather the facts from a variety of trusted sources and don’t let emotion blur your logic.
And overall be distrustful of certainty because certainty is often a sign of ignorance.
“The more I learn, the less I realize I know.” — Socrates
Smart people recognize there are few certainties and guarantees in life and therefore often use qualifiers.
If we value our words then we should choose our words carefully.
Words only matter to those it matters to.
Yoda was wrong, “Do or do not. There is no try.” Sometimes having the humility to say, “I’ll try” gives you more credibility for the times you promise.
Ultimately,
Certainty helps you garner attention, and can propel yourself and others into action, but recognize that if you end up being wrong, it could cause serious damage to your reputation, and in the case of Conor McGregor, your face.

Thanks for reading! Anthony Galli writes about the great men and women who made history so that we may make history in our own time. Watch his series @ The Great Life.

