Francis Ngannou is fighting for the UFC heavyweight belt this weekend.
His life story >>> Any movie that exists
It's criminally overlooked.
THREAD...
• Francis is often described as the most physically gifted athlete the UFC has ever seen.
• However, I would argue as impressive as athleticism is... His brain is better.
• Francis' story has been criminally underlooked by the media. It deserves to be a Hollywood film.
• His story isn't the cliche "work hard, hustle and believe bro".
• Francis' story is possibly the most superhuman high agency, grit and out the box thinking - ever.
• I've been down internet rabbit holes of his story since hearing it on @joerogan
FRANCIS' CHILDHOOD
• Francis grew up in Batie, Cameroon in 1986.
• He was raised most of his life by his single mother, due to his violent father.
• His earliest memories were the shame he felt hearing stories about his Dad being violent to his mother (Right).
• At the time, there was no free education in Cameroon.
• He had to walk 2 hours per day to school and couldn't afford the books.
• Francis worked *digging sand mines* from age 10-17 to contribute to his family.
(Below is him back where he used to dig)
• After seeing his Dad die and unable to contribute to the medical bills, he decided to start pursuing his life's goal:
1. Make it to America 2. Become a world champion fighter
• He was literally willing to do whatever it takes.
• "I couldn't go to the airport and take a plane to France - I had to use all the back doors to get there." - @francis_ngannou
• The back door journey from Cameroon to Paris took him 14 months... and 6 failures.
• If this was a fictional story, it would be too crazy.
BACK DOOR 1 - CAMEROON > NIGERIA
• This was the easiest back door of the trip because of the open border between Cameroon and Nigeria.
• Francis headed North and crossed the border into Yola.
• If only the rest of the trip was this easy...
BACK DOOR 2 - NIGERIA > NIGER
• Francis doesn't specify what exact border he crossed here.
• However, upon crossing more borders - things began to get difficult.
• Nice officers would ask for a bribe.
• Other officers would strip you down and take everything you've got.
• Immigrants had to be innovative with how they hid their money.
• As the immigrants got more innovative, the officers also clocked on.
• This is a mental model called "The Red Queen" effect.
• "It was a game. You needed to know how to hide money." - Francis
How did Francis get around the Red Queen effect?
• He covered the money in plastic and he swallowed it.
Even if the officers strip-searched him, they wouldn't be able to find his money.
Genius.
BACK DOOR 3 - NIGER TO ALGERIA
• Francis paid some professional smugglers to take him through the back door to Algeria...
• This back door was another level... The Sahara Desert
• It reached 150 Fahrenheit during the day time
• And 20 Fahrenheit during the night time.
• It was him and TWENTY FIVE others in the back of a Toyota truck... through the SAHARA DESERT.
• Due to the lack of space, they had barely any water.
• Below is the nearest image I could find to his experience (This is at the same border + same trucks)
• "If you let go... you're letting go of your life." - Francis
• There was a mother with a newborn baby with them.
• She mentally cracked and wanted to throw her baby off the truck.
• The 25 others selflessly took it in turns to hold the baby - whilst holding on.
• When they finally crossed the desert, the dehydrated Francis found a water well.
• "It was so dirty... it had dead animals in it" - Francis
• "I may drink this water and die - but if if I don't drink this water, I will die anyway. So I drank it" - Francis
BACK DOOR 4 - ALGERIA TO MOROCCO
• If officers knew Francis was from Cameroon, he would be deported.
• However, Francis hacked his way around this... He bought a Malian passport
• Algeria had great relationships with Mali due to the war.
• He would get stopped by Algerian officers.
• "They played you psychologically. They have no way of really knowing (if you're Malian). They will decide whether to check (your identity) based on your reaction." - Francis
• "I was afraid as shit." - Francis
BACK DOOR 5 - MOROCCO > SPAIN
• Francis had 2 ways of crossing to small Spanish islands on the border of Morocco:
1. Ceuta
2. Melilla
• If he could get there, he could call the red cross and get asylum.
• However, these are some of the most violent borders in the world.
• "Morocco is a nightmare for immigration. It's the hell country for immigration" - Francis
• When you failed, the police would catch you and drop you back in the desert in Algeria. (Footage of police doing this below)
• Francis sometimes had to crawl back through the desert
• Before each border run, Francis lived in the Morrocan forests.
• He stayed during the winters and would find food from trash cans.
• "This rotten tomato is mine." - Francis chuckling telling a story of his argument with rats
Vox footage of the forest below
• The first time he tried crossing the border his whole body was cut open by the barbed wire.
• He couldn't get up - but he knew if he laid there the Morrocan border police would probably kill him.
Visualization of this insane border below. (Vox)
• He was then presented with 2 options:
1. Hide in the forest and die losing his blood
2. Go to the hospital - and then get dropped off in the desert by the police
He chose the latter - survival.
He got dropped off in the desert SIX MORE TIMES.
• What makes Francis story so special is:
1. Resilience - He refused to quit.
2. Iteration - Each time he would tweak his strategy.
"Most people die at 25 and aren't buried until they're 75" - Benjamin Franklin
Why?
4 reasons and solutions:
Reason 1 - Milestones
0-25 is a well-designed video game.
You level up each year.
There are regular milestones as you go from infancy to school to entering the workforce.
You constantly feel like you're making progress -- and have reflective milestones.
After 25, it's a terribly designed video game.
Society places you on your own.
If you don't have the agency to design your own 25+ video game, the only milestones life will give you are the funerals of your loved ones -- followed by your own funeral.
How to choose where to live and what locations to visit:
12 non-obvious thoughts:
1. The 3 big decisions: Where you live, what you do, and who you're with.
Location might be the most important one because the other 2 are often downstream of location.
2. Good rule of thumb for locations to avoid: What places has the most amount of sofa people? (People that drain your energy you need to lie down on a sofa to recharge)
The history of technology by Brad Jacobs: From fire and shelter, to the internet and AI.
I wish I was taught this at school...
More than 2 million years ago - Early humans in Africa make the first stone tools from split pebbles
1 million years ago - Humans begin to use fire as a tool
500,000 years ago - Humans build the first shelters
350,000 years ago - Humans begin to hunt with spears
100,000 years ago - Humans begin to trade using beads made of shells
60,000 years ago - Humans begin to use spears for hunting, protection, aggression
1000 BC - Early accountants in Asia create the abacus
635 BC - The Chinese produce the first coins
600 BC - The Romans build the first public sewer system
200 BC - The Chinese invent the compass
AD 725 - Buddhist monk Yi Xing creates the first mechanical clock
900 - The Chinese first use gunpowder in war
1182 - The Chinese invent the magnetic compass
1284 - The Italians invent eyeglasses
1328 - The Europeans invent the sawmill
1440 - Johannes Gutenberg invents the printing press
1530 - Europeans invent the spinning wheel
1609 - Galileo Galilei invents the telescope
1662 - Blaise Pascal invents the public bus
1698 - Thomas Savery invents the basic steam engine
1769 - A French military tractor becomes the first self-propelled road vehicle
1793 - Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin
1795 - Nicholas-Jacques Conté invents the modern pencil
1838 - A British steamship makes the first transatlantic crossing
1839 - Charles Goodyear develops a way to make rubber strong, durable, and elastic
1850 - Isaac Singer introduces the sewing machine
1857 - William Kelly invents the blast furnace
1865 - Giovanni Caselli introduces the first commercial facsimile system
1869 - John Wesley Hyatt invents synthetic plastic
1874 - Remington Company introduces the mechanical typewriter
1876 - Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone
1877 - Thomas Edison invents the phonograph
1880 - Thomas Edison invents the incandescent light bulb
1882 - America opens the first hydroelectric power plant
1883 - England constructs the first electric railway
1885 - Gottlieb Daimler builds the first four-wheeled automobile using an internal combustion gas engine
1886 - Josephine Cochran invents the first practical dishwasher
1892 - Rudolf Diesel invents the diesel engine
1894 - Nikola Tesla invents radio signal coils
1896 - Gottlieb Daimler builds the first truck
1901 - Henry Booth invents the vacuum cleaner; Thomas Edison invents the alkaline storage battery
1902 - Marie and Pierre Curie discover the existence of the elements radium and polonium
1903 - Willis Carrier introduces the first electric air conditioner
1908 - Henry Ford uses the assembly line to introduce the Model T; Thomas Edison develops a moving picture with sound
1910 - A plane transports commercial freight for the first time
1913 - England manufactures the first stainless steel
1914 - Electric traffic lights are invented in the United States
1920 - James Smathers invents the electric typewriter
1921 - Karel Čapek invents the robot; Western Union introduces the telegram
1923 - Clarence Birdseye invents frozen food
1927 - Erik Rotheim invents the aerosol can; Philo Farnsworth invents the all-electric television
1933 - Eric Fawcett and Reginald Gibson invent polyethylene
1935 - Robert Watson-Watt pioneers the development of radar
1936 - A rail provider transports a truck trailer for the first time
1937 - Frank Whittle invents the jet engine
1938 - Philip Wiles invents the stainless-steel artificial hip
1939 - Sikorsky builds the first viable helicopter; The United States builds the first mass-produced remote-controlled aircraft, or drone
1940 - England uses the first operational computer in WWII
1943 - America begins operating the first nuclear reactor
1945 - Raytheon Corporation introduces the microwave oven
1946 - The first general-purpose, programmable computer (ENIAC) is developed for the U.S. Army
1947 - William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain invent the transistor
1949 - De Havilland Aircraft builds the first commercial jet airliner
1951 - Charles Ginsburg develops the videotape recorder
1952 - America develops the first hydrogen bomb; Swedish scientists Åke Senning and Rune Elmqvist implant the first cardiac pacemaker
1953 - NBC begins broadcasting television programs in color
1955 - IBM introduces the first transistor calculator
1956 - The “Ideal X,” the world’s first commercial container ship, sails; IBM develops the FORTRAN computer programming language
1957 - Russia launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite
1959 - Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce
invent the silicon chip; Xerox introduces the first commercial copier
1962 - NASA launches the first privately built satellite; Nick Holonyak Jr. invents the first visible light LED
1963 - Digital Equipment Corporation introduces the minicomputer; Philips introduces the compact audio cassette
1965 - The first robotic exoskeleton for assisted walking is created; Stephanie Kwolek invents Kevlar
1966 - Marie Van Brittan Brown invents the first video home security system
1968 - Ivan Sutherland implements the first virtual reality system
1969 - The internet is created through the ARPANET network
1971 - Intel introduces the first microprocessor; Texas Instruments introduces the first pocket calculator
1972 - Landstat 1 creates the first comprehensive mapping of Earth
1973 - Xerox develops the first personal computer
1977 - The VHS video recorder is developed
1978 - The first human is born through in vitro fertilization (IVF)
1979 - Nippon launches the first 1G wireless network in Tokyo
1980 - Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer invent the scanning tunneling microscope (STM)
1981 - The mobile phone is invented
1982 - The compact disc player is developed
1983 - Apple introduces the Graphical User Interface (GUI); Bill Gates introduces Microsoft Windows; GPS technology is made available for civilian use; Charles Hull invents stereolithography
1984 - Carnegie Mellon University develops the first truly autonomous vehicles
1991 - Ann Tsukamoto identifies and isolates stem cells
1992 - Apple introduces the first PDA; Vodafone sends the first SMS text message, “Merry Christmas”
1994 - Jeff Bezos founds the first purely online retail company; Dan Kohn completes the world’s first secure credit card transaction over the internet
1995 - Gary Kremen launches Match. com, the first online dating service
1996 - Email communication is widely adopted; Scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland clone “Dolly” the sheep
1997 - AOL makes instant messaging available; Videophones are first used in business settings; IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeats chess champion Garry Kasparov
1998 - Google is incorporated; MP3 files begin to be transmitted on the internet; Microvision introduces the virtual retina display; IBM introduces the first speech recognition software; The first high-definition television is sold
1999 - The first wearable continuous glucose monitoring system is approved by the FDA; The first human organ, a bladder, is artificially engineered using 3D printing; TiVo introduces time-shifting broadcast recording
2000 - The “ILOVEYOU” virus infects 50 million computers
2001 - Apple launches the iPod; The first artificial heart is implanted in a human; Capsule endoscopy technology is introduced
2002 - The birth control patch is first released in the United States
2003 - The U.S. government establishes the National Cyber Security Division; Skype launches videoconferencing applications
2004 - Mark Zuckerberg and fellow Harvard students launch Facebook
2005 - YouTube launches its video-sharing website; Scientists complete the first comprehensive comparison of the genetic blueprints of humans and chimpanzees
2006 - Amazon Web Services is launched; Twitter is introduced; Nintendo introduces motion sensor–controlled technology; The first commercial drone is permitted by the U.S. FAA; Food is 3D-printed for the first time
2007 - Apple introduces the iPhone; Amazon introduces Kindle
2008 - Blockchain is introduced for bitcoin transactions
2009 - Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna invent CRISPR; Google launches Waymo
2010 - Apple introduces the iPad; The first ever Uber trip is completed; Palmer Luckey completes his first VR headset prototype
2011 - Apple introduces Siri
2012 - The Higgs boson particle is discovered; Australian surgeons implant the world’s first bionic eye
2013 - The Apple App Store exceeds a million apps; The FDA approves the first retinal implant in the United States
2014 - A robotic lander built by the ESA makes the first soft landing on a comet
2015 - NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reaches Pluto; PayPal’s Venmo reports 40 million annual users
2016 - The FDA approves the first artificial pancreas; AlphaGo defeats Lee Sedol at Go
2017 - SpaceX reuses a Falcon 9 rocket; Ericsson introduces support for the 5G network; Apple launches facial recognition on the iPhone X
2018 - Instagram reaches 1 billion monthly users
2019 - Astronomers release the first photo of a black hole; IBM unveils the first quantum computing system for commercial use; Israeli researchers print a 3D heart using human tissue
2020 - Zoom is downloaded a record 2.13 million times in a single day
2022 - OpenAI releases ChatGPT; The first full-color images from the James Webb Space Telescope are released; A robot performs laparoscopic surgery on a pig without human assistance.
2023 - Google releases Bard.
Thought 1 - I wish I was taught this at school
It connects subjects: Physics, maths, chemistry, biology, business and geography through an interconnected timeline -- with practical implications.
Thought 2 - The current education model defies how we learn
Having random subjects with no interconnection, timeline or narratives -- is awful for learning.
You could scrap 90% of the education system and replace with a detailed breakdown of this full timeline.