Conor McGregor said he learned a crucial lesson about spending money when he read about how LeBron James spends his.
The UFC fighter, 30, has earned his fortune as one of the most marketable athletes in combat sports. He made $99 million in 2018, according to Forbes, largely because of his landmark crossover boxing-rules contest against Floyd Mayweather the year before.
Since then, he has launched a wildly successful whiskey brand called Proper No. Twelve and a clothing line called August McGregor that he hopes will one day rival Net-a-Porter.
While McGregor makes a lot of money, he has also been known to spend a lot of money too — he loves designer suits, Lamborghinis, and luxury yachts.
But McGregor said he changed his ways when he found out what other sporting superstars spend their money on.
James, 34, a three-time NBA champion, remains one of the top athletes in basketball. Aside from a sweet tooth for cereal, he eats well. But he also trains well. It's been reported that he spends $1.5 million a year taking care of his body, including the cost of his home gym and trainers, massage therapists, and chefs.
Read more: Why LeBron James is greater than Steph Curry, according to a 3-time NBA champion
This had a positive and lasting effect on McGregor.
"For so long, in my mid-to-late 20s when I started to acquire wealth and acquire money, I was fascinated with materialistic things. I would buy myself cars, watches," he told Tony Robbins in an interview recorded last month and published Wednesday on The Mac Life, a website McGregor owns through his company McGregor Sports and Entertainment.
"I switched off of that," McGregor said. "I realized I was spending things on material items and not things on myself, on my being, on my fitness, on my health."
He said that when he read that James "spent $1.5 million a year annually on himself — physical therapists, masseuse, nutritionists, trainers, all of that," he realized, "I spend $0."
"When a camp forms, when a fight forms, I'll gather a team of people — we go into the Vegas desert, lock ourselves away for 10 weeks, and do insanity work," he said, adding: "It's halfway in. And then you can't be that way, and you certainly cannot be that way in the fight game. But in reality, you can't be that way in any game you're in. If you're in a game, make sure you're in it all the way, all in with it, and then that game will be your game. That's where I am right now. And I've only kind of taken this philosophy recently."
McGregor's status as a fighter with the UFC is ambiguous. He announced a shock retirement from mixed martial arts in March, five months after his submission loss to his lightweight rival Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229.
Within weeks, it became apparent that a return to the company was possible, as the UFC boss Dana White hinted that the fighter's retirement wouldn't be for good. McGregor has also said he's "in talks" about a return to the fight game.
"I've had dips, lapses in motivation, dips in commitment," he told Robbins. "And I'm figuring it all out, and I'm feeling good, in a great place."
