Good morning, friends!

I published my interview with UFC champion Francis Ngannou on Wednesday. It was a conversation I really enjoyed. He’s had a whirlwind journey to make it to the United States, a country he had been obsessed with since he was a little kid growing up in Cameroon.

The obsession stemmed from a love for action movies starring Hollywood sensations Jean-Claude Van Damme and Sylvester Stallone. He would daydream about making it to America and becoming a world-famous boxer.

But this was the stuff of dreams. Ngannou’s day-to-day reality was far from the life he envisioned. Ngannou endured a level of poverty few people can even imagine. After his parents divorced, he moved to his grandmother’s one-room brick house with his mom and four siblings.

His family couldn’t afford to buy him pen and paper for school, and he often went hungry because he’d have to skip lunch. At age 9, Ngannou took a job digging sand mines for $1.90 per day.

When he was old enough to leave the village in which he grew up, Ngannou was ready to execute on the plan that had percolated in his head for over a decade: become a professional boxer. Even though he was a dreamer, Ngannou says he was realistic about the fact that he couldn’t become a world champion by training in Cameroon. So at age 25, he sold all of his belongings and set off for Morocco, the first leg of a winding and treacherous journey to America.

Ngannou traveled a whopping 3,000 miles across the Sahara Desert—from Cameroon to Nigeria, from Nigeria to Niger, from Niger to Algeria, from Algeria to Morocco.

It took him 14 months to make it from Morocco to Spain, an endeavor Ngannou describes as “a hell of a journey.” That’s because he attempted to float on a raft full of people to a Spanish island off the coast of Morocco where he could call the Red Cross and seek asylum. But authorities had pulled him out of the water six separate times, and either dropped him back in the middle of the Moroccan desert or temporarily locked him in a Moroccan jail.

In the interview that follows, you will hear the mind-blowing story of how Ngannou signed with the UFC, moved to the United States, and became the world heavyweight champion in a sport he didn’t even know existed just several years prior.

🎧 LISTEN.

UFC Champion Francis Ngannou on What It Really Means to Bet on Yourself By Polina Marinova Pompliano Podcast episode

🎬 WATCH.

Read the Full Interview Here

PROFILES.

— America’s most remarkable kid [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The Fyre Festival mastermind planning a comeback
— Wall Street’s biggest risk-taker
— The fake billionaire who scammed rich buyers out of millions
— The 23-year-old soccer sensation

PEOPLE TO KNOW.

America’s most remarkable kid: If anyone was going to save this world, it was Kevin Cooper. At age 14, he had just published his autobiography. He was making plans to expand his 350-acre farm to buy up surrounding farms to convert to regenerative agriculture. He was saving money to build a house for his disabled parents and another for his autistic older brother. He was polishing a movie script and a series of children’s books teaching business literacy for kids. And, in his spare time, he had the task of grading the road to his farm using the John Deere tractor he bought new for himself for his 11th birthday. But on a hot day last June, Cooper drowned in a kayaking accident at a friend’s birthday party. If there’s one thing you read today, let it be this. (Deseret News)

“When he was 10 years old and buying a house, you know you’re not raising the most average kid.”

The Fyre Festival mastermind planning a comeback: You may remember Billy McFarland as the party planner who pled guilty for his role in organizing the Fyre Festival, the disastrous party in the Bahamas that imploded and left people stranded. After spending more than four years in prison, McFarland is now a free man. His next act? “I’d like to do something tech-based,” he says. “The good thing with tech is that people are so forward-thinking, and they’re more apt at taking risk.” (The New York Times)

“I just was making bad decision after bad decision.”

Wall Street’s biggest risk-taker: Ah, Michael Novogratz. The ex-Wall Streeter is known for winning (and losing) big. Over the past year, Novogratz had been one of the biggest boosters of a cryptocurrency called Luna. He had gone on Twitter to talk up the coin at least 30 times, saying it was “a horse to ride.” At one point, he said he had sold some of his Luna to buy his wife a Korean Pomeranian pooch. He even got a tattoo of it on his left bicep. Novogratz’s personal wealth — most of it tied up in Galaxy Digital — also imploded. Worth $8.5 billion at crypto’s peak last November, Novogratz is now down to $2.1 billion. Can Novogratz survive the crypto crash? (Institutional Investor)

“My tattoo will be a constant reminder that venture investing requires humility.”

The fake billionaire who scammed rich buyers out of millions: The FBI says 24-year-old Daniel Lesin faked his way into a life of luxury, pretending to have spare Ferrari Monza allocations to sell. This summer, it all came crashing down.

"People give credibility to those with expensive things and expensive friends.”

The 23-year-old soccer sensation: Kylian Mbappé is the French soccer star whose entire existence is devoted to high performance, eating right, sleeping right, and turning himself into the defining talent of his generation. An heir apparent to Messi and Ronaldo, the star forward represents a new generation of athletes focused on taking soccer stardom far beyond the pitch. (Wall Street Journal; reply to this email if you can’t access the article)

“The question about him now isn’t ‘Is he the best?’ It’s ‘How far can this kid go?’”

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