Mahamed Aly never envisioned himself becoming a father, but it ended up giving his career a boost and propelled him to the top of the BJJ world. 

Hailing from Rio de Janeiro and now living in Maryland, Aly's life has changed beyond recognition for the young man who as a teenager was too poor to ride the bus and used to ride his bike 10 miles to train with the famous Nogueira brothers, Minotauro and Minotoro. 

2018 saw Aly conquer his greatest achievement: a gold medal at the IBJJF World Championships. Aly is beloved by the jiu-jitsu community for his entertaining all-out style of grappling, his high-octane matches and his accessibility and down-to-earth nature in person and on social media. 

Aly opened up in an hour-long interview with TLI teammate Tim Spriggs on the BJJ Goons podcast, and talked about his background, his journey to becoming a jiu-jitsu world champion and how the surprise news he would become a father had the unexpected consequence of taking his career to the next level. 

In the podcast Aly goes in great detail to describe his upbringing and his path to becoming a world champion, and recounts the weeks and days leading up to the 2018 IBJJF Wold Championships, where he became super-heavyweight champion by beating the likes of Leandro Lo and Nicholas Meregali. It's well worth a listen. 

The part where Mahamed starts talking about fatherhood had the unexpected side effect of helping him grow as a person and an athlete begins at 39 minutes. Enjoy. 

"Some people don't know but I just had a kid nine months ago. My girl got pregnant and that was a shock because I didn't want to be a dad at all. In my mind I would never have a kid. I don't want no responsibility, I'm selfish, I don't want to do that, I'm by myself. If you have a kid, that's forever. 

"I didn't expect it to be that good to have a kid, in my mind I thought it would be bad. [Training for Worlds] I had to take care of Brazilians that were here, now I have responsibilities to help other people too, I've got to help my girl who is pregnant, and I have to think about money now for the first time in my life, not just for me but for the family. It was bad. 

"But then for some reason everything in my mind got clear. Because now– I don't how to explain it– but I don't have to win any more. Now I have a lot of other stuff going on, if I lose that's alright, I've been dealing with a hard moment in my life. [Winning] isn't such a weight on my shoulders. 

"Now, jiu-jitsu was the happy moment in my day. Because for years I was getting stressed about jiu-jitsu. I was thinking about being the best, I was thinking about beating Buchecha, and beating great people... But I wasn't having fun the same way.

"Instead of being something fun, it was becoming a job. So when your girl is pregnant, your friends and family are far away, you're in a cold place, you're like man let me just have fun training jiu-jitsu. 

"I started to have fun, I started getting more creative. I was like man, I will try stuff. And I started to train less, I had my YouTube channel– man let me have fun here, too– and then I kind of forgot about Worlds, because I had so much stuff going on." 

WATCH: Mahamed Aly: The Highlights