Regardless of the venue in which the obstacle presents itself, Nicolau has learned that the best thing to do while staring a challenge directly in the face is to be positive and keep working.
“I think every fight, every challenge that we face, we grow with them,” Nicolau told UFC.com during his fight week interview ahead of his pivotal Top 10 matchup against David Dvořák at UFC Fight Night: Blaydes vs Daukaus. “This challenge was no different. I feel more ready than I felt before to get my place in the Top 5.”
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No doubt if Nicolau were to look back on his journey to get to the UFC, particularly in the last few years, the amount of forced growth from adversity has likely been immense.
“All of the hard work and believing in myself really worked,” the 29-year-old said with a smile. “It’s funny because when you’re young, you only have wishes and desires. I just wanted to fight in the UFC. I wasn’t thinking about money, fame, whatever. I wanted to fight because it’s something that makes me feel alive and I just love it.
“Then you grow up, you get more mature, you have other things in life going on and then life starts to get more difficult because of that. But any time things get hard, I always try to remember why I started this, what my first fight was like, how happy I was just to be there.”