SUNRISE, Fla. – There isn’t much that Jim Miller hasn’t been through in almost 15 years of professional fighting, but he got to experience a first at this past Saturday’s UFC on ESPN+ 8: For the first time, his four children were present in the building to watch him compete.

It’s hard to think of a better debut for the kids, who saw their dad submit Jason Gonzalez (11-4 MMA, 1-2 UFC) in the first round and set another octagon record in the process. Now 32 fights and 19 wins into his octagon career, Miller (30-13 MMA, 19-12 UFC) now also holds the record for most submission wins in UFC lightweight history.

How special was it to share that moment with his children? Miller discussed it backstage, and there was quite a lot to unpack.

“My kids see a lot of what I do, and I want them to have a good example – not only in this sport, but kind of in this world. ” Miller told reporters, including MMA Junkie. “We’re stuck in this place where the most successful people just go about getting attention in the worst ways, so I just try to lead by example. It was great to have them there and have them see it and have them be part of it. I don’t want my kids to fight – not with the state of MMA right now, in particular.

“I want them to learn to defend themselves. I want them to appreciate what their dad and their uncle did and the heights that we reached in this sport. It’s cool to have them there; I’m happy to have them there. But, at the same time, I get my hands taped up and slide on those gloves and bite down on that mouthpiece for me, because I still enjoy it. I could provide for them in other ways, but it’s cool for them to see it.”

UFC on ESPN+ 8 took place at BB&T Center in Sunrise, Fla. Miller vs. Gonzalez was part of the early prelims on ESPN2, which aired prior to prelims on ESPN and the main card on ESPN+.

Jim, brother of fellow UFC vet Dan Miller, has been a professional MMA fighter since 2005 and a part of the UFC roster since 2008. At 35, he’s experienced all the peaks and valleys of the sport, having just recently come out of a four-fight skid, but has managed to stay active throughout. He’s now 2-1 in his past three fights.

Miller said in the octagon that he didn’t know how many fights he still had left in him, but that he was still hoping to pull a “Cinderella Man” and go on one more run before calling it quits.

Miller later explained that, for a while, his dealings with Lyme disease kept him from properly working on himself as an athlete. While he was able to hit technique-specific parts of his training, like grappling and hitting pads, lifting or hitting circuits would put him out of commission for days. As a pressure fighter, that meant Miller was missing a part of his game.

Miller has since fazed that out, though, and feeling the positive effects of that made him more optimistic about his fighting future.

“Now that I feel like I’m getting back to being more well-rounded and training as an athlete again, I know that I can compete with the best in the world,” Miller said. “And I know that I have to earn that opportunity again and I’m willing to do that.

“We’ll see. We’ll see where the road goes. I’m just as interested as you to find out.”

Miller is still figuring out how he’ll go about hanging up his gloves when the time comes, as fighting is still the way he provides for his family. Whether he’ll be able to smoothly transition to the next thing or simply quit MMA cold-turkey, though, he knows this about his retirement: It will be on his own terms.

“I’m going to know when it’s going to be my last fight,” Miller said. “I’m pretty sure you guys are going to know, too. I don’t want it to be because I had a (expletive) camp and I fought like (expletive), ‘You know what, I’m not doing this anymore’ and be emotional inside the cage and do it that way. I want to know going in there.

“I think it’s going to be a great night for me, because having that lifted off my shoulders, that I don’t have to do it again, is going to be awesome. It takes a lot; it does. It takes a lot to grind through camp and to deal with the ups and downs. I get home from a hard day of training and I’m tired and beat up and then my kids want to wrestle and it’s like – you try to do it as much as you can, but at the same time, ‘I can’t tonight, I can’t.’ And I hate having to say that.”

To hear more from Miller, check out the video above.

And for complete coverage of UFC on ESPN+ 8, check out the UFC Events section of the site.