The Laws of the Ring

by Urijah Faber

  Ryan and I were probably ten and eight years old, respectively, and in the summer Pop would park the motor home next to a creek or a pond somewhere close to his job of the moment and head to work while we were left to our own devices until he returned.

  You can debate the parenting aspects of this all you want— it’s probably not in any of Dr. Spock’s books—but some of the best times of my life happened that summer. Ryan and I would spend the day fishing, swimming, and exploring. This was before cell phones, of course, and before parents feared every moment for their children’s safety. We were on our own, all day, without television or computers, and we had no problem filling up our days. We couldn’t have asked for a better summer.

  When I think back to that summer, I’m amazed at how many life skills Ryan and I developed as a result of that freedom. We carried our parents’ values, but we grew confident in ourselves and our ability to handle our own problems without having constant parental intervention. We learned to be creative—without creativity, we would have grown bored quickly. We learned people skills; I won’t say Ryan and I never had disagreements that summer, but we learned to work out most of our problems and reach a consensus on what we were going to do and how we were going to do it.

  And there was nobody telling us that even our most harebrained schemes were too dangerous or impossible. Most of the time we got along great, but we had our typical sibling squabbles. We didn’t have many creature comforts—no television, for example—but I did have a Game Boy that helped pass the time. One day we were sitting in the trailer on a hot afternoon, parked near a reservoir. We’d been outside all morning before coming in to grab some lunch and get out of the sun. I had been sitting on the couch playing with my Game Boy before getting up to get a drink of water. As soon as I got up, Ryan sat down, grabbed the Game Boy, and started playing with it.

  “Give it back,” I said.

  “Make me,” he said.

  This classic highbrow childhood exchange went on for a few minutes before I decided to take a stand. I very deliberately put on my shoes right in front of him. My brother could tell I was up to something, so he started saying, “You better not.” The whole time he kept his head in the Game Boy and refused to look at me.

  After I put on the shoes, I walked slowly to the front door and propped it open.

  “You better not.” Still looking at the Game Boy.

  The couch sat about five feet from the front door, facing the other direction. I could see the back of Ryan’s head shaking back and forth as I plotted.

  “You better not.”

  I stood behind him, between the door and the couch, and crouched into a sprinter’s stance with my right hand upraised and ready to strike. Still, he kept his eyes on the Game Boy.

  “You better not.”

  But I did. I punched him hard on the arm and started running out the door almost before my fist made contact. As I sprinted away I could feel Ryan in hot pursuit.

  Ryan, two and a half years older, was stronger and faster than me, and even with the head start I could feel him gaining on me as soon as I leaped out of the trailer door. He caught me within fifty yards and tackled me to the dirt. He popped me a few times but, all in all, went pretty easy on me.

  Like animals in the wild, we each established our place in the pecking order. He was trying to teach me a lesson—as the older brother, he was in control and I better not be dumb enough to try to challenge his authority. As the younger brother just starting to assert himself and develop a mind of my own, I was letting him know that I understood his supremacy in the relationship, but that didn’t mean I was going to let him pick on me.

  Ryan and I found ways to amuse ourselves, which was a good thing. For better or worse, we were on our own until Pop finished his work and drove back to the trailer. The lesson from that summer was simple: We learned to enjoy what we had. We could have fixated on the things we didn’t have, but instead we made the most of what we had. I guess you could say we didn’t really know what we didn’t have.

  Popular culture inundates us with images of things we’re told we should have. In order to have a good life, you need a certain kind of car, a certain size home, a whole roomful of high-tech electronics and gadgets. On top of that, you have to be able to eat at the right restaurants, drink at the right clubs, and hang out with people who are as upwardly mobile and as cool as you aspire to be. Whenever I find myself looking at the things I don’t have, the old saying ignorance is bliss comes to mind. Looking back on that year in our little motor home and the fun times with my brother at parks and ponds just reminds me that satisfaction is relative. It’s great to dream big, but always be content with what you have.

  It’s easy to jump outside the umbrella, to put passion aside and chase an image of the person the media say you should be. Whenever I feel I’m spinning on this endless hamster wheel of consumption, I remember one of my favorite sayings: There are only two things that you have to do in life: You have to die, and you have to live until you die. The rest is up to you.

  So what gives you happiness? What do you love to do? Look at your life now, and find the things that already make you happy. Expand on them. At the same time look for other ways to feel excited and alive.

  When you are making decisions in life, remember that it’s okay to take the road less traveled. Society’s norms may not be what’s best for you.

  The 3rd Law of Power

  Create Healthier Habits

  You can have all the knowledge in the world, but until you create good habits, that knowledge doesn’t mean much of anything.

  Your goal in life is to put yourself in position to “live the dream.” I know those words are usually used ironically or sarcastically, coming from someone who’s unplugging a toilet or struggling with a calculus equation.

  Yeah, I’m living the dream.

  But there’s another way to think about those words—the way I choose to think about them. Living the dream is simply a form of living out your passion, of making that passion—gradually, through persistence and effort—a central part of your life.

  Everyone’s definition of this is different. Passion is an intensely personal thing, which is why you should make every effort to resist accepting opinions from people who do not understand your passion or have your best interests at heart.

  I define living the dream this way: having a life where you spend all of your time doing things you love, with people you enjoy being around.

  To get there, you have to fight through adversity. And by fight, I mean fight. You have to acquire strength through adversity. It isn’t enough to simply overcome difficult times; you have to learn from them. You have to let the fight against adversity get inside you and empower you to achieve greater things.

  I’ve explained some about my unique childhood. My older brother, Ryan, my younger sister, Michaella—the daughter of my mother and stepfather, Tom—and I were raised with love and affection.

  But I also want you to know that it wasn’t all sweetness and light. I was around six when the family began to break up. The radical Christian environment was getting old; the extreme celebration of life and religion got harder to celebrate in light of my pop’s inconsistent career. He never developed a plan to create a comfortable life for himself and his family, and my mom was getting frustrated raising two hungry boys with very little money on hand.

  My mom had grown up in a broken family that had money problems, and she was hoping for better. My pop was just content making a living and wasn’t driven when it came to his business or money. Stress grew, fights happened, and the breakup was inevitable. While they were still together but after we left the commune, my mom decided to pursue a career in modeling and acting, and my dad began drinking heavily. Before long, the marriage split and we were left with an ugly breakup. My mom got work at a modeling agency. Pop kept working construction and partying hard. But the breakup affe
cted him deeply.

  One day my dad showed up at the apartment complex in Sacramento where my mom had relocated after the separation. Her apartment—our apartment—was across the courtyard from my uncle Danny’s apartment, and the man who arrived at the apartment complex bore almost no resemblance to the joyful, carefree person I knew. He was both drunk and furious, a bad combination. My mom had already started dating, and she was in the apartment with her new boyfriend. My brother and I were sitting in Uncle Danny’s apartment, watching an ugly scene play out.

  As I said, I was five or six and couldn’t make sense of what was going on. Ryan sat next to me, bawling. Danny’s girlfriend Debbi attempted to console him. I didn’t need consoling. I was too scared to cry. My stomach felt like it was in my throat. I couldn’t stop watching.

  Pop staggered up the outside stairs leading to my mom’s apartment, yelling and threatening. He was going as fast as his altered state would allow.

  We could hear my mom’s frantic pleading from inside. “What are you doing, Theo? I’m calling the police!”

  Pop, normally the most mild-mannered and happy person you could ever hope to meet, was distraught over the breakup. He’d been drinking heavily. Apparently the anger and the booze combined to produce the combustible mix we were watching.

  As Pop reached the top of the stairs, he stumbled toward her door and started kicking and hitting it. I watched, transfixed. My pop was trying to break down the door. I didn’t understand any of it. Bam! Bam! Bam! I was terrified, paralyzed by fear. I flinched with every strike and my eyes blinked hard as the door swelled from the hinges. I could hear both my parents yelling, but their voices had merged to the point where I couldn’t make out the words.

  Then, suddenly, the door cracked open. My mom’s boyfriend appeared at the entryway. He and Pop met like rams at the threshold. Within seconds they had both hit the floor.

  I could hear my mom crying and screaming. “Danny! Danny!” Out of nowhere, Uncle Danny flew up the stairs two at a time. He started ripping the two apart. His ego as torn as his clothes, Pop punched the window, slicing his hand, before stumbling down the stairs and out of my sight.

  I’ll admit something: I tell this story partly for the shock value. It’s a story that gets lost among all the good experiences growing up, but I feel like it’s important that people look at the bad times and assess how they had an effect on their lives. How you deal with adversity is a choice, and every person, in every walk of life, has to face difficult times. You are defined most by how you push through. Never let negative experiences be excuses.

  So despite their hard times, and the hard feelings, my parents worked through their differences and came out stronger people. They worked together to raise my brother and me, adopting principles of consistency and persistence along the way. It took work, and they both started from different places and advanced at different speeds, but they got there.

  Your world might be turned upside down like Pop’s was. You might be beside yourself with anger at a spouse or a boss or a colleague. The path to a dream life might begin by channeling that energy in a positive direction.

  I’m not going to let the incident at the apartment complex be your lasting image of my pop. If that moment of weakness was indicative of who my pop really is, I wouldn’t have included it. The truth is, showing him at his rawest and most vulnerable makes what I’m about to describe all the more powerful.

  Early in 2011, Pop came to me and asked for a favor. He wanted me to come to his Alcoholics Anonymous meeting the next day and present him the chip commemorating his nineteenth year of sobriety.

  I was touched, and honored. Of course I’d do it. I was proud of my pop for many reasons, and getting his life back on track after a difficult divorce was a big one. The way he maintained a positive attitude and attacked sobriety with persistence was an inspiration.

  My pop traveled a long and difficult path from that day at the apartment complex to the day he asked me to present him the chip. If you had seen him enraged, drunk, and helpless back outside the apartment complex, you never would have known what a productive and happy person he was. He went through some hard times and had some bad habits, but the broken man of the postdivorce years is someone everyone has always loved to be around.

  A victory over alcohol isn’t incredible in the crazy world we live in, but it reminds us that there are always personal battles to be won. There is no such thing as a lost cause, or a dead end. Through persistence, attitude, and creativity, there’s always an escape route.

  Remember, the only two things you absolutely have to do in life are: (1) die; and (2) live every day until you do. If you’ve committed to making a change in your life, the past is irrelevant. It is the only thing you cannot change, so cleanse the regret and the guilt from your system.

  My pop had a drinking problem, made worse by the upheaval in his personal life stemming from the divorce. My brother and I were always his true passion, and changing his habits was something he decided to do for us—and in doing so, he helped himself.

  I don’t know if it’s customary for the presenter of a sobriety chip to give a speech, but I wasn’t going to let the occasion pass without a few words about my pop. When they gave me the chip and called my pop to the front of the room, I said, “Congratulations to my pop—it’s been nineteen years of sobriety. And to be honest with all of you, I don’t remember much of the bad stuff about my dad’s drinking, but I remember a ton of the great stuff with him not drinking.”

  I had planned to say a little bit more about my pop, but I never got there. I was too choked up to go on, and so the speech ended when Pop walked up to me and gave me a big hug and a kiss.

  The fight I recounted from my uncle’s apartment complex was the worst fight I remember, but there were a few others. Eventually, our lives calmed down and our days settled into a regular pattern. Ryan and I began doing our own modeling and acting—runway modeling at local fashion shows, some commercial work, and even live plays. Although my parents couldn’t stand each other, they remained loving and supportive to my brother and me.

  When I think back to my childhood, I tend to remember the positive things that built me into the competent and successful adult that I am today. The bad habits that sparked the divorce are mostly relegated to someplace in my subconscious, but have no doubt been an important part of who I am today.

  The habits that were changed in my parents’ lives served as a living lesson for me. You can always make changes to better your life. Start your new healthy habits today.

  The 4th Law of Power

  Life Is About the Journey, Not the Destination

  Football was my first passion, and my style of play was fearless bordering on reckless. And I’m sure many people who watched me will tell you I crossed that border regularly. Despite my size, my goal on every play was to make a big hit. I wanted everyone on the other team to experience a Urijah Faber hit at one point or another.

  There was a 250-pound running back who played for a rival high school my senior year. He was strong, too, and a load to bring down. On one play, I lined up at left cornerback and they ran him on a sweep to the other side of the field. He broke free down the sideline and I was the only guy left who had a chance to stop a touchdown. From the other side of the field, I had the angle on him and I was on a full sprint. Now, as I was running I wasn’t thinking about the physics of this collision. I wasn’t attempting to calculate what would happen when a 135-pound dude running full speed hits a 250-pound dude running full speed. I wasn’t thinking I was at a disadvantage, or at risk for injury. In my head, I was never a little guy trying to play with big guys. My confidence had me thinking I was going to destroy this guy.

  Just as I reached the big guy, he turned his shoulders toward me to take me on. I lowered my shoulder and hit him with all I had . . . he moved about a foot. That was enough—it got him out of bounds and saved a touchdown, but I cou
ldn’t believe he didn’t go down or hardly even move. I accomplished my goal, I guess, but I remember thinking, If I hadn’t gone full speed and all out, he would have run right through me. As it was, it was like a housefly trying to take down a bull. Whenever I see Coach Fowler from Lincoln High School, he brings it up. “Whenever I think of you, I think of that time you hit that 250-pounder from Marysville,” he says. “You were just so fearless!”

  For me, it was just something I did. There was no other way to play. But Coach Fowler doesn’t remember that play because I saved a touchdown; he remembers it because of the kind of wild confidence and fearlessness it exemplified. That one crazy hit was an embodiment of what I was all about. Without giving it a conscious thought, I did more than get a 250-pound beast of a running back out of bounds. I gave someone a concise summary of my personal credit (a term I’ll discuss more later, but, in short, a summation of one’s true dedication and credibility).

  Too often, people say, “If I can only achieve [insert accomplishment here], I will be happy.” This is counterproductive and serves only to lower expectations. Try to resist imposing artificial limits on your dreams.

  A bank might reward the officer who racks up the most new accounts in a month. He might get a bonus or a sweet parking spot for his work. But there might be another officer two cubicles down who starts half the number of accounts but takes extra time with each customer to make sure he sets them up with the right account for their needs. He might discover something about them and put his knowledge to work in making a difference in their lives. Rather than stockpiling awards, that bank officer is expressing his passion in a way that helps not just himself, his customers, and his employer, but his entire community.

  Put simply, you don’t want to be prisoner to a timetable. If you happen to come up short, the artificial deadline creates unnecessary doubt in your abilities. If you beat a deadline, the temptation will be to make the next one more stressful. Work persistently and creatively toward your goals. You’ll know when you’re making progress and moving forward. As time wears on, you’ll be able to gauge the pace of the pursuit and adjust accordingly. It is vital to have goals and create a schedule, but it’s unnecessarily confining to live by a calendar. It’s important to set goals you can completely control, such as waking up at 6:00 A.M. every day and taking your vitamins. It’s equally important to set big goals (dreams) that you can’t completely control, such as winnning a presidential election.