by Urijah Faber
Connecting people is something that has helped me to do more in my own life. Don’t be afraid to connect the people you trust.
The 24th Law of Power
It Is Who You Know—and More
To put a finer point on the idea of personal credit, consider this expression: It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. This is superficially accurate—and seemingly cynical—but there’s more to it than meets the eye. It’s not only who you know; it’s what those people think about you, how deeply they want to be involved with you, and if they believe you are a credible person.
You build this credit by utilizing the Laws of Power. The network of people surrounding you is not meant to simply improve a business or maximize profits; it’s a means of growing as a person and helping those around you to do the same.
When everyone contributes to the success of the whole, the individual grows along with it. The power derived from the network creates a system where people catapult each other to greater heights, which is why rigid hierarchies are often impediments to success. Cooperative hierarchies open opportunities to employ the Laws of Power to gain the kind of credibility needed to make “who you know” count.
In late 2005, my career was still new. I’d been fighting for two years, but the only people who knew who I was were a handful of die-hard fight fans. One person who had been watching from a distance was my old friend Jaimal Yogis, who had continued his journey through life at Columbia University in New York, where he was studying for a master’s degree in journalism.
My upbringing was focused on education for education’s sake, not education for a future salary’s sake. My brother and I were taught to set our sights high, but there was no decree about what those sights should be. If we were happy and productive, we were successful.
Not coincidentally, I attracted people who had similar backgrounds. My best friend growing up was a kid named Jaimal Yogis. After my family moved from the commune and before we moved to Lincoln, Jaimal and I were outliers in the mostly conservative Sacramento suburb of Carmichael. His upbringing was similar to mine, which means his refrigerator was also filled with tofu and soy milk and his parents grew their own vegetables. He was taller than me (not surprisingly) with curly brown hair and a big smile. The hippie mentality he’d always been surrounded by was evident in his demeanor.
From fourth through sixth grades, Jaimal and I were inseparable. I was a permanent fixture in his house. Until the seventh grade, when my mom moved to Lincoln. But even though our lives physically drifted apart, our perspectives and philosophies were too similar for the friendship to dissolve and we stayed in touch as best as we could.
During his junior year in high school, Jaimal got mixed up with the wrong crowd and got himself in trouble. He got a DUI, and he was so disgusted with the social scene he had become a part of that he decided to run away. He had saved quite a bit of money from a part-time job, and he fortified that with an unauthorized cash advance from his mother’s credit card and hopped a plane for Hawaii. His idea was to escape his problems by living on the beach, surfing, and studying Buddhism.
You might think that this is the place where I impose my limits on my philosophy of following your passion. That I’m going to say that running away is a bad idea. But you know what? For Jaimal, the entire experience didn’t turn out so bad.
Perhaps without even knowing it, Jaimal was running away in order to inject some discipline and order into his life. He was pretty resourceful, too. He found a place to stay and was doing everything he set out to do. He sent a letter to his parents, telling them where he was, apologizing for taking the money, and letting them know they didn’t have to worry about him. He had a job and was getting his head straight.
After reading the letter, Jaimal’s father devised a plan of his own. He flew to Hawaii, checked into a hotel, and found Jaimal on the beach. Instead of demanding that his son come home, his father hung out with him. He surfed with him and took the time to understand where his son was coming from and what was going through his mind. They spent countless hours discussing Jaimal’s future, and they reached a consensus: Jaimal could spend his senior year of high school as an exchange student abroad if he agreed to come home. This allowed him to escape the high school environment he had grown to dislike, and it enabled his parents to impose some level of structure in his life. And so Jaimal spent his senior year of high school in France, where he was able to satisfy his wanderlust and leave the bad influences behind.
Clearly, this is a great example of love, patience, and compromise, similar to the way my family has treated Ryan’s illness. Jaimal’s ability to follow his passion is an inspiration to me, and the story of his brief stint as a runaway pops into my head whenever I think about sticking my head in the sand and ignoring a problem I know won’t go away. Jaimal made the wrong choice for the right reason, and his father was there with the guidance and wisdom that was needed in order to find a solution. Jaimal went on to get a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, one of the most prestigious programs in the country, while still retaining his individuality. It’s hard to imagine his career following a similar route had he been allowed to stay in Hawaii and carve his own path.
It had been a few years since Jaimal and I had talked, but we picked up right where we left off. He had been following my fighting career and was intrigued enough to want to write an article about me for one of his class assignments. It was good enough to be published in a major paper in New York, and that’s when my relationship with Jaimal—a like-minded, passionate individual—transformed into something more.
The article caught the eye of Morgan Hertzan, a producer with MTV. He called the wrestling coach at UC Davis, Lennie Zalesky, who put him in touch with me. Morgan was impressed with the article and felt I had some marketability as a young, good-looking, well-spoken fighter with a passion for his work. Even though I recoiled at the notion of being considered the pretty boy of MMA, I wasn’t blind to the benefits that such an impression provided. If I could be a championship-level fighter and be in demand as a role model/spokesman for the sport, I could create more opportunities for myself and use my passion to explore different avenues.
Morgan had an idea for a reality show: Say Uncle would find guys who were jerks, roaming through life picking on people for their own amusement. Over the course of the program, we would show their personalities, and at the end I would fight them in a challenge match.
Morgan pitched the show a few times and got no takers. (The same concept mysteriously ended up being the basis for a popular show called Bully Beatdown.) Morgan wasn’t discouraged enough to drop it entirely, though. Instead, he turned his idea into a documentary that depicted me as an up-and-coming fighter in a sport that was beginning to gain traction.
This hour-long documentary, Warrior Nation, was filmed in September 2006 and was quickly sold to MSNBC. The documentary brought further credibility to me and the sport. It came during a busy and important time in my career. The gym had recently opened, my management team was in place to capitalize on the publicity, and my skill level was getting better and better. The documentary brought all of this into wider focus, and my career was ready to explode.
The catalyst for this was my long-standing friendship with a like-minded person who saw the potential in me and was interested enough to share my story with the world. Jaimal’s writing, and the documentary that arose from it, changed my life. That’s not an exaggeration.
Over the course of these pages, we’ve looked at how business relationships can become personal relationships, and in this case the reverse was true: A personal relationship became a business relationship. Jaimal was pursuing his passion and I was pursuing mine. We were both doing what we wanted to do, and our lives converged.
The positive energy that flowed from that documentary had far-reaching impact. In the year before Warrior Nation, I was a free agent. I was competing in a number of up-an
d-coming shows, getting belts in a number of organizations, and attempting to establish myself as the best featherweight fighter in the world. One of those organizations was World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC), which allowed me to fight for a title belt without locking me into an exclusive contract.
The UFC was not an option for me; they had yet to offer fights in my weight class. I was gaining notoriety, slowly but surely, through the small following of the pay-per-view King of the Cage fights, the coverage of WEC on HDNet Television, and MMA Web sites like Sherdog.com. My management team was still looking for the best way to capitalize on this growing attention to position me for long-term success.
At about this time along came an organization called WFA. It was the brainchild of a former fight manager named Jeremy Lappen, who believed he could create a competitor to the UFC. I liked his approach: He was paying three times what any other organization was offering, and he had already signed up big-time talents such as Rampage Jackson, Matt “The Law” Lindland, and Bas Rutten. Lappen had Hollywood connections he was determined to use to promote the sport. It sounded promising.
My negotiations with Lappen occurred at the time Hertzan was pitching Say Uncle. I enthusiastically sold myself to Lappen, telling him I was going to do my part to blow up in the sport.
“My plan is to build stars by highlighting personality in addition to fighting skills,” he said. “I want to be the first organization to highlight the lighter-weight classes, and you have the star power to push those lower weights to new prominence.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. The contract he put in front of me called for fifty thousand dollars a year—double if I won all my fights. This was the huge opportunity I was waiting for, and I eagerly signed.
All that promise, all that buildup, and then . . . the WFA tanked after just one show. Gone, poof—just like that. Their live gate was minuscule compared to their projections. Their pay-per-view attempt completely flopped. There were a lot of great fighters in the show, but they couldn’t make it work. The rumor was that they had lost thirty million dollars and that all their investors had bailed, never to invest again.
The quick demise of the WFA taught me the importance of brands. The brand wasn’t established, and they tried to do too much too soon, so the entire operation flopped.
This development had unexpected consequences, though. The UFC swooped in and quickly moved to continue its quest to corner the MMA market. Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta bought both the WEC, for which I had two nonexclusive fights remaining, and my liquidated contract from the WFA.
Eventually, I got what the WFA promised: I became the face of the lightweight divisions, but it happened under the WEC and the leadership of Dana White and the Fertitta brothers. Jaimal’s story and the Warrior Nation documentary provided me with an avenue to exhibit my personality and marketability to a wider audience.
The evolution of my friendship with Jaimal, from childhood buddies to aspiring authors, shows that relationships don’t always fit in tidy boxes. Your personal credit defies categorization and compartmentalization. It seeps into every aspect of your life, for better or worse, like ink through cotton.
On Christmas Day 2008, I received one of Jaimal’s sporadic phone calls. Like most old friends who don’t live in the same area, we’ve managed to remain close without frequent conversations. This time he was in town for a few days and wanted to get together.
Jaimal came over to my house, and even though we hadn’t seen each other for a while, I could tell he was eager to relay some important news. He said, “I’m writing a book on Buddhism and surfing. I’ve got a publisher and I’m really stoked about making this happen.” When I asked him to describe the message of his book, he said, “It’s about following my heart.”
I was really excited for him, but my mind couldn’t shake the irony of the situation. “You’re not going to believe this,” I said, “but I’m writing a book about passion and my path to fighting.”
From there, we started discussing where we’d been and how we’d reached this place. We reminisced about our days in Carmichael and the freedom we’d had to explore life mentally and physically—benefits not many kids today are given in the culture of helicopter parents, playdates, and overscheduled lives. What started as a random coincidence—two old friends writing books—became less random the more we talked. Jaimal’s book—Saltwater Buddha—is a wonderful and well-reviewed look into his philosophy and soul. And it is my humble hope that the book you hold in your hands—although it comes from a far different place—achieves the same goal.
The 25th Law of Power
Everyone Has Strengths: Let Them Complement Each Other
It’s clear by now how a chance encounter with a real estate agent extended far beyond real estate, and I think it’s worth describing just how far-reaching this turned out to be. Within two years of our first meeting, Dana helped me purchase two more homes, which helped turn the neighborhood into a fighters’ commune. Dana also introduced me to Matt, who helped me start the gym. Matt introduced me to Jeff Meyer, a contracts lawyer and businessman who was looking for a way to escape the rat race and develop a lifestyle more suited to a family man with a loving wife and two young daughters.
Jeff had recently left a small family winery that he helped become a flourishing business and opened his own law firm—doing work he disliked, for hours that were unreasonable. There’s that bargain people make. Anyway, Jeff was tired of living for that uncertain future. He and Matt had become friends after sharing office space years earlier, and Jeff entered my life when Matt asked him to write up a contract for our gym partnership. Jeff’s passion had always been sports, and he had become an avid fan of mixed martial arts. When Matt approached him with the contract, Jeff’s mind began to reel with possibilities. This could give me an avenue to combine my professional talents and my passion!
Matt spoke highly of Jeff, both as an attorney and, more important, as a person. I saw a promising pattern developing here with regard to my network, and knew that this time around, I shouldn’t hesitate. Dana → Matt → Jeff? In short, Jeff was great. Savvy. Highly professional. Looking to be inspired. I definitely saw the value in adding him to my team.
My relationship with my manager, Mike Roberts, was an informal one—no contracts or obligations. He asked only that if he came up with something—an endorsement, a sponsorship—that he get 10 percent. But when my career took off, I saw a need for more refined management. Mike had ideas, but he lacked the plan to put them into action. Although it may seem like I was making it up as I went along, going with the flow of a growing sport, I was always aware of the bigger picture. If the sport blew up—when the sport blew up—I wanted to be positioned to take full advantage of the opportunity. Before I met Jeff, I approached Mike with the idea of starting a management company and formalizing our relationship, but he was lukewarm on the idea. The tire business removed any financial considerations from the equation—he wasn’t hurting on cash—and he enjoyed the freelance aspects of his MMA work.
I saw my connection with Jeff as an opportunity to change the dynamic. But it didn’t involve cutting Mike out. On the contrary. Right away I saw the seeds of a great combination: a savvy lawyer who could complement Mike’s hustle, passion, and knowledge of the sport. Obviously, I wasn’t in a sport where the best athletes made the kind of earnings that other pro-athletes were making, so I needed to maximize whatever came my way. Jeff represented the professionalism that I felt I needed in order to expand my earning opportunities. If I was going to be able to get significant sponsorships and endorsements, I needed someone who could write up the contracts and represent me in negotiations. Mike’s skills were more grassroots but just as necessary. I needed to conv
ince both of them to get under my umbrella. I saw great potential in a Jeff-Mike team; now I needed to persuade them to see it, too.
I was stoked about making this work. These two guys, different as they were, could become a killer team, but they had vastly different styles. Mike was a handshake guy—no suits, no contracts, laid-back negotiations that were known to include a beer or two. Jeff was more detail-oriented, and his corporate background brought legitimacy to any meeting.
Even though Mike had dismissed my earlier suggestions regarding a formal arrangement, I felt a partnership might change his mind. But I had to “massage” it the right way.
I make no bones about the fact that I was anxious about brokering this collaboration. I thought about avoiding the possibility of confrontation altogether: by telling Jeff I already had management in place and calling it a day. This would remove the possibility of hard feelings between Mike and me. But that would have compromised the potential I saw in working with Jeff, who, I was sure, was a missing link in my quest to get to the top of the fight game.
So I decided to take the first step by forming an LLC with Jeff before breaking the news to Mike that I wanted him and Jeff to work together as my management team. I gave it to Mike straight, over a beer.
“This guy has great credibility, and his talents mesh with yours perfectly,” I said. “He’s a detail guy and you’re a big-picture guy. He’s got the plan you’ve been looking for, and he’ll free you up to do what you love to do. Trust me, I know both of you, and this will work.”
Over the course of our meeting, as Mike sat mostly stone-faced, I testified to Jeff’s credibility and outlined his strengths in detail and in relation to our long-term goals.