The Laws of the Ring (4 page)

The 4th Law of Power

Life Is About the Journey, Not the Destination

F
ootball 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 couldn'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!”

F
or 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.

My professional achievements are a matter of public record, and as someone who has defended world championships—small ones like
King of the Cage,
big ones like WEC—over an extended period of time, I'm often questioned about pressure and expectations.
What's next? Who's next?
In that context, it can be difficult to explain the way I live my life. Having a belt or a title is not what defines me. Being a public figure and getting recognized as I walk through an airport or eat in a restaurant has changed how
other people
define me, but not how I define myself. I define myself by my actions, work ethic, and my morals. I live for my supportive family and friends who have helped sculpt my persona and identity.

So, don't only set goals like “Salesperson of the Year” or “Employee of the Month.” Short-term achievements are great, but can cloud the issue and get in the way of the bigger purpose. They also establish external forces—bosses, clients, etc.—as judges of your achievements. When artificial achievements become the journey
and
the destination, you run the risk of losing control of your passion. In other words, if I had been unable to get the 250-pounder out of bounds—which would have been a failure by statistical standards—I like to think Coach Fowler would still remember the incident as an example of what I was all about.

The 5th Law of Power

Know Yourself

T
he decision to pursue wrestling in college was easy. In fact, you might say it was made
for
me. I was a good high-school football player. By my senior season I was an all-league cornerback and the third back in our Wing-T offense, but in the back of my head I always knew that no matter how much I loved football, it was never going to love me back in quite the same way. For a five-foot-five-and-a-half-inch 135-pounder, a future as a Division I football player was not impossible, yet not very likely either. But wrestling . . . wrestling was different. In this sport, I didn't need to hear someone else's thoughts on what was important, and a hundred pounds on a lesser athlete wasn't going to negate my hard work and grit.

Everyone has talents, but you can't be creative without a degree of self-knowledge that sometimes comes with a dose of brutal honesty about your talents. We all know people who have delusions about themselves. I'm not talking about “clinical” delusions, just, well, socially acceptable ones. The guy who thinks all the women love him, the woman who thinks she can be Miss America (despite all empirical evidence to the contrary), the old man who thinks he can go into a bar and beat up anybody forty years younger.

I had to understand the reality of my talents and how they matched up with my passion. The team nature of football was better suited to my personality, but wrestling was better suited to my mentality and physical talents, and so I threw myself into the sport with all-out zeal. I loved the individual nature of the sport, the one-on-one aspect of the competition.

I read whatever books I could lay my hands on and watched every instructional video I could find until the tape was worn out. I was determined to work harder than anybody else every day at practice. I not only watched college and Olympic wrestlers but I studied their habits and demeanor. I felt there were secrets locked inside those people, and if I learned their best attributes I would have an advantage over those competitors who didn't.

And I adopted Dan Gable, the great University of Iowa and Olympic wrestler, as one of my heroes. (Little did I know I would later be fortunate enough to break bread with Gable and have some one-on-one conversations with him.) I saw the fierce but quiet confidence he exuded when he stepped onto the mat, and I knew that his demeanor had an effect on the wrestlers who were faced with the task of competing against him.

Like Gable, I loved to compete, and I would contend that I
needed
to compete. Competition was like a drug for me. I loved looking into the eyes of my opponent and thinking about all the preparation that had gone into the moment. I loved the immediacy of the contest, and how it could turn one way or another in an instant.

There is a difference between creativity and self-delusion. Football, for the reasons described above, wasn't the best path for me to follow. Creativity comes after you have established your sense of purpose and are prepared to attack it with a positive attitude. You have to be realistic about your abilities. Shoot higher without being delusional. I don't plan on winning a jump ball against Shaquille O'Neal, but could I maybe play in the NBA? Who knows—Spud Webb did and he was barely an inch taller than me. Could Spud Webb have taken his talent and hard work into the Octagon as professional fighter? I'm almost positive he would believe that he could.

Shoot for the stars when you attack your passions, but give yourself every advantage to get there. Find your strengths and conquer your weaknesses.

The 6th Law of Power

Work Harder and Smarter (Stumbling vs. Planning)

T
here was very little wrestling history at Lincoln High School, so I wanted to create it. I arrived early and stayed late. The fitness aspect of sports never scared me—I
loved
to work out—but moderation wasn't one of my trademarks at this point.

So during my sophomore year, I had what I thought was a great idea. I was going to run to school in the morning. This would allow me to get in an extra workout, help me stay ahead of the competition. Wrestling had become a serious pursuit for me by this time, and as I've said, I approached it the way I did everything else in my life: with intent to win. I saw this running idea as a way of separating myself from the average wrestler—of doing just a little bit more than was expected of me.

We lived out in the country, a good distance from school; but “it's pretty far” was about as scientific as I got with my planning. I knew it took my mom fifteen or twenty minutes to drive to school but that was about as far as my research went.

When the appointed day arrived for me to embark on my journey, I made arrangements to have my backpack dropped off at school. I told my parents I would not be taking the bus.

So far, so good.

Since I didn't know the number of miles I would be running, I didn't have a good idea of how long it would take me to get to my destination. I had built this day up in my mind as epic—the day I would do something nobody else would even attempt—and the enormity of the feat led me to set my alarm for four-thirty. I wanted to make sure I left myself enough time, sure, but it was more than that: Something like this called for true sacrifice, not only in the running but in the amount of pain I would inflict on myself by getting up at this ungodly hour.

I got out of bed as soon as the alarm rang and headed outside to test the weather. The predawn winter air was brisk, so I dressed accordingly. Long johns, sweatpants, thermal long-sleeved undershirt, and sweatshirt, and capped it off—literally—with a beanie.

At four forty-five, I was out the door and running down the dirt driveway, ready for my big adventure. I was probably less than half a mile into the run when I realized I was seriously overdressed. Rivulets of sweat trickled down my back and beads began forming on my forehead.

Off came the sweatshirt, which I tied around my waist.

A few strides later I yanked the beanie off my head and crammed it into the pocket of my sweatpants.

I was in excellent shape for a sophomore in high school, and before long I found myself in a good running groove. Despite being weighed down by the extra clothes, I was on a good pace.

Too good, as it turned out.

My “long run” turned out to be nine miles, and my lack of planning caused me to arrive at school more than two hours before my first class, half undressed, clothes tied around my waist, stuffed into my pockets, and crumpled up in my hands.

It was not even six o'clock in the morning, and I was at school. I probably could have run back home, taken a shower, and still caught the bus.

This was an exaggerated case of poor planning. I didn't use any tools to calculate how long the run was, or the amount of time it would take for me to complete it. When I tested the morning weather and found it chilly, I didn't account for the heat my body would generate while running for more than an hour.

The run taught me a lesson: Passion without a plan is incomplete. It's great to be motivated and want to do more, but you want to be smart in your pursuit.

As I got older and wiser, I came to see this story as a parable of preparation. There are plenty of people out there with goals, people who desperately want to achieve something great. They have the passion to put those goals into motion. They aren't afraid to work for it. But too many people fall into the trap I call “Stumbling vs. Planning.” My run to school was the perfect example of stumbling. I thought I had it planned, but my passion had blinded me to the importance of planning. I was stumbling, forced to make sense of it as I went along. To put your passion to work, you have to plan it out. There are going to be twists along the way, as we've seen in chapters 2 and 3 about persistence and creativity. But if you approach your passion with a realistic plan, you'll put yourself in a far better position to succeed—and succeed quickly. The less time you spend fixing problems after the fact, like wondering what you're going to do with the two hours before school, the more time you'll have to work on your passion.

If you don't plan, you'll end up in the same position as a fifteen-year-old Urijah Faber. You won't know where or how to start, and you won't understand the nuances of the old saying
Where there's a will there's a way.

Possessing the will is important, but being smart in your pursuit will allow you to accomplish and achieve more.