by Urijah Faber
The last of our four matches came at the Pac-10 championships in Boise during my senior year. The stage was set for an epic battle after a back-and-forth year that had me up by one. Matt won our first match in a close decision. I won the second in a close decision and I destroyed him in the third. I was pumped for my final match against him because I was ranked number nine in the country and a win over him would improve that and earn me a spot for a third year in the NCAA Division I wrestling championships. The year before I had missed All-American status by one point, putting me in the top twelve in the nation instead of in the prestigious top eight. I had been training the entire year for the NCAA tourney, and thought it would for sure be the last competition of my athletic career.
Midway through the first round, I had a 2–1 lead. It felt like I was in control of the match, but that didn’t last long. We were standing and I lunged in for a sloppy inside trip that got me put on my back; two-point takedown, then a three-point near fall. I fought hard off my back but landed in another three-point near-fall position. In a matter of seconds he was leading 9–2 at the end of the first round. It was a crushing turnaround for me, and I responded by going on a wild spree in an attempt to win by pin, my only legitimate chance at victory. It didn’t happen, and Matt won by a technical fall.
I was devastated. I walked away and slumped onto one of the back warm-up mats, crushed. The more I thought about it, the more upset I became. Before long, I was lying on the mat, crying. My athletic career was finished, and it had ended in horrible disappointment.
I couldn’t stay on that mat and wallow in self-pity, though. I had to compose myself and return to the main mat for the postmatch handshake. This was tough. I pulled myself off the mat, swallowed hard, wiped my eyes, and tried to remove any last vestiges of my tear-fest. When I lined up with my teammates, the first thing I did was look across the mat to find Sanchez. And there he was, smug as could be, chewing gum and smacking it around in his mouth like a cow chewing its cud. For some reason, this bugged the crap out of me. By this point, everything about Sanchez bugged me—his body, his wrestling style, his smug attitude, his damned gum, and the way he went about chewing with his stupid mouth open and smacking it from side to side. I guess you could say I didn’t like Sanchez at that moment.
After the season ended, and I graduated, I was hired as an assistant coach at UC Davis and, that summer, participated at a kids’ summer wrestling camp at Lake Tahoe. There I ran into Matt Sanchez. We were in a small group of camp teachers, and when it was my turn to speak, I said, “Can you believe this dopey, scrawny little guy beat me?” The kids all laughed, of course. “Well, it was hard for me to accept that, too, but this man right here is the best technician I ever faced. You can learn a lot from him.”
Matt just smiled, and I walked away hoping I’d made my point: I still wasn’t happy that I’d lost to him, but he had my respect. From there, it was natural that we’d start talking and getting to know each other in a manner that was different from on-mat rivals. Not surprisingly, we got along great. I even came to forgive him for being the only guy who made me cry in competition.
My professional fighting career took off during my second year of coaching at UC Davis. Once I got the sponsorship from the Dunmores and was being paid to train, it was harder to justify the hours I needed to spend coaching. I enjoyed the work, but the payoff didn’t justify the output. However, I didn’t want to leave my old coach in a bind by quitting, so I began to think about how I could find a solution that would work for everyone.
I called Sanchez. He had graduated from Bakersfield and had coached there. He needed a job and would be a great addition to the UC Davis program. I had recently bought my first house and Dustin had just moved out, so I added an incentive: six months of free rent for Matt to get settled in the area.
Matt and I could have easily ignored each other at that wrestling camp and held on to our rivalry long after it had officially ended. I could have been envious of his success—I was never an NCAA All-American, and he was twice. I could have held a grudge against him for causing me humiliation in my final college wrestling match.
Instead, he joined us under the umbrella. We became friends and he was the first person who popped into my head when an opportunity arose. He took the job and ended up living rent-free at my house for the six months I promised. He coached at UC Davis for a year, and during that time I started my gym and he got to see the team we were forming both in the gym and on our block of houses. We were doing what we wanted to do without chasing down money, and we were having fun doing it.
“I like your lifestyle,” he said. “I’d like to live the way you guys do.”
“Well, then come manage the gym,” I said.
And so Matt Sanchez, my bitter rival, ended up managing the gym for two years. He even trained and ended up with two pro MMA fights. He also won one FILA World Championship and several other international competitions in submission wrestling. During the time he was managing the gym, sometime toward the end of 2008, the house next door came up for sale. Matt and I bought it together—I fronted the down payment and he pays the mortgage.
Through a couple of wrestling relationships, Matt came upon a business opportunity in the summer of 2009. With home foreclosures rampant throughout the country and particularly prevalent in the Sacramento region, he started a business that does yard work—mowing, trimming, etc.—for the banks who are attempting to off-load foreclosed homes. Real estate agents and neighbors are happy to see the yards of abandoned homes kept up, and Matt’s business exploded. He went from three employees—other friends who lived on the block—to more than sixty. What started in the garage expanded to four different office spaces. It quickly became the biggest company of its type in the country, and in a short amount of time Matt went from being an assistant wrestling coach to the owner of a multimillion-dollar business. He’s always in need of workers, so new fighters who come to the gym in need of some extra money can always piece together enough work to keep training by mowing lawns for Matt.
Even though he’s not a fighter, Matt is a part of our community of fighters. He still lives next door, now with his girlfriend and son, Jaxon. And there’s still a hole in the fence we use to go back and forth. His son is getting the same energy that I got growing up with an upbeat community as part of an extended family. We are still competitive with each other in a bunch of different ways, including land acquisition and business success. We laugh when we reminisce about being crammed in my first house on the block, and the way we would carpool around Sacramento to save a buck or two on gas. It’s hard to remember that this was my enemy, a guy I wanted to punch for chewing his gum too loud.
At the end of our stay at Pendleton, Phil, Rich, Dominick, and I went to a Japanese restaurant in downtown San Diego with the drill sergeants and the production crew. At first, Dominick hadn’t planned to go, but by the end of the trip he was ready to be with his enemy. I was sitting with Phil and the Marines. Dominick was sitting on the other end of the table near Rich and the producers and the television people. Phil and I, especially, were having a blast. We were telling stories and listening to the drill sergeants tell their stories. (They’d relaxed quite a bit by now.)
Dominick was missing out. I could sense him watching us from the other side, and I was happy when he picked up his chair and walked all the way over to the other side to sit with us. It was telling, because it evoked one of the lessons I always try to teach our fighters: If you feel like you want to do something, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.
Dominick wanted to be part of the conversation and part of the fun at the end of a hard day. We put our differences aside and sat there and had a great time. At that moment I felt we had become strictly competitors on an athletic level and no longer enemies in life. It took some work to create a tiny crack in the shell, but we both made the effort. I understood him better, and he understood me, and we discovered we had far more simil
arities than we’d ever have known had we not been forced to spend a little time together. We even held some preliminary discussions about getting him the right management team so he could take his career where he wanted it to go.
I’m not perfect, but I look for the positive and try to make things work. It can be difficult to seek out the positive, especially in difficult people who seem unwilling to meet you halfway. Dominick, as it turned out, wanted to meet me halfway and squash the beef. We both broke through each other’s insecurities and gained power from the effort.
So, when you know someone has a tendency to be negative—even someone you might see as a rival in life—call his bluff. Give him a compliment and watch his attitude change immediately. It’s powerful stuff.
The 36th Law of Power
There’s No Excuse for a Lame Excuse
If you’ve been reading this book from page one, this law might seem redundant, but I really need to drive the point home, because if you want to work toward a more fulfilling, passion-centered life, taking stock is only half the battle. The competency model I wrote about earlier is a great place to start: You need to understand your strengths and weaknesses. But once you do that—once you conduct an honest assessment of who you are and what you can do—you have to begin to eliminate one of life’s major toxins—excuses.
That’s right—eliminate them altogether. Excuses are an infection. They start in one place and then expand until they become a permanent part of your personality. They hinder productivity because they keep you from honestly evaluating who you are. If you believe there’s always some external force at work keeping you from success, whether it’s a boss who doesn’t like you or a spouse who doesn’t understand you, you will never be able to deal with who you really are. And if you can’t do that, you can’t employ the Laws of Power to improve your life. These unseen forces will forever remain in your way.
Excuses, in many ways, are a form of envy. They’re a way to dodge responsibility as a means of explaining why someone else has something you don’t. They’re a way of avoiding accountability by shifting blame. Nothing good can come from that approach.
Take my second fight against Dominick Cruz. He fought a good tactical fight and won by decision. From my standpoint, I thought I won the fight, because by my estimation, I was the more aggressive competitor. But judges don’t always reward the aggressor. My biggest fault, from a tactical standpoint, was to fight for the knockout. That was my mentality going into the fight, and I didn’t adjust to fight a more tactical, points-oriented fight, which, when it comes to a decision, is what it’s all about.
This was my biggest moment: my first UFC showcase fight and my chance to seize my first UFC title. I was proud of my performance and felt Dominick and I gave everyone watching a good show, but two things were key to how I responded. One, I wasn’t reveling in it, but I accepted the fact that I lost fairly; two, I wouldn’t allow a loss, by external standards, to dictate my self-worth. Dominick and I competed respectfully and fiercely, we walked away without injury, we had a whole lot of fun. I hope we do it again soon.
At the beginning of this book, we discussed passion and how too few people can identify their own. As an exercise, I suggested you make yourself your passion, and assess what you find fulfilling as an individual in order to help you become a contributing and valued member of your community. Focus on your own small daily triumphs and spend some time being conscious of every decision you make. Understand what makes you feel good and what doesn’t. In time, you will reach conclusions about yourself and develop a sense of purpose.
Excuses are among the most damaging passion-stoppers. You can find an excuse to avoid doing just about anything, but the truth is, your passion can’t wait. It’s too important.
When I started my fighting career, I could have relied on any number of excuses to give up on my passion. The promoter didn’t call me back . . . I might get hurt . . . My friends don’t think it’s a good idea . . . There’s no money in it . . . I’ve never had any formal training . . . It might never escape the shadows of Indian casino parking lots and ballrooms . . . It would be a waste of my college education . . . There’s no security. Each one of those would have been enough for some people to decide it wasn’t worth the time or the effort.
There are undoubtedly a thousand excuses standing in the way of your making the decision to pursue your passion, but there is always one reason why you should move forward: It’s your life, and you will get more out of it. Is there anything else that even compares to that? You could pile up all the excuses running through your head and I guarantee you that one reason stands taller than all of them combined.
Go slow if you must.
Go easy if you must.
Just go.
A Final Word: Live the Dream
I’ll leave you with this: the ultimate lifestyle. This is the culmination of putting your passion to work. If you’re living the dream, you’re coming as close as you can come to incorporating your passion into every aspect of your life.
There are many avenues to this destination and it’s subjective. My friend Jaimal Yogis lives the dream. From the moment he ran away from home and bought a plane ticket to Hawaii as a high school student, he followed his passion. (I’m not endorsing that approach . . . but it’s one way to do it.) He studied Buddhism and surfed and wrote a book called Saltwater Buddha that allowed him to explain his philosophy to a wider audience. He lives his life on his terms, without regret.
My friend Matt Sanchez lives the dream. He came up with a brilliant business idea—yard maintenance for foreclosed homes—and built it up to the point where it essentially runs itself. He hired like-minded people who are full of potential, and they work in a collaborative, productive environment, with plenty of free time to fill as they please.
To live the dream, you have to have the right focus, the right mentality, and the right lifestyle. You know what you like to do, and you’ve figured out how to make your life revolve around your passion. You have a job you enjoy doing. You love your work and find fulfillment in doing it.
You have the right mentality. That mentality is believing, Hey, I can do anything I want if I work hard and I’m smart about it.
If you’re living the dream, you have a job, a career, and a life that revolves around the things you love. You know what you want to do, you know how to do it (that is, you have the talent), and you’ve taken the ultimate step: You’re doing it.
This is where you want to be. From this day forward, you should strive to make some progress toward reaching this goal. It’s not always easy, but it is worthwhile.
It’s a wonderful feeling. To be positive about something every single day is a gift. It awakens you to the world and all the great things in it. You want to pursue the goal of seeing the world through a wide-angle lens. Living your passion allows you to expand your worldview and live a life that contains far less worry about how you are being perceived. There is less judgment and fewer judges.
Every day when I wake up, I feel I’m living the dream. This doesn’t mean things are always perfect or easy. It means I enjoy life and I’m prepared for the turbulence that is inevitable throughout it. It’s not just a cliché; it’s a way of life. I pursued my passion when that particular passion wasn’t popular. I thought positively and acted with persistence. I resisted fear and avoided bad habits and never made excuses. I looked at opportunities and made a point to sieze them. I’ve won and lost with dignity, and I took notes along the way. I’ve found joy in sharing my successes with a community of like-minded people. I keep an open mind and I’m always eager to learn. But don’t misunderstand me; my journey’s not done yet, far from it. Living your dream isn’t about perfection. It’s about knowing who you are and believing anything is possible. I continue to believe that anything is possible, and I believe you should, too.
This book is written about my laws, things that I’ve learned and experience
d from my life so far. I hope you enjoyed my opinions and viewpoints, however, I encourage you to let yours carry the most weight. Think about what you want from life and determine what laws you want to live by, on your journey. Enjoy the road you travel, look forward to all the destinations ahead, and let passion lead the way.
Acknowledgments
I learned a lot throughout this process, and I was fortunate to have had some excellent teachers.
First, I’d like to thank my managers: Mark Schulman, Jeff Meyer, Mike Roberts, and Mike Castrillo. My literary agent, Richard Abate, believed in my unconventional idea and stuck with it until it became real. Along those same lines, my editor at HarperCollins, Adam Korn, pushed me to make the book as unique as it could be. Trish Daly at HarperCollins made sure the gears worked smoothly.
And of course, I’d like to thank each of the characters in the book for allowing me to share their stories.
Photos
Signature chin.
Peace, love, and happiness!
Playing dress-up with the neighborhood girls.
Mom and me, always drawn to the ocean.
With Ryan in a hammock during the early Christian commune days.
Modeling event. I was pretty used to being in front of a camera.
After the J.C. Penney state fair fashion show.
