The Laws of the Ring (3 page)

The 1st Law of Power

Positive Thinking Breeds Success

H
ere's an easy question: Who would you rather hang out with, someone who is always
genuinely
happy and positive, or someone who is always grumpy and negative?

As part of your progress toward living your dream, you need to assess your attitude. Is negativity infecting your life and serving as a dream stopper? Is your mentality
limiting
your potential?

Remember this: Negativity takes no imagination. It's far easier to criticize someone's decisions after they make them than to propose better ones beforehand.

A
t some point between my first and second professional fights, when the prospect of making a career in a sport that then consisted of competing in semilegal fights on Indian reservations was still a wild long shot, I sat around with a group of friends and talked about my big plans. I have a tendency to do this—I just can't help it. I'm a motivated guy, and I want everyone around me to feel the same way.

During this particular conversation, my buddy Will Creger interrupted me and asked, “Why are you so confident about
everything
? Where does that come from?”

His tone wasn't angry or challenging. My attitude just blew him away, and he was both curious and amused. He was a successful guy who came from a successful family. His mother was a schoolteacher and his father was a top executive with a construction company. It's safe to assume he'd been around positive, happy people throughout his life, and yet he couldn't get his mind around the way I approached mine.

It's just the way I am. I make a point to stay positive and I'm always looking forward to the next thing to feed my excitement. When something bad happens in my life, I'm pretty good about shrugging it off and going forward. In reality you have to anyway, right?

I don't think I'd ever given my disposition a conscious thought until then. When I did give it some thought, though, I realized my upbringing was largely responsible for my mentality. My parents had me and my older brother, Ryan, while living in a New Hope Christian commune in Isla Vista, California. My name, which means “God is my light,” is a lasting symbol of those days. From the little I remember, the place had a heavy hippie vibe. You know, anything goes, love everybody, do what you do, and don't judge. It seems paradoxical today, in an age where fundamentalist Christianity is conservative and uptight, that such a place could also be based on religion. It
was,
though—charismatic Christianity carried the day.

Even after we left the commune, the strain of positivity that was cultivated in the commune proved pretty durable among the Fabers. It stuck around in separate households after my parents divorced. It has, in fact, stayed with me all these years later.

My dad, Theo, is the happiest, easiest-going person I have ever met. He had some difficult times following his breakup with my mom, with alcohol and despair darkening his disposition, but most of the time I think he's fundamentally
incapable
of feeling stress. His mind-set hasn't always produced the best results when it comes to his career and his finances, but he's sure a lot of fun to be around.

My mom Suzanne's positivity was more of the aggressive sort. She came from a broken family and was consequently adamant that her children grow up cultured, educated, and financially secure. She was highly disciplined and ambitious, and she expected her children to be the same. The walls of her home were always papered with inspirational sayings. She even made us write out goals and tape them to the wall in our rooms to serve as constant reminders of what we should be striving toward.

I vividly remember the saying that was on our refrigerator for years. It read:

Dream impossible dreams. When those dreams come true, make the next ones more impossible.

My mom was always running down a list of the things her kids could do. We could cook, we could play sports, we could build things. You name it, we could do it. She pushed confidence, positivity, and self-sufficiency on us like they were magic vitamins.

During my short stint as a child model and actor, I did commercial television shoots, for a radio station and a local hospital, among others. (It was all pretty small-time.) On one of the shoots, when I was in fifth or sixth grade, I remember talking with one of the producers, who asked if I liked to dance. “I can't really dance, but my brother is really good,” I said frankly. Without a moment's hesitation, my mom butted into the conversation and corrected me. “Honey, you can dance. Any kid of mine can dance.” I had to take her word for it at the time, but now that I think about it, I definitely have been known to get down on the dance floor on occasion. Without my mom's foresight and encouragement I might have had to stay sidelined on the dance floor, and my fight entrances might have had a little less bounce and energy when Tupac's “California Love” starts bumping.

We're not going to settle the nature vs. nurture argument in this book, but I can say with certainty that the cumulative effect of growing up in an environment where those kinds of messages were always front and center has something to do with who I am today. The combination of an aggressively positive mother and a naturally positive father resulted in an upbringing where nobody ever told me I couldn't do something. Mom taught me that anything was possible, and Pop taught me to shrug off misfortune and soldier on with a smile on my face. There were no barriers, no fears, no second thoughts.

J
ust because you haven't done something doesn't mean you can't, so
resist the urge to criticize
. This is harder than it seems. There's a difference between being a critical thinker and being a critic. A critical thinker comes up with constructive criticism after looking at a problem from all angles; a critic simply tosses out his or her caustic opinion with nothing substantive to back it up, and tends to lend mostly negative thoughts on any given topic. In pursuing your passion, accentuate the positive in yourself and other people, and never allow someone else's critiques to stop you from tackling your dreams. Don't confuse this with living in a fantasy world—remember, an umbrella can be used to protect you from the sun as well as the rain. So, to answer Will, there's a chance the confident attitude I took into the fight with Jay Valencia had its roots on my mom's refrigerator.

The 2nd Law of Power

Enjoy What You Have

M
y brother and I spent a lot of time in the summers with our pop, who was always bouncing from one construction job to another. One year, Pop decided to buy a beat-up motor home for us to live in while he did his work rather than rent a house.

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

Y
ou 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 affected 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.

T
he 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.