Introduction

“Life is about fighting. You’re going to have to fight every day of your life.”

—Renzo Gracie

What the fuck am I doing? I thought. This is brutal. Why am I doing this to myself? I paced the floor frantically, looking out of my hotel window and down onto the Las Vegas Strip. The glow. All the people partying. All their noisy exuberance, their fun—none of which I was experiencing as I sat in my room, overcome with terror, and physically and mentally exhausted from an eight-week training camp. And now, from fight week, where I’d intentionally been dehydrating myself to make weight.

I couldn’t get my last fight out of my mind. I’d mentally given up and I got my ass kicked. I took the beating, like you’re supposed to when you fight in the UFC, and I went to the hospital after the match. For that fight, I hadn’t had an eight-week camp to prepare; I had only ten days. It wasn’t enough, and I was mentally checked out before I even stepped into the cage. It hurt—in a lot of ways.

There, in that hotel room over the bright Vegas lights, I was terrified it would happen again. I knew I was fighting a competitor who was even better than my last opponent. I didn’t know how I’d react in that critical moment: Would I check out? Would he get the better of me? I moved throughout the room frantically, crying and scared shitless. My wife, Renee, tried to comfort me, but she couldn’t console me. I knew I was worrying her; she’d never seen me this way, and we’d been through lots of fights.

“Look,” she said. “Why don’t you just go out there, get hit one time, and fall down. Be done. You’re already here. You get thirty grand to walk in the cage and take a jab. You’ve done the work. Then let’s go home.”

Fuck it, I thought. That’s my plan.

I knew it meant I’d be a mockery. I knew I might not even be able to do Jiu-Jitsu anymore, and Jiu-Jitsu was—and is—my life. I knew I’d embarrass myself. I knew I’d disappoint everyone who had come out of the woodwork, everyone who looked up to me as the guy who made it big as the best fighter to come out of our martial arts school, everyone who put me on this pedestal I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be on.

Fighting was and is pressure, and it felt heavier than it ever had before. When the moment came to step into the cage, I had no expectation of winning. I did as planned: I took the jab to the face, but I only tripped backward. I didn’t fall. Then I felt a switch go off in my brain.

There goes that idea, I thought. Let’s fucking fight.

And fight I did. In fact, I had the fight of my life. After two rounds, it was pretty even and I went to my corner.

“Well, Fire Marshall,” said my coach, Greg Jackson, calling me by my nickname, “you tell me what you’ve got left. Come on. You got anything for me? This could be it. It all comes down to this.”

I felt an overwhelming calm come over me—a strange sensation in such an intense moment. A moment when I was literally fighting for not only my livelihood but also my life.

I got off the stool and I beat the brakes off the guy. I didn’t even know who I was. I dropped him with punches and broke his arm; he couldn’t fight for eleven months. Somehow, in the decision, the judges said I lost, but I didn’t give a shit. To me, I’d won. With everything screaming at me to be a coward, to give in, to surrender—I didn’t. Before that moment, I’d felt like I was in a prison. Afterward, I was free.

Hell: The Prison of Your Ego

You may feel like you’re in your own prison, whether you’re held down by your job, your family, your health—anything. I’m not religious; I do, however, believe there’s something greater than us and I believe in hell. Not the hell that comes after we die, though—the hell that’s coming for us now. Today? Maybe—but one thing is certain: at some point in your life, hell is going to come for you, and it’s going to be brought on by yourself. By your ego. By your thoughts. Whatever brings it on, just know that when it comes, you’re going to have to fight. Grit your teeth, look it straight in the eye, and say, “Not today.” My coach asked me what I had left as I sat on that stool, and life is going to ask the same of you many times. I know it has of me.

I never had a “ride off into the sunset” moment in my life or in my fighting career. In the past, worry and anxiety have sapped the energy from everything as I fixated on the image of how tough I was supposed to be. The harder I held on to that ideal, the more it crumbled, and the harder hell came for me. I learned to look the devil straight in his eyes. I learned how to face him, and when you do that, he turns the other way and runs. I know because I’ve been there.

I encourage you to go as deep into hell as you can. That’s the Gospel of Fire: walk into the base of the blaze, far below the licking red and orange flames, and into the deep blue. Find the source and face it. Life is tough, man. Just when you think you can’t go anymore, go anyway. I’m going to help you by telling you what my hell was like. I’m going to show you how I’m still scared of going back because I’m a human being, but I’m down to go again. I’ll go there with you. That’s what we need in our lives: true connections with other people.

My UFC fight that night didn’t ultimately matter. Who cares about a Saturday-night fight that’s barely legal? What does matter in the end is how we mitigate suffering for ourselves and how we help others mitigate suffering for themselves, too. What matters is how we do that together. That’s why I wrote this book.

We are all swords in the process of being forged: we put the metal of our raw selves into the heat again and again. We bang on it. We abuse it. We melt it. We mold it. In the end, that sword is hard to break. Is the process easy? Hell no. Is it avoidable? Also no. Don’t cower from your personal hell, but rise in spite of it. Be molded by it. This book will guide you in fearless living, something I’ve learned the hard way—which is the only way to learn it.

Who Am I?

I’m what my friend Ryan Harris calls Obama black, which means my father is black and my mother is white. She’s also Jewish, and her parents were concentration camp survivors. The stories my grandparents told me were so poignant that the air in their house felt still—tinged with the remnants of massive suffering. Still, though, they gave me so much love; my whole family did. In my childhood, I grew up surrounded by love and attention, and I never wanted for anything—at home, that is.

Socially, it was a different story. I spent my teen and young-adult years in a small South Jersey town where it wasn’t exactly kosher to be mixed race. I didn’t fit in. I didn’t have friends. It was shitty. Really shitty.

As soon as I could, I moved away. I liked skiing, so I thought I’d attend the University of Colorado in Boulder. I also continued to pursue my love of martial arts and became the first American to win gold at the Pan American games for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in blue, purple (twice), and brown belt categories. This accomplishment was huge; I moved on to MMA, was cast in a reality TV show, and fought in the UFC for four years. Today, I’m a successful entrepreneur and own six martial arts schools in the Denver area. I’m also competing again and donating the money to charities and organizations that help those who suffer from anxiety and depression—the combination of which, especially the former, almost broke me. I’ll share the story of my breakdown in chapter 1, and how even with all my success—a loving family, retirement from the UFC, a successful career as an entrepreneur—anxiety nearly caused my life to fall apart. The devil got ahold of me, and I had to fight my way out. But I didn’t do it easily and I didn’t do it alone. There is no such thing as “picking yourself up by your bootstraps.” I was surrounded by support, and I want to give some of that back in the following pages.

In this book, I’ll show you how to be a beast. How not to be afraid of your weaknesses—or, if you are, how not to give a fuck and go deal with them anyway. I’ll show you how to be vulnerable, commit, and live in the moment. You’ll see why every problem is actually a blessing, and you’ll discover that it’s ok to ask for help.

What I will not do in this book is judge or shame you. I will also not complain about my past. Yes, as I said earlier, I’m a black Jew who experienced racism—good. It made me stronger. I will not tell you how special I am or how special you are. Why? It’s simple: nobody is special. We are all unique, but special has a connotation of entitlement. You aren’t owed anything, but you still should be happy. And you can be, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. Getting there will not be easy, but in the end, you’ll love the hardness. You’ll love the struggle. In the range of our human experience,...