From Dirt Poor to Top-10 Sports-Media Franchise — Chatri Sityodtong, CEO of ONE Championship

1. 0:00 – 0:23

   Start.

   1. CSChatri Sityodtong0:00

      You will discover things about yourself that you never even knew existed in you when you go through a process of love, pain, and suffering. And so that's something I do every day. Number one, I love it. It's my greatest obsession in life, but I do go through pain, and I do go suffering every single day because it's a part of this warrior mindset. I mean, you spent time in Japan. You know, the whole Bushido, the whole samurai spirit.

   2. TFTim Ferriss0:20

      Yeah. Yamato-damashii.

   3. CSChatri Sityodtong0:22

      Yes, you nailed

2. 0:23 – 2:18

   Chatri Trisiripisal vs. Yodchatri Sityodtong

   1. CSChatri Sityodtong0:23

      it.

   2. TFTim Ferriss0:23

      Chatri, nice to see you. Thanks for making the time.

   3. CSChatri Sityodtong0:26

      Thanks a lot, Tim. Glad to be on your show.

   4. TFTim Ferriss0:28

      And greetings from the other side of the planet. [laughs] Where are you right now? Where do we find you?

   5. CSChatri Sityodtong0:33

      I just landed back in Singapore, where I live, but, you know, I'm always on a plane every week in different parts of the world.

   6. TFTim Ferriss0:41

      Yeah, you seem like a man of intensity and endurance, which we're gonna get into in, in some measure. But I wanted to start at the beginning, and that is your birth name. What is your birth name?

   7. CSChatri Sityodtong0:52

      My birth name is Chatri Trisiripisal on my passport. It's what my parents gave me. But I use my martial arts name, which my grandmaster, Kru Yodthong Senanan, gave me. So in Thailand, when you train and compete for a given gym, the master of that gym will eventually bestow upon you your last name, and it's usually the, the fight name is, the last name is the name of the gym. It's just a custom, historical custom in Thailand. So my first name is Chatri, which is my birth name, and my last name in the martial arts world is Sityodtong, which my grandmaster gave to me. Actually, he gave me the, the fight name of Yodchatri Sityodtong, which means extraordinary warrior, and Sityodtong is student of Yodthong.

   8. TFTim Ferriss1:46

      Hmm.

   9. CSChatri Sityodtong1:47

      Long-winded thing, but I identify with, and maybe in part because of my complicated history with my own father, that I feel so much closer to my grandmaster and, and, and use the name that he, you know, bestowed upon me. And yeah, it's just one of these things [laughs] that's kind of funny, but it evolved, but it's... You know, but if you go ask any old school fighter from Thailand, all over the world, they're still using their fight name. That's just part of the culture of Thailand.

   10. TFTim Ferriss2:14

       All right. So off to a good start. We're gonna come back to Muay Thai, but

3. 2:18 – 3:49

   My own experience with Muay Thai.

   1. TFTim Ferriss2:19

      the last name bestowing is something I imagine a lot of listeners will not be familiar with.

   2. CSChatri Sityodtong2:25

      Yeah.

   3. TFTim Ferriss2:26

      But I remember ages and ages and ages ago training at the Fairtex gym in San Francisco.

   4. CSChatri Sityodtong2:32

      Yes.

   5. TFTim Ferriss2:33

      And then actually going to Bangplee in Thailand-

   6. CSChatri Sityodtong2:36

      Wow

   7. TFTim Ferriss2:36

      ... to visit the Fairtex camp.

   8. CSChatri Sityodtong2:39

      Crazy. [laughs]

   9. TFTim Ferriss2:39

      Yeah.

   10. CSChatri Sityodtong2:39

       Oh my God, you are hardcore old school martial arts, man. That-

   11. TFTim Ferriss2:43

       Yeah. [laughs]

   12. CSChatri Sityodtong2:43

       That's amazing. That's amazing.

   13. TFTim Ferriss2:45

       Yeah.

   14. CSChatri Sityodtong2:45

       So you must have known Bunkard Fairtex-

   15. TFTim Ferriss2:47

       Oh, absolutely

   16. CSChatri Sityodtong2:47

       ... in San Francisco, and yeah.

   17. TFTim Ferriss2:49

       And Fairtex.

   18. CSChatri Sityodtong2:50

       Yes.

   19. TFTim Ferriss2:50

       Jongsaenan.

   20. CSChatri Sityodtong2:51

       Yes, Jongsaenan, exactly.

   21. TFTim Ferriss2:52

       And a number of people I remember at the time who were outside of Muay Thai were like, "Wow, what do they feed people in that family?" And I was like, "That's not really how it works." [laughs]

   22. CSChatri Sityodtong3:00

       Exactly. There you go. The two biggest gyms, I guess, in history, in longevity in Thailand, have been Fairtex and Sityodtong.

   23. TFTim Ferriss3:08

       Mm-hmm.

   24. CSChatri Sityodtong3:09

       And so, yeah, exactly. Bunkard Fairtex, Jongsaenan Fairtex. Everyone adopts the last name or rather takes a gym name as your last name as, as you well know now.

   25. TFTim Ferriss3:18

       Mm-hmm.

   26. CSChatri Sityodtong3:18

       I didn't realize you also did a lot of Muay Thai. Amazing. [laughs]

   27. TFTim Ferriss3:21

       Yeah. That was my favorite striking art, not that I was exceptionally good, but in part because coming from wrestling, I had effectively zero head movement. So [laughs] I tried boxing. It was very, very hard for me to get accustomed to head movement. And in Muay Thai, certainly there is head movement, but it's just a different species of head movement, and I was like, "I think this is gonna fit my programming a little bit better than other options." [laughs] So-

4. 3:49 – 4:43

   Chatri’s introduction to Muay Thai.

   1. CSChatri Sityodtong3:49

      Nice. Nice

   2. TFTim Ferriss3:49

      ... we'll come back to that, but could you paint a picture for us of your childhood and then also just describe what happened, if, if the internet research serves me correctly, in 1997 or so?

   3. CSChatri Sityodtong4:04

      I grew up in, in a well-to-do family in Thailand, so I was a bit of an anomaly in that sense. You know, Muay Thai, as you probably know, Tim, is a very poor person sport in Thailand, but yet when I was about nine years old, my father took me to Lumpinee Stadium, which is the mecca of Muay Thai, and, you know, I, I just got bit by the bug. And of course, you know, Muay Thai's on TV seven days a week in Thailand, and I, I got the bug early, and I started training. And then one day I- I asked my father, "Can you take me to Sityodtong camp," which was the number one gym at the time in the country, and that's where I began my training un- under Kru Yodthong. And, you know, six-hour days, and it was incredible training.

5. 4:43 – 11:43

   Chatri processes the strained relationship with his father.

   1. CSChatri Sityodtong4:43

      But later in life, in the early '90s, my father's business started to falter, and then eventually went bankrupt, and he abandoned the family.

   2. TFTim Ferriss4:49

      What was the business? What type of business was he involved with?

   3. CSChatri Sityodtong4:52

      He was in real estate.

   4. TFTim Ferriss4:53

      And what caused that collapse?

   5. CSChatri Sityodtong4:55

      I think, you know, real estate goes through cycles, and my father was caught on the wrong end of a cycle with a lot of debt.

   6. TFTim Ferriss5:00

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CSChatri Sityodtong5:01

      And he just over-invested, and I never actually spoke to him about it. That's what I kind of surmised, put the pieces together to this day because one minute my father was doing well, and the next minute the bank repossessed the car, the house, and he had literally nothing. And then when he abandoned the family, it was a really rough time, and I had a lot of anger with... And I didn't see my father for I don't know how many decades, but I eventually reached out to him maybe around 10 years ago. I went to go find him, and, uh, I found him in Pattaya, which is where I spent a lot of my childhood in Thailand. And, you know, he was dirt, dirt poor, and of course, how you remember your father when you're younger versus, you know, he was, uh, frail and old and wasn't what I had imagined my reunion to be. And I reached out to him because, you know, I carried so much anger with me for so long, and I really wanted to know why, after my father went bankrupt, wh- why would he just throw his family away? And just abandoned, you know, basically disappear. And I remember, I don't know if I've ever said this story before, but I remember that night when I saw him, and we went to go out eat dinner. And it was weird because he's so old and so frail, and I asked Dad, you know, this is the first time I'd really asked him, you know, "Why, why would you just disappear?" And he was a man of very few words, and in his own way explained that as a Thai man growing up, he felt so ashamed of himself that he could not no longer provide food for his family. And it's just the way society works. Maybe it's Asian society, maybe it's Thai society, but in, in many ways, it was just easier for him to just, I guess, disappear-

   8. TFTim Ferriss6:50

      Mm-hmm

   9. CSChatri Sityodtong6:50

      ... rather than face every day looking at his kids and, and his wife. You know, I try to be empathetic about it, you know, and I thought we had time to rekindle the relationship. But unfortunately, yeah, shortly after, a couple years later, you know, he, he ended up... Crazy story. He ended up getting a stroke about a year after that, and it's the worst kind of thing. I, I didn't even know this kind of thing existed, but he became completely paralyzed, except his brain was 100% working and his eyes were working.

   10. TFTim Ferriss7:24

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CSChatri Sityodtong7:25

       So he could hear you, he could see you, but, I mean, it's like, I guess you're locked in your body. And that was very rough for me to see. And about a year and a half after that, he, he passed away.

   12. TFTim Ferriss7:34

       Mm-hmm. Wow. I mean, what timing, and I don't know if this is the right way to put it, but what luck that you reached out to him a year or a year and a half prior to have that conversation. Did having the conversation offer the catharsis that you had hoped for or have contribute in a way that has really stuck with you?

   13. CSChatri Sityodtong7:57

       It took my anger away, or maybe I, my anger dissolved over time. It was bittersweet because I thought that, you know, I, I had this kind of like, "I'm gonna go find my father, and we can talk it out, and then, and then we're gonna be closer than ever, and there's gonna be a real relationship." So in that regard, it didn't happen that way. And then the crazy thing is, at his funeral, in, in Thailand, in Buddhism funeral, you cremate the body. And I was giving, obviously giving the eulogy to all family members. And again, I didn't have a lot of emotional attachment to my father because I hadn't seen him in so many years and very, very distant. I had memories of him, but we weren't close by any means. But I ended up not being able to keep it together. I was bawling. So there's a lot of weird things. In some weird way, I, I finally understood my father, so f- life came full circle. But in a weird way, you know, I, I wish I had looked for him earlier when I had managed to bring the family out of poverty. You know, I could've easily, if I wasn't so angry, if I wasn't so stuck to my pride, maybe I would've had had that, quote-unquote, "fairytale ending." One thing I learned about life, man, Tim, is like you never know what is good luck or bad luck until many years later-

   14. TFTim Ferriss9:14

       Yeah

   15. CSChatri Sityodtong9:14

       ... when you discover what the lessons were of that experience, right? So anyways, I, at his eulogy, you know, we, we cremated his body. And I guess maybe a typical Asian household or Thai household, my father was larger than life. And that, and that's how I remembered him as a kid, because he was the one who introduced me to Muay Thai. He took me to Lumpinee Stadium. He took me to Sujutong Camp. And when someone gets cremated, I've gone to funerals, of course, you know, when I lived in America where you bury people. This is the first time I'd actually, other than my grandmaster, watching someone get cremated. And the next day, you actually come back and pick up the, the ashes and the bones. And they ask me, "W- what do you want to do with the bones and the ashes?" And I thought, "You know, I'm gonna go to the beach where my father brought me." And I took a boat out, and then we sprinkled his ashes everywhere. But that's also kind of crazy, because th- that, that's when you realize, you know, everything we have in life, at the end of the day, my father, like this great man when I was a kid, just ashes in the ocean, and that's what all of us are gonna end up. And I remember going back that night on the, on the plane and thinking to myself, all the things that my father did wrong in life and all the anger I had to him, I started to write down the things that I was grateful for. He gave me my name, which crazy enough ended up being symbolic of what my, what my life's work would end up being, right?

   16. TFTim Ferriss10:35

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CSChatri Sityodtong10:36

       He's the guy who introduced me to Muay Thai. He's the guy who took me to the beach for the first time. So many things. So I prefer to remember my father for the good, all the good that he did, than focus on the big mistakes he did in life, and I think that's something I learned from him ju- just through his life, going through his life and watching it from afar and being a part of it. And in, in the end, the things that he did wrong, I don't want to live my life that way. But at the same time, I wouldn't be here running the world's largest martial arts organization if it weren't for him taking me to Muay Thai.

   18. TFTim Ferriss11:15

       Mm-hmm. Thank you for that story. I have a complicated relationship with my father, to put it mildly, and that's actually very, very helpful for me to hear. So [chuckles] once we're done recording, I'm gonna go back and, and listen to it again because I think it underscores perhaps some things that I need to do, frankly. So I really appreciate that a lot.

6. 11:43 – 13:13

   Fight Porn and my introduction to ONE.

   1. TFTim Ferriss11:43

      And from here, I want to hop to your mom. We might come back to your dad certainly. I recall very distinctly... Well, let me back up and give you a little bit of context on how I got my first exposure to ONE. So I have a private group chat on my phone, as a lot of people do. Now, my friends created this, and they named it Fight Porn. That's the name of the chat.

   2. CSChatri Sityodtong12:08

      [laughs]

   3. TFTim Ferriss12:08

      And the reason it's called Fight Porn is that I'd say my four or five closest friends are all former competitive fighters. And effectively, this chat is video clips, discussions about fights Not really betting on fights, but kind of putting your reputation on the line to-

   4. CSChatri Sityodtong12:27

      Yep

   5. TFTim Ferriss12:27

      ... try to predict who's gonna, who's gonna win, who's gonna lose, what round, et cetera. And one of my friends, Doug, I'll give him credit, said, "Have you guys seen ONE?" And I was like, "Well, what the hell is ONE?" And he pointed me to one on Amazon Prime, and I thought to myself, "How on earth have I not seen this before?" And I have to say, it brought back so many memories of primetime, and hopefully you take this as a, as a compliment, Pride, K-1-

   6. CSChatri Sityodtong13:01

      Yeah

   7. TFTim Ferriss13:01

      ... all of these incredibly powerful memories, these nostalgic e- experiences that I had, and blew my mind. Completely blew my mind. So

7. 13:13 – 17:25

   A pep talk in Japanese.

   1. TFTim Ferriss13:13

      I just, I'm flashing forward a little bit, but that's a way of setting the table for a video that I watched, because I was tracking Takeru, I'm gonna say it with the kind of American pronunciation, Segawa.

   2. CSChatri Sityodtong13:28

      Yep.

   3. TFTim Ferriss13:29

      And at one point I saw a video of you giving him a pep talk. It wasn't really a pep talk. It was more like a, a rallying support. Not really a lecture, but like a pat on the back, a smack in the ass, and it wasn't in English. What language was that that you were speaking?

   4. CSChatri Sityodtong13:48

      So I was speaking Japanese. My mother's Japanese, my father's Thai. And that was after he had gotten knocked out by Ruotang.

   5. TFTim Ferriss13:56

      Mm-hmm.

   6. CSChatri Sityodtong13:56

      So that was the biggest fight of his career. That was March of this year in Tokyo.

   7. TFTim Ferriss14:01

      Mm-hmm.

   8. CSChatri Sityodtong14:01

      Saitama Super Arena, it was literally where Pride and K-1-

   9. TFTim Ferriss14:04

      Yeah

   10. CSChatri Sityodtong14:05

       ... Saitama Super Arena, the legendary stadium in Tokyo. And Takeru versus Ruotang, arguably the two greatest pound-for-pound strikers on the planet, and Takeru got knocked out in the first round.

   11. TFTim Ferriss14:16

       Mm.

   12. CSChatri Sityodtong14:16

       Like, I think in 80 seconds. And I went backstage to congratulate the winners and, and et cetera, and I went to go see Takeru and, you know, he, he was heartbroken and crying. And yeah, I went backstage and I gave him a pep talk. I said, "Hey, these things happen. It doesn't take away from your legacy, your body of work. You know, split millisecond here, split millisecond there, and the outcome could've been very different." And I said, "The only thing you can do is go back and review what you did wrong and level up." And that's one thing I think I have amongst the fight community, amongst our fighters. You know, I have a very close bond with our fighters because, you know, I'm a lifelong martial artist. I'm Muay Thai all of my life, and jujitsu black belt. So when I give these one-on-one talks, or actually before every big event, I go backstage and have all the fighters who are gonna compete that night and give an inspirational talk about what this night means and, and how they can carve their legacy, right?

   13. TFTim Ferriss15:23

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CSChatri Sityodtong15:23

       And unleash their greatness upon the world. So I feel very deeply when I see something like that, and, you know, Takeru was crying. He was, he was, man, broken, broken. His team happened to be there filming it. It wasn't our team. They, you know, they filmed and they put it out. It ended up going viral in Japan. I don't think people knew that I could speak, uh, Japanese. [laughs] The Japanese fans know that I'm half Japanese, but I don't really use it that much.

   15. TFTim Ferriss15:47

       Yeah. This is a way to segue to your mom, because, [sighs] and I have to say, I have never been to Saitama Super Arena. Someday I hope to actually check it out. I was, though, in Japan about two weeks ago, two or three weeks ago, and I was at the All Japan Judo Championships at the Budokan.

   16. CSChatri Sityodtong16:07

       Yes. Wow.

   17. TFTim Ferriss16:07

       Which was awesome.

   18. CSChatri Sityodtong16:08

       Yeah.

   19. TFTim Ferriss16:08

       Which was fantastic. You've never seen so many cauliflower ears in your entire life. It was just fantastic, 'cause it was also my first time setting foot in Budokan, which was absolutely spectacular.

   20. CSChatri Sityodtong16:19

       Yeah, it's legendary, historic.

   21. TFTim Ferriss16:21

       Yeah. Just absolutely iconic location, in a beautiful, beautiful spot where, by the way, it's impossible to get any rideshare because you're [laughs] right next to the Imperial Palace. So I realized that. Ended up having some nice walks as a result, but coming back to your mom, it seems like your mom and your dad informed your life in very different ways, and your, your dad may have been, in some respects, like Hamengkyoshi, right? Like, he, he was like the opposite teacher.

   22. CSChatri Sityodtong16:49

       Yes, yes, yes, yes.

   23. TFTim Ferriss16:50

       You're like, "I don't want to make some of those same mistakes."

   24. CSChatri Sityodtong16:52

       Oh, that's right. I forgot. You spent a year in Japan or something like that, right?

   25. TFTim Ferriss16:55

       I did.

   26. CSChatri Sityodtong16:55

       Or exchange program. That's why your accent is... I was like, what the?

   27. TFTim Ferriss16:58

       [laughs]

   28. CSChatri Sityodtong16:59

       I was like, oh man, Tim.

   29. TFTim Ferriss17:01

       Yeah.

   30. CSChatri Sityodtong17:01

       Tim, we're like kindred spirits here, you know?
8. 17:25 – 23:24

   Chatri’s secret life in a Harvard dorm with his mother on $4 a day.

   1. TFTim Ferriss17:25

      close with them. So I want to paint a picture for folks, and then you can fill in some of the gaps, but it seems like at some point your mom moved in with you in your dorm room?

   2. CSChatri Sityodtong17:37

      Yes.

   3. TFTim Ferriss17:38

      Could you-

   4. CSChatri Sityodtong17:38

      Yes

   5. TFTim Ferriss17:38

      ... explain what some of that journey looked like and how that happened?

   6. CSChatri Sityodtong17:43

      When my father abandoned us and went bankrupt, you know, I mean, it was my mom's crazy idea to like, you know, "Chatri, you're the oldest son, and, and given that you lived in Japan," the hierarchical nature of family structures in Asian society, and now that my father was gone, it was my duty to take care of my younger brother, my mother, and, and their wellbeing. But we had literally no money, and I had one suitcase, and my mom had borrowed money from all, all the people who were remaining to be our friends, 'cause obviously when something scandalous like that happens in, at the time in Thailand, you know, no one would get divorced. No one ever went bankrupt, you know? It just, these things didn't happen. But scrounged around about $1,000 and, you know, one suitcase with all, all of my life's belongings, and- I had to figure it out once I got to America. And it was her idea for me to, you know, apply and eventually immigrate. That was the game plan. And it got so bad for her that she ended up moving in with me in my dorm. Obviously, the school administration didn't know-

   7. TFTim Ferriss18:49

      [laughs]

   8. CSChatri Sityodtong18:50

      ... in college, and I was actually in grad school. And it was a tiny little single dorm room in Morris Hall at, at Harvard, and I slept on the floor, and she slept on the bed, and it was just barely enough room. And you had one of these key cards where you open the dormitory door from the outside and in between classes, you know, just time it with her and give her-her my key card and, you know, living on $4 a day. And of course, you know, I didn't tell everybody this. Of course, my closest friends knew, but I was not proud of my family background or the fact that I was poor. Actually, I was deeply ashamed, and I didn't want to talk about it. And, and so, you know, when people went to parties or people went out to dinners, I, I didn't do any of that stuff because I couldn't afford it. So I had to make some excuse every time. It's like, "Hey, Chatri, let's go out. You know, let's go to a club tonight, you know? There's gonna be... Our friends are gonna be there." And I knew I, I can't go and afford a beer. I can't afford the entrance fee of a nightclub. So my mom was very much a part of my graduate experience at Harvard. But amazingly, some of the, my best memories or most powerful memories, and obviously now today I view them in a very positive light because of how circumstances, we were very blessed in life. And I remember lying there with my mom. I was... I'd be lying on the floor, and my mom was on the bed, and she would ask me these crazy questions. We had no money, and she'd be like, "Chatri, one day, you know, I want us to go live in New York City."

   9. TFTim Ferriss20:16

      [laughs]

   10. CSChatri Sityodtong20:17

       And I'd be like, "Man, Mom," my stress was, how am I gonna get money for next month? And I, luckily, I was teaching Muay Thai. I was a tutor at Kaplan. I did all sorts of odd jobs. But my biggest worry was, you know, do I have enough money to even pay for the school tuition fees?

   11. TFTim Ferriss20:34

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CSChatri Sityodtong20:34

       And on an Excel spreadsheet, I budgeted $4 a day. If I went on the subway, that's a dollar. I'm like, [laughs] man, you know, like, these are the things that consumed me when I was going through Harvard. But, you know, I always say that without the love of my mother, I would never have been there in the first place. It was my mom who, when we had nothing, she really believed in me. And I think the saying is that when someone loves you, it gives you strength. When you love someone, it gives you courage.

   13. TFTim Ferriss21:07

       Mm.

   14. CSChatri Sityodtong21:07

       And I think that's a very true statement when it comes to my relationship with, with my mother. She gave me both, right? I mean, in that I could feel her unconditional love, hence it gave me strength to do things when I was full of fear, doubts and insecurities. I wasn't some academically gifted guy. I remember that first week, first month, I was dirt poor. I didn't feel like I belonged. I thought everyone was better than me, smarter than me, and I, I didn't have money for the full ride. I had to go find loans, and it was just like a time of massive uncertainty in my life, and I had to keep it to myself. I'd enter a new school. But again, looking back on everything, the fact that I had my mother's love, that gave me strength every day to fight more. And I always say, too, that if you're fighting for yourself, like you're fighting because you want a, a six-figure salary, you're fighting because you want to buy a nice car, it's very easy to quit. But when you're fighting for something bigger than yourself, it's impossible to quit. So in that moment, I was fighting for my family, fighting for my younger brother, fighting for my mother. Of course, down the road as I was blessed with a lot of good luck in life, these are the things that I always remember is like, you know, when you're fighting for something much bigger than yourself, you become unbreakable.

   15. TFTim Ferriss22:20

       Hmm.

   16. CSChatri Sityodtong22:21

       There's so many precious lessons that I learned from that journey. And [laughs] crazy enough, when I made my first little bit of money, I think I was around 30 something, maybe 31, I bought a, a condominium, you know, in New York City to surprise my mom-

   17. TFTim Ferriss22:39

       [laughs]

   18. CSChatri Sityodtong22:40

       ... because I remembered what she had told me in the dorm room. And brought her to New York and gave her the keys, is, and it was overlooking the Hudson River. And it's one of my most favorite memories with my mom is, you know, surprising her with her own house because she had suffered for so long, for so long that just to be able to see her face and knowing that little crazy dream was, was born in the dark of midnight when we're going to sleep, and she wanted to talk about our dreams. So in that sense, you know, she also gave me that. I'm a little bit of a crazy dreamer. My friends think I'm a bit of a crazy guy, a- and I think I got that from my mom. [laughs]

   19. TFTim Ferriss23:22

       Go, Mom. Oh, that's incredible.

9. 23:24 – 28:23

   How Chatri made the money to fuel his martial arts ambitions.

   1. TFTim Ferriss23:24

      All right. Well, we could spend the next two hours just unpacking what it was like to actually hand over the keys and how your mom responded, but I have a million questions I want to ask you. So I would say let me mention a few things, and then we can add in any sort of seminal moments as needed. But my understanding is you leave grad school, you try your hand in the world of startups, you do pretty well in the startup world, then end up going to finance and, uh, do pretty well on Wall Street. And my two questions are, I know that's a major, major condensation, but number one, what was it like, and what was the moment? 'Cause I remember for myself the moment where you're like, "Oh my God, I actually have some money." Right? Like, when was that moment when you were like, "Oh, this is a little different. This is a lot different. I actually have some money"? It doesn't need to be a lot of money, but, like, what was that like? And then why didn't you stay in finance? Why didn't you stay on Wall Street?

   2. CSChatri Sityodtong24:30

      So, you know, it's kind of funny. Like, when I was a kid, there's a few things I was truly obsessed with, okay? I, I was obsessed with martial arts, and that Anyone from my childhood will tell you, "Chatri's the, he's the martial arts guy. He's crazy about martial arts." But I was also crazy about... For Christmas, somebody gave me the book One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch.

   3. TFTim Ferriss24:52

      It's a great book.

   4. CSChatri Sityodtong24:53

      And I just got completely fascinated with, and I think I was like a teenager, but I was completely fascinated with, wow, people can actually make money doing that? And so I got obsessed with Warren Buffett and, you know, Ben Graham and, and Intelligent Investor, and this was like when I was, again, a teenager, and I just voraciously consumed it, but I never thought I would ever do something along those lines, right? And it wasn't like I was investing or anything. It was just like a hobby curiosity, but it was almost borderline obsession because I was reading, I mean, tons and tons of finance books and investing books just for, like, for fun. And so I always had kind of that in the back of my mind. I don't know, it's just like external kind of stuff when you're younger as a kid, "Oh, it'd be so glamorous to be, you know, a hedge fund manager on Wall Street," that kind of stuff. When I graduated from Harvard, I was dirt poor. Dirt poor. I went to Silicon Valley a- with my mom. We slept in a tiny little apartment, okay? And I couldn't even afford beds or furniture. So we had s- two sleeping bags. We talk about that all the time. We had two sleeping bags on the floor, and that was how I started my journey in Silicon Valley, because I, again, I just had this crazy dream. One of my classmates, Soon Liu, said, "Chatri, let's, let's go to Silicon Valley. Let's just try our luck." And, you know, both of us were poor, and we had maybe a few months of, of cash left, if at all. But by pure luck, we went to this angel investor day at Harvard, and this guy named Richard Armstrong, literally one-hour meeting, he's like, "Okay, I'll, I'll cut you a $500,000 check."

   5. TFTim Ferriss26:20

      [laughs] It's a good meeting.

   6. CSChatri Sityodtong26:22

      Yeah.

   7. TFTim Ferriss26:22

      [laughs]

   8. CSChatri Sityodtong26:23

      We were, like, blown away. Soon and I were blown away. And out of that small little apartment where my mom and I slept, slept on the floor, we started hiring people. And so I think at, at our peak, we had, like, six people or seven people in that, in the little apartment.

   9. TFTim Ferriss26:36

      And what was the business, just in brief for folks?

   10. CSChatri Sityodtong26:39

       It was a company called NextDoor Networks. Basically, it was enterprise resource software. It started off as, as a marketplace, but eventually morphed to enterprise optimization. So basically, Jiffy Lube was our largest customer at the time, where you could come in with dynamic pricing and the software would... How many bays there were, how many cars were coming in and, you know. Well, we see dynamic pricing today with airlines and stuff, right? Or hotels.

   11. TFTim Ferriss27:02

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CSChatri Sityodtong27:03

       That kind of software, but it was more enterprise. We rode the internet boom all the way up, and we came s- partially down, and we were lucky to have sold the company. We grew from, like, six, seven people, and then within about a year we'd raised $40 million and had, I don't know, 200 people, you know, real offices and all that stuff, and it was just a crazy ride. This was in early 2000 or, yeah, around 1999, 2000 timeframe.

   13. TFTim Ferriss27:29

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CSChatri Sityodtong27:31

       And that was a crazy ride. And when I look through old photos, and it's kind of crazy. So Soon Liu, my classmate from Harvard who started the company with me in Silicon Valley, he actually lives in Singapore now.

   15. TFTim Ferriss27:41

       Hmm.

   16. CSChatri Sityodtong27:41

       So [laughs] we hang out here. We have us- obviously our collection of pictures and whatnot, and, and we go back and we're like, "Man, that was, that was some crazy times." And, and my mom would be there in front of the microwave because we were so poor at the time. We would get a dollar, I remember, $1.25 microwave frozen food.

   17. TFTim Ferriss27:56

       Mm-hmm.

   18. CSChatri Sityodtong27:57

       And you know, these little meals, and that would be our lunch or dinner, whatever it is. And my mom would be in front of the, in front of the microwave and, you know, we had photos of that, and we were in our little startup and again, these crazy days. But after we sold the company, I said to myself, "Okay, I didn't make a, a ton where I could retire for life, but I had a good little bit of a nest egg." I thought deeply, "What do I want to do? Am I a software entrepreneur or what am I?" You know, I started going into this kind of deep reflection and actually-

10. 28:23 – 32:08

    Why wealth has never provided Chatri with a sense of security.

    1. TFTim Ferriss28:23

       And if I could just interrupt for a second, I'm sorry.

    2. CSChatri Sityodtong28:24

       Yeah.

    3. TFTim Ferriss28:25

       But just that initial nest egg, whether it was from savings, from salary, or the eventual exit-

    4. CSChatri Sityodtong28:33

       Yeah

    5. TFTim Ferriss28:33

       ... like, was there a moment, and if, if not, that's totally fine. I'm just so curious, having been poor for so long and scrapped so hard and having to track everything in an Excel spreadsheet to make sure you don't exceed your $4 daily budget, et cetera, throughout school, was there a time when it's like you went to the ATM to take out a little cash and you saw the balance and you're like, "Okay, like, things might actually now start to be different"?

    6. CSChatri Sityodtong29:01

       So you know what's crazy, Tim? Because I grew up in a well-to-do home when I was a kid-

    7. TFTim Ferriss29:07

       Hmm

    8. CSChatri Sityodtong29:07

       ... and, and saw it get wiped out like, I mean, it was like that, okay?

    9. TFTim Ferriss29:12

       Hmm.

    10. CSChatri Sityodtong29:12

        That I, even to this day, I don't have that sense of, like, look at my bank account or look at what I have as a sense of security.

    11. TFTim Ferriss29:22

        Yeah.

    12. CSChatri Sityodtong29:23

        So I never had that moment of, "Ah, I could exhale."

    13. TFTim Ferriss29:27

        Exhaling, yeah. [laughs]

    14. CSChatri Sityodtong29:28

        Exhaling, no.

    15. TFTim Ferriss29:29

        Yeah.

    16. CSChatri Sityodtong29:29

        What we did, though, was we went with I think about, like, 13 or 14 employees, and we rented two RV vans, and we did a cross-country trip across America, and that took, like, I forget, like, a couple weeks. That was me moving from Silicon Valley to, to New York. I didn't know at the time that I was gonna move to New York and I, I was gonna do the whole investing thing. That ride I remember, and I remember one night it was in Albuquerque, and we were in an RV park, and I went up to the roof. I was lying down on the roof of the RV and looking at the night sky, and it was completely beautiful stars and, and it was just clear sky. I mean, it was at night, but it was clear in the sense of all the stars. And that was the only moment that I felt like, "Man," like, "I can actually do anything from this point on. I don't have to scrape by." But it was just a momentary fleeing sensation of, like, the universe is so big, I can do anything. Like, you know, and it wasn't I can do anything in, in an arrogant way. It was more like whatever happened in the past with my family and, and my father, you know, I, I didn't have to be burdened by it or trapped by it. So it was a feeling of not exhale, but a feeling of almost like My past, you know, I'm not gonna be shackled by my past.

    17. TFTim Ferriss30:50

        Mm-hmm.

    18. CSChatri Sityodtong30:51

        But it's weird, you know, Tim, even to this day, I don't have this feeling of like, [sighs] I have this feeling of, man, you know, life can throw you curveballs, and all of a sudden I could be on the street. You know, [laughs] it's crazy.

    19. TFTim Ferriss31:03

        Yeah.

    20. CSChatri Sityodtong31:03

        But I, I still have this fear, or not fear, I don't know what it is. Maybe what it is is I never wanna be so poor again, 'cause what really broke me, and this one I remember very poignantly, I'd never seen my mother cry up until my father abandoned us, and it was one night, and she tried to be this really strong, brave woman, and I saw her cry, and that, that broke my heart in a million pieces. And then one other time I saw her was in my dorm room, you know, at Harvard, and that was my fuel. I said to myself, "I never want to see my mother cry ever again. I'm gonna work my ass off. I'm gonna be rich. I'm gonna do things for..." You know? And so I naively thought, genuinely, that when I was poor, that, man, if I just make a crap load of money, all my problems will be gone because, like, I will be able to provide for my mother, she'll have no more worries, and this, that, the other.

11. 32:08 – 34:44

    The moment Chatri began to fulfill one his mother’s prophecies.

    1. CSChatri Sityodtong32:09

       I didn't fully understand the meaning of life. I kind of like accepted society as you make a lot of money and that's just, you know, you buy things. It wasn't later in life until I was, like, maybe my mid-thirties when I had my hedge fund. You know, we had a record year. I made a lot of money. And of course, you're very happy because you made a lot of money. But then I went down to the sushi bar, sushi restaurant down in the office building, and I sat at the sushi bar for lunch, and I remember, I was by myself, and I remember all adrenaline and happy. But then over the course of that lunch, I don't know what happened, I just started thinking about, "Is this what life is about? Okay, so I'm gonna go now and buy more material things. I'm gonna go buy a house, another house," or whatever. You know, I just... It just hit me hard. I'm like, man, what's gonna happen with my life is I'm gonna keep just living this thing where, okay, yeah, I, I make a lot of money, but I had a deep sense of emptiness. And yeah, my mom was taken care of, I was happy, of course, all that stuff, but it was almost just like, oh my gosh, and I, I remember cold sweat, thinking, "I'm gonna roll forward another fifty years or, or whatever to the end of my life, and shit, all I have done really is buy and sell companies and short companies," and my clients were all either multi-billion dollar institutions or multi-billion dollar families. So then I'm like, "What was I here on Earth for, and what was I doing with my life?"

    2. TFTim Ferriss33:40

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CSChatri Sityodtong33:41

       And I remember so well when I was five years old, my mom would repeat this all the time throughout my elementary and middle school years and all that. She would always say, "Chatri, you're going to grow up to help people." And, you know, I always thought my mom's gibberish, you know, because she's like, "You're so special, Chatri." And of course, I know every mother says that to their child, to their... You know? But it was weird. When I was at that sushi restaurant, those words came to me. It was like, "Chatri, you're gonna help people when you grow up." And I was sitting there and I'm like, "Right now I'm helping nobody," because if I'm helping wealthy people get wealthier, okay, what is the point of that? And if I'm making, you know, multi-billion dollar institutions get wealthier, what is the point of that, right? I remember being very restless for several weeks. I couldn't sleep. And yeah, eventually I said, "I, I have to do something." And it was, again, pure, pure luck, but also a lot of introspection. At the time I was training at Renzo Gracie's

12. 34:44 – 38:39

    “To unleash your greatness, you must be surrounded by greatness.”

    1. CSChatri Sityodtong34:44

       school, jujitsu, training every day. And you know, it's crazy. This whole journey from being well-to-do family to being poor, to escaping poverty and making it, I trained religiously, either Muay Thai or jujitsu every single day. This is just part of my, my DNA. And actually even to this day, I just came back from training earlier today. It's my foundation to every single day. Tim, you know, you've competed as a wrestler and done Sanshou and stuff like that. When you're in the moment of training or sparring, there is nothing else you can think of. You're in the moment, right?

    2. TFTim Ferriss35:17

       Yeah, if you think of something else, you get reminded-

    3. CSChatri Sityodtong35:19

       [laughs]

    4. TFTim Ferriss35:20

       ... very quickly.

    5. CSChatri Sityodtong35:20

       Very quickly. Exactly. So it's almost like you can escape whatever, good or bad in your life, for those couple hours and not think about anything. You see, if you go for a run, you'll still think about work, family, your relationship issues, your dad, whatever it is, you'll still think, okay? So, or if you go lift weights, your mind is still active on whatever. You haven't left your life. But you know, Tim, when you go train and, and you're sparring against someone who's really good-

    6. TFTim Ferriss35:49

       Yeah

    7. CSChatri Sityodtong35:50

       ... all that stuff evaporates, and so that's what I love. I own a chain of martial arts schools here in Singapore, and I train every day with Muay Thai world champions.

    8. TFTim Ferriss36:00

       Is that Evolve or?

    9. CSChatri Sityodtong36:02

       Yeah, [laughs] Evolve, yes.

    10. TFTim Ferriss36:03

        Mm-hmm.

    11. CSChatri Sityodtong36:03

        Or jujitsu world champions. And I truly believe my Grandmaster, Kru Yodthong Senanan, used to always tell me, I never really understood it until much later in life, "To unleash your greatness, you must be surrounded by greatness." And so every day I go to Evolve, these guys are the best in the world what they do. You know, I'm a high level of martial arts for sure, but not against a world champion, right? I mean, you trained with Johnson and Boonkard, you know how badass those guys are.

    12. TFTim Ferriss36:30

        Yeah, yeah, yeah. [laughs]

    13. CSChatri Sityodtong36:31

        Best in the world. Yeah, it's a different level.

    14. TFTim Ferriss36:32

        There are levels, then there are levels.

    15. CSChatri Sityodtong36:34

        Exactly. [laughs] Exactly. Same thing for a black belt. I mean, I'm a black belt, but there are levels to being a jujitsu black belt. And for the most part, when I train with them, I, I get my ass kicked. But I relish that. Obviously, it's a two-hour break from my, from anything I'm dealing with in the world. But I love it because it's a daily and constant reminder of how I should live my life. You see, if I have ego, you know, I'm the owner, I walk in, and this guy beats the crap out of me. In another world, if I didn't have martial arts my whole life, I'd be like, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, I'm the bo-" But what I actually te- tell to my training partners, "Bro, whatever it is, don't go easy. If you can't submit me, you suck. [laughs] You better submit me or you better hurt me. If we're sparring, you better get the best of me because, you know, you're a world champion. Don't hold back because that's not what I want. I want you to help me improve." And so you have to, you know, let your ego completely disappear. In society, I'm a CEO, but when I'm in training, I'm a nobody.

    16. TFTim Ferriss37:39

        Yeah.

    17. CSChatri Sityodtong37:40

        And these guys beat on me, but it levels me up, and it, it's a daily reminder to me that I'm here to learn, grow and evolve and be the very best martial artist I can be. And the only way to do it is by surrounding yourself with greatness, because diamonds are created under heat and pressure, and that's how I think all of us, how we all can unleash our greatness in life is, it's kind of sad, but it's through love, pain, and suffering.

    18. TFTim Ferriss38:10

        Mm.

    19. CSChatri Sityodtong38:11

        That combination can work magic in terms of unleashing human potential, and you will discover things about yourself that you never even knew existed in you when you go through a process of love, pain, and suffering. And so that's something I do every day. Number one, I love it. It's my greatest obsession in life, but I do go through pain and I do go suffering every single day because it's a part of this warrior mindset. I mean, you spent time in Japan. You know, the whole Bushido, the whole samurai spirit.

    20. TFTim Ferriss38:36

        Yeah. Yamato-damashii.

    21. CSChatri Sityodtong38:38

        Yes.

13. 38:39 – 42:16

    Witnessing Yamato-damashii: the Japanese warrior spirit.

    1. CSChatri Sityodtong38:39

       Yes. You nailed it. What Tim is talking about, guys, is this Japanese warrior spirit that every Japanese person has in their heart that makes Japan... Actually, that's why it's the birthplace of mixed martial arts. It's the birthplace of kickboxing, obviously the birthplace of karate and aikido and judo and kendo. It's a magical country, and I'm not saying that because I'm half Japanese, but the more I understand about Japan, the more I truly appreciate the culture. And so one of that is this sense of unbreakable warrior spirit. Like, Japanese fighters are some of the toughest, and I don't mean technically. I mean, I'm talking about you cannot break a high-level Japanese fighter. You just... You know? And if you went to the Budokan, watching the judo championships, these guys, they don't break. They don't break.

    2. TFTim Ferriss39:23

       Yeah, they'll go until they can't go.

    3. CSChatri Sityodtong39:25

       Yeah.

    4. TFTim Ferriss39:26

       I still remember to this day a fight way back in the day. I was in Japan for this way back, which was Pancrase. So Pancrase had just launched.

    5. CSChatri Sityodtong39:36

       Yes.

    6. TFTim Ferriss39:36

       And it was a fight between Bas Rutten and Funaki.

    7. CSChatri Sityodtong39:40

       Wow.

    8. TFTim Ferriss39:40

       And Funaki got beaten into... He looked like a tomato that had been kicked around a room by 12 kids for an hour. I mean, he was so destroyed, and he just kept getting up. And I mean, there was a point where I remember Bas was just like, "What is this? What are we doing here?"

    9. CSChatri Sityodtong39:59

       [laughs] Yeah, exactly.

    10. TFTim Ferriss40:00

        And to this day, from 15, I remember watching that and thinking, "Good Lord, this is just a different species of experience." And just to come back to the, the mixed martial arts in Japan for a second, so when I was there, the way I initially got exposed to all this was through, through Shooto.

    11. CSChatri Sityodtong40:23

        Yes.

    12. TFTim Ferriss40:24

        Sayama Satoru, first generation Tiger Mask.

    13. CSChatri Sityodtong40:27

        Yes.

    14. TFTim Ferriss40:28

        Yeah.

    15. CSChatri Sityodtong40:28

        Unbelievable. He was at the event in March, in Saitama.

    16. TFTim Ferriss40:30

        Oh, really?

    17. CSChatri Sityodtong40:31

        He was my guest.

    18. TFTim Ferriss40:31

        That guy.

    19. CSChatri Sityodtong40:32

        He was my personal guest. Yeah. Sayama Sensei.

    20. TFTim Ferriss40:34

        He is a tough, tough-

    21. CSChatri Sityodtong40:36

        Yes

    22. TFTim Ferriss40:36

        ... tough, tough-

    23. CSChatri Sityodtong40:37

        Yes

    24. TFTim Ferriss40:37

        ... human, and a-

    25. CSChatri Sityodtong40:38

        Yes

    26. TFTim Ferriss40:38

        ... very, very tough coach.

    27. CSChatri Sityodtong40:40

        Legend.

    28. TFTim Ferriss40:41

        He used to take a shinai, like a, a bamboo kendo sword, cut off the tip, and then if his fighters were misbehaving or not doing what he wanted, he would hit them in the back of the legs, hit them on the back. He was tough and-

    29. CSChatri Sityodtong40:57

        Yeah

    30. TFTim Ferriss40:57

        ... nasty fighter also.
14. 42:16 – 45:45

    Moving to Singapore and starting Evolve.

    1. CSChatri Sityodtong42:16

       my God.

    2. TFTim Ferriss42:16

       But that gym is phenomenal.

    3. CSChatri Sityodtong42:18

       Yeah.

    4. TFTim Ferriss42:18

       And it also ties into, actually, just to, to loop a few things together. So from Wall Street, at least I have written down here, correct me if I get any of this wrong, but in 2008-

    5. CSChatri Sityodtong42:28

       Yeah

    6. TFTim Ferriss42:28

       ... you start Evolve, right?

    7. CSChatri Sityodtong42:30

       I moved to Singapore in 2007. Yeah.

    8. TFTim Ferriss42:35

       Yeah.

    9. CSChatri Sityodtong42:35

       Around there, yep.

    10. TFTim Ferriss42:36

        I got it.

    11. CSChatri Sityodtong42:37

        But I'm still a hedge fund manager at that point, so it was crazy. So I, I get to Singapore-

    12. TFTim Ferriss42:41

        Mm-hmm

    13. CSChatri Sityodtong42:41

        ... to open up the Singapore office for my hedge fund.

    14. TFTim Ferriss42:43

        Mm-hmm.

    15. CSChatri Sityodtong42:44

        So we have offices in New York and Singapore, and there's no place to train, because Singapore's not, like, a mecca of martial arts. So I'm like-

    16. TFTim Ferriss42:51

        Right

    17. CSChatri Sityodtong42:52

        ... "You know what? I'm gonna start- ... a martial arts school, and it was really just selfishly for me to be able to train with, you know? And all my Sit Yoong brothers were in Thailand, and it's an hour-and-a-half flight from Thailand, and they're all the baddest world champions on the planet and, and that's how Evolve started. It, it was kind of like-

    18. TFTim Ferriss43:12

        Scratching your own itch

    19. CSChatri Sityodtong43:13

        ... I would almost say a side hustle. It's my obsession. I mean, martial arts is my obsession, so the fact I didn't have any high-level place to train when I was used to training at Renzo's, right, when I was in New York, that was kind of the, the accidental birth.

    20. TFTim Ferriss43:25

        Murderers' Row. Yeah. So many good people there.

    21. CSChatri Sityodtong43:28

        Yeah, but that whole time period was, 'cause when I'd reached Singapore was already after I had that lunch, that sushi lunch, you know?

    22. TFTim Ferriss43:35

        Mm.

    23. CSChatri Sityodtong43:35

        I'd already had this, like, sense of, you know, I have to do something bigger with my life. I have to. And it's not about making money. It's about helping others or making an impact. I think you had also said that, right, Tim? Like, when you retired from angel investing was like angel investing was fun, but you, you didn't have that impact that you had when you came out with your books.

    24. TFTim Ferriss43:54

        Yeah.

    25. CSChatri Sityodtong43:55

        And that's when you had millions of people reading your books and their lives changed by your lessons and learnings about life. And so when we work our asses off for something much bigger than ourselves and we know we're impacting, you know, if you're lucky, your country, and if you're even luckier, your continent and maybe the world, right? There's a sense of like, oh, my, my life has meaning.

    26. TFTim Ferriss44:18

        Mm-hmm.

    27. CSChatri Sityodtong44:19

        And it's not about money. It's that somehow Tim Ferriss is on this planet, and he's actually helping people, millions of people all over the planet through his books.

    28. TFTim Ferriss44:27

        Mm-hmm.

    29. CSChatri Sityodtong44:28

        Same thing I get now the joy of ONE. Th- hearing about you having, you know, this WhatsApp group with your buddies and all you guys are competitive former martial artists or fighters, and then you discover ONE, and that to me, I get excited. Or, like, you know, when I was in Japan and, you know, the entire stadium of Saitama completely sold out. We were in the US in September in Denver, the Denver Nuggets stadium completely sold out.

    30. TFTim Ferriss44:49

        Yeah.
15. 45:45 – 53:31

    Overcoming ONE’s initial financial challenges.

    1. CSChatri Sityodtong45:45

       you know? Or whatever.

    2. TFTim Ferriss45:45

       Oh, yeah. I mean, I still, we're gonna definitely get back to this through line in a second, but vividly remember watching ONE for the first time, and it brought back all of those memories from Japan because it's, it's very elegantly produced in the sense that it's not like being trapped in a video game with 1,000 distractions, which a lot of spectator sports have kinda turned into. It's like you have the lights on the fighters. The crowd is often darkened.

    3. CSChatri Sityodtong46:18

       Yes, yes.

    4. TFTim Ferriss46:18

       And there's this, I'll paint with a broad brush here, but, well, it depends on where the fights are, right? There's either, there's, in Japan, you know, the audience is very reverent.

    5. CSChatri Sityodtong46:27

       Yep, yep.

    6. TFTim Ferriss46:27

       And it's very quiet.

    7. CSChatri Sityodtong46:30

       Yes.

    8. TFTim Ferriss46:30

       There might still be like a, "Fight on!" You know, like something like that.

    9. CSChatri Sityodtong46:33

       Yeah.

    10. TFTim Ferriss46:33

        And they'll clap for certain things and shout for sure. But otherwise, it's quiet. It's very different from the US.

    11. CSChatri Sityodtong46:39

        Yeah.

    12. TFTim Ferriss46:39

        So I've been to Lumpinee before, and I've been to Rajadamnern before.

    13. CSChatri Sityodtong46:43

        Yep.

    14. TFTim Ferriss46:43

        And that's like, "Rah," you know? With the like-

    15. CSChatri Sityodtong46:45

        Yes, high energy. Crazy energy

    16. TFTim Ferriss46:48

        ... with the music and the betting and the, "Hey, hey," with the-

    17. CSChatri Sityodtong46:51

        Yeah, yeah, yeah

    18. TFTim Ferriss46:52

        ... every, every low kick or whatever is coming out. And it's, as a viewer, as a spectator, it really allows you to kinda savor the main course without distraction, which is the fights. And let's hop to ONE.

    19. CSChatri Sityodtong47:06

        Sure.

    20. TFTim Ferriss47:07

        It looks like around 2011, that's the birth of ONE Championship.

    21. CSChatri Sityodtong47:11

        Yep.

    22. TFTim Ferriss47:12

        Was not an overnight success.

    23. CSChatri Sityodtong47:14

        No.

    24. TFTim Ferriss47:14

        We're gonna get eventually, because I did not expect to find Mike Moritz and Doug Leone in this story, which is-

    25. CSChatri Sityodtong47:22

        Yeah

    26. TFTim Ferriss47:23

        ... fucking wild.

    27. CSChatri Sityodtong47:24

        Yes, yes. [laughs]

    28. TFTim Ferriss47:25

        We're definitely gonna come to that, 'cause that seems like a really important moment. But before, I wanna read one of my, one of my friend's questions, because there have been different fight promotions in, say, Pan Asia before, right?

    29. CSChatri Sityodtong47:41

        Yeah.

    30. TFTim Ferriss47:42

        For instance, in China, there's something called Sanda Wang, which is like king of Sanda, which actually has some great fights, but they never hopped-
16. 53:31 – 59:42

    Building ONE with Bushido-grade excellence.

    1. TFTim Ferriss53:31

       right.

    2. CSChatri Sityodtong53:31

       And if I didn't love martial arts as much as I did, 1,000% I would quit.

    3. TFTim Ferriss53:35

       Mm-hmm.

    4. CSChatri Sityodtong53:35

       So I call my mom. "Mom, end of year three. Lost a crapload of my money and my friends' money, and I think we're done. We get no traction." And I thought my mom was gonna tell me I should stick with it because, you know, "Chatri, since you're a kid, martial arts, blah, blah, blah, you love it." And she said, "Oh, great. Why don't you just quit then?"

    5. TFTim Ferriss53:53

       [laughs] Yeah. Before you get double sleeves of tattoos and can't go to the onsen with me.

    6. CSChatri Sityodtong53:58

       Yeah. She's like, "Great."

    7. TFTim Ferriss53:59

       [laughs]

    8. CSChatri Sityodtong53:59

       And then the conversation ended shortly after then. And I, and I remember thinking to myself, "My mom just said just quit." And then I said, "Okay, if I just quit, let's just say I quit today," and then it goes back to, like, "Well, why did I even start this thing in the first place?"

    9. TFTim Ferriss54:11

       Hmm.

    10. CSChatri Sityodtong54:11

        When you really put yourself to saying, "I'm gonna quit," you start to think about, "Why did I start this thing, and, and what is it?" And I said, "Well, martial arts is my greatest obsession. If I want to make an impact on the world, and I have the opportunity to inspire millions and one day hopefully billions of lives through our heroes, values, and stories," those are the three pillars o- of what we call our formula of success at ONE Championship, values, heroes, and stories. If we can unleash these real-life superheroes and tell their stories of overcoming adversity, tragedy, poverty, uh, impossible odds, those stories are gonna be incredible. And of course, the values that we exhibit, which you know very well, is the true bushido values of, you know, integrity, honor, respect, courage, discipline, compassion, et cetera, that martial arts teaches us. And I thought There has to be a place in this world, one promotion, one promotion that has true authentic martial arts at its core. And so from that day, I said, "I will never quit. Come hell or high water, I'm gonna put everything into it. If I lose all my money, screw it." And, you know, we got so lucky. Facebook, you know, so a big shout-out [laughs] to Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook started taking off in Asia at that, around that time, as smart mobile devices were as well. If you chart Facebook's user growth and just engagement levels, okay, in Asia with the history of ONE Championship, it is like mirror.

    11. TFTim Ferriss55:45

        Huh.

    12. CSChatri Sityodtong55:46

        So what happened was we saw a couple of videos start going viral around the world when we posted. And we're, again, we're a small platform at the time, very small page, but we could see that something was happening. So we used that hockey stick data. Even though it was small, we collected this data, and we showed broadcasters, "Hey, take a look."

    13. TFTim Ferriss56:06

        Mm.

    14. CSChatri Sityodtong56:06

        "Hey, take a look. This is something that's happening in your country."

    15. TFTim Ferriss56:10

        Mm-hmm.

    16. CSChatri Sityodtong56:11

        Numbers have just gone 10X. Yes, they're small, but they've gone 10X in the span of three months. And then I remember we had a few months left of cash, and I, I bet the whole firm, and I put everything into video. I said, "We are gonna be the world's best viral video makers along the lines of value shares and stories, but we wanna ride the algo, not pollute it by bastardizing martial arts, but really showcasing the very best." So whether it's a knockout, that's great, spinning back kick, all that stuff, but in the context of, how can I say? I didn't wanna cheapen martial arts. I didn't want to, to bastardize it and cheapen it and make it look like two thugs cussing each other out, 'cause that's not my experience in martial arts. My martial arts experience has been about pain, love, pain, and suffering, right? And then as a result of that, of thousands of hours of training, you inherit these incredible values, right? And something I'm sure you relate to, Tim.

    17. TFTim Ferriss57:03

        Mm-hmm.

    18. CSChatri Sityodtong57:04

        I mean, for you to get heel hooked by Ruy Minassato and then somebody else, and then, uh, Rodrigo popping your arm, and, you know, like, this is part of the journey, love, pain, and suffering.

    19. TFTim Ferriss57:12

        Yeah.

    20. CSChatri Sityodtong57:12

        And yet somehow you wanna get back into it, [laughs] right? So that to me is what martial arts is about.

    21. TFTim Ferriss57:17

        Yeah.

    22. CSChatri Sityodtong57:17

        The unbreakable warrior spirit, the beauty of authentic martial arts. So anyways, long story cut short, the combination of us making the bet on Facebook literally saved the company. This is something that Facebook confirmed with us, and actually, I ended up getting invited by Zuck to go to Facebook headquarters a couple years ago. And because out of 5,000 sports properties-

    23. TFTim Ferriss57:40

        Mm-hmm

    24. CSChatri Sityodtong57:40

        ... on Facebook, the number one producer of organic video views in the world is ONE Championship.

    25. TFTim Ferriss57:48

        Yeah.

    26. CSChatri Sityodtong57:49

        We produced 30 billion organic video views last year, and this year we're on pace already for 40 billion. 40 billion, not million. And I remember how fast. We went from 100,000 organic video views for the whole year, and suddenly the next year it was like, you know, five million, and the next year 100 mil- like, it just went ballistic.

    27. TFTim Ferriss58:04

        Yeah.

    28. CSChatri Sityodtong58:05

        And without that, I don't think we would've been able to convince broadcasters and investors and brands and sponsors and athletes. And now, as you know, Tim, as a business expert, once you've built a platform business, every global sports property is a platform business where-

    29. TFTim Ferriss58:24

        Mm-hmm

    30. CSChatri Sityodtong58:24

        ... there are multiple stakeholders who derive economic benefit or social benefit or some level of benefit from the platform, and hence a platform becomes, quote, quote, "monopolistic," right? NBA, there's no way you can break NBA. There's no way you can break NFL. It's truly a platform business, and so we have achieved that status. And like I said, if you'd asked me to start this business again, no way, and it's less than 1% of 1% that we're standing here, and there are many, many inflection points of luck.
17. 59:42 – 1:11:27

    How ONE maintains quality and quantity fights and fighters.

    1. CSChatri Sityodtong59:42

       But putting on great fights, like your friend said-

    2. TFTim Ferriss59:45

       Yeah

    3. CSChatri Sityodtong59:45

       ... is not luck. We have a chemistry lab, if you will-

    4. TFTim Ferriss59:49

       Yeah

    5. CSChatri Sityodtong59:49

       ... where we slice and dice qualitative and quantitatively.

    6. TFTim Ferriss59:53

       Mm-hmm.

    7. CSChatri Sityodtong59:53

       It's a team of about 13 or 14 folks, and we slice quantitatively and qualitatively and, you know, and all that stuff. Of course, one huge benefit is all of us on the matchmaking team, we're all martial artists.

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:00:06

       Mm-hmm.

    9. CSChatri Sityodtong1:00:06

       So it's like Matt Hume.

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:00:08

        Mm-hmm.

    11. CSChatri Sityodtong1:00:09

        You know-

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:00:09

        Yeah

    13. CSChatri Sityodtong1:00:09

        ... legendary Matt Hume. Folks like Rich Franklin, legendary martial artist himself.

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:00:14

        Mm-hmm.

    15. CSChatri Sityodtong1:00:15

        And, and so got very lucky that these happen to be all my friends, right? My martial arts buddies, and we're all working together, and we get to cook up the best fights. And another advantage we have is because we're not only doing MMA, we're the world's largest martial arts organization, right? We showcase everything from kickboxing, Muay Thai, submission grappling, boxing, MMA, and everything, and the most important thing for us is signing the very best of the best athletes, the very best of the best martial artists. But very equally important is finishing ability.

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:00:47

        Mm-hmm.

    17. CSChatri Sityodtong1:00:48

        So this is something that's, I don't know if other organizations look at it. I'm sure they look at it collective, but I don't know if they look at it when they sign athletes. ONE Championship has a 70% finish rate.

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:00:58

        Yeah.

    19. CSChatri Sityodtong1:00:58

        That means-

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:00:59

        It's absurd

    21. CSChatri Sityodtong1:01:00

        ... of all our fights, 70% people get knocked out or tapped out or choked out.

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:01:05

        It's absurd. [laughs] It's so high.

    23. CSChatri Sityodtong1:01:07

        It's a global duopoly now, right? UFC dominates in the West. We dominate in the East. We're roughly the same size. They have a 38% finish rate. And why is that? Because in America, there's predominantly American wrestlers like yourself.

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:01:20

        Mm-hmm.

    25. CSChatri Sityodtong1:01:20

        And American wrestling is not necessarily geared towards finishing. It's an unbelievable martial art that controls. You can take the fight- fighter down, pin him up against a cage. You can hold him. You can ground and pound him, but it, it's not necessarily a finishing finishing, right? Versus out here, we got a Ruotang. And it depends on the discipline, but we signed the Ruotolo brothers.

    26. TFTim Ferriss1:01:40

        Yeah. [laughs]

    27. CSChatri Sityodtong1:01:41

        Those guys are killers. We look for the best of the best, but we try to find athletes who come to kill. And again, I don't mean kill in a bad way. What I mean is the true origins of martial arts is self-defense.

    28. TFTim Ferriss1:01:52

        Mm-hmm.

    29. CSChatri Sityodtong1:01:53

        Self-defense is not about dancing for points. It's not about taking someone down and waiting and letting the judges score. It's about finishing a robber coming to your house.

    30. TFTim Ferriss1:02:04

        Mm-hmm.
18. 1:11:27 – 1:22:00

    Leveraging social media to bring compelling human stories to ONE’s forefront.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:11:27

       You can thank me later. I do want to double-click on two things. So the first is pushing all your chips in on Facebook and social media, because a lot of people, I'm just trying to time this out. Maybe this is, like, 2014, 2015.

    2. CSChatri Sityodtong1:11:47

       Yeah. Yeah, around there.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:11:48

       Around there?

    4. CSChatri Sityodtong1:11:48

       Yeah.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:11:49

       Okay. So a lot of people were pushing their chips in on social, maybe not in as aggressive and all-in fashion, but a lot of people were trying to make it work, and a lot of people didn't figure it out, right? So what I'm super curious about is what were the guiding tenets or the principles or the lessons learned where you zigged and zagged that allowed you to actually make it work? That's kind of question number one. And then I definitely have to get to this Sequoia meeting, 'cause I, I want to know how the hell that happened-

    6. CSChatri Sityodtong1:12:24

       Yeah. [laughs]

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:12:24

       ... and what happened in that meeting. I really did not expect to see this in my research, [laughs] and I'm so happy I was surprised by it. But first, on the social media, because a lot of people to this day try to make it work and never figure it out. So what allowed you to translate pushing the chips in into success on social?

    8. CSChatri Sityodtong1:12:44

       Again, there's a lot of element of good luck. I don't want my team or I to be so arrogant to think and to say and have the world believe that, that it was just hard work and our, and our genius.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:12:54

       Yeah. You know what? I'm gonna be an asshole. I'm sorry. I'm gonna jump in, though. I want to give credit where credit is due also, because when I first saw you guys on Amazon Prime, I was like, "Oh, this is really interesting." And then I followed you on social, and then I was looking at the videos and I was like, "Okay, this is very smart." I was like, number one, they are not stingy with highlights. Like, you share basically, as far as I can tell, all the best ... highlights

    10. CSChatri Sityodtong1:13:21

        Yeah

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:13:21

        Which doesn't mean you shouldn't watch the full fights. Like, I, I wanna watch the full fights-

    12. CSChatri Sityodtong1:13:24

        Yeah

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:13:25

        ... 'cause it's like rock 'em, sock 'em robots the whole time. But you share highlights, and you also tell really, really good stories.

    14. CSChatri Sityodtong1:13:32

        Yeah.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:13:32

        And I remember Stamp Fairtex, [laughs] who, doesn't hurt that she's pretty cute [laughs] and does her dances and so on.

    16. CSChatri Sityodtong1:13:39

        [laughs] Yes.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:13:39

        But what a killer also.

    18. CSChatri Sityodtong1:13:42

        She's a beast. She's a beast.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:13:44

        Oh, my God, like when the opponent's backing away and she throws the liver kick. I mean, it's just brutal.

    20. CSChatri Sityodtong1:13:48

        Yes, yes.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:13:49

        But, but the way that you tell the story, and also because you have such privileged access and focus on Muay Thai as well, and as you mentioned, poor person sport, that's how a lot of people hope to get out of poverty. They start fighting when they're really young. And you have this incredible human interest story, and you guys do a masterful job of combining that with spectacular fight footage. But yes, there's always some luck involved.

    22. CSChatri Sityodtong1:14:15

        I, I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of the controllable factors. So the controllable factors, obviously, you have to know what the combat sport fan wants, okay? But at the same time, if you're only appealing to the combat sports fan, it's a smaller market.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:14:29

        Mm-hmm.

    24. CSChatri Sityodtong1:14:29

        But if you're able to tell a story and make it more mainstream, again, about abject poverty or tragedy or adversity, whatever it may be, that can transcend beyond combat sports fan and go viral around the world to human interest stories. So of course, one is my team and I, and I was literally the first social media manager, and I understood that you have to crack the algorithm. But if you just blindly follow the algorithm, you'll put out junk because you're just chasing endlessly.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:14:58

        Yeah.

    26. CSChatri Sityodtong1:14:59

        You have to be very clear about who do you wanna be, what are you trying to communicate, and what are you trying to do by giving this video to your fans? We always say we want to evoke emotion, strong emotion: laughter, sadness, inspiration, awe. Something very like, "Oh, my God. Oh, wow." Something that's gonna be surprise and delight you in your day, so you're gonna hang out with us and watch 10 times a day when you go, whenever you go TikTok, Instagram, wherever, or Douyin, Kuaishou, Weibo in, in China, et cetera. But at the same time, you have to be true to why we started this company. You have to be true to real martial arts, finishes, real Bushido, the warrior way, not bastardizing or cheapening it into some sort of street fight thug by having your athletes create fake drama about hating each other or whatever it is. That's just not what I think will transcend and become truly mainstream. I think at the end of the day, people wanna watch, all over the world, the very best of the best go at it, but they wanna know the stories behind why this person is what they're doing and, and why he or she is where they're at, and what are the stakes of this fight. And of course, we have to be very sharp about every single platform has a specific algorithm that it's looking for and marry that. That's all the skills aspect of what we can control. But what I mean by luck is you look at the mobile device, okay? Millennial and Gen Zs, which make up 80% of our audience today, what do they do? Their first window of media consumption is their mobile device. They wake up in the morning, they look at TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, whatever it is. They look at it 10, 20 times a day. Before they go to bed, that's the last point of media consumption. What does that mean? You need to dominate the mobile device.

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:16:42

        Mm-hmm.

    28. CSChatri Sityodtong1:16:43

        And that was what we did in 2014. We said to ourselves, "We're going to dominate the mobile device." And guess what? Why is this lucky? 'Cause mobile device took off, Facebook took off, all the social took off, but the ping pong ball, the tennis ball, the soccer ball, the basketball, the football, you cannot see clearly on a mobile device.

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:17:03

        Yeah.

    30. CSChatri Sityodtong1:17:04

        And I'll give you a great example. When Naomi Osaka won the US Open for the first time, and I remember 'cause she's half Japanese, right?
19. 1:22:00 – 1:37:41

    Chatri’s $100 million breakfast with Sequoia Capital.

    1. CSChatri Sityodtong1:22:00

       ONE can be.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:22:01

       Let me take you back to the pain and suffering for a second. So you're struggling, struggling. "Mom, I want to quit." "Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. You should quit." [laughs]

    3. CSChatri Sityodtong1:22:13

       Yeah. [laughs]

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:22:13

       And then you're like, "Wait a fucking second."

    5. CSChatri Sityodtong1:22:15

       Yes.

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:22:15

       And it's not working, it's not working. Suddenly you have some graphs to show from social media, "Hey, broadcaster in country X, this is what's happening in your backyard, and yes, these numbers are small, but take a look at the growth rate." And so the, the tide starts to shift, and then you seem to hit an inflection point. And I've had Roelof Botha on, on this show before from Sequoia. How important or unimportant was that meeting that you had with Michael Moritz and Douglas Leone? And for people who don't know who they are, these guys are kingmakers. I mean, they are the top of the top Wizard of Oz venture capitalists behind so many successes we could spend the next 30 minutes listing them all off. I mean, these guys are absolute icons. Was that meeting important? And then assuming it was, how on earth did it happen, and what did you do in that meeting that made the impression it made?

    7. CSChatri Sityodtong1:23:18

       I call it the $100 million breakfast, because-

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:23:21

       [laughs]

    9. CSChatri Sityodtong1:23:22

       ... Sequoia Asia orchestrated it.

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:23:25

        Mm.

    11. CSChatri Sityodtong1:23:25

        They thought we were onto something very big, and they said, "Mike Moritz and Douglas Le- Leone are coming, and we're only booking a handful of meetings for them, because they're a very busy schedule."

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:23:35

        What was the organization that, that helped book it for you?

    13. CSChatri Sityodtong1:23:38

        Sequoia Capital Asia.

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:23:39

        Oh, Sequoia Asia.

    15. CSChatri Sityodtong1:23:40

        It was the managing director at Sequoia Asia, run by Shailendra Singh. Okay?

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:23:44

        Yeah.

    17. CSChatri Sityodtong1:23:45

        And he was the managing partner.

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:23:47

        How did you connect with them in the first place?

    19. CSChatri Sityodtong1:23:50

        So this is, [laughs] this is what I mean about serendipity. Long story cut short, it was April, around April of 2016. We had hired a small investment bank and we said, "We want to now go raise institutional funding," and we didn't have any institutions at the time. It was still bootstrapping, but we think we had enough to go raise institutional funding. We had a slide with our metric, a couple of slides with our metrics, all these hockey stick charts, and that was, I think 4:00 the meeting ended with our bank. We walk out, and now we didn't think anything of it. Two hours later, the investment banker calls us and says, "Sequoia Asia wants to meet you." And we're like, "How did you... What?"

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:24:32

        [laughs]

    21. CSChatri Sityodtong1:24:34

        This investment banker, he walked into the elevator, and Shailendra Singh, the managing partner of Sequoia Asia, was in the elevator.

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:24:43

        [laughs]

    23. CSChatri Sityodtong1:24:44

        He happened to be carrying the ONE Championship slides, the, the hockey stick charts, and Shailendra said to our investment bank, Ripple Dot is the name of the thing, and our investment banker was a guy named Atin Kukreja. He, he turns to him and says, "What company is that?" And all these hock- And he goes, "Oh, it's a, it's a sports company called ONE Championship." "What is that?" And on the elevator ride, Shailendra decided, "I want a meeting with these guys. I'm gonna fund them-"

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:25:08

        [laughs]

    25. CSChatri Sityodtong1:25:10

        "... off of the metric."

    26. TFTim Ferriss1:25:11

        That's bananas. [laughs]

    27. CSChatri Sityodtong1:25:12

        This is literally what happened. So on Sunday, it was a Sunday, because Sequoia Asia demanded to meet us, to meet me-

    28. TFTim Ferriss1:25:19

        Mm-hmm

    29. CSChatri Sityodtong1:25:19

        ... meet me.

    30. TFTim Ferriss1:25:19

        Yeah.
20. 1:37:41 – 1:41:18

    Making deals with CAA’s Fabian Stechel.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:37:41

       Whether it was before the Sequoia meeting or afterwards, what were the most important broadcaster/platform deals? Of course, I'm based in the US, so Amazon Prime leaps to my mind, but maybe that wasn't the most important. Because sometimes, as you know, to grease the path for all of your future larger customers, you need one marquee customer, and maybe the marquee customer was not in the US, it was somewhere else that kind of de-risked the proposition for other folks like Amazon Prime. I have no idea. So I'm just curious what some of the most important initial dominoes were in that kind of broadcaster-

    2. CSChatri Sityodtong1:38:21

       Yeah

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:38:21

       ... ecosystem and how they happened.

    4. CSChatri Sityodtong1:38:24

       I don't know where I read this, but I read this saying of like, "Go chase your dream and the path will appear." Okay?

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:38:33

       Mm-hmm.

    6. CSChatri Sityodtong1:38:33

       "And the people will appear." Something along that lines. Okay. I'm screwing up the quote. But when I started this thing, it is crazy how much luck, again, just like that breakfast I said, right? But around that same time, a guy named Fabian Stechel from CAA, which CAA is the second-largest agency business, right? They do media rights for all the major sports properties. They have all the major Hollywood stars, and you know, it's-

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:39:00

       Huge, huge talent agency.

    8. CSChatri Sityodtong1:39:02

       Yeah, exactly. Very proud. But they, but they do all the sports media rights properties and, you know, uh, negotiates that. Literally in two thousand and sixteen, two thousand and seven, around that same time period, Fabian and I, we met over video call because one of the divisions within CAA was looking at potentially investing in us.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:39:23

       Mm-hmm.

    10. CSChatri Sityodtong1:39:24

        And Fabian and I just hit it off. And he's based in New York.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:39:28

        What is his job, or what was his job there?

    12. CSChatri Sityodtong1:39:30

        Oh, he's still there. He's, he's a very senior person. He's basically in charge of selling media rights for properties, for the biggest sports properties.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:39:38

        I gotcha.

    14. CSChatri Sityodtong1:39:38

        I think he did NASCAR. I forget which ones, but the very big ones, MLB, et cetera. And again, like almost ten years ago, he spotted us. He was in this meeting where the investment arm of CAA was looking at, to invest at, at an early-stage company like ours, and Fabian was from the meteorite side, and Fabian and I hit it off, and he actually was the one that helped orchestrate this Amazon deal. But that's what I mean, Tim. Along the way, so many incredible people appeared and just suddenly believed in what we were doing, believed in, in that the world needed a major global sports property out of the continent of Asia. 'Cause if you think about it, all the big sports properties around the world, global sports property, only came from the West.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:40:24

        Mm-hmm.

    16. CSChatri Sityodtong1:40:25

        We're literally the first and only global sports property coming out of the East, sending content around the world. Okay? Maybe they saw that the addressable market was huge. Maybe they saw the brand. It's hard for me to know exactly.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:40:36

        How did you initially connect with, was it Fabian?

    18. CSChatri Sityodtong1:40:39

        Yeah. CAA.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:40:41

        Did you just get a cold email one day?

    20. CSChatri Sityodtong1:40:44

        So I might be getting the dates wrong, but I think when Sequoia announced they invested in us, that came with a lot of interest.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:40:53

        Yeah, for sure. [laughs]

    22. CSChatri Sityodtong1:40:53

        Right?

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:40:54

        Yeah. [laughs]

    24. CSChatri Sityodtong1:40:54

        Mike Morris, Douglas Leone investing in ONE. Again, CAA's division that invests contacted us, and we did a call. But what transpired from there was a friendship with Fabian, and again, he was instrumental in helping us crack the US market. And CAA was also instrumental in getting us Sky Sports in the UK. You know, that's the biggest sports broadcaster. It's the ESPN of whatever it is, of UK, of Europe.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:41:17

        Hmm. Huge.

21. 1:41:18 – 1:44:03

    A serendipitous meeting that resulted in investment from Qatar.

    1. CSChatri Sityodtong1:41:18

       It's literally one thing after another. I'll give you a great example, okay? Another great example. I am on this panel for Milken Institute.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:41:28

       Mm.

    3. CSChatri Sityodtong1:41:28

       It's a conference, a business conference. I'm on this sports panel, and literally next to me is a name, now a very close brother, a friend, named Hassan Al Thawadi, who at the time was chairman of FIFA Qatar.

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:41:44

       Mm-hmm.

    5. CSChatri Sityodtong1:41:44

       The World Cup Qatar. And this was also, like eight years ago. So we're sitting on a panel, and then it's NBA, and then it's F1. And they just sat us next to each other. And Hassan turns to me and says, "Chatri, I want to meet you afterwards." I said, "Oh, yeah, of course." We have this meeting and he's like, "Chatri, I've been doing Muay Thai for like five years. I love Demetrius Johnson. I love Ruotang." And we had this one-hour powwow, and I'm like thinking, "This is the chairman of Qatar World Cup," which is gonna be happening in, I think, I don't know, four or five years from now, right? And he's like, "Chatri, hey, why don't you come to Qatar? Just I want to show you around." "Hassan." And we became very fast friends, and I flew to Qatar for the first time during COVID in twenty twenty. Everything was shut down. I got some special visa to leave the country of Singapore and got some special visa to be allowed to enter Qatar. I go there, and now I've been to Qatar, and Qatar's literally like [chuckles] a second home to me now. Qatar Investment Authority, the, the government of Qatar invested in ONE as a result of this, me sitting in Milken next to Hassan Al Thawadi, who is literally like a brother now [chuckles] , who's a martial artist like you, Tim, okay?

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:42:52

       Time-wise, just to put it on the timeline, was that after or before the, the Sequoia investment?

    7. CSChatri Sityodtong1:42:58

       That was after.

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:42:59

       After.

    9. CSChatri Sityodtong1:43:00

       That was around the same time, maybe two thousand and seventeen, two thousand and eighteen. Sequoia was around two thousand and seventeen, so maybe a year after that.

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:43:05

        Yep.

    11. CSChatri Sityodtong1:43:05

        What happened was after the word got out in Asia, but around the world that Mike and Doug personally, or GGF, it's called the Sequoia Global Growth Fund, which is managed by them, by Doug and Mike, invested in ONE. That's when we got invited to speak at Milken-

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:43:21

        Mm-hmm

    13. CSChatri Sityodtong1:43:21

        ... you know, World Economic Forum. Like it just suddenly all the pieces started coming, coming together. But at each of these things was somebody who loved martial arts or saw the purity of what ONE was doing and how different it was from anything else that existed on the, on the planet. Yeah, it was one thing after another. And again, like when you opened this talk, you said, "Hey, I have this-" This WhatsApp group with my buddies who are all... And your friend Doug introduced you to this one. That is literally how all the dots have connected, is like somebody saw the-- And then you said, "Chatri, I don't mean to offend you, but it, it reminds me of Pride in K-One." And of course, I know your background having lived in Japan. I'm sure we're gonna end up training together, okay? Like-

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:43:59

        [laughs]

    15. CSChatri Sityodtong1:43:59

        ... just these weird things, you know?

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:44:00

        Just know you have my right elbow.

    17. CSChatri Sityodtong1:44:01

        Yeah. [laughs]

22. 1:44:03 – 1:47:58

    Changing lives and building relationships across generations with martial arts.

    1. CSChatri Sityodtong1:44:03

       The weirdest coincidences, I'm telling you, man. I really believe that sometimes when you chase a dream that's aligned fully with your passion and your purpose in life. My purpose? My mom told me from when I was a five that I'm here to help the world or help people. And how do I help people today, you say? Well, our athletes, we change their lives, and through the stories of our athletes, we inspire all of our fans to live their greatest life. Every week, we give magical memories to families with their fathers and sons or daughters watching in front of the TV. Like, I'll give you something in Thailand again, which you're very familiar with. In Thailand, ONE Championship is like as big if not bigger than NFL or NBA is in America. The number of fans have come up to me and said, "I spend time with my father more than I've ever spent because of ONE Championship. Because every Friday as a family, we sit down in front of the TV and we watch ONE Championship." Man, like that is exactly how I got introduced to Muay Thai.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:45:01

       Yeah.

    3. CSChatri Sityodtong1:45:02

       My father took me to Lumpinee Stadium, which you have been, when I was nine years old. And despite all the, you know, I had a complicated relationship with my father, didn't see him for decades. A lot of anger, a lot of hatred. But in the end, I'm full of gratitude for all the good he did for me. And without him, I would never have found my greatest love, which is martial arts. When I was nine years old, and the fact that that's my most poignant memory of my father to this day, and that magical memory is happening all over the country of seventy million people in Thailand, where I grew up. I just came back from Thailand and it still doesn't register. It's wild. I land in the country and it's like, imagine, Tim, if you had started NFL and it became popular in your lifetime, let's just say in America, and everyone knew Tim started NFL. It's like that.

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:45:48

       Yeah. It's wild.

    5. CSChatri Sityodtong1:45:49

       It's the most surreal experience as a kid growing up in Thailand and to see what's happened now. But now I, I really do believe that my mom's words about helping others. Somehow it all, it all feels almost like destiny, you know? My father named me Warrior. He took me to Muay Thai. I was so obsessed with it, and I am still obsessed with it, that it became my life. And I could have had a very comfortable life in the investment world as a hedge fund manager or an entrepreneur in other business or whatever. You know, I could have done real estate or whatever it is. But somehow, it's the weirdest thing. I, I just feel like my destiny is to be here, right here, right at this moment, and everything that came with it. And all the, the good, bad, and ugly that happened in my life somehow have led me to this moment, right? Sorry to be so, a little bit cornball with you. You know, I'm a very philosophical guy. I think deeply about the meaning of life, and I think deeply about what is it that I want to do. Do meaning that I don't own a lot of fast cars. I own a Toyota. I don't have any material desires. It's kind of weird. I, I don't have, uh, you know, this is a G-Shock watch. I don't have many material things. I have almost nothing. And it's because I just learned a long time ago being poor that all that kind of stuff is attaching yourself to material things versus attaching yourself to a purpose or meaning of life, right? I don't know. I found much more deeper fulfillment and happiness having found and aligned my passion, my purpose, than I ever did buying any- anything material.

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:47:30

       Well, I also imagine, given your background and experiences, that attaching yourself to material goods or just subconsciously becoming attached to them as you accumulate them and value them more and more highly feels like skating on very thin ice compared to purpose, which is much, much harder to take away. Just seems like psychologically it makes all the sense in the world. And

23. 1:47:58 – 1:57:58

    Recommended reading and admirable storytellers.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:47:58

       I'd love to ask, uh, I, I have a lot of questions remaining. I am definitely gonna ask you, I'll plant the seed about Henzo. I want to hear more about Henzo and his role in your life.

    2. CSChatri Sityodtong1:48:08

       Yeah.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:48:08

       Before we get to that though, I want to ask a few specific questions. You mentioned philosophy. I also recall the One Up on Wall Street [laughs] Lynch book. And I'm wondering if, if there are any books that you have either reread quite a bit on your own or gifted to other people. And this comes to mind because y- you're attracting talent, right? You're cultivating talent and stakeholders. And I've been involved with quite a lot of companies since two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, and I remember, you know, visiting the Shopify offices for the first time because I was the, their first advisor in like two thousand and eight or nine.

    4. CSChatri Sityodtong1:48:54

       Crazy. What an incredible story.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:48:56

       Yeah, those guys are incredible. And they have, at least at the time that I visited, they had, for instance, Andy Grove, High Output Management, and a few other books that they would give to everyone when they became an employee or at least someone in a management position at Shopify. So for all these reasons, I'm, I'm just curious if there are any books that stand out to you that you've reread or that you've gifted or recommended to other people.

    6. CSChatri Sityodtong1:49:23

       I don't have one book that I go to, but I would say a few books that I think are very interesting. One is a book that recently came out called "32 Principles" by a friend of mine, Rener Gracie. So he's part of the Gracie family, the jujitsu family.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:49:38

       Yeah. Mm-hmm.

    8. CSChatri Sityodtong1:49:38

       And the "32 Principles" relates to jujitsu, but it's a double meaning. Each principle is also relating to how to live life, okay? And And I found that to be a very powerful, almost like Bible of what martial arts has been for me, but also how I also have inherited from jujitsu, uh, doing for about twenty years, and all the life lessons that applies. It's very simple things. It's, you know, like in jujitsu, if you force something, it often doesn't come to you. If you align and connect and you go with the flow, you'll be able to catch that submission.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:50:21

       Mm-hmm.

    10. CSChatri Sityodtong1:50:21

        You'll be able to choke someone out or get an arm bar, whatever. But oftentimes when you go for something directly and you force it, it's a very good analogy for life. You know, certain things that you can't force passion or purpose. It's either that's your true self or you're faking it. If you're faking to yourself, you only get so far and you'll fake it to the world. That's one book that I think I would recommend anybody to read, whether you do jujitsu or not. There's a lot of powerful lessons in that. And sorry, it's, you know, very martial arts because I'm always martial arts obsessed. Another person that I think, books, and there's a lot of books on Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee is someone, and people may think of, may not truly understand. Bruce Lee was, yes, he was a world-class martial artist, but he was a, a very deep person in how he thought about life and meaning of life. And so reading his philosophies has always had a major impact. The Tao of Jeet Kune Do, his first martial arts book, but there's a lot of stuff on Bruce Lee about how he lived life and all that. And one quote that comes to mind is he says, he said many, many, many years ago, right? When he was alive, "Don't pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a hard one."

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:51:35

        Hmm.

    12. CSChatri Sityodtong1:51:35

        And the meaning of that, why would you want to do that? You pray for the strength for a hard one because a hard life is often a meaningful life. Love, pain, suffering. You're going-- Because you're pursuing something oftentimes bigger than yourself that there involves love, pain, and suffering such that the path is going to be hard. Praying for an easy life means you wasted your potential as a human being. I have an easy life, meaning I never was given a challenge. I was in the lap of luxury my whole life or whatever it is, or I had food on my plate. I never went through any adversity. So Bruce Lee is someone I talk a lot about, I, I quote a lot, but I also look at even modern-day heroes, including our, our athletes and their stories in terms of whenever, like we'll have a company meeting, and it's completely unrelated to, to martial arts, but every month we have a, an award called Be Like Nick. Goes to the employees, our teammates who go above and beyond the call of duty in their work and do the extraordinary, and we tell the story of it. And why is it called like Be Like Nick? Because it's about Nick Vujicic. So there's this motivational speaker who's born with no arms and no legs. I don't know if you know Nick Vujicic.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:52:54

        Yeah. I think I've shared his videos in my newsletter actually years ago.

    14. CSChatri Sityodtong1:52:58

        I think he's from Australia. He's born with no arms and legs. Tried to commit suicide when he was nine by drowning himself in the bathtub because he was endlessly bullied and had no future, and his mom saved him. Incredible life. Incredible life story, and incredible optimism and sense of if he can make it and become one of the world's greatest motivational speakers. He has a beautiful wife. I think he has three kids. Incredible life. And we started this Be Like Nick award several years ago. And those are my tools for how to teach, because I, I just feel like sometimes for me as a leader, if you hand people books, they may or may not read them, but they may or may not be... That's not how they learn.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:53:36

        Mm-hmm.

    16. CSChatri Sityodtong1:53:36

        I find storytelling to be the most powerful way to live and exemplify the values of, of your company, of your organization by like Be Like Nick, these stories. Rather than say, "Everyone be good. Don't lie, don't cheat," or whatever it is the values, right? It's better to tell stories of real-life heroes within your own company that exemplify your values, that exemplify what it means to do extraordinary things, and hence Be Like Nick. And I know I'm not answering your question directly about books. There's so many books I would... You know? So if you want to know about investing-

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:54:09

        Bridging to the storytelling is great. I mean, it can be a physical book, but it's, it's more a metaphor for teaching, right? In this particular case, learning/teaching. So I think the, the storytelling maps into that. Are there any, any people who you have looked up to or who you admire for their storytelling ability? It could be within the world of business. Uh, you know, I remember one of my most nerve-wracking interviews very, very early on that I had was with Ed Catmull, who at the time was president of Pixar, and he wrote a book called Creativity, Inc., and it talks about storytelling quite a lot. The reason that was so nerve-wracking, it was the first person I did not know who I interviewed on the podcast. [laughs] I was really, really nervous. But are there any folks you look up to as storytellers in the way you describe it or otherwise?

    18. CSChatri Sityodtong1:55:03

        Outside of my family, my greatest role model is Kru Yodthong Senanan, who is the founder of SitYodthong Camp, SitYodthong Gym, which is where I cut my teeth for Muay Thai. He was a very philosophical man, and he died penniless. But he didn't die penniless because he was materialistic, or he wasted money, or he was into gambling or anything. No. He died penniless because all of his money, all the time, every year, was given to those less fortunate. His whole mission in life was when he built SitYodthong Gym, it was the number one in the entire world at one point in Muay Thai, producing the most number of world champions, the most fierce fighting gym in the world. And his whole philosophy was giving to orphans and underprivileged kids, and he wanted to share the art of Muay Thai, and he would fund their food, their education, and et cetera. And a few years before he died, I think five or six years before he died, he won 56 million baht, which is about a million, almost $2 million in the lottery.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:56:10

        In the lottery? Wow. [laughs]

    20. CSChatri Sityodtong1:56:12

        Yes. Okay? The crazy thing, he got the money, the next day literally, he announced on, in the media, "Anyone who wants me to give you money, just come to the gym, tell me your story, and I'll give you what I believe is appropriate." And I'm not kidding, thousands of people showed up.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:56:29

        [laughs]

    22. CSChatri Sityodtong1:56:29

        Thousands. And people would say, "My mom is dying of cancer," and he would give 10,000, what- whatever, until it was all gone. This is a true story. You can even Google it and it's there. He was somebody, again, had the most big impact in my life, and he was an incredible storyteller. He would tell us stories of, of legendary fighters and why they became great and how they lived their life. And he taught, he was someone never smoked, never drank, and, you know, the whole bunch of other tenets. And to this day, his words are in my, in my head.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:57:02

        Mm.

    24. CSChatri Sityodtong1:57:02

        His lessons are in my head. A powerful storyteller for me is someone who tells a story, but embedded in it is a deep lesson, because that's how I think knowledge and experience gets passed on. So I don't have anybody in the modern era. I'm just thinking about who tells a good story. I mean, of course, I have friends who tell good stories, funny stories, but I don't... There's nobody I look up to, per se. But storytelling is definitely a very big part of my leadership, as it is a very big part of the ONE Championship brand, in terms of if you look at our broadcast on Amazon, you'll see these storytelling videos before they fight, right? It's why are they fighting? What is at stake? Is it because their mom is dying of cancer, they gotta pay the hospital bills? Is it because they wanna be the greatest in the world and the belt is everything they've ever dreamed of? What is at stake and what is the story? Because that's what we believe, okay? Yes, there's gonna be a fantastic knockout, and you and your buddies will appreciate it because it's, it's martial arts at the highest levels.

24. 1:57:58 – 1:59:34

    A gracious invitation.

    1. CSChatri Sityodtong1:57:58

       By the way, Tim, we haven't announced it yet, but we have a, a major event in Tokyo later this year.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:58:03

       Oh, man.

    3. CSChatri Sityodtong1:58:04

       I haven't announced it. I won't give the date yet.

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:58:05

       [laughs]

    5. CSChatri Sityodtong1:58:06

       But I would like to invite you as my personal guest to come to Tokyo. We sit cage-side together, okay? And Sayama Sensei will be there.

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:58:13

       Oh, [laughs] man.

    7. CSChatri Sityodtong1:58:14

       Just because of your background. And I'm telling you-

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:58:16

       Thank you. That's amazing

    9. CSChatri Sityodtong1:58:17

       ... when you sit there and you watch all the videos, all the life stories, you will walk away, Tim Ferriss, with a magical memory and some powerful lesson. You're in the incredible seat of meeting so many different incredible human beings, and you have extraordinary humans your, your whole career, that it might not be that special, but I promise you, given your background of lo- loving Japan, speaking Japanese, loving martial arts, and being who you are, you will love sitting there. And then I'll take you backstage, you'll see the speech, you go meet the guys. That, for me, is storytelling.

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:58:46

        Yeah.

    11. CSChatri Sityodtong1:58:46

        You will walk away with some powerful memories and lessons. And I'm inviting you for real.

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:58:50

        All right.

    13. CSChatri Sityodtong1:58:50

        So-

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:58:51

        Yes. I would absolutely love to do that. So you can let me know the dates-

    15. CSChatri Sityodtong1:58:54

        Yes, yes

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:58:55

        ... on the bat phone. That sounds amazing. A- and, you know, I think I actually bumped into Sayama Satoru once when I was, like, 15 or 16, 'cause I saved up all my money and I went to one shooto match.

    17. CSChatri Sityodtong1:59:09

        Amazing.

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:59:09

        And then the announcers were like, "Sayama Satoru, Shodai Tiga Mask,"" and then he came out and did the whole thing, and I just remember being so in awe, also of the guy's thighs, the size of his legs and his head kicks.

    19. CSChatri Sityodtong1:59:26

        Yeah. [laughs]

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:59:27

        Just unbelievable, but that sounds like an amazing experience, so thank you for that invitation. I would, I would love

25. 1:59:34 – 2:04:14

    Where in the world is ONE enjoyed most?

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:59:34

       to talk about that.

    2. CSChatri Sityodtong1:59:34

       Yes.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:59:35

       So, Chatri, I'd love to ask you just some real quick kinda paint-by-the-numbers ONE questions. On a broadcast and online level, from a distribution perspective, what are your biggest countries?

    4. CSChatri Sityodtong1:59:52

       You mean in terms of viewership or in terms of revenue?

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:59:55

       In terms of viewership.

    6. CSChatri Sityodtong1:59:56

       In terms of viewership, well, obviously, you know, the continent of Asia for us is quite large.

    7. TFTim Ferriss2:00:01

       If you thin slice it within Asia, are there any... For instance, when I'm looking at the podcast, I can go into Spotify or whatever the platform analytics might be and say, "Okay, looks like, you know, US, within the US, these, these particular states or cities, then you have this, this, this, this, this."

    8. CSChatri Sityodtong2:00:17

       So one way to think about it is when we throw events, and it doesn't matter what time of day we throw events, where do we trend around the world is also a very important metric we look at because, yeah, I can list our top 10 countries, but surprisingly, they don't always correlate. So for example, again, I'll give you example. In, in March-

    9. TFTim Ferriss2:00:37

       Mm

    10. CSChatri Sityodtong2:00:37

        ... when we were in Tokyo, it's Asia primetime show on a Sunday. We trended number two or three in America. America's not a large market for us, but we have a rabid fan base and a very growing fan base, and there's obviously a lot of local promotions in the US.

    11. TFTim Ferriss2:00:54

        Mm-hmm.

    12. CSChatri Sityodtong2:00:55

        But for sure Asia, like countries like China, Japan, Thailand, these are obviously big countries, you know. India. But what I say to the team is our 500 million fans are, are scattered all around the world, so in any given one country might be small, right? It might be a million fans. But in another country, okay, like Thailand, definitely one of our top markets, 70 million people population and 70 million people are fans. Like [laughs] there's no question, right?

    13. TFTim Ferriss2:01:25

        [laughs]

    14. CSChatri Sityodtong2:01:26

        So that might be one country that overindexes. But Philippines is the same way. Philippines we're top two or top three sports property.

    15. TFTim Ferriss2:01:33

        I have an assistant in the Philippines who went to one of your shows live in Manila, actually.

    16. CSChatri Sityodtong2:01:37

        And it depends on who's world champion at the time. So this is another funny thing, is when we have a world champion from XYZ country... Okay, I'll, I'll give you example. Actually, it's, it's on my Instagram, although I, I'm not very social media... That's funny. As a social media expert, I'm not very social media-

    17. TFTim Ferriss2:01:52

        Engaged? [laughs]

    18. CSChatri Sityodtong2:01:52

        ... active.

    19. TFTim Ferriss2:01:53

        Oh, yeah.

    20. CSChatri Sityodtong2:01:53

        Yeah, engaged on my own personal ones, because I just find it to be very laborious, and I'd rather focus on the, on the, on the business. [laughs]

    21. TFTim Ferriss2:02:00

        Yeah.

    22. CSChatri Sityodtong2:02:00

        But I do have one clip up there where when China won its first world champion, okay, Tang Kai- First MMA world champion. The C- CCTV Five, which is the central government of China, came out on TV and online and on print. Jiayou, which means yay.

    23. TFTim Ferriss2:02:19

        Jiayou, yeah.

    24. CSChatri Sityodtong2:02:21

        China won its first world championship in ONE Championship.

    25. TFTim Ferriss2:02:24

        Mm.

    26. CSChatri Sityodtong2:02:25

        It was all over. He came back home and he, this is the, the clip. To 10,000 people, the government threw a thing. 10,000 fans, and they're all holding their phones. His welcome home was crazy. We did, like, a billion organic video views on that single fight. It was n- not that big given that China is a billion three. But the point is that every time he fights, the numbers in China-- So what I'm saying is this blob of 500 million is growing, but what we have seen is that the pockets of popularity depends on, you know, who's the most popular world champions at the time, where are they fighting, what country, right? So, like, recently in Japan, our numbers just blew up, right, in, in March, as I mentioned, because of the Saitama event. But previously to that, Takeru had fought, but he blew up the-- 'cause he unfortunately got knocked out in the first round. I mean, the best way to think about it, it's a blob, and the blob around the world ebbs and flows based on where the events are, what time zones, 'cause sometimes we have US primetime events, sometimes it's Asia primetime, and sometimes we're in-- throwing events in, like, in Denver, and sometimes we're in Doha, Qatar. So I think that's the best way to describe it.

    27. TFTim Ferriss2:03:32

        Mm-hmm.

    28. CSChatri Sityodtong2:03:32

        But every metric we look at, depending on country, I think almost every country I look at, 'cause I look at these stats across the world, two X, three X, four X. If it's four X, it's, you know, obviously us- usually a small base. These are the kind of numbers. We have hockey stick charts, like, almost every week. I don't know of a country that is down.

    29. TFTim Ferriss2:03:50

        Yeah.

    30. CSChatri Sityodtong2:03:50

        And just off the top of my head. Combat sports is growing so fast.
26. 2:04:14 – 2:05:48

    Dealing with AI development and deep fakes.

    1. TFTim Ferriss2:04:14

       Mm-hmm. A few follow-up questions. Actually, a comment, then follow-up questions. The comment is, and I've, I started thinking this around 2020, 2021 during COVID, but particularly I'm tracking, and I, you know, invest in some of these companies too, but I'm tracking AI development really, really closely, and recently dealt with a deep fake video of me promoting stocks and some scam, which was 99% convincing.

    2. CSChatri Sityodtong2:04:41

       Wow.

    3. TFTim Ferriss2:04:42

       I mean, this is fake video.

    4. CSChatri Sityodtong2:04:43

       Wow.

    5. TFTim Ferriss2:04:44

       Background, clothing, facial hair, everything except for a few glitches was convincing. And I think as more and more is CGI or AI produced, that man, oh man, one of the last places of refuge for pure authenticity is gonna be live sports. So I just-- I'd be shocked if the growth doesn't continue and if it might even accelerate as people are looking for some type of oasis where they can separate fact from fiction.

    6. CSChatri Sityodtong2:05:16

       That's a very fascinating thing. I've had deep fake videos of me done as well, and it's kind of disturbing actually.

    7. TFTim Ferriss2:05:22

       Yeah.

    8. CSChatri Sityodtong2:05:22

       And this deep fake video, it was just last week. My social media team took it down. It was of me promoting gambling.

    9. TFTim Ferriss2:05:27

       [laughs]

    10. CSChatri Sityodtong2:05:27

        You know, I don't gamble. But we're moving more and more into a world where you don't know what is the truth, what's real news and what's fake news. There's so much manipulation of the media. And then on top of it, now you have AI. It's a scary world that we're gonna be living in, you know, in the next few years.

    11. TFTim Ferriss2:05:46

        Yeah. It's pretty spooky.

27. 2:05:48 – 2:13:41

    Global broadcasting business from behind the scenes.

    1. TFTim Ferriss2:05:48

       Let me follow up on the offices where you have important broadcast relationships, 'cause I'd love to hear more about that. Because I guess as an outsider who knows nothing about the broadcast world, I think, well, once you sign the deal or maybe if, like, Fabian helps put together a deal and you agree on the X year term and when things are gonna be broadcast, like, what is there to do with an office on the ground? I mean, is it just taking people out to nice lunches and making sure they're happy?

    2. CSChatri Sityodtong2:06:21

       When we did our first broadcast deals many years ago, I thought that, "Oh, you just sign the contract and it's done." But actually what happens is every broadcaster has tons of content.

    3. TFTim Ferriss2:06:32

       Mm-hmm.

    4. CSChatri Sityodtong2:06:33

       In, in Amazon's case it's, they have NFL, they have NASCAR, they have WNBA, and of course there's ONE. And of course there's a programming schedule, but humans are humans. We have these teams, and I, I'll give a great example, our Japanese broadcaster. We have weekly meetings with cross-departmental, so programming, marketing, sales, blah, blah, blah, blah.

    5. TFTim Ferriss2:06:51

       Mm.

    6. CSChatri Sityodtong2:06:51

       Check-in every single week in Japan on ground. And it's to make sure that the broadcaster and, and the content is at the right hour, the right number of promos, the highlights. What else can we be doing to grow the viewership? Actually, there's a lot of work that goes behind the scenes to make sure that it's, it's a ratings success and that it continues. The types of athletes. I'll give you an example. So our broadcast partner in Japan, U-NEXT, asked me to sign some Japanese superstars as an example. So having a deep and strong partnership is very, very important. But also usually we have a team, of course with broadcast partnership, but we'll have a team of social media experts as well and athlete ecosystem scouts, okay? So there's kind of three pillars that once you establish a very strong partnership with a broadcast partner, you have a broadcast team that manages everything from marketing and sponsorship sales and promos and highlights and different time slots and shoulder content. And then of course social media, you wanna make sure you're blowing up social media so that you're culturally relevant in that country with the athletes and there's content you're always making and, and of course the athletes are competing so you can also do that. And then the third leg is obviously athlete ecosystem. I'd say those are the three prongs, the, or three pillars rather, that whether it's China or the US or Japan or Thailand or whatever, or Philippines, where we have- Folks, it's, it's usually those three pillars that are at work

    7. TFTim Ferriss2:08:19

       I'd love to just draw up a quick comparison of, say, physical retailers, because I've, I've been learning a lot more about this outside of books. I learned about it within the realm of books and book distribution, but have learned more and more about truly mass retail, which is, I mean, it's just wild how much of an impact mass retail has. Online, yes, like Amazon is a big deal, but predominantly physical retails is still just enormous. Also just for food security in the US, which is kind of wild to think about. But the reason I'm bringing it up is that I'm wondering, and different broadcasters must vary widely, but in the, say, retail space, you go into a large retailer in the US, it's like, okay, if you want an end cap instead of placement down at the knee, then chances are you, you might have to pay for it, right? You want better placement or you want them to sell internally to store managers or, or people who make buying decisions, well, you may have to pay for that, like co-op advertising fees and so on. They're also gonna wanna know, in many cases, what you're doing to drive consumers to them as a retailer/distributor, right? And I'm wondering if there are similar types of asks of ONE from broadcasters.

    8. CSChatri Sityodtong2:09:41

       Hundred percent. So in the media industry, you're either the it content or you're not.

    9. TFTim Ferriss2:09:47

       Mm-hmm.

    10. CSChatri Sityodtong2:09:48

        And if you look at the history of the 13 years of ONE, there were partnerships in the early days where I just had to give the content for free.

    11. TFTim Ferriss2:09:53

        Mm-hmm.

    12. CSChatri Sityodtong2:09:53

        I'm like, "Hey, here are the metrics on social. Please put it on TV."

    13. TFTim Ferriss2:09:57

        Mm-hmm.

    14. CSChatri Sityodtong2:09:58

        And Asia at the time was predominantly still free-to-air TV. It slowly transitioned to digital, but the vast majority, I'd say like maybe two-thirds of the continent is still free-to-air TV. But as we became more and more popular, and you know, again, a champion in China or wherever, and the popularity rises, and of course the ecosystem, whether it's B2B, B2G, it all comes, it coalesces.

    15. TFTim Ferriss2:10:23

        What's B2G? I haven't heard that before. What is that?

    16. CSChatri Sityodtong2:10:26

        Government.

    17. TFTim Ferriss2:10:27

        Oh, got it. Okay.

    18. CSChatri Sityodtong2:10:27

        Yeah, governments, yeah. Because just like F1, we are traveling circus, and our events in different countries are funded by governments because they wanna attract the eyeballs and, and the tourism.

    19. TFTim Ferriss2:10:38

        Oh, interesting. It's like hosting the World Expo or something. It's good for the local economy.

    20. CSChatri Sityodtong2:10:42

        A great example is Qatar. They did World Cup, and what was the after? Okay, so it's actually ONE Champ- F1, they have a few big global sports properties that the governments, the tourism bodies have, have, have funded, right? So with different countries. So in Qatar's case, World Cup was their big bet in terms of introducing themselves to the world, but also building economic and political bridges for Qatar's economic and political system. But also, again, a- an introduction, "Here's Qatar," right? What better way to do it than with the Qatar World Cup, where a few billion people watch for the whole World Cup? Ended up being the best World Cup in history, right, in terms of games and, and, and viewership or not. But how many CEOs flew in and politicians and how many deals were done, and it has been a major catalyst for Qatar's economy and political landscape. It just has, and since then there's been momentum been built with Qatar. Sports has that power because sports properties, when done right, win the hearts and minds of an entire country or entire region or in Olympics case, the entire world, right? And that is what I mean about you're either it or you're not. So some sports properties, and I don't wanna name names, but they just are never gonna be it.

    21. TFTim Ferriss2:12:03

        Mm-hmm.

    22. CSChatri Sityodtong2:12:04

        They're in a genre that the sport is a snooze fest or the sport is long form or it's just uncool or production value's bad, whatever, right?

    23. TFTim Ferriss2:12:12

        Right. And not being the it thing means you don't have leverage.

    24. CSChatri Sityodtong2:12:16

        Correct.

    25. TFTim Ferriss2:12:16

        You're not in a good position.

    26. CSChatri Sityodtong2:12:18

        Right.

    27. TFTim Ferriss2:12:18

        Yeah.

    28. CSChatri Sityodtong2:12:18

        And in the case of ONE, again, it's shades of gray just as it is for NBA. NBA's very strong in America, very strong in Philippines, but Thailand, no one cares about basketball. So every sports, global sports property has this like shades of gray and zones where they're very, very popular and they're it, and you can command a very big price for media rights. So it's exactly like retail. If you have a hot it product that regularly sells out with a very, very fast inventory turns-

    29. TFTim Ferriss2:12:51

        Mm-hmm

    30. CSChatri Sityodtong2:12:51

        ... the shelf space they're gonna give you is premium and the retailer will probably give you a rebate back because it's such a great product and it pulls consumers into the stores. Same thing, so a broadcaster will have 30 different types of programming, news, sports, this, that, da, da, da, da, da. But of course, the crown jewels is the ones that drive viewership, drive cultural relevance. These are the ones that broadcasters will pay premium dollars for, right? So it really, really depends on market by market what the economics are. But in the early days of ONE, literally we gave the content for free to everybody. We just wanted to be on air.
28. 2:13:41 – 2:16:45

    Funds raised and the competitive benefits of being early in the game.

    1. CSChatri Sityodtong2:13:41

       yeah.

    2. TFTim Ferriss2:13:41

       How much funding have you guys raised at this point in total?

    3. CSChatri Sityodtong2:13:45

       We've raised a little over $600 million.

    4. TFTim Ferriss2:13:50

       Mm-hmm.

    5. CSChatri Sityodtong2:13:50

       But the beauty of the sports business, even NBA, NBA has about 1,000 employees globally total, full stop.

    6. TFTim Ferriss2:14:00

       Mm.

    7. CSChatri Sityodtong2:14:01

       It's a $70 billion property because it's an asset-light business that's a platform business that at the end of the day rests on the brand and the media rights, okay? Of course, athletes. But it's not like you have to build to scale globally, okay? Again, we're broadcasting 190 countries around the world every week, okay? Live. It's not like we have to build a factory in 190 countries. We don't need to raise $10 billion. We don't need 20,000 people.

    8. TFTim Ferriss2:14:32

       Mm-hmm.

    9. CSChatri Sityodtong2:14:32

       I think, if I'm not mistaken, very mature sports properties might have 2,000 people maximum. WWE, I think, has... That's not sports, but it's, you know, pseudo sports. That's about 2,000 employees.

    10. TFTim Ferriss2:14:42

        Mm-hmm.

    11. CSChatri Sityodtong2:14:43

        I think it's around there, and that's the beauty of this business. So $600 million is a lot of money, but it's not a lot of money when you think about the viewership that we have, how big we are, right? How popular we are around the world. When you think about our status as a top 10 global sports property.

    12. TFTim Ferriss2:15:01

        Yeah.

    13. CSChatri Sityodtong2:15:02

        I think that's also why people love software companies. Although I would argue that from what Doug Leone was saying, you know, sports properties are far more enduring than a typical SaaS company is or a typical tech startup is.

    14. TFTim Ferriss2:15:16

        Yeah. No, exactly. I mean, it's like I've been involved with companies and seen companies that have raised multiple billions of dollars in their seed series or their series A, right?

    15. CSChatri Sityodtong2:15:27

        Yeah.

    16. TFTim Ferriss2:15:27

        And yes, on one hand, you have the potential for 100x return, or if you're lucky, 1,000x return. Like, that is possible, but also a few PhDs in a lab could design something that completely destroys that company. And there's a certain rapid escape velocity that can be achieved if you're the 1% of the 1%, but very, very hard to defend, typically, right? To develop a moat.

    17. CSChatri Sityodtong2:15:55

        Yep.

    18. TFTim Ferriss2:15:55

        Whereas your business has been, on a lot of levels, like a motherfucker to build.

    19. CSChatri Sityodtong2:16:02

        Yep.

    20. TFTim Ferriss2:16:02

        But once you've hit that critical mass, now you have a beautiful thing to defend.

    21. CSChatri Sityodtong2:16:08

        That's why I said it's less than 1% of 1% that I'm actually standing here with my team that ONE Championship actually survived the 13 years. And the fact that our metrics are just continuing to explode is mind-boggling to me. But we've hit that point now, like any competitor to ONE would have to s- invest a minimum, minimum, I think, of a few billion dollars and at least a decade to be able to catch up with us. But by then, our own metrics will be [chuckles] , you know, multiples of what it is today, right?

    22. TFTim Ferriss2:16:38

        Yeah. If people are looking for business opportunities, they'll choose something else [chuckles] right? Rather than-

    23. CSChatri Sityodtong2:16:43

        Yeah. [chuckles]

    24. TFTim Ferriss2:16:44

        ... try to scale Everest backwards.

29. 2:16:45 – 2:21:06

    Fond regards for Renzo Gracie.

    1. TFTim Ferriss2:16:46

       We didn't get to say much about Renzo Gracie, but I, I want to at least give a shout-out to Renzo-

    2. CSChatri Sityodtong2:16:52

       Yes

    3. TFTim Ferriss2:16:52

       ... because I've only met him very briefly, but what a sweet guy, also an incredible technician and teacher. And, uh, I still remember also some of his finishes from back in the day, like Oleg Taktarov. Oh my God. Like from the back, heel to the face, basically kip up to run across the ring and d- It's just incredible.

    4. CSChatri Sityodtong2:17:13

       You're right. It's Oleg Taktarov, and he was called The Russian Bear was his nickname.

    5. TFTim Ferriss2:17:16

       Yeah.

    6. CSChatri Sityodtong2:17:17

       Renzo was on his back.

    7. TFTim Ferriss2:17:18

       [chuckles]

    8. CSChatri Sityodtong2:17:19

       And then Oleg came in, and then he got up kicked, boom, he falls down. Renzo gets, stands up and throws a right hook and knocks him out. I mean-

    9. TFTim Ferriss2:17:26

       [chuckles]

    10. CSChatri Sityodtong2:17:26

        I'll tell you, Renzo is-

    11. TFTim Ferriss2:17:27

        Yeah

    12. CSChatri Sityodtong2:17:27

        ... someone who has had a profound influence. Not only did I train under the Renzo Gracie banner and, and he gave me my black belt, but we joke. We're brother from another mother. We're always talking at different time zones all hours of the night. I always say he is the candle that lights up all other candles around the world. The number of students like myself that he has all over the world, okay, that are carrying the torch of Renzo Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, but equally important, carrying his values as a human being of... He's genuinely, genuinely the most generous person I've ever met, ever met in my whole life. Generous of his time, of his heart, anything he can do. He's just genuinely. And he and I have been close friends for 20 years plus now, or almost 20 years rather. And actually, he came to the very first ONE Championship show. He flew from New York all the way here just to attend the first one, and at that time we were just a, a startup, a tiny little show. But that's the kind of guy he is. And I don't know if you know, he had his last professional MMA fight in ONE Championship. He was 52 years old, came back and fought PRIDE legend Yuki Kondo in Philippines. 20,000 people standing. It was crazy. And he wins by the most unbelievable, beautiful submission, and then he's on and they just corner him in shoulders, and he's out there, and the fans go crazy, and that is, that's Renzo. I mean... And he gave this incredible speech about age is just a number, and whatever you set your mind and your dreams are, go and live your dreams and have the guts to be who you really are, and that's his last fight.

    13. TFTim Ferriss2:19:14

        Yeah, I did not know that. That's incredible.

    14. CSChatri Sityodtong2:19:17

        Yeah.

    15. TFTim Ferriss2:19:17

        Wow.

    16. CSChatri Sityodtong2:19:17

        He gave that to me as a gift. I mean, I'm telling you, like, of course we paid him, but I'm saying he did not have to fight at 52 years old. 'Cause I said, "Hey, Renzo, can you fight? I'd love you to have your last fight in ONE." And a- again, he's 50, but just epic. He's such a friend. And he did it because he wanted to help grow ONE Championship. He wanted to grow our popularity. He knew that if he fought in it, he'd bring the Gracie family name with it, you know? And, and people would be intrigued about this is his last fight of his career, right? So it's a lot of crazy epic stories, you know? It just... He was actually in Qatar in February at our show. He was in Abu Dhabi for something, but then he came over to Qatar. But he's given me so much about jujitsu knowledge, but he's given much more about how to live life, and it goes back to what my mother said, "You have to help others," and that's Renzo's to the core. Yes, he's the legendary. He's, in my opinion, the most complete Gracie out of the Gracie family, and that's saying a lot because there are a lot of monsters and killers from the Gracie family. Legendary life, legendary career. Left Brazil, nothing but the shirt on his back, came to America, went to New York City. Got cheated by his first partner who took his passport. Incredible story. And then now built the most successful jujitsu academies in America, and fought in Pride, fought in ONE, fought in all the epic promotions. And what a life. What a life. And, but people don't know this about him, is like he is the nicest, the most generous, is the most loving human being, and that's why I said he's the candle that lights up the world.

    17. TFTim Ferriss2:20:51

        He's one of a kind. So deep bow to Renzo. And for people who wanna look him up, Renzo, that is Brazilian-Portuguese with an R. R-E-N-Z-O Gracie.

    18. CSChatri Sityodtong2:21:01

        I'm actually wearing his shirt to represent, represent [laughs] Renzo.

    19. TFTim Ferriss2:21:03

        I can see that. I recognized it. So

30. 2:21:06 – 2:23:52

    Legendary fighters we would love to witness in their prime.

    1. TFTim Ferriss2:21:06

       if you could bring back in their prime a few fighters from the olden days, and these have to be professional competitors, so not Bruce Lee-

    2. CSChatri Sityodtong2:21:17

       Yep

    3. TFTim Ferriss2:21:18

       ... but, you know, Sakuraba, fair game, you know? Ernesto Hoost, fair game. Like, you, you can pick from any time really. You know, Senshai, whatever you wanna pick. But if you were to bring people back in their prime to fight in ONE-

    4. CSChatri Sityodtong2:21:32

       Oh

    5. TFTim Ferriss2:21:32

       ... in any discipline.

    6. CSChatri Sityodtong2:21:34

       Oh my God. That, that's crazy.

    7. TFTim Ferriss2:21:35

       Who would you bring back?

    8. CSChatri Sityodtong2:21:36

       So for MMA, I would get a prime Fedor Emelianenko.

    9. TFTim Ferriss2:21:40

       Yes. The Emperor.

    10. CSChatri Sityodtong2:21:42

        I mean, he's definitely has to go down as one of the greatest in history. I'd bring a prime Renzo Gracie, and maybe even against each other, 'cause Renzo would often give 50 pounds of weight. You know, he'd be fighting at 170, and his opponents would be at 220. But I would love to have Ramon Dekker.

    11. TFTim Ferriss2:22:01

        Oh, so good. [laughs]

    12. CSChatri Sityodtong2:22:02

        Right?

    13. TFTim Ferriss2:22:03

        The rainbow shorts.

    14. CSChatri Sityodtong2:22:04

        Yes.

    15. TFTim Ferriss2:22:05

        Yeah.

    16. CSChatri Sityodtong2:22:05

        And his left hook. He's one of the greatest Muay Thai-

    17. TFTim Ferriss2:22:08

        Oh, I'm sorry. You know what? I was thinking of a different Dutchman. No, I was thinking of a different guy.

    18. CSChatri Sityodtong2:22:12

        Rob Kaman. Rob Kaman.

    19. TFTim Ferriss2:22:13

        Rob Kaman is who I was thinking of.

    20. CSChatri Sityodtong2:22:14

        Yes, yes.

    21. TFTim Ferriss2:22:15

        Yeah, Ramon Dekker-

    22. CSChatri Sityodtong2:22:16

        Is a left hook

    23. TFTim Ferriss2:22:17

        He had-

    24. CSChatri Sityodtong2:22:17

        Yes

    25. TFTim Ferriss2:22:18

        ... he had, what was it, like seven or eight fights against Coban?

    26. CSChatri Sityodtong2:22:21

        Yes, yes. Oh my God, you crazy. Tim-

    27. TFTim Ferriss2:22:23

        [laughs]

    28. CSChatri Sityodtong2:22:23

        ... I had no idea that you w- y- you knew martial arts this deeply. It's a wonder that we have not met before. I'm telling you, I know everybody-

    29. TFTim Ferriss2:22:29

        Yeah

    30. CSChatri Sityodtong2:22:29

        ... in martial arts. You, you know it cold, man. You're an expert. It's crazy.
31. 2:23:52 – 2:26:56

    High marks for Marcelo Garcia.

    1. CSChatri Sityodtong2:23:52

       One, even grappling, I wanna do, so one of the greatest of all time arguably is Marcelo Garcia.

    2. TFTim Ferriss2:23:59

       Yeah. My friend co-founded the school with him in New York City, Josh Waitzkin.

    3. CSChatri Sityodtong2:24:04

       Marcelo's signed to ONE. You know, he had his debut, uh, in January. He wants to fight Tye Ruotolo, who's the current welterweight champion.

    4. TFTim Ferriss2:24:11

       Yeah, Ruotolo brothers are nuts to watch.

    5. CSChatri Sityodtong2:24:14

       Crazy nuts. So getting those two guys, Marcelo versus Tye, I think would probably be the biggest jujitsu match.

    6. TFTim Ferriss2:24:21

       How old is Marcelo now?

    7. CSChatri Sityodtong2:24:23

       41.

    8. TFTim Ferriss2:24:24

       Yeah.

    9. CSChatri Sityodtong2:24:24

       Around there.

    10. TFTim Ferriss2:24:25

        Yeah.

    11. CSChatri Sityodtong2:24:25

        But he's in prime, prime condition. Of course, the last couple years he's battling cancer, but he's cancer-free now.

    12. TFTim Ferriss2:24:31

        Yeah.

    13. CSChatri Sityodtong2:24:31

        And that's why he wanted one last big run.

    14. TFTim Ferriss2:24:34

        Yeah.

    15. CSChatri Sityodtong2:24:34

        And then if he wins a world title in ONE, he will retire as arguably the greatest of all time.

    16. TFTim Ferriss2:24:40

        Yeah. Can I just say a quick thing about Marcelo?

    17. CSChatri Sityodtong2:24:42

        Yeah.

    18. TFTim Ferriss2:24:43

        So people can look up Marcelo. He's famous for the, I guess the Marcelotine, as he calls, a variation on the guillotine, where he kinda levers up-

    19. CSChatri Sityodtong2:24:53

        Yes

    20. TFTim Ferriss2:24:53

        ... one of his arm on the shoulder of the person in his guard. But Marcelo, number one, absolutely one of the sweetest human beings I've ever met in my life.

    21. CSChatri Sityodtong2:25:03

        Yes. Yes.

    22. TFTim Ferriss2:25:04

        So soft-spoken, and just a deeply, deeply kind human.

    23. CSChatri Sityodtong2:25:08

        Yes.

    24. TFTim Ferriss2:25:09

        Secondly, as my friend described it, is able to turn himself on and off better than almost any athlete I've seen, where he would literally, they'd have to find him before his world championship bout, let's just say in a, in a tournament or a finals match for the world championships, because he would be taking a nap under a bleacher.

    25. CSChatri Sityodtong2:25:30

        Yeah. [laughs]

    26. TFTim Ferriss2:25:30

        And they would be like, "Marcelo, you're up. You're up." And he'd go, "Oh, okay." Wake up, kinda, like, shake his head, and then just go from 0 to 10-

    27. CSChatri Sityodtong2:25:38

        Yep

    28. TFTim Ferriss2:25:38

        ... and get out there. And similarly would, would compete against folks, and I guess this is true in, like, ADCC absolute division, and it's true in all Japan judo championships, but he'd compete against guys who were, like, 50, 80, 100 pounds heavier than he was.

    29. CSChatri Sityodtong2:25:52

        Yeah.

    30. TFTim Ferriss2:25:53

        Just an incredible athlete.
32. 2:26:56 – 2:29:12

    How I learned what Chatri calls “flawless” Japanese.

    1. CSChatri Sityodtong2:26:56

       Yeah. So man, th- this has been such a fun interview because I've said a lot of things or told a lot of different stories just unexpectedly because of the way the flow has been. And, and at the same time, had no idea how deep, how deep deep you are 'cause obviously, you know, I did do my work on you, and then I knew y- you did martial arts, but I didn't know how deep. But that's crazy. It's crazy h- how much you know, and, and all the little nuances, too. I mean-

    2. TFTim Ferriss2:27:21

       [laughs]

    3. CSChatri Sityodtong2:27:22

       ... down to Renzo's up kick on Oleg Taktarov. I think that event was called Extreme Fighting Championship or something like that.

    4. TFTim Ferriss2:27:28

       Yeah, it was an oldie. This is way back in the day. This is way back in the day. When I had just come back from Japan, this was probably a few years after I came back from Japan, and, and in Japan, I would always go to the bookstore after school, after judo practice. I did judo.

    5. CSChatri Sityodtong2:27:41

       Yeah.

    6. TFTim Ferriss2:27:42

       And I would f- try to find Kakutogi Jutsushin, which was this magazine that was all martial arts, to see the latest K1 photos and so on, to see what had happened. And that's basically how I forced myself to learn to read, was judo textbooks and Kakutogi Jutsushin.

    7. CSChatri Sityodtong2:27:56

       Wow. How long did you study Ju- 'cause your accent is flawless. It's, like, literally a Japanese accent.

    8. TFTim Ferriss2:28:01

       [laughs] I was there for 11 months. I studied for maybe five months before I got there, and lived with a Japanese host family, went to a Japanese school, wore the, like, seifuku uniform-

    9. CSChatri Sityodtong2:28:14

       Yeah. Wow

    10. TFTim Ferriss2:28:14

        ... every day, and did basically next to no English for the entire almost year-

    11. CSChatri Sityodtong2:28:21

        Wow

    12. TFTim Ferriss2:28:21

        ... that I was there. Then I came back, and I studied a bit more, went to Middlebury Language School.

    13. CSChatri Sityodtong2:28:26

        Got it.

    14. TFTim Ferriss2:28:26

        But really, it was that 11 months and just going, like, 100% gadi bing. Like-

    15. CSChatri Sityodtong2:28:31

        Amazing

    16. TFTim Ferriss2:28:31

        ... get the kanji in a poster, and it's like, I don't care how tired you are, if your senpai made you drink or clean the judo f- [laughs] floor until you were dizzy, like, you have to do 20 characters. Like, it doesn't matter what condition-

    17. CSChatri Sityodtong2:28:45

        Wow

    18. TFTim Ferriss2:28:45

        ... you have to do 20 characters a day, and that was, that was the deal.

    19. CSChatri Sityodtong2:28:49

        Amazing.

    20. TFTim Ferriss2:28:49

        Yeah, that's how it happened. Before we wrap up, I just wanted to ask, is there anything that, uh, you're particularly excited about coming up or anything you wanna point people to? And of course, we'll link to everything in the, in the show notes and elsewhere. But anything coming up that you'd like to highlight for people?

    21. CSChatri Sityodtong2:29:06

        Unfortunately, I can't announce any of our big news. We're right in that kind of, like, quiet period, but about to announce in the next few

33. 2:29:12 – 2:32:11

    Chatri’s billboard and parting thoughts.

    1. CSChatri Sityodtong2:29:12

       weeks.

    2. TFTim Ferriss2:29:12

       So people can find all things ONE Championship at ONEFC.com. Is that the best place to point people?

    3. CSChatri Sityodtong2:29:18

       Yes. Yes.

    4. TFTim Ferriss2:29:19

       All right. Great. For social, is there anywhere in particular you'd like to point people?

    5. CSChatri Sityodtong2:29:23

       Facebook or, or Instagram or TikTok. It's a hashtag. It's just ONECHAMPIONSHIP.

    6. TFTim Ferriss2:29:29

       Okay.

    7. CSChatri Sityodtong2:29:29

       On Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, whatever the, you know, the usual, YouTube.

    8. TFTim Ferriss2:29:33

       The usual. [laughs] All right, guys, ch- check it out. You won't be disappointed. [laughs] The highlights are ridiculous, as are the stories and everything else that we've discussed. Very last question, if you could put anything on a billboard, could be anything, just to get a message out to, metaphorically speaking, many millions or billions of people. Could be a quote, could be anything at all. You know, I was thinking about the love, pain, suffering. Of course, the Bruce Lee quote comes to mind, but it could be anything. Is there anything that you would put up?

    9. CSChatri Sityodtong2:30:05

       Suffering is the path to our greatness, and I say this to all my friends and my relatives, to, and I truly believe this from the bottom of my heart, that suffering is a path to greatness, that oftentimes God or the universe puts us on a path where we, when we're going through it, we suffer. But in hindsight, when you look back on it, it's probably the most beautiful part of the journey. I'm sure, for example, Tim, when you were in Japan not being able to speak English, it was suffering [laughs] for quite a bit.

    10. TFTim Ferriss2:30:40

        Oh, six of the 11 months were brutal. Absolute brutality.

    11. CSChatri Sityodtong2:30:43

        Suffering is a path to our greatness because it brings out the best in us, and it's just, it's a hard thing to understand when you haven't suffered. But when you do suffer, be grateful for the suffering. That's what I always say to myself. When I'm suffering or anything, it's because as long as I have a very powerful reason or why, then you can almost suffer through anything.

    12. TFTim Ferriss2:31:07

        Mm.

    13. CSChatri Sityodtong2:31:08

        So I think suffering is a path to greatness.

    14. TFTim Ferriss2:31:11

        All right. Excellent place to wrap up. Chatri, thank you so much for the time. This has been so much fun for me. I've really looked forward to this. Can't wait to get back in front of a screen or in front of an actual ring [laughs]

    15. CSChatri Sityodtong2:31:27

        [laughs]

    16. TFTim Ferriss2:31:28

        ... to engage with ONE. So let's definitely keep in touch, and I, I really-

    17. CSChatri Sityodtong2:31:31

        Awesome

    18. TFTim Ferriss2:31:31

        ... appreciate you making the time today for, for a very, very wide-ranging and, uh, super rich conversation for me.

    19. CSChatri Sityodtong2:31:38

        Yeah.

    20. TFTim Ferriss2:31:38

        I took a ton of notes, so I, I deeply appreciate it.

    21. CSChatri Sityodtong2:31:41

        Thank you so much, too, Tim. You know, I had a wonderful time. Incredible questions, incredible conversation, and, uh, I look forward to seeing you in Japan together.

    22. TFTim Ferriss2:31:49

        Oh, I'll be there. I'll be there.

    23. CSChatri Sityodtong2:31:50

        [laughs]

    24. TFTim Ferriss2:31:50

        And for everybody listening-

    25. CSChatri Sityodtong2:31:51

        Awesome

    26. TFTim Ferriss2:31:52

        ... we'll link to everything in the show notes, as usual, at tim.blog/podcast. Just search Chatri or ONE Championship, and it will pop right up. And until next time, remember, be just a bit kinder than is necessary to others, but also to yourself. And as always, thanks for tuning in

Episode duration: 2:32:22