Just a few years ago, Brad Robinson was a young, well-paid executive of a corporate private security company in Asia. He had hundreds of employees working beneath him and all the pieces were in place for a financially sustainable future beyond what he could have ever imagined.

Fast-forward to now, though, and Robinson is just days away from making his debut for Asia’s largest MMA organization, ONE FC.

How can these two stories possibly bridge together? It’s been nothing short of wild ride, and according to Robinson, everything changed six years ago when he looked in the mirror and, at 320 pounds, realized his weight had spiraled out of control.

“My professional career took off when I was really young – I was like 20 and had 500 employees all across the States and I just became obsessed with work,” Robinson told MMAjunkie. “That led to travel and travel led to drinking and drinking led to late-night hotel food and all the usual stuff. I didn’t even honestly realize it, but I was just getting fatter and fatter by the day.”

Robinson had always dreamed of becoming a police officer growing up in Oklahoma. However, in his early 20s, he was recruited to work for a top-tier private security firm primarily located in Malaysia.

He quickly moved up the ladder into a high-power position, but with increased power came an increased travel schedule. It got so hectic, in fact, that he can only recall few instances during those years where he wasn’t on a plane or in a hotel room.

“I became a partner in that company and we did a lot of consulting so I was just living on a plane,” Robinson recalled. “Someone would have a highjacking in China or they would have a container of gold or computers taken by pirates in Morocco or Malaysia or Indonesia. I would go deal with it and investigate and consult and figure out the best practices to prevent that from happening. It was a cool gig with great money. I was partner and getting paid really well, but the travel was unbelievable.”

Unfortunately, the natural result of that travel was the inability to exercise. And with that, his weight ballooned out of control

“My last year, I did 210 days of travel,” Robinson said. “It was terrible, but I was young and making crazy money and living this weird, crazy life. It took a toll on my health. Imagine being 26, 27 years old at 300-something pounds in Asia. I didn’t fit in very well.”

As time went on and his weight grew, Robinson became aware a serious problem was beginning to formulate. He had become so accustomed to his way of life that it was nearly impossible to break away from the routine.

That all changed after an unforgettable series of events, the first of which came on a visit to the doctor when he was given the news that if his lifestyle didn’t change, he soon would be diagnosed as a full-blown diabetic.

“I was pre-diabetic,” Robinson said. “I moved to Singapore when I heard my first child was on the way. Because of the move from Malaysia to Singapore, I had to get new insurance. They required me to have key man insurance, which basically means if the plane went down and I was on it, the company would be reimbursed because I was a key member of the company. It was declined because I was severely obese. I went in and did a full blood panel and the doctor pulled me aside and said I was way too young to have this problem. I was pre-diabetic. My blood sugar was all over the place, my insulin was all over the place and I was on the track to very quickly being diabetic if I didn’t get my s–t together.”

Robinson began taking minor steps to get his health back, but once again the beckons of work consumed him. A few months later, the straw that broke the camel’s back arrived. In a moment that will resonate with him forever, Robinson nearly missed out on the birth of his first child because he was too obese to gain entry into the delivery room.

“I went to go into the operating room when my wife was having an emergency cesarean and they almost didn’t let me in because they didn’t have any scrubs or clothing that would actually fit me,” Robinson said. “It wasn’t even close, it was comical. I kind of bullied my way in, but it was a powerful moment when I’m sitting there in the operating room holding my minutes-old son and almost not being able to be there for that because I was too fat.”

It was at that point when Robinson became fully engulfed in the idea that he could no longer exist with his lifestyle. The desire to make drastic change in his life was there, but he had absolutely no idea where to start or what steps to take.

Robinson says it was right around that point when he attended a “white-collar boxing match.” The way he described it, it was a black-tie affair where well-salaried executives would pay money to train boxing for a few weeks and would step in the ring against each other at an event. He was instantly intrigued by that type of competition and was told if he could make the heavyweight limit, he could participate in the next show. From there, his passion for combat sports flourished.

“They told me the heavyweight limit was 265 pounds,” Robinson said. “I negotiated and begged and pleaded and said if I could make the weight in three months they would let me on the card. I did. I made the weight. I fell in love with the lifestyle of training and eating clean even though it was still brutal for a guy my size to skip and run and hit pads. It was killing me. That sparked it all off.

“I did more boxing, then I started doing jiu-jitsu, and then started competing all of Asia in jiu-jitsu, then muay Thai, and then started doing amateur MMA for this organization in Hong Kong. That went really well, so I thought I would see if I could do a pro fight. I got a pro fight later that year, then I had another one, and now I’m ready for this opportunity with ONE FC. It has been a pretty crazy ride, as you can imagine, going from 320 pounds to where I’m at now.”

Robinson’s passion grew so large that he decided he couldn’t continue to work if he wanted to pursue a professional MMA career. And after a brief consultation with supportive friends and family, he made the life-changing decision to walk away from his corporate job to a career with no guarantees and little financial security.

“It was killing me,” Robinson said. “I would be up all night on conference calls and traveling. I got overwhelmed with this feeling of, ‘This isn’t what I want to do with my life. I don’t want to be a corporate guy. This is not what I want to do anymore.’ It was basically my company. I was a major shareholder in it. I saw my partners and told them I was out.

“We worked it out. I’m still on the board and a shareholder, but I have no involvement with the company day-to-day anymore. I left the corporate life and pursued the fighting thing full-time. It really was a case of pulling the emergency brake on my life, changing course and chasing my dreams down. That’s what it boils down to. It’s a bit of a gamble, but I’ve been successful and have some cash and some equity, which gave me the opportunity to take some risks. It was a huge, life-altering decision.”

Going from private security to a sport like MMA, where it only takes one punch or limb-cranking submission to end a career, may not seem like the brightest of ideas, but Robinson claims he has no regrets.

Beyond the fact he has lost nearly 150 pounds, Robinson is much happier with the path of his life as a whole. At 34, he isn’t 100 percent sure how far he can go in the sport, but he does know he is making all the sacrifices necessary to become the best fighter possible. Moreover, he now has the chance to tell his son stories about a fighting career, and not about the day he nearly missed his birth because he was too fat.

“I want to push this as hard and as far as I can take it,” Robinson said. “I’m 34, but I’m in the best shape of my life. I could run circles around 18-year-old Brad. I think I’ve got plenty of fights left in me. No injuries. I think I can make a run. I have a six-fight deal with ONE FC and we’ll see how it goes this week. It’s not a one-off thing for me, I don’t want to say I’m looking for a title because it’s my third pro fight, but I want to go as far as I can and I’ll know when it’s time to shut it off.

“I visualize myself sitting with my kids 15 years from now and talking about fighting and all that. I don’t want to be the one with regrets who says, ‘I should have done this, I could have done that, but I didn’t have a chance.’ It was a you-only live once and you might as well get some stories out of it mentality.”

Robinson (2-0) will get at least one of those unforgettable stories when he makes his promotional debut Friday at ONE FC 16 from Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore. He’ll take on a familiar foe in Nik Harris (5-2), whom he previously defeated in his first professional fight in September 2012.

While he was unable to stop Harris in the first meeting, Robinson believes his mental and physical evolution will play a factor in achieving an even more impressive victory than last time.

“The only thing I know is that he breaks,” Robinson said. “I felt him break in the first fight and even though I didn’t get the finish, I felt that I broke him. He decided he was OK with losing and I know he has that in him. I’ll be trying to replicate that. I should have finished him in the first fight. I was being a bit too cautious. I’ll be looking to put him away and this time.”

Whether or not he makes a truly successful run in MMA is important to Robinson, but he knows he wouldn’t have the opportunity to make that run if he hadn’t completely changed his life.

There are countless people across the world that are currently in the same situation Robinson once was, and if he could provide those people with some advice on how to turn things around, it would be to avoid shortcuts and think about your long-term future.

“The best thing I can tell someone when you’re in that shape and you’re just feeling terrible, have no energy and can’t move well is your body wants to be healthy,” Robinson said. “Your body wants to thrive. Even if all you do is start eating right, your body will find its way back healthy. All you need to do is give it the tools. Obviously if you exercise and train and get involved in some high-intensity stuff, you’ll get there a lot quicker. But it’s not like your body is sabotaging you and wants to be fat and be slow and miserable all the time with no energy. It doesn’t like that and it’s not how it wants to be.

“Everyone looks at these short-term things and ‘six weeks to abs’ on the cover of Men’s Health or ‘get ripped in three weeks.’ That’s all bulls–t. You’ve got to look at the rest of your life. If you’re dieting, that’s temporary. You’ve got to look at making some changes to your lifestyle. You’re going to fall off the wagon and it’s going to break your confidence and you’ll think you can’t do it, but if you fall off the wagon and go out to eat seven burgers and drink a bunch of beers, it’s fine. Just wake up the next morning and get right back on track. Don’t look at tomorrow or the next six weeks; look at the rest of your life and playing with your grandkids and all that sort of stuff. That’s how it worked for me. I stopped looking for short-term gain and I started looking at how I wanted to live a long life and be a fun, active dad for my kids and for their kids. I want to be the cool grandpa that’s wrestling with them and running outside with them and playing sports and all that sort of stuff. That was my big thing and you can’t do that just by trying to look good over the next month. It doesn’t work that way. You can’t undo years of bad habits in just a few weeks.”

For more on ONE FC 16, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.