I was talking with a friend recently about what separates the people we love being around from the ones we would prefer not to be.

We were nerding out on neural wiring, strategy, and the invisible patterns that determine whether someone becomes a person others want in their life or a person others tolerate.

This friend is like a brother to me.

I met him almost three years ago when I first joined Meraki.

Our backgrounds could not be more different.

He grew up in the rural South as a minority and worked his way to a Ph.D. in Engineering.

Now he consults for one of the largest agencies in the world.

He is analytical, sharp, a natural leader.

He is also an artist, a creative, and a burgeoning martial artist.

When we get together, the conversation ranges across strategy, tactics, techniques, principles, spirituality, business, marketing, being of service, and building a tribe.

During this particular conversation, I shared a mental model I had been working on.

It started with a question I have been asking myself for decades, long before I ever heard the word Karen.

What is the actual difference between a leader and a loser?

Here vs. Over There

All of us are somewhere.

Right now, you are somewhere.

You are in a specific place in your life, with a specific set of circumstances, skills, relationships, problems, and opportunities.

It may not be where you want to be, but it is where you are.

But all of us want to be over there.

Over there is the better version.

The place where things are working.

Where you have more money, more respect, more capability, more freedom.

Where the problems you are dealing with right now have been solved and replaced by higher-class problems you actually want to have.

This is not a flaw.

Wanting to move from somewhere to over there is the engine of human progress.

Every building you have ever walked into started as someone wanting to be "over there."

Every business.

Every skill you have developed.

Every relationship you have deepened.

It all began with the gap between somewhere and over there.

The difference between people is not whether they want to close that gap.

Everyone wants to close that gap.

The difference is how they think the gap gets closed.

There are two paths.

You can work for it.

Or you can expect someone else to give it to you.

That is the entire thing.

That single fork in the road is what separates the people you want on your team from the people you hope stay on the other side of the room.

The Rise of Karen (and Ken)

Since COVID, the term Karen exploded into the culture.

For the guys, Ken.

A Karen or a Ken is someone who feels entitled to do whatever they want regardless of the impact on others.

They believe they can get their way without consequences.

They demand to speak to the manager. They insist on exceptions to rules that apply to everyone else.

I have been watching this pattern my whole life. I just did not have the label for it.

I called it the difference between a loser and a leader, and I saw it play out on construction sites, in martial arts studios, in businesses, in marriages, everywhere humans interact.

The Karen does not want to close the gap between here and over there through effort.

She wants someone else to close it for her.

She wants the benefits of the destination without paying the toll to get there.

And when she does not get what she wants, she makes it everyone else’s problem.

This is what bullying is, at its core.

Bullying is taking what you want from someone else and enjoying the benefits without working for them.

The bully looks at the gap between here and over there and decides the shortest path is through someone else’s effort, someone else’s dignity, someone else’s peace.

The leader looks at the same gap and starts walking.

The Head Start Nobody Talks About

About ten years ago, I watched a video that changed how I see this pattern.

It is called “The Head Start in the Race of Life.”​

A teacher lines up his students for a race and asks them to take steps forward based on advantages they were born into.

• Having two parents at home.
• Having access to private education.
• Never having to help mom and dad with the bills.
• Never worrying about where the next meal would come from.

Some kids ended up near the finish line before the race even started.

Others barely moved.

And when the teacher said go, the kids who had been handed the head start were told to turn around and look back at how far ahead they were.

Not to shame them.

To show them.

The lesson was not that the race was unfair, though it was.

The lesson was that the people in the back had to work harder just to reach the starting line the people in the front were born standing on.

I am a fourth-generation Chinese immigrant to this country.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s.

I hear from younger generations that I had it easier.

Maybe I did.

I am not here to debate it.

Debating who had it harder does not close the gap between somewhere and over there for anybody.

What I know is that some people get a head start.

• Through no fault of their own, they are born closer to the finish line.
• Through no fault of their own, others are born so far back they cannot even see it.

But here is the part the video does not tell you.

The head start only determines where you begin.

It does not determine where you end up.

And it does not determine who you become along the way.

The people who stay entitled, the Karens and Kens of the world, are often the ones who got the head start and mistook it for effort.

They assumed the gap between somewhere and over there was small for everyone, because it was small for them.

When they encounter resistance, they do not recognize it as normal.

They recognize it as an injustice.

Someone must have moved the finish line.

The people who become leaders, regardless of where they started, are the ones who accept that the gap is real, that closing it will cost them, and that the cost is the point.

The Caveat

Here is where ambition gets complicated.

Ambition without a tribe is just ego.

Ambition that only serves you, that sees other people as tools or obstacles or irrelevant bystanders, is the ambition of a Karen with a better work ethic.

The engine is the same.

Me, my goals, my gap, my somewhere, my over there. The only difference is the willingness to work.

That is not enough.

The friend I was talking with earned a Ph.D. in Engineering.

He worked his way into a position of influence at one of the largest agencies in the world.

He could coast. He could rest on credentials and a paycheck and never think about anyone else’s gap again.

Instead, he shows up at the gym. He trains. He asks questions. He shares what he knows. He builds. He is not just closing his own gap. He is making it easier for the people around him to close theirs.

That is the caveat.

Ambition is the difference between those who succeed and those who fail, but only if the ambition includes other people.

Stop Giving Your Power Away

I hear a lot of people my age and younger talking about how hard things are.

• How the deck is stacked.
• How the system is rigged.
• How the generation before them had it easier.

Maybe all of that is true.

It probably is, in some ways.

It probably is not, in others.

The truth is always messier than the talking points.

But here is what I know for certain.

Wanting something else, something over there, and blaming the fact that you are still "here" on forces outside your control, is giving your power away.

Every minute you spend arguing about whose fault it is that you are still somewhere is a minute you are not spending walking toward over there.

Every ounce of energy you pour into proving you had it harder is an ounce you cannot pour into making it better.

The head start is real.

Some people are born on third base and think they hit a triple.

Some people are born in the parking lot and have to fight their way into the stadium.

Arguing about the unfairness of the stadium does not get you through the gate.

Working does.

And here is what happens when you work.

You discover that everyone has it hard in some fashion.

The person who looked like they had it easy is carrying something you cannot see.

The person who seemed to glide through life has been fighting a battle you know nothing about.

(You would not believe how many of my wife's clients who suffer from stress, anxiety and overwhelm are "trust-fund kids.")

The head start only covers the visible gap.

Everyone has an invisible one.

When you learn that, something changes.

You stop resenting the people who got the head start.

You start looking for the people who are willing to walk alongside you.

You start building something together.

The Tribe

The lesson is simple.

You are "here."

You want to be over there.

You have two choices about how to close the gap.

You can demand that someone else close it for you.

That is the path of the Karen, the bully, the person who treats other people as tools for their own comfort.

That path might work for a while.

It might even look like success from the outside.

But it leaves a trail of resentment behind it, and eventually the people you have been using figure out what you are doing.

Or you can work for it.

You can accept that the gap is real, that closing it will cost you, and that the cost is what makes the destination worth arriving at.

And while you are walking, you can look around and notice who else is walking.

You can link up with them.

You can share what you have learned.

You can make their walk a little easier and let them make yours a little easier too.

That is how tribes are built.

Not by demanding loyalty.

Not by extracting tribute.

By walking in the same direction and deciding, somewhere along the way, that the walk is better together.

If you are somewhere right now and you do not want to be, do not give your power away by waiting for someone to come get you.

Start walking.

Look around.

See who else is walking in the same direction.

Those are your people.

Build with them.

That is the ambition that matters.

⚔ The Dojo Drill

Today’s training:

The Fear List

Write down 3 fears you’ve been avoiding.

Take one small action toward one today.

📚 Leader’s Library

Book I recommend this week:

​Algorithms to Live By by Brain Christian​

Why?

Because every day we need to make decisions so we might as well have a system of making better decisions easier and faster.

P.S. Know a martial arts gym owner who’s stressed about money or student numbers?

Do them a favor: send them to The Leader's Dōjō, my website where I help owners get more students and keep them longer with simple systems.

One forward from you could change their gym: The Leader's Dōjō​

Chuck