The Most Dangerous Word Is the One That Takes Your Power Away

I was talking with a buddy of mine recently.

He is about twenty years younger than me, street smart and well educated.

His life experience is very different than mine, but we share the same values, the same drive, the same passion.

We are like brothers.

He mentioned a term I had heard in passing but never really understood.

​Incel.​

He told me what it meant.

"Involuntarily celibate."

He told me about the subculture, the online forums, the way some of these men have been linked to violent misogyny.

I was shocked. This is not a world I am usually confronted with.

But the thing that stuck with me most, the thing my buddy made sure I understood before I overgeneralized an entire group of hurting people, was the word itself.

Involuntarily.

In that single word, they gave all their power away.

The Dumpster

I know what it feels like to be powerless.

As a kid, I was bullied.

I ended up in a trash dumpster once, thrown there by kids who were bigger and meaner and decided I was their target that day.

I remember the smell. I remember the feeling of being completely unable to stop what was happening to me.

That was involuntary. I did not choose the dumpster. I did not consent to being thrown into it. It was done to me.

And for years after that, I carried the anger.

A deep, burning hatred of bullies.

The kind of anger that sits in your chest and does not leave, that colors how you see every person who reminds you of the ones who hurt you.

But here is the difference between that kid in the dumpster and the men who call themselves incels.

That kid did not stay in the dumpster. He climbed out. He went home.

He eventually found martial arts and learned that he could become someone who was harder to throw.

The label “involuntarily celibate” is a dumpster that men climb into by choice and then claim they were thrown there.

My Own Version

I need to tell you something I have never said in writing before.

I was one of those guys.

In my mid-20s and early-30s, I was essentially celibate.

I was not dating.

I was not meeting women.

I was alone.

But I never called it involuntary.

Because it was not.

I was intimidated by women. Especially women I found attractive.

After getting dumped by my high school sweetheart of 3 years and stumbling through a few lousy relationships when I first moved to LA, I told myself a story.

The story was that I was bad at meeting women.

The story was that I did not have whatever it was that made a woman interested.

The story was a lie.

But I told it to myself so many times that it became truth.

I had a buddy back then who women threw themselves at.

Literally.

They saw him as a gorgeous piece of meat.

He would complain to us about it, and we would tell him to shut up, that we wished we had his problem.

We teased him. We made him the butt of jokes.

And in doing that, we made sure we could never learn from him.

He knew how to dress.

He knew how to groom himself.

He knew how to talk to people and, more importantly, how to listen.

He had skills we could have acquired.

But it was easier to mock him than to admit we wanted what he had.

It was easier to stay in the dumpster and complain about the smell than to ask the guy outside how he climbed out.

So I focused on work and the mat.

That gave me enough to fill the days.

I still read books about communication, about vulnerability, about healing from past pain, about being optimistic when you tend toward the opposite.

I was preparing.

I just was not acting.

And then Grandmaster Han said something that changed everything.

The Intervention

I was 35 years old.

I was at the studio constantly.

Training, teaching, hanging around after class.

GM Han pulled me aside one day and said something I will never forget.

He was not being mean.

He was being a teacher.

He saw what I could not see: that I was hiding on the mat.

That I was using training as a substitute for the thing I was afraid to do.

Two weeks later, I met Amy.

I kid you not. Two weeks.

Be Interested, Not Interesting

The most important thing I had learned from all those books was simple.

When you meet someone, be interested, not interesting.

Most guys try to impress.

They talk about themselves.

They list their accomplishments like a resume.

They perform. They try to be the most interesting person in the room.

And what they communicate is that they are not interested in anyone except themselves.

I walked into a Hapkido studio in Valencia one day and saw a beautiful woman sitting in the foyer.

She was watching her classmates test.

I told myself I was going to practice my social skills.

That was the frame.

Not “I am going to meet a woman.”

Not “I am going to get a date.”

Just practice. Low stakes. Low expectation.

I started a conversation.

I focused on being interested in who she was, what she was about, what mattered to her.

I did my best to listen twice as much as I spoke.

I tried to be open and vulnerable, not my usual guarded and critical.

She talked about crystals, auras, and energy frequency.

I talked about mathematics, chi, and physics.

And then I realized something. We were talking about the same things.

Completely different perspectives, completely different language, but the same underlying reality.

It was the first time I understood what the “woo-woo” people meant when they talked about crystal structures and vibrational frequency.

It was math. It was energy. It was physics.

She was describing the world in a language I had never learned, and I was describing it in a language she had never learned, and somewhere in the middle, we connected.

Coffee a few days later.

Then dinner.

Then twenty-six years and counting...

Now we are both still doing martial arts.

I am on the mat getting smashed as a sixty-year-old BJJ blue belt.

She is doing the internal arts, tai chi and medical chi gong, building her skills for her healing practice.

We are still doing different things.

We are still being interested in each other.

We are still exploring the world from different angles and meeting in the middle.

The Five Things Every Human Wants

Here is something I learned that made connecting with people easier.

Every human being is driven by the same five needs.

1. The need to acquire.
2. The need to bond.
3. The need to learn.
4. The need to defend.
5. The need to feel.

When you want to connect with another person, tap into those five needs.

Find the common ground.

You do not have to share the same interests.

You do not have to come from the same background.

You just have to find the place where their need and your need overlap.

Amy needed to bond over a shared language of energy.

I needed to learn a new way of seeing the world.

We found each other at the intersection of those needs.

The rest was just showing up.

Sorting the Room

There is one more thing I need to tell you.

When you put yourself out there, when you are open and vulnerable and genuinely interested in other people, you will face rejection.

More rejection than connection. That is not a sign you are doing it wrong.

That is math.

​Roughly eighty percent of people are operating out of fear, scarcity, or laziness.

They are not ready for real connection.

They are protecting themselves the same way you used to protect yourself.

They will reject you because you are offering something they are not ready to receive.

The other twenty percent are the ones you are looking for.

The ones who are doing their own work.

The ones who can meet you where you are.

The ones who are walking in the same direction.

Every rejection is not a verdict on your worth. It is sorting.

It is the filter working exactly the way it is supposed to.

The wrong people remove themselves. The right people stay.

I learn this every time I step on the mat.

When I train with someone new, I learn quickly whether this is a person I can trust with my body.

Some people are too aggressive, too ego-driven, too careless.

I do not train with them again. That is not a failure. That is sorting.

Dating is the same.

Friendship is the same.

Business is the same.

You put yourself out there.

Most people filter themselves out.

You keep showing up for the ones who stay.

Do Not Give Your Power Away

The men who call themselves incels gave their power away in a single word.

Involuntarily.

They told themselves a story in which they had no agency, no choice, no ability to change their circumstances.

And then they climbed into that story and pulled the lid shut behind them.

You cannot control whether someone is attracted to you.

You cannot control whether someone wants to be your friend.

You cannot control whether a job offer comes through or a business deal closes.

What you can control is whether you show up.

Whether you do the work.

Whether you become someone who is genuinely interested in other people instead of someone who is desperate to be interesting.

Whether you treat every rejection as sorting instead of sentencing.

Do not give your power away by telling yourself a story in which you have none.

Do not blame other people for your lack of progress.

Do not use anger or violence to cover up pain.

Focus your energy and effort on what is most important to you right now.

• Be interested, not interesting.
• Show up.
• Get rejected.
• Get back up.
• Show up again.

That is how you meet your wife at 35.

That is how you earn a blue belt at 60.

That is how you build a life you respect instead of one you resent.

Nobody is coming to pull you out of the dumpster.

But your hand works just fine.

Reach up.

Grab the edge.

Climb out and dust yourself off.

⚔ 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:

​The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle​

Why?

Because even a science fiction book can teach important lessons, such as appearances can be deceiving and that some battles there will never have a winner so they are not worth fighting in the first place.

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