The Chihuahua Who Dreamed of More

You don’t need proof that you’ll win. Sometimes you just need enough evidence that you can get back up if you don’t.

I have spent a ridiculous amount of my life as the Chihuahua who dreamed of more.

Let me be clear about something.

After decades on construction sites and martial-arts mats, I am under absolutely no illusion that I am some kind of badass. If anything, both environments taught me the opposite.

Physics does not give a shit about your confidence.

I am five foot two.

• Size matters
• Strength matters
• Age matters
• Numbers matter
• Tools matter

A gun, a knife, a bat, a piece of machinery, a falling object, a moving vehicle, or three pissed-off guys do not care how many years you have spent training martial arts.

And time is working against all of us eventually.

And technology has done a pretty good job of making physical toughness increasingly irrelevant when someone has the wrong tool in their hand.

That is why one of the biggest things I try to practice when Amy and I travel is situational awareness.

My first line of defense is not fighting.

It is:

See the problem early enough that it never becomes a problem.

Leave.

Cross the street.

Change directions.

Pay attention.

Do not stumble into something stupid and then rely on martial arts to bail you out.

That is the mature answer.

And yet.

I have another habit that is considerably less mature.

I like putting myself into situations where I am probably outmatched just to see what happens.

There is the Chihuahua.

I have done it on the mat.

I have done it on construction sites.

I have done it in life.

Give me the bigger training partner.

The stronger guy.

The more experienced guy.

Put me on the project that is already on fire.

Give me the technically difficult job.

Give me the ugly deadline.

Give me the thing where everybody is wondering whether it can actually be pulled off.

Some part of me has always looked at that stuff and thought:

I admit it.

There is probably a little Chihuahua / Napoleon complex buried in there somewhere.

Apparently I do not compensate by driving a giant pickup truck.

I bought a 1200cc BMW motorcycle instead.

Therapy can deal with that later.

But underneath the ego and stupidity, something useful happened.

Every time I bit off more than I could comfortably chew, I learned something about myself.

Not that I was invincible.

Definitely not that.

I got smashed on the mat.

I screwed things up.

I got overwhelmed.

I took on work where I had to figure things out under pressure.

I had moments where I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into.

But then something else happened.

I survived.

I figured something out.

I got help.

I adapted.

I recovered.

I came back.

That was the useful part.

Not getting beaten up.

Not proving I was tougher than somebody else.

The useful part was collecting evidence.

Evidence that I could deal with difficult things.

Evidence that being overwhelmed was temporary.

Evidence that failing did not mean the end.

Evidence that I could get knocked down and eventually get back up.

And over enough repetitions, that changes something.

You stop needing to know:

I will win.

You start trusting:

That may be one of the most useful forms of confidence there is.

Confidence is not always remembering the time you dominated.

Sometimes confidence is remembering the last time you got your ass kicked.

The job that nearly buried you.

The training partner who smashed you.

The business idea that did not work.

The relationship problem you had to face.

The skill you sucked at.

The mistake you had to repair.

The moment you thought:

I don’t know if I can handle this.

And then realizing:

But I did.

Maybe not elegantly.

Maybe not immediately.

Maybe with help.

Maybe with some scars.

But you got through it.

That becomes evidence.

And evidence gives you something motivational bullshit never can:

A reason to trust yourself.

Not because everything will work out.

Not because the universe has a plan.

Because you have receipts.

You have already been hit.

You already know getting hit is not the same thing as being finished.

There is an important distinction here, though.

For much of my life, I think I asked the wrong question.

How much can I take?

That can become its own addiction.

• One more hard project
• One more difficult assignment
• One more bigger guy
• One more thing to carry

Eventually you can turn capacity into nothing more than an ability to tolerate larger piles of shit.

That is not necessarily strength.

That is sometimes just a failure to set boundaries dressed up as toughness.

The better question is:

How well can I carry what matters?

That is different.

Capacity includes toughness.

But it also includes:

• judgment;
• recovery;
• skill;
• calm;
• asking for help;
• walking away;
• protecting the people you love;
• knowing when the fight is stupid;
• knowing when something is not yours to carry;
• knowing when rest is part of the work rather than evidence that you are getting soft.

Sometimes growing your capacity means taking on more.

Sometimes it means becoming capable enough to finally put something down.

One of the things I have noticed — in myself and in others — is that we sometimes stop attempting meaningful things because we do not yet have enough evidence that we can recover when they go badly.

If every failure in your memory feels like catastrophe, why would you volunteer for another?

But when you have collected enough recoveries, something changes.

You stop asking life for guarantees.

You start asking whether the thing is worth attempting.

Because you know success is not the only survivable outcome.

Failure is survivable too.

I am not saying everyone who avoids risk is simply afraid.

People avoid risk for all kinds of legitimate reasons:

• responsibilities;
• exhaustion;
• trauma;
• lack of resources;
• poor odds;
• other people depending on them;
• circumstances none of us can see from the outside.

But I do think this:

One reason we sometimes hesitate to attempt something meaningful is that we have too few memories of getting back up.

And eventually, the only way to collect those memories is to risk getting knocked down — and discover that the ground is not the end.

⚔ The Dojo Drill

Sit with four questions this week.

Not to judge yourself.

To take inventory.

What am I avoiding because I am afraid of what failure would mean?

Do not argue with the answer.

Just notice it.

What difficult thing have I already survived that I am forgetting?

Go find your own evidence.

You have more receipts than you think.

What capacity would make the next attempt more manageable?

Not “more courage.”

Something real:

• skill;
• savings;
• conditioning;
• boundaries;
• help;
• practice;
• a smaller first step.

What am I carrying that increased capacity might actually allow me to put down?

Do not assume growth always means more load.

Sometimes the strongest move is letting something go.

Pick one answer.

Take one useful action this week.

Not to prove you are tough.

To give yourself one more piece of evidence about what you can handle.

Life is going to kick your ass sometimes.

If you love people, build things, attempt difficult work, learn new skills, start businesses, step onto mats, or simply stay alive long enough, something eventually gets through your guard.

The goal is not to become someone who cannot be knocked down.

That is fantasy.

The goal is to collect enough evidence that when life does knock you down, some part of you remembers:

I have been here before.

I know how to get up.

And sometimes that is all the courage you need to try something worth doing in the first place.

📚 Leader’s Library

​Steve Magness — Do Hard Things​

Why?

This week’s book is a natural companion to everything I have been talking about.

Magness makes a useful distinction between performative toughness and intelligent toughness.

Real toughness is not blindly enduring pain or pretending discomfort does not exist.

It is not proving you can tolerate abuse.

It is learning how to respond intelligently to difficulty, pressure, uncertainty, and setbacks.

If this article resonated, the book will deepen it.

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