The Secret to Success Is Less, Not More

4,000 Guys on a Sidewalk

In the fall of 1987, I stood on a sidewalk in downtown LA with over 4,000 other guys. We were wrapped around the building, waiting to take the entrance exam for the electrical apprenticeship. It was chilly. It was early. And I remember looking at that line and thinking there was no way I was getting in.

The exam was pass or fail. You passed and you were on your way. You failed and you waited another year.

Out of those 4,000-plus test takers, only 700 passed.

I was one of them.

But passing the exam only got you into the next stage.

The oral interview was where you found out where you stood among the 700.

My buddy, who had been my foreman at the fire alarm company, got #7. I got #11. We were both taken in the first batch of 50 apprentices that summer of 1988.

I had been working as a low-voltage fire alarm tech for about 18 months before that.

It gave me a front-row seat to big construction jobs: the kind of guys I would be working with, the conditions I would be working under, the pace and pressure of it all.

I knew what I was walking into.

What I did not know was how much I would not like a lot of those guys.

The Last Haircut

Right before the oral interview was around the time of my last haircut. Showing up on the jobsite, I had stud earrings and dangling ones. I had long hair. I had an attitude.

Part of the attitude was genuine. I had seen enough construction workers up close to know that many of them were uptight, judgmental idiots. And my thinking was simple.

That part worked. A lot of guys wrote me off immediately. I wrote them off right back.

It was a clean, efficient, mutual dismissal. I did not have to manage their opinions because I had already decided their opinions did not count.

But I was also a real judgmental asshole myself back then. I can see that now.

At safety meetings, someone would bring up the dangers of long hair and dangling earrings around moving equipment. I would sit there thinking, Yeah, if you are an idiot and not paying attention to your surroundings.

I was not wrong about the principle. Pay attention and your hair will not get caught in a pipe threader. But the way I held it. The smugness. The superiority. That was the part I had not figured out yet.

I had the right idea. I just approached it like an idiot.

Move Like a Butterfly

On the mat, I did better. Not perfectly. But better.

When you first start sparring, everything comes at you at once.

Fists are flying. Kicks are flailing. Your brain is trying to track six things and succeeding at zero.

You are doing everything you can to not lose your head, both physically and metaphorically.

Most beginners panic. They throw wild punches. They back straight up and get run over. They try to do everything and end up doing nothing.

I went in another direction.

I did not focus on striking. I did not focus on defending. I focused on one thing: footwork.

I took the Happo Undo exercise I had learned in aikido and applied it for hapkido. Happo Undo literally means "eight-direction exercise."

It teaches you how to move in all eight directions: forward, backward, left, right, and the four diagonals.

I drilled it until I could move in any direction from any stance, orthodox or southpaw, whether I initiated the movement with the leading foot or the rear foot.

The goal was simple: never get caught flat-footed. Never be rooted to the spot while someone tees off on you.

I wanted to move like a butterfly. The sting like a bee part could come later.

And it worked. While everyone else was drowning in the chaos of strikes and counters, I was just moving. Getting out of the way. Finding angles. Staying safe long enough to see what was actually happening in front of me.

Once I could do that, everything else got easier. Learning to strike was easier when you were already in the right spot. Learning to defend was easier when you were not standing still.

I did less and it gave me more.

See the Pattern?

Here is what both of those stories have in common, even though I was too young and too stupid to name it at the time.

In construction, I wrote off anyone who judged me by my hair and earrings.

That was not the mature way to do it. I was arrogant about it. I was dismissive. I made it personal when it did not need to be.

But the principle underneath the attitude was real.

I narrowed the field of people whose opinions I had to care about.

Instead of trying to win over 1,000 guys on a big job, I let my work speak and let the people who mattered notice.

On the mat, I ignored striking and defense and focused entirely on footwork.

Instead of trying to learn everything at once, I picked the one skill that made every other skill easier. I moved so I would not get hit. Then I learned to hit. Then I learned to defend.

One thing at a time. Less, not more.

Both stories are about subtraction.

What Most People Get Wrong

Most people who are stuck think they need more.

• More techniques
• More training days
• More people to impress
• More plates spinning at once

They grind harder. They add another thing to the pile. They sign up for another program. They watch another instructional.

And somehow they feel further behind than when they started.

What they actually need is less.

The construction industry did not need another guy with a good attitude and a bad haircut. It needed electricians who could do the work. Once I understood that, the math got simple.

That was it. One person. One standard.

On the mat, I did not need to learn 50 techniques.

I needed to learn how to move so I was not an easy target.

Once I could move, I could explore.

Once I could move, I could make mistakes without getting punished.

Once I could move, the rest of the game opened up.

This is the thing that most people never let themselves believe: doing less is not the same as doing nothing.

It is the opposite.

Doing less means you are choosing.

You are deciding what matters and what does not.

You are focusing your power on one point instead of spraying it everywhere and hoping something lands.

A 100-pound person can drop a 250-pound person. Not because they are stronger.

Because they know how to concentrate force. A strike to the temple. Pressure on a joint.

Success works the same way.

The One Thing Question

So if you are struggling right now. If you feel like you are working harder than everyone around you and still falling behind.

Here is the question to ask yourself.

Not easier in a theoretical sense.

Easier in a real, practical, tomorrow-morning sense.

If you are a white belt getting smashed every round, maybe the thing is not another submission from YouTube. Maybe the thing is learning to frame and keep distance. One skill. Two inches of space. That alone changes who you are on the mat. The other day, a purple belt told me that if I just focus on keeping my elbow to my knee, it would open everything else up and it's already working!

If you are an upper belt who feels stuck, maybe the thing is not adding another layer to your game. Maybe the thing is stripping away everything except the three techniques you actually hit in live rolls. Build around those. Forget the rest.

If you are a gym owner drowning in operations, maybe the thing is not another marketing channel. Maybe the thing is one weekly check-in with every student who has been inconsistent. Retention before acquisition. Keep before get.

This applies everywhere. Your fitness. Your relationships. Your business. Your mental health.

Whatever feels overwhelming right now probably does not need more of you. It needs less of you, aimed better.

I did not figure this out cleanly.

I stumbled into it, first as a judgmental kid with earrings who decided he did not care what people thought, and then as a martial artist who was smart enough to know he could not learn everything at once.

The first version was immature and full of ego. The second version was quieter and more effective. Both pointed at the same truth.

You do not need more people to like you. You need the right people to trust you.

You do not need more techniques. You need the ones that work from wherever you end up.

You do not need more hours in the day. You need the one or two things that move everything else forward.

Less is not lazy. Less is focus.

And focus, aimed at the right thing, beats effort aimed everywhere.

If you are overwhelmed right now, stop adding. Start subtracting. Find the one thing. Do it until it is yours. Then add the next thing.

The butterfly did not learn to sting first. It learned to float.

⚔ The Dojo Drill

Today’s training:

The Stoic Drill

Ask yourself:

Focus only on those things.

📚 Leader’s Library

Book I recommend this week:

​The Obstacle Is the Way — Ryan Holiday​​

Why?

Because what separates leaders from losers is their willingness to move towards challenges and not away from them.

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 武士道場, my free Skool 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 武士道場​

Chuck