WEEK 65/13: The Proximity Problem

You can’t get there if you don’t even get close.

It always seems impossible at first.

Back when I was working corporate, I always looked forward to Patrick coming to town. He lived and worked in Auckland, always on some special project, always traveling.

That was what I wanted.

So, one day I asked him how he did it.

I was expecting something structured. A roadmap. A strategy.

Instead, he said,

“I don’t know Glen… you just do it.”

At the time it felt like a non-answer.

It wasn’t.

Because I was already doing it.

Shortly after that conversation, I started getting pulled into overseas trips and special projects. Nothing dramatic changed overnight. I just stopped treating it like something other people did.

I got closer.

The same thing happened with Brazil.

If you had asked me years ago, this would have felt exotic. Unreal. Out of reach.

And now it’s just life.

The same thing happens with sports.

At some point, quantity of exposure turns into inevitability.

Not because you got better first, but because you stayed close long enough.

That’s the part most people miss.

They wait to feel ready.

They wait to feel qualified.

They wait until it looks like them.

Or that it happens in one big push.

It doesn’t. Not like that.

Proximity comes first. Identity follows.

As we head into spring, this is the growth season. You can get your work done. That’s not the issue.

So, use the extra time differently.

Don’t just do more. Get closer.

It doesn’t matter what the project is, as long as it lives slightly beyond your current baseline.

That is the skill.

Finding the daily practice that moves your proximity closer to the reality you want.

Five years ago, I started learning Portuguese before I needed it, right from my house in Walnut Creek.

There was no immediate use for it.

But it put me in proximity.

And now I live here.

For the rest of this season, we’re going to stay close to this.

Each week, one proximity problem.

What to do. How to approach it. What it actually feels like when you’re inside it.

Nothing abstract. Just ways to get closer.