The Proximity Principle

by Ken Coleman

  When I moved into that cramped sound booth, I was nervous and excited. I was also short on equipment, expertise, and experience. But I had created my own broadcasting opportunity, and I believed it would work. It did, but it wasn’t as glamorous as I had envisioned. I sat down in front of the mic to record my first leadership podcast, and with each word I spoke, my breath pumped that tiny room with heat. I wish I was joking. Within five minutes I was drenched in sweat! It certainly didn’t feel like I had landed my dream job, but I knew it was a start.

  I wince when I think back on those podcasts today. It’s embarrassing! I had no idea what I was doing, yet somehow—I guess because it was one of the first leadership podcasts out there—I actually had a few listeners. But here’s what’s more important: that sound booth gave me a chance to do something I was passionate about and gain some real experience in the field I was pursuing. That’s what proximity will do for you.

  My start-up podcast may not have been at the top of the charts, but as my talent and passion began to intersect, the guys at Catalyst took notice and gave me the chance to emcee their live leadership events. I was so grateful for this opportunity, but, man, I felt like a hot dog in a steak house! I got to interview the famous football coach Tony Dungy and the creator of Survivor and The Voice, Mark Burnett. I even got to interview a guy who hosted one of the biggest radio shows in America, The Dave Ramsey Show.

  The beautiful thing about The Proximity Principle is that it works.

  Without even knowing it, The Proximity Principle was beginning to work in my own journey. Step by step, I began putting myself in proximity to the right people in the right places. And each step of the way, I was getting in closer proximity to my dream job.

  Yes, that tiny sound booth was a humble start. I couldn’t always see the significance of what I was doing, and I definitely wasn’t doing it well. But it was exactly where I needed to be. I was learning from people who knew what I needed to know. I was working toward my goal and taking another step up the mountain.

  I was practicing The Proximity Principle.

  The Power of The Proximity Principle

  The beautiful thing about The Proximity Principle is that it works. And it keeps on working for as long as you work it. If you want a new job, it works. If you want to change careers, it works. Even if you’re already working in the right field and you just want to get to the next level, The Proximity Principle works. To put it into practice, you can start by asking yourself two questions:

  1. Who do I need to know?

  2. Where do I need to be?

  When I asked myself those questions daily on my journey toward a career in broadcasting, I began to see quick results.

  This same principle will work for you too.

  Answering those two questions determines your next step. It will help you gain the education, experience, and relationships you need to climb your Mount Everest. You’ll never stop growing and improving with this principle in play.

  Ready? Let’s start climbing!

  PART 1

  THE PEOPLE

  I feel really grateful to the people who encouraged me and helped me develop. Nobody can succeed on their own.

  —Sheryl Sandberg

  The Proximity Principle works. Every. Single. Time.

  It’s not magic. It’s a discipline that yields results.

  The right people + The right places = Opportunities.

  If you focus on putting this principle to work, you will get closer to your dream job. You can count on it. So where do we start? Let’s start with the first part of the equation: people. Because the truth is, it’s not just what you know; it’s who you know.

  PROXIMITY TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE

  People who can help you land your dream job are working hard at this very moment. But they’re working for themselves, not for you. In fact, they aren’t even thinking about you. They’re living their own lives, focusing on their own jobs.

  Your job, then, is to get strategic and find them.

  Finding people who can make opportunities happen for you is the easy part. The hard part is getting some of their time and convincing them to help you on your journey. It’s not impossible, but it will take some perseverance and patience. Be prepared for this reality. There will be times when you don’t get a response, when you’re overlooked, and when you get rejected. Stay with it. Turn that rejection into redirection. Don’t let the no’s stop you. Instead, let them lead you to the next yes.

  Getting a Yes

  Here’s the deal: to get a yes, don’t be an opportunistic jerk. If you approach people with your hand held out for favors like a kid at trick or treat, people will see you coming a mile away and slam the door in your face. If you want people to help you, you need to be the kind of person people want to help. People are more willing to take time out of their day to teach you when you are enthusiastic about learning. My friend Joy talked to me about this.

  Joy works in the book publishing world and said, “I love my job, but at times it feels like everyone wants something from me: literary agents, authors, team members. When I’m approached by someone hungry to learn more about the publishing business, it usually stops me in my tracks. It reminds me of how much I love my job, and it gives me a chance to give back.” Don’t underestimate how your passion to learn and grow can inspire and give life to those around you!

  Getting help from others is essential to your journey.

  Remember when I contacted the folks at Catalyst about doing a podcast? I didn’t just ask them to help me get started in broadcasting. If I had, they would have had nothing to gain, and I would have looked self-serving. Instead, I had to find a way to help them while getting some experience in the process. I approached them with a podcast idea that I believed would benefit them, while giving me some much-needed studio time. It was a win-win for both of us. As you look to others for help, you must approach them with an attitude of gratitude and humility rather than just focusing on gaining something for yourself. You want to develop real relationships with real people. Look for people you can both give help to and get help from.

  Getting help from others is essential to your journey. Climbing a mountain is no easy task, and knowing you’re not climbing it alone will help you conquer the mental challenges you’ll face. I like to call these mental challenges “limiting beliefs.”

  LIMITING BELIEFS

  The first step in overcoming the limiting beliefs that are holding you back is to identify them. On the path to your dream job, there are two major limiting beliefs that stand in your way: pride and fear. Let’s take a closer look at these and talk about how to recognize these lies.

  Pride

  Pride shows up in the lie that we are self-sufficient. That we don’t need others. That it’s weak to rely on others for help and guidance. It also shows up in worrying about how others perceive us. Ironically, pride keeps us from being ambitious. It’d be ridiculous if it wasn’t so powerful.

  Pride keeps us from being ambitious.

  Take Steve Jobs, for instance. Imagine Jobs without ambition. It’s impossible, right? I mean, you can’t create the iPhone and build a multibillion dollar company without just a little ambition. Arguably, Jobs was one of the most innovative and successful people on the planet. But he didn’t get there by being self-sufficient. No, he took a much different approach. At an early age, Jobs learned the value of asking for help. When he was just twelve years old, Jobs called up Bill Hewlett—yep, the Hewlett-Packard co-founder—to ask for spare parts for a project he was working on. And Bill said yes. To a twelve-year-old kid!

  It seems that pride never stopped Jobs from reaching out to others. In a 1994 interview, he talked about the power of asking for help: “I’ve never found anyone who’s said no or hung up the phone when I called—I just asked. And when people ask me, I try to be as responsive, to pay that debt of gratitude back. Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask. And that’s what separates, sometimes, the people that do t
hings from the people that just dream about them.”4

  Setting aside our pride and admitting we need help from others is so critical on the journey to our dream job. And if someone like Steve Jobs can do it, I’m pretty sure we can too.

  Fear

  Now let’s take a look at the second limiting belief—fear. Fear is normal. There are two kinds of fear that limit us: the fear of rejection and the fear of failure. Both are liars.

  The Fear of Rejection

  If you’ve ever had an idea shot down, you’ve experienced the sting of rejection. Being told no to a project idea after pouring your heart into the proposal can suck the life right out of you. But the word no is not the enemy. Not asking is the enemy. Don’t let the fear of rejection keep you from asking. And if you get a no the first time, don’t give up. Sometimes you have to get through some hard no’s to get to a yes.

  Sometimes you have to get through some hard no’s to get to a yes.

  Take Patrick. Patrick was an accountant. He had two passions and accounting was not one of them. Patrick enjoyed brewing his own beer, and he loved mission work in Africa. Patrick also had a big imagination. He dreamed of turning beer into water. Okay, technically he wanted to open his own craft brewery as a way to raise money to build fresh water wells in impoverished villages in Africa. And to do this, he needed to learn the craft brewery business from the ground up.

  He began by building relationships with local professionals who knew the brewery business. Then he offered a win-win—he would work for free at their brewery if they would teach him the tricks of the trade. Free labor sounds like a no-brainer, right? Apparently not. The first sixteen breweries he approached told him no! But after sixteen no’s, the seventeenth said yes, and Patrick spent over a year working for free, even on Saturdays and Sundays. As a result of his efforts, he was able to learn the business—everything from the actual brewing and marketing to packaging and shipping the product. If Patrick had let his fear of rejection keep him from continuing to ask for help, he would have missed out on an unbelievable learning experience. He also wouldn’t be where he is today, brewing beer full time. He is doing quite well, and his charity efforts have changed some villages in Africa for generations.

  The Fear of Failure

  The second kind of fear that limits us is a fear of failure. This often starts with the question: “What if?” What if someone gives me a shot and I fail? Sure, failure is a risk. It’s part of the deal. But when you know what your top talents, strengths, and skills are, it’s absurd to let a limiting belief override the truth that you have what it takes. Remember this: whatever you focus on, you will feel. So don’t focus on the possibility of failure. Focus on the truth that you can make this happen. You absolutely have to believe that!

  “What if” usually leads to another question: What will people think? It would be easy for me just to say, “Who cares what people think!” But the fear of failure can be so acute and personal that we can’t help but care. When I was auditioning for TV hosting roles, I got rejection after rejection. I’d go to each audition, hopeful this would be the one where they’d say yes. I’d ask my friends and family to pray for me. Then the sting of rejection would come. I finally stopped asking for prayer because I was embarrassed to report back that I hadn’t gotten the gig. It was humiliating and defeating. But deep down I knew that these small failures were not catastrophic. Every audition was a little more practice for the next—all preparing me for the job I really wanted.

  The trick is to reframe the way we think about failure. Often, success happens not despite failure, but because of failure. Thomas Edison had failed inventions. Marie Curie’s failures in the lab led to two Nobel Prizes. Albert Einstein had failed equations before the theory of relativity. The list goes on and on. I’d go so far as to say that you can’t succeed unless and until you fail. Failure is what helps us learn and grow, so we shouldn’t let our fear of it keep us from trying.

  Hockey Hall-of-Famer Wayne Gretzky said it best: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Gretzky knew that in order to score, you have to actually shoot. Did Gretzky miss some shots? Absolutely. But the fear of missing goals didn’t keep him from shooting. Gretzky made 894 career goals, becoming one of the greatest hockey players of all time.5 He didn’t give up when he missed or when they lost a game. He just kept taking shots.

  Often, success happens not despite failure, but because of failure.

  And then there’s Will Ferrell, one of the most successful comedic actors in the business. Looking at his career, you might think he is fearless. Not true. He shared his thoughts on the fear of failure in a 2017 commencement speech at the University of Southern California. Ferrell said, “You’re never not afraid. . . . But my fear of failure never approached in magnitude my fear of ‘what if.’ What if I never tried at all?”6 No matter how high you climb or how successful you get, the fear of failure will always threaten to stop your progress. Don’t let it! The only way you’ll reach your goals is by pushing through the fear, by taking the shot, and by always, always choosing to try.

  DREAM BIG

  Taking the shot isn’t always easy. Pride and fear have no shame, and they will try to convince you that your goal is crazy. When I decided to give my dream a shot, I discovered how quickly self-doubt can creep in. I found it difficult to tell my friends and family about my plan because I was worried about what they’d think of me. At the time, I was running a business, and the industry I wanted to move into was such a dramatic change from what I’d been doing. It was a completely different career trajectory. I began to question myself. Will they think I’m crazy? I had to learn to call that for what it was: pride.

  As I began to put my plan into action, I worried about being told no. I wanted everyone to believe in me and my dream. I wanted to impress everyone and show them I could do this. But that nagging question would pop up. What if they say no? I had to learn to call that for what it was: fear of rejection.

  When I started my climb, I was running my small business and had a wife and three young children counting on me. The possible financial consequences scared me to death. I worried that I’d mess up so bad that I’d destroy my family. What if I don’t have what it takes? I had to learn to call that for what it was: fear of failure.

  The truth is that all dreams are a little crazy. That’s why they are called “dreams.” But we are never crazy for dreaming. What’s crazier than dreaming is never trying at all.

  My path began with a start-up podcast in a warehouse closet sound booth with only a handful of people listening. That put me in proximity to the people and the places that allowed me to learn and grow. As I mentioned earlier, one of those people was none other than Dave Ramsey. That podcast interview, although I didn’t know it at the time, was the first step that got me where I am today.

  The journey to climb your own personal Mount Everest will be wildly different than mine. You’ll have your own battles with pride and fear. But don’t let the size of the mountain paralyze you. Put one foot in front of the other, up the mountain. You’ll reach the top before you know it. Your arrival at the summit will be unique. There is no perfect path. There’s only yours. So, dream big, ask for help, embrace failure, take the shot, and continue to climb one step at a time.

  The People to Look for

  As you begin your climb, there are five specific types of people who can help you along the way:

  1. Professors instruct in the field you want to work in.

  2. Professionals are the best of the best in their field.

  3. Mentors offer guidance and accountability.

  4. Peers accompany you on your journey.

  5. Producers create jobs, hire and build teams, and generate opportunities.

  Let’s dig in to each of these groups so you’ll know exactly who you’re looking for, where to find them, and why you need them on your climb.

  Chapter 2

  The Professors

  Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you w
ill never cease to grow.

  —Anthony J. D’Angelo

  Tom Petty, legendary musician, songwriter, and member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, had an unbelievable music career and sold over eighty million records during his life. Much of his success can be traced back to the day he met an amazing guitar teacher working in a music store in Gainesville, Florida. That teacher taught Petty pretty much everything he knew about guitar, but that’s not all. He also helped Petty develop his trademark sound. Now get this: that teacher’s name was Don Felder, a guy so musically gifted that he spent more than twenty-five years as the lead guitarist for another famous band that has sold 150 million records. Maybe you’ve heard of the Eagles.7

  Okay, so maybe you don’t want to be a legendary musician. That’s not the point. The point is: no matter what work you’re passionate about, you’ve got to find the Don Felders to teach you how to do it.

  I like to call these teachers professors. What image comes to mind when you hear that word? Do you picture a college professor wearing a tweed jacket with patches on the sleeves? I’m using the word more loosely than that. A professor is simply a teacher—someone with the skills and experience in the field you want to work in.

  KEY QUALITIES OF PROFESSORS

  So what distinguishes the really good professors from the just-okay ones? I believe that there are three key qualities that make up great professors:

  1. They Are Knowledgeable

  2. They Are Passionate

  3. They Push You to Grow

  Great Professors Are Knowledgeable

  Professors are key to The Proximity Principle because they have the knowledge base that you need to get started. They have the right certifications or qualifications, whether that means letters after their name or simply someone whose primary job is to teach or train others. The best professors are able to take complex subject matter and break it down in a simple way that’s easy to understand.