"Where you stand and who you stand with will quietly shape the person you become."
Inspiring Proximity
“When people talk about success or happiness, they often focus on effort, ambition, and goals.
But over time, I've learned something quieter and just as powerful. Proximity matters,” Harry Fredrickson explained.
“The people we spend time with, the environments we place ourselves in, they build us, without asking for permission. They carve paths in our thinking, set our expectations, and silently raise or lower our standards,” He continued.
While listening to Harry, I realized that many people don’t understand this principle. And, they won’t until they live and experience the gifts of inspiring proximity personally. It was revitalizing to listen to Harry share his own experience.
“Years ago, I found myself stuck. I had dreams, ideas, energy, but everything around me felt heavy. Conversations were filled with complaints. Dreams were spoken about with a kind of distant regret. I was living in a culture of settling, even though nobody said it out loud,” Harry said.
He talked about how, at first, he thought he could resist it. That he was strong enough to stay ambitious and hopeful, even when his environment wasn’t.
But slowly, almost without noticing, Harry recognized that he had begun to shrink. Think smaller. Doubt faster. Finally, he found himself accepting much less from life, as well as for himself.
After years of struggle Harry increasingly came to a significant understand. “It wasn’t my ambition that failed me. It was my proximity to places that didn’t feed my spirit and to people who had quietly given up.”
This realization caused him to seek change and implement a plan to correct his “awful” situation. Experience had taught him that change didn’t happen all at once so, he started with one decision. Live in inspiring proximity.
He began spending time with people who were still building, still dreaming. People who didn’t just talk about ideas, but lived them.
“I found spaces that inspired movement. Places where the morning light through a window could make you believe in second chances,” Harry said of his plan. “The difference was immediate. Not because life became magically easier. But because I was no longer swimming against the current of my surroundings. Growth, ambition, and hope were now normal, even expected.”
Harry confirmed my belief in and about inspiring proximity. “It doesn’t scream. It whispers. It shapes you while you aren’t paying attention.”
When you’re around people who believe in becoming better, it becomes harder to stay small.
When you're in environments of beauty, it becomes harder to live without gratitude.
So, whenever you feel stuck, the first thing to check isn’t necessarily your work ethic or your motivation. Check your proximity. And ask yourself, “where am I standing. Who am I standing with?”
Because effort matters. Dreams matter. And the soil you grow in matters just as much.
"Where you stand and who you stand with will quietly shape the person you become."
Choose carefully. Move closer, to inspiring proximity, and let it do what it does best. Help you grow.
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I’m Lynn Butterfield, Real Estate & Lifestyle Expert and Television Host for American Dream TV in Northwest Arkansas. I’ve helped hundreds of Buyers and Sellers, as a real estate agent and Associate Broker with Coldwell Banker, to discover where and how they want to live and work; to achieve what I call Realesation™. That’s why I bring you American Dream TV, Both Sides of the Fence, About the Dish, Monday’s Warm Cocoa and Home by Design Magazine to stir your heart and mind. Contact me so I can join you along your own unique path of discovery.
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