Something I’ve noticed over the last decade: proximity completely changes how people react to your wins.
Over the last ten years or so of my career, I’ve noticed a quiet shift that happens as people grow.
I was catching up with some folks recently, and the conversation turned to someone we hadn’t seen in years who had just hit a major milestone. The reaction was instant and warm. Everyone was genuinely thrilled. It was an easy, uncomplicated kind of joy.
It made me think about how frictionless it is to applaud a victory from a distance. When someone is far removed from our daily routines, their success is just a nice story.
But proximity seems to change the math.
When the person moving forward is someone sitting right across from you, someone who shared the exact same starting line and the same everyday frustrations, the dynamic often gets a little quieter.
It’s not necessarily that people mean to pull back. It’s just that up close, someone else's momentum can accidentally feel like a mirror. It’s a very human reflex.
We always hear that hard times reveal who is truly in your corner. But honestly, I think periods of success do it just as well. There is a very specific, rare kind of grace in people who can sit next to you when things are going incredibly right, without things getting weird. The ones who are just happy the sun is shining on you.
Those are the ones you hold onto.