How Proximity to the Right People Can Change Your Life

Do you need to live in the right city to reach your biggest goals, or can you create the same opportunities from wherever you are? In this episode, Chris and I talk about the role proximity plays in success and why being around the right people creates opportunities, relationships, and collaborations that you can't always access from a distance. We also share why opportunity alone isn't enough if you're not thriving where you are, and how to find the balance between being your best self and putting yourself in rooms that stretch you. Tune in to hear how getting into the right rooms can help you grow. Check out our Sponsors: Shopify - Try the ecommerce platform I trust for Glōci. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at http://Shopify.com/happy. Monarch Money - Get your first year of Monarch Core for half off at http://Monarch.com with code EYH. Northwest Registered Agent - Visit http://northwestregisteredagent.com/EarnFree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Indeed - Indeed is giving Earn Your Happy listeners a $75 SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to help get your job the premium status it deserves. Just go to http://Indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on Earn Your Happy. Momentous - If you want to try Momentous Signature Spec Creatine, head to http://livemomentous.com and use code EARN for up to 35% off your entire first order. SmileSet - Listeners of our show get an additional 35% discount when they go to http://SMILESET.com/earn. HIGHLIGHTS How proximity to the right people can accelerate your growth. Why living near opportunity creates access to unexpected collaborations. The balance between thriving where you live and being where opportunity is. Why Chris and I believe you have to put in your time to build a lifelong network. How to capture 80% of proximity through events and travel if relocating isn't an option. Why stepping into uncomfortable rooms changes your life faster than staying in your comfort zone. RESOURCES Join Chris Harder’s Found Trips: DM @chriswharder on Instagram to learn more and secure a spot. Get on the waitlist for Mentor Collective Mastermind HERE! Try glōci for 40% off your first order with code HAPPY at checkout - head to getgloci.com FOLLOW Follow me: @loriharder Follow glōci: @getgloci Follow Chris: @chriswharder

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 1:27Speaker 00

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• 2:10Speaker 00

  They're giving Earn Your Happy a $75 sponsored job credit. Go to Indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Life at the Speed of Play, Mark is offering our listeners two books for the price of one. Go to GetMark'sBook.com/earn. Sequencing, sequencing.com is offering our listeners up to 10% off your full genome test plus free shipping. Go to sequencing.com and use promo code EARN for 10% off. If you're going to dinner every weekend with the same people, going to the same places, you're going to the same clubs, you're doing the same thing, you're having the same conversations,

• 2:52Speaker 00

  you're not actually changing, you're not creating the environments that change you. So you have to go dip into these environments that can happen very quickly on a weekend trip, which Chris, I just said yes to a trip.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Yes, that scared you.

• 3:05Speaker 00

  That scares the shit out of me in early December. And I want to just back down and say, I'll just make good content. I'll just stay back here and do something that still gets me out there, but doesn't make me uncomfortable. And the thing that I know is that my future self requires rooms like this in order to become the woman that I want to be. That's why you take these trips and you do the things that are going to change you, that make you uncomfortable, because your life can change in a weekend.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  And we're back.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  With another episode of He Said, She Said.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Okay, I thought this would be kind of an interesting topic today. So I was at the gym and there's a guy that I've gotten to know there and a friend of a friend and great kid. I say kid because he's 23 years old and one of these gonna be a superstar. So he's already a really well successful Ford model. And I don't mean Ford like the cars and trucks, I mean, you know, the agency. And on top of that, he's literally formulated and launched his own skin line, like skincare and all that stuff. And so he's already got the genes, I guess, literally and metaphorically to be really successful. And at 23, I mean, I'm nothing like what this kid was when I was 23, right? You know, I was going out drinking, partying all that.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Same.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  At 23, he asked me the best question and a question that sure as hell would not have asked when I was 23. And it was this, he said, listen, if you don't mind me asking you some advice, you know, because we've gotten to know each other, so I'm like old man advice to him.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  He said, all of my friends and peers live up in LA and they all tell me I have to live up in LA. Oh, for context, I guess I should have said, we all live down here in Orange County. So an hour south of LA, 90 minutes in bad traffic. So all of his peers, all of his friends, all the other entrepreneurs his age in their twenties, all the YouTubers his age in their twenties, all the hustlers his age in their twenties, they keep telling him he has to live up there and he's missing out on opportunity and he's not going to maximize his ability to be successful if he doesn't move from Orange County, where the perception is things are a little bit slower and it's a little bit older and et cetera, up to LA where all the action is happening. And I know a lot of people listening, you know, you live in, you're born into a small town

• 5:23Speaker 01

  or a medium sized city or a certain part of the country where you're like, I feel out of place. I feel like I'm a big dreamer and I don't fit in here. Or I feel like I've got these things I want to do, but the right people aren't near me. And so I thought this would be an interesting question for you and I to weigh in. So the question is this, does he need to move up to LA in order to be successful? Or can he stay down here an hour and a half south and still be successful? Now, I know what my answer was.

• 5:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  You want to weigh in first, you want me to tell you what I told him?

• 5:52Speaker 00

  I'll weigh in first, uh, because I'm so curious what yours is. But it just depends on what type of success that you want to have. I do believe that that's a limiting story because I do know there are influencers down here. They're just building it a different way. I think that potentially you will be missing out by not living directly in LA on the large collaborations, which is one of the fastest ways to grow. And you might be thinking right now, well, you're only 60 to 90 minutes away. You know, you can just go up there for these different things. Except the problem is, is that even though he might be invited some of the time, he's not going to be invited all of the time, simply because on a quick Wednesday night, when they're like, let's all get together.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Let's all have dinner.

• 6:38Speaker 00

  Let's all have dinner, let's do this thing. He's really going to miss out on those moments. And so if you are going to absolutely maximize like the top of the top, then yes, you should be there. But there is a lot to be said about how does he feel when he's there? Does he actually feel awful? Does he not like it? Does it not bring out the best in him? Does he need to go near the beach every day or have a little bit slower pace for him to be at his absolute best? Does he actually feel like he's surrounded by authentic people or inauthentic people? Is his family there? What means the most to him? What are his values? So there's a lot to weigh in on there, but I would say if we're just looking surface level, yes, he is going to miss out on a lot.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  It's interesting. So you're saying it's not going to determine how far he can go. It's going to make it a little bit tougher than it has to be.

• 7:30Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  It's going to make it a little bit slower than it has to be because you miss out on the spur of the moment collaborations.

• 7:36Speaker 00

  Meeting certain people.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Oh God, does that hit? So, you know, a lot of people listening probably haven't listened that long. They may not know that you and I spent nine years living in LA from 2011 to 20, late 2020.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  And then, you know, started splitting time between Scottsdale and down here in Orange County.

• 7:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  After that, and there is a big difference in what you get invited to. There's a big difference.

• 7:59Speaker 00

  That's true.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  In the pop up collaborations, because they happen like, oh, check out the sunset tonight. Come over grill and all of a sudden you're all doing content together. I'll give you a real example. When I lived up there, Lou's house one time was like, hey, man, you around tonight? I'm going to Lakers game, got a ticket, you want to come? People don't say that to you if you live 90 minutes south, much less a state over.

• 8:18Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Um, and I remember when we moved to Scottsdale, it felt like it dried up.

• 8:22Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  Invites dried up. Jonathan Maxwell would be like, hey, man, throw in a dinner tonight with some great business guys there in town. You want to meet us over here at this restaurant? Bill Glazer, it'll be like, hey, I'm going to this concert or hey, I'm going to this film opening tonight. Got an extra ticket, you want to go? It's those spur of the moment things that you miss out on where now you're not meeting the right people or you're not building the relationship as fast and as tight as the people who live there. But here's what my answer was to him. So, you know, that has to be acknowledged, but my formulaic answer was kind of this, and then we'll go deeper. I said, first and foremost, you have to be where you personally thrive, where you are your absolute best version of yourself. That is first and foremost.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  So if you're in a land of opportunity and you are really not thriving because it kills your nervous system, or you're not getting your workouts in, or you're eating bad, or you've got bad people around you, it doesn't matter if you're in the land of opportunity, you're not going to do well at all. So first and foremost, you must be where you are your best self. But a very close second, and I mean damn near freaking tied, second place, but a very close second, is you must be where the opportunities and where the proximity is. So it's your job, if you're listening, it's your job to find out where these two things intersect as best as possible in your life. I want you to picture them like two levers, right? So you can push up on the proximity lever, or you can pull back on it, and you can push up on

• 9:47Speaker 01

  the, where am I, where's my wellbeing lever, or you can pull back on it, and you have to pull these two levers, find out what city, what area, what group is this for me, where I can be the best version of myself and be as close to proximity and opportunity as possible.

• 10:05Speaker 00

  It's so interesting because you're always going to be, I don't want to say sacrificing something, but you're always, you're always going to be giving up something, and there's going to be a few things that don't work great for you. So when I was in LA, truly, just like what Chris said, I got some insane opportunities. And, you know, when we were in Lewis Howes Mastermind, he would randomly one-off call us and be like, hey, there's this thing, do you guys want to go? And that got us around a lot of people who would never know who we were. And because we already had somebody who was, because we joined his mastermind, what happened is we weren't cold meeting people, we were meeting people through Lewis. So right away, when we would meet people,

• 10:47Speaker 00

  they'd be like, oh, you know, you must be somebody that we can trust, or somebody who's a good person, because we're meeting you through this person. So when you get that, that's obviously what I talk a lot about in Million Dollar Guest, which is the, uh, how to get paid on other people's podcasts, is the trust transfer, is when you're meeting someone like that, especially if you go to LA and you know somebody that you're, you're like, well, I know this person, they could intro me to these other people. It's just going to travel so quick that the network that you're in literally does absolutely propel you. But I will tell you that something about LA is I felt like I never fit anywhere. And even though I was meeting a lot of people and a lot of different friends,

• 11:28Speaker 00

  I just feel like I had a little bit different of a personality than the people who lived there. I couldn't quite 100% get down with just all of the way that they lived and maybe everything that they believed. And so I really struggled with feeling like myself there. And I think that that really hindered, even though I was meeting these incredible people, sometimes I would be in groups that didn't bring out the best in me at all. Like, I love to have a sense of humor, and for some reason, I was in a very, much more like, serious group that I found myself in. And so I really struggled just with the pockets of, of different people there.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  And I really struggled with this answer too, because we had a period of life there, like I said, nine years, where probably six of them made us. And when I say made us, put us on the map, grew our dreams, made all the intros, made all the friendships that we now still use and cultivate. Like, now, and I don't want to keep name dropping, so I'm not good, but this A-list celebrity over here, I'm going to go visit him with the group that we're traveling with on the 29th, when I take everybody on the phone trip. I only know him because I lived up there for so long and got invited to dinners with him and all this other stuff. Other investment opportunities happened because we were up there. Like, we would have missed all that, and we wouldn't have built these friendships. Maybe somehow differently we would have, but if I'm being honest, we probably wouldn't have these friendships without putting in our time up there for that nine

• 12:53Speaker 01

  years. What do you think of that? Is that true or not true?

• 12:55Speaker 00

  That's true. That's 100% true, which is why I really believe you have to look at what portion of your life that you are in. And I believe you have to give up certain things. So, you know, if he wanted to catapult his life, if we're talking about the guy at the gym, if he wants to catapult his life, go up there for three to five years, go make all of those contacts, know that you can come back when you're done, and know that it's like, okay, you're going up there to network, to create these deep contacts, to do this thing. And if it really doesn't work for you after two years, then come back, you know?

• 13:26Speaker 01

  That's interesting, yeah. So if you really have to put your time in, because, you know, we're, we're kind of answering this real time as we go here, guys. It's hitting me. I think our best investment we've ever, ever, ever, ever, ever made, just from a multiple standpoint, happened because, and I can't say the name of the company, I can't say the name of the entrepreneur, okay? But somebody who I would never meet in my life otherwise, who started and sold a TV network to Viacom, and then their next venture was a really cool startup. I got invited to invest in that startup, only because I'd been to a bunch of dinners with him, because we kept crossing each other's paths. And that investment, we got in, I can't say the company or the person at all,

• 14:07Speaker 01

  so I don't reveal anything that's proprietary here, but we got in at a $25 million valuation. The last round was an $800 million valuation, and the next one will be over a billion. So that means more than a 32X return on our investment that we would have never been invited into without first living up there and putting in our time for a little while.

• 14:27Speaker 00

  If it sells.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  And then dipping out, and after, like, we had the relationship. So, God, I just go back to my answer. These two things almost aren't a first place and second place, they're tied. You're being your best self, like, where can you thrive personally, but also being where the opportunity is, you have to treat these as levers and say, how can I accomplish both at the same time? And sometimes the answer isn't obvious. Sometimes the answer isn't convenient. Sometimes the answer isn't affordable. But you must find the answer to that, or you're just not going to hit your big dreams.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  Now, you started by asking me, in his case scenario, Orange County to LA. Now, some of you cannot move right now, and some of you can't move for the next five years, or 10 years even. So what a lot of people do, we have a lot of friends who were still wildly successful, but they really found other paths for themselves. Like, we have a friend who lives in Minnesota. She got so good at social media that it does not matter where she lives, period, end of story. People will come to her. Like, it doesn't matter. And she also decided to take a total sabbatical to, to traveling at all for a while because of her kids. And now she's back out in the world and going places again. So she's traveling to the places where the people are. And I will tell you

• 15:46Speaker 00

  that you, you know, if you want to be out in the world and growing in the biggest way that you can, if you can't move, you do need to put it on your calendar to be at things that you could network with a lot of people at once. So that's what she did. So you're going to miss out on maybe these little opportunities where people get really close, but you're not going to miss out on those, like, opportunities where there's events, or you're speaking at different people's events, or you have to create your own. I see a lot of people do this too, like, okay, I'm going to be the ringleader for getting together these trips three times a year with these big people, where we can really drop in, where we get really close. And I find other people who are on the same path as me, who don't have, you know, they're not going to live in LA, Orange County, New York, you know, Austin, Nashville, but.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  But they still want 80% of the proximity.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  They want 80% of the proximity.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  They want 80% of the network.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  So you have to create it, because I truly believe, like, proximity is one of the biggest ways to grow quickly.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  And that's why I put together Found. Like, people think I put together Found because, ooh, it's luxurious five-star, you know, first-class trips for entrepreneurs. No, it's not that at all. You guys can book your own damn trip. You can go travel with friends. It's a container to meet the people you wouldn't meet otherwise, that are big thinkers that are going to stretch you. It's a container where you're going to have conversations you wouldn't have otherwise, with people you wouldn't meet otherwise. And you're going to leave a different person that thinks bigger. You go on a trip, and you come back, literally a different shape and size, not because we feed you too much, but because you've expanded as a person. And that's what you have to do. If you can't have 100% of the opportunity, 100% of the proximity by living in New York,

• 17:25Speaker 01

  or LA, or Miami right now, then you must get 80% by going and dipping into as many of these things as possible.

• 17:34Speaker 00

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• 21:51Speaker 00

  And even now I'm back with my focus of growth. That does not make me nervous. That does not stretch me. And I know that this is such a focus of the trip is to do something that stretches you and to have conversations that stretch you. Because you don't want to be comfortable the whole time. You don't want to go with people who you can just chill and relax with. You want to go into an environment where you get the opportunity to be a bigger, better version of yourself and look at your problems and look at your life from a totally different perspective. Because the environment that you are currently in hasn't gotten you to where you want to go because it's an environment that's not going to stretch and change you. So if you're going to dinner every weekend with the same people, going to the same places,

• 22:34Speaker 00

  you're going to the same clubs, you're doing the same thing, you're having the same conversations, you're not actually changing. You're not creating the environments that change you. So you have to go dip into these environments that can happen very quickly on a weekend trip, which Chris, I just said yes to a trip.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  Yes, that scared you.

• 22:52Speaker 00

  That scares the shit out of me in early December. Like I am actually, I wanted, every part of me, I said to Chris, I said-

• 22:58Speaker 01

  She was trying to make a briefcase to say no.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  Wants to say no because I'm going to be really uncomfortable and I do not think I'm good enough for this trip. And I want to just back down and say, I'll just focus on, oh, make good content. I'll just stay back here and do something that still gets me out there, but doesn't make me uncomfortable. Like this is gonna make, when I say I'm going to have anxiety until December.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  I'm going to have anxiety until December. And the thing that I know is that my future self requires rooms like this in order to become the woman that I want to be and in order to have stories that are worth telling and in order for my business to stay aspirational and say, look at her in those rooms with those people, look at her doing the thing that she talks about on here. Look at her coming back with the stories that can actually resonate with me instead of staying cozy in her little office creating content. Like that's the person that I want to be. I want to go out on the battlefield and come back and tell you what it's really like and what it really looks like to grow and how it really feels. And if I don't do these things, I'm not going to have that for you.

• 24:01Speaker 00

  So that's why you take these trips and you do the things that are going to change you, that make you uncomfortable, because your life can change in a weekend.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it really can. That's why I'm so passionate about putting these together. You know, people are going to see my whole business model switch over the next year to all of these found trips where you're leaving your normal surroundings in order to find that bigger, different version of yourself. And you have to. You have to get yourself outside of your current circle of people, your current circle of perspective, your current circle of thinking, or nothing will ever change without going and getting stretched. So the way you're feeling stretched by saying yes to this trip in December, which I'd be intimidated in that room too, by the way, not to add any pressure. But what an honor, right?

• 24:43Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  What an honor that you're invited and that you get to go and meet these people. It's the same reason I'm putting together all these found trips over the next year. By the way, the very first one kicks off September 29th. We're starting in Beverly Hills. We're meeting a, literally a A-list celebrity entrepreneur, but is also a celebrity. And then we're heading up to Santa Barbara. We're dining at places you're not allowed to get in, like we had to pull strings to get in. It's going to be really cool. One spot left. If you guys want to change your proximity and opportunity and conversations and therefore change yourself, all you have to do is text me or DM me. If you got my number, text me, otherwise DM me on Instagram at ChrisWHarder. Say, I want that last phone trip spot. Please let me go. It's high-end, it's five stars, but it's worth it. So all you gotta do is DM me, ChrisWHarder on Instagram.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  All right, you guys, we are so grateful for you. Take the leap. I would rather just tear off the Band-Aid and do something that can change your life in a few short days. And until next time, we will see you next week.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Thanks, guys.