I Spent Last Week in a Room Full of People 20 Years Younger Than Me

Last week I was in Los Angeles.  I flew out to shoot content and record a podcast with my partners at Solin.Stream, the platform that hosts my community. We spent a few days together in a studio, filming, talking, planning what comes next.

Here is the thing I keep thinking about.

The team there is, on average, about 20 years younger than I am. And they were excellent. Sharp, prepared, fast, generous with ideas. Nobody was protecting their turf. Nobody was tired.

I came home with more energy than I left with. It felt amazing. I gained energy being around the Solin team, and I have spent the days since understanding how I worked such long days without even a yawn.

The Word I Landed On Is Proximity

Here is what I have to share.

Who you are near changes what feels normal to you.

Not what you know. What feels normal. Those are two different things, and only one of them actually changes your behavior.

I have known for years that I should be thinking bigger about my work. Knowing that did nothing. Then I spent three days in a room where thinking bigger was simply the water everyone was swimming in, and I came home doing it without trying.

That is proximity. It works on you quietly, and it works whether you chose the room or just ended up in it.

Happy Work, Not Hard Work

The other thing I noticed in that studio was the tone.

We worked long days, and it was easy. There was a lightness to the whole thing that I want to name, because it is not an accident. It is a company culture.

Nobody was performing or exhausted. It was the opposite. Nobody was competing over who was the most drained. Instead it was about who could laugh and enjoy the most while doing excellent work. The energy was this is fun and we are good at it.

I have been calling it happy work instead of hard work ever since.

The work was the same amount of work. The relationship to it was completely different. And I noticed that when the room felt light, I did better work, made better decisions, and had more left over at the end of the day.

Which made me wonder how much of my own tiredness over the years has actually been the work, and how much has been the heaviness I was carrying about the work.

Here Is Why I Am Telling You This

I know most of you did not come here for business advice. So let me bring this all the way home, because I think this is the most useful thing I have to offer you today.

Proximity is doing the exact same thing to your health.

Think about it honestly:

• If everyone around you says they are too old for this, you will slowly come to believe you are too old for this.
• If nobody in your life lifts weights, picking up a dumbbell will always feel like a strange thing you are doing.
• If every conversation about bodies is a complaint, that becomes the only available way to talk about yours.
• If the women around you are getting stronger, something in you starts to assume you can too.

None of that is about willpower. That is the room doing its work on you, one ordinary conversation at a time.

This is exactly why I built my community the way I did, and it is why I care so much about the comments on these posts. It is not a nice extra. For a lot of women it is the only room they are in where getting stronger at 55 is completely supported.

What I Am Actually Asking You to Do

Not to move to Los Angeles. Something much smaller.

Take an honest look at your rooms. Who are you around the most? What do they treat as normal? You do not have to judge anybody. Just notice.

Add one growing thing. You do not have to remove people you love. Just add one input where the norm is different. A community, a class, a friend who moves, a group chat where somebody is training for something.

Be the proximity for somebody else. This one matters more than people realize. Someone in your life is watching you get stronger and quietly updating what they think is possible for themselves.

Notice the heaviness. When something in your week feels heavy, ask whether it is really the task, or the story you are carrying about the task. Happy work is available in more places than we think.

The Part That Surprised Me Most

I want to say one more thing about that room in LA.

I went in half expecting to feel like the oldest person there. That is a real thing, and I know some of you will recognize it.

That is not what happened at all. What happened is that I brought 15 years of coaching and a very clear idea of who I serve, and they brought speed and fresh eyes and a way of working I have been borrowing ever since. Nobody was carrying anybody.

You do not age out of rooms like that. You just have to keep walking into them.

So here is my question for you this week. Which room in your life is making you bigger, and which one is making you smaller? Tell me in the comments. I will be in there reading and responding later today.

Big hug, everyone.