Find meaningful work with ‘The Proximity Principal’

It’s ironic that I carried around a preview copy of Ken Coleman’s book “The Proximity Principle” with me for about three months before finally carving out the time to read it.

The book arrived just days after I returned to The Sealy News last April and I’ve been so busy trying to get my feet on the ground that I just kept pushing it off to do later. That was my mistake.

Fortunately, I was smart enough to keep it in close proximity as a reminder that I needed to read it. Last weekend I got sick and suddenly had time to do just that. I didn’t just read it, I devoured it. I attacked it with a yellow highlighter and noted things both old and new to my way of thinking. It got me thinking about old things in new ways and opened my eyes to a world of possibilities.

The tagline to Coleman’s book is “The proven strategy that will lead to the career you love.” On that note, this isn’t a self-help book for job-seekers. This is a book for people wanting to advance their careers into meaningful work that they love. If you’re looking for help building a resume, getting an interview, and getting your foot in the door, this book can help but marginally. If you want to pursue your dreams and do work that you are passionate and excited about, than this is the book you’ve been waiting for.

It doesn’t matter what profession you are in, “The Proximity Principle” can help. As the word proximity implies, it’s about being close to the people, places, and things that are important to you and getting where you want to be.

The book is divided into three parts: People, places, and practices. All three are vital to getting anyone where they want to go vocationally. The people include the professors/teachers, the professionals, the mentors, the peers, and the producers. You need all these people to teach you what you need to know, to help you hone your skills, to encourage you along your way, to give you a hand up, and finally to give you a chance to shine.

The places include starting where you are at and finding places to learn, practice, perform, and grow. The practices include building a web of connections, making those connections count, and seizing the moment. It’s about adopting a proximity mind-set.

Basically what I’ve done here is give a skeletal outline of the chapters. It’s the meat and the fat that hangs on the skeleton that make this book worth reading. Seeing how Coleman is a protégé of Dave Ramsey (and if you don’t know Dave, you need to look him up) and Ramsey is a protégé of the late Zig Ziglar, there is an incredible lineage of character, integrity, practices and principles that are fundamentally sound both in career and life within these pages.

This is a step-by-step book about pursuing your passion. More importantly, it’s about being the kind of person deserving of that level of accomplishment. The underlying principles are not about using people on the ladder to success but being the kind of person who helps others on their climb. In this book, Coleman quotes a lot of famous and not-so-famous people about keys to career success. None is more apropos than the keystone quote by Ziglar: “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

The importance of people is to appreciate and respect what they bring to the table. It’s been said that the secret to getting a job is not so much what you know but who you know. The thing is, you never know who you need to know in order to make those connections. If you treat everyone like they’re the most important person in the world, the connections will be made.

It’s also important to know that in order to get where you want to go that you must first start where you are at. You must be willing to learn, study, provide assistance, and work hard at the small steps toward your goal. Nobody starts at the top. People like Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos each started in their garage. Dave Ramsey started in his living room, but it’s the same idea. None of these industry leaders began by walking into a corporate office and saying “here I am, hire me!”

They all worked with and for people who knew more than they did and they eventually moved to places where they needed to be. All of them, however, started at home. The point is you can too. The only person keeping you where you are at is you.

I already feel like I’ve given away too much information about Coleman’s wonderful book. There is just so much to it that you really need to read it for yourself. If you have a desire to advance your career or climb higher or be better than you ever imagined, this book can get you on your way.

The book only took a few hours to read but the lessons will last a lifetime. Look for the book on Amazon.com or at DaveRamsey.com or KenColeman.com.

Does anyone care about the moon?

Crickets.

Right now I think I’d be happy to hear crickets whenever I try to engage people in talk of the old Apollo moon missions and the plan of returning to the moon by 2024. At least the crickets would be something. About all I’m getting from people makes the vacuum of space seem as thick as a moon rock.

Thank God for Facebook because at least there I can engage with fellow space enthusiasts in the various groups I’ve joined. I’m also thankful to be close to the Johnson Space Center and Space Center Houston, because they can feed my insatiable appetite for information about space exploration.

With the 50^th anniversary of the first moon landing coming up in a month I hope to run a special package of stories in the newspaper to commemorate the event. Twice now in the last three weeks I’ve run a story in the paper asking those of us old enough to share your stories of watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin take those first steps on the lunar surface. So far, even the crickets aren’t chirping.

I can’t do this without a response from our readers, so I’m again appealing to you to take a moment and share your stories with us. Did you attend a party, watch in private, or were you employed by NASA or a contractor at the time? I know the moon landing meant the world to millions of people at the time. Surely it still does today. At least I hope it does.

I know the majority of people alive in 2019 were not around when the Apollo 11 mission took place. That’s why I’ve asked our younger folks to share their thoughts about humans going back to the moon by 2024 and onto Mars sometime after that.

This is a time for our generations to shine. This could be our generations’ crowning achievement. Does this not interest or excite you?

I just finished listening to the audiobook of “American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race” by Douglas Brinkley. It’s an incredible book that provides details that I had never known about what was going on from a political perspective in the few years before I was born. I’ve learned a lot from this book but what impresses me the most is the depth of detail into something I’ve always known.

The push to be first to land men on the moon was so much more than a race with the Russians. In hindsight we know that it really wasn’t much of a race at all. What we had in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions was a united sense of adventure and exploration. Even the space program’s biggest detractors had to admit to being impressed and inspired by what America accomplished.

Going to the moon brought people together in an unprecedented way. It advanced mankind with enormous leaps in technology, sociology, medicine, education, and scores of other disciplines. The direct and indirect spinoff technologies have rapidly changed the way we live and continue to improve our lives in previously unimaginable ways.

When it was announced last year that America would seek to return to the moon by 2024, I was stoked, along with thousands of other space enthusiasts. Unfortunately, the announcement landed like a thud on the average American.

It appears that people are so full of bitter hatred that instead of ascending to something great, they would rather spend their time tearing down the President or the political party opposite their own.

To be sure we have not had a Kennedy-like moon shot speech and Donald Trump certainly lacks the unifying charisma and leadership of our 35^th President, but he has us on a path that we have strayed from since Apollo 17 left the moon in 1972.

We need to go to the moon not only to train for a future trip to Mars, but also to bring a divided people together again. We need that shared sense of awe and wonder as we step out into the great unknown and re-engage in the task of exploring our solar system and expanding our reach into the heavens.

The inspiration and knowledge we gain from a return to the moon will not come from the office-holder who points us in that direction but from the hundreds of thousands of people who help get us there. This is our chance to step up and lead or else cede what we have gained to another country that would gladly leapfrog us on the world’s stage.

So let’s hear it people, what do the moon shots of yesterday and tomorrow mean to you? Please share your stories of old and thoughts anew. You can email me at editor@sealynews.com or send a letter to The Sealy News, 193 Schmidt Road, Sealy, TX 77474. Don’t let the crickets speak for you!

Legislature delivered on promises

The 86th Texas Legislature has recently completed its biannual task and lawmakers are now back at home serving their respective districts.

I have some mixed feelings about how the Legislature performed this past session but overall I’m pleased. Lawmakers actually achieved key priorities and added some nice surprises. They promised and delivered on funding reforms for public education and property tax relief. House Bill 3 plunks an additional $4.5 billion into Texas schools, and increases the state funded “basic allotment” per student. It also provides $2 billion to give teachers a pay raise. 

HB3 reduces local school property tax rates by about 13 cents per $100 valuation by the year 2021. That provides over $5 billion in property tax relief within two years. It also reins in tax rate growth by requiring taxing districts to get voter approval in order to exceed 3.5 percent rate increase in any year.

What I like about this is that it will require more transparency about tax rates. Many local governments like to boast that they’ve held the line or even reduced tax rates over a period of time, but they don’t mention that property values have risen so high that they’re actually collecting more in taxes.

Trust me, city and county officials hate this bill. They say it takes away local control and hamstrings them from doing their job. From a certain perspective they are correct. From a taxpayer perspective, however, it’s nice to know that the actual amount of taxes collected won’t rise more than 3.5% without voters giving approval.

With property taxes skyrocketing out of control and taxing entities each blaming one another, it took the Legislature to step in and say enough. The Legislature has also pumped enough money into public education to help balance its share of the financial burden. Now local school districts won’t have to keep raising property taxes to fill in where the state was coming up short.

The new funding formula will direct more resources to students who are economically disadvantaged, those learning English, and those with dyslexia. It creates an optional July term for eligible students and full-day, quality pre-kindergarten programs for students from low-income backgrounds. The only outcomes-based funding rewards schools for every student they graduate ready for college, the workforce or the military.

If school finance reform and property tax relief were not enough, the Legislature provided a number of Hurricane Harvey relief measures, many of them authored by our own Sen. Lois Kolkhorst. Lawmakers also shored up the state teachers’ retirement system, which was long overdue for an overhaul.

They also provided funding to increase capacity at state drivers’ license offices (which is greatly needed) and to eliminate the backlog on rape kit testing. $7.8 billion is being pumped into mental health programs across 23 state agencies, and $347 million is going to women’s health programs.

Although it would take too long to name all the things accomplished by the Legislature, there are a few special items that I find pleasing. The first is a bill that raises the age to purchase tobacco or other nicotine products from 18 to 21. Another bans the use of red-light cameras in Texas. This isn’t such a big deal in Austin County, but it has significant impact in Sugar Land, where I spend a lot of my time.

As a volunteer at Brazos Bend State Park and a member of the Texas Army (a historical re-enactment group), I am thrilled with Kolkhorst for authoring and passing Senate Joint Resolution 24 and Senate Bill 26. Under those bills, the entire amount of the state’s sporting good sales tax will be constitutionally dedicated to parks and historic sites. It’s pained me to see how our parks and historic sites have suffered from neglect and overuse due to a lack of funding. Now they will have dependable income and the ability to better manage and protect these vital resources.

Kolkhorst can also take credit for having a hand in many Legislative accomplishments, including several related to healthcare and mental health.

She didn’t always get her way in Austin, but Kolkhorst is getting attention with her bills to reform eminent domain laws to better protect the rights of property owners.

It will be very interesting to see how things unfold over the next two years before the Legislature meets again. Kolkhorst is clearly a rising star in state politics, and we are very fortunate to have her representing us in Senate District 18. She and her colleagues in Austin took some risks with the budget and other legislation this year – bold moves to be applauded. How they play out remains to be seen, but it sure beats the inaction of the previous Legislature and the problems that caused.

Now, if we can just get our representatives in Washington to pay attention to what we’re doing here in Texas, maybe we could see some real reform happening on a national level. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that’s too much to ask for when it appears that Republicans and Democrats are more concerned about stopping the progress of the other side rather than working together for the good of all people.