My wife opened the fridge.
She put something away, closed it, and walked off. And I — without even thinking about it — reached out to catch the door before it sealed shut. To slip in through her pull. To skip the resistance.
I missed it by half a second. Door closed. Magnetic seal engaged.
So I had to open it myself.
I'm walking around the kitchen thinking about that little moment. Why did I even do that? Why was I trying to catch her door? And then — why does that resistance exist in the first place? Why doesn't the fridge just open with no friction?
And then it hit me.
If it opened with no resistance, everything inside would spoil. The seal is what protects the nourishment. The resistance isn't a flaw. It's the whole point.
I held onto that for a few hours.
Later that day I was on a call with Brian Breen — a deep conversation about showing up, about why people start things and stop, about why the gap between knowing and doing stays so wide for so many people.
And I just said it out loud. The fridge thing.
Brian stopped me.
"I've never heard that. That is the greatest metaphor I've ever heard. That is spectacular."
He said it was my TED Talk.
What Brian Heard
He told me to write about it on LinkedIn. Then he started expanding it on the spot — three things, faster than I could keep up.
One: resistance will always exist. It doesn't go away the more experienced you get. The fridge door doesn't get lighter because you've opened it a thousand times.
Two: lean into it. The resistance isn't a warning. It's a test. It's asking: are you intentional enough to pull? Do you actually want what's inside?
Three: you have to be in the kitchen. Proximity matters. You can't open a fridge you're not standing in front of. You can't catch an opportunity you're not in the vicinity of.
The Elevator
I kept going.
Think about catching an elevator. You see it closing, you reach out, you hold the door for someone running down the hall.
Now think about how often we don't.
The doors close and we tell ourselves we'll catch the next one. The friction of waiting, the hesitation of holding it open — that's enough for most people to let it go.
And then there's the version where we wait for someone else to hold the door for us.
We wait for Mark Cuban to notice. We wait for the algorithm to push us. We wait for someone with a platform to discover us and prop the door open. And meanwhile the elevator keeps going up without us.
Nobody is coming to hold the door.
Open the fridge yourself.
Being in the Kitchen
I have three different mastermind groups I show up to every week.
Monday. Tuesday at 6:30am. Wednesday at 1:30pm.
That's not a flex — it's the point. I am in the kitchen. Deliberately, repeatedly, on schedule.
Not because every call is transformational. Not because every conversation produces a metaphor Brian Breen wants to quote. But because you cannot catch what you're not in the vicinity of.
The people who are in the kitchen — who are opening their fridges, who are pushing through the magnetic seal — those are the people you want to be in the room with.
That energy compounds. That friction compounds too, but in the right direction.
Only the Intentional Pull Through
Here's the thing about the fridge door metaphor that took me a minute to fully sit with.
The nourishment is always there. It doesn't appear and disappear. It's not waiting to be unlocked by some special knowledge or the right connections.
It's just behind the resistance.
And the only thing separating you from it is a pull. A deliberate, intentional act of doing the thing despite the slight push-back.
Starting the podcast. Hitting record. Sending the email. Posting the thing you've been sitting on for three weeks.
The friction isn't a sign you're doing it wrong.
That's the fridge door.
Pull.