Over the weekend, I came across a story circulating about world number two, Nelly Korda, returning to the golf course where she first learned the game. The fairways felt familiar. The clubhouse looked almost the same. The small details that shape early memories were still there, quietly waiting in the background.
But one moment stopped her.
The groundskeeper who used to take care of the course when she practiced there after school was still working. Decades had gone by, but Mr. Harris was still maintaining the greens and fairways at seventy-nine years old.
If you spend enough time around golf courses, you recognize people like this. They are the ones who arrive before sunrise. They cut the greens while the rest of the world is still asleep. They wave to the junior golfers hitting balls on the range after school. They rarely appear in photos, and their names do not show up on leaderboards, but they are part of the quiet system that keeps the game running.
When Korda saw him again, the moment stirred something deeper than nostalgia. She sat down with him and asked about his life, his health, and his family. During that conversation, she learned that the reason he was still working was simple: he needed to. Life had required it.
Instead of just thanking him and moving forward, she quietly worked with the club and community members to ensure he could retire with dignity. There was no press conference and no public celebration, just a genuine act of gratitude for someone who helped shape the environment where her journey started.
Stories like this hit differently when you take a moment to reflect. They remind us that success rarely belongs to just one person. Every achievement results from a network of people who showed up along the way. Some of them taught us. Some encouraged us. Others simply kept things running so we could pursue our dreams on the fairway, the stage, or the playing field.
In RELEVANCE: The Quiet Power of Lives That Keep Showing Up, I write about relevance and often describe life as unfolding through three stages. The first is rooting, when we’re shaped by the people and places that ground us. Then comes rising, when we build our careers and expand our abilities into the world.
Eventually, if we are fortunate, we hit a third stage.
Reaching.
Reaching is the moment when success begins to look back instead of just ahead. It’s when someone pauses long enough to ask a simple question: Who helped me get here?
And then comes the more important question.
How can I lift them up?
Most people who impact our lives never get recognition. They include teachers, encouraging neighbors, dedicated parents, volunteers, and groundskeepers who quietly support others.
In a world obsessed with trophies and headlines, it’s easy to overlook these people. Yet, they are often the ones who quietly make the entire journey possible.
Sometimes relevance is not about climbing higher, Sometimes relevance is about reaching back.
And that feels like a pretty good way to begin a Monday.
Make it a great one.
