Last week in Panama City, I was walking through Casco Viejo at night when I noticed a taxi driver with a big Pablo Escobar sticker on his car.
The guy looked rough — the kind of person most people would instinctively avoid or at least not make eye contact with.
For a second, I had that exact thought. Just keep walking, no need to get involved.
But instead, I walked up to him and said, “Hey man, cool sticker.”
He turned around, a bit surprised at first, then laughed. We ended up talking for almost ten minutes, and it turned out he was just a normal guy who thought the sticker was funny.
That small moment stuck with me.
I’ve noticed that a lot of people we label as “scary” aren’t actually scary at all — they just sit outside of what feels comfortable or predictable, so our default reaction is to avoid them. In reality, the tension is usually in our own heads, and the moment you talk to them like a normal human being, it tends to disappear.
Avoiding these interactions feels rational. You don’t know how someone will react, you don’t want unnecessary friction, and it’s easier to stay in your lane and move on. But that also means you quietly filter out a whole category of interactions that could have been completely fine — or even interesting.
So I’ve been trying to follow a simple rule: if someone looks intimidating, don’t cross the street. Say hi first.
Most of the time, nothing special will happen. But sometimes it will, and over time those small decisions start to change how you see people and how you move through the world.
That’s gogetthism in practice — small acts of motion, even when your brain says “maybe not.”