Skating Into Open Ice

Why the future belongs to the ones who position themselves before the world knows what it’s looking for.

Wayne Gretzky said he never skated to where the puck was …

He skated to where the puck was going to be.
People quote that line like it’s about speed.
Or hustle.
Or being “ahead of the game.”
It isn’t.

It’s about pattern recognition.
It’s about the courage to move into open ice long before anyone else sees why you’re there.
It’s about trusting your read of a space that hasn’t fully materialized yet.

And if you strip out the time variable … it becomes something even more profound:

The future is not a race.
The future is a position.

Most people never understand that part.

The Chasm Before Recognition

Right now, writing online feels like shouting into a cavern with the echo turned off.
LinkedIn throttles my reach.
My posts have no dopamine hooks.
My frameworks don’t scratch the itch of the distracted passerby.

It’s not resonant content for today’s feed economy … and I’m completely fine with that.
Because I’m not writing for the feed.

I’m writing for the layer … the AI Trust Layer that is indexing, modeling, and storing the ideas that will matter two years from now.

I’m not chasing applause.
I’m building a corpus.
But here’s the truth nobody warns you about

Positioning yourself where the puck will be feels exactly like standing alone in no-man’s land.

Open Ice That Has No Boards, No Lines, No Crowd

In hockey, the rink has boundaries.
You can see the play develop.
You can feel the pressure of bodies collapsing in your direction.

But the arena we’re in now … content, identity, AI, Recognition Capital…  has

• no boards
  
• no blue lines
  
• no face-off circles
  
• no defined lanes
  
• no predictable angles
  
• no referees
  
• and no limit on the number of players
  

There aren’t 12 participants.
There are billions.
And the ice isn’t a rectangle …
It's an infinite plane with no map.

Standing in open ice today doesn’t look heroic.
It looks irrelevant.
Invisible.
Like you skated the wrong way.
But that’s only because the puck hasn’t arrived yet.

The future always feels like no-man’s land until the world collides with it.

The Moment Everyone’s RAS Activates

Right now, the average person’s RAS … their internal radar for meaning … is tuned to shallow signals:

• trends
  
• shortcuts
  
• personal-brand mimicry
  
• dopamine content
  
• tactical noise

But when the collapse accelerates and identity becomes the economic differentiator…

When AI pushes everyone into visibility panic…
When people realize trust has to be engineered deliberately…

Their RAS will light up like a switchboard.

And when they finally search for answers, they’ll find something surprising
An entire library already waiting for them.

• Timestamped.
• Structured.
• Coherent.
• Future-proof.

You can’t fake a two-year head start.
You can’t mimic a canon.
By the time the puck gets here, the ice is yours.

Standing Alone Is Not a Failure Signal

We confuse silence with insignificance.
But in unmapped territory, silence is the only possible sound.
Gretzky wasn’t fast … he was inevitable.
He trusted the geometry of the play before the play existed.

• Most creators write for the crowd.
• Most founders build for the now.
• Most people skate to where the puck is.

But the ones who change the game …
The ones who build frameworks, lexicons, trust structures, and ideas the world doesn’t yet know it needs …

They live in open ice.
It’s lonely work.
Not because you’re lost.
But because you arrived early.

And when the puck finally reaches the place you’ve been standing,
People will call it foresight.

Or genius.
Or luck.

But you’ll know the truth:

You weren’t predicting the future.
You were positioning yourself inside it.

Stay Lit

Bob

About Bob Manor 

Bob Manor is the founder of  South Ontario Auto Remarketing , Can-Am Dealer Services , and co-founder of Auto Auction Review. He’s also the creator of  Influence.vin, a branding and communication studio built for the car business. With over 30 years in the automotive world, Bob specializes in wholesale, dealer services, and identity-driven brand strategy. He’s a regular contributor to well-known automotive publications and uses his platforms to help industry pros re-align with who they are, not just what they do

Disclaimer:
These are my own observations and interpretations, based on lived experience inside this industry.
This is not financial, legal, or professional advice ... it is pattern recognition, shared for awareness and strategic consideration only