Letter #44 - Mike

I have had a career that allowed me to meet literally thousands of people.  It was awesome.  Some of those people I could run into on the street tomorrow and not realise it, but many I was able to develop great relationships with.  As I've been out of work this past year, many of those relationships have suffered, and that is a great loss to me.  So today I decided there was no reason I couldn't still work on those relationships, even if I'm not currently in the working corporate world with a corporate schedule and blackberry and crazy travel stories to swap with my colleagues.  I can continue to develop some of those relationships outside of the rat race.

This brings me to Mike.  Mike is someone I met as a result of a series of video interviews my former boss did as a part of our leadership program curriculum.  Mike is a CEO and had some really awesome insights on the concept of work-life balance.  I was not able to tag along with my boss on the trip where he interviewed Mike, but I had been the contact person who set it all up, and followed up with Mike several times afterward.  When my boss returned to the office from that interview, he said "wait til you see it, you're gonna love this guy!"  He was right.  I did get to meet Mike finally a little over a year ago (my last project before the layoff) and it was corporate love at first sight :o)  We share a lot of views on work-life balance and on food.  And music.  Basically, he's awesome and I wish I had more reasons to hang out with him.

Writing to Mike was a very cool experience for me, because it allowed me to draw on professional experiences while focusing entirely on the personal relationship.  I reflected on the things I don't know about this guy, and shared some updates with him on my own life.  He is the kind of person whose opinion I value highly.  I hope I'll get to hear back from him at some point.  I doubt he's much of a letter writer, but I'm sure I'll at least get a note on facebook or something.  If his company weren't based in Montana I bet I could get a good shot at getting a job there, they have a really cool setup... but I'm not sure a move to Montana is in the cards for my family at this time.  Who moves to Montana in February anyway ;o)