A few years ago, I reconnected with someone I hadn’t spoken to in a while.
There was no grand strategy behind it. No mastermind plan. No networking goal. I’d seen their name pop up somewhere, realized it had probably been close to a year since we’d talked, and sent a note.
That was it. A simple check-in. The kind of message most people mean to send and never do.
A few weeks later, that conversation turned into an introduction. The introduction turned into another conversation. That conversation eventually led to an opportunity I would not have had access to otherwise.
If you only looked at the ending, it would have appeared that the opportunity came out of nowhere.
It didn’t.
It came from a relationship that had nearly gone dormant.
The reason I think about that interaction so often is because it changed how I think about careers.
Most people assume their careers are built through major events. The promotion. The new job. The funding round. The big client. The big break.
Those things matter, o…
