I had lunch with an old colleague on Wednesday as she wanted to explore a possible business relationship with me. When I left I felt queasy — the most important issue for her was my knowing who was the boss and in charge. A whole bunch of old ‘stuff’ — professional reputations, the gossip mill, etc. came up. Instead of a collegial lunch, it was sort of like a really bad job interview . . .

I realized that she was afraid of me and there was no recognition of the huge amount of change I’ve gone through in recent years as I’ve been away from our mutual profession and working on a lot of challenging projects.

The gift? I walked away knowing that this wasn’t a relationship to pursue. And freedom to move on with my visioning/creative process.

Reading your article made me feel “ok” about this mismatch. In the past I would have blamed my own inadequacies. Not now.

Thanks!