Hi there,

I hope that you do not receive this in the midst of your work, as I do not want to disturb your work.

So did you get chance to take a break from work this week-end, and chill out and have some fun? I had a very interesting week, as I have been in Boston, but was just so knackered this Friday evening that I spent the whole of Saturday just relaxing. I actually went to the movies, first time since February, and watched “Departed”. It was a real good movie and story - just did not like the ending. But, it was good to see Boston from ” Hollywood’s” eyes.

First of all, I did not get your full text, so I hope that I am not going off in a tangent. I understand that you think that there is no potential in us, because of the distance and your work. I believe that the potential is there, but just that distance and time is going to difficult for it to happen. And by time I mean in the big picture context of where we are in our careers / lives as opposed to making time out of a week.

When separating the “what” (potential) from the “how” (road to get there), the first step is to understand if the vision is viable. I feel like a typical consultant when I bring this, but I think that it is useful in this situation. When we talk to clients about a commitment to a change or a vision, we talk about a path that one follows to commitment - which is attached.

Commitment Curve.ppt

In fact, this is ideal for us as we have achieved a lot in our life, and each time we have accepted in the vision, and have walked the commitment path, we work our best to make it happen. The issue was that we were at different stages of this commitment curve. And, after I had accepted the vision, I think should not have informed you. Each one of us have to walk this commitment curve on our own. In fact, I think I made it worse. With every journey, there is a satisfaction of reaching the destination, which drives people to the destination, and reinforces the vision along the way. But, by already informing you what I believed, I killed the incentive for you to walk this commitment path. I should not have jumped the gun, and I wanted to apologize for it. Actually, this apology is really to the idea of “us” as opposed to either you or me, because my mistake affects the idea more at this stage.

Having met you, I knew that distance was going to be an issue. I had to decide quickly, if I wanted to continue with this, as otherwise it would loose the momentum. Let me tell of another similar story. During this week, I was working with a partner to deliver a deck. I was really fascinated at how quickly she would process information and make decisions. She told me that sometime she is not sure about the decision that she has made as she does not have all the information. However, she quoted Colin Powell, “Do not delay a decision, because of not all information is available. Question whether the additional information will change a decision made today, and if does not than make it”. I think that in our profession, you have to get used to making decision with limited information - of course the more senior can make decision more quickly then others.

This is what I went through during my flight back. I was not totally convinced about the idea of us, and so I went through a typical risk / reward analysis. With what I had learnt from our couple of interactions, I felt that there was a lot of similarity with us, that things could not really go that wrong. Moreover, this would lay the foundation to a great life experience. It is just how guns are developed - the longer the barrels or two aligned guns (the more the similarity in the foundation) the more likely the bullets will stay together once fired!

And, it is not just that our backgrounds are the same. In the recent communications we have had, I have see a lot similarities in our likes, our dislikes, our outlook of life, etc. But, does that mean that I know you in totality? No! In fact, I will probably never know you to that extent, and probably should not. I have no idea what your favorite color is, what is your favorite food, what is your favorite place to live or who your best friend is, etc. the question I had on my mind was that knowing what I did know, could I take the risk?

That is when I believed that there is definitely a potential. There is just so much that can go right with this. It was not a perfect, and yes there I know there were certain questions I had that could make things go wrong, but they were issues that I had encountered earlier in my life and I just had to overcome them. Even though, I saw the potential, I should not have told you, even though the latter would be atypical of me. As to how we will deal with the issue of distance and time, I do not know now. We could just playing the waiting game. May be we will see options as time goes by?