Willingness To Engage = Possibilities

*AI photo generated after 4 iterations

Last week, my daughter texted me from a café in Montréal.

She had just watched someone walk in, approach the counter, and hand the barista a printed résumé. No preamble. No portal. No automated confirmation email. Just paper, eye contact, and a small leap of courage.

What stunned her was the person behind the counter started reading it. She was in disbelief that it could be that simple; just by personally handing in a résumé! That direct. That human.

Her text landed just hours after I had finished an “industry chat,” as I call them, with Adam Thomas Hurd. We had connected on Linkedin. I asked if he wanted to have an industry chat. The phrase “industry chat” piqued his curiosity. So we scheduled it.

What followed wasn’t a pitch. It was a thoughtful exchange between two professionals pausing long enough to compare notes on leadership, decision-making, and the realities of modern work.

It struck me how similar those two moments were; the résumé handed across a counter and the calendar invite accepted by a stranger. Both required a small act of initiative. Both depended on someone being willing to engage.

I began having these industry chats or conversations several years ago during a season of uncertainty. My husband had been laid off from his media company, and while I had built a freelance career spanning 15 years, the ground still felt unsteady. I started exploring corporate roles, trying to determine where I might fit.

The problem was less capability and more categorization. My background spanned visual communications, branding, photojournalism, brand strategy. Too broad for some roles. Too senior for others. Too unconventional for tidy boxes.

So instead of continuing to guess what companies needed, I decided to ask.

I reached out to people in roles I found interesting, creative directors, marketing leads, operations executives, and requested 30 minutes of their time. I wasn’t looking for a job. I was looking to understand the challenges they were navigating.

Some never responded. But many said yes. The generous and the curious.

Those conversations became one of the most clarifying professional exercises of my career. I learned where marketing bottlenecks truly form. I heard how leadership strain shows up internally before it’s visible externally. I saw how brand confusion often signals operational misalignment. More importantly, I was reminded how rarely people are invited to speak candidly about what’s difficult.

Again and again, calls ended the same way: “That was surprisingly refreshing.” Not because I had offered solutions. But because we had paused long enough to have a real conversation.

We operate in a time optimized for scale, speed, and visibility. We submit applications into portals and wait. We “connect” with hundreds of people without ever speaking. We refine personal brands but forget to practice simple professional curiosity.

And yet, progress often begins the old-fashioned way.

A résumé handed directly to someone willing to read it. A message asking, “Would you be open to a conversation?” A willingness to be slightly uncomfortable in service of something more human.

These exchanges haven’t just informed how I position myself professionally. They’ve shaped how I approach my work.

Brand strategy, at its core, isn’t about logos or taglines. It begins with listening deeply enough to understand the tension beneath the surface. The marketing issue that’s actually a clarity issue. The clarity issue that’s actually a leadership issue. The leadership issue that’s actually a communication gap.

You don’t uncover those layers through dashboards alone. You uncover them in conversation.

As I prepare for a move to Jupiter, Florida in the coming months, continuing to work remotely while expanding my professional community, I’m carrying that lesson with me.

Connection is rarely as complicated as we make it.

Sometimes it’s a printed résumé.

Sometimes it’s a 30-minute call.

Sometimes it’s simply the decision to reach out and see who answers.

In a world engineered for frictionless transactions, choosing a human exchange may be the most strategic move of all and frankly more fun.

As an aside, if you are in leadership and want to level up but are feeling stuck, I highly suggest you reach out to Adam Thomas Hurd. Finding resources to be a better leader is a power move more leaders should openly embrace.