Unfortunately, saying thank you seems to be an after thought more and more. So at least once a month, I will take a few minutes to publicly appreciate someone that has had an impact on me.
This round: Jake Calabrese
I met Jake about a year and a half ago at an Agile Meet-up in Denver. We still laugh as he jokingly tried to find out if he was selected for Agile 2014 (I was the track chair and just submitted our recommendations). Luckily, I have a great poker face! I was able to congratulate him a few weeks later for his selection 🙂 Why this still makes me smile is because he was almost immediately comfortable to joke with me. In fact, that entire meet-up we were in sync and just felt like we knew each other for years already.
Since that first meeting, our friendship continues to grow. I very much think that there are people that come into your life and they just make sense. Jake is one of those people for me. Since joining Agile For All, he finds the time to collaborate with me. From asking me to help him with another session at the Humanizing Work Conference – because he thought I would add value and because he wanted to teach the session with me. Or brainstorming to create a new combined class that we are both super excited about. To helping me realize that my anxiety of creating content has lessened knowing he will collaboratively edit towards a great finished product.
It’s important to me to feel valued and connected. And although you may make more of an effort because you know my extroverted self craves this, the fact that that’s something you consider is quite amazing. Whether you realize it or not, you very much have helped me feel both valued, connected and part of the Agile For All team.
So thank you. Thank you for being an amazing colleague and friend 🙂
Picture from LinkedIn
Wow! You already know how I feel my friend! 🙂 Thank you!!!
Always!
So much love going on here. 😉