I do a call with J. every Monday or Tuesday morning and we talk about the week that passed and the week ahead, and what we worked on and plan to work on. Have I already told you this? It feels like I have. Sometimes the calls are brisk check-ins – fifteen minutes before starting (or getting back) to work. Other days, like today, I’m sitting out on my patio and J. is in his apartment in Brooklyn, and the threads of conversation weave into a rug over the course of an hour and a half. It’s not all that dissimilar from these weekly letters to you, dear friend.
J. and I used to work together. He plays a lot of soccer in his spare time and manages a couple of his teams, too. This morning we were talking about some of the similarities between his hobby and his having to manage teams at work, and he brought up the notion of Defense. There’s a window of opportunity when the opposing team is attacking, he said, when the defender can intercept the ball and your team can turn it into a productive play, swing momentum in the other direction. But the moment is fleeting. If the defender simply kicks the ball out of bounds every time or if he tries to get too fancy, then the opportunity is squandered.
