On this Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for the good people who lead to other good people in my life.
Fill your life with good people, and others will follow.
Five years ago, Masha Cresalia, formerly Masha Retovski, emailed me to ask if I would consider working with her at Slack. She had read “Storyworthy” and thought I could help her with some challenging work ahead.
I had more business than I could manage at the time, so I told Elysha I would probably just ignore the email. I didn’t use Slack, and her email didn’t paint a thrilling picture of possibility.
Elysha reminded me that my policy is to say yes to every opportunity until I know more about it, and only then should I consider saying no.
She was right. I did a whole TEDx Talk around this idea.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “I’ll talk to her.”
Thank goodness I did.
So began a business relationship and friendship that would take Masha and me from Slack to Salesforce and later to dozens of other companies when she left Salesforce to start consulting on her own. We’ve been working together ever since.
In 2023, we visited Masha in San Francisco as part of a West Coast vacation.
In 2024, Elysha Dicks and I attended Masha’s massage in San Francisco.
Masha brought me into the corporate world in a way I had never been before, and it helped propel me into working with companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Johnson & Johnson, PaloAlto, AstraZeneca, and many others.
I wouldn’t be where I am today without Masha.
In 2023, as Masha prepared to launch her consulting career, she hired a firm to redesign her website. Once it was completed, I asked her for the company’s name.
I loved their work, and my website needed a redesign as well.
That company, Kosei Designs, consisting of two women, worked with me to design a brand new website to represent my many roles. I thought it would be impossible.
Four months later, I launched my new website. I was thrilled with what they designed and built.
One of the women on the team, named Sadie Lovemore, then referred to her friend and business associate, Yolanda Harris, who runs The Keynote Group. Yolanda and her team manage people like me who speak, consult, and coach on the corporate level.
I had no manager at the time. I was doing everything myself, and while it was working, I wasn’t very strategic in my thinking or planning. I was flying by the seat of my pants, taking inbound calls from Fortune 100 companies and figuring things out as I moved forward.
Confidence is a powerful tool when you’re blundering in the dark.
Sadie thought we should talk. She felt that Yoanda and I might work well together.
When I got on the first call with Yolanda, one of the first things she said was, “Who referred you?”
“Sadie,” I said, and thank goodness she did.
Yolanda and I have been working together for almost a year, and she and her team have already transformed my life. My work is now more strategic, more coordinated, more profitable. My clients are better served, and I’ve regained time once lost to negotiation, discovery, planning, and more.
She’s also a creative partner in my life, helping me to refine, develop, and improve my craft. She is an expert in her field, guiding me toward bigger and better things.
Masha (thanks in part to Elysha) to Saide to Yolanda.
Along the way, each of these women has partnered with me in business and changed my life.
This is only one of many chains of introductions that I could point to that have made an enormous difference in my life.
Rena Klebart, a principal of Brainburn School in West Hartford, Connecticut, did not hire me in 1999. Years later, she told me that she and I would’ve been like oil and water had she hired me. Instead, she sent me to Plato Karafelis at Wolcott School, who hired me almost on the spot (as she suspected he would), which led me to meeting my wife and some of the closest and dearest friends of my life.
Two of those friends taught me to play golf, which led to even more friends and endless hours of joy.
One of those friends inadvertently gave me the idea for my frst novel, which launched my publishing career.
One of those friends wrote a rock opera and several musicals with me, which led me to meeting more people and access to the theater.
One of the parents turned friend at the school suggested that I try telling a story at The Moth, which introduced me to untold numbers of friends, acquaintances, and business relationships and transformed my life forever.
I would not be a corporate consultant, coach, keynote speaker, standup comic, storyteller, business owner, and author of three nonfiction books had she not made that suggestion.
Speak Up would not exist without that suggestion.
Nor would Storyworthy.
I would not be writing and performing solo shows had that friend not pushed me in the direction of The Moth.
A chain began with a school principal who didn’t hire me but took the time to recommend me to another principal at another school, which led to a chain of friends, colleagues, and business partners numbering in the hundreds and maybe thousands.
Including, and especially Elysha, who, by the way, has led me to some of my closest friends and opened the door to her family, which became mine.
Today, I am thankful for good people who lead to good people.
Today, I am thankful for those who take the time to make an introduction, open a door, suggest a path, and widen my world.
Today, I am thankful for the Mashas and Renas of the world, who start chains of connection through effort, kindness, and a desire to help people move forward and transform lives in the process.
If you have a moment today, maybe reflect on one of those chains in your life. Work your way back to the source. Find the first person who started things, and, if they are still in your life, thank them for what they have done for you.
Oftentimes, they have no idea how a simple act of kindness and connection has changed your life forever.
Happy Thanksgiving. I hope yours is filled with food, fun, and if you’re so inclined, football.
