Beki: 0:01

Every romance story has a meet-cute. It's the introduction of the two people. Then there are the challenges they face to be together. Once upon a time, an independent woman left a fiancé and some other life things to move in pursuit of a Yale graduate program. Just a few short years later, that same woman left gainful employment and moved back to the Midwest with no job and no prospects for one. Why? Well, she met a fellow and she thought he might be the one. That's the short story.

Beki: 0:33

Hi, I'm Becky Fraser, an award-winning coach, author and entrepreneur. I'm also a leader shaped by decades of experience inviting others on a journey towards adaptable leadership and fulfilled potential. It may have become obvious for my stories that I have a tendency toward taking action. Sometimes I might look before I leap, and other times I am more intentional and downright methodical about choosing a direction. Gandhi is recognized for saying you may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results. That resonates with me, since I'm rarely in the camp of being still and taking no action.

Beki: 1:15

Today I have a surprise for you, a special guest. When I take a methodical approach to decision making, this person is a frequent thought partner methodical approach to decision-making. This person is a frequent thought partner. He's also been helping me tell this particular story for some time, and it simply wouldn't be the same without him. I'd like to introduce my husband, scott Fraser. We were about to share the story of our meet-cute and where that took us. Earlier I told you the short story and now we can share our long version.

Scott: 1:44

So I met my wife when my sister tried to pick her up in a bar. Well, why was I there? So a few years ago we were in Connecticut for a close family wedding, visiting with cousins and relatives that I had not seen in a couple of decades, and as such they see me. We're an adult, and the first words out of their mouths are we need to have a beer. So off we trot to the local bar just catching up on you know a couple of decades of lost time, and my sister is walking around just meeting people, because that's who she is. Eventually she discovers this woman sitting at the far end of the bar, looking like she's having a very bad time, and decides I must go save her. And off she goes.

Beki: 2:34

And on my side of the story, I had gone into that bar following a candlelight party. And for all you folks out there who have ever been invited to one of those parties where you want to hang out with your friends but you don't want to have to buy things in order to hang out with your friends and I did end up buying a candle, and yet I wasn't really excited to have been at that party and I felt like I deserved a cocktail before I went home. There was actually a football game and I was able to watch the game from inside the bar. So there I am enjoying my scotch watching the game and a couple of gentlemen come up and they just want to talk to me. And that's when my now sister-in-law saw me at the end of the bar.

Beki: 3:21

And what does she do? She does something that people don't typically do in New England. She came up, she slid her arm right across my shoulders and said hey, how are you? I haven't seen you in so long. Of course, we don't know each other and I'm looking at her going. I mean, I've had a couple of cocktails, but I have no idea who you are. That's the inside voice. The outside voice is going, hey, hi. And she looks at me and she's like you know, hey, I'm over here with a couple of people Like you should just come over, we should just catch up a little bit. And in my head I'm thinking, okay, so I don't know why she's here, she's touching me and that has not been an experience in a bar for me for a very long time. No one comes to save me here. And I thought, ah, okay. So I walked across the bar and followed her and there were two other gentlemen that were part of her group and it was kind of interesting because everybody didn't look alike, they didn't look related.

Scott: 4:29

So I'm above average height, fair-skinned, my sister is average to below average height olive skin, dark hair and my dear cousin is somehow even shorter than my sister, and so we look like quite the trio.

Beki: 4:47

My natural response at this point in time is well, he's kind of cute, you know the slightly above height kind of guy. And so I looked at everyone and said so how does everyone fit together? I will have you know that after many years of marriage, I have still not lived down that line.

Scott: 5:05

She's not likely to. So we exchanged pleasantries and were having a great time. So we exchanged pleasantries and we're having a great time, and my cousin, who is somehow more open and loving and caring and social than my sister, decides that this newfound duckling hey, you should come to the wedding tomorrow. I think you'll have a great time. Now, this is a private family wedding in a family member's backyard, so we'll work those details out later. Oh yeah sure That'd be great. Yeah, you'll have a good time, so we we talk some more that night and kind of exchange contact information.

Scott: 5:43

And gets later on the evening and decide, well, this, we're kind of over this place. I think it's time to go grab a coffee or something. So we go find a diner, have coffee, talk into the wee hours, all of us, and just just a great, great time. You know, a few hours later, after a couple hours of sleep, you know, everybody comes to realization boy, we really can't have her come to a private family wedding. It's really not, it's not cool. Nothing against her. She seems delightful, but not really on the guest list.

Scott: 6:10

So I make the phone call and you know to my amazing wife's credit. She knew, she knew she couldn't come, so I call her up.

Beki: 6:20

And as I answer the phone, I'm thinking, well, it's nice that he called, that was sweet. And no, I wasn't really expecting to attend the wedding, but thank you for calling. I still would love to see you, though, so maybe we could find a way to connect before you leave for the weekend. And so I invited him to go out with me that evening and I said, hey, you could join me for girls night. And so, sure enough, he fit in with the girls just fine, right up until we looked at people and said I think this is done now, and we decided to go hang out at a diner and have a bit more of a conversation. From that weekend, we ended up launching a long distance relationship. He was here in Michigan, where we are today, and I was in Connecticut at the time, and so back in those days we were buying cell phone plans based on minutes, and those minutes kept on getting more and more and more. We flew back and forth a couple of times, we met in the middle a couple of times, and that long distance relationship created for me what became my inflection point in this particular story.

Beki: 7:32

My memory of that conversation was hey, right, so I've decided to move, and I kind of like you and we've been dating for a while and I could move toward you. But if that's going to freak anybody out, then I could also move to this other location. It's just, if I go there, I'll be there for a couple of years. You sit with that. Don't answer immediately. See, I knew him even way back then. Don't ask for immediate answer. Let him soak it in, let him absorb it. And my memory again is the next time we spoke he had actually already been thinking about what the logistics would look like and had really started the plan for what it would look like when I would move there. So I guess I kind of got my answer.

Scott: 8:18

I wasn't freaked out.

Beki: 8:19

And after we had talked about it, I had to sit with that and really make the decision for myself what is it that I want to do in this particular moment? And I took a little bit of time. I ended up even moving in with a couple of friends of mine, so I didn't have to do a month-to-month lease. That gave me that window to make that choice and create a plan. Ultimately, of course, I did make the move. Ultimately, he even asked me to marry him. Spoiler alert when I moved to Michigan, I didn't have a plan in terms of employment, and I eventually found gainful employment and it turned out that he was the one for me. So romance is great, but when you think about coaching, so what Now? What?

Beki: 9:10

In that relationship, there were a couple of things that we really consciously spoke about. One of them was that we were two independent people choosing to join into a partnership. It was an early discussion about how each of us would have our own things, yet also cultivate us things. It was one of the early signs for me that I needed to recognize the types of people that I wanted to have in my inner circle. How they think, how they feel and how they act have a profound impact on you when they are in your inner circle. So it's really important to choose thoughtfully and in this case I needed to be very thoughtful about the guy who turned out to be my life partner. Also, that first year of long distance and those plans were getting bigger and bigger with those cell phone minutes. And those plans were getting bigger and bigger with those cell phone minutes. Those communication cadences started then and have persevered. When we're apart for long periods of time, we're checking in on a regular basis and following up. Others have needed to adapt A little bit of signaling, a little bit of information flow back and forth. We've had to figure out how to make things work. Relationships are not stagnant, and I learned to integrate my growth with his. So we stayed directionally aligned. In work or personal relationships, you have to keep that other person's needs in mind. That said, it's not effective communication if you are not advocating for your needs too.

Beki: 10:46

As I said, sometimes I leap and sometimes I make a methodical choice. In this instance, it may have looked like I just leapt without looking. In fact, I had friends showing up to check in to make sure that I was making good choices, and I took this risk to move for love. I had my plan A the move but I also had plan B and I had plan C. I didn't blindly leap. I had responsibilities that I took seriously. I had life goals that meant a lot to me. Finding my guy didn't need to change that and he'd have been horrified if I had.

Beki: 11:26

Recently we went back to that particular bar for a celebratory drink. It's been a couple decades since that introduction and it was fun to go back. It turned out that he absolutely was the one for me, the relationship that was going to guide us moving forward and what we like to think as forever, even though we might make those choices on a little bit shorter of a cadence every now and then. What I truly learned in the formation and the growth of that relationship with my husband is how relationships in general can thrive when each person is really thinking about what is important to them about being in that relationship and what can they offer to the other person. That's true whether it's a personal relationship or a work relationship.

Beki: 12:23

If we're only on the receiving end or only on the giving end, we start to feel that imbalance over time. Or only on the giving end, we start to feel that imbalance over time. We need to recognize how to effectively communicate with one another in order to really feel that what we're doing has purpose, has focus and really can have the impact that we're wanting to have. And there's no problem with having a backup plan. Just because you've made a decision doesn't mean that you can't pivot, and those can be different kinds of inflection points in life. I've had to make a lot of choices throughout my life and throughout my career, and this wouldn't be the last one, and, like I always say, that's another story. Thank you for listening to my story. My hope is that you will get insights for leading as you. If you know someone who would benefit from this episode, be sure to share it. Interested in connecting with me on LinkedIn? Drop me a note telling me where you found me. The link will be in the show notes. Okay, bye.