Risk-Taking & Friend-Making in SF

The first ten days of the most recent chapter of my life has officially concluded. It was exactly one month ago that I received the offer that would change my career and flip my 2014 upside down; It was one week ago Monday that I drove to the cliched heart of the Silicon Valley over the Dumbarton bridge and landed in Mountain View, CA -- only to flirt with my neighbors Facebook and Google and, ultimately, go home with and to the renowned professional networking and talent tool, LinkedIn. 

I've said it daily and I'll say it today: I love this city. A big part of this stems from the interactions I've had with people over the past week. So fittingly, one of LinkedIn's primary values states that Relationships Matter. This means a great deal to me, as I've considered relationships a high priority in both my career and personal philosophy for a long time; I am now reading a non-fictional piece by LI founder Reid Hoffman that echoes the sentiment, stating that relationships are one the centric pillars to personal development as we grow our careers, professional knowledge base and pure wisdom. 

In other words, we couldn't do it alone -- "it" being this crazy and unexpected thing called life. LinkedIn doesn't expect us to, Annenberg was a school centered around collaboration, and DOZ was formed in the spirit of relationship-building amongst like-minded leaders. Apple Retail thrives due to a mix of culture of feedback, collective technical knowledge and high emotional intelligence. 

Despite my current spinster cat-lady status, I'm clearly a relationship kind of girl. 

Last weekend, I took the train home from the city after a late night (or should I say early morning?) of dancing and drinking too much, surrounded by friends and former LA colleagues. I was iPhone-less, makeup-less and hadn't had my coffee as my fatigued mind and body gravitated themselves lazily toward a common neighbor in the BART station while we waited for our ride. My eyes drifted toward her magazine and, in a friendly voice, she asked: "Is this next train going THIS way or THAT way (gesturing)?" I confessed sheepishly that I had no idea, as this was my first weekend living in this hectic city; I just read the scrolling marquee, typically. She laughed and told me that she'd lived in SF for ten years -- and that this would only be her second BART ride! To my surprise, I had some tenure. 

Whom I later found out was named Alston was a youthful and gregarious women seemingly in her sixties, though her story later revealed that she could probably be seventy. She was headed out to the East Bay for a fun day-game rivalry between the American League A's and Red Sox, which prompted me to ask how she had become a Boston Sox fan. She was decked out in red, from her fleece and team ball cap to the cute logo'd broach that featured two little red socks. She had grown up in Boston (my Dad, too!) and just moved to SF in the past ten years for a new man; her husband, with whom she had raised a family in Seattle, had passed away a decade before as a die-hard Red Sox fan. My mind instantly went to the romantic love story between Jimmy Fallon and Drew in Fever Pitch as she told me that she not only loved him for it, but now attempted to carry on his legacy whenever she could squeeze in a game. 

She went on to tell me about school, and her life as a print and radio journalist in Hawaii afterward. She lived in Portland (beautiful) before Seattle (my favorite), and her long-term career selling life insurance permitted her a unique glance into the crazy fluctuations through which our nation's healthcare philosophies traveled during periods like the AIDS epidemic. At the end of the line, she had dedicated to her life to helping people be safer and more informed. At the literal end of the line, we hugged and parted ways -- me with both her business card and a promise to both keep in touch. 

This was purely one example of the short yet meaningful conversations I've already had across the Bay Area, from my taxi driver through SoMa on Monday to the honorable and quirky  who kept me company for a 1.5 hour wait in line at the DMV. The latter told me his tale of meeting his wife, then becoming a Vietnamese military officer, being wrongfully imprisoned for 7 years while his wife awaited him in Saigon, and escaping his prison boat to Malaysia. When he was tended to by US troops at the coast of Malaysia, an individual held up Jimmy (his family name is Vinh Tran)'s military photograph and asked, "Is this you?" When Jimmy nodded, the American said: "I'm sorry this happened to you." I looked through the blinding sun to the small man beside me in the DMV parking lot and wondered why he had paused his story; his hand rested on his lips and, to my surprise, his eyes swam with emotion. The lump that surged in my throat then is back now, as I remember the story. This was a brief hour or so in time, in my first week in the Bay and in both of our lives, but I don't know how I could forget Jimmy. 

My other favorite observation of this city thus far is the entrepreneurial spirit I sense at every turn. At the risk of stating a Silicon Valley cliche, I feel invigorated as I power walk to the train station every morning alongside exclusively students and professionals, wondering what venture or adventure they're headed toward. 

Speaking of risk, making the decision to move to San Francisco exactly one month ago was what some considered risky. First, the idea of leaving my first and only true home in the US, in SoCal, was daunting as well as exciting. the idea of leaving my roomies, closest LA and and sisters was truly the only momentary deterrent; these are the relationships that matter most to me, and we've established this is a value of mine. Finally, the idea of Apple was at first, unfathomable: how would I ever find a more successful company, or an organization to which I was better fit culturally?

But as Reid addresses in his final chapter of my aforementioned read, The Start-up of You, the terms risk and risky mean different things. There is often risk associated with anything new and particularly things unknown. When uncertainty is prevalent, we must then ask ourselves to consider the likelihood of failure - of any serious downsides, really - to determine whether an opportunity is too "risky" to make. This statements in this mind-blowing chapter are too perfect to paraphrase, so I'll share them below:

"The lesson is that great opportunities almost never fit your schedule. It would be nice if you came upon that killer job opportunity right when you were thinking about leaving your current job. It would be nice if that exclusive conference coincided with the week when your boss happens to be away. Usually the timing is imperfect and difficult. Most often, you'll be in the middle of a different plan. 

In addition to being inconvenient, the opportunity you generate or find will likely be shrouded in ambiguity and uncertainty. Frequently, it won't be clear that it's better than another opportunity. You may be tempted to 'keep your options open' and continue to mull things over... That would be a mistake. To move forward in your career, you have to commit to specific opportunities as part of an iterative plan, despite doubt and despite inconvenience. 

If not now, when?"

If the risk or potential cost of my bold move to SF this summer were only the potential to be 1) homesick and 2) less than obsessed with my new job, then the obvious and guaranteed upsides were all the reasons I needed to make my decision -- both with my gut and without hesitation. I knew that it would be saddening for me to leave Apple and my team there, and challenging to learn and evolve into a new role and industry, virtually from scratch and like I had done three years prior. But with that, I knew would then come: a new organizational culture, about which I am passionate; new relationships and new leaders to emulate and gather inspiration from; new skills and opportunities, both to engage clients and achieve things but also to travel! The list goes on. 

So, 30 days into the most exciting chapter I've written yet, I've determined that I made the perfect choice.

To risk-taking and friend-making, simultaneously!