I wish I had reached out more

Have you ever looked back at your network and realized the people who showed up for you most were the ones you stopped making time for?

That's where I found myself.

People showed up for me at every critical stage of my career. When I launched my first company. When I learned to code at Michigan State. When I earned my executive MBA at Syracuse. I met a ton of people along the way, and some of those connections grew into genuinely powerful friendships.

The challenge was staying in touch. I'd grab emails, collect addresses, stack up LinkedIn connections, and somewhere along the way a birthday message or an occasional like became the whole relationship. Maintaining professional relationships takes real work. Friends, family, volunteer connections, all of it. And the bigger your network grows, the harder it gets to feed it.

When I moved into director-level roles at Fortune 50 companies, I learned this firsthand: your network is your net worth. You have to maintain it. An executive I worked with at Whirlpool put it to me directly. As I changed roles and climbed, I needed to build relationships with executive recruiters before I needed them. I heard the message. I had the contacts. But I struggled to do the work.

My time as an executive member of ITSMF was different. I joined the Executive Academy, and that cohort has become one of my strongest groups of relationships to this day. The director of that academy taught me something I still carry: maintaining relationships isn't optional at the C-suite level. It is the work.

Then I lost one of my closest friends.

We met at Michigan State. We pledged the same fraternity and built a brotherhood over years. He passed away recently. And I keep coming back to the same thought. I wish I had reached out more. I wish I had made the time.

Embers was built from that place.

It was built to keep you connected to the people who actually matter, your small circle, the few who are close, and not just with a quick text. A handwritten note. A gift that's uniquely personal. Something that actually means something. It was built for busy professionals and executives like me who struggle to carve out the time to show up.

The goal isn't perfection. The goal is to have the support you need to be there for the people who matter, whether that's friends, family, executive recruiters, college connections, or your community. The category doesn't matter.

Embers was built for your circle. Investing in those close relationships will make a difference, for your life and your career.

What is the value of keeping in touch?

You tell me.