Most people show you their character over time. Almost anyone will show it to you under pressure, whether they intend to or not. And others — the few and far between — wear it like an aura, a fresh sincerity from the first “Hello.”

They register the presence of every person in a room but not their rank. When they give over their attention, it’s unconditionally yours and it feels like you’re being given to.

You take them entirely at their word from the first word; and the moment you recognize it happened so fast is the same moment you realize you’ve been placing well-held trust in them a long time.

This is what it was meeting Mike Lund.

We’d been invited to join the incubator after a lengthy interview with just days — hours we could measure in 2 digits — to spare before an annual Investor Pitch day. I mainlined coffee, the team huddled up on speakerphone, and stayed up for most of it; my heart in my throat, and then — eventually —in a PowerPoint.

Our slides cast up on the projector screen, I moved through the first few slides of the presentation. Mike’s brain seemed hover over the pitch deck for a moment, then incisively slice through with insight. His point: the trajectory of most businesses is to enter, pivot, and then “boil the ocean.” The nature of ours required an inversion. I must have looked incredibly worried, because he offered a reassurance, came closer, and began to show me how to do that — rapidly and steadily all at once.

>

There was always something about his clear eyes and watchful pause. Mike had this calm drinking in of a situation whenever he turned his attention to something. Most people jump right into analysis, narrate their way through it, or slowly absorb detail as some prelude to thought.

But he always seemed to operate in a pure state of noticing while he formed a mental map of the land. The speed with which that sharpness came was impressive. A big picture thinker, these moments were always followed by insight that was all at once the bottom line and, somehow also, the transcendent step. He’d speak it in a short stack of minutes. I loved his straightforwardness and the way it automatically blended with kindness. But then, everything about Mike was kindness. It was his autopilot.

Beyond the big picture, he took care of so many details. A former Operations and Finance guy, Mike kept a brisk schedule, coordinating events, filling needs for one person after another. Equipment? A contact? An answer? He’d handle it. He wasn’t the type of guy you generally had to remind.

At my first corporate management job, my life as a manager changed six months in when I altered the way I thought about management. Director was my title, but I decided Directing wasn’t my job; serving other people was — facilitating their ability to shine.

My best days as a manager are the ones where I embody that. The worst, the ones where I forget what my job is — and, equally importantly, why it all matters — slipping into results over relating, supervising over service.

Mike never seemed to forget this. He sent unsolicited e-mails asking what he could do. Did you need anything? Could you think up something you needed? He was full of glee in one of our last exchanges, because he had thought up a media campaign for us he was keeping as a surprise. Months later, I would stumble across the beginnings of it online, moved by the thoughtful touches in the piece I’d never seen.

On March 18, the world lost the incredible presence of Mike Lund. I got the news 1 day after lockdown, 2 days before our slated (then delayed) launch. For the month he struggled with cancer, he had not wanted those beyond his closest confidantes to know — or worry. I don’t think he knew — on a conscious level — that our last conversation would be that. (It was 1 month before his diagnosis.)

But he lingered. . . and lingered. . . when we met last. A busy guy who always would make time for you — and always have something in the next slot after — he spent almost 4 hours with me in a 45-minute meeting. I love conversation. (I very literally work with it.) And I loved every chance to talk to Mike. But in every long pause, when I would make a move to leave, he would take a long, deep breath and continue. And I had this sense that something important was happening, that he was telling me things for my life and that he was telling me truths that came from a lifetime and a career.

So, I lingered too.

During those four hours, here are a few things that Mike shared, that I’ve kept close to heart ever since.

• The Way to Network
  • “When you walk into a room,” he told me, “Don’t ask yourself, ‘Who can I meet?’. Everyone always walks into these events and looks for connections. Ask yourself, ‘Whom can I connect?’” I told him I loved that. He said it wasn’t just virtuous — it was also way. more. fun. “Really?!” I said, and he beamed.
  • I’ve always had a wide variety of people as friends, and have enjoyed suggesting new friendships among people I think would enjoy each other. But since Mike told me this, I’ve been on the lookout for potential connections, being the connector. You get to create possibility just by seeing it. You get the joy without having to even do the hard work. And you get to, again, facilitate people stepping into a space where they can be everything they’re able to. It’s wonderful.
• Consider All the Stats
  
  • He talked about the wild advantages major corporations have against start-ups. I asked him how start-ups could effectively compete: “What can you do about a Goliath?” “Agility” he said, invoking images in my head of old adventure games that tracked things like Strength, Stamina, and Dexterity. “They become too large to move quickly, to change course,” he explained. “You leverage that — you said yourself, Goliaths — you take aim, out-maneuver. You move in ways you couldn’t if you were the behemoth.”
    
    Since then, I’ve been thinking through this metaphor each time I feel too small, short-handed, low-resourced, and stuck. What are my advantages —what other stats can I leverage? Even and especially when they’re not the most glorious or obvious ones.
• Burst with Enthusiasm
  
  • During our last talk, Lydia (Mike’s wife) came up in conversation. Lydia’s delightful, warm, sharp, just by herself. But I loved watching them across a room. Much like Mike’s demeanor, you could tell the quality of their relationship by the way and the moment they encountered each other, every time. No matter what the occasion, when the room emptied out, I always caught out of the corner of my eye, their approach to each other.
    
    
  • They would slowly walk up, and I would see without fail, this moment of pause and acknowledgement. A quick kiss, and then begin to talk to each other. And even from across the room, you could see this mutual excitement. We talked that day about Lydia’s excitement in general, her “enthusiasm” as Mike put it fondly. “She is that,” he said to me. I loved that they embarked with that excitement, bringing it to the world around them. I loved that they found it with and in each other, and I loved that their enjoyment of each other’s company was so delighted, it was obvious.

• Never Make People Choose
  
  • I asked Mike if he had any advice, from all of those years in C-level positions. “Don’t make anyone feel like they have to choose,” he explained. He spoke of spouses, families — but since, I’ve thought about all the things that we as people find important beyond the work we do. Side passions, down-time, friendships, time to reflect.
    
    We spoke about this for a while, and I sensed he wasn’t talking about the obvious. It’s hard to imagine ultimatuming someone with a forced choice between work and home. But we do it in accidental ways: forgetting to check in, forgetting to acknowledge, not making enough space and flexibility in the wake of a family crisis, not proactively asking even where we’re not told. As managers, we’re half of the communication; but the difference in authority can make it hard to pipe up.
    
    I’ve also been thinking about the reason behind this, beyond its sign as an overstressed operation. Anyone choosing between things they love will lose one of them; either you’ll lose to the other things, or you’ll win — an employee who’s lost their way, their heart, or their happiness.

At some point, I asked him if he had ever felt the loneliness of it — the role where there’s no one above you, where sometimes you become the execution and energy. “Sometimes,” I said, “It feels like the loneliest job in the world.”

“Oh yes,” Mike nodded. “That loneliness is real.” “Other people can walk away. You can’t.” He continued: “No one will ever love it like you do. They will love it, for sure. But no one else will love it quite like you do. It was nobody else’s first thought. They didn’t nurture it. It’s not their baby. You will love it when it’s hard, when it’s difficult………..”

My eyes widened. Another one of his trademark pauses. He continued:

“But when it works………..?”

I waited.

He tilted his head, hands clasped behind it, stretched out; he looked straight at me, eyes sharp, then broke into the biggest smile, his eyes focused on something only he could see, his head shaking slowly in ­amazement:

“. . . There is nothing on earth like it.”