Dear Emeka,

When you focus on the is over the isn’t, you see more clearly. Let me explain. .

The bigger value someone brings to the table is often hard to frame by a job description. In fact, as a boss/leader/manager, you may have that description so neatly defined that it can throw you when someone doesn’t align with it perfectly, yet makes a profound impact all the same. It can even be unsettling, because it often reveals that you didn’t really know what we you were seeking from the role.

Back in 2018, when we had created a job description for head of marketing, a key “soft skill” I needed was someone who fit the bill of a “typical marketing guy.” The one who helps me formulate ideas, then enthusiastically embraces them, then operates in and outside the company networking, greasing palms, you know the type. But shortly after hiring Emeka as our head of marketing, I recognized right away a fellow introvert. In our interviews, I’d misread him as an extrovert; thinking he would complete my puzzle, be the one to do the social side I had found so painful. Instead, I found someone in a constant search for the why. Someone I could have meaningful back and forth conversations, not someone there simply as a backboard for me to hit ideas against. Or worse, simply a sponge to absorb what I say and then go implement. Emeka has a great bullshit sensor, the conversations forced me - admittedly sometimes uncomfortably, to be very honest with situations we were in so we could come up with ideas on how to find our way out.

I’m going to share an excerpt from Almost Reckless, where I talk about a singular moment that really helped shape Tibi’s course forward. And since I am Tibi, this is deeply personal. It was my own path I was building at the same time.

For any entrepreneurs out there, people building teams, the people you surround yourself come together often to form a whole.

Nothing in AI, no LinkedIn profiles can help you articulate how important it is that, in my case, the person you’re hiring has a deep sense of humor.

Or that, when you have an idea to create movie posters around your runway show, and you hire incredible models who JUST AREN’T WORKING because there is no synergy around them, that they’re willing to grab other team members and do it themselves. I remember this day, we’d paid a fortune for two models, only to put them off to the side and have Emeka and a few other team members become the campaign.

I’m sharing this with you all to say, whether it’s in our jobs, our personal lives - if we hold so tightly to the job description (and by now I use this as metaphor) we can often lose the bigger picture of what’s been put in front of us. I’m sure you’ve all been in situations where you’re focusing so hard on what isn’t that you simply don’t see what is. This is what I appreciate so much about being human. We’re all a work in progress. I could never have written the right job description for what I got from Emeka at the time. Sometimes you just don’t know what you need until it appears. It’s why I love things IRL, it’s why I don’t embrace WFH as the norm rather than the exception. It’s why I have faith that AI will play a role but not become the main character.

I also think it’s great when you have these nice surprises in life, that you can say them out loud. So I am.