Take the Call

I was sitting across the table from a friend recently when she smiled and said something that stayed with me long after the conversation ended:

“Isn’t it amazing the things that can happen—and the people we end up connecting with—when we just take the call?”

She’s someone I met about a year ago through work. A communications specialist. Smart, grounded, thoughtful. At the time, our relationship was professional and contained—defined by roles, timelines, and objectives. When that chapter closed, we moved on, as we so often do.

Months later, I reached out. No strategy. No clear reason. I had simply thought of her.

She replied: “Let’s reconnect and get on a call.”

That call turned into a conversation that went far beyond resumes and projects. We talked about values, ideas, the work we want to do in the world, and the kind of women we are becoming. The synergy was immediate—and unexpected. By the end, it was impossible not to smile.

It reminded me how much we underestimate the power of staying open.

As women—especially women in leadership—we are constantly taught to be intentional with our time. To optimize. To assess return. To ask, Is this worth it? before we even show up. While discernment matters, there is a quiet cost to filtering every interaction through productivity.

Not every meaningful connection reveals its value right away.

Some conversations don’t come with a clear outcome. Some calls don’t turn into opportunities on paper. And yet, they expand us. They challenge us. They remind us of what excites us and what matters.

Taking the call isn’t about overcommitting or abandoning boundaries. It’s about resisting the urge to reduce people—and moments—to transactions. It’s about allowing space for curiosity, for reconnection, for conversations that don’t need to justify themselves immediately.

So much of leadership is built not in boardrooms, but in these in-between moments. In the willingness to listen. To reconnect. To say yes without knowing exactly where it will lead.

In a culture obsessed with efficiency, choosing connection is an act of courage.

Amazing things happen when we take the call—not because every call changes our lives, but because staying open keeps us human. And leadership, at its core, has always been about humanity.

Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do isn’t to plan the next move.

It’s to pick up the phone.