I had the interesting experience this week of getting back in touch with someone I hadn’t talked to in 23 years. It’s our intention to begin re-building a relationship, so of course we’ll need a bit of context about each other as a foundation. How would you summarize over two decades of your life in a couple of paragraphs in an email?

Whether or not you actually have a reason to do this, it’s a neat exercise to think through what you might include. What are the most important changes, achievements, and events that you want to highlight about yourself? And how do you feel about that list? On the whole, has it been a good 23 years? Are you proud of your accomplishments, or the struggles you have overcome? Is there anything you thought you might have done or experienced by now that you haven’t, yet?

I guess in some ways it’s not too different from writing a resume :)