May 2007. My first top-secret military project.

Everyone in the office kept calling this one guy “Chief” but sort of off-the-cuff. There was a lot going on with this job, so just I figured it was a nickname.

Maybe it was just an inside joke I wasn’t in on yet, or one of those nicknames that just crops up over time.

Some relevant background: I wasn’t fully versed and fluent in military ranks yet. Had looked at the Wikipedia page once and got overwhelmed. It felt like there were ten different versions of everything you can think of.

Go ahead and take a glance at the ranking breakdown to see what I mean and to see if you can keep them all straight. I decided to just wait and meet whoever I had to meet.

A month went by. Everyone is still calling him Chief.

I decide to conversationally brave it with, “So, Travis, I’m glad we’re working together. You’ve made this project so much easier for me. Quick thing, what’s your rank?”

He looked at me a lot like how you’re probably looking at the computer right now reading this. Like, come on, Wade.

For some reason, I pushed forward.

“Everybody calls you Chief. What’s your rank?”

And yes, you can probably see where this is going.

“I’m a Navy Chief.”

That’s how our friendship started. With me not knowing something pretty basic. Luckily for me, he looked past that pretty quickly.

How Things Start

Great relationships don’t always start with perfect first impressions.

Sometimes they start by chance. Or with confusion. Maybe even embarrassment. Starting in those moments where you just don’t know everything (like simple military ranks).

Travis and I have been friends for 17 years now, and the relationship has progressed beyond reliving my original stumble. We’re not just sitting around replaying that same “remember when Wade didn’t know what a Navy Chief was” story.

We’ve made new memories. The friendship has evolved. Our families know and like each other.

The Break-In Conversation

Years after that first project together, I was at Travis’s house helping him with a tough situation - unfortunately, his home had just been robbed.

We were there sweeping up the mess. Travis was talking about putting in security cameras. Reinforcing locks. Making the best of a bad situation.

I asked him: “Travis, what would you say if it were me? If my family’s house just got robbed with all my valuables, all my electronics, all my memorabilia?”

The conversation that followed led to Travis moving his family out of that neighborhood.

Now, he tells people, “Yeah, Wade told me to be a f@#$ing man and move my family.”

We laugh about it because that wasn’t quite what I said, but that’s how it resounded with him. It sounds harsh when he says it like that. But he actually moved. To a beautiful town with a fantastic community. It’s the exact same town where I moved with my family a few years after that.

We’re about a mile apart.

Full circle from that first confused conversation about his rank.

The Relationships Worth Keeping

Not all friendships follow the same path.

Some get stuck. Same inside jokes from 30 years ago. Same stories replayed every time you meet. No new memories being made.

Travis and I have coffee regularly now. Coming on two decades of friendship that keeps growing. We don’t keep going back to the chief blunder or the reasons behind his family move or the time I turned off the lights on him in the bathroom at work (that’s a whole OTHER story). We keep our conversation fresh with new things to talk about.

Because if we’re only talking about the same things from 10 years ago, is the relationship still growing?

This applies to client relationships, too. The best partnerships progress over time. Understanding compounds. Trust deepens. You’re not starting from scratch every engagement.

Progression matters. In friendships. In business relationships. In any partnership worth keeping.

Some relationships are built and designed to stay firmly in the past. That’s okay. But the ones that matter most? They keep moving forward.

Looking Back

Do you have a relationship that might have started off with a mistake or embarrassing situation? Have you made strides to grow that relationship so you’re getting coffee, talking about families, and making new plans?

My mistakes became the start of a great friendship. The vulnerability created the space for something real to grow.

Seventeen years later, I’m grateful for friendships that keep progressing. That don’t just replay the greatest hits. That make room for new stories while still honoring the old ones.

That’s what makes a relationship worth the time.

Grateful you are here,

Wade