Lunch #43 with my friend, Mike

I had lunch with my friend Mike on Friday. We’ve been doing this once a quarter on a Friday afternoon since the fall of 2002. All 43 of our quarterly lunch meetings have been at R bistro (http://www.rbistro.com/), chef Regina Mehallick’s great eatery on Mass Ave in Indianapolis’ arts district.

I’ve known Mike since 1999; the #1 thing we have in common (other than the same first name) is being members of what Fast Company Magazine dubbed free lance nation. When I first met Mike, I’d been self-employed for three years and was just starting to experience real success. By then, he had already celebrated a decade as a successful consultant. I admired him as much for his work-life balance as I did for building a successful gig.

We made our first lunch date with the twin goals of getting to know each other better and sharing ideas for growing our businesses. Over lunch, we discussed how fortunate we were that our work styles allowed us to finish the workweek with an unhurried lunch and good conversation. When we finished that first lunch, we resolved to continue the tradition by meeting quarterly for a Friday afternoon lunch.

On a snowy Friday in 2005, we mentioned the purpose for our lunches to a member of the wait staff at R bistro and word passed through the staff to Chef Regina. Since then, when we arrive, we’re greeted as friends and escorted to our “regular” table along the inside wall, near the back of the L-shaped dining room. Lunch always begins with a toast to the work styles we’ve created that allow us to have a long guilt-free lunch – with a nice bottle of wine. Tradition requires us to finish our lunch with dessert (my favorite is sticky toffee pudding) and weapons-grade dark roast coffee served in a French press. We have an unwritten rule that lunch ends the workweek; we schedule no meetings after lunch. In more than a decade, neither of us has violated the rule more than once.

Over the course of our 43 lunches, Mike and I have spent the equivalent of two work weeks in conversation that’s covered hundreds of topics. Two topics consistently pop up every quarter. The first is the pride we share in our ability to build work practices that are strong enough to sustain themselves through good and bad economic times. The second is the sense of accomplishment we feel from having the freedom to enjoy these long, leisurely lunches.