Mike: I had just joined a new real estate office and every week at the same time, my phone would ring. On the other end was a woman from the Philippines, her name is Aira. She also worked for the same office and her job was to make accountability calls to agents in the company, including me, regarding the amount of business I close. I did not like it.

I hadn’t expected to have these recurring calls. She is confident and has a personality fit for the job. I said to myself “Who is this woman asking me all these questions? I am a top agent!” At first I came across unkind. And then I recognized she was just trying to do her job. The next time she called I apologized for our previous exchanges, but she insisted there was no harm done. From that point on I look forward to getting calls from her. Our calls became more frequent and lasted longer. Sometimes we remain on the line after hours, business forgotten, as we turned our attention to other topics.

When I had a business trip to Thailand coming up, I mentioned it in conversation.

“You should come to the Philippines while your here!” she responded.

That had been exactly the response I was hoping for. I ended up visiting her a few times in 2019 — we even took a trip to Vietnam—and then she visited me. Not long after, she made a permanent move to Washington, where we were married at a courthouse and currently living our her happily ever after.