Sixteen days until spring, and Matt’s feeling pretty good after his morning walk around the neighborhood—less urgent need for coffee when you wake up the brain first. After sharing some U.S. history trivia (first foreign aid bill in 1812, Missouri Compromise in 1820), he gets into what’s on his mind: a client who agreed to work together, set a date, then went silent. Matt blocked off his morning, turned down other meetings, and now... nothing.

Years ago in sales, he would have politely but ruthlessly followed up, essentially trying to force a response. But here’s what younger Matt never got: silence is communicating. Ghosting is sending a clear message—you don’t know why, but the signal is there. Something changed, or they were never fully in, or life happened. When you try to force a response from that place of abandonment (”I committed to you and now you’ve left me”), you usually get a more definitive “no” than you would have otherwise. And you can never underestimate the power of reasons that have nothing to do with you. So these days? He lets it go. If the client comes back, they’ll see if the deal still makes sense. In the meantime, he’s got great projects with other clients and networking to do. He’s working through the lull after the first hits—that’s where he’s at. The question he leaves you with: What expectation can you really let go of to move forward?

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