A Thank-You Note That Won a Handwritten Letter From a U.S. President — Opportunity Comes From the Follow-Up, Not From Waiting
In December 1994, I was still a young reporter at TVBS.
I heard that former U.S. President George H. W. Bush was coming to Taiwan on a private trip. I knew nothing back then — I just had drive. I dug up the hotel where he was staying, and waited at the door.
And I got my chance. I asked him, to his face, what he thought of Chen Shui-bian winning the Taipei mayoralty — becoming the first mayor of the capital from the opposition party, the DPP. Bush answered on the spot: "It's very difficult; democracy has been witnessed in Taiwan. No matter who wins or loses, we respect it."
A former U.S. president, an exclusive on Taiwan's democratic election. For a young reporter, that alone was an achievement I could have dined out on for years.
For most people, it ends there. Get the exclusive, air it, chase the next story tomorrow.
I didn't stop there.
After the interview, I wrote a thank-you note. The next day, I was ready to go back to the heavily guarded Taipei Guest House and wait for another chance. When a diplomat from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) came over, concerned, I asked him to pass the note to President Bush.
Then, a few weeks later — a handwritten reply from Bush himself arrived.
A few short lines:
"I was delighted to accept your interview, and I thank you for your letter. Had I known in advance how important the interview was to you, I would gladly have talked with you more. I hope we can meet and talk again soon."
I was in my twenties. I still have that letter today.
It took me many years to understand what that thank-you note really meant.
Getting the exclusive took ability and drive — that was the entry ticket. But writing that note, and finding a way to get it into his hands, was something else. It didn't make the story any bigger; when it aired, no one knew I'd written a letter. It was an act with no immediate payoff, done after the fact.
But it compounds.
An interview, if it ends at broadcast, is a one-time thing. But do one more thing — a letter, a line remembering something the other person said, a greeting that asks for nothing — and you turn a single encounter into a line of relationship. And that line grows things you never expected, at times you never expected.
Bush's letter was the first thing that line ever grew. A former U.S. president, willing to write back to a reporter in her twenties in Taiwan, saying "I hope we can meet again" — that wasn't won by the exclusive. It was won by the thank-you note.
I've since interviewed twelve heads of state. Looking back, the relationships that lasted — that led to a second meeting, a third — almost none of them came from how well the first interview went. They came from whether, after the interview ended, I did that one extra thing.
When we're young, we all think opportunity is something you seize — fast, hard, ahead of everyone else. That's not wrong, but it's only the entry. What compounds a single opportunity into a lifelong asset is whether you're willing, at the point where everyone else thinks it's over, to write that one letter.
Opportunity doesn't come from waiting. It comes from the follow-up.
Most people chase "this one" — this exclusive, this interview, this deal. But the ones who go far are already, at the end of every "this one," paving the way for the next.
I've kept Bush's letter for thirty years. What it reminds me of isn't "the first U.S. president I ever interviewed." It's that the relationships that truly matter are never built in the moment the spotlight is on. They begin when the lights are off, everyone has left, and you're still willing to do one more thing.