This past weekend, I missed a good friends 50th in Vegas, and while I felt the FOMO hard as I saw the multiple texts and images, I also felt good in my decision to stay back due to a personal situation that required me to stay close to home. And that missed trip allowed me to go to a local event to another dear friend’s annual event simply called the Kundani Cookout. It’d been a few years since I’d gone, but it was a chance to reconnect with old friends and also make new acquaintances, something I am loath to do as I go into the forced trope of asking “what do you do” or “how do you know xyz” person which guarantees a stilted conversation.
I have never quite managed to be a great networker as I am content to stay in the background, and just blend in or so I thought until the host of the event decided to call me up for his speech and proceed to tell them how I’d influenced him to make a major decision when he was out a bit out of sorts. My first instinct was to shrink away from the attention, but then it hit me that part of growing up is taking in the good with the bad, to allow myself to be acknowledged, to know why he kept inviting me everyone year, has been such a wonderful resource to me in my legal career, to get that he is paying me back not just with words like I did, but action, and it humbled me.
It reminded me that even when we think we are taking small actions, they can have major repercussions in other’s lives, that words matters but more than that, it’s the intention with which they are delivered can have a massive impact. And so this was my lesson for the weekend, and the FOMO disappeared in an instant, and I basked in the realization people remember the good you do to them even if they don’t show it.
It made it clearer that when I despair on whether I am making an impact or not, or being hard on myself for things I didnt get done, I still managed to support others in their dreams and goals, and I will take that as a win any day!
Happy Monday!
Sanjay Sabarwal's Blog 