All the small things... (and the great things that come with them)

For the past few weeks I've been reminded of a significant impact someone had on me in the early stages of my career, with the simple gesture of a small gift.

Here's the story:

In 2003, Bankfin (remember that name!?) rebranded to Absa Vehicle and Asset Finance. In keeping with all enterprise business decisions over the years, the relaunch was part of Absa's single-brand strategy, which aimed to consolidate all of its operations under one brand. A relaunch like this didn't just happen via a single tweet (we've all seen a few very, very poor overnight-rebrands over the past few years), so it needed something bigger, and more specifically, something personal. I was part of the team that traveled across the country on a roadshow to all existing Bankfin stakeholders. We did roughly 13 cities across SA, with 2 events - morning and afternoon - at each venue. It was a big project with a fantastic team involved. My role specifically was to help run the presentations, as well as film every single event and (in real-time) add shots from that specific event into a video that played as the presentation finished and everyone went off for drinks. i.e. Just before the curtain fell, the audience watched an edited music video of scenes that happened within the previous 2 hours. For 2003, that was groundbreaking stuff. It was an incredibly stressful and exhilarating role, working closely with the tech and AV crew to ensure a seamless transition from presentation to video, and adding all the sounds and lighting bells and whistles too. We thought we were rockstars. It was awesome.

At the very last event, as we were packing up, one of the Managing Execs of the new AVAF business - who also presented at every single event - took the tech crew and me aside and shared a personal thank you from him to us for the role we played in the roadshow. What's more, he presented each of us with a Kershaw knife as a thank-you gift. Being in my early 20s, getting a knife from someone I respected and admired was a pretty awesome event, and it triggered a little knife-buying obsession over the next decade or so (including another Kershaw to add to the original).

I've always had both Kershaws (being my favourites, pictured above) close to me since then. Whether in my car, or hiking bag, or bedside table, or - more recently - on my desk at home, and oftentimes have thought of the individual who said thank you with a tangible reminder.

So today I wanted to say THANK YOU to Keith McIvor, who over 2 decades ago did something that still demonstrates such a perfect reminder of how small gestures can bring big lessons years and years later.

The lessons for me:

• Perceived small things can turn out to be big things
• Taking the time to say thank you to 'the help' means more than you know to them
• Clever, tangible items (not branded pens or water bottles) mean more to people than you'd believe
• Knives are cool, and fun, and a collector's dream :)

A bonus lesson Keith shared with us during our roadshow travels was this quote: "Nothing revs like a rental."

He was, and still is, very right. :)