Personal Narrative!

Often, we postpone our most important tasks for a later date not because we want to delay it, but because we would like to dedicate more time to it. Personally, one incident made me realize how important it is to do things when you have time and not wait for the right time.

Last week I was in Barcelona for a Leadership meet. It has been 11 months since I met my Manager (from the last 11 months I have worked out of Craiova, Romania) as she is based out of Bangalore. I was very excited to see her in person after a very long time. In spite of reporting into her for almost 19 months, I worked with her in person for only 2-3 months due to the pandemic, after which I traveled onsite. As a sunflower waits for the sun to rise in order to bloom, I was equally excited to meet her. To spend some quality time with her, get some feedback from her, and take a picture together.

I reached Barcelona from Bucharest at 8:05 AM EST and by 9:30 AM I was in the hotel. As soon as I checked in, I sent her a note saying I reached and please let me know when she is free for a quick catch-up. She came down immediately and I was so happy to meet her after 11 months in person.

Although we had a brief chat, many site business leaders and regional business leaders were arriving, and they had known her for a longer time and never had the opportunity to meet her in person. So I decided to catch up with her later in the day. It was a busy day filled with multiple activities and catching up with leaders. Although I have interacted with most of them in the past, this is the first time I have met them in person so I was excited to get to know them better, get some good quality business updates and to share my own extensive portfolio so they can reach out to me for any assistance when they need or vice-versa. This was a very long day, and day one ended at 7:00 PM CET. After dinner, we had an engagement session and socializing. As I hadn't been able to open my laptop the entire day, I went back to my room to finish my work.

I was scheduled to return to Romania at 7:45 pm CET on the second day. It was early morning when I met my manager for breakfast and we discussed the direction forward. As usual, I have many things to discuss and would like her input and advice, but we had more people joining us for breakfast so I decided not to go out with my team, stay back and continue my one-on-one meeting with my manager at the hotel and will leave from the hotel directly to the airport. During the first half of the day, I had the opportunity to meet my extended European HR team mates who traveled a long way to attend the meeting, and I made some good memories with all of them.

Later that evening, my manager and leadership team from India and NA decided to go shopping near the hotel where we were staying, and I joined them. I needed to buy some things for my better half. My manager helped me with that as well as reminded me to keep track of the time so that I wouldn't miss the flight. In order to complete the hotel checkout procedure and take a cab to the airport, I had to rush.

After reaching the airport on time, I passed through security & immigration and got to the terminal before time. My next task was to call my manager to let her know that I had reached safely and thank her for her support and advice. Suddenly, I realized that I had forgotten the most important part: taking a Picture with her.

Like Roy Bennett said, don't wait for the right time to start; start now and make each moment right.