By Penny Power – Business Author & Human-Centred Speaker
This week, some words from a book I read last year came back to me very strongly.
It was a fictional story set around a stately home, narrated in part by a ghost who silently witnessed the lives of those who passed through.
Hidden on one page was a sentence that stopped me:
“It’s amazing how far a little acknowledgment can go when one has become used to being ignored.”
– The ghost in The Clockmaker’s Daughter
Those words have stayed with me, particularly while writing my book about Significance.
Because they describe something I think many of us experience.
We can feel like ghosts in our own lives.
– Present, but not seen.
– There, but not acknowledged.
– Contributing, but not always noticed.
I know that feeling. It is painful and lonely.
And increasingly I wonder whether, in our busy, distracted, digitally connected world, we are all in danger of becoming ghosts in one another’s lives.
Interestingly, the word ghosting entered our everyday language relatively recently. We now use it to describe someone suddenly disappearing from communication without explanation.
But I am pondering something slightly different.
What about the people who haven’t disappeared?
The colleague sitting across from us.
The person serving our coffee.
The supplier who quietly does a brilliant job.
The friend whose message we’ve read but haven’t answered.
The person posting something online who wonders whether anyone notices.
The employee who consistently contributes but rarely hears, “I appreciate you.”
They are still there.
But do they know that we see them?
Recently, I remembered that the barista in our local coffee shop had told me months earlier that his birthday was on 6th November.
I had quietly put it in my calendar. When the day arrived, I wished him a Happy Birthday. His reaction surprised me. He was genuinely shocked that I had remembered. His face lit up. What had taken me seconds to do clearly meant far more to him than I had anticipated. And it made me think again about that ghost’s words: “It’s amazing how far a little acknowledgment can go…”
Perhaps acknowledgement is one of the simplest ways we give another human being a sense of significance.
I noticed you.
I remembered you.
I heard what you told me.
You registered in my world.
It doesn’t require money. It doesn’t require hours of our time. It doesn’t even require a particularly close relationship.
It simply requires attention (and a little bit of organisation).
And perhaps that is becoming one of the most precious things we can give another human being.
We talk a great deal about loneliness, belonging and connection. We talk about creating better cultures in our businesses and stronger relationships in our lives.
Maybe some of it starts much smaller than we imagine.
Remembering someone’s name.
Looking up when they enter the room.
Replying to the message.
Thanking the person who quietly makes things easier.
Remembering the birthday.
Asking the second question, and actually listening to the answer.
Small moments that say:
“You are not a ghost in my life. I see you.”
So my pondering this week is very simple:
Who has become a little invisible in your world?
And what tiny act of acknowledgement could you make today that lets them know they matter?
Because we may never know just how far a little acknowledgement can go.
With love,
Penny x
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