Never Saw This Coming
If you’ve followed my work for any length of time, you probably know about my friend Sarah Nauser. I’ve written about her in both of my books, shared her story on stages across the country, written about her many times in this space and talked about her often on Royals broadcasts. She’s become family to me and to so many of the players.
For Opening Day this season, Sarah wrote a letter to the Royals.
ALS has taken away her ability to speak, but through AI technology, we were able to hear Sarah read her own words in her own voice. Our Royals television crew took that letter and created a story called Dear Royals.
This week, Dear Royals was nominated for a Mid-America Emmy Award.
Sarah shared the news on social media with four words that probably said it best: “Never saw this coming.”
Next month, Sarah and her husband Lonnie will join me and some of our TV crew at the awards ceremony, and I can already tell you this one feels different.
I won an Emmy in 2001 when I was still in my 20s. I’ve been nominated a number of times since, and while I’m proud of that award, I’ve never believed a trophy defines how good you are at your job. Yet recognition has a funny way of sticking with us. Twenty-five years later, I’m still introduced as an Emmy Award-winning broadcaster when I walk on stage to speak.
Maybe that’s why I understand what winning this one could mean.
It wouldn’t make Sarah’s story any more important. It wouldn’t make the work our crew did any better. But it could help the story travel a little farther. It could bring more attention to Sarah, to ALS and to the work she continues to do to help others while fighting this disease herself.
Sometimes recognition isn’t about validating the work. It’s about amplifying it.
There’s a lesson in that for all of us. We don’t control which pieces of our work get noticed, recognized or rewarded. We control whether we keep showing up and doing work worth noticing.
Sarah has done that over and over again. She keeps using her story and, remarkably, even the voice ALS took away from her, to make a difference for others.
That’s Small Ball. You may never know how far the impact of what you do today will travel.