Free Fridays: Best unexpected compliment recently.

11 July 2025

10 good comments.

1 bad comment.

Ruins your entire day, thinking about that one bad comment.

See how twisted that is?

I only started dialing down the noise of negativity once I saw this perspective and knowing that as humans, we must fight our innate behaviour of being easily hurt. By shifting our mindset - to have immense gratitude to the kindness around us. Dial that up instead so you start to appreciate the sweetness of people around us.

To do that, you must start making an effort to notice the little glimmers in your day.

There are so many – a call from your parents, a smile from a stranger from your commute, a friend belanja karipap at work (this was a hint, please send me karipaps), an old photo from school that made you smile, and the glimmer that make most of us fuzzy inside – when someone compliments you, about anything at all.

I found a glimmer recently in the unlikeliest of people - my brother in law.

Not that he's not always amazing, but you know how brothers are - they're not the most expressive. They’re just... there. 😂

We have a tradition of weekly family dinners. One each for my side of the family and one for my inlaws. Of course this was insisted by the girls in the family, never the boys. No shade to the boys, but #TeamGirls is always the glue to the family. We’re the ones who make the effort of planning, preparing the meal, and getting everybody to come (and threatening them if they miss two family dinners in a row). If they miss a third, they’ll get an earful from yours truly. Any family bond takes effort, and you need only one person in the family like this to rally everyone else.

So, there was this one family dinner with my inlaws that had an impact on me until now.

It was a few months ago, when I was going through the darker times. I had the court case, I experienced the smear campaign, I lost my job, I lost control of my brand, I got lupus, so many things were not going right in my life.

But amidst what seemed like a storm, some things were going right. I became a lot closer to God, a lot closer to my family, and I became a more present mom. I hibernated from social media, made my account private and suddenly found myself smiling and laughing a lot more. I exercised a lot more and took more accountability for my health, and that brought out such good vibes in my life.

At dinner, I was busy chatting with the siblings-in-law about their day and we were laughing so much about something – I totally forgot what about. Point is we were genuinely having a nice conversation.

Later that night, my brother in law Rizrin gave me a compliment that I don’t think I’ve ever heard in my life.

He said, “I like this new unemployed Vivy. She’s a lot more fun.”

I was taken aback. “Hey hey, the old Vivy was fun too.”

“No. The old Vivy would be on the phone the entire night stressing about work. And you can barely have a proper conversation with her,” he said, making me have flashbacks of that version of hustling-entrepreneur me.

“Now, see, you don’t even have the phone at the dinner table,” he adds.

I looked around for my phone. Wow, he was right. I didn’t even know where my phone was that night. No cap.

I felt my cheeks heat up, blushhhhh.

“Aww stop,” I said which meant please say more things like that.

And just like that.

A few kind words from my brother became the glimmer of my week.

I thought about his compliment for days. Not because it was the most poetic – I mean come on, Rizrin’s not exactly Shakespeare. But because it was honest and completely unexpected. He made me see a positive change in me and voiced out appreciation for it. And he made me believe that everything that happened guided me to a better version of me – one with more clarity, calm and connection.

This is the version I’d like to keep – the one not glued to her phone and who’s actually here. Present. Laughing, listening, living in the moment.

And so I think it’s a wonderful reminder to start your weekend. Put your phone away for a while. Especially at the dining table. Look up. Talk. Laugh. Be all in.

Because you never know – your glimmer might just be waiting across the table.

In the form of your brother in law calling you “fun”.

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Before you go…

Let me know you’ve read this. Comment “Putting my phone away” on my latest post at @sincerelyvivy.

See you there! :)