Circles of Influence
The right circle changes you.
I've been thinking a lot about the people we choose to be around, and how quietly they shape what we believe is possible. A night in New York reminded me why.
By Yasmeen Tadia October 6, 2026 2 min
I spent an evening at the Muslim Legal Fund of America Gala, and I haven't stopped thinking about it. Not the program, not the room, though both were beautiful. The people. I got to spend real time with Alana Hadid, Yusuf Omar, and Amna Khan-Mirza, and I walked out different from how I walked in.
What a room can do that a screen can't
I run a company. My days are AI, automation, dashboards, and a phone that never stops. I'm not against any of it. I built an app. But I keep learning the same lesson in person, and I learned it again that night: there is no replacement for sitting next to someone who makes you think bigger, care deeper, and remember why you started.
You can follow someone for years and know their work. You cannot know what they're like across a table until you are across the table. The tone of their voice. What they laugh at. What they go quiet about. That's the part that moves you, and it doesn't travel through a screen.
Using a voice on purpose
What stayed with me most wasn't the list of things each of them has accomplished. It was how deliberately they use what they have. Their voices, their platforms, their time. None of it looked accidental. Being near that kind of intention is contagious. It makes you look at your own week and ask what, exactly, you're spending it on.
“The right circle gives you perspective, accountability, courage, and a clearer sense of what you are building and why.”
Why I'm writing this here
I built Ichigo Ichie because "we should get together" kept not happening in my own life. Nights like this one are the reason it matters. Every person I hugged at that gala is someone I could easily not see again for a year. Not because we don't want to. Because nobody owns the plan.
So I'm going to own it. A few of those names are getting a link from me this week with two things I'd enjoy and some open times. That's the whole practice. Don't leave the room and let it turn into a memory. Make the next one.
Thank you
To Arshia Ali-Khan, Aisha U-Kiu, and Amna Khan-Mirza, who worked so hard to bring us all together: this is what the work is for. People left that room with new people in their lives. I was one of them.
Even in a digital world, the most meaningful things still happen when we show up in person.
Who do you want more life with?