The Power Of A Compliment

Reading this morning about the power of a sincere compliment!

That's a lesson that has been driven home to me very forcefully over the years.

Somewhere our society has developed this totally screwed up idea that saying something nice to someone else is this personal weakness called "brown-nosing". Also that becoming the King or Queen of the "put-down" is something to aspire to.

Why are we so gullible and foolish?

What I learned the hard way, is that every time I laid a great put-down on someone thinking to impress the others around me, not only did I not impress anyone, but I did immeasurable damage! Not only to the one whom I attacked but also to my own reputation!

Everyone around me was wondering what I said about them when their back was turned or when I might think it was socially to my advantage.

Stupid-stupid-stupid!!!

Do you think people will respect you more if they always have to wonder if they will be your next victim, or if they know their name is sacred with you?

People trust those who they feel like "have their back"!

So take every opportunity you get today to give someone a sincere compliment! Watch how it affects them and ask yourself if that doesn't make you feel good or what?

Think 10 years down the road. Will you have more influence in your world if you have made it a practice passing out compliments every day or put-downs?

So have a great day today and help someone else do the same!!!

The Power Of Association

One of the most powerful principles I've ever learned is called the "power of association" It says you become like those you most associate with!

Are the people we spend the most time with the types who are always encouraging us to excel at whatever we are trying to accomplish? Or do we spend our time with "friends" who are constantly telling us that we can't accomplish something because we are "this"... or we are "that"?

Whatever it is that you want to accomplish, find someone who already has it or something like it and will be your cheerleader or mentor and spend as much time around them as possible!

Things will begin to change when you put yourself in an "Atmosphere of Achievement"!

You can do anything you set your mind to! If you are surrounded by people who try to tell you otherwise...RUN!

Common Denominators

Ran into an old friend the other day and they spent the entire 15 minute conversation telling me how they had "told off" this person and that person and some other person.

What a sad way to live.

Kind of hard to have many friends when they always feel like they have to cuddle up to a porcupine to be around you!

If your life seems like a never ending series of rotten experiences, maybe it's time to wake up and look at the common denominator in all of the problems....you?

I'm not ragging on anybody here, just saying that life is a whole lot happier when you have a great attitude!

Realize that people make innocent mistakes, cut everyone a little slack, greet the world with a smile on your face.

Learn how to say, that's OK, and no problem, and I'm sorry, I didn't understand.

You'll actually be stronger for it rather than weaker!

Look for the good in other people and praise them for it!

If you think the whole world is out to get you, it's time for a reality check! News flash...the whole world is so busy dealing with their own problems that they don't have time to plan to make your life miserable!!!

So go out and have an awesome day! Whether the rest of the world wants you to or not!

Please and Thank You

All right everybody! Back to kindergarten! Or maybe back to Barney! Yeah the purple dinosaur!

Incidentally that's not back for me it's forward...and yes, I realize that makes me older than a dinosaur!

Please and Thank You ARE the magic words!

I was reading this morning about the power of sincerely using the words Thank You daily as often as possible! Seems to me that this is getting to be more and more of a lost art. My kids mumble it like it tastes bad and I see so many of us adults forget to say it on a daily basis that it amazes me!

This goes along so well with the idea of praising people that we talked about yesterday! Think about how it makes you feel when someone sincerely tells you thanks, sometimes even when you didn't totally deserve it!

When someone gives you credit for a great idea and thanks you for it, doesn't that just make you want to perform a little bit better next time! I know it does me!

I think that saying Please goes a long way towards changing our orders into requests too! Especially with our spouse and kids!

Big weakness there for this Dad! How about you?

Seems to me like for some reason we have really gotten away from these simple little common courtesies.

Please, Thank You, Good Job! All are great motivators and definitely build people up which is always a good thing!

Common courtesy, it's a good old fashioned value we need to build back up!

By the way, a big THANK YOU to all of you for your positive feed back and compliments on my posts! It's tremendously rewarding to interact with all of you!

Have an awesome day!

The Power of Praise

Reading in a book called, "How to Have Power and Confidence in Dealing With People!" There is a whole chapter just on the power of praising others.

Interestingly, he quoted scientific studies that showed that words of praise actually imparted a measurable increase of energy to the person receiving them!

I think we all kind of know that. But do we work hard to practice it everyday? I want to, but I know that I fall way short of being effective at it all the time. It is way too easy to find something to criticize and it just seems to flow out of our mouths without any effort.

Ha! Maybe that's the answer right there?

Anything worthwhile requires effort!

Hmmm...have to think on that one for a little bit!

Isn't our natural reaction to changing a bad habit like that, something like, aw...that's just too hard. It's not worth the trouble to change.

Well, I'm sure my kids and Penny think that it's worth the trouble for me to get better at praising them!

I know that, not only do I like a person better who constantly seems to be praising and sincerely complimenting me, but I'll also bend over backwards to do something for them if they need me too! Sound familiar?

Why don't we become that person who gives the gift of praise to others?

It's good for our marriages and our family relationships! It's good for our businesses and our church responsibilities! It's good for our jobs, our friends, our dog, and even perfect strangers!

That probably means it's good for us too!

The book said that studies are actually showing that praising anything, even an inanimate object like a plant causes it to perform better! There just seems to be some unexplainable actual power in words of praise!

It's probably another one of those eternal laws of the universe that God has been trying to teach us all along!

So have a great day!

Eldon Tapp thinks you are awesome and thanks you for being a great friend! I know you are capable of doing anything you set your mind to!

Family and Priorities

Pondering what to share this morning and the saying, No other success can compensate for failure in the home keeps coming to mind! Maybe someone needs to hear about this today!

Don't feel condemned if you haven't exactly gotten an "A" in this class so far! You can always retake the class with some extra wisdom under your belt!

Most of us would say that our priorities stack up something like this; God, Family, Country, Work, etc...right? But if we graphed out the way we spend our time everyday on a pie chart, I'll bet it wouldn't match up with what we just said our priorities were would it? Especially when we throw in things like electronic entertainment and sports right!

So here are a couple of hints that have blessed our lives! Your relationship with your spouse is the single most important relationship in your life. It's way too easy to let our kids take priority over our spouse.

Here are 3 books (besides mine!) that have had a major positive impact on Penny and my relationship: Personality Plus by Florence Littauer, 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman, Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs. Highly, highly, highly recommended reading for every married couple in the world as well as those wanting to learn to deal with people better!

With the kids, this principle from the bible has helped us weather many storms: Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it!

In our society today, it seems like the standard is to send them to school and involve them in as many extracurricular activities as possible. While neither of those things is bad in and of themselves, I believe what we miss way too often is taking time to teach our kids the true principles that this world operates under.

When they understand truth, they tend to choose truth as a lifestyle. But when their perceived truth comes from a source that either ignorantly or purposefully teaches false ideas as truth they end up living a messed up life! They never seem to figure out that you can not live a truly successful life based on false principles, no matter how much you want to believe them!

If we say our family is a priority in our lives, then lets let our actions prove it!

Have a great day!!!

Urgent vs. Important

I've been thinking today about what's important vs what's urgent!

I talk to people all the time who are just too busy doing this or that to do something that might be really important in their lives.

Ever feel frenzied, frazzled, or realize that you're just busy being busy? Join the crowd!

I have a few suggestions.

First; Stop and smell the roses! Even dandelions will work! Just stop and smell something (beautiful of course)! Taking time out to ponder and wonder at this amazing world we live in is a great way to help us see our priorities more clearly! Busyness is really just a distraction.

In fact a mentor of mine told me recently that he considered Busyness and Laziness as two different symptoms of the same disease, Lack of Focus!

Second; Take some time out to examine your priorities. Figure out what is really important in your life and what is just urgent.

If you graphed out how you spend your time each day on a pie chart, would it reflect your priorities or someone elses?

Most of the urgent things will pass without any significant consequences.

Third: Spend your time (Your most valuable gift) only on things that really matter to your priorities and your life will begin to fill up with value and meaning!

Nobody on this earth is unimportant except as they allow themselves to be! No matter who you are, your life has meaning and it's up to you to find it and open the door!

Your life really is important in the grand scheme of things! If it doesn't feel that way, start looking at what you're spending your time on! Find out what your purpose is and pursue it with a passion!

Have an awesome day my friends!

Double Standards

I was pondering the other day why some people have such interesting belief systems in place in their lives.

I end up in discussions frequently with people who hold some really strong opinions about some thing or another only to find out that, if they really thought about what they were saying, that idea is not consistent with everything else that they say they believe.

It's interesting how easy it is to hold different subjects to different standards in our lives.

It's the old "Double Standard" idea. Or maybe "Riding the Fence".

I guess what it really boils down to is a saying that I love from a guy I listen to alot named Tim Marks, "I'm not going to try to tell you what to believe, I'm just saying to make sure you know WHY you believe WHAT you do believe!"

Sometimes when we really get down and think about what our beliefs are on any given subject, we should ask ourselves why we believe that way?

For instance, if we think that doing a certain thing is right or wrong, let's stop and look at the logic behind what we're saying and see if it's consistent with everything else we believe in life? Or are we just following a crowd of some sort?

Think about alot of our hot political topics today. Much of our conflict arises because some of us want to apply a certain standard of reasoning in this situation and that one but not in the rest of our lives.

It's okay to do this or that but if we dress the situation in different clothes we'd never agree to it!

Often it's OK for one segment of the people to verbally attack another, but if the second group responds in a like manner, they are accused of bigotry, hatred or fear-mongering, etc.

So let's make sure we are applying the same standards to all of our beliefs.

Seeking for truth is a much more healthy way to live than to have our poor subconcious mind trying to figure out our double standards and keep them straight!

Think about the why behind your beliefs and always seek for truth. Your life will go much smoother!

Have an awesome day!