Winning human heart!
Chapter 27: Encouraging Others
Be careful with your thoughts,
it is a friend or a most dangerous enemy. – Aysa Angel
Pete Barlow is an old friend of mine.
He earns a living by performing animal circus and vaudeville.
I love watching Pete train funny four-legged actors and actresses.
I’ve noticed that every time a dog makes some progress,
no matter how small,
Pete always pats him in praise and rewards him with something.
This is nothing new.
People who have trained animals
for the circus have been doing this for centuries.
But I wonder why we haven’t used this simple
and effective way to encourage a person for so long?
Why don’t we use praise instead of rebuke?
Even a small progress,
but if encouraged,
little by little,
little by little,
it will grow and in time turn into a huge achievement.
Praise is like a ray of sunshine, it is necessary for all species,
including humans, to develop.
Yet most of us are always ready to use cold breezes
to criticize and often hesitate to give our loved ones warm rays from compliments.
If we think about it carefully,
we will see that there are compliments
that have completely changed someone’s life.
Many years ago, there was a ten-year-old boy
who worked in a factory in Naples.
He aspired to be a singer,
but his first singing teacher poured cold water on this desire.
“You can never sing,” he said.
He has no voice at all.
His voice sounds like a frog croaking or a bullfrog.”
However, fortunately for the boy
when he still has a mother in his life.
His loving mother, although only a poor country woman,
always encouraged and encouraged him.
She always said lovingly that she believed he could sing and sing well.
That mother was willing to go barefoot
to save money for him to study music.
The encouragement of a mother who was not highly educated
but filled with sacrifice, love and faith in her son changed the boy’s life.
His name is Enrico Caruso.
Later, he became the greatest
and most famous musical singer of his time.
It doesn’t take much to make others happy or successful.
If you know how,
just a word of encouragement,
a compliment at the right time can create a great source of encouragement for others.
Maybe, we will do great things
that we ourselves did not expect.
In the early nineteenth century,
a young man in London had a burning dream of becoming a writer.
But it seems,
everything is against this desire of his.
Before the fifth grade,
his father went to prison
because he could not pay his debt,
many times he deeply experienced the humiliation of hunger.
Eventually, he found a job labeling bottles of shoe polish in a rundown shop.
At night, he slept in a barn with two other boys.
He lacked confidence in his writing ability
that he only dared to compose in the silence of the night
so that no one would laugh at him.
One composition after another was rejected by newspapers and publishers.
It seemed that he was desperate
and had to give up his literary dream.
However, God did not disappoint people,
finally success came when a publisher agreed
to accept his work and pay him a shilling.
Joy and pride filled his soul,
not because he was paid a shilling for the article
but because of the commendation.
He was so happy that he wandered around the streets,
tears streaming down his face.
His stories are printed and published.
It was a compliment and recognition of his talent.
The deepest longing in his human nature was his desire for proper evaluation
and recognition that had been fulfilled.
Without this encouragement,
he would have to bury his life in rat-infested shoe factories.
Today, many people around the world know him.
His name is Charles Dickens.
Sometimes, a compliment or encouragement said at
the right time has an extraordinary impact
that even the person who created the compliment itself did not expect.
Another boy in London worked as an employee in a dry food store.
He had to get up at five a.m. to clean the store,
working hard for fourteen hours a day.
This was purely manual work and he hated it.
After two years, he couldn’t take it anymore.
Waking up one morning, without waiting for breakfast,
he walked fifteen miles to find his mother,
who was working for a wealthy family at the time,
to speak his mind.
After that, he wrote a long letter to his former teacher,
confiding that he was very miserable
and did not want to live anymore.
The teacher comforted and encouraged him,
assuring him that he was indeed smart
and suitable for even better jobs.
He was willing to find him a teacher in the village.
The teacher performed a noble deed for his student.
His timely encouragement changed the boy’s future.
This teacher has contributed to creating a special talent
in the history of English literature.
Because right after that,
he started writing and quickly became author
of countless best-selling books in the UK,
earning over a million dollars with his pen.
That is H. G. Wells.
From the results of many experiments,
psychologist B. F. Skinner concluded
that praise always causes good behaviors
to increase and bad behaviors to decrease.
In many families,
it seems that the primary form of communication
between parents and children is yelling and scolding.
There are many cases where children get worse,
not better,
after each treatment.
Parents don’t understand that
what their children really need is love and sincere words.
Words of encouragement,
timely praise or tolerance help them overcome mistakes and strive higher.
John Ringelspaugh of Rocky, North Carolina,
decided to use a few principles he learned in our class to solve this problem.
“We decided to try praising,
appreciating,
not repeating,
our children’s mistakes,” he says.
It is not easy to overlook the obvious mistakes,
and it is also difficult to find something to praise.
But we were determined and made it.
Over the first few days,
the children’s frequent mistakes,
which had been common for a long time,
obviously decreased,
and then disappeared completely.
The children are becoming more
and more deserving of our compliments.
In them are forming more and more right behavior and,
of course,
there is very little room for wrong behavior.”
Everyone wants to be complimented,
but the compliment should be specific,
clear,
and sincere,
We all crave approval,
recognition,
and are willing to do anything to get it.
But no one wants lies and flattery.
Allow me to repeat: The principles outlined in this book
will only work when they spring from sincerity itself.
I don’t offer tricks or tricks to help us behave deceitfully.
I only discuss with you about sincere praise
from the bottom of the heart.
The American philosopher and psychologist William James said,
“We have only exploited a tiny fraction of our abilities.”
Probably one of the most valuable
but underutilized resources is the ability to praise, acknowledge,
and judge others,
An ability that can be immensely empowering
for yourself and those around you.
“The sweetest word of all is a compliment” – Xenophon
“Your warm smile and a friendly pat on the shoulder
can save a person on the brink of death.” – Camellia Elliot
“All potential blooms in praise and withers in criticism.
If you want to be a great leader, keep this in mind.” – Dale Carnegie
Principle 27: Honestly praise the progress, even the smallest, in others.
