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Showing Appreciation and Encouraging Others

Matt Spillar

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I’ve been reading a classic book titled, How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. It’s widely regarded as one of the best self-help books of all time. It’s packed with life principles that can be applied to help us be more successful in both business and our personal lives.

A big focus of the book is on how to become more well-liked, with lessons we can use to build stronger relationships. We can’t control how others act towards us, but there are many principles we can follow to relate better to them. One of these lessons is about how important it is to show people appreciation.

Carnegie says, “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”

Everyone has a desire to be appreciated. By showing our appreciation to other people more often, we can build stronger relationships with them.

Charles Schwab emphasized the importance of building employees up with encouragement: “I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement. There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors.”

Humans thrive on encouragement and respond much better to positive reinforcement, rather than criticism. Think about your experience in a work setting, do you respond better with constructive coaching or a boss that micromanages?

Appreciation vs Flattery

“The difference between appreciation and flattery? That is simple. One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other selfish. One is universally admired; the other universally condemned.”

Appreciation is genuine whereas flattery is insincere, and people can tell the difference. We need to give genuine compliments, looking to build others up constructively rather than stroking their egos. Carnegie goes as far as to say that making people feel important and appreciated is a key “secret” in handling people. If we show appreciation to the people in our lives, we’ll have deeper relationships.

How can you show others you appreciate them? Here are some examples that I’ve witnessed:

Example #1: Showing appreciation to essential workers

One of my friends, the past few times he’s been to the grocery store, has been buying chocolate and wine for cashiers as a way of saying thank you for being an essential worker. The cashier will be checking out the groceries as usual, and then upon discovering the chocolate and wine are for them, get a huge smile upon their face at the unexpected surprise of being appreciated.

Example #2: Showing appreciation to waitstaff and restaurant managers

One way my dad always shows appreciation to waitstaff and restaurant managers is by thanking them for particularly good meals and service. At the end of a particularly good meal, my dad asks the waiter if he can speak to the manager. Normally, when a customer asks to do this it’s to complain about something. So the manager comes over, braced for the worst. As soon as my dad thanks them and expresses his appreciation for how positive of an experience we had at their restaurant, you can see a weight lifted off the manager’s shoulders and a huge smile. Both the waiter and manager feel an incredible sense of pride and gratitude for being shown appreciation for their work.

Applying this in our own lives

Neither of these example are difficult, yet they can make a person’s whole day with a small gesture of appreciation! This small shift can help us build deeper relationships and help spread positivity. One small act of kindness can create a ripple effect.

During this coronavirus pandemic, we’re seeing how essential some of the most underpaid and under-appreciated roles really are: nurses, grocery store clerks, food delivery, truck drivers, farmers, daycare providers, teachers. As people are feeling lonely and isolated, it’s even more important for us to go out of our way and show appreciation wherever we can.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it well,  “Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.”

We need to keep this perspective in mind as we live our lives, being friendly and understanding to everyone and treating them as equals. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, different backgrounds, and different experiences. We can learn something from everyone we interact with. No one has it all, including us. Everyone is our superior in some way. If we go about life in this way, each interaction has the ability for us to learn to become even better people.

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