The Focus Course

Assignment

Encourage someone you know by praising or thanking them.

Make a phone call, send a video or text message, a Twitter or Facebook message, or on a Zoom call.

It doesn’t have to be poetic, deep, or specific. Just personal and honest.

For example, here’s a text message I like to send to my friends:

Hey Bob! I was just thinking about how awesome you are and how thankful I am for our friendship. Hope you are doing well.

Another example: I have 3 sons at home, and every night before bed I spend a few minutes with each of them. I look them in the eye and tell them how proud I am of them, how special they are, and that I love them with my whole heart.

The absence of correction does not equal praise.

Why this?

Just like with yesterday’s assignment, this is something simple you can do. Encouraging someone you know will help to strengthen your conscience, your attitude, and your sphere of influence. It would make an excellent lifestyle habit.

Also, it’s a win-win. You’ve probably just made someone’s day. Imagine how you’d feel if you got an unexpected text message from a friend telling you how awesome you are.

What’s the big picture?

There are about one billion advantages that come with having a generous and encouraging attitude. I believe it’s a critical part of our overall sense of happiness in life, our journey to do meaningful work, and is one of the gateways to building a successful career.

Imposter Syndrome

Many entrepreneurs and creative professionals struggle with something called impostor syndrome — where we feel as if our success is an accident and we do not deserve it. We fear that people will soon find out we are frauds and possess not an ounce of real talent at all.

By looking for the good in others — and then expressing it to them — it becomes harder to focus on the negative in your own life. You’ve become someone who is actively looking for ways to praise others.

Adding Value

If I had to sum up Dale Carnegie’s book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, into one sentence, it would be this: Stop being such a narcissistic jackass. (ahem)

He writes:

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

As I mentioned above, a habit of encouragement helps us to think less often about ourselves and more often about others. Put another way: encouraging someone is a small and simple thing we can do to add value to someone else’s life with no strings attached.

One of the premier ways to be successful in business is to provide value to someone else through your skills, your art, and/or your wisdom.

Well, how better to provide value to others than to put their needs front and center? Encouraging others is a way to peer through that window of “putting others first” and treating others as we would want to be treated.

Why talk about what we want? That is childish. Absurd. Of course, you are interested in what you want. You are eternally interested in it. But no one else is. The rest of us are just like you: we are interested in what we want. So the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it. […]

The world is full of people who are grabbing and self-seeking. So the rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage. He has little competition.

In an article entitled “Pay It Forward”, Karen McGrane wrote:

Not everything in our professional lives is a transaction, scrutinized and evaluated against how much it costs us, how much someone should pay. Not every teaching relationship must be formalized—a mentoring opportunity, a coach, an internship. Not every investment of time has to be “worth it.” Sometimes you just have a brief conversation with someone because—why not? You never know what will come of it.

A thousand times, yes.

In 2011, when I was in the transition of quitting my job to take my website full time, there were a few smart folks who I knew from the internet that were willing to take time out of their day to give me some advice, answer my questions, and calm my fears. Even now, years later, I often re-visit the advice and perspective they gave me back in 2011.

And now, I often get requests from others asking for input and advice on things. I try to help as many as possible, though I wish I could be more available than I am (but I know there are things I can do to get better at it, such as scheduling an “open” work time each week (even if it’s just 30 minutes), and that time slot is reserved for giving back to others by answering emails, doing interviews, etc.).

Leadership

Praise and encouragement is foundational to good leadership. From a shift manager, to a CEO, department head or parent, it does not matter: you have influence and leadership over someone.

Charles Schwab once said:

There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I never criticize anyone. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise. […] I have yet to find the person, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism.

(Un)Forgiveness

A habit of encouragement will boost your ability to forgive others. You may not realize it, but when you give praise and thanks to those you know, you’re training your brain to look for the good in others. And slowly over time, that will help free you from any sort of victim mentality.

In life, you will have ups and downs. People will wrong you, offend you, steal from you, hurt you, lie to you, cut you off on the highway, or worse, take the last cookie out of the jar. You can hold on to these offenses, or you can let them go and move on. It’s not easy — especially when someone we know does something to intentionally hurt us. But harboring unforgiveness is not healthy, and it slows us down in the pursuit of our goals. Forgive whomever it was that took the last cookie, and get back to doing your best creative work.

The Importance of Social Support

In his book, The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor says that social support is our single greatest asset when it comes to success in “nearly every domain of our lives, including marriage, health, friendship, community involvement, creativity, and in particular, our jobs, careers, and business,” and that random acts of kindness (such as encouraging others) are one of the most significant ways we can boost social support and, in turn, increase our own happiness.

Achor writes:

When we have a community of people we can count on — spouses, family, friends, colleagues — we multiply our emotional, intellectual, and physical resources. We bounce back from setbacks faster, accomplish more, and feel a greater sense of purpose. Furthermore, the effect on our happiness, and therefore on our ability to profit from the Happiness Advantage, is both immediate and long-lasting.

Achor has conducted many studies and tests at different companies where employees were tasked with writing a 2-minute email to someone in their social support network (a friend or family member) as the first thing before they began their work day. They did this every day for 21 days, the result was a noticeable increase in employee happiness which, in turn, increased productivity, creativity, resiliency, confidence, learning skills, energy, and motivation.

Moreover, Achor cites the Harvard Men Study — a psychologic study that followed 268 men for 70 years, beginning with their entrance into college in 1930:

From this wealth of data, scientists have been able to identify the life circumstances and personal characteristics that distinguished the happiest, fullest lives from the least successful ones. [And that characteristic could be summed up as: “love — full stop.”] […]

Researchers found that social bonds weren’t just predictive of overall happiness, but also of eventual career achievement, occupational success, and income.

In other words, a habit of encouraging others will literally change your life for the better and increase your chances for happiness, wealth, and success. The wealthiest people I have ever known are also among the kindest and most encouraging people I have ever known.

Identity

When we encourage others, we are giving them something with no strings attached. This unselfish behavior is one way to re-wire where we look to for security and acceptance. When we are not dependent on the acceptance of others for our security, we are liberated to create freely, without inhibition or fear — the foundation for doing meaningful work.

As I said, it’s a simple act, but its fruit can be profound.