While having my spiritual retreat day at a local coffee store I ran into one of my youth group kid’s dad. He actually has twin girls. I was on FB and noticed what one of them said about the other: “I have the greatest sister in the world.” I made the choice to say hi to the dad and tell him how awesome it is to read something like that. He said the girls aren’t always like that but it was nice to hear.
This interaction reminds me about one of my philosophies of life. “If I’m going to put effort into giving negative feedback to someone, I better be willing to put as much effort into complimenting someone.” I was in the middle of my spiritual retreat, I was spending time with God, I was reading through His word, etc, but at that moment the right thing to do was to speak to that dad. It was important to encourage him on his daughters. The impact of that quick statement will be worth so much more than the 10 minutes I lost doing it.
What about you? Do you go out of your way to say thanks to one of your volunteers? When something goes wrong at a store or at work, do you complain a lot? Do you use as much energy to compliment as you do to complain? If there is a difference…why?