#916 Humility is a Good Thing, BUT...

Today is dedicated to il mio ottimo amico, Damiano 

How many times have you witnessed someone eschewing a compliment as though they were shooing a fly?  They even use the same motions, a turned head, a hand to shield, and then swat it away.

It seems to me that we dismiss compliments almost instantly, yet when someone says something hurtful, we have it echoing in our head for days.

Why does our inner critic want to believe that the insulter is an expert, but the giver of the compliment is insincere, out to gain something, or is an exaggerator?

“Can’t we reset our heads to believe the compliment and temper the critic?”

There is a finesse to standing tall in a compliment. Acknowledge it, and gracefully allow the glow to sustain for a moment or two.  That’s what the giver of the compliment intended, isn’t it?  For you to acknowledge this beautiful thing she sees in you and for you to know she admires it.

A wonderful 16-year-old girl at one of my high school seminars slipped me a note after a session where I’d spent a good amount of time on “the voice in your head.”

I opened it after she had left and smiled.  It said, “If you spoke to your friends the way you speak to yourself, you’d have no friends.”

Dragging insults around is like Marley’s ghost dragging around chains.  The links increase and bind together getting heavier and heavier until you can hardly move. 

Break free. Own Your Sales Gene