Back At It

  Good Morning Friends! I hope you haven’t missed me too much in the last few days. I took a little hiatus to make a surprise trip to visit my family for the holiday, and I ran into some technical difficulties with my website while I was out of town.  All is resolved now, and you can expect your daily dose of K.W. thoughts to keep coming at you again!  I hope you are taking time to enjoy your life and your family too, and today I want to talk to you about how a little bit of encouragement can go a long way.  Your words are so powerful, and when used for good, this power can have quite an impact on the people around you.
  Have you ever had someone just speak a few simple words to you in passing that brightened your day or gave you courage to press on? This is the power of our words at work, and I want to challenge you to become better at using your words to lift others up. We all know how easy it is to tear down with our words. We hear negative talk from our co-workers, Facebook friends, probably even at our churches. But how about if we all started making a conscious effort to only speak good things about each other. In fact, this concept is so important that there are whole sections devoted to it in the timeless classic, How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.  One of his guiding principles is that we must "give honest and sincere appreciation" to others.  Think of the last time your boss, spouse, or just a stranger on the street gave you a genuine complement.  Think of how this made you feel.  Did you feel like you have more energy, confidence, and joy?  Strive to make other people around you feel this way on a daily basis.  When people leave your presence, do they feel uplifted or beat down? You hold the power to change the lives of people around you by taking the time to simply encourage them.
  My grandma is an excellent person at words of encouragement.  She is always stopping her family members to hug them and tell them she is proud of them or she loves them.  She makes you feel better when you talk with her.  That is an example we can all benefit from following in this area.  Make it your aim today to see how many people you can lift up by genuine words of encouragement.  Insincere flattery will get you no where, and I do not recommend it, but learn to give authentic, loving compliments, and you will find that people around you instantly brighten up.  Make it an uplifting weekend.  I can't wait to see you succeed!

~K.W.