About a month or so ago, I had a pretty bad day. It was Murphy’s Law in motion. My car had a flat tire, and I spilled coffee all over my clothes. Including a brand new pair of pants I bought, on my way to see a client in Florida who was critical of my company’s products. Talk about first impressions! Then, when I returned home, my plan was to make an eggplant dish from an instructional video on YouTube, but I didn’t have three of the ingredients. So I ended up eating a peanut butter sandwich, wallowing in the day’s unfortunate events.
But all the annoying things seemed to vanish after I listened to a voice message from my friend Auggie who gave me positive feedback about a recent like men’s group that I had facilitated. He was encouraging me, mentioning it had a huge impact on him and that men don’t get to do this type of work nearly enough. As we all observe National Day of Encouragement (#DayOfEncouragement) on September 12. I’m reminded of just how powerful encouragement can be. On that off day where everything went wrong for me, it was like a light came on that made my day feel so much better when I was given a little encouragement.
So I never miss the chance to encourage or build up people. I’m a big advocate for encouragement and positivity. I think it’s sad that many people seem to bond around criticism. Which is baked into our culture and social media. Unfortunately, it’s human nature to remember negatives more than positives. But that’s all the more reason why it’s important to encourage one another whenever possible. It really is something that is nourishing to the soul.
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After more than two years of pandemic living, let’s hug it out!