According to The Days of the Year website, today is No Tobacco Day. As a non-smoker, every day is No Tobacco Day for me, so I decided to come up with something else. I am declaring today to be Be Excellent to Each Other Day
Yesterday, at my bimonthly network meeting, the presenter, Jeff Welsh of InSource Marketing used his time to have a go around the room and take turns receiving complements from everyone else. Fortunately, the first guy in line to receive complements was someone that is super easy to say nice things about, which got us off to a good start. I admit I was very pleasantly surprised when Jeff had to cut off the complements several times to ensure we would make it around the room. The group is filled with great people, so my surprise wasn’t that people had nice things to say to each other. Rather, I was surprised at all of the previously unspoken praise that was going around the room. Why is it that we are so quick to criticize, yet so reluctant to complement?
This morning I went to yet another networking group (yes, this is how I spend many of my mornings) and tried to pay close attention to what people were saying to each other. However, this is a group that is already wildly complementary of each other. Really, I am not exaggerating. This is the most complementary group of folks I have ever met. So much so that when people visit the group, they always comment on the friendliness and camaraderie of the group and how much we seem to like each other. I think there is a very strong correlation between the positive things people are always saying to each other and the strong group cohesion. There are several people who have been part of this group for over a decade. That’s serious commitment for a group that meets at 7am on Fridays.
I know a lot of people (myself included) who are facing challenges in their life right now. There is a general sense of dysphoria in the air. I propose that we all just take a small step in making people’s days a bit better. Give someone you know a complement. Better yet, give it in someplace public like Facebook or Twitter. My hope is to create a microscopic snowball effect that might even make someone’s crappy day feel just a little less awful. You might even make someone’s good day feel awesome. Think about it.