Awesome Compliments That Will Be Valuable for the Rest of Your Life

How about learning to give awesome compliments? How easy do you find it to pay great compliments? An authentic compliment. Difficult for you? Seemingly a common thing, right? But difficult to do uncommonly well, don’t you agree?

As a leader or even as a peer, great compliments have never been more critically important than today. Not because they are expected, but to help in team motivation and engagement. While everyone is wrapped up in their own performance, people hardly take the time to recognize the work of others.

Whether you’re dealing with bosses, subordinates, or peers, a well-placed compliment will make you valuable, noteworthy, and better suited for leadership.

Why compliments?

When you recognize people’s skills and achievements, it makes you seem more selfless. Your attention to detail is appreciated. And if you believe what some scientific studies have to say on the subject, people who pay others compliments are seen as smarter. And more humble … a critical leadership quality.

Be specific

Understand what motivates people you work with and focus on paying compliments that will give attention to those things. For a business leader, it may be addressing and inspiring a crowd of subordinates. For a secretary, it may be her knowledge of office details. Regardless, compliment them accordingly, in the most natural way possible.

Timing is essential

Compliments are all about timing. They are usually most effective immediately after someone does something they deserve praise for. It’s right after the fact that most people want to hear that they did well. Let time pass and they will calm down, or convince themselves that they did well and don’t need anyone else’s approval.

But timing also involves calibrating someone’s mood. If you see a co-worker in a slump, a well-placed compliment might motivate him and remind him that what he does is significant.

Perseverance leads to mastery.

A sustained effort over time will typically lead to mastery. When I first started writing, a few of my friends laughed at my books. Rightfully so. It was full of typos, had terrible grammar, and had pretty mundane content. None of it was spectacular.

The perfect word to describe it: Mediocre. And the book sales reflected that.

Fast forward to today and you’ll see that my writing has been published in Forbes, Fortune, Business Insider, Inc., and The Huffington Post.

People will often ask, “How did you manage to get published?” The answer is simple: Perseverance.

I spent 2 years writing 6 books, 180 Quora posts, and 30 editorial pitches before I got published by a major media site.

Even after this momentum, the website I just launched was slow in gaining subscribers. For example, in about 2 months I had only signed up around 520 subscribers. However, after those 2 months of churning out weekly articles, last night I had a breakthrough of 64 subscribers in just one night!

Over time my writing has improved dramatically. My writing volume has also increased. It used to take me a few days to write an article. Now I can write a short article in an hour and the quality is better. This all happened because I stayed the course.

So when in doubt, always remember: to persevere.

2. It makes you mentally stronger.

I’ve failed a lot. One of my first jobs, when I was in high school, was working as a salesperson at a tuxedo shop. A few months in, I missed one of my shifts and was fired. I was really upset with myself.

I once tried to be a professional actor and met with an agent. She told me to find another career.

I once tried to be a professional writer. My first book was called “Push.” I think I sold a few Kindle copies. Mostly to family and friends. It was a long time ago.

Know what happened? I bounced back. For example, I ended up writing a second book called “The Resume Is Dead.” It has over 40,000 Kindle downloads and hit #1 in the Resumes category.

I guess I could have quit writing. But why do that when it’s my passion? Better to learn from my mistakes and to keep improving. At the end of the day, each of these experiences helped to shape me into who I am today.

Don’t spend time regretting your past. Do focus your energy on pushing forward.

3. It teaches patience.

Success isn’t built overnight. It’s built over many nights. Sometimes years. That’s why you’ve got to be patient.

This doesn’t mean you don’t create and build with passion and intensity. You absolutely want that. But if you don’t have patience, you might end up giving up at a time when you’re just inches from success. 

If you’re seeing meaningful progress and continuous improvement, then it may make sense to continue to persevere. When I first started writing “The Resume is Dead,” I thought it would take a few months to finish it from beginning to end.

It took me an entire year. But despite all the times I got writer’s block or got a huge headache from proofreading the book, I never quit.

It’s the book I’m most proud of. And it was worth every minute.

Creating something worthwhile isn’t easy. Be patient.