More Alive

So many people who glowingly report that their lives have been turned around by a seminar, a church, or a counselor sometimes make me think of figures in a wax museum. They look like the real thing, but they don't breathe. You expect them to move like living people, but they never do. These are not the folks you want to be with when you're in real trouble or deep pain. Their words of encouragement are always appropriate and warmly offered, but they fall flat. You never feel more alive after a conversation with them- a bit cheered or instructed, perhaps, but never alive. Developing the spark that is the unmistakable evidence of life is the challenge before us-and also the mystery.

Larry Crabb, Inside Out

time to cheer

Encourage others and cheer for them. Having an appreciation for how amazing the people around you are leads to good places – productive, fulfilling, peaceful places. So be happy for those who are making progress. Cheer for their victories. Be thankful for their blessings, openly. What goes around comes around, and sooner or later the people you’re cheering for will start cheering for you.

Marc and Angel Chernoff

The Secret to an Exceptional Life

Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliners suggests context and hard work are more critical than raw talent when it comes to achievement. 

Gladwell offers Christopher Langan as an example of how the range of opportunities presented to us can make a significant difference as to whether we gain traction in life. 

Einstein's IQ was 150. Langan’s IQ was a blistering 195. But Langan spent his days working on a horse farm in rural Missouri. Why didn’t he rise to exceptional achievement?  According to Gladwell, there was no one in Langan's life to encourage and help him develop his exceptional gifts. He grew up in a small town in Montana with an abusive stepfather in abject poverty. 

Gladwell writes, "He had to make his way alone and no one--not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses--ever makes it alone."

You didn’t rise alone. Is there someone to whom you should show gratitude? Someone who poured themselves into making you who you are? Is there someone who you could cultivate, radically altering the kind of person they become?

Stephen Goforth

Encouragement

We appreciate what a person does, but we affirm who a person is. Appreciation comes and goes because it is usually related to something someone accomplishes. Affirmation goes deeper. It is directed to the person himself or herself. While encouragement would encompass both, the rarer of the two is affirmation. To be appreciated, we get the distinct impression that we must earn it by some accomplishment. But affirmation requires no such prerequisite. This mean that even when we don’t earn the right to be appreciated (because we failed to succeed or because we lacked the accomplishment of some goal), we can still be affirmed – indeed, we need it then more than ever. I do not care how influential or secure or mature a person may appear to be, genuine encouragement never fails to help. Most of us need massive doses as we slug it out in the trenches. 

Charles Swindoll, Strengthening Your Grip

Fixed Intelligence

We’ve long assumed that positive feedback always has desirable results. But some recent research has painted a more complex picture. Melissa Kamins discovered that children who receive primarily person-praise (“how smart you are”) rather than good words about their efforts will usually develop fixed views of intelligence. When children are young and family members consistently tell them how brilliant they are (or how dumb), they get the message: life depends on your level of intelligence, not on how you work at something. You’ve got it or you don’t. Nothing can change that reality, they think. In short, fixed views of intelligence or growth mindsets stem from conditioning, not from some inborn character trait. They too can change.

Ken Bain, What The Best College Students Do