Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of The Art of Manliness Podcast. Over a decade ago, I remember reading a story that stuck with me. I think it was connected to the famous Harvard study on adult development that studied a group of men across their lifetimes, but I can no longer find the reference. A much beloved doctor, Pond's retirement, was given a notebook filled with letters of praise and appreciation from his patients.
After he received it, he put it up in his attic and never opened it or read the letters. I've often thought about this story since I first heard it, wondering about what motivated the doctor's behavior and the larger question why praise is typically welcome to make us feel good, but can also make people feel uncomfortable or embarrassed. In today's episode, I take a stab at answering this question with Christopher Littlefield, a speaker and consultant who specializes in employee appreciation.
But first, we talk about the power of recognition. How we can be sustaining giving compliments, how compliments can go wrong, and how we can offer them more effectively. We then turn to why getting compliments can make you cringe, how people deflect them and how this deflection affects relationships, and how to get better at receiving compliments graciously. After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash compliments. All right, Chris Littlefield, welcome to the show.
Happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Brett. You are a consultant and an expert in employee appreciation. You go and train managers and bosses. I'm how to show more appreciation to their employees. But also, you just talk about appreciation in general. This is applicable to your personal life and things like that. We're going to talk about compliments today. In your experience, what's the power of a compliment in both our work lives and our personal lives?
I think compliments are the foundation of connection. If you think about it, it's kind of the building blocks. Most of our relationships start with a compliment, whether it's a smile, whether it's expressing our appreciation, noticing something about somebody else is usually how we start those connections. They end up forming the foundations of maintaining our relationships. I can't remember.
I think it was in a book called The Leader Lab, where they talked about that we are always hearing people's messages through two different lenses. What are they saying and how do they feel about me? Those positive signals that we're sending to people, both in what we compliment and what we express, but also in how we show our appreciation, ends up maintaining that relationship.
I think the last piece that we often don't think about is compliments are also the most powerful tool we have to turn around a toxic dynamic or a challenging relationship. It builds connection and then the ability to turn around a toxic dynamic. I guess good positive feedback is more powerful than negative feedback in causing changes. What do you see? I got into doing this work. My background, which you probably won't find if you go and search online, is an international conflict resolution.
I used to facilitate dialogues between Israelis and Palestinians, which has a different context now, the time that we're having this conversation. Used to facilitate cross-border dialogue, because we focused between Armenian and Azerbaijan. The reason why I shifted into doing work around recognition and appreciation is that I had a two-year toxic dynamic with two coworkers in conflict resolution that we couldn't resolve.
When nothing else was working, it was a 15-minute recognition activity that turned around that relationship. That's what sparked me on trying to understand why did this work when every other conversation we had about our hopes, about our needs, about our fears, using all these techniques, nothing worked, and that one activity turned around the relationship. I think if you're a parent, you've probably seen this dynamic.
Typically, when you give feedback to your kids, whenever they're doing something annoying, and you tell them, don't do that. Why are you doing that? They just keep doing the thing that you don't want them to do, but I've heard this idea that we need to start catching our kids doing good things.
When you see them do something that is actually good and you want them to do, you need to tell them, like, hey, I really appreciate how you do that, or what great job picking up your bedroom without anyone telling you to pick it up. Yeah, what gets recognized gets repeated.
I think one thing I want to call out in the beginning is I hate trophy culture, and I think there's this perception that it's like everybody gets a participation award for showing up, and we're recognizing people when they're not doing anything. But also what we see, and we notice out loud, is the thing that people tend to repeat afterwards. I'm sure at some point in time you've had somebody reference the Gottman research out of that.
I think it was done in the 80s where they studied couples, and this is probably one of the most misquote studies, but they did a study where they filmed couples for 15 minutes in the first year of their marriage, and it was actually talking about a conflict or a difficult subject, and that often gets left out when people are talking about this.
Then they coded the video down to positive and negative interactions, positive interactions, like, oh, I'm sorry to interrupt you, or you're right, I do do this sometimes to a smile, to negative, like an eye roll, or up, are you kidding me? Kind of thing, and they were able to predict with 92% accuracy whether they'd be married in five years, and it came down to this magic ratio of five positive to each one negative.
And I think that that ratio in general applies with our kids and their openness to our feedback. It applies in our relationships, and it applies in our relationships as work as well.
And so those little signals that we're sending to people all the time, whether it's our kids, of noticing what they're doing right, not just saying, good job, good job, great job eating your dinner, good job doing this, but really being specific, you know, like, I have an eight-year-old daughter, and you know, I always noticed, like, hey, I noticed out on the soccer field today that you actually were less scared today.
You really went and you targeted the ball today, and I saw you were really paying attention to where you were. And I won't go into this long conversation, but just noticing that, or, hey, I noticed that you worked really hard in your homework tonight, and you sat through it opposed to getting up five times, and I noticed that you're really making an effort.
And that specificity that shows them what specifically we're seeing has that person see, hey, they're noticing this, and they're appreciating what I'm doing. Yeah, I think one thing I've been learning more and more as I've gotten older is that everyone is craving, there's like a hunger for affirmation. Like, everyone wants to know that they're noticed, and they're appreciated. And I think paying attention and letting people know, hey, I noticed what you're doing, it's an act of service. 100%.
And I think, you know, like I said, is that we're looking for those signals and those cues, and I think many times, many of us were grown up to, you know, I remember asking people when I was doing my research, what were you taught growing up around recognition? Well, if I'm not telling you you're doing something wrong, then you're doing it right, but I don't need to tell you you're doing something right.
And I was chatting with my mother the other day, and she was saying that she told her father that, you know, dad, I really love you. When he was older and he goes, we don't need to say it to know it, right? There was this idea that we don't need to actually express things. But when we don't express them and make them explicit, then many times people are sitting there with an open loop. How do they feel about me? Do they care about me?
And I don't think we need to be in deep, meaningful conversations all the time. That would be exhausting. But it's just sending that message and it may just be like a fist bump. It may just be like, hey, I noticed what you did. I saw that and it just is that kind of we're looking. We're constantly wondering, am I on the right track? Is what I'm doing landing with these other people? Do people appreciate this? Am I doing the right thing? Do you feel loved? Do you feel cared for at home?
And well, do you feel loved and cared for at work? We just don't tend to use that language in the workplace. I wrote a study that said that people would rather get appreciated at work than get a raise. But it seems like bosses are pretty stingy with compliments. Why do you think that is? Why do you have to exist as a profession teaching bosses how to give compliments? So first, I need to address the money conversation because anytime somebody will say it's like, people don't work for the money.
They just work for the appreciation. I'm like, we'll stop paying them and see if they show up next week. Of course, that base needs to be there. I think it's important to understand the difference between feeling compensated and fairly compensated and feeling valued. And those are two different experiences because I can feel fairly compensated but then not feel valued.
Like I had a manager who reached out and somebody in HR was saying, I think we need to work on recognition or organization and the CEO came to the call and he goes, I don't get why are head of marketing, we just gave her an award last month and she still says she doesn't feel appreciated. And it's like, that's because we've got a terminology problem where we've collapsed rewards and rewards of recognition and we need to decouple those things.
I think people think that if I give a reward, if I give a gift card, if I give a paycheck, then I've done my job of recognizing people. And that's oftentimes an outcome of poor messaging from HR and also the recognition and putting air quotes right now industry that calls their reward and award platforms, the recognition program when really it's a reward or award program.
And then oftentimes those reward and award programs exist in HR and under compensation and benefits because there's money associated with it. So people are left thinking that recognition is an HR thing and it's not their job. And then also they think that when they go to go recognize people, they need to fill out this long 17 page nomination process and decide on points and all the rest and they've over complicated it.
And so they think that that's the recognition thing or the recognition box and they don't think that it's theirs. And this is why I think to just kind of a long answer to your brief question is we need to first decouple rewards and awards from recognition. And so when I explain it when I'm training managers and organizations is recognition as kind of a big theme are the things we do to signal the people that we value who they are and what they contribute every day.
And then I break recognition down into what I call the inverted peer of importance with up at the top because we have like Mazzles hierarchy where you self-actuation up at the top. But that's really on top of everything else. So really the most important thing is appreciating the person which those day day things we do to signal the people we value them. And then there is acknowledging the circumstances.
Thanks for coming in when it's really cold and really hot outside or thanks for showing up when we're down staff. I was a jerk the other day and I want you to know that I noticed that and here's what I'm going to do differently. And then there's recognizing effort in progress. And these are these messages where we show people that we see what they're working on. And then we reward results in our award standout results. Okay. So I like that.
So you're going to when you do reward someone it's for results but that day to day recognition it's for just the effort that the person is putting in like you recognize that hey I see what you're doing. Other people I not see what you're doing but I see what you're doing and it's important. That's what people are wanting at work.
100% and I think one of the challenges and it's only been made worse in the hybrid and fully remote world is and I joke we don't see 98.35% which is a made up statistic percent of what people do every day. Like you have nearly a thousand episodes and none of us listening in understand what it takes to be able to do that and everything that it takes to be able to get the interview set up to do the research to do the back end of the tech and that's on top of everything
that's going on in your personal life as well and we don't see that and so many times they go oh wow really great podcast and it's like thanks and it's like well yeah if you only knew what it took to be able to make this result or to do this thing that I do every
day whether it's being a parent whether it's being a spouse whether it's being an employee whether it's being an employee on top of taking care of a sick kid or parent or just being a parent in general that's what people really want to be recognized and appreciated for.
Okay so in our work life we need to disconnect this idea that awarding somebody for a result that that's the only time we give recognition or give a compliment or appreciation appreciation something we can do all the time it's a process every day.
What about like why do you think we're so stingy giving compliments in our personal lives like there's nothing we don't have that problem there in our personal lives where like there's an award for being a great mom or great friend so why do you think we're
so stingy because I there's like this meme I've heard are seen where it's like dudes are talking about like the last time I got a compliment was when I was in elementary school and I still remember that compliment so people feel like they're not getting compliments in their personal lives so like why do you think we're so stingy with that?
I don't know about you but I think that we invest energy and I feel like people bring themselves fully to their jobs you know the stuff about bring your whole self to work and then only bring 10% of you back home to the people that you've made commitments to
and they're just going to put up with you and I think that we at home kind of assume our relationships are good like I've done the work I've said I do or you know I bought you flowers last week and so we forget that we need to invest and I think in every relationship when we stop
investing when we stop expressing those things then you know we sometimes unintentionally neglect those relationships and when we neglect them then they turn people become resentful right resentment turns into anger and frustration and hurt and then we end up spending more time fighting with each
other then we do you know building relationships with one another and I think that it's easier to do that at home and let our guard down because we feel safer to do that but then we also neglect the relationships and we also when we see people all the time we think that well they know
how we feel when many times they don't my my wife sometimes say to me can can you just give me a compliment today and the irony she's saying that to the guy who teaches people to give compliments because sometimes I'm getting so focused on what I'm doing and I think that stress factor
plays in as well as we're doing logistics we're doing stuff and I think that's why it's good to just make a habit of what's one nice thing I can say today what's one compliment and then also I think we get uncomfortable what if it doesn't land right what if they misinterpret this what if they take
this the wrong way yeah I think all of that I've seen that in my own life also I think we're just keyed in on the negative like that we're just hardwired just to focus on the negative going back to kids we're always focusing on what our kids are doing wrong instead of thinking about what good
things are doing I also think there's like a scarcity like we're kind of stingy because like we feel like well if I compliment this person it's going to make me less than because when you compliment someone you're basically sometimes you might be saying like you're you're better than me at this
I think it'd be really hard if you're giving a compliment to someone who is in the same domain as you right so maybe another public speaker where it's more similar where it's more similar yeah okay so sometimes people don't offer compliments because they don't notice the good things people
are doing or we start to take our relationships for granted you know we get self-absorbed someone might be insecure about giving compliments maybe they might feel anxious or they feel like recognizing someone else's gifts diminishes themselves another reason people might not offer compliments is
because they have bad associations with complimenting from getting badly giving compliments what's going on there what are some ways giving compliments goes wrong when I was my original research really I think I've mentioned here on the podcast is I interviewed 400 people in the subway
in Boston that was my original study I came back from that interaction with my conflict resolution partners and I was so blown away by this and so my commute to and from work I was working at Children's Hospital Boston at the time I interviewed one person a day on the subway about their
relationship to recognition and when I asked people what made a good compliment more often they shared what made a bad one and I think that many of these negative ways or manipulative practices that people use around recognition is what also gets in the way of us doing it because you know what that
person just complimented me because they want something I called the butter them up technique right I go Brad you look really great today thank you so much it's awesome can I be on your podcast or whatever you know someone does typically to you you know we're recouplement before we ask
for something or when we make a mistake admitting the mistake instead of admitting the mistake we overcomplement to make up for it that you know I was a jerk yesterday and say like you look great today or you buy flowers you know for your spouse and I think all of those you know kind of
break down trust with the other person because if we're not authentic in our compliments people don't believe we're authentic in other areas of life as well yeah I mean when I think something that a technique or tactic people use maybe subconsciously when they're giving a compliment to
somebody but they still want to maintain their status right yeah it's like the backhanded compliment yeah you tell someone like oh wow you're not as awkward as you used to be or you know you went to a really good college for a state school you know it's like stuff like that you're kind of
giving appreciation at the same time you're kind of still cutting them down to size yeah and that wasn't appreciation at all right you know it's like that's not actually a compliment that's a jab and I think that's where when people are really hesitant because we don't know and we don't know
it's authentic or that was a jab that wasn't actually a compliment it's like yeah you know you're really good for somebody who's not that good is what they're saying or you're really good but you're not as good as me and that tearing people down or those humble brags that people do right
now I think make it really complicated and when it's authentic and I think one of them is that many times adults unwittingly or unintentionally I think is a better term often use complimenting one person to try to motivate the other or to try to pressure the other it's like
but I wish you were just you know your your brothers really great you should be more like him yeah and when we compliment something oh wow you did really great and then we're looking over at the other kid hoping you know I you're really organized and you're really great in school
you're trying to get the other kid to to notice that you know you should be like this too and that's just manipulative yeah right and that nobody at people can see through that any advice or any tips that you found in your experience on delivering effective compliments
either in the workplace or at home I think being great at recognizing people means that you are a person who's always observing you're looking at what's going on in people's lives what what do they really value what do they care about and I think that's really important
but I think the the elements of a great compliment and I break recognition into two different forms you have standard recognition when we're sharing how what somebody did impacted us and so when we're doing that we want to one of course it needs to be authentic don't just recognize somebody
because you want something or some hidden intention people can read through that and they think it's important to let other people know what you see and what you specifically appreciate about them and what they did and how it impacted you you know one one said to my daughter I go
Alia I was really proud of you today and she goes why papa and I was like oh yeah I knew in my mind what I was proud about but I didn't let you see and it was like hey I was really proud of you out on the field today because you did x y and z okay thanks so when you're recognizing somebody they
should never be left with a question in their mind of why you're recognizing them and for what and so to be specific on what you see and and share that and share the impact on you and others and it may be like you know like k-brett thank you so much for having me on this podcast I know that you know another guest and and I'm going to be part of the show and maybe you do this and this is just what you do but having me on makes a huge difference and it's a huge acknowledgement to me
and I'm really proud to be on it. I love it so first off pay attention yeah get outside of your head pay attention to what other people are doing and then be specific I like that because I've done that before where I see someone give a talk and like oh great talk and I like I probably should have
been more specific and tell what I exactly I liked about the talk like the delivery or the content or the organization and the other thing too I've heard about or a tactic I've used to be effective in giving compliments and recognition is relaying secondhand compliments for some reason whenever
I get a secondhand compliment when I hear someone say oh my my brother said oh he just loves your podcast like wow that that makes you feel really good what are you going on there why are secondhand compliments so they they feel so great because you wouldn't have heard it otherwise I I did this
two days ago so I have a friend who's in university fundraising and another friend on LinkedIn who I've never actually met in person but we've talked a couple times and all the rest and she did consulting work with that university and so we were talking about her when our kids were playing the other day with my friend and she was talking about this person Sean and I was like oh that's great I immediately took up took out LinkedIn and when you're on your phone you can record voice messages
like hey by the way I was just talking with Lindsay about you the other day and she said this this and that about you I just wanted to let you know how much she appreciates and values working with you and she sent me this message saying thank you so much and we can do that so easily you know sending
that message or extending it and when somebody recognizes us for something that somebody else did because that's going to happen at some point time thank you so much for that great thing you did the other day and they'll actually you know what that wasn't me that was actually Brett and next time
you see him make sure you let him know and next time I see him I'm going to let him know what you shared we're going to say a quick break for your words more sponsors and now back to the show something you've done a lot of work on is receiving compliments and I've
noticed this too you made this observation that people have even a harder time accepting a compliment then we have a hard time giving compliments since we have even a harder time receiving them and it's weird because you know we say we want more compliments and more affirmation but then that
affirmation and appreciation and recognition and compliments can make us feel uncomfortable you've done some research on this how many people report that compliments make them uncomfortable so I would argue I don't know how many people are narcissists is it like one or two percent of
the population I think other than those folks I would argue that probably everybody is but in my research when I when I studied this I got about 70% of people admitted to associating embarrassment or discomfort with recognition but if I think of I've probably run workshops for over 20,000 people
on six continents now I would argue that that number is closer to 100% not the narcissist because they're never going to think that but the ones who aren't everybody without even realizing it like I recognized a senior manager once and I told her my stats that I found that you know the number one thing people associate with being recognized 88% is feeling valued in nearly 70% of people associate embarrassment she goes I have no problem accepting compliments and her employee was right next to
and goes you are really good accepting compliments and gave her compliment on her ability except compliments and her response was I'm not that good and so we divert it without even realizing it many times
it's a knee jerk reaction but I find that many times the reason why we do this is because you know people have manipulated us people have used the guilt-praised technique the butt of them up technique the sandwich feedback model and so we're always wondering is there hidden intention or we disagree
with what the person's saying and so it makes uncomfortable no one's going to hire me to come into a company to train people to accept compliments but that's really how we shift people's ability to give them as well okay so people can be uncomfortable with receiving compliments because
you know maybe they're suspicious maybe they've had some negative associations around compliments what about the idea that you hear a lot that when someone is uncomfortable with getting a compliment it's because they have low self-esteem right it's like that they feel uncomfortable
getting the praise because it jars with their own negative self-perception does that explain people's discomfort about being complimented no I think that so in in my research and for one of my HBR articles I interviewed a guy went in phenomenal person and check out his work and you know one of his lines which is people with low self-esteem will often be uncomfortable with accepting compliments but not everybody who's uncomfortable accepting compliments has low self-esteem that makes sense what
about the element of surprise sometimes compliments are unexpected can that play a role in why people feel uncomfortable receiving a compliment so is that element if somebody catches off guard and they say something we didn't expect that to come out of their mouth and they notice something about us that we didn't really think anyone was seeing or noticing and then that catches us off guard a bit wait a second in my safer's this person picking on me like that person didn't eighth grade and was
that compliment really had a hidden agenda or something else going on and so that catching us off guard does you know kind of throw us off kilter for second and so we freeze for a moment and then we're searching for what's going on here what's happening and so that element of surprise does play a
factor into it and then I think it kind of triggers that what's going on in this situation right now and I notice it for many people our mind goes do I agree or do I disagree with what they're saying do I agree with the analysis of me do I agree with the analysis do I think I'm really
Emma's good as they say I don't feel that way and then that knee jerk response often comes out without us even realizing it we say oh it's nothing it's no big deal it was a team effort to deflect that away because we didn't want that attention or that intention may make us uncomfortable and
sometimes we just need to like pause yourself for a second or after we deflect it say I'm sorry thank you I appreciate you noticing that yeah I think in the process of deflecting it gives you a sense of control of the situation again right so someone tells you did a great talk and you think
oh well I didn't think that I feel caught off guard by this I want to regain control by saying oh actually it was a mess and it wasn't as great as I thought yeah or leveling out their perception like we need to fill in the gaps one thing that I found in my research that kept on coming up is
that many times when we're recognized people are pointing at a result we produced and in our mind we're thinking about all the things that we could have done that we didn't do and I call this the gap trap it's the gap between the result we had in our mind that we wanted to produce and the actual
result we did produce and so when somebody recognized us for maybe the 80% we did deliver we're thinking about the gap between that 80% and that 100% you know I could have done the design better I could have been better prepared I could have delivered different I left out these two sections in
the talk that nobody knew that I left out that I wanted to share and we're thinking about that they don't see that and so many times the way that we burn ourselves out and we burn out our peoples is we constantly focus on that gap and we forget that when people are recognizing us they're sharing
and expressing appreciation of what they did experience so when I'm recognizing you Brad I'm sharing how what you did impacted me if I do it right and I'm not asking you do you agree or disagree with with what I'm sharing because I'm sharing my perception with what I feel or the
impact you've had if I do it right and so as the receiver our job is only to just say thank you they're not asking whether we agree or disagree so you simply just say thank you and give them the opportunity to give us that gift what are some common ways we deflate compliments that you've seen
what do you find that you do oh oh you know it was nothing it wasn't a big deal or it was like oh you know we just worked really I don't know that's a kind of yeah it wasn't nothing it was that's pretty much it that's why you go to a lot it's no big deal
it's a team effort or like I think the one that we do without even realizing it is compliment ping pong it's like you're great no you're great have a great flight you too and you're not get they're not getting on the plane and it's we do it because someone gives us something we feel like we need to
give them something back and we need to notice or it makes us feel good and we want them to feel good as well and many times if this is you know built into our culture as well like if you look in Spanish what's the appropriate response denata which means thing in France derriere it's the same thing
and it's many times a cultural training of what's the appropriate way to respond and it's not wrong to do that but we can interrupt that by just saying thank you it's great to hear that if one of your reactions to receive the compliment is to compliment someone back one thing you do
is like compliment the person for them noticing and giving you the compliment because I think a lot of people like we said a lot of people don't give compliments a lot of people don't have the the gumption to do it or they're just not paying attention so I think it is a talent and a skill
that should be praised like well thank you for noticing what I did there in that that speech a lot of people don't don't see that and so thank you for that yeah like that's another thing you can do yeah and and I think that that just strengthens our relationship another thing you can do this is
for giving compliments but keeping in mind that you know a lot of people might be uncomfortable with receiving a compliment or appreciation when you give a compliment ask a follow-up question it's like you know hey this dish was fantastic where did you get the recipes is this a family recipe
and it gives that person an out to kind of talk about that and maybe process the compliment that they received yeah or move on you know some people always asking me about like complimenting strangers I don't want them to think I'm hitting on them or something like that and if you're
always compliment behavior or you know effort you never have to worry about that you know but if you do it's like you just do and you just walk off yeah you say that there's nothing else going on right and then you're just like okay because the thing they're saying is like hey I just
notice this and I really appreciate this do you do you work out yeah do you recommend complimenting strangers um I do I think if it's done tactfully yeah and sometimes it's just noticing and if it's a stranger like somebody you know working at Starbucks and you notice just wow thank you it's
just a really warm welcome and your attitude is infectious it's really made a difference for me today right or you know like hey thanks for pausing I can tell you in the middle of something else and thanks for being present with me to help me figure out what I need to do yeah thanks for stopping
what you're doing I think if we notice and we pay attention to what people are dealing with and we call that out it just shows that we're observing and we are intentionally seeing them and what they're doing and how it's impacting us okay so we're uncomfortable with compliments
because you might catch us off guard there's that gap idea another dynamic that I've seen is that maybe people are afraid of recognition or compliments or appreciation because they feel like once they get that appreciation like the stakes are higher the standards are now higher
now those people are gonna expect that I do that all the time do you think that's also going on with our compliment of the percent 100% and this is why it's so important to train people on how to do this right because when we recognize just the result then that creates the expectation that
you're going to produce the result and as employees and even as family members we don't always have control over the results that we produce because there's different things going on there's pandemics there's markets there's things that are going on in the economy you know that we don't
have control over but what we do have control over is our effort and that's why it's so important to recognize and appreciate effort and then reward results and so when we're recognizing people sharing that appreciation I really appreciate the effort you put in or I really appreciate how
hard you studied for that test and that you put in all that extra work to really know things and to have things down so when you took the exam you got that A or you got that B plus that you got and so when we recognize effort not just the results then it removes that pressure for many people
just from my own personal observation it's completely anecdotal it seems like people who are more free-spirited like the commitment resistant type you know just like they're just they're great people they're happy go lucky I often feel the most uncomfortable with compliments because I think there's
that pressure of perceived expectations like it feels like a constraint on their future behavior do you think there's anything anything to that well and I think that's based if you look at what is the narrative behind that it's like it's like being in your 20s and someone says I love you that
you're dating you're like oh crap are they expecting to get married right like it's like hey you're really good this way uh wait you want me to do this forever which that's rarely that person's expectation they're just expressing what they feel and see in that moment and that doesn't mean
that we're tied down and committed because they said that thing they're just expressing something in the moment and I think that what creates that expectation is our interpretation of what their compliment means but if you think about how many interactions and conversations we have
throughout our day somebody saying I really appreciate what you do or I really appreciate you doesn't mean that we are tied into this relationship for the rest of our life or I'm expecting you do that same thing forever right because if I'm a person who really cares for you as an employee or as a person my life I understand that your needs your goals your life is ever changing and true relationship is supporting you to succeed in work and in our relationship as well and so
that compliment is just a signal that that person's sending it is not the end result. So we talked about how complimenting people is a way to build connection and foster a relationship. How does deflecting compliments affect relationships? Well I think part of our relationships are built in the exchange and if we keep on giving gifts to people if we keep on reaching out to people and then they never accept those things and we never give them opportunity to contribute to us
to notice us and we don't give an opportunity for them to close that loop then we break connection and so I think that when we deflect we don't give that person an opportunity to contribute and we don't give that person an opportunity to feel seen and feel connected to us and so when we do
that we we end up breaking down our relationships. Well it's like you said a compliment is a gift and just imagine how you'd feel if you gave someone a gift and they're like meh really don't want this it would you'd you'd feel bad and so if someone gives you a compliment instead of rejecting it like just say yeah thank you I really appreciate what you did because then it
makes that other person feel good as well. Yeah and if you're uncomfortable with it they'll probably stop after you accept it and I think it's important and I don't often mention this much because I'm not a huge fan of kind of putting people into boxes but you know you'll have the
languages of love or the languages of appreciation and I think it's important to understand that you know this kind of difference between the the golden rule and the platinum rule the golden rule treat others the way you want to be treated the platinum rule treat others the way
they want to be treated and so I think if we notice that people aren't really liking the way that we're recognizing them we may need to shift that a little bit if it's more about acts of service if it's more about quality time and I think it's important to expand our idea of how we express our
appreciation beyond just words to also our actions and how we show up and by doing that and by saying hey maybe just sitting down next to somebody on the couch and spending a little time I remember someone saying recently I really appreciated that my you know husband sat down with me for
15 minutes and did a puzzle because I know he doesn't like to do puzzles but he sat down and did it with me and then we ended up chatting for an hour that can be more meaningful for somebody than actually expressing our appreciation in a verbal way right yes and not everyone appreciates
verbal affirmation as much as other people so you know if you're getting to know someone you if you notice that they're uncomfortable with receiving compliments maybe start shifting to other ways to show appreciation so that's something we can think about as the giver of compliments
but when we're receiving them you know knowing that you know deflection can break connection and accepting them well can build connection do you have any tips on how to better accept compliments I mean I think the simple one is to just say thank you right it's just the simplest things get
in the habit we've established these knee jerk reactions our whole life and just like if somebody you know a door swings towards you your hands gonna go up if something comes towards your face your hands are gonna come up to protect because this is the knee jerk reaction that we've established
it's a habit and so in order to change that habit I know you've had a lot of amazing people on here talked about habit change through your multiple episodes but I think just reminding ourselves and being aware of what do I do so if somebody recognized me just paying attention and noticing
how other people respond try giving compliments to people in the coming days and watch how they respond and if they divert it go did you get the compliment did you hear what I just said oh and it will break that reaction and when we notice ourselves doing it say hey I'm trying to get a little
better accepting compliments thank you and just practice doing it and if a bunch of feelings come up just take a minute to examine those hey why did that make me so uncomfortable what's going on there because that was really kind what they said and just observe notice and then just try to
break the habit and just say thank you just say thank you yeah I think it really helped me is just this idea that the compliment isn't about you it's really about the giver like they're trying to let you know how something you did affected them and so they let them have that let them have that
moment and that's that's their judgment that's their assessment and that's their gift when I was I interviewed one of my interviews on the train was a musician and he said my instructor is always or my mentors always recognizing me about how great I am and how amazing and how much development
I've had and he goes I don't need it and I go well for her she's also processing her work you're her student she's seen you've developed she's seen you how how far you've progressed and give her the opportunity to recognize that work and to see her work in action she's also processing
that and when people come up to us and they recognize us for something that we do that is you know second nature to us like you know people like a great job on that spreadsheet you're like I've been doing this for 20 years and what they're doing is they're processing their learning so just
recognize that's what they're doing and give them an opportunity to do that I love that so I think the takeaway for today is give more compliments yeah and then don't deflate compliments just just accept them as the gift that they are yeah to let let them in and know that that's one of the most
powerful tools that we have for building relationships well Chris this has been a great conversation working people go to learn more about your work and what you do you can find me on YouTube just search Christopher Littlefield I can go to beyond thank you dot com and I'll put some
special resources together if you go to beyond thank you dot com backslash podcast for the show today fantastic well Chris Littlefield thanks for time it's been a pleasure it's been great speaking with you today Brett my guess it was Christopher Littlefield you can find more information about his
work at his website beyond thank you dot com also check out our show notes at a o m dot i s slash compliments refining links to resources we delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the a1 podcast make sure check out our website at
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