I was thinking recently of a guy who has been mostly ignored by history. His name was Barnabas and references to him are found in writings of the first century. Now, we don’t know much about this guy except that he was very encouraging. We know who he travelled with and some of the places he went but when it comes to who he actually was, all that is recorded is that he was a huge encourager to people he came in contact with. I’m sure you know someone like that but to top it off Barnabas directly translated means “son of encouragement”.

Maybe Barnabas was named this from birth but I think given the culture he was from that it wouldn’t be surprising if he was actually renamed or given this nickname due to the strength of his character in this area. With that information alone, he’s someone I’d love to meet.

Imagine being nicknamed and recorded for all history as an amazing encourager! It seems today most nicknames aren’t overtly positive but perhaps we can do something about that. No, I don’t mean becoming sickly sweet with compliments. There a millions of ways to encourage with realism. Perhaps you could try, when introducing someone, adding an outstanding skill or ability of the person you are introducing. For example, “Judy, this is Susan. Susan’s been working with us for about 4 years now and is the the best person to say hello to when you’re having a tough day. Her smile is contagious.”

Make sure the ability attributed to the person is a real and positive characteristic of them and not just a nicety. Give the encourgement depth. True encouragement calls a positive thing in a person to become stronger. If you are simply saying nice things or banal compliments then you will percieved as insincere (perhaps rightly).

Good and accurate encouragement has a few results:

• the person receiving the compliment will be encouraged
• it will inform and better utilise the soft skills of your team/colleagues
• the area being encouraged will be strengthened in the individual.

While being an encourager is never bad maybe it’s not THE thing for you. If you were going to be nicknamed after your strongest contribution to others what would it be?

Web Picks of the Week

10 Signs Your Interview Went Well

Would you employ this women? Good resource to kick off Business Culture or Presentation Discussion. You can watch the video clip from BBC on the page. She is actually employed by BBC already, my assumption would be in a creative role.

Granting/Blocking blogging or tweeting in conferences

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Photo by Jon Collier