Kind Words
By Hannah Swierstra
Kind Words š
I seem to have been inundated with kind words recently, theyāre washing over me like a warm breeze, or something like that!
In all seriousness though, the power of a few kind words is remarkable.
Yes, in some cases I have been actively seeking them out, asking for testimonials and feedback, but sometimes they just pop up when you least expect it.
Like the message you get from a friend after sheās had a couple of wines, the one-line email from a client when youāve made sure they are fully prepped for their BIG client meeting, or even a ālove thisā on your latest social media post.
It all adds up, but how often do we dismiss them? How easily do we forget? Only to be thinking a few days or even hours later that we arenāt really doing a good job of being a friend, sibling, spouse, parent, weāre not serving our clients well enough, and we still havenāt dusted off our running shoes.
We are useless!
We arenāt, ok sometimes we are, but mostly weāre not & everyoneās allowed to be useless every now and again. Take last Saturday after my ālong runā which I couldnāt complete due to lack of sleep, heat and dehydration ā I should not have had that 2nd glass of wine btw.
I was useless for the ENTIRE day; I couldnāt do anything until Sunday except, eat all the food, drink coke zero and watch re-runs of The Big Bang Theory. And thatās ok, itās allowed. And thatās why we need to cherish those kind words.
As I said Iāve been very lucky to have received some wonderfully kind words. I recently completed Gemma Cormackās 5 Day Ideal Client Challenge on Facebook and task 1 was to ask people to describe you using 3 adjectives from a list she provided.
I was blown away, not only by the number of responses but also who responded. I thought it may just be my mates, but clients, old colleagues, connections from networking all chipped in.
Obviously, there was variation in their response but the top 3 words to describe me were:
Productive ā good thing as I base my career on that!
Strong ā I donāt see myself as strong, I often feel weak, and I worry that my knee-jerk response tends to be flight more than fight and that I give up too easily. Then I had a word with myself! Ā Iām still here, plugging away at my business a year in & I have no intention of āflyingā anywhere.
Determined ā I think this may be a symptom of being the younger sister to two older brothers! It may also explain my lack of femininity and potty mouthā¦
Other hot contenders included courageous, bold, smart, and calm. I also got an āelegantā and they were not being sarcastic, or were they? š
Clearly, they were all positive adjectives, Iām not sure that Iām interested in the negative ones, Iāve enough of those chattering away in my head.
I was amazed at how much that simple exercise boosted my confidence and motivation and that will stay with me now. Itās something I can look back on and remind myself that I am capable, and I do have something of value to offer. I am a skilful organiser after all!
Then on the Wednesday I was tagged in a post by an ex-colleague on Facebook along the lines of, who do wish you were still working with š and other ex-colleagues agreed šš with one saying, I still get to work with her, because she is now a client of mine.
The next day I went to a new on-line networking session and ābumpedā into someone I hadnāt seen for months, not since Iād delivered my 10-minute ā5 ways to manage your inbox overwhelmā slot at a different networking session. She was literally gushing about how much the simple steps had helped her and how her inbox was running at around 20 emails rather than over 1000.
I felt EPIC!
It was the first session Iād ever delivered as a business owner; I was nervous, and I didnāt think anyone was listening and here 6 months later, I was being told it had transformed the way this person managed their emails.
Time to hang up my pencil case, I am done!
Nah, just kidding, Iām not going anywhere but it did make me realise I havenāt even got ā5 ways to manage your inbox overwhelmā on my blog yet!
Kind words, cherish them all and pin them to a board as a reminder that you are capable, you are good at what you do and people like you, in fact some of them even love you š