5 Ways to Bring Out the Best in People

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast, the number one mindset podcast in the entire world. I am your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you live in the United States or Canada and you want to get inspirational text messages from me to your cell phone, text me right now, 512-580-9305. Once again, 512-580-9305. And I'll send you some love sporadically throughout the week. Today, I'm going to give you five ways, five strategies to bring out the best in people. This is for anybody who's out there who is a leader, someone who is a parent, somebody who might be a parent in the future, someone who has significant others, someone who interacts with other living, breathing human people.

0:55This is really going to help you out with bringing out the best in the people that are around you. And I think the last tip is probably the most important one. So I saved the best for last, but we'll go through number one through five in order. Number one, the first thing that I want you to try to start doing more around people is to find reasons to recognize people versus reasons to reprimand them. In case you didn't know, there was a study that was done years ago, and they found out that the average child is reprimanded eight times more than they're praised. The average child growing up from their parents, for those of you guys that are parents and wannabe parents, are reprimanded eight times more than they're praised, which means that the average person, the average child growing up thinks, I'm not good enough.

1:39I'm not smart enough. I can't figure this out eight times more than they think. I've got this under control. And so really, we tend to, if we're being honest, we tend to love people the way that we were loved as a child. And so if your parents were the same, where they reprimanded you and told you what not to do and told you things that you weren't supposed to be doing, and you felt like maybe you were reprimanded more, what we tend to do if we love other people is we tend to reprimand them in some sort of way instead of actually recognizing them. So instead of finding what's wrong, why don't we try to find out what's right with people?

2:12Why don't we try to look for the things that someone is doing well? You know, like say for instance, your husband doesn't do the dishes. Wouldn't do those damn dishes, right? Instead of yelling at your husband every single time that he doesn't do the dishes, because when you yell at your husband for not doing the dishes, you are actually strengthening in him being a person who doesn't do the dishes and he's being reprimanded the same way that he was reprimanded by his parents. So he feels the way he's always felt. If you're trying to break him out of what he's always done, next time he puts one dish away, a single dish, say thank you.

2:47Why? Because people want to be recognized. People want to be seen. And what happens is instead of being yelled at and thinking that, and this is big for not just people who are like, oh, I need to get my husband to do the dishes, recognizing your children for when they do something right versus when they do something wrong. What you want to do, and this is, I mean, this is literally the exact same way that you train a dog. Like we, when I, we took our dog a couple of years ago, we got him when he was a puppy to go in, in, you know, he had like 12 different classes he had to go to. And what she said is don't recognize him.

3:17Don't reprimand him when he does something wrong, recognize him and give him a treat and get excited whenever he does something right because that dog will want more of that love from you. It's the exact same way with humans. The same way that we train a dog, we should be training ourselves. We should be training humans. And so people want to be recognized. They want positive feelings. They want good energy. And so instead of yelling at someone for doing something wrong, whenever they do something right, what you want them to continue to do in some sort of way, recognize them. And it sounds crazy to be like, oh my God, honey, you put a fork away.

3:49But if you just recognize people, What I want you to get from it is just recognize people when they do something right more often. And what is really interesting is that with positive reinforcement, it always works better than negative reinforcement. And it makes sense when you really start to think about it. And it really makes them want to seek more positive reinforcement again. And so subconsciously, I think, well, hey, my mom really recognized me last time I did this. I like feeling recognized. Maybe I should do this again. Or, you know, my wife really recognized me last time I did this. It felt good to be recognized and to get love from her.

4:24So I want to do this thing again. And so start to actually try to work through positive reinforcement more than negative reinforcement, which is a little bit of a change for most of us because most people on this earth were raised with negative reinforcement. So let's try to break that cycle. So that's the first one. The second thing I want you to do is, you know, obviously, if you're finding reasons to recognize them. If possible, offer public recognition when you can as well. I mean, I don't want if you have, you know, Christmas coming up and the family comes over, I don't want you to be like, oh my gosh, George, put a fork away.

4:56I don't want you to do that because that's going to seem like a backhanded compliment, right? But offer public recognition in some sort of way. The family's over and you love that your wife has been doing X, Y, Z, and she's been working really hard to get her master's degree. Well, when the family comes over, you know, in some sort of way, can you throw in, like make it natural, not forced. Because if it's forced, it could seem really condescending, but it's like, oh my gosh, yeah, I'm so proud of her. She's been doing so well. She's been juggling being a mother and going to work and getting her master's degree.

5:26And I'm so proud of her for it, right? Like make it natural and don't force it. Don't like find a way to do it, but just see if you can get it to flow into conversations. You know, don't make an announcement when your child takes out the trash. That seems very condescending. But really what it comes down to is how can you just get better at recognizing people to their face? And then the second one is how can you get better at recognizing people when other people are around? And really what it comes down to is people love to be recognized. And you will, you know, the title of this episode is how to bring out the best in people.

6:04You will bring out the best in somebody if you're recognizing the best parts of them because they are now more aware of the best parts of them. And they're going to actually start to bring that out to the world a bit more. In my company, every all-hands meeting that we have, we end every single all-hands meeting with about 10 to 15 minutes. And what we say at the end of them is, hey, who has someone that they want to recognize on the team? Whether they helped you out or they did something right, whether you've seen their energy has been great or the way they've been showing up for the company or for you or for each other for themselves who has somebody that they want to recognize and we just allow just to free flow and everybody can unmute themselves on zoom and start recognizing people and the reason why is because people love being recognized uh they live being recognized for what they do they love being recognized for who they are and really that allows us to to see that you know when we're recognized it allows us to see the better parts of ourselves because all too often most people are thinking about the quote-unquote bad parts of themselves and what they don't like so it allows us to kind of shine light on the good parts of ourselves and the good parts of other people okay Number three.

7:05So that's number two. Number one is obviously to recognize them, find reasons to recognize them versus reasons to reprimand. And the second one is offer public recognition when you can. The third one is to be a model for the way that you want them to be. And so if we're looking at your children, for instance, you can't tell your children that they should be more calm when you have a temperature, like a temper, temperature, you have a temper problem, right? If you have a short fuse, you can't get mad at your children for not being as calm as you want them to be. And so a lot of times it's funny when I post something on Instagram, almost every single post I put on Instagram, somebody says in some sort of way, easier said than done.

7:49And I'm like, yes, of course, everything in this world is easier said than done. And so it's easier to tell someone to be a certain way. It's harder to be that way. But if you want someone to be the best version of themselves, what does it look like for you to be the best version of yourself and for you to be the lighthouse? Because all too often, we're not being the lighthouse. And if you've never heard the phrase before, be the lighthouse, if you look at a lighthouse and you look at a towboat, you'll get a tugboat, the two of those, right? Both of them do the exact same thing. Both of them get boats into the harbor safely.

8:24The way they do it is incredibly different, right? So the first one is the tugboat. It goes out to the other boats and it pulls them and it uses all of its energy and it forces the other boats to get into the harbor. It gets them into the harbor, but it does it a lot differently than a lighthouse. A lighthouse stands in its place. It shines and it does exactly, knows what it's supposed to do. It knows who it's supposed to be and does exactly what it's supposed to do, but it still gets the boats into the harbor safely. And so when they say being the lighthouse, it means why don't you model the way that you want other people to be?

8:59Why don't you model instead of saying, hey, like a lot of times when people get into self development, they start trying to force their spouse and their children into self development. They buy them books, they buy them conferences and all this stuff. But in reality, what's going to make somebody want to get in self development around you is by seeing you change into the best version of yourself. And then they go, huh, man, they look really happy. I want some of what they have. They look like they're really peaceful. I've been kind of stressed out recently. Maybe I should ask them what they're doing.

9:27So it's not a forced thing. It's a, hey, I'm just going to be the best version of myself. And hopefully that inspires other people to be the best as well. Because all too often I get so many messages of like, hey, I'm new into personal development in the past six months. I've been trying to get my husband to be with me and he's buying books and I'm telling him he needs to meditate and he's just resisting it. He's making fun of it. I'm like, yeah, because he needs to see the changes in you. The same way that if you saw, I haven't seen a friend six months and you see them and they're like 30 pounds lighter, you're gonna say, oh my God, you look amazing.

9:57What have you been doing? What have you been doing? That's basically what you want other people to say with you, say to you by how you work on yourself. So you have to be the lighthouse. You have to, in essence, you know, Gandhi said it, you have to be the change that you want to see in the world. Be the change that you want to see in other people. Be the change that you want to see in your children. Be the changes you want to see in your spouse and your family. You know, if you're not that change and you're not the lighthouse, you're not the perfect version of it, it's going to go in one ear and out the other.

10:25Oh, dad's telling me to try to not have a temper problem. He's the one that's freaking crazy. They're not going to listen to you. So you have to be a good example of the advice that you give. So that's number three. Number four, give people more autonomy, whether it is in, you know, your children, whether it's in your company, whether it's in your spouse, just give people more autonomy. Stop micromanaging people so much. Let them have their own power. Like give them power. Let them find it. Let them discover it. Micromanaging enables them to always need you. And some people don't realize that that's an actual psychological condition where you want to micromanage your children so that they always need you.

11:06So then they move out of the house, they're going to always need you and they'll never quote unquote fully leave you, right? Micromanaging enables them to always feel like they need you. By allowing somebody autonomy, you're letting them build their own confidence in themselves, which is ultimately what if you truly love somebody, whether it's your child, whether it's the one you work with, whether it's your spouse, you should want them to build confidence in themselves and to trust them to do what's right and trust that they will 100 % mess up at some point in time. but whatever they mess up on is what they were supposed to learn.

11:42And whenever you try to overstep your boundaries and micromanage people so that they don't mess up, you're then pulling the lesson from them that they're supposed to learn. Think about that. You're getting in the way. And, you know, you can still offer feedback to people. I'm not saying don't give feedback and don't try to help, but there's also even better ways to offer feedback. Like there's a thing called the feedback sandwich, which is when you tell somebody that you want to give them feedback and there might be negative feedback, Well, the sandwich is this. It's good. It's bad. It's good.

12:11So you offer one thing. Hey, I really love you. You've been doing X, Y, Z. Then you say a good thing. One thing, though, if I could give you a piece of advice on something I think needs to change, that's the bad. But this is something else I really love about you that you've been doing. So it's a feedback sandwich. Recognize what they did well. Bring in ways that they can improve. Recognize another thing that they did well. But really what it comes down to is can you stop feeling like you have to control everything? If you own a business, one of the things that will absolutely destroy your business is if you don't give people autonomy, if you don't delegate correctly to people, and you just have to micromanage every single piece of the process.

12:47It will destroy your company because you can't scale if you have to micromanage every single thing. And if you're not a business owner, but you're a parent, don't micromanage your children. Allow them to mess up. Allow them to learn the lessons they're supposed to in their life. So that's number four. And then number five, I promised you was what, in my opinion, is the best one, is don't try to change people. Love them for who they are. Okay, people already talk down to themselves enough. I want there to be a study to find out what percentage of people talk down to themselves and what percentage of them talking to themselves is negative.

13:21And I'm just really curious of it. I've never seen the study on it. But people already talk down to themselves enough. if you really want to bring out the best in someone, learn to love them for who they are. You know, there's so many people out there that are trying to change their children, that are trying to change their boyfriend, they're trying to change their girlfriend, they're trying to change their parents, and they're trying to change their spouse, they're trying to change everybody else around them versus discovering who is this person. Because if you've ever seen like, my sister has four kids, right?

13:48From the moment that they were able to walk, they were all extremely different people. It wasn't like they all came out exactly the same and then they just, you know, somehow went somewhere else. It was like they came out and hey, they were just completely different people. And so all too often is we see this different person. Maybe you have one kid that's really calm and really chill and really sweet. And you have the other one that's kind of crazy. Well, don't try to make the crazy one like the calm one. Try to just see if there's a way that you could bring out the best version of them. Because all too often we want people to become the best version of what we want them to be.

14:21That's not what they're here to do. this person is not here for you. You know, if you look at your children, their children aren't here for you. They came here through you. And so it's not your job to make them what you want them to be. Give them some fucking grace and allow them to be who they can be and love them for who they truly are. Don't try to quote unquote fix them because fixing them is ridiculous. That's you trying to control somebody and make someone what you want them to be. Really what it is, if you take a step back and you think about each specific relationship that you have with people, you start saying like, Who is the true version of them?

14:54What is it that makes them amazing? What is it that makes them great? And how can I love and recognize that part of them even more so that they step more into that version of themselves? Because all too often, a lot of us, we're just lost. We're trying to figure out our... We're all just fumbling around in the dark trying to figure out what the hell we're doing as humans here, right? And so if we have someone that's trying to fix us and change us and fix us and fix us and change us all the time, it's just making us more confused. But if we have someone that comes in and they says, hey, I want to recognize you.

15:20I want to love you for who you are. and I want to basically just be here for you and hold space. It allows that person to discover who they truly are, who they want to be, and to make it feel safe for them to step into who they truly want to be versus feeling like they have to be pushed into being somebody else. So don't try to change people. Try to love them for who they actually truly are. So those are my five tips to make people better. Number one, to bring out the best in people. Number one is to find reasons to recognize versus reasons to reprimand. Number two, offer public recognition when you can.

15:50And number three, be a model for the way that you want them to be. Number five, give them more autonomy. And number, I'm sorry, number four, give them more autonomy. And number five, don't try to change them. Love them for who they truly are. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in it, Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And once again, if you want some love coming through to your phone, some inspirational text messages sporadically throughout the day, and you live in the United States or Canada, text me right now, 512-580-9305.

16:18Once again, 512-580-9305. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.