We often admire qualities and traits of others from afar, but don’t express them to those individuals. Sometimes it’s because we don’t know them well. Other times we assume that person has it all together and doesn’t need positive feedback. Yet, we are human, we have good and bad days, pings of self-doubt and self-destructive thoughts. It’s on those days that your positive impressions of others are needed most.

Something like this happened to me today. My son often talks about how much he loves one of the older child-care workers at my gym, Ms Sandy. He gets upset when she is not working when I put him in child-care there. He’s painted pictures for her when at home, and often talks about how much he likes her. So I let her know today.

Ms. Sandy’s response was quite surprising to me, but not negative. She told me she had been having a bad morning and really needed to hear that feedback. She almost burst into tears. “You don’t know how happy that makes me feel. I was really feeling bad about myself. Thank you for telling me that, I really needed it today.”

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