How to Compliment People

So I know this is about compliments, but stay with me here...

A few months back, I was handed my first opportunity to sit on the Varsity bench as a basketball coach. As an assistant my job is to watch specific strategies and help our head coach by suggesting adjustments he may or may not have seen.

In this first game, we were playing our rival, Wells High School. This rivalry was one that stretched far back to my playing days as a Kennebunk Ram, so I definitely a little more emotionally invested in this game.

With this emotional investment clear, I decided to keep a watchful eye on the attitudes of our players during the game. Without question, Wells was going to bring it to us, and with us being the more talented team, it would be easy for us to lose this game due to complacency.

During the first half of the game, the “we are better than you” attitude reared its head against us. The much more talented team found itself getting shredded apart by a more focused Wells team who was playing good, disciplined basketball on top of it. Our team, we were complaining to the referees, giving minimal effort on defense, and settling for long three point attempts that our coach referred to as…

Well, maybe we shouldn’t say that…

Anyways at halftime, we were down something close to 15 points, a fairly significant margin in high school basketball. We had shot horribly, and on top of that horrible shooting percentage, 16 of our 25 shots in the half were three point attempts, many of which were out of rhythm and not within the flow of our offense.

At the half, the coaching staff ripped apart our players on how we needed to play better. They admitted their mistakes schematically, which is something I love about their leadership, but the players were still responsible for missing assignments.

As each coach filled the room with valuable information, the thought dawned on me. I told myself, “These kids need a challenge to wake them up,” and soon it became my turn to speak.

Instead of pointing out the 500 things they did wrong, I questioned something no male wants to have questioned, their manhood. In polite terms, I told them they were being betas, and that they needed to grow up and act like men if they wanted to compete with this team.

As we walked out of the locker room to warm up for the second half, I received many confident looks and even a few compliments about the challenge I gave to these young men. I knew exactly what was about to happen in the second half.

The players responded to my challenge, and acted like men on the court. We were winning all the loose balls, hustling on both ends of the floor, and passionately playing in a productive way. We cut Well’s lead to 3 points in the fourth quarter, and…

We ultimately came up short.

It was certainly a devastating loss for everyone involved, but I saw something even more important within each and every single one of those players. They responded to a challenge of their character, and that got me wondering.

It is funny, you question an action, and most people tend to do the opposite, but when you evaluate character, a much different response takes place.

Think about it, a classic example is seeing a button that says, “do not press.” Let me guess, you are thinking about pressing that button right now? How about another exercise? Don’t think of a purple elephant, I bet you just thought of a purple elephant.

With this thought process in mind, I drew a conclusion.

In order to create emotional responses in people, respond to their character, and not their actions.

So I tested my hypothesis one day, and complimented people’s character based on their action instead of complimenting the action itself. I addressed a total of 6 people that day, complimenting 3 on their individual action, and complimenting 3 on their character.

The results… stunning.

The 3 people who I complimented based on the action they took, all said thank you and moved on their way. The 3 who’s character I complimented, ended up wanting to have a conversation with me, each lasting over five minutes and I even landed a girl’s phone number based off my initial compliment.

Holy shit, this stuff is powerful…

But why did this work? Because when addressing someone’s character, you are addressing their values and how they conduct themselves as a human being. This means that complimenting or challenging their character makes them emotionally address themselves as a whole and not within an individual moment. People don’t respond as well to addressing individual events because one moment doesn’t define a person as a whole, and therefore is not a complete reflection of what that person values, and we all want to feel important and valued don’t we.

So whether it be you want to cultivate most positive relationships or want to get more out of the people you care about, start with character. Give them a positive feeling about who they are, and challenge them when they do not meet the standards of who you know them to be.

Though we ultimately fell short of a total comeback, my players played like men for the rest of the season. I developed a new relationship with a cool new person and had awesome interactions with two others because I was willing to put that person in a positive light.

Alright, I’m off to coach a playoff game… and remember… you’re an amazing person.