Leadership Thought: Do You Know What MMFI Means?

Dear Friends,

One of the rewards of sharing “Leadership Thoughts” is the e-mails I sometimes receive from readers who respond with their personal reactions to what I have written. They often share a comment about what they have learned or experienced regarding the thoughts I've shared. One such e-mail response came yesterday from Marty, who writes: “Your story yesterday of the young restaurant owner assuring the lady there would always be a Diet Dr. Pepper in the cooler for her, reminded me of a slogan a former boss taught us; He made signs for everyone to post above their doors on the inside opening that read ‘MMFI’---simply meaning, ‘Make Me Feel Important’!” Thanks, Marty, for sharing the way one person encouraged you to help make others feel important.

I e-mailed Marty back and shared a few of ways I have learned to help people feel important:

• put your mother’s face on the face of everyone you meet.
• envision a sign hanging around the neck of everyone with whom you speak reading,  ‘please help me feel important.’
• put a 10 on the forehead of everyone with whom you are with.

Thanks Marty, and for those others of you for sharing your thoughts and words of encouragement. They keep me writing.

On the same subject of encouragement, I share some thoughts on the subject from a podcast I listened to yesterday by John Maxwell who is the “King of Encouragement.” The following are some of the thoughts he shared.

“How do you identify someone who needs encouragement? That person is breathing. Truett Cathy (Chick-fil-A founder) Yes, I might add,  no one can live very long without encouragement.

                                                        Five things to know about people:

1. Everybody wants to be a somebody.

2. Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

3. Everybody needs somebody.

4. Anybody who helps somebody influences a lot of bodies

5. Today, somebody will rise up and become somebody.

“Encouragement makes people better, People get better when we: value them, praise effort, and reward their performance.”

“There are high spots in all of our lives and most of them have come about through encouragement from someone else.” George M. Adams

“People will go further then they think they can go when someone else thinks they can.”

“The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to him his own.” Benjamin Disraeli

“Treat a man as he appears to be, and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he already were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be. Goethe

I hope one or two of the above thoughts on encouragement will stick with you. I close with my most important thought on encouragement, a thought I memorized many years ago. “Don’t let any unwholesome word come out of your mouths, but only what that which is helpful for building others up according to their need” (Ephesians 4:29).

Have a great weekend and don’t forget to add to your things to do list: Find one person you might encourage, and encourage them for as Samuel Goldwyn was fond of saying, "If you do, you will make two people happy."

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom