Have you ever received a compliment and immediately downplayed it? Imagine transforming that instinct and learning to embrace praise to uplift your spirit and enhance your self-perception. On our latest podcast journey, I open up about an enlightening card pull exercise from my monthly coaching sessions that sparked a profound realisation about the context of people's actions and the power of compliments. Through a personal anecdote, I unravel why it's so common, especially for women, to play down our achievements and how acknowledging our talents can significantly shape our mindset.
This week, join me as I unpack the subtle art of accepting compliments without a hint of self-deprecation. We'll discuss the ripple effects of openly receiving kind words and how it can infuse joy into our professional lives and personal growth. I challenge you to not only bestow genuine praise upon others but to also take note of your reactions when you're on the receiving end. By the end of this episode, you'll be equipped with insights that will help continue nurturing a mindset that welcomes joy in every business venture and personal stride. Let's start celebrating our successes with the grace they deserve.
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Until next week...
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You're listening to the Mindset and Action podcast, the place to be to grow and streamline your business. I'm your host, donna Eade. Let's jump into the show. ["mindset"]. Welcome back to another Mindset mini Monday episode. I really need to decide which way round I'm doing all of those, ms, but today we have a short little episode for you, and this has actually come from my coaching session. Now, if you've been around for a while, especially if you are part of my email list which you can get to if you go to donneedcom forward slash pod squad, if you join up there, you'll get an email from me every week, usually on a Thursday, and on there I will talk to you about what's coming up on the podcast and things that are going on in my life. And the people over there will know about my coaching sessions that I go to once a month on the first Friday of the month. So this Friday just God was that Monday for me, and we did a little bit of a card pull, or should I say my coach did a little bit of a card pull, and she picked one for everyone at the table and Mindset.
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I allow people to witness their behavior so I can help them move beyond it and she asked me if this was something that I do in my everyday life. Is it something that you are aware of you doing? And I said instantly no, I don't think so. And then I thought about a time where I kind of bought somebody's behaviors as in the judgment they had of others into the forefront. I kind of put it in front of their face. I didn't mean to, it wasn't something that I did intentionally, but this was an incident that happened with the pastor of my church who was talking about Joey Essex and he was kind of taking the mick out of him and how quote unquote dumb he is. And he obviously wasn't using the word dumb, but he was talking about how silly he was and common sense factor, blah, blah, blah. And I just turned around to him and I said do you realize that he was actually didn't finish school because he was caring for his mom? And on Friday I talked about this and I actually found out that it went far beyond that, because I didn't know his whole story, but I did remember hearing that he cared for his mom and didn't finish school, so he didn't get a lot of good schooling as he grew up.
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And this really stopped the pastor in his tracks and was like, oh, I didn't know that. And I was just like, well, to me we never know what other people are going through. We can never judge somebody on their actions unless we know the ins and outs of their life. We don't know how they interpreted their life either. So the way somebody processes something isn't going to be the same way as somebody else processes it. So you can never make judgments on somebody's behavior based on that initial behavior alone. And the pastor really kind of stood up and was just like, oh, thank you for bringing that to my attention. I didn't realize that I was being so judgmental, which was great. But I did this again this weekend and I didn't even sort of think about it at the time.
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But this is to do with the way women will make themselves less than or make the thing less than, and I don't know if it applies to men. So sorry, guys, I can't say if this is the same for you, but maybe you can tell me over on social whether it is the same for you. But oftentimes you will hear a woman turn around and compliment another woman on her dress, for example, and the woman, instead of being gracious and accepting that compliment, she will turn around and say, oh, this old thing, I've had it forever, or oh, it was only from Primark. She kind of takes away from the compliment by belittling the thing that is happening. And the same thing happened at the weekend. A friend of mine had done this art piece and I thought it was absolutely bloody fantastic. And I asked her did you do that? That is a hidden talent right there. And she instantly went on the yeah, it's not that great. If you look at it closely there's wobbly lines. I've had to cover up things blah and kind of took away from that compliment and made the work less than and I think this is something that we often struggle with, especially as women to not just take the compliment and say thank you. And it's something that I've heard time and time again, but something that I haven't really kind of thought about until this Friday, when we had this kind of this card pull. And then my friend did this at the weekend, where she kind of belittled this artwork, which was bloody fantastic. And if it was her first time doing it, which I believe it was, you know, oh my goodness, the potential she has, because it was beautiful and I would have quite happily hung that in my home and been very proud to have that piece of artwork hanging in my home and I sort of I sent her a message when she sent me that back and I said don't do that, don't belittle what you've done.
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Art is about expression, not perfection. So as much as we could turn around and say, oh, those lines aren't straight, well, why do they need to be straight? Who said they need to be straight? And she's talking about lines on here, on sort of a. She was drawing trees, for example. Well, no tree has a straight trunk, so they don't need to be straight. And she was doing old fashioned lamp posts and I think they have more character if the line isn't complete. I mean, you're never gonna get a ruler straight line. It's like it looked amazing and she picked out the faults in it rather than appreciate that somebody else had appreciated the work that she did.
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And that takes away from our joy and it makes us not want to pursue things when we're only seeing the negative. And I listened to a Jay Shetty episode of the Daily Calm where he said that as humans we are programmed to a negative bias. And that's as humans, so that includes guys as well, and we're programmed to see the negative because we want to keep ourselves safe. But I want to urge you and encourage you to just stop and think about your patterns of behavior and how you accept compliments and what your triggers are. Is it to tell people that it was only cheap? Is it to tell people that it's old? Is it to tell people instantly where you got it from, as if that needed to be said?
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Often people go oh, it's only from such and such and give the shop name. What do you do? Do you graciously accept the compliment and let it make you feel good, or do you push it away and pick on something negative? It's like often if and I really don't like it when people comment on people's weight at all I just don't think it's a good thing to do. But if somebody has been actively trying to lose weight and you compliment them and say that they're looking good, they're instantly gonna go to oh well, I only lost a pound this week, rather than saying thanks so much. You know, it's crazy how we instantly go to the negative and it's something that I think we really have to be mindful of. So over the course of this week.
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I urge you to give out some genuine compliments to people, because they've gotta come from a genuine place. So give some genuine compliments out and listen to the language that the person is using when it comes back. And you don't have to rectify them, turn around and tell them that they need to be positive or whatever, but just notice how they respond to those compliments. And then, when anybody compliments you, notice how you respond and use that to learn and grow. I know that some people will instantly feel the need to give a compliment back. You know you turn around and say that's a lovely dress you're wearing. They go oh yeah, thank you so much, your hair is wonderful.
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Very hard for people just to accept the good for themselves and leave it at that.
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So be aware, pay attention, give out some genuine compliments this week, see how people respond to them and if people give you compliments, just make note of what your instincts tell you to say back, even if you change it based on what you've listened to today, what are your instincts telling you? And perhaps we can just have a little bit of a more positive outlook, a bit more of an acceptance and a little bit more joy in our lives by taking the compliments as they are given, with sincerity and with happiness. So that is it for this mini mindset Monday. I hope that that has helped you to reframe things and look at that, because we are all about having joy in our businesses. There is no point in being in business if we don't have joy in that, and we will get compliments on our work and we need to learn how to accept those compliments. So that is it for this week. Join me on Thursday for another full episode of the Mindset in Action podcast and I will see you there. Bye for now, if you'd like more.