Compliments
From Ali Abdaal's weekly newsletter : Starting my Fitness Journey . Book Summary of Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg . Compliments are life-alienating. In nonviolent communication, compliments are life-alienating because they are a type of judgement . When someone calls you brilliant or talented, they're making a judgement about who you are as a person. Instead, we can express appreciation authentically by telling them how they've specifically improved our lives . This requires three pieces of information. 1. What the person did. 2. What needs their actions fulfilled. 3. What positive emotions that fulfillment created. Imagine you've attended a lecture and want to compliment the speaker afterwards. Instead of saying, "you're so brilliant!", recognize a specific action, the need that action met, and the positive emotions you feel as a result: "when you talk about ways to resolve a conflict, I felt hopeful because your words showed m...