SWENSDAY STUFF

Compliments Start Chain Reactions
Swen Nater

Years ago, as I was walking down the hall of an elementary school, I noticed a very large banner, hung from the ceiling so everyone could see. It read, “Catch a Student Doing Something Good.” Whoever was responsible for it understood the power of a compliment.

When you cannot get a compliment any other way, pay yourself one.
Mark Twain

In his statement, Mr. Twain implies: People need compliments. We are aware of the three basic needs of a person: Food, Shelter, and Clothing. But perhaps a second level of needs would include the feeling of belonging, being smart, and having value. The first three are basic necessities for survival but the second three address motivation. Being accepted by a group, knowing you are smart, and learning you are valuable, can inspire a person to great effort and determination. In order to develop fully as a person, everybody needs confirmation of those three, and a well-thought-through compliment, dispensed at the right time, can help make that happen.

I know this to be true in my own life. Here are a few examples.

When I was just a small boy (hard to believe, isn’t it?), I used to spend Christmas vacation with my grandmother in Amsterdam. She lived on the top floor, right next to a canal. She knew I liked to draw so she bought an easel, paper, and pencils. For hours, I would draw, sometimes all day. The things I liked to draw most were ships, particularly large sailboats. My grandma found a photo of a Clipper Ship and I tried to duplicate it. I’m not sure how good my rendition was but, when I was finished and showed her, she said, “Dat is heel goed, Swen. Dat ziet er net als dat schip.” (That is very good, Swen. That looks just like that ship.) That day, I did five more.

My ninth-grade English teacher loved vocabulary and used cool words when she addressed us. I got interested. One time, I took one of our vocabulary words and used it all day, sometimes completely out of context. The next day, before class started, I went up to her and told her what I did. She smiled and said, “You have learned the secret to obtaining a vocabulary. Use a word three times and it’s yours.” The rest of the year, I was a vocabulary learning machine. I’m sure people got sick and tired of me throwing big words around.

Toward the end of my rookie year, when I was playing for the Spurs, we had a game against the Indiana Pacers. Their center was Mel Daniels, one of the ABA’s best ever. As we lined up for the opening jump ball, Mel shook my hand and said, “Congratulations on receiving Rookie of the Year. You deserve it.” I had no idea that honor had been given out. I played one of the best games of my life and worked even harder to improve.

I didn’t play basketball in high school; I started at Cypress College (Orange County, CA). My freshman year was nothing to shout about but that summer, I began to come into my own. Cypress entered a community college summer league. After one of the game (I had a good one), I saw my coach, Don Johnson, having a conversation with the other coach. Later, Coach Johnson told me what he said. “He says he has not seen anyone improve as quickly as you have.” If it wasn’t for the fact it was already ten o’clock at night, I would have found a basket and spent an hour shooting.

After my retirement from sports, I began developing my poetry. I sent one to Coach Wooden and he told me he liked it. The subjects of most of my poems were things I had learned from Coach. For years, almost every week, I would send him a new poem. In one conversation with him, he told me he was saving the poems in a three-ring binder. So, I began punching holes in the paper before I sent them. One time, I received a phone call from someone I didn’t know. He told me he had just visited Coach and that he had read him several of my poems from a three-ring binder. He said he liked them. But it wasn’t his appreciation of my poetry that was the best compliment; it was the fact, Coach Wooden had saved them and was reading them to people. That inspired me to write even more and I didn’t quit sending him poems until just before his death.

As you can see, a compliment can come in many forms. It can be very direct, like the one my grandmother gave me. It can be a challenge to continue, like the one my English teacher dispensed. It can be a congratulations, like Mel did. It can be indirect, like the one I heard from Coach Johnson and from the person that visited Coach Wooden.

No matter what form it takes, a compliment initiates a wonderful chain reaction of motivation. A compliment always makes the recipient take inventory. He or she takes what has been said, looks at him or herself, and decides if it possibly could be true. Once the person decides that it is true, the effort to live up to the compliment—or even surpass it—often follows.

Mark Twain suggested, if in due time you’re not getting the compliment you need—give yourself one. That might be a consolation but it won’t do the job. The pig, that looks in the mirror and says, “You’re beautiful,” won’t convince himself to the point where he goes to Sacks Fifth Avenue and buys that Vera Wang designer dress.  Compliments that inspire come from an outside source, are internalized, and then, if accepted, move people forward.

So get out there and catch somebody doing something good.