I have always liked to throw down gauntlets to myself. Perhaps it’s because I have a short attention span or maybe growing up as an only child, I always had to find ways of entertaining myself. You know what they say … the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I have taken this adage and tried to implement in many areas of my life; I have always liked messing with myself a bit, changing things up and seeing what comes out the other side. It always makes me think of the episode of Seinfeld where George decides to do the opposite of what he usually does in his daily routine and the results are astounding. The concept that little tweaks in our lives can make a huge difference is in my view, a great one.
So in an effort to add a bit more ‘colour and flavour’ to my life, I decided to shake things up a bit recently. Whilst many of previous personal challenges such as giving up coffee for a year have been no secret (even though I was the one on the caffeine ban, I think my girlfriend suffered more during that particular challenge than I did), my most recent endeavour was one I kept secret and for good reason… I didn’t want to taint the result or change people’s perceptions of what I was doing for them by bringing them in on it.
So what exactly did I do for a month? Well now it’s time to let the cat out of the bag … during the month of May I gave myself the challenge of giving one LinkedIn recommendation each day.
For those of you not familiar with LinkedIn recommendations, to put it simply they are like a resumé-esque reference you can give someone that they in turn can showcase on their profile if they choose to. If you pull together enough of these it provides fantastic ‘social proof’ of the type of person you are and the value you are able to provide those around you. Much better this information and insight coming from someone else than yourself!
Over the years I have given quite a few recommendations and I had also been fortunate enough to receive a few as well. Whenever I received them, it always felt fantastic and very humbling, especially when they were totally unexpected, but I would say that more of the joy for me (as with many ‘gift giving’ exercises) is in being able to do so for someone else. It is nice to know that you can do something for another person that may have a flow-on effect to others as well (whether that be directly and indirectly).
As I prepared for this challenge and thought about it a little deeper, it dawned on me that this was very much an exercise around consistently spreading goodwill to people who I cared about, respected and appreciated. Really, it was a way of me being able to say ‘thank you’, something my parents made me do consistently from a very young age and now two powerful words which I hold in very high regard. There is nothing quite like the power of a genuine and authentic ‘thank you’ (there’s plenty of science to demonstrate this too). But whether it be our own fear or desire to not make people (or ourselves) uncomfortable, all too often I don’t think we say these words to others as genuinely or frequently as we should.
As an exercise in thanking others, I realised the scope of my challenge could extend far beyond just ‘service providers’ and ‘clients’… there was an opportunity here to go back into my past and thank people who have helped me in a whole bunch of different areas of my life; to use LinkedIn as a platform for publically letting people know how much I appreciate them and their contribution towards the world and my world.
So who did this extend to? Over the month of May I recommended people from a range of areas of my teenage life, university life and working life, including:
- – My colleagues (every single one of them).
- – The nutritionist who helped me lose 20kg back in 2009
- – My Financial Adviser
- – A Mortgage Broker who recently helped me purchase a property
- – Clients and other members of my network who I think are awesome at what they do
- – A receptionist whose bright and bubbly personality makes an enormous difference to the client experience in the company she works in
- – People whose public speaking presentations have really impressed me
- – People who have run courses that I attended and got a lot out of
- – The author of a book that had a huge impact on how I perceive my life
- – A mentor in an old job who showed me the ropes as I entered the workforce after university
- – The CEO of the company where I worked in my first full time job, for the culture he managed to create there.
Sticking to the discipline of this challenge and saying genuine and heartfelt thank-yous for a month had many consequences, some were expected, others were very surprising. So what did I discover as a result of this self-thrown gauntlet?
Habits are hard to keep
Full of enthusiasm and purpose, the first week of the challenge was easy. The second week was slightly less easy but the third week was by far the hardest. I found myself actively fighting my body’s urge to go to bed, it would be 11:50PM, my eyes were popping out of my head, but I needed to find some semblance of inner energy to complete my task for the day. Whilst the final week (i.e. the home stretch) gave me some renewed energy, sticking to the routine of doing this every single day was much harder than I anticipated (I suppose like any good habit is).
Slipping up is natural, but bouncing back is a choice we all have
One Saturday, out of my usual workday routine, I forgot to post a recommendation; as a ‘perfectionist’, this was a development that left me downtrodden to say the least. Now you might be thinking “aha, you actually DIDN’T TECHNICALLY complete the challenge, Michael! You’re lying to us!” and perhaps you are correct. But the way I perceive it is that I set myself the challenge of sending 31 thank you balls into the universe during May. I had the choice when I missed a day of recommending to either stop the task completely or catch up with two recommendations on the next day and keep moving forward. I chose the latter, and believe the overall outcome was better as a result.
In many areas of our life, whatever habit we are trying to form, this is a choice we all have.
People really REALLY appreciate an authentic thank you
I was completely blown away by some of the responses I got to recommendations I made. Heartfelt replies and deeply thankful phone calls featured quite heavily throughout the month of May for me and put a constant smile on my dial. In fact, now a few months since May, I would say this small gesture on my part has strengthened the relationships I have with many of these people. As Maya Angelou once famously said: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
The act of doing is just as rewarding as the outcome of doing
Three months since I completed my challenge and almost a third of the people I recommended during the month still haven’t acknowledged it. They mightn’t be big LinkedIn users so didn’t notice my recommendation or for some other reason just didn’t thank me. But it doesn’t matter to me whatsoever. The mere process of recommending someone felt fantastic, each and every day. In fact, during May I had some crappy things happen and my mood was low at times. Yet after my daily recommendation, I felt positive and energised again. It astounded me how such a small act of kindness could have such a large effect on how I felt.
There’s no point keeping secrets when they make people feel good
Other than the odd ‘off the cuff’ compliment to those close to us, most of the time we find it difficult or just don’t make the time to tell others what we truly value about them. But what’s the point in that? Keeping this to yourself serves no purpose and passing this feedback on both reinforces the great work someone else is doing, whilst strengthening your relationship with that person.
We all appreciate many people for many different reasons, but I am proud of the fact that during my month-long challenge I opened up some of these previously dormant thoughts to people they related to. Whether it was public acknowledging the team around me now or the team who were around me in the past, it was so nice to be able to retrospectively thank people for what they did for me, using the benefits of hindsight and its subsequent learnings during the process.
But above all else, what I learnt during the month of May was that there are so many people out there who have earned the right to our gratitude. Sometimes we get so caught up in our daily lives that we forget to take a step back and acknowledge those who have made a difference to our world. Whether it be through LinkedIn or some other mechanism, I can’t speak highly enough about the benefits of forming a habit that gives you cause to actively be thankful for what’s happening around you. Whilst there are numerous benefits to doing this (some of which I have highlighted above), the best reason to do so is not for any reason other than the fact that it’s quite simply, the right thing to do. Whatever your belief system in life, there are very few reasons not to spread a small wave of appreciation into the world. You never know where it may end up.
Whilst 31 recommendations may seem like a lot of thank-yous to give, I can assure you that there are many, many more people out there who have earned the right for a recommendation (some of whom are probably reading this – perhaps even you!). In due course I look forward to being able to say thank you to you for the value you provide to others and the great work you are doing, no matter when that was or what form that takes.
So now it’s time for me to throw down a new gauntlet … to you! Who wants to try giving 31 LinkedIn recommendations over the next month? If that sounds too adventurous, why not just one per week for a month? The most important part is saying thank you regularly and habitually. Consider it as a gift to the people in your life (past and present) as well as a consistent gift to yourself.
In the meantime, I’m now on the lookout for my next challenge! Feel free to suggest one to me in the comments section below!