How to be a human highlighter in your relationships
For several years when I lived in Bellingham, Washington, I was on the board of the Mt. Baker Chapter of SHRM. We had monthly lunch meetings that featured guest speakers, primarily for continuing education.
December is always Member Appreciation Month, so a few years ago (2007) we hosted Motivational Speaker, Bonnie Dean, as a special treat for the members.
She had many powerful things to say about lifting people up and the tremendous power of honoring the greatness we see in others (and ourselves) at every opportunity.
The concept that really stuck with me was to think of ourselves as human highlighters by proactively looking for here we can bring out the best in people.
We use highlighters to emphasize, make something stand out. We highlight things that are important to us, that we want to draw attention to.
In a world Bonnie describes as “high tech and low touch,” seeking what is wonderful about others and then telling them so is the beautiful way of inspiration.
Sometimes it’s easier to consistently see what is good and wonderful about strangers than with the people we’re most intimate with, like our own family. . . or even with our most valued clients, colleagues, referral partners or employees.
Esther Hicks addresses this concept with the advice to “orientate yourself to the best part of those people around you.”
She suggests getting a notebook and making a list of all of the positive aspects of the people you spend a lot of time with.
The result?
“The things you like the most about them, those people will become that mostly to you.”
I think this may be most powerful when we find ourselves in the company on a regular basis that we find frustrating, annoying, or stressful to be around.
Consciously embracing the idea of being a human highlighter — deliberately enumerating what is great and wonderful about other people in your sphere of influence and concentrating on those things (and even telling them about those things) — changes the focus from stress to joy, even respect and appreciation.
I love the way Esther Hicks sums up the matter (I’m not sure that I have the quote exactly right, but the essence is there) in a segment from The Secret. It’s great, because sometimes we destroy or sacrifice our own joy by being consumed with the notion that we are somehow dependent on others in order to be happy.
“If you knew your potential to feel good, you’d ask no one to be different so you could feel good. You would free yourself of all that cumbersome impossibility of needing to control the world or control your mate or control your child. You’re the only one who creates your reality. It’s all you. Only you.”
Don’t you agree that Esther’s approach is more refreshing?
How in your life are you a human highlighter? How can you more consciously operate in the world from this perspective?
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Image by Quinn Dombrowski, used under a Creative Commons license (Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic)
