Get Your Positive Goggles

Get Your Positive Goggles Last week I got the honour to learn this story from Rabbi Zelig Pliskin himself... There is a famous story of a 15yr old boy who got 50% on a test. The teacher called him over and he thought for sure that the teacher would reprimand him and tell him off on why he got such a bad mark. The teacher said “The reason you got 50% was because you only answered half the test, but lets have a look at the questions you did answer.. “Question 7, you answered that so beautifully, Question 13, wow such a concise and clear answer brilliantly done”. So the boy went away surprised, he felt good about it. Next week same thing again. He a got 50%. Teacher calls him over again and the boy now knows for sure the teacher is going to reprimand him, he’s really going to tell him off. The teacher said to him again “You only got 50% because you only answered half the questions, but what you did answer was brilliant, question 4 that was the hardest question and you answered it so well... Keep up the great work”. The boy left saying to himself “wow I see, I do understand this work” and he concentrated in class (he was a dreamy kid) he reviewed is work over and over again and worked hard. On his next test he got 100% and for four tests in a row after that he got 100%. This kid grew up to be extremely successful in all his studies and achievements, all because that teacher took a couple of minutes to point to him how well he did and not the opposite. My Message It’s so easy to reprimand someone, but you don’t realise that you could be damaging a part of them that they feel insecure about already. This can have a permanent effect on their lives. It’s so important to give people a positive sense of self and this isn’t flattery, its seeing the potential in every person. Seeing that they are destined to great and awesome things. Every person in this world no matter who they are or where they come from have the potential to do incredible things, there is the essence of beauty in every soul. Don’t be the one to shut it down by speaking horrible about or to someone. View people as they could be or they might be as every individual wants to be seen in a positive light, including you. May you have an awesome week where you can exercise patience and gentle care to the people around you.. Darren Zwiers The Quote: “People underestimate their capacity for change. There is never a right time to do a difficult thing. A leader's job is to help people have vision of their potential.” John Porter