Tell your child, your spouse, or your employee that he or she is stupid or dumb at a certain thing, has no gift for it, and is doing it all wrong, and you have destroyed almost every incentive to try to improve. But use the opposite technique – be liberal with your encouragement, make the thing seem easy to do, let the other person know that you have faith in his ability to do it, that he has an undeveloped flair for it – and he will practice until the dawn comes in the window in order to excel.

This one’s BIG. Let’s say you’re a dance teacher and you get a new client who just CAN’T dance at all. He’s terrible at it. So, how do you talk to him? I’ll give you two options: OPTION A: “You’re doing it all wrong darling. Forget everything you’ve ever learnt about dancing. We’ll have to start completely from scratch with you.” OPTION B: “Well, your dancing style is a bit rusty, but the fundamentals are all right. We will surely make a pretty decent dancer out of you. I mean, that move from earlier was already really good.” Approach B will work much better. Why? Because there you focus on encouraging. Maybe he’s not a great dancer yet, but who is born that way, right? You assure him that he will learn it and praise the little things that he’s already doing right. In other words, you use ENCOURAGEMENT.

Approach A does the exact opposite. It says that he has absolutely no talent, does everything wrong, and tells him that he probably won’t ever become even a half-decent dancer. This approach is discouraging and focuses on all the guy’s mistakes. I mean come on… We’ll have to start completely from scratch with you. Just with you. The others are better when they start. They have talent. You don’t… Remember: Positive rewarding works better than negative criticism. So let’s try to encourage our friends, family members, children, etc… Let’s focus on what they’re doing right and let them know that we believe in them. That’s what will motivate, inspire, and get them into action.