Do I Believe The Best In Others?

Do I believe the best in others?

This is a question that I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. Because believing the best in others is not something to be assumed; you must be intentional in checking the lens you’re looking through when viewing others.

John Maxwell teaches a simple exercise to help cultivate the practice of valuing people – “put a 10 on their heads.” What he means by that is, give each person a score of 10 when you meet them (on a scale from 1 to 10 of course!).

As you put a 10 on their head, you will find yourself believing the best about that person. You can imagine how drastically this shifts the interaction. But, again, this doesn’t happen by accident. Believing the best in others requires intentionality.

Chances are, I don’t know most of you who are reading this post personally. But if I could step through this screen today and meet you one of the first things I would say is, “I believe in you.” If that happened, you might look at me like I’m crazy since I don’t know you yet. But here’s what I do know: everyone has value and everyone has the potential to offer value to others.

This is why I get up every morning excited to go to work! The mission to see the value in people like you, help you discover that value, and then encourage you to live it out.

Let me try to simplify this…  Believe the best in people.

Everyone wants his or her life to matter. Everyone wants to feel significant. That’s why what Author George M. Adams said many years ago is so important, “There are high spots in all of our lives and most of them have come about through encouragement from someone else.”

When you believe the best in people, and then communicate that belief, you set them up for success.

My friend, you have value. And you have the potential to offer value to others.

I believe it. Do you?