In an article called "The Whisper Test," Mary Ann Bird tells of having been born with a cleft palate and of growing up knowing she was different. "When I started school, my classmates made it clear to me how I must look to others: a little girl with a misshapen lip, crooked nose, lopsided teeth and garbled speech," she recalls. Because of such razzing, she was convinced that no one outside her family could love her.
Then she entered Mrs. Leonard's second-grade class. Everybody adored Mrs. Leonard, but no one came to love her more than Bird did. And for a special reason.It was time for the annual hearing tests given at the school. The "whisper test" required each child to go to the classroom door, turn sideways, and to plug one ear with a finger while the teacher whispered something from her desk, which the child then repeated. As Bird, last as usual, waited, she wondered what Mrs. Leonard might say to her, knowing from previous years that the teacher whispered things like "The sky is blue" or "Do you have new shoes?"
When it was her turn she put her hand to one ear and turned her other toward the teacher and waited. "Then came the words that God has surely put into her mouth, seven words that changed my life forever," she relates.
Mrs. Leonard, the teacher she adored, said softly, "I wish you were my little girl."
In this life a few chosen words can make a difference, warming a heart or even changing a life. Your willingness to reach out to touch someone is all that's necessary. Consider using words such as these more often:
- "I like that." A woman stood in line one early morning waiting for a White House tour. Walking down the corridor, a distinguished looking woman with her hands full of documents and wearing an expression of deep concentration passed the woman waiting in line. As she came opposite the woman she paused for an infinitesimal second and smiled: "My, you look nice!" she said, and proceeded briskly on toward her destination.
We all possess the extraordinary power of complimenting others, a power that requires almost nothing but the will to communicate. The spontaneous act of giving salute to skill or talent, to excellence, to intelligence or to character traits is nourishing to the human spirit. Recognizing the role of such nurturing "food" to the soul, Mark Twain once remarked that he could live for two months on one good compliment.
- "You can do that." Words such as these require us to be talent scouts and to conceptualize the potential in others. A great surgeon, explaining to an acquaintance why he happened to become a doctor, tells of being a wild and difficult boy, always in trouble, and the object of consistent, deserved criticism. He refers to a remark of a teacher whose class he was failing in his senior year. This remark, which was seminal to his choice to become a surgeon, rang out like a clarion: "You have the most marvelous sensitive hands. Surely you will do important work with them."
- "Please, thank you, I'm sorry." When we say please, thank you and I'm sorry it's "like applying motor oil to the turmoil of domestic life," observes Alexandra Stoddard, who writes of this trinity.
"Please is a powerful word in the art of persuasion," she observes. "Unless a request begins with please, it sounds like an order to an underling. Please is kind and gentle: Just saying it softens our voice tone and instills graciousness.
"Thank you is a beautiful sentiment," she continues. "I suspect that without it there is no civilized society. Thank you has several elements of glory. Thank you shows gratitude and appreciation, and it can be a supreme accolade, a nod, a reward or recognition.
"Saying I'm sorry is the hardest of the trinity because we think we're confessing we were wrong. We risk losing the esteem of others and become vulnerable. But once we get over that hurdle of reluctance to demean ourselves, the difficulty melts away. The other person is disarmed. People accept someone else's I'm sorry with good will. Those two words turn war into peace, frustration into relief."
- "I don't know." Sometimes it takes humility to have an open mind and a closed mouth. But there can be considerable returns to such a tempered approach. First, by being inquisitive and admitting that you "don't know," you may help spark conversation, not kill it. You may learn something. And you may draw an inhibited person out of his shell.
Actually, people may also like you better, as illustrated in the instance of a high school student speaking to his friend: "There's a guy in school who's a real know-it-all. So I told him nobody likes that attitude," the student commented. "What'd he say?" asked the friend. "He said he already knew that," responded the student.