#3. Be generous. Be generous with your time and your resources and with giving credit and, especially, with your words. It’s so much easier to be a critic than a celebrator. Always remember there is a human being on the other end of every exchange and behind every cultural artifact being critiqued. To understand and be understood, those are among life’s greatest gifts, and every interaction is an opportunity to exchange them.

This quote from brainpickings.org got me thinking. Here are three tidbits I am grateful to have picked up on my journey.

• Brainpickings.org – is full of nutritious and thought-provoking stuff, some of which I resonate to and some of which I don’t. Isn’t that normal? In my career I have benefitted greatly from following what I resonate to, material that speaks to my passions and interests. At brain pickings.org Maria Popova began by collecting writings she found interesting and just, generously, putting them out there. I try to stay alert to my passions and to becoming the best celebrator I can become.

• I’ve appreciated Marshall Goldsmith so much since first meeting and working with him in 1991. Marshall is the King of Generosity, giving nearly his entire body of knowledge away for free. I’m pretty sure that he is not caught wondering, “Hmm, how can I ‘monetize’ this?” Check out The Marshall Goldsmith Library. http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/.

• The last tidbit is about a video clip I saw of an olympic diver and his coach. The coach met the diver after the dive, when the diver is toweling off, and told him just what he had done RIGHT. Then, right before the diver took his next dive, the coach instructed the diver on what to DO DIFFERENTLY. The tip has stuck with me, tho I can’t find a video. Remember, we cannot do anything about the past, we can only change the future. So tell people what they did right after they perform and remind them of what to do better before they go into their next performance.

What do you think?