Respect Is the Soil in Which Good Behavior Grows

Hey team. All right. I wanted to share with you a quote that I came up with when I was writing some of my leadership material.

Respect is not the reward for good behavior. It is the soil in which good behavior grows. Respect is always a two-way street. But typically, the person who is giving it first, even sometimes when it is not warranted, tends to win a person over. I talk about that in leadership. How important it is, but I think it is important because it fits within our core values. It is so much easier for us to show people respect when we have a healthy amount of humility within our own selves.

When we are humble, and we realize that on a bad day. We too could be needing a little bit of respect and generosity coming back from the other side. I know I have experienced this in my own life. Even in my own marriage and raising kids, and running teams.

I have come to realize that respect given tends to bring better long-term results over a period of time than to not give it. I have told stories in the past in different ways. And how I have seen the lack of respect take place. I remember one time I was working at a Vietnamese bar. This is way back in the 90s. I was there, and it was like 1:00 in the morning. 1:30 almost.

I literally thought the bars are going to be closed soon. I think we are going to get out of here early because there are only like 11 people. They are all sitting at the same table. I turned my back, and the next thing a dude is crashing over the table with a chair trying to smash another dude’s head in. And after the pepper spray and after the handcuffs and everything settled down, I asked what in the heck is going on. You guys were all friends. You were sitting here at this table together. Why would you do that?

And the guy says, “He disrespected me.” And there is that word. The lack of respect sometimes can fuel a person’s anger to the point where they can become violent. So I have been the recipient of a lack of respect. I have also given, in my time, a lack of respect and had not great results.

And then there have been times that I have had really tough situations happen and I have used respect for the other person’s human being. I might not agree with everything they say, maybe nothing that they say or do, but out of respect, I can get them to move along. We had in our leadership class just the other night an individual that put into their homework that they were talking to an individual and they got them to move along, and they used respect.

They used kindness and generosity and friendship instead of orders and commands and a do or else attitude. And it generated the movement, but it also generated an amount of respect back saying, “I have been treated badly by so many security guards. Thank you for being kind to me,” basically is what they said. They said some other things, but I am not going to repeat those here.

So, something for us to think about. Are you having trouble with your marriage or your kids or relationships and teams or people on the street or clients? Have you thought about issuing respect and letting it be the foreground, the thing that you build upon, and watch good behavior on the other side grow from the respect that you have planted it in?

Something for you to think about as you go forward through the rest of this week. All right. God bless you guys. Have a wonderful, awesome week, and I will see you next week.