Wednesday Wisdom | How You Treat People Matters

Her songs are part of the soundtrack of our lives, but the way she treated people and made them feel loved is what the world will remember the most. Dolly Parton once said something that stuck with me:

“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”

But there’s another lesson we can learn from Dolly’s life: how you treat people matters.

Success gets measured in numbers.
Leadership gets measured in results.
Influence gets measured in followers.

But character?

Character is revealed in how we treat the person who can’t do anything for us.

How do we treat the cashier?
The coworker who drives us crazy?
The person who disagrees with us?
The person who is having a really bad day?

And perhaps most importantly, how do we treat the people we love when we’re tired, frustrated, or inconvenienced?

My wife, Terri, always offers me a great example of this. She always says hi to people when we‘re walking or at the store and she greets them with a smile.

Jesus made it pretty clear:

“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

Matthew 7:12 ESV

Kindness isn’t weakness anymore than gentleness isn’t passivity. Respect isn’t agreement. You can show someone love without agreeing with them on everything. Friend, oftentimes the most powerful testimony we give isn’t what we say about Jesus. It’s how we make people feel when they’re around us.

So here’s my nugget of Wednesday Wisdom:

Be the person who leaves people better than you found them.

Smile. Listen. Encourage. Forgive.
Show grace.

And when you mess it up (and you will) own it, apologize, and try again. At the end of the day, people will forget what we accomplished. They remember how we treated them. And that, in my opinion, is wisdom worth putting into practice.

You’re only here for a moment. What will people remember most about you?

No Frowny Downys. Go make somebody’s day!