Posts Tagged ‘modesty’

Accepting praise

Monday, May 28th, 2012 | Success & Productivity

Reading Toastmasters International magazine is always an interesting experience. Nobody is using the world cult, but it’s so self congratulatory that as Elina points out, if you replace the word Toastmasters with the word Jesus most of the articles read as if they were specifically written to evangelise Christianity, without further modification.

Among the stories about just how brilliant a decision it was for Lenny from Texas to join his local group, was an interesting article accepting praise and comments after giving a speech.

Like I’m sure many people do, I try to be modest when receiving feedback after a speech. People often come up to you and tell you how good it is, and I always point out where I went wrong or which bits I didn’t think had really worked out.

However, the article suggests that this in fact a little impolite. After all, they are offering genuine feedback about how good they thought it was, and you’re contradicting them. It suggests a much better way to handle such comments is simply with a smile and a thank you.