WF Pride – August 4, 2014
Core Value: Recognition and Respect of Others
Chad Cottingham
“No Respect! No Respect!” – The famous line that many know from the late Rodney Dangerfield. It was funny, but nowadays it seems like everyone is saying it. They are almost demanding it. In my 21 years in the world of education, I saw the problem of disrespect grow to the point we would take time out of every class to teach respect – respect to peers, respect to adults, and respect to themselves. It became a focus. Fewer and fewer families seemed to teach true respect and the result was kids coming to us believing that if, and only if, people respected them, were they going to in turn respect others – it was nuts!
Our culture has become so self-absorbed that we don’t look at others with respect anymore. While our human nature automatically has an inward focus, we all need to work hard at focusing outward and making it about the needs of others and not our own. How do we do this? One way is to recognize people on a regular basis – for who they are, for what they do. Recognition is respect in action as it affirms value to that person – telling them that they matter. 1 Peter 2:17 states: Show respect for everyone. Love your Christian brothers and sisters. Fear God. Show respect for the king. ~ NLT.
The Potato Bi-Weekly recognizes individuals on jobs well done. The farm meetings take time to recognize team members – this is fantastic! It’s great to hear what people have done to help others or the team. The bottom line is that people like to be recognized, it means a lot to them. Outside of WF meetings are we recognizing and respecting people on a regular basis? If you do are you doing it often enough? Let’s make it our goal and habit to recognize and respect those around us more often. Recognize someone who needs it this week. Maybe a colleague at work for a job well done or help they may have given. Maybe your spouse needs to hear how much you appreciate who they are and what they do. Maybe your children need to hear how much you love and respect them.
Challenge: Set a plan of action to recognize at least 3 people this week. Who? What? When? How? (Who are you recognizing? What’s the recognition for? When do you plan on doing it? How are you going to do it? Face to face? Email? Note card?)