Consistently encourage and keep your critical thoughts to yourself.

When you encourage good attitudes, enthusiastic competition, hard work and good behavior they will notice. When you silently endure foolish behavior, coarse language, bad attitudes and laziness; that too will be noticed. You will usually not even have to say anything, they’ll apologize right away. There’s no need for you to criticize. If they want your opinion, they’ll ask for it. When you’ve earned the right to be heard, they will ask directly.

Between football seasons one year, a player with whom I’d prayed individually each game day through the previous season, made a foolish mistake and received a ticket for driving under the influence of alcohol. I saw the notice in the newspaper and heard about it through the rumor mill, but he was racked by guilt. He was terribly embarrassed and had to face his parents with the matter. Later he summoned up the courage to call me for a lunch engagement. I knew what he had on his mind, but wasn’t about to cheat him out of the growth opportunity. We met and he apologized for letting me down. I assured him of my forgiveness and more importantly, the Lord’s forgiveness of him. We went on to talk at length about how to live a more disciplined lifestyle and how to honor the Lord in all of life. We remain great friends and he went on to play in the Arena Football League (U.S.A.) and has begun coaching college football, still following the Lord. A harsh, condemning attitude could have crashed our relationship and possibly soured him on following Christ.

When you offer your opinion without being asked, you are seen as presumptuous and often foolish. You may be found to be speaking without knowledge and one foolish comment could ruin your credibility for a long time. It’s always a good idea to encourage people when you catch them doing the right thing. It’s seldom a good idea to correct them when you’ve not been asked to comment.