If what I read in the paper is correct, my wife and I were two of about 25 people who watched the Oscars Sunday night. We're both movie fans. We saw all five of the movies nominated for best picture.
However, this post is not about whether Crash deserved the Oscar, it's about Reese Witherspoon's acceptance speech after she won the award for Best Actress...
When Ms. Witherspoon thanked her parents, she said something like "You always complimented me...whether I made my bed, or I made a movie". When I heard this, I thought "right on Mr. and Mrs. Witherspoon", you raised your child by focusing on what she did and does right.
This is the message of a book by Tom Rath and Don Clifton of the Gallup Organization entitled How Full Is Your Bucket?
The book is based on The Theory of the Dipper and the Bucket:
Each of us has an invisible bucket. It is constantly emptied or filled, depending on what others say or do to us. When our bucket is full, we feel great. When it's empty, we feel awful.
Each of us also has an invisible dipper. When we use that dipper to fill other people's buckets -- by saying or doing things to increase their positive emotions -- we also fill our own bucket. But when we use that dipper to dip from others' buckets -- by saying or doing things that decrease their positive emotions -- we diminish ourselves.
Like the cup that runneth over, a full bucket gives us a positive outlook and renewed energy. Every drop in that bucket makes us stronger and more optimistic.
But an empty bucket poisons our outlook, saps our energy, and undermines our will. That's why every time someone dips from our bucket, it hurts us.
So we face a choice every moment of every day: We can fill one another's buckets, or we can dip from them. It's an important choice -- one that profoundly influences our relationships, productivity, health, and happiness.
It's obvious to me that Reese Witherspoon's parents used their dippers to fill her bucket -- and she just won an Oscar. She didn't win just because she has a full bucket. I'm sure her natural talent, hard work and luck to be cast in a great role played a pretty important part in all of this too. However, Ms. Witherspoon's full bucket was a great starting point.
I believe that if we all -- parents, siblings, friends, coworkers, bosses, clergy, teachers -- concentrated on filling the buckets of those around us, more of us would be happy and productive, and our families, schools, workplaces and the world would be a better place.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Log on to my website, www.BudBilanich.com for more common sense advice.
I’ll see you around the web, and at Alex’s Lemonade Stand.
Bud
PS: You can now access my archived internet radio shows directly from the home page of my website www.BudBilanich.com. Turn on your speakers and follow the link.
PPS: My new book, Fixing Performance Problems: Common Sense Ideas That Work is now available on Amazon.com. If you're so inclined, I'd appreciate it if you would purchase a copy at $14.95. This will help me get my Amazon ratings up. Nice reviews are welcome too.
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