The Loving Dictionary

INTRODUCTION

There are 3 billion people that go to bed hungry for food every night, but there are 4 billion people that go to bed hungry for praise or appreciation every night. Cavett Robert

My idea for The Loving Dictionary was conceived over dinner with a group of friends, including my good friend Moe Vesey. An animated, vivacious woman, Moe was very excited about a simple word game she and her boyfriend had serendipitously discovered while hiking. Her boyfriend would pick a letter from the alphabet, and she would come up with as many positive words to describe him as she could think of that started with that letter. If he chose the letter C, for example, she’d respond with words like caring, charitable, charming. Then she would pick a letter and he would do the same for her.

In the process they identified a lot of good things about each other...things they had always taken notice of but had never expressed verbally. Moe described how great it had felt to hear so many good things about herself, especially from someone she cared about. She talked about how valued she felt, about how much closer and trusting they had become.

The rest of us listened attentively, but it became clear to Moe that we weren’t fully getting it. So over dessert she had each of us pick a letter. As the words poured from one to the other...dedicated, loyal, wise, persevering, lovable...a buzz of energy and excitement grew in each one of us. Posture lifted, eyes sparkled and smiles beamed.

I realized that what we were witnessing was the incredible power of words at work. We were experiencing the esteeming impact of appreciation. Moe had made her point. We were all good friends, but we had never expressed even half the wonderful things that we knew and valued about each other. In my WORDpower™ training programs for proactive communication skills, I frequently use the expression You can’t know what you don’t know until you know it! Though each man and woman at the table that night was fairly successful, none of us had known just how hungry we were for appreciation until we got a taste of it.

I had chosen the letter I. My friends had responded enthusiastically with imaginative, interesting, intelligent. Then someone used a word I had never heard before...indefatigable. When someone explained to me what it meant, I almost cried. Despite many accomplishments, I had been struggling with fear and self-doubt my whole life and had always worked extra hard to prove my worth.

I flashed back to myself as a young adult asking my mom why she had never told me how pretty, smart or capable I was. With innocence she had replied, "I didn’t want to give you a big head," then added, "but I told everyone we knew how proud I was of you." How many times have I heard the same story from others! And over and over again the same refrain: "But you never told me." Surely no one had ever told our parents either.

Before I left the table that night I was committed to creating The Loving Dictionary. That simple word game, which I now call Gimme An A, had made me keenly aware of three things: how powerful our words are, how hungry we are for appreciation--and how limited our vocabularies are for expressing that appreciation. That night at dinner we had run out of words!

My intention for The Loving Dictionary was to offer as many positive adjectives as I could find for expressing appreciation. The "Dictionary of Appreciation", which contains 1,001 positive adjectives, is preceded by two sections: my best insights and reflections on "The Art of Appreciation" are in Part I, and a collection of "Creative Ways to Express Appreciation" is in Part II.

As excited as I was, I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I decided to produce The Loving Dictionary. It seemed simple enough...a short book about appreciation and an alphabet of positive adjectives. I soon learned that even the simplest idea can be extremely complicated to execute. So many times I felt overwhelmed with all the details, the countless fits and starts. I wondered if I would ever complete this book; then, nearing completion, I wondered if it would really make a difference or if anyone would care what I had to say about appreciation.

Yet each time I introduced Gimme An A to participants in my burgeoning WORDpower™ programs, each time I witnessed the life energy these words unleashed in people, I knew I was on the right track. And each time I experienced the power of appreciation myself I kept going.

I offer you now The Loving Dictionary with love and joy. I invite you to use it wisely, use it lovingly--and, please, use it often.