Looking for the gold

Oscar Wilde, Irish poet, novelist, dramatist and critic, once wrote:
"Love is not blind; it simply enables one to see things others fail
to see." His simple truth provides us a poetic understanding that
recognizing the potential in those we serve sometimes requires a new
way of looking at them.

In his book, Developing the Great Leaders Around You, John Maxwell
tells a story about Dale Carnegie, American writer and lecturer on
self-improvement, who is recognized for his ability to recognize the
potential in leaders. Carnegie was asked by a reporter how he had
hired forty-three millionaires. He indicated that they weren't
millionaire when he hired them, but had become millionaires. He told
the reporter:

"Men are developed the same way gold is mined. Several tons of dirt
must be moved to get an ounce of gold. But you don't go into the mine
looking for dirt. You go in looking for the gold." Maxwell states:
" That's exactly the way to develop positive successful people. Look
for the gold, not the dirt, the good not the bad. The more positive
qualities you look for, the more you are going to find."

Find the best in people by looking at them with a new set of eyes -
ones focused on their positive attributes and their wondrous gifts.
Help them see the greatness in themselves. Be the greatest miner of
gold - a Midas! Be a teacher that this gold will reproduce itself;
that peoples eyes will be opened "to see things others fail to see."