“I can live for two months on one good compliment.”

Mark Twain

There once was a scared boy. He was dirt poor. His father was never around. He moved from town to town and never had any friends. He was extremely insecure and had very little self-confidence. He was a very poor student with bad grades for years.

Then one day in class, his teacher put a question to class. “How many square inches of tin do you need to make a tin can?”

He was the first one that had the answer. The teacher told him, “You have the makings of being a great engineer.”

That compliment made his day. It was so powerful and so affirming that it stuck with him for the rest of his life. He became an engineer. He help design the 747, earned several patents and was the lead engineer on the tunnel boring machine that dug the tunnel under the English Channel.

Word are very, very powerful. Words of encouragement and affirmation can change a person’s life. Words can indeed sustain a person for two months or even a lifetime.