Tuesdays with Benny (8 April 2008) - Are You a Simon Cowell or an Ellen DeGeneres?

Since I am the Chief Writer of http://www.gratiworld.com/, and I have my own column there (Tuesdays with Benny), I am gonna post my article here as well. Please do support http://www.gratiworld.com/, that's indeed a very nice forum for people who want to learn how to be grateful with their life (not to mention, very cute bunny as its logo :D)

I love to watch both American Idol and Ellen DeGeneres Show, but for different reason. I watch American Idol because I love to watch so many talented people sing one after another in one stage.

Although many people said American Idol is not going to be that interesting without Simon Cowell there, I beg to differ. We all know how mean he is when giving comment. I still remember one time when he said to one participant “I think you are the worst singer in the universe.” or when he told William Hung “You can’t sing. You can’t dance. So what do you want me to say?” – Ouch.

Ellen is smart, funny, compassionate, and her ability to relate to her audience is just amazing. In one episode, when Ellen invited three students who “invent” a useful device, I must say, nothing special with those inventions. However, instead of telling them “You’ve got no talent, you better learn how to cook instead”, she told them “Those are interesting inventions, you’ve got talent”

What do we prefer? Not all of us can sing as fine as Christina Aguilera, and not all of us can play soccer like Christiano Ronaldo – so we don’t need someone telling us straight in our face “If your voice was a movie, it would be Scary Movie.” Why not encouraging us instead by telling “I know that you have put so much effort in that song, and your spirit just flows through”? Can’t we find something positive about someone or something? Can’t we?

Thomas Alva Edison is one of the greatest inventors of all time, with light-bulb as one of his inventions. However, do you know that his teacher once labelled him as “slow learner” and he dropped out from school? Fortunately, Edison’s mother just couldn’t buy into that thing. She refused to believe that Edison was stupid. Instead, she told Edison that she believed in him and she decided to home-teach Edison. The rest is history.

We all need some kind of encouragement, especially when we have put hours to our work. Countless number of workers in this planet quit their job every single year not because of the lack of money, nor because their job is too tiring. They quit because their boss never give them some kind of encouragement.

Have you given encouragement today? Do you want to be a Simon Cowell or an Ellen DeGeneres?