“I see you” – How three little words make a big difference

“At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”

– Maya Angelou

What if there was a way to make a difference in your everyday life? And what if it was an opportunity that presented itself over and over, day in and day out? And best of all, what if it was super easy to do?

Spoiler alert: There is.

Of all the bazillion ways to make a difference that come our way every day, one of the most common and most powerful is this:

Sending the message, “I see you.”

Sending it to a loved one. Sending it to a co-worker. Sending it to the checkout clerk at the grocery store. Sending it to the homeless guy panhandling on the sidewalk.

It’s ubiquitous because every encounter with another person offers an opportunity. It’s powerful because it taps into one of our most fundamental human drives.

We all want to be seen. We all want to feel like we matter. Like what we care about matters. Like our interests and efforts matter. Like our lives matter.

Sadly, the culture we live in seems to be more obsessed with shouting “Look at me!” than in helping others feel seen.

All of which makes this that much more powerful as an opportunity to make an everyday impact.

It’s not just about saying, “I see you” (in fact, you might never actually say it at all). It’s about sending the message that you do.

How do you send that message? Here are some ideas:

Be fully present: This isn’t rocket science (but in our high-distraction culture, it seems more the exception than the rule). When you’re talking with someone, let them be your focus. Put down your phone. Look them in the eye. Be engaged. Resist the urge to be like someone at a networking event looking around to see who else they would rather be talking to. Your attention sends a message.

Be curious / ask questions: So often conversations are a kind of mental tennis match. We’re more interested in what we want to say next than what the other person is saying now. But what if you turned that on its head? What if your focus was, “What questions can I ask? How can I find out more about where they’re coming from? How do I discover what they think is important?”

Celebrate them: I don’t mean throwing a party. I mean providing positive feedback when you see the opportunity, whether that is acknowledging something they did well or validating something that seems important to them (like an interest or subject matter they care about). You don’t have to find it personally interesting to celebrate/validate how it feels to them.

Try this: For the next week, make your life a learning lab for sending the message, “I see you.”

Try some of the things I mentioned above. Notice how it feels. Notice what works. Notice how people respond.

And notice how you get in the way. Notice where you’re inadvertently sending the message, “I don’t see you.” Maybe it’s, “I’m too busy to see you now.” Or, “I hardly know you, so I don’t see you.” Or, “My hands are itching to check my phone, so I don’t see you.”

How you show up and the message you send can have an impact on how people feel. And how people feel influences how they show up and the impact they have in their day-to-day life.

Bit by bit, ripple by ripple, sending people the message, “I see you” can set something positive in motion.