Flattery is false money, which would not be current were it not for our vanity.

Flattery only works because something in the listener wants it to be true. The flatterer supplies nothing of value; the value is added by the person receiving it, out of a private hope about themselves. This is why the same compliment bounces off one person and lodges in another, and why the ones that land hardest are usually about the thing you are least sure of.

When praise feels unusually good, pause on that feeling rather than on the praise. Ask what it confirmed and whether you have any evidence for it besides someone’s kind sentence, and go and get some if you do not.