Telling someone you’re proud of them feels weirdly risky. Do it anyway. People often remember it for years.

Praise feels risky because it is sincere and sincerity has no joke to hide behind if it lands awkwardly. The awkwardness you are imagining almost never arrives. What happens instead is that somebody carries it for years, often because nobody has ever said it to them, and they will not tell you that. A few words can sit in a person’s head for decades.

Say it to one person this week, specifically, naming what they did. Not a general compliment about who they are, but the thing you actually watched them do.