A few weeks ago I had the opportunity of attending a leadership training where the featured speaker was Kevin Hall. Kevin is a world-renowned corporate trainer, inspirational speaker, and author of the recently-launched, soon-to-be New-York-Times-bestseller (yes, that’s a prediction), Aspire! Finding Your Purpose Through the Power of Words.

Over my corporate career, I’ve attended lots of different events and trainings and Kevin’s was one of the best I’ve been to, perhaps because I share his passion for words and etymology. One of the words he taught us is the Ancient Hindi word Genshai. (pronounced gen-shy). It means that you should never treat another person in a manner that would make them feel small. But it also goes deeper than that and conveys the feeling that you should never treat yourself in a way that makes you feel small or allow another to do so.

Of course, being the great inspirational speaker that he is, Kevin had several stories that helped illustrate the power of the word and how it could help improve my life—of course, I kept thinking how much Genshai applies to reviews. I know that it’s a subject we touch on quite often on this blog, but the quality of reviews is really at the heart of our community.

Just before writing this post, I received reviews on two pieces I submitted to the community for review. The difference was night and day. One made me want to open up my file for the novel I’m working on and start writing. The other made me wonder if I should even bother trying refine the short story any more or if I should just scrap it. The funny thing is that the tone of both was actually quite positive; however, one reviewer didn’t take the time to expound on any comments or offer anything useful it was mostly just short phrases or one-word statements and there were no inline comments.

When Kevin taught us the word Genshai, he told us about the man who taught him the word—an India-born shopkeeper he met in Vienna named Pravin. Pravin told Kevin that it was his mother who had instilled the principles of Genshai in his life. He remembered one lesson in particular recounting, “If I were to walk by a beggar in the street and casually toss him a coin, I would not be practicing Genshai. But if I knelt down on my knees and looked him in the eye when I placed that coin in his hand, that coin became love. Then and only then, after I had exhibited pure, unconditional brotherly love did I become a true practitioner of Genshai.”

While both of my reviewers were willing to give me a coin, one just tossed it to me while passing by, but the other came to my level and placed it in my hand. How are you doing in your reviews? Are you casually tossing coins or are you practicing Genshai?

-Clark