Have you ever observed someone receiving a compliment? What do you think makes accepting positive words easy or difficult? From my experience, part of it has to do with the circumstances. If the person who extends nice words has a transactional way of thinking about things, the message may be harder to accept. Maybe he or she wants to earn favor with a boss or friends. The biggest quality around whether a compliment can land is whether the person on the receiving end can believe it. Think about a compliment that wasn’t received fully. How might things have played out differently if the person received the compliment acted as if the nice words could be true.