Imagine the warm feeling in my heart the other evening when LinkedIn advised me that a colleague composed a Recommendation, without my asking.

I’ve done that too for others when I am so “wowed” by their demonstrated expertise or something they did for me that I feel compelled to tell others how well they do they “why” from my experience with them.

I suspect they got that same warm feeling as I did.

The recommender deserved a personal phone call of thanks, first call of the following day. With intonation and conversation. Not a one-way email.

So look at your Recommendations on your LinkedIn profile. Do you have a lot of Recs received and very few given? Since it’s “better to give than receive,” think: who can you recommend without their asking for something special to express your appreciation of the relationship you enjoy with them?

One caveat: professionals in certain industries (financial services and law, for example) are subject to compliance and/or ethics rules, so your unsolicited Rec may have to be edited, at their suggestion, to keep within the boundaries. But they will still appreciate that you reached out and touched them.

Find their profile, click “More” in their top card, then “Recommend” and get going.