Chazal say that embarrassing a person is tantamount to killing him. The Baal Ha-maor in his preface to Brachos explains that the human soul is called "כבוד" in numerous psukim, such as "למען יזמרך כבוד" and "עורה כבודי". When one takes away a person's dignity he is essentially taking away his soul. Losing a soul is .... death.
[Rav Yisrael Salanter said that if a person would be TOTALLY convinced that he is worthless - he would die on the spot].
The inverse would then be that to give someone כבוד is to give them life.
So he is a GREAT Avoda for today - and forever: Try to make every person you meet feel important. One way of doing that is to great him/her warmly. Another is to complement them. There are many other ways.
