[2020-11-29] The value of a smile

I continue to read How to Win Friends and Influence People and love what author Dale Carnegie has to say about smiles:

Your smile is a messenger of your goodwill. Your smile brightens the lives of all who see it. To someone who has seen a dozen people frown, scowl or turn their faces away, your smile is like the sun breaking through the clouds.

I'm a smiler. (Why isn't that a word?) I've always smiled a lot. And not just in person or over Zoom. I smile when I talk on the phone. I smile when I respond to emails. I smile when I write a note in a card.

A smile translates across all forms of communication. Carnegie states:

The effect of a smile is powerful—even when it is unseen. Telephone companies throughout the United States have a program called "phone power" which is offered to employees who use the telephone for selling their services or products. In this program they suggest that you smile when talking on the phone. Your "smile" comes through in your voice.

I discussed something similar with a friend this morning. In an email, he told me that my blog makes it easier for people who care about me to follow along with my progress. He added that he wouldn't know how to approach me if it weren't for my blog.

I agreed, indicating that my posts are like a daily smile, inviting others to engage with me.

Carnegie writes that "a smile says, 'I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see you.'" For me, the smile that comes across in my blog posts says, "I'm happy. I'm approachable. I'm open to hearing from you."

How to Win Friends and Influence People includes this quaint story, which seems perfect for this time of year:

Some years ago, a department store in New York City, in recognition of the pressures its sales clerks were under during the Christmas rush, presented the readers of its advertisements with the following homely philosophy:

The Value of a Smile at Christmas
    • It costs nothing, but creates much.
    • It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give.
    • It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever.
    • None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits.
    • It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends.
    • It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and Nature's best antidote for trouble.
    • Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is no earthly good to anybody till it is given away.
    • And if in the last-minute rush of Christmas buying some of our salespeople should be too tired to give you a smile, may we ask you to leave one of yours?
    • For nobody needs a smile so much as those who have none left to give! (p15)
As you meet others—perhaps a cashier at a grocery store, a healthcare professional at a hospital, a neighbour when you're out for a walk, or a member of your own household—remember to smile. Your smile may be, to that person, like the sun breaking through the clouds.