Posts Tagged ‘smiling’
On this day, I had an opportunity to interact with two store clerks, an eye doctor, and an eye glasses specialist at Lens Crafters. The first store clerk I encountered seemed somewhat unaffected by any smiling on my part. But then, as I was leaving, she returned a smile to one of her coworkers – maybe a delayed reaction? My eye doctor seemed impervious to just about anything. Smiles, grimaces, jokes, suggestions – nothing seemed to break through to his private world of eyes – I guess that is how it can be with highly focused and trained professionals. The glasses guy – that was another story entirely. He seemed to be waiting for someone to break a smile and break the ice – we joked and laughed a bit about my boring taste in glasses. I told him that if I became rich I would be back for another more stylish pair to wear at speaking engagements!
More interactions with my students revealed that students tend to laugh at your jokes a bit better if you can prime them with some smiles. Perhaps that is why my attempts at jokes in the past fell flat?
Later, I picked up some motor oil at a car parts store. The clerk seemed to be a step ahead of me. He was about the friendliest, most helpful clerk I have ever encountered in such a store! Without a doubt, it would make me want to go back to this store. His smiles were there for each and every customer I am quite sure.
This day started with a few bumps. An upset stomach makes it a bit difficult to smile. I think feeling ill in general might make it difficult to smile. So keep that in mind the next time you visit someone in the hospital. Or if a normally cheerful friend seems a bit off, you might want to inquire as to why and offer your help in any way. But by midday I pulled out of it. Working from home this day I did not have a lot of chances for interaction, but what little opportunity I had showed more positive results. In the evening my sons had a few friends over and I tried my smiling on them – they responded positively by smiling back. These friends of my sons have a dad that smiles a lot (in addition to being a wonderful helper to many people in need), so I guess they are kind of used to this.
In the evening, when my wife pulled in the driveway with my two daughters, I risked blowing my cover (nobody in the family knows about this experiment) and rapped on both my wife’s and older daughter’s car windows and just gave them a big smile. Kind of goofy I know, but they liked being greeted like this. Better than a scowl, huh?
On the very first day of this experiment, I made a point to pleasantly smile at most everybody I came in contact with. The results were interesting:
- A fellow that I thought did not much care for me smiled back as I passed him in the hallway. Actually, this was the 2nd or 3rd time I passed by him and smiled.
- Some of my students (I am a teacher) stayed after classes to talk with me. This normally does not happen much. Suddenly I became so much more approachable!
- Overall, I found the reaction from virtually everybody (even strangers) to be very positive. This in turn made my day a bit better.
I will post again in a day or two about tomorrow and the next day as I try this experiment on family members and also I interact with some men at a men’s retreat. They don’t know I am conducting this experiment, by the way! Actually, nobody knows! I will not tell anybody until after the 30 days are over.
