AT A DINNER party in New York, one of the guests, a woman who had inherited money, was eager to make a pleasing impression on everyone. She had squandered a modest fortune on sables, diamonds and pearls. But she hadn’t done anything whatever about her face. It radiated sourness and selfishness. She didn’t realise what everyone knows: namely, that the expression one wears on one’s face is far more important than the clothes one wears on one’s back.
Charles Schwab told me his smile had been worth a million dollars. And he was probably understating the truth. For Schwab’s personality, his charm, his ability to make people like him, were almost wholly responsible for his extraordinary success; and one of the most delightful factors in his personality was his captivating smile.
Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, ‘I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see you.’
That is why dogs make such a hit. They are so glad to see us that they almost jump out of their skins. So, naturally, we are glad to see them.
A baby’s smile has the same effect.
Have you ever been in a doctor’s waiting room and looked around at all the glum faces waiting impatiently to be seen? Dr. Stephen K. Sproul, a veterinarian in Raytown, Missouri, told of a typical spring day when his waiting room was full of clients waiting to have their pets inoculated. No one was talking to anyone else, and all were probably thinking of a dozen other things they would rather be doing than ‘wasting time’ sitting in that office. He told one of our classes: ‘There were six or seven clients waiting when a young woman came in with a nine-months-old baby and a kitten. As luck would have it, she sat down next to a gentleman who was more than a little distraught about the long wait for service. The next thing he knew, the baby just looked up at him with that great big smile that is so characteristic
of babies. What did that gentleman do? Just what you and I would do, of course; he smiled back at the baby. Soon he struck up a conversation with the woman about her baby and his grandchildren, and soon the entire reception room joined in, and the boredom and tension were converted into a pleasant and enjoyable experience.’
An insincere grin? No. That doesn’t fool anybody. We know it is mechanical and we resent it. I am talking about a real smile, a heartwarming smile, a smile that comes from within, the kind of smile that will bring a good price in the marketplace.
Professor James V. McConnell, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, expressed his feelings about a smile. ‘People who smile,’ he said, ‘tend to manage, teach and sell more effectively, and to raise happier children. There’s far more information in a smile than a frown. That’s why encouragement is a much more effective teaching device than punishment.’
The employment manager of a large New York department store told me she would rather hire a sales clerk who hadn’t finished grade school, if he or she has a pleasant smile, than to hire a doctor of philosophy with a sombre face.
The effect of a smile is powerful – even when it is unseen. Telephone companies throughout the United States have a programme called ‘phone power’ which is offered to employees who use the telephone for selling their services or products. In this programme they suggest that you smile when talking on the phone. Your ‘smile’ comes through in your voice.
Robert Cryer, manager of a computer department for a Cincinnati, Ohio, company, told how he had successfully found the right applicant for a hard- to-fill position:
‘I was desperately trying to recruit a Ph.D. in computer science for my department. I finally located a young man with ideal qualification who was about to be graduated from Purdue University. After several phone conversations I learned that he had several offers from other companies, many of them larger and better known than mine. I was delighted when he accepted my offer. After he started on the job, I asked him why he had chosen us over the others. He paused for a moment and then he said: “I think it was because managers in the other companies spoke on the phone in a cold, businesslike manner, which made me feel like just another business transaction. Your voice sounded as if you were glad to hear from me . . .
that you really wanted me to be part of your organisation.” You can be assured, I am still answering my phone with a smile.’
The chairman of the board of directors of one of the largest rubber companies in the United States told me that, according to his observations, people rarely succeed at anything unless they have fun doing it. This industrial leader doesn’t put much faith in the old adage that hard work alone is the magic key that will unlock the door to our desires. ‘I have known people,’ he said, ‘who succeeded because they had a rip-roaring good time conducting their business. Later, I saw those people change as the fun became work. The business had grown dull. They lost all joy in it, and they failed.’
You must have a good time meeting people if you expect them to have a good time meeting you.
I have asked thousands of business people to smile at someone every hour of the day for a week and then come to class and talk about the results. How did it work? Let’s see . . . Here is a letter from William B. Steinhardt, a New York stockbroker. His case isn’t isolated. In fact, it is typical of hundreds of cases.
‘I have been married for over eighteen years,’ wrote Mr. Steinhardt, ‘and in all that time I seldom smiled at my wife or spoke two dozen words to her from the time I got up until I was ready to leave for business. I was one of the worst grouches who ever walked down Broadway.
‘When you asked me to make a talk about my experience with smiles, I thought I would try it for a week. So the next morning, while combing my hair, I looked at my glum mug in the mirror and said to myself, “Bill, you are going to wipe the scowl off that sour puss of yours today. You are going to smile. And you are going to begin right now.” As I sat down to breakfast, I greeted my wife with a “Good morning, my dear,” and smiled as I said it.
‘You warned me that she might be surprised. Well, you underestimated her reaction. She was bewildered. She was shocked. I told her that in the future she could expect this as a regular occurrence, and I kept it up every morning.
‘This changed attitude of mine brought more happiness into our home in the two months since I started than there was during the last year.
‘As I leave for my office, I greet the elevator operator in the apartment house with a “Good morning” and a smile. I greet the doorman with a
smile. I smile at the cashier in the subway booth when I ask for change. As I stand on the floor of the Stock Exchange, I smile at people who until recently never saw me smile.
‘I soon found that everybody was smiling back at me. I treat those who come to me with complaints or grievances in a cheerful manner. I smile as I listen to them and I find that adjustments are accomplished much easier. I find that smiles are bringing me dollars, many dollars every day.
‘I share my office with another broker. One of his clerks is a likable young chap, and I was so elated about the results I was getting that I told him recently about my new philosophy of human relations. He then confessed that when I first came to share my office with his firm he thought me a terrible grouch – and only recently changed his mind. He said I was really human when I smiled.
‘I have also eliminated criticism from my system. I give appreciation and praise now instead of condemnation. I have stopped talking about what I want. I am now trying to see the other person’s viewpoint. And these things have literally revolutionised my life. I am a totally different man, a happier man, a richer man, richer in friendships and happiness – the only things that matter much after all.’
You don’t feel like smiling? Then what? Two things. First, force yourself to smile. If you are alone, force yourself to whistle or hum a tune or sing. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you happy. Here is the way the psychologist and philosopher William James put it:
‘Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.
‘Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there . . .’
Everybody in the world is seeking happiness – and there is one sure way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness doesn’t depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions.
It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it. For example, two people may be in the same place, doing the same thing; both
may have about an equal amount of money and prestige – and yet one may be miserable and the other happy. Why? Because of a different mental attitude. I have seen just as many happy faces among the poor peasants toiling with their primitive tools in the devastating heat of the tropics as I have seen in air-conditioned offices in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.
‘There is nothing either good or bad,’ said Shakespeare, ‘but thinking makes it so.’
Abe Lincoln once remarked that ‘most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.’ He was right. I saw a vivid illustration of that truth as I was walking up the stairs of the Long Island Railroad station in New York. Directly in front of me thirty or forty crippled boys on canes and crutches were struggling up the stairs. One boy had to be carried up. I was astonished at their laughter and gaiety. I spoke about it to one of the men in charge of the boys. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘when a boy realises that he is going to be a cripple for life, he is shocked at first; but after he gets over the shock, he usually resigns himself to his fate and then becomes as happy as normal boys.’
I felt like taking my hat off to those boys. They taught me a lesson I hope I shall never forget.
Working all by oneself in a closed-off room in an office not only is lonely, but it denies one the opportunity of making friends with other employees in the company. Señora Maria Gonzalez of Guadalajara, Mexico, had such a job. She envied the shared comradeship of other people in the company as she heard their chatter and laughter. As she passed them in the hall during the first weeks of her employment, she shyly looked the other way.
After a few weeks, she said to herself, ‘Maria, you can’t expect those women to come to you. You have to go out and meet them.’ The next time she walked to the water cooler, she put on her brightest smile and said, ‘Hi, how are you today’ to each of the people she met. The effect was immediate. Smiles and hellos were returned, the hallway seemed brighter, the job friendlier. Acquaintanceships developed and some ripened into friendships. Her job and her life became more pleasant and interesting.
Peruse this bit of sage advice from the essayist and publisher Elbert Hubbard – but remember, perusing it won’t do you any good unless you apply it:
Whenever you go out-of-doors, draw the chin in, carry the crown of the head high, and fill the lungs to the utmost; drink in the sunshine; greet your friends with a smile, and put soul into every handclasp. Do not fear being misunderstood and do not waste a minute thinking about your enemies. Try to fix firmly in your mind what you would like to do; and then, without veering off direction, you will move straight to the goal. Keep your mind on the great and splendid things you would like to do, and then, as the days go gliding away, you will find yourself unconsciously seizing upon the opportunities that are required for the fulfillment of your desire, just as the coral insect takes from the running tide the element it needs. Picture in your mind the able, earnest, useful person you desire to be, and the thought you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular individual . . . Thought is supreme. Preserve a right mental attitude – the attitude of courage, frankness, and good cheer. To think rightly is to create. All things come through desire and every sincere prayer is answered. We become like that on which our hearts are fixed. Carry your chin in and the crown of your head high. We are gods in the chrysalis.
The ancient Chinese were a wise lot – wise in the ways of the world; and they had a proverb that you and I ought to cut out and paste inside our hats. It goes like this: ‘A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.’
Your smile is a messenger of your good will. 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. Especially when that someone is under pressure from his bosses, his customers, his teachers or parents or children, a smile can help him realise that all is not hopeless – that there is joy in the world.
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!
PRINCIPLE 2
Smile.
