How to Win Friends and Influence People: Part 2- Six Ways to Make People Like You "Smile"

We are taught from before the time we begin to understand language, to smile. And we come to learn also, that it is is simple way to make a good first impression. Good thing my parents spent thousands of green to make these pearly whites of mine worth the impression to give! Praise God for orthodontists! The expression one wears one one's face is far more important than the clothes one wears on one's back.

"People who smile 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." -Prof. James V. McConnell, University of Michigan

A smile is an indicative act of pleasure, joy, fun, excitement, and lack of judgement. With that basic observation, its no wonder that people rarely succeed at anything unless they have fun doing it. You must have a good time meeting people if you expect them to have a good time meeting you.

You don't 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. 

I really like that... "act as if you were already happy..." It reminds me, as so many things do, of the time I spent in full time missionary service for my church. Particularly, it reminds me of a handful of conversations then and now after over the years of since my return home with my mission president, James Beck. He often asks, "Sister Marstella, are you happy?" If I don't have an answer right away, I start to question my life and its current motives. With this theology of me acting as if I am already happy, I could always answer yes in the future, because acting is in this case, a course to becoming.

"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..." -William James, Psychologist and Philosopher

Its too difficult to paraphrase what has already been written and taught so well by Mr. Carnegie. The truth of his words about how one creates and maintains happiness must be shared:

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.

"There is nothing either good or bad. But thinking makes it so." -William Shakesphere

"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." -Abraham Lincoln

"We become like that on which our hearts are fixed... We are gods in chrysalis." -Elbert Hubbard, Essayist and Publisher

SMILE- Spiritually Minded is Life Eternal (2 Nephi 9:39)