Everyone Needs a Smile

Circa 1983: A mid-year fifth grade transition to a new school, in a different country, during preteen angst, was not going smoothly. OK, it felt like the Titanic sinking – icy cold waters and few lifeboats.

You can imagine my mother’s helplessness as I arrived home crying each and every day from Rancho Cañada Elementary in Southern California, MADLY missing my friends from my previous school in Saudi Arabia, sobbing desperately that no one liked me or would even talk to me.

Not being her FIRST rodeo, Mom wisely told her fourth and youngest child, “Michelle, you can’t wait for others to reach out to you. They are just as nervous as you are. You have to take the first step – offer a smile to each person, say a kind word, ask them to play wall ball [my favorite!] or to come over and ride bikes.” [This was gloriously before the digital age and any awareness of lurking predators … where we actually stayed outside until the streetlights came on, with little to no parental supervision – gasp.]

Guess what? She was right. The kids were uneasy and too intimidated to approach some sulky girl relocated from halfway around the world. So I made myself approachable and, though inside still terrified, boldly smiled and awkwardly greeted as many classmates as possible. A few weeks later, catastrophe averted, all was as well as it could be in a ten-year-old child’s world.

Fast forward decades later, Mom’s sage advice is still JUST as applicable … in the business world, at neighborhood block parties, during church activities, with strangers at the airport, or even checking out at the grocery store. Every chance to interact with humans is the opportunity to courageously take the first step and impact others with even the smallest hint of encouragement – a smile, eye contact, a nod, an honest compliment, or simple hello.

Let’s look up from our smartphones and be about the business of connecting with other people, whether we’ve never met them before or have worked beside them for years. Be aware and be engaged with those around us. Relationships and human contact fill our buckets to the point of feeling like, well, Leonardo DiCaprio at the bow of that grand, unsinkable ship excitedly proclaiming, “I’m king of the world!” [But without all that later heartbreak and drowning stuff.]

EVERYONE needs a smile. Try it and let me know how it goes.

A generous soul will prosper, and he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.
 Proverbs 11:25

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Typical childhood: Dorothy Hamill haircut, Raggedy Ann dress, Buster Brown shoes, awkward smile … and a stuffed camel in the Lockheed compound of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Rancho Canada Elementary
My academic home for fifth and sixth grade, where my beloved wall ball courts still bring tons of joy to students (when they’re not on their device). Who else loved wall ball?!
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The Launch of Leaping Calf

Leaping Calf Communications launched officially in Spring 2018, but its roots were born decades before in the heart of its founder, Michelle K. Simms. Michelle’s passion is to come alongside businesses and nonprofits who may not have robust marketing departments (or any marketing personnel at all), allowing them to be effective and nimble in keeping current customers and gaining new ones. Let’s journey together to boost your business and create thriving community — email Michelle today at michelle.simms@leapingcalf.com.

But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. — Malachi 4:2

Creativity is intelligence having fun. — Albert Einstein