Principle 5: Smile

Give a real, heart-warming smile that is uplifting and shows you are happy to see the other person. Even when you smile on the phone, your smile will come through your voice. Insincere grins, however, have the reverse effect. If you don't feel like smiling, you can start by getting yourself in a better mood by acting as you if you were happy - force yourself to smile in private, and manage your thoughts.

• The expression one wears on one's face is far more important than the clothes one wears on one's back.
• Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, "I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see you."
• Smile when you answer/speak on the phone. It "comes through" in your voice.
• You must have a good time meeting people if you expect them to have a good time meeting you.
• If you act and behave as if you are happy, there is a tendency that you will actually become happy.
• Happiness doesn't depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions.

Professor James V. McConnel, psychologist at the University of Michigan: "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 in a frown. That's why encouragement is a much more effective teaching device than punishment."

Psychologist/Philosopher William James: "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."

Shakespeare: "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

Practice Principle 5

This one is simple: Challenge yourself to smile at someone every hour of the day for a full week.