Smile

I recently told some of our leadership that I do not want anyone working at Horizon that seems unhappy the majority of the time. I love to be around cheerful, smiling, optimistic people. Nothing is worse to me than to see someone walking down the hall with a scowl on their face that appears to be mad at the world. A smile costs you nothing but means so much to everyone who sees it. I noticed this for the first time on an airplane one day. I boarded early and was watching people come aboard. I was smiling broadly and invariably every person who looked at me seemed to just light up and smile right back. As an experiment I put on my mean look and just the opposite effect transpired. I even tried another experiment where I alternated and I would smile at one and frown at the next. (Yes I was bored and it does sound quite silly.) Those whom I smiled at smiled right back and seemed to light up when they encountered the smile. Those who received the mean look and frown were just the opposite, snarling right back at me.



Try this experiment yourself and you will get a kick out of it. I do it all of the time now, restaurants, convenience stores, even at church. People love to see a smile and hate to see a scowl. Recently we conducted a presentation of our products for NYC public schools. This represented huge potential for our company and we needed to do our best. All of the junior people on our team and many of the senior staff were concerned that we do our best and were nervous as cats in a dog pen and looked like they had just lost their best friends and were attending their wake with serious looks on their faces and not a hint of a smile. Prior to the meeting I had to give a smile-broadly seminar complete with tips on how to keep a smile on their faces throughout the presentation and sternly warned them that I better not catch them not smiling during the presentation. It worked and I nodded approvingly as I looked around the room at warm broad smiles everywhere. (We got selected as one of the finalists too!)



Smiles come from being happy and optimistic about life. Frowns are the result of being unhappy and pessimistic. We all have a choice, just like getting dressed in the morning; we can wear a smile or a frown. A smile looks far better than a frown. Being unhappy is often the result of not having the proper relationship with God. I cannot envision being happy apart from God. In fact I tried and failed early in life. I never knew happiness in my life until I became a Christian. Now the closer I am to God the happier I am.



Proverbs 16:20

…Whoever trusts in the

Lord, happy is he.





How well do you know the Bible?

Sometimes those among us with a heart as big as Texas are reluctant to take action to eliminate contention from our midst. According to the Bible we should take drastic action to eliminate contention and make strife and reproach cease from our midst. What are we to do?

Proverbs 22:10



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