I see so much stress and anxiety amongst leaders and busy service professionals, and so I think often about how I can be most helpful, and what tools and practices are most relevant and useful for my business, ServiceQ, to offer for today’s world.
I was reminded of a story recently which contains a secret I think all service leaders need to know.
There was a student who had spent many years in the monastery studying spiritual practices; but suddenly, it was time to leave the monastery for good.
So, the student and teacher were standing in the courtyard for a final time, and the teacher said, I have one last teaching for you before you leave.
The student was excited to receive one last nugget of wisdom.
The teacher whispered in the student’s ear: Always remember to smile.
In Taoism, this is called ‘the inner smile’, a practice that helps to balance out the emotional state. And while at times, in certain settings, a smile can feel artificial or forced or not authentic, that expression ‘Fake it till you make it’ does have some validity to it. As you smile more often, you start to feel it in a more genuine way.
A smile in a service setting, with team members and customers, is mostly encouraged to create social connectedness and offer politeness and reassurance to the people receiving the smile.
However, there’s also a benefit for the person smiling: smiling inwardly at oneself can stimulate a healing energy and promote emotional and physical wellbeing. My greatest and deepest hope is that all service leaders and service professionals remember this.
If you can remember, in challenging situations at work and in life, to maintain the inner smile, you have more peaceful days ahead.
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