Making People Feel Good

I was in a Caribou Coffee getting ready for a hearing when I noticed the same thing happening over and over again.  They had a question up on the board that gave people the opportunity to get 10 cents off their order.  It was a hard question and I apparently got it, but when I gave the barista my answer, he lit up, smiled and said I was the first person to get it.  I then watched him tell that to the next 10 people, no matter what their answer was.

I then started thinking back to how I felt when he said that.  It was a combination of feeling good that I got the question right, I got a question that nobody else did, and that I got 10 cents off.  Since I was the only one who hung around, none of them had probably gotten the question right.  The barista was just sending people out to have a really good day.

I have written a couple times about the value of smiling and laughing.    It is clear that emotions, both good and bad, play a role in our day.  They also have been shown to play a role in how we interact with other individuals, including the point of whether we cause collisions out on the road.

What Jeff was doing was helping people start off with a good day.  When you consider the money that was involved, it was well worth it.