World Kindness Day

Intro Music:

Welcome to An Owner’s Guide for Your Life, the podcast that combines psychology, coaching, common sense and fun. I’m Tracey Browning, an entrepreneur, life coach, and lover of people. Now let’s talk about how to live love, make money and change the world.

Tracey:
Hey, I’m glad you’re here. We are talking about kindness today on episode 29. And if you think, “Ugh, gross, that sweetness, it just turns my stomach.” Well, you should really keep listening. This episode is especially for you.

I believe that kindness is one of my superpowers. Now, I haven’t designed my superhero outfit to go along with it yet. I don’t even know what that might look like. Maybe like soft, warm, fuzzy blankets that I can share with people. Or a bag with, like, an infinite supply of chocolate. The really good chocolate. I don’t know, but I could spend some time thinking on this. And that is absolutely not my point about what my superhero outfit would look like. Anyway, definitely didn’t do like the gold bra and the gold bracelets like Wonder Woman has.

Oh, well, so, kindness. I want to see a lot more kindness in the world. And I just found out that Saturday, November 13 is World Kindness Day. It’s a day that promotes the importance of being kind to yourself, kind to each other and kind to the world.

They believe that simple acts of kindness have power. Oh, I so believe that with all my heart. It doesn’t take fancy, complicated things. It’s really simple little bits and pieces of kindness that’ll change the world.

So they’ve got some suggestions, ways you can celebrate World Kindness Day. I’m just going to go through some of them that they’ve got listed. Do with them what you’d like. But I challenge you.

Do a kindness for yourself,
do a kindness for someone else and
do a kindness for the world.

So here are some of their suggestions.

• Smile. That one’s easy peasy for me. I think it takes less muscles to smile. So I like to smile a lot.
• Write positive messages on Post It notes or note cards or postcards or send an actual card through the mail to someone. Did you know you could still do that haha? We are not limited to text and email messages. We can send actual letters and cards through the mail or –like those,and they don’t suggest this, but have you seen those Kindness rocks? I know my friend LeeLee has because she’s collected a bunch of them. People will paint little messages on these rocks and just leave them in random places, like parking lots and trails in parks and places like that for people to find them. And they’ve just got positive messages on them. I think that’s pretty fun.
• You could pick up trash. Now, that just does not seem like a major thing, but trash is one of those things where I’m like, “Really, people?”. You had to throw your trash out the window. You couldn’t wait till you got home. Pick up trash. It’s a kind act for the world.
• Hold the door open for someone. Bow, obviously, you hear I’m Southern. Here in the South, that’s just good manners to hold the door open for someone. Now, some people get offended and some people think that that’s chauvinistic, but I just don’t think so. It’s being kind. I don’t want to let the door hit you in the face. Even if you’re mean to me, I don’t really want to let the door hit you in the face. So it’s an act of kindness.
• Things like chatting with a stranger and asking them about their day. Now I’m the person that I’ll talk to anybody in the line anywhere, because why not? That may horrify some of you, and I might be your worst nightmare. But for a lot of people, that might be the only person they get to talk to. Anyway, you can do it.
• Pay for somebody’s coffee. I’m sure you’ve heard the tales of going through the drive through and somebody pays it forward. Or actually they’re paying it backwards. I’ll pay for whatever they ordered. And how long can that line go? It’s just a kind, fun thing to do.
• Giving somebody a compliment, a sincere compliment. We don’t hear kind positive things often enough.
• Sending a positive or encouraging text to not just one person, but pick a few people and send it. Hey, just want to tell you something nice– and make it specific. Oh, my goodness. Do you know how much that means to somebody to get a message like that?
• A little bit bigger one that they suggest on their website is to surprise somebody with flowers or a gift of some kind, a special treat. But seriously, you don’t have to spend any money to be kind.
• Tell somebody you love them now. Okay, somebody that you actually love, not just random strangers, but that could lead to other things. Family members, friends, people that you actually know and love. Tell them.
• Offer to help with an errand or a chore.
• Something you can do to show kindness for the world is plant a tree.
• Here’s one on the website. Spend less time on your phone and more time with people that you care about. Put your phone down. Now, I realize if you’re going to send a text, you’ve got to send it through your phone, but you can actually put your phone down for a little while and look people in the eyes and have a conversation. It’s a crazy idea. I know, but you can do it. I’ve got confidence in you.
• You can offer to help classmates with homework.
• This is a fun one. If you’ve got sidewalks and some sidewalk chalk, draw a picture. Put a little kind message out on the sidewalk. I walk my dogs all around the sidewalks in our neighborhoods and the surrounding neighborhoods. And it’s always kind of fun to see the things the artwork that the kids have drawn and messages that people write.

The world is full of people, and if you can’t find kind people, it’s even more important that you should BE a kind person. And I really believe it doesn’t matter how small the act of kindness is. It’s important. It’s never wasted.

And you don’t know that may be the only act of kindness that somebody experiences their whole day or maybe their week.

I like this quote from Ronald Reagan, “We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.”

So Saturday, November 13- World Kindness Day

Be kind to yourself, be kind to each other and be kind to the world.

Let’s go live, love, make some money, BE KIND and change the world.

For a transcript of this episode or for more information about life and mindset coaching, visit my website https://www.tbrowning.com/.