I have been acting as a business mentor for a particular client, who has not been having an easy time. Yet, at our last meeting in a boutique Jerusalem café, she was full of beans. She recalled: –

“I bet you don’t realise what one word you have said to me, twice, and which has made a complete difference just recently. As you walked away from our last meeting with words of encouragement, your told me to smile. And then, when I wrote you an email full of my concerns, you repeated the instruction.

I have since internalised the ‘message’. Guess what? I have just recruited 3 new clients. And that was for a project that I had long abandoned.

All that from a smile? By thinking positively, can we really impact on our work (and family) lives?

Step back for a minute. Dr Robert Brooks posted an article, questioning if the process of aging can be influenced by our mindset. He discussed two scientific tests, where groups of elderly people were confined to a closed house, which was transposed to a period from when they were 30-40 years old. Music, food, clothing styles of the past.

The results were amazing. The participants walked out standing taller. The bodies were more supple. In one bizarre incident, somebody threw away their wheelchair, which was no longer required.

This made me think of my friend Avraham Schlissel, a laughter specialist. I few months ago, I attended one of his workshops in Jerusalem, twenty people nervously wondering what they were in for. Absolutely amazing! Over an hour he asked and encouraged people to slightly adjust the way they addressed each other – in teams, in twosomes, or to the whole group . By the end, we were all on the floor in fits of hysteria, taking away ‘something positive’, which we could use elsewhere.

We are surrounded by negative influences and horrendous graphic pictures in the news. By contrast, it would seem that if we could allow more happiness into our lives, it is not just that we will feel better. We could perform so much better at work. Now is that not worth investing some time and thought to?