“No feelings - no smile!”
or “The importance of sincere smile”

Just came back from the training devoted to development of Emotional Intelligence. On the training I was communicating with many people in order to get sincere feedback on how they perceive me. Many people told me that they don’t feel me sincere, even more were irritated by my strained smile. I was shocked, because I had thought before that smiling is the best way to please someone, to start relationships and simply be in a good mood. It is all true in the case if the smile is sincere.

You see, many tutorials and books devoted to development of communication skills, tell us about the importance of smile. They say: “Smile to each traveler on the street and you will see how they will smile to you and you’ll feel better!” Bullshit! Without sincere emotions you will look like lovely doll from the storefront which opens her mouth just to please other people!

If you like other people, smile will appear on your face automatically! Instead of tensing facial muscles to generate robotic smile, tense your brain and emotions by looking for the lovely qualities of other person, such as charming birthmark or curly hair or etc. When you find these qualities, let you feel yourself with positive emotions and thoughts, such as: “What wonderful hair she has!” You’ll see how your new friend will perceive good feelings without any word! If you realize that smile appeared at your face - good, you’ve just got wonderful sincere smile! If not - don’t force yourself, just feel what you feel!

I hate those McDonald’s waiters who learnt to show their teeth just to please clients. I hate teeth-exhibition show when two people get introduced to each other and smiling to each other as old friends! Don’t try to be better than you are and don’t try to please other people artificially. People feel and dislike insincerity!

Understand that pleasing other people all the time, agree in all, smiling to the person you dislike, will not give you any new friends! Instead, you’ll be perceived as weak and pliable person. Believe me; I’ve got this hard lesson at the past week.

Let’s do the following trick. Remember the person you dislike and smile to the mirror. Whom do you see? Guy or girl having a twisted smile? The same other people see, to which you bring that smile. Next, remember the person you love. You see, you don’t even need to force yourself - you are smiling without any tension!

I recommend you to give up advices of personal coaches telling you “smile always”! When I meet such coach shaking my hand and tensing his mouth like ill horse, I feel sick. Whether I tell funny story or talking seriously, they always smile and that makes me confused.

Insincere smile is like a curtain to the real you. Some person may not feel your insincerity and like you white teeth, however in the future he will realize that you are emotional liar. And when he realizes that, he’ll never want to be your friend.

I’ve experienced such attitude to me for years and couldn’t understand why it happened that some people liked me very much at the first meetings, being disappointed and breaking relations soon. Now I understand that the main reason was emotional mask, I didn’t want to take off. Even if I had bad mood or felt depressed, I tried to smile anyway. And such insincerity pushed away people from me.

Now I’m getting rid off insincerity and let my emotions drive my body. When doing that, I already feel how other people respect me more. After one month, when I completely transform myself, I’ll report you how my relations with other people changed! So, wait for the following posts regarding sincerity ;).

by Andrii Kovalchuk -
Friday, August 8, 2008
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