Every Day a Friday: How to Be Happier 7 Days a Week by Joel Osteen Read Free Book Online Page A

it. My earliest baby pictures show me smiling. My mother says for the longest time she wondered if I was up to something, but she finally decided it was just my nature!
    Years ago, I was in the mall with Victoria and she had picked out an outfit to buy. She was still shopping, though, so I offered to take it up to the line at the checkout counter. When I stepped in front of the salesclerk I smiled and said hello, just being friendly.
    The checkout lady smiled back. She was about to ring up the clothes when she stopped and said, “Hang on, I’ll be right back.” She went into the sales office and came back and said, “This is going on sale this weekend, and I have permission to give you the sale price right now.”
    I smiled even bigger.
    “Thank you so much,” I said.
    As she was folding the clothes to put them in the bag, she noticed this little part of the inside lining of one item had come undone.
    “This looks like a problem. Do you see that?”
    “Oh, yeah, that looks really bad,” I said.
    “Let me see what I can do,” she said.
    She headed back to the office and in a few minutes came back.
    “Okay, I can cut the price to half the sale price.”
    I thought,
Man, if I keep smiling, they may owe
me
money!
    Victoria said I should shop with her more often after that. I told her it all started with a smile. If I’d stood at the counter looking like an old grouch, I don’t believe the clerk would have gone out of her way to be good to me.

Add a Smile to Your Résumé
    I can still remember the first time Victoria ever smiled at me. I walked into her mother’s jewelry store and didn’t see her right away. I was looking at the watches, but then I looked up and Victoria flashed a 10-carat smile. Within a short time, she had a ring to match. (Well, almost!) I know smiles are contagious because she’s kept me smiling for more than twenty-five years.
    Wearing a smile can work wonders whether you are the buyer or the seller, including when you are selling yourself. I read that the Holiday Inn hotel chain was looking to fill five hundred new jobs. They interviewed five thousand people. They automatically disqualified any applicant who smiled less than four times during the interview.
    Smilers are workplace winners.
    Another study on smiles found that seeing a friend’s happy face has a greater impact on our moods than receiving a five-thousand-dollar raise. Did you know your smile is worth that much? After I read the results of that study I went around the church office smiling at the staff. “There’s
your
raise,” I said. “And there’s
your
raise, and there’s
your
raise.”
    Can you believe they told me they preferred cash? Even so, smilers are workplace winners.
    When Alexandra was born, I’d just stepped up to pastor our church and Victoria was helping me with all sorts of responsibilities. We needed a babysitter to help us take care of Alexandra during the day. Victoria and I talked with a half dozen candidates. Some were very qualified, with great referrals and strong credentials. We didn’t hire any of them.
    Instead, we hired a sixty-year-old woman without great referrals or an impressive résumé. She simply was as warm and sunny as a spring morning. She had a great smile and she flashed it throughout our interview.
    She was one of the best hires I’ve ever made. Over the years she filled our house with joy and laughter. She thought everything Alexandra did was funny. I thought I knew a thing or two about the power of a smile. She taught us even more. She taught us that a smile invites what it expresses: kindness, respect, friendliness, and caring.
    God gave us all a smile. Are you using yours? Is your joy being fully expressed? How much favor would you experience if you unleashed your full potential for happiness and joy?

Light the World
    The Scripture talks about believers representing God here on the earth. We are Christ’s ambassadors. If we’re to represent God properly, we should do it