Smile at 10

Give yourself guidelines for how you'll interact with people

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is to smile at anyone in your orbit when
you are within ten feet of them, and to greet

(00:25):
anyone within five feet. This rule of thumb can prompt
you to be friendly without having to overthink what is appropriate.
Today's tip, like some others, recently, comes from Robert Sutton
and Huggy Rowse book The Friction Project. In this book,

(00:46):
they share a tip from the nonprofit health system Oxner Health.
According to the authors, at Oxner Health, employees are expected
to make eye contact and smile at a colleague or
patient anytime they are within ten feet of each other,
and to say hello to anyone within five feet. Now.

(01:08):
When I first heard all this, I found it a
little strange. Does anyone really need a company policy that
is so specific? But I know that a lot of
organizations expect staff to be friendly to colleagues and customers,
but don't spell out what that means. We all come

(01:29):
to work with different backgrounds and different temperaments and different expectations.
Giving a general guideline means that people don't have to
guess what being friendly would look like. As long as
no one goes overboard about this, like I sincerely hope
people aren't being disciplined for not smiling until eight feet

(01:53):
or something like that, a rule of thumb like this
can be helpful. You might consider adopting such a rule
of thumb in your own life too. I know I
spend an unfortunate amount of bandwidth when I am out
running or walking wondering when it is appropriate to wave

(02:13):
to a fellow jogger, and then maybe doing it too
early and they miss it, and then I either have
to do it again or they think I'm being rude,
and you can see why I sometimes wind up on
the treadmill out of sheer awkwardness. But a rule like
this takes the guesswork out of these things. Whenever you

(02:34):
are somewhere that there is an assumed or actual relationship,
like at work, school, your house of worship, the dog park,
you can smile at ten and greet at five. This
might nudge you to be just a little friendlier than
you otherwise would be, which will probably make you and

(02:54):
those in your community feel a little more connected. Of course,
if if smiling at ten feet and greeting at five
seems a bit over eager or two outgoing for you.
You could adapt the distances to fit your circumstances. Maybe
if you are a little more reserved, or you're in
a more reserved and solemn organization, you don't need to

(03:17):
actively greet people. You can just smile and nod. Or
maybe you spend your days somewhere where full on hugs
are demanded anytime you are within twenty feet of someone.
I don't know, but whatever specifics are right for you,
or for your team at work, or for your family too,

(03:37):
I think it is wise to have routine for how
you will interact with other people when you cross paths
with them. You can add a bit of automatic connection
and positivity to your days and we can all appreciate that.
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and

(04:00):
here's to making the most of our times. Thanks for
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

(04:25):
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