"THANK YOU"

& SMILES

I remember that was one of the very first days I was in Spain to study for my first Masters degree. That day, my friends and I went to the enrollment office to register for our program.

We were so excited from the moment leaving the house because of thinking about studying in the new environment. As we arrived at the office, we approached the office staff and friendly said "Hi, how are you. We would like to register for our Masters program. Can you please help us?"

...1s...2s...3s...

We were met in silence.

The lady then said something in the Spanish language that we didn't have the capability to understand at that time.

As we didn't reply to her, she then made a sign that she couldn't help us and said "you don't speak Spanish, I cannot help you now". As she said, she called the next students queuing behind us.

We didn't know how to respond to it because our program was in English and we didn't expect that reaction.

I thought to myself - there would be at least a solution so I convinced her "We are sorry that we cannot speak Spanish yet, could you help us this time, could you ask your manager to allow to help us this time?"

The lady told us that she had to help students who could speak Spanish first and that I could ask her manager and her manager would say the same. She then pointed me to go to the manager's room so she could continue serving other students.

I went to the manager's room, smiled, and said "Hola. Gracias" (meaning Thank you), the manager's face turned to excitement and she said "Hola...(and many other sentences in Spanish)".

As she finished, I said "Gracias". She got excited and said "you could understand Spanish?" and she continued speaking. I nodded on the way and said "Gracias" on the way.

After some minutes, she paused and said "you only can say "Gracias?"".

I said "Si" (mean Yes), I smiled.

She then laughed "Yes, you can say Hola, Gracias, and Si". "Anyway, let me help you guys to register. Just because of your smiles and the "Gracias" for everything I said".

My friends couldn't stop laughing when hearing how did I say Gracias for everything the lady said but it worked, we got the support - thanks to Gracias - thanks to the power of THANK YOU.

Have you experienced a similar situation like this where a THANK YOU with a smile did a big help to you? And yes, making you feel happy and making others feel appreciated.

The University of Georgia recently conducted a survey on the subject of marital happiness and they found the benefits of saying 'Thank you':

The Thanker

· Produces positive emotional state

· Increases sense of well being

· Triggers ‘feel good’ hormones

The Thankee

· Feels higher levels of self-worth

· Triggers greater desire to help Thanker

· Triggers helpful behaviors toward others

· Appreciate being needed

· Feel more socially valued

Who will you say THANK YOU to today? (and also don't forget to thank you to yourself as you are spending time to develop you)