6 May 2021 · 4 min
Scott reflects on how small acts of kindness have outsized impact, from letting someone out on a busy road to sending a coworker their favorite chocolate. He explains the "helper's high," the endorphin rush you get from doing something nice, and challenges listeners to do one kind thing daily.
Hi there, and welcome to this episode of Scott's Thoughts. We spend a lot of time talking about recognition in organizations, how we can recognize how well individuals are doing, and when they've done something good, we hold them up. But actually, on a day-to-day basis, there's something for me that probably came, I suspect, from my granny, which is way more powerful, and that's just about being nice. About doing a nice thing for somebody. And it came to me in a flash the other day when I was trying to reverse out of my drive onto what is a fairly busy main road. And I know you're not supposed to reverse onto busy main roads, but it's just the way our drive is, we kind of have to. And what happens is that generally, no matter how far I am into the middle of the road, people still insist on literally driving around me rather than just pausing for probably what would be 10 seconds just to let me out. And it struck me that societally, that's a pretty good reflection maybe sometimes of where we are, that we don't spend that 10 seconds or 20 seconds or 5 minutes doing a nice thing for somebody else. And it can make such a difference. When we think about this whole idea of remote working and back to the future of work, whatever we're going to next, that whole idea of maintaining connections with people and creating a really strong bond of belonging doing nice things can be a really, really important part of that. So, couple of thoughts that might help. Just pick up the phone, ring somebody. Hi, I was thinking of you. I thought I'd just give you a ring. How are you getting on? Because that person, probably every time their phone rings, is expecting it, during the day at least, to be a work call, is expecting it to be somebody asking them to do something, or somebody calling with feedback. Just calling up to speak and chat about them, can be a really, really powerful thing. What about a little random act of kindness? What about knowing that their favorite chocolate bar is a Dairy Milk or a Galaxy, putting one of those in an envelope and sending it to them? Like, the difference that would make for somebody opening that envelope would be phenomenal. And it's just that little 2 or 3-minute feeling that somebody cares about me that can make all the difference. Of course, these things can sometimes be forced, or they can feel forced. But maybe that's only in our minds. Maybe that's us overthinking the whole thing. And actually, somebody receiving that might be really, really, really pleased. It might really make their day. And of course, the one thing not to forget is that physiologically, when we do something nice for somebody else, we experience a thing called helper's high, where we get a little dump of endorphins because we've done that nice thing. You'll get it, you'll know it, that feeling when you put down the phone, having made that little phone call to say thanks to somebody, or well done, or I was just calling to say hi. That feeling we get, that little high, that's the endorphins racing around your system. And what a great thing to have happen to you as a result of doing something nice for somebody else. So that's my challenge for today and maybe for the rest of the week. Do something nice for somebody. It's so easy to think, "Ah, somebody else will do it," or, "I haven't got time," or, you know, "Nobody's done something nice for me today. Why should I do something nice for them?" Take the time to do a nice thing, and trust me, you will feel much, much better for it.
