Dear Sabrina,

Read on, or listen to the AUDIO of today’s newsletter, here.

My dogs (glamour shot, below) have superpowers. Everywhere they go, these two little pugs, people smile. Simply by being who they are, by walking their wobbly walks and proudly wielding their little underbites, they attract Human Beings to come to them, wherever they are. Walking them down the street is like walking down the street with a couple of very small celebrities.

They are magnetic.

Occasionally, when the spirit moves them, my dogs flip the script and theywalk up to total strangers.

Then, in the ultimate exercise of pug-to-human mind control, they flop their little bowling ball bodies down at their new friends’ feet, bellies up: a clear and dramatic instruction to The Big Humans to bend down and get to petting.

This strategy works approximately 100% of the time.

Pictured: Aiko and Sumiko Nelson (collectively “The Girls”) living their best lives in Carmel Valley

You and I may not have an underbite like The Girls do. But we do have a superpower like theirs.

As I sat in the window of my favorite cafe, writing, the other day, I played this game with every person who passed. I’d meet their eye if I could, through the plate glass, and just turn on my thousand-watt smile.

I tried it on the men who looked like they might not have a place to live, and I tried it on the bearded tattooed dudes with grommets in their ears. I tried it on businessmen and mean-looking old ladies.

Without exception, I got them all to smile. As they smiled, one by one, I remembered everything I’d read about what a smile does to your brain and your biochemistry. As they smiled, I envisioned the physical and energetic chain reaction I had triggered by smiling at them in the first place.

The muscular shift in their faces. The reduction of cortisol in their bloodstream. The slight reduction in their blood pressure.

The increase in their energy and their perception of what’s possible for them, that day. The increase in their creativity and their productivity.

I thought about the snowball effect I might have kicked off, whereby they might be nicer to their employee or their kid or partner. The fact that, simply by virtue of having a smile on their face, they are likely to be perceived differently by others. Perceived as more likeable. And more competent.

Then I thought about the increased likelihood that they would still be smiling when they passed the next person on the street, and that the smile contagion would continue, and the chain reaction that could trigger in the next person’s body.

As quiet as it’s kept, your smile is one of your superpowers.

So today, first turn your smile onto yourself. Turn your smile on, and turn it inward. Smile and turn your chemistry and your cells into collaborative components, all working together for your highest good today—for your expansion, for your joy, for harmony in your relationships with others.

For your calm and clarity. Your productivity and your energy.

As you sit and smile with yourself today, keep in mind this observation from biochemist Sondra Barrett, who wrote Secrets of Your Cells:

“Our cells are more than just fortuitous arrangements of chemicals,” she explains. “They are a community of trillions of sentient entities cooperating to create a sanctuary for the human soul.”

Now. I know. You’re a Very Important Businessperson. You want people to take you seriously. I’m not saying you have to go about beaming all the time. I mean, unless you just want to. (Okay, fine. I pretty much do. It just works for me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

What I am saying is that for the cost of a smile (meaning: zero dollars, pounds or Euros), you can instantly transform your physical body into an sanctuary, a respite, a refuge from the toxicity and chaos of the day, for your actual, literal soul.

And I’m saying that for that same exact price (still, zero), by turning your smile on the people you meet during any given day, you can open that refuge to others, hang out your refuge’s shingle and invite them to hang out and stay a while, with you, in this soul sanctuary you’ve created.

And if that’s not a superpower, then I guess I don’t know exactly what is.

Head up + heart out,

TNN

Sign up for my Transformation Tuesday newsletter, here: http://www.taranicholle.com/transformation-tuesday