Ron Gutman wrote the book on smiling, and why we all ought to be doing it more often!

The organizer of TEDxSilicon Valley and author of Smile: The Astonishing Powers of a Simple Act, shares incontrovertible evidence that smiling impacts our success, our well-being and our longevity. He also cites that people who smile are perceived as more likeable, more courteous, and more competent!

For example, in 2010 Wayne State University conducted a study that looked at the baseball cards of major league baseball players pre-1950. They found that the span of the players’ smiles affected how long they would live. Players who didn’t smile lived an average of 72.9 years, whereas players with beaming smiles lived an average of nearly 80 years.

Smiling is contagious. It’s very hard to frown at someone who is smiling at you. Uppsala University in Sweden did a study on this. It’s a matter of our DNA – something we picked up through our evolution. Add to that, an authentic smile gives you the same feeling you’d get if you received $25,000!

Ask any one of my clients and he or she will tell you I ask them to smile. Smile when you first step in front of your audience, smile at appropriate times throughout your speech, smile when you close. But only if you want to be perceived as more likeable, more courteous and more competent! Someone I’d want to do business with. Oh, and you live longer.

Check out Gutman’s TED talk at http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_gutman_the_hidden_power_of_smiling.html