The Best Thing That Can Happen to You

Hola!

I love the photo that heads this post, because it shows the genuine joy of friends. Here I am with Ferran Cases, an anxiety trainer. The problems of the world and of oneself melt like a cube in hot water when there is someone with whom to laugh and share kind words.

Success manuals often forget how important joy and kindness are. Influenced by models of bitter achievers like Citizen Kane, we forget that nowadays the most intelligent and successful people know how to make others feel good. In fact, that ability has helped them very often on their way.

It is impossible to find good collaborators or motivate anyone from complaint, contempt or indifferent silence. If you treat a cook badly, he will spit in your soup when you are not looking at him. If you do not recognize and congratulate someone for their work, they will work from apathy and without effort. And, as soon as they can, they will go to work elsewhere.

Being kind and loving to others pays off.

Of the hundreds of interviews that I did as a journalist, the people who treated me best were the ones who had achieved the most success.

I remember being in the office of Lluís Bassat, who at that time headed the most important advertising agency in Spain. He not only dedicated a whole hour to me, but he also was interested in my life and, always smiling, at the end of the meeting he congratulated me on the interview. It made me feel good and, although I have not seen him since, every time I think of him I do so with love and gratitude.

In one of the alternative shows that we organize at home one Sunday a month, a young Catalan singer named Magalí Sare once performed a concert. Her song Venim a aquest món (We come to this world) sums up beautifully what I am telling. Translated into English, it says:

We come to this world to leave / but the best thing that can happen to you / is that people laugh when you arrive / and that people cry when you leave.

That’s right, what a beautiful and successful philosophy of life.

Happy week and thanks for staying here!

Francesc