{"id":3928,"date":"2022-08-10T13:29:04","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T13:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/observingothers.com\/?p=3928"},"modified":"2022-08-10T15:16:50","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T15:16:50","slug":"bringing-smiles-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/observingothers.com\/?p=3928","title":{"rendered":"Bringing Smiles Back"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"3928\" class=\"elementor elementor-3928\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-96dd144 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"96dd144\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-61031d5\" data-id=\"61031d5\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-9917f90 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"9917f90\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.6.4 - 13-04-2022 *\/\n.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#818a91;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#818a91;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border-radius:12px\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/4Fjz2sFoyFykvYoTeMhssq?utm_source=generator&#038;theme=0\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameBorder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-424ced6 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"424ced6\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><strong>Last spring I had a booth in a B2B trade show in Davis County. The marketing phrase I used was &#8220;Bringing Smiles Back&#8221;.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>The word &#8220;back&#8221; seems to indicate the smiles went somewhere. Maybe the smiles had just been hiding behind masks for two years. Maybe they disappeared because of inflation, a divisive election, an evil war, mass shootings, or a housing crisis.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>\u00a0These would all be very good reasons&#8211;reasons not to smile.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>\u00a0But what if I told you my booth was a glimpse of and a blast from my past?<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>\u00a0When I was seven, my father, Dr K, took me to the Salt Palace to see a booth he had set up. I had no idea what I was about to experience. When I turned the corner and saw his booth it took my breath away. There in all its glory and grandeur was a booth filled with objects as in pillows, a shower curtain, a huge area rug, a bedroom trash can, desk items and signage filled with little yellow smiley faces. Yellow smiles everywhere!<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>\u00a0His booth was twice the size of mine. Complete with a couch, a chair, and a lamp with a shade and, you guessed it, smiley faces on the lamp shade!<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>\u00a0So, I decided to bring his smile back. He is 84 now. He doesn&#8217;t remember much but when I paid him a visit and showed him my pics, he did, in fact, smile. A big cheesy grin!<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>His experiment back then, as a social psychologist, in the 70&#8217;s, was to see how many people actually smiled when they saw his booth. It had such an impact on me I would never forget it and some 40 years later I decided to bring it back.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>\u00a0So I found what I could, customized what I couldn&#8217;t and brought smiles back!<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>\u00a0Including two big yellow balls.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>\u00a0Later these two yellow balls ended up hanging out in my friend Alex\u2019s hospital room.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>They made the journey with me to visit my friend because the only reason they are smiling is because my good friend put those smiles on their faces.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>\u00a0That&#8217;s right, he printed the vinyl and slapped them on these mammoth inflated balls.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>\u00a0They joined me because that same friend recently suffered a massive stroke.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>\u00a0The doctor told me today that this type of stroke is the most deadly.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>\u00a0My friend is fortunate to have survived.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>\u00a0So I brought my two smiley friends to bring some smiles back to my friend and his family.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>\u00a0Two yellow smile balls to his hospital room to cheer him up and cheer him on.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>A few months later I was burnt in a propane tank explosion and fire.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>Wouldn\u2019t you know, one of the yellow smile balls Alex and I made showed up in my hospital room.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>Now, as Alex and I recover, we are making yellow smile balls for others to cheer them on and cheer them up!<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>We are two of the fortunate ones.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>We have a second chance.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>A new lease on life.<\/strong><\/p><p><strong>There is so much to smile about!<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last spring I had a booth in a B2B trade show in Davis County. The marketing phrase I used was &#8220;Bringing Smiles Back&#8221;. The word &#8220;back&#8221; seems to indicate the smiles went somewhere. Maybe the smiles had just been hiding behind masks for two years. Maybe they disappeared because of inflation, a divisive election, an evil war, mass shootings, or a housing crisis. \u00a0These would&#8230; <\/p>\n<p class=\"more\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/observingothers.com\/?p=3928\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcasts","category-podcast","is-cat-link-regular"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/observingothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/observingothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/observingothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observingothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observingothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3928"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/observingothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3975,"href":"https:\/\/observingothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928\/revisions\/3975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observingothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/observingothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observingothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observingothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}