Care to Care

A friend of a friend of mine once called Zappos.com, the internet shoe and clothing store, and asked to order a pizza. After a pause on the other end of the line, the sales associate responded “what kind of pizza are you looking for?” The friend described the pizza he was craving and the associate, after a few more questions, googled local pizza places, called one and connected the friend with a restaurant. He had successfully ordered a pizza through Zappos.com.

If you had been that sales associate, how would you have responded? Most of us would likely have said, “Uh, we don’t sell pizzas. We sell shoes,” and went on our merry way surfing the web or whatever it was we were doing, until the next call came in.

How truly extraordinary of that sales associate that she didn’t. How truly caring.

If there is one gift I would wish for every reader of this blog this year, it would be the gift of being caring. I am not talking about the big gestures of philanthropic donations, or cleverly executed gift ideas, although those are great, too. I am talking about walking around in your daily life caring about the people who cross your path. How they are doing, what they need, how you can make their day just a little bit better. Asking someone who looks lost if they need help, telling one of your coworkers something you admire about them, asking the cashier if she has fun holiday plans in the works. Go outside of the “job description” of your daily life and just plain-out care about the people in front of you.

Why is caring so important, aside from that it scored the friend his pizza? Caring means that you connect with other people. If there is one thing that I have found in my work as a coach, it is that connection brings happiness. Period. It really is that simple. The more connected you feel with the people around you, the happier you become; in order to connect, you must care.

Let’s face it, folks, we all know this is true. It has become so trite that writing a blog post about caring seems almost hum-drum. I say “almost” because the truth is, for as much as we acknowledge the importance of caring, we certainly don’t act on it as much as we could. “It’s not my responsibility to order that pizza!” So, consider this blog to be your better self reminding you to pull your focus off your own life and concerns and care more about those around you.

I challenge you to spend even one day doing five spontaneous caring acts and see how you feel. I’ll bet you that you will want to adopt this as a regular practice.

Let me leave you with one final story, from a business professor of mine at MIT, about how he factors in caring when choosing employees for his start-ups. Before the interview, he lays a piece of “junk” paper on the ground and then, during the interview, walks the candidate by the piece of paper. If the candidate stops to pick up the paper and put it in the recycling bin, they’ve made the first cut. It doesn’t take credentials, experience or expensive education to pick up that piece of paper; it takes caring. Cultivating caring will help us with people and in our career aspirations.

Where could you be more caring in your daily life? How do you think you will feel? Write a comment and help support your fellow care-ers. Bah-humbugs are welcomed, too!

Reprinted from The Daily Love

A blog by Dr. Samantha Sutton, VP and Senior Life Coach at the Handel Group.

Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/redefinity