Health Tip #1 : Your Smile is Your Best Asset

     “Smile, it is the key that fits the lock of everybody's heart.” 

                                                                        - Anthony J. D’Angelo

Your smile makes a huge difference not only in your life but also to the lives of those around you. Yesterday I was reminded of this truth in a powerful way during a situation that happened with one of our clients in the community pharmacy where I have the privilege to add value in people's journey to healthier and happier lives. 

Let me first set the stage to the "day to day activities" in a community pharmacy before I share with you this story and its lessons. 

Practising in a retail community pharmacy , where the vast majority of prescription and nonprescription (OTC) medications are prescribed, dispensed, and administered , position us, pharmacy staffs, as the most accessible medication experts to play a major role in ensuring safe and appropriate medication use in outpatients.

Unlike physician offices, patients do not make appointments at community pharmacies to fill their prescriptions. Patients may call or walk into the pharmacy at any time and request new or refill prescriptions. Many pharmacies also have a drive-through window for prescription drop-off and pick-up. Patients have an expectation that they will not have to wait very long to get their prescriptions filled especially with our current millennial trend of “fast and instant everything”. 

Similarly, physicians or other health practitioners who call the pharmacy to prescribe medications or ask a question expect to be able to speak with the pharmacist or other pharmacy staff right away. 

In addition we spend considerable time addressing third-party payment / insurance issues: More than 93% of all prescriptions are paid for by third-party insurers. These prescriptions are adjudicated online and in real time prior to the prescription being dispensed. During the adjudication process, we engage with third-party insurers' guidelines on required formulary selections and prior authorization protocols. 

When the third-party insurer denies a prescription claim, we must stop our workflow, identify the reason for the denial, and contact the physician's office to get the prescription changed and dispensed. In the pharmacy, we can spend up to 20% of time addressing insurance problems for our patients. As a result, we are generally unable to predict the volume and complexity of our daily work. 

Thus, in my day-to-day activities of taking care of patients and filling prescriptions, I interact with so many people in person and over the phone. Thus, some time the environment may look chaotic, my smile and the unshakable joy in my inner spirit has been an asset to ensure our patients are served in a timely and safe way. 

Back to yesterday story, while helping one of our clients to resolve a claim, he started vigorously cursing at me using all sort of ugly words during a very busy time of the day and holding a very long line even after I explained to him how the situation will be resolved. I kept my smile and repeating to myself this quote by Sri Chinmoy : 

“Smile, smile, smile at your mind as often as possible. Your smiling will considerably reduce your mind’s tearing tension.” 

When he was done with his yelling, I just smiled and asked him “ Is there anything else I can do for you Mr.…?” And don’t think this was one of those cliché customer service talk , this genuinely came from my heart and my smile and body language expressed it. However, he responded by walking away and started cursing and complaining again. I smiled to the next patient and said “ I will help the next guest in line . She walked to the counter and I gave her my best asset, the smile, while asking her if she was having a good day. Her facial expression was in disbelief since she just testify the harsh treatment that I received. 

Approximately twenty minutes later our unhappy patient came back and walked calmly to me, lean on the counter and in a very quiet friendly voice started to apologize to me and then thank me for the service and added “ Always keep your smile beautiful lady, it is so refreshing in this fake world” and he then walked away.

What ? Did he just called me Beautiful lady after throwing at me the other B*** adjective a couple of minutes ago?

Immediately, this came on my mind: 

“ Let your smile change the world but don't let the world change your smile “ - Conor Franta

Let your positive attitude and your beautiful soul effect a change to people all around you. But do not let bad influence from people around you affect your positive attitude.

You must be the one to affect people of your positive character. Or teach people to learn to be good and you must not be the one to be taught of their bad attitude. 

A good person cannot easily affect people around, but a bad influence is easily taken. People are smoothly magnetized to bad deeds, that is the truth about it. So be firm. Do not let the world change your good character. 

Is your joy based entirely on circumstances? Are you happy because things are going well with you? These are just happy feelings.

Joy is An Unshakable Stability In Our Inner Spirit

The kind of stability I had even when going through the atrocities of war from age fourteen, seeing friends and family members being killed, experiencing rape being used as a weapon of war in my home country the Democratic republic of Congo. 

With Joy being my strength, I write my own story of Happiness everyday in an intentional way. 

Let You Smile change the World- Not The World Change your smile

Always remember that when you loose your joy, you loose your strength.