How are you?

Great question to give a great unexpected answer in a negative world. Usually people would give you that look on their face, you know that so & so one, and then mutter something like fine,good,not bad or alhamdulilah( Thank Allah) in a low tone.

You rarely see the special people that light your day and say GREAT! Never felt better! Amazing! Wonderful! Superb! all I see or hear are stamped responses, as if you are calling their mobile mailbox with that pre-recorded message.

The way you answer a question like this can mean the world to you and the person asking. Imagine the dialogue after your Greatness answer? Sometimes all that is needed to get someone through the day and face tomorrow is that one bit of positive tone and answer you give her. She will take it and run, just like when you see a little boys eyes light up at the sight of candy when he knows he can’t have some.

I was talking to someone who went to this lame selling training seminar at the chamber or commerce lately, and one of the subjects that she debated with the presenter was the fact that the caller can tell if you are smiling while answering the call. The presenter said the dumbest thing i could imagine, how can he see you? she replied its a feeling you dumb ass( without the ass part).

As I walk through the sideways and alleys of the work world I see faces of people that have got the whole look thing wrong. I see faces that are actually perfecting the grumpy look, trying ever so hard to make a look so UN-APPROACHABLE, you could place their face on a big billboard and write the words” Have a bad day”.

I seem to laugh and smile at these people to make their life miserable, I can imagine him passing by me as I smile” what on earth is he smiling for? can’t he see my perfected screwed up, frowning, angry,ridiculous face!?”

Sometimes we affect people that we will never see again in our life, they don’t know you, you don’t, and will never know them, but they exist, you make eye contact with them, and you have a split second to impress them,that’s it, a split second, nothing more, nothing less.

Do you stay numb? do you frown?do you look away? do you yawn and start a contagious yawning session from LA to Tokyo? or do you just put on that lovely smile of yours?Ever wondered if people would say good bye and then say something like” take bad care of yourself, have a bad day, may everything you do result in total sadness” I think with the attitude we have, people will start to do the opposite and start smiling!

• The average cost of a meal at Mcdonalds is around $5-
• The average cost of a cup of joe is around a buck fifty.
• The average cost of a newspaper is less than a dollar.
• The average cost of a phone call is in cents.
• The average coast of movie ticket is what? less than 8 to 10 dollars?
• The average cost of a soda is less than a dollar.

The average cost of a smile is : “ Zero” “Zilch” “0” Nada” “Sifr” “ Wala shay” Balash” nothing, it costs you nothing and the effects are simply PRICELESS. Invest in smiling for only 21 days and let me know how you feel.

Have a GREAT, WONDERFUL, AMAZING, BEAUTIFUL day everyday, for the rest of your life

Mamdooh Al-Radadi

me@mamdoohalradadi.com

“Hey teacher, leave them kids alone, all in all your just another brick in the wall”. That was Pink Floyd ages ago, and they still rock with their words. Who wants to be another brick in a wall? apparently many!

What’s another brick in the wall? well if we looked at it carefully, we find out that to make a wall (you know like the one Humpty Dumpty fell off) you need many bricks cemented together to make your wall. The brick were talking about here is the lifeless form many people/zombies take for a way of life. They choose to disappear in the crowd, instead of stand out, they choose to camouflage themselves instead of brightly show off their colors.

The problems with bricks are many. They tend to be just sitting there, as if waiting for the right bulldozer to knock them and break them one day. They kind of hang loose, with the other bricks. Some were taught and brought up to be bricks in life, never teach your kid or loved ones how to become another brick. Bricks are people with brick everything  including their brains. They are the normal Tom, Dick & Harries of the world.

These bricks can be nothing to everyone all their life. They take one shape and just stay like that forever.Bricks are born, fed, taught, disciplined in the school of Bricks, married to other bricks( or higher grade precasts), designed to find brick jobs( the ones you can stay 30+ years and then die in), Spread the love around the globe by producing more brick brains for the rest of us.

Bricks are stubborn animals, disguised as the rest of us, one way thinkers, manipulators, change fighters, morale killers, chronic complainers about any subject in life, even complaining. They can actually complain about complaining and how it is losing its fashion statement, stating that complaining is a thing of the past, complaining is dying they say.

Bricks are hard to remove, as they appear weak as one, but hard headed and stronger by the bunch. They arrive in single shots, and kind of identify other man made bricks along the way. As soon as they identify, they solidify together, and off they go to find more bricks to complete their walls. Their walls that keep out change, progress, ideas, movements, prosperity,growth,learning and all the other nice things in life.

How to know you are a brick:

• If you tend to never hear anything but your own words, and yes they are music to your ears. You don’t need any more information, their tunes suck!
• If you resist change in everything around you and keep saying this is how it is done.
• If you never seem to get along with any other living form except people who share your wisdom.
• If you never read a book in the last 2 years or so.
• If you hate new models and ideas, and can’t wait to destroy them and go back to yoru comfort zone.
• If you think its the end of the world when you get fired or are replaced with a younger dynamic brick buster.
• If you still think the world is not round, and man never landed on the moon, and airplanes are flown by the powers of devils and demons( trust me I know a guy who works in an airline company who swears to that, physics and aeronautics never passed through his brain I guess).
• If you always think that the people who have more than you are all thieves and under the table takers..
• If you only travel to preset destinations based upon the recommendations of other bricks.

The list is long and I don’t have time to find each one of those brick theories. The message is clear, to all you non brick readers. The message is also a wake up call for everyone who is losing track and becoming another brick.

Bricks will be bricks, just that, nothing else. One day a young teen will come and spray some graffiti all over your face and you will only sit there and complain,another day a big fat bulldozer will come and smash your whole face and friends and there will be nothing else to do.

One day is too soon for you,” Just can’t wait” for the rest of us!

Embrace proper change, it will happen with or without you, so CHOOSE to enjoy journeys instead of complaining.

Mamdooh Al-Radadi

me@mamdoohalradadi.com