I’ve dreamed of this moment for years without realising it. I’m watching my five year old daughter take her first dance class and I’m proud of her. Even though she doesn’t know anyone and doesn’t know what she’s doing, she seems happy. But it’s more than that.

Even as she literally trips, stumbles and flails around the dance studio, she exudes confidence. How can it be?

Watching her I can see that if you’re not prepared for something and have to wing it you can still win if you’re confident, outgoing and happy.

Those three qualities – confidence, friendliness and happiness are all you really need for a good life and to do well at anything. In fact, the only thing you need to do is SMILE.

That’s what my daughter’s doing because it’s all she can do! She can’t high kick, do the splits or strike a pose like some of the other kids but she can smile and that seems to be good enough. The teacher smiles back and the other kids are crowding round quizzing her as if she was Brittney Spears.

Smiling is so powerful. It’s mesmerising, inspiring, motivating and uplifting both to smile and to be smiled at. People who smile attract other smiley people, they’re instantly surrounded by other happy, confident people and of course that rubs off on them too. Smiling is a mutually beneficial cycle for all parties.

Why don’t people smile more?

Smiling is free, it’s easy and it’s fun. But look around you and you’ll see that the world is divided into two types of people – the smilers and the non-smilers. If you want to be in the smiley group it’s easy, just smile and join them, they’ll be happy to have another smiler in the group.

We all have to do something for the first time, something we’ll probably mess up. We all suffer from anxiety. We all feel at times that we’re not good enough. But look at the people that inspire us most like Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Oprah – they’ve all suffered terrible hardships in life and carried on smiling anyway. They wouldn’t have gone on to become the magnetic personalities they are today if they’d sat around moping with long faces and a defeatist attitude.

Put a smile on your face and you’ll come out a winner. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing to begin with you’ll hook up with people who do. A smile will introduce you to friendly people who want to help you and will inspire you to succeed.

A smile will show people that you’re a winner even if you’re not convinced of it yourself. A smile will lift your spirits and confidence even when you’re feeling low.

It’s amazing that a five year old can instinctively know that a smile’s a key ingredient for success.

My sub-conscious dream

Before my daughter was born I already had two sons. When I was pregnant for the third time I was secretly hoping to have a baby girl although having three boys would have been amazing too. My daughter was born at home with no painkillers and by the time I’d been through that experience I really didn’t care what I’d given birth to.

The fact that I now had a daughter as well as two sons didn’t hit me until a few weeks later when I was reading the Sunday papers and saw an advert for a ballet that reduced me to tears. For the first time in my life I could look forward to going to the ballet with my daughter in the years to come.

We haven’t been to a ballet yet but seeing my daughter take her first dance class was a golden moment. I’m not expecting her to be a prima donna ballerina or a backing dancer for Lady Gaga, but I hope dance will provide her with a lifelong outlet for fun and creativity any time she hears some music that takes her fancy.

Most of all I hope she can always keep her winning attitude and keep smiling. If you want to succeed in life don’t forget to smile while you go about it. A smile will take you far.

Have you got a story about the power of smiling to share?

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