Welcome back to the podcast where we ask the question, what makes you happy? Our guest today brings kindness to the world through random acts of kindness. Spearheading the Kind Effect and her acts of kindness have recently been featured in the Woman's Day Magazine. We have with us today Megan Snedden from San Diego, United States of America.

It is a pleasure to have us have you with us. Meg, how are you? I am fabulous now that I'm talking to you. Thanks for having me.

I'm super excited to share all things that make you happy and talk about the kindness effect as well. Would you introduce that to us first? It started, I guess, as an effort for me to create more positive content for people to view. I have a journalist background, and I just noticed how much of a downer the day to day news circuit was.

And I was thinking if people watched more positive content around kindness, maybe they would be encouraged to do random acts of kindness themselves. And that just kind of morphed into this thing on the topic of what makes me happy, it's morphed into this thing in my life that also brings me a tremendous amount of joy and well being as I continue to share that message with people. Absolutely.

And what I really like about your message is we've had so many guests on our show mention that they find joy or happiness in serving others, and you can pretty much do that with your random acts of kindness, can't you? Yeah, you can. And I think what I like the most about random acts of kindness is this engagement with strangers, the element of a surprise, and also just that it's such a joy inducing activity, and yet it's so simple. It's something that you can integrate into your daily life with a lot of ease.

And that's when I started doing more research and reading on the effects of kindness, that when we do engage in random acts of kindness, we get these bits of endorphins that they call the happiness high or the helpers high. Sorry. And that we do get this release of oxytocin and other feel good chemicals that make us feel connected to others.

So what would your advice be, Megan, for our listeners and how they can get started with the random acts of kindness? Is there a really low barrier that isn't super confrontational? Sure. As well, because some people might have a little bit of anxiety and might not want to have much confrontation with someone. Yeah, myself included.

I'm nervous every time I do a random act of kindness. But honestly, if we're talking low, low barriers, I think a compliment is a great place to start. Imagine what life would be like if you set the challenge up.

Like ten days of compliments. It's just magical. Even if it's not just a stranger, like, even if you just speak to your partner or a close friend or someone at work, you're going to catch them off guard all of a sudden, say, hey, no, I really appreciate what you're doing.

You're working really hard. If you've never said that to someone before, they're going to what? And their day is different. Your day is going to be different.

Seriously, I love that. I mean, imagine being in the office at work and just calling somebody out on something and saying, hey, I noticed you put this report together. Like, you did a really good job on that.

Now, for those who are very nervous and let's say they've never complimented someone before, let's get a word by word compliment we can give someone. Obviously, it has to actually apply, but what's the easiest compliment you can give someone? I think expressing gratitude and actually vocalizing the gratitude and making eye contact and saying, thank you so much for doing that is really effective or even as simple as like, you look really nice today. Yeah, it it feels nice, doesn't it? Like, in my stomach, I feel that, like these little butterflies.

It feels good, really good to say, this has been absolutely phenomenal. Thank you so much for sharing all things that make you happy. We really appreciate it.