This post is not about business, leadership, money or growth.

It's about kindness.

People are scared

Conflict is growing

Politics is changing

I am hearing that people are worried about the rise of far right political parties here and abroad, but I think,for these parties to rise, they must be getting increased support. People must be buying what they are selling, there seems to be a discontent on both the left and the right.

My own (anecdotal) observation is that people seem rushed, busy, stressed. I see a distinct lack of hope.

In troubling times it can feel that protecting ourselves and those we love is the most important thing. Although that may feel safe, it’s probably not the solution we need. Doing this creates a lot of little siloed groups, rather than a strong society. Siloed groups feel safe, you know them, you understand them. But is that the world you want to live in, does it really protect you from what’s outside?

Is it all just hopeless then. Nah, not at all.

Each of us holds more power than we know. We all hold the power of kindness.

Kindness can take many forms and help many people but what I have learned is the person it helps most, is you.

Choosing kindness over fear may not be easy. If it was easy, it wouldn't be so precious nor effective. It is something to be worked towards, a goal worth pursuing.

At Smart Happy Money, we decided to show kindness through our IMPACT program. We quarantine 2% of revenue for causes that create positive impact to those around us, our country and our world.

We decided to do this during the hardest period of our professional lives. The full story of this is for another article, but in short we had a person doing everything they could to destroy us.

Choosing kindness is how we made it through.

We could have gone after the person. We had the legal right. We could have tried to publicly shame them, but even in the midst of our own troubles we chose to act professionally, even towards them, and we locked in kindness to all others around us. Kindness to this person was shown by our restraint (sometimes, what you choose not to do is a bigger kindness than what you choose to do) Kindness to others was shown by our actions, our words and our launch of IMPACT.

We could have let the stress and pressure tear us apart, we could have retreated to our little silo. But by choosing kindness we chose to push through and keep building, building something that matters. It gave us hope, mission and purpose.

So now, while things are looking a little shaky around the world, let's choose to lock in kindness.

An extra smile to the checkout worker, being polite to the server at the restaurant. Extra quality time with those you love. Your kindness doesn't have to be big. You don't need to sell all of your possessions and donate to the poor (although, you could).

Start with something small and go from there.

Kindness is a remedy for the negativity that we are currently seeing. A little bit of kindness can change someone's day, and beyond that, who knows.

Choose to be kind, especially when the opposite seems much easier.

Be kind

Go well

Ben