The Daily Optimist
April 5  ·  Legacy

What's the Simplest Rule for How to Treat Every Person You Meet?

Leave everyone better than you found them.
— Travis Hellstrom
30 Truths That Have Changed My Life

You don't need a strategy for this. You don't need a framework or a program or a plan. You just need one rule: leave everyone better than you found them.

Some people will test this. They'll be difficult, distracted, tired, rude. The rule still applies — especially then. Because the people who most need someone to leave them better are usually the ones who make it hardest.

This rule doesn't require a grand gesture. Often it's just a question asked and actually listened to. A name remembered. A door held. A real compliment given. The kind of thing that takes ten seconds and stays with someone for ten years.

The compounding math of this is staggering. One person leaves ten people better. Those ten leave a hundred better. And on it goes, invisibly, unreportably — the best kind of movement there is.

The invitation: Who did you leave better today — and who's still waiting?

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