If you can make someone smile then you can make someone like you. If your challenge is to make everyone smile that you meet then you are on the road to making a lot of new friends and bringing joy into a lot of people's lives. If you want to persuade someone to smile then you need to know exactly why people smile in the first place.

Is smiling an involuntary reaction to a positive stimulus? Or is smiling just something that we have learned to do when we are happy? We just have to look at young children to realize that smiling is quite natural and instinctive. Children smile before they can talk when they find something funny. The great thing about little children's smiles is that they are never forced or fake, but instead they are always genuine and they can instantly make you smile in return.

Being genuine is one huge technique to remember when you are trying to persuade someone to smile. Their reaction needs to be to something they find really funny or smile worthy, and that vibe will not come from a fake attitude no matter how hard you try. They may give you a polite smile just so you will go away, but the feelings of liking you will not be attached to that smile.

How can you spot a fake smile? First of all their eyes will not match up with their smile. Their eyebrows will either be raised as they smile or look similar to boredom. A genuine smile involves a slight closure of the eyes with a little gleam of pleasure.

You can also spot a genuine smile by the mouth opening a little bit or a lot. A fake smile is normally tight-lipped and only the corners of the mouth turn up.

But perhaps the most obvious aspect of a genuine smile is that it will make you smile in return. A fake smile will automatically make you question their sincerity and give you feelings of confusion rather than joy. This is why you always want to be sincere with your smiles.

Another thing to remember when trying to persuade someone to smile is that everyone has a different sense of joy and what makes them happy. If you try to tell a racist joke that your buddies love to a person who finds racism extremely offensive, then you are not going to make them smile. In fact, you will make the like you much less and possibly never smile around you. So keep your humor and words about common interests and ideas that most people share and leave your opinions and ego out of the equation.

One of the best ways to persuade someone to smile is to tell them how great they look with a smile on their face. Everyone enjoys being complimented and remembers the positive aspects of the comments they receive, so if you tell them that their smile can light up the room then they are going to want to light up the room more often!

If you run into one of those people who never smile at anything you can try telling them that there smile would be much better than the normal look they give. While it may offend them at first, you will have given them an insight into how the world perceives them. In fact, they might not even know that they look so miserable all the time.

I remember that when I was younger I was embarrassed to show my teeth when I smiled, so I always gave a tighter lipped smile that ensured my teeth would not show. One day I smiled at someone at work only to be asked why I was always frowning as it was very unwelcoming. I was blown away! Here I thought I was lighting up the world with my toothless smile and instead I actually appeared to be frowning everywhere I went! Needless to say I practiced my full tooth smile in the mirror after that and was never accused of frowning again.

And the best way to persuade someone to smile is to be a positive and uplifting person. Those are the people who always make others feel better about themselves and feel better about their day just for running into them. So work on feeling that joy inside yourself and you will naturally spread it around - and see a lot more smiles wherever you go!