I just came back from Starbucks and I’m in a most joyous state. For one thing, I’ve got my grande hazelnut coffee sitting right next to me. But more importantly, I was just reminded of how far being NICE gets you.

When you’re nice everyone around you is happier. That means better friendships, better karma, and most times better service ;) Plus, it’s just a great way to live!

Being nice also saves you both time and money. Today it was Starbucks that rewarded us for this, but other days it’s Potbellys, Best Buy, I could go on and on. When it comes down to it, all stores are run by people. You treat them right, and they’ll return the favor. With that in mind, here are the 3 lessons Starbucks reminded me of today:

1. When you’re nice, you get stuff FAST

Every morning I roll up to Starbucks w/ the same colleague of mine, and every morning we smile like crazy and gossip with the barista de jour. We’re naturally pretty happy people to begin with, but when we realized we were getting our drinks handed to us before even hitting the registers, we made sure to keep it up ;) After all, time is money right?

2. When you’re nice, you get stuff FREE.

Small talk costs you nothing, but you’d be amazed at the stuff you get for free in return. I’d say we get a free coffee or the “employee discount” at least once a month, all depending on the barista ringing us up. It’s not like we’re friendly for this reason in particular, but it’s def. a nice way of saying “thanks for not being that asshole right behind you”. (btw, if you rock the Starbucks Gold Card you also get mad discounts like 10% off your purchases…and no I’m not getting paid to say that. I’m just a happy customer passing on the good word!)

3. When you’re nice, people are nice to you.

As if the first 2 points didn’t convince you of this already, niceness is contagious. The more you spread it around, the better your surroundings get :) This applies to your work, your friendships, and especially your love life! While it’s true girls usually fall for the bad boys at first (don’t even try and convince me otherwise! haha…), nice guys DO work it out in the end. And in my final attempt to connect this lesson here to Starbucks, let’s just say people have been known to collect quite a few phone numbers of romantic nature from that place ;)

When all is said and done, being nice rules the world – especially in the service industry. Being a manager of customer service myself, I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to have courteous people on the other end of the transaction. I always remind people that YOU are coming to THEM to get something (usually help), so the nicer you are the more help you’re going to get. Go out of your way to treat employees fairly, and they’ll be sure to reward you for it.