A friend passed along a Coca-Cola ad done by a Belgian advertising agency with the tagline “Happiness starts with a smile.” The commercial takes place on a cramped subway as people are boarding the train after a long day at work. Everyone is silent and keeping to themselves. It is not a joyous occasion.

Suddenly, the camera focuses on a hired actor who randomly starts smiling while looking at his tablet, then begins laughing more and more. Everyone on the subway takes notice and starts smiling and laughing.

Smiling is a bonding agent. It builds bridges to other people around us. It keeps us from remaining aloof and separate from one another. It just goes to show you that smiling and laughing are contagious.

I read in Self magazine that 94% of Americans polled said they noticed a person’s smile during a first encounter. People were less likely to notice others’ bodies or eyes.

There are so many benefits to smiling and laughing. A genuine smile and laugh increase the production of serotonin, the happy hormone, and dopamine -- feel-good endorphins that slow cortisol production and diminish feelings of stress, anxiety and depression.

Years ago, I saved an article from USA Today explaining that we learn in childhood “people skills” such as listening, remembering names and smiling. It’s amazing how people’s moods and words are misjudged because they look too serious. A smile shows that you like yourself, you like your current place in the world and you’re happy with the people you’re interacting with.

You should commit to making others smile every day of the week. The first Friday of October was designated World Smile Day for just that purpose. It was created by commercial artist Harvey Ball, creator of the ubiquitous “smiley face,” who believed that all of us should devote one day each year to smiles and kind acts.

Smiling and laughing provide a workout. One smile uses more than 16 muscles. During a bout of laughter, the body increases its oxygen intake, which is just as good as taking a few cleansing breaths. That’s why smiling and laughing are my favorite exercises.

Researchers in Germany instructed a group of people to laugh on demand to measure their core muscles. The data showed that laughing enhanced core muscles as much as -- and sometimes more than -- when those subjects did back lifts or crunches.

Want another reason to laugh? Results from a California study published by the AARP showed the positive impact that laughter has on short-term memory. Participants were separated into two groups. The first group watched a 20-minute comedy video, while the second group sat in silence. Both groups were given memory recall tests before and after the 20-minute period. The group that watched the comedy video scored much higher.

Even if you don’t have anything to laugh about, you should force yourself to laugh. This is the finding of a study done at the University of Illinois that shows how smiling can influence your mood and outlook. Researchers divided people into three groups to observe their reactions to a humorous cartoon. The first group was asked to hold a pen in their hands. The second group was asked to put the pen between their lips, forcing a frown on their face. The third group held the pens between their teeth, forcing them to smile. Guess which group found the cartoon to be much funnier -- the third group.

The publication Bits & Pieces surmises from the AARP article that “If you smile, you’ll find something to laugh about. If you laugh, you’ll exercise your core, take in more oxygen and feel happy ... Laugh and be well.”

At least six people have taken credit for this little poem, but it’s worth sharing in any event.

"Smiling is infectious; you catch it like the flu.

"When someone smiled at me today, I started smiling, too.

"I passed around the corner, and someone saw my grin,

"When he smiled, I realized, I’d passed it on to him.

"I thought about that smile, then I realized its worth.

"A single smile, just like mine, could travel around the Earth.

"So if you feel a smile begin, don’t leave it undetected,

"Let’s start an epidemic quick and get the world infected!"

Mackay’s Moral: Cover your mouth when you cough. Never cover it when you smile.

Coach John Scolinos was legendary among college baseball coaches. Over his 45-year career, he was the head baseball coach at Pepperdine University from 1946 to 1960 and at California State Polytechnic University Pomona from 1962 to 1991, compiling a career college baseball record of 1,070 wins, 954 losses and 13 ties. Scolinos was also the head football coach at Pepperdine from 1955 to 1959.

But those numbers aren’t what define him, nor are they what people probably remember him for. Rather, his most memorable moments include quite possibly a speech he delivered that talked about the importance of 17 inches.

In January 1996, the 78-year-old Scolinos addressed 4,000 baseball coaches at the 52nd annual American Baseball Coaches Association convention in Nashville, Tennessee.

Dressed in dark pants and a light blue shirt, his outfit was accessorized by a full-sized, bright white home plate hanging from a string around his neck. He spoke for 25 minutes without acknowledging his unusual attire.

And then, he explained. “You’re probably all wondering why I’m wearing home plate around my neck. Or maybe you think I escaped from Camarillo State Hospital,” he began. “No, I may be old, but I’m not crazy. The reason I stand before you is to share with you baseball people what I’ve learned in my life, what I’ve learned about baseball in 78 years.

“Do you know how wide home plate is in Little League?” he asked the Little League coaches who were there.

“Seventeen inches,” someone replied.

“That’s right,” he said. “How about in Babe Ruth’s day?” Another coach hollered out, “Seventeen inches?”

“And what do they do with a big-league pitcher who can’t throw the ball over 17 inches? They send him to Pocatello (Idaho),” he said.

“What they don’t do is this: They don’t say, Ah, that’s OK, Jimmy. You can’t hit a 17-inch target? We’ll make it 18 inches or 19 inches. We’ll make it 20 inches, so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say 25 inches.

“Coaches, what do we do when our best player shows up late to practice?" he challenged the audience. "What if he gets caught drinking ... Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him? Do we widen home plate?”

Scolinos went on to illustrate his points, drawing on the home plate he wore. He outlined the consequences of bending the rules and not performing up to standard. The spellbound crowd learned so much more than baseball lessons that day.

His message was clear: “Coaches, keep your players -- no matter how good they are -- your own children, your churches, your government and, most of all, keep yourself, ALL, at 17 inches.”

This lesson applies across all disciplines. We all have superstars in our organizations, and if we are lucky, they hold themselves to the standards we have set for all employees. If they haven’t achieved that discipline, it is up to management to hold them accountable. And management must be up to the task.

Every organization has a metric that can be compared to 17 inches. Figure out what it is and insist on that standard for everyone.

Demanding the best from yourself is a perfect place to start. It doesn’t matter whether you are in the mailroom or the corner office. Be an example for all those around you, regardless of your position.

And then watch what happens. Pride of accomplishment, increased productivity, more job satisfaction. When people know they are performing at their best, the entire organization benefits. And customers notice a difference, too. All because you understood the importance of 17 inches.

Coach Scolinos left this world 10 years ago. Perhaps he never knew how many have benefited from his inspired advice. But I know I will never look at home plate the same way again.

Mackay’s Moral: Keeping your standards high is the only way to play the game of life.

I learned many years ago that visualizing or fantasizing is one of the most powerful means of achieving personal goals.

This proved true again at the recent women’s U.S. Open Tennis final, when 19-year-old Canadian Bianca Andreescu defeated Serena Williams. During her post-match press conference, a teary-eyed Andreescu mentioned how for years she would close her eyes and envision herself winning the U.S. Open against Williams, the greatest woman tennis player of her generation.

“I guess these visualizations really, really work,” she said.

Andreescu’s rise has been amazingly swift. She lost in the first qualification round at the last two U.S. Opens and was ranked outside the top 150 women players when the 2019 season began. She won a tournament earlier in the year, but then missed significant time with a torn rotator cuff. Since she returned to the tour in early August, she has beaten Serena Williams twice. Such is the power of active visualization.

Numerous studies have shown that mental practice through visualization can be as effective at improving skills as real practice. You can actually develop and reinforce real skills by visualizing yourself practicing them.

This explains why visualization is part of most world-class athletes' training: because it works! They have future vision. They see things a split second before they happen.

That's what a place-kicker does when he comes on the field to kick a winning field goal. Three seconds left in the game, 80,000 screaming fans, 30 million people watching on TV and the game is still in balance. As the kicker begins his moves, he makes the final adjustments necessary to achieve the mental picture he's formed in his mind so many times -- a picture of himself kicking the winning field goal!

That’s all well and good for athletes, but what about the rest of us whose dreams of success follow other paths?

Get a notebook and carve out some alone time for yourself. Give yourself a little space to think about what things you really want in life. Make a list of everything you want and everything you want to do during your lifetime -- no matter how crazy it sounds.

If you want to drink champagne in the south of France, write it down. If you want to ride a camel in the desert, write it down. If you want to own a Ferrari, write it down. Nothing is too big or too small. Search every corner of your mind for whatever you want and commit it to paper. Then put the list where you can look at it whenever you wish.

Before I wrote my first book, “Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive,” I had put a Post-it note on my bathroom mirror that read, “Be a New York Times best-selling author.” It worked for me, and it can work for you.

The late writer and visualization expert Shakti Gawain encouraged her readers to go further; she urged them to cut out pictures of those material things they want from magazines and other sources and hang them up. I’ve used that method too.

It’s important to remember not to expect all of these desires to be fulfilled immediately or at all. But when you take action, like making a list of what you want or cutting out an image of a car you want to own, you open up a pathway to possibility that was not present before. Give the process time and have faith, and it’s likely that you will be surprised by how many things on your list actually start appearing in your life.

Olympic pentathlete Marilyn King said, “If you can't imagine it, you can't ever do it. In my experience, the image always precedes the reality.” And she provides a very moving example of the power of visualization.

When King was preparing for the 1980 Olympic trials, she suffered a severe back injury and was confined to bed just nine months before the trials. Determined not to let this injury keep her from performing, she spent the next four months doing nothing but watching films of the best performers in the pentathlon events and visualizing herself going through the same events.

King placed second at the Olympic trials despite her lack of physical preparation. She stated that it was her psychological state, not her physical condition that gained her success.

Mackay’s Moral: Whatever a person does, he or she must first do in their mind.