Ep 92 | The Ripple Effect: One Small Act of Kindness

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Ever wonder if that quick compliment you offer, or the time you linger a moment longer in friendly conversation, really makes a difference? In this moving episode of “She Finds Joy,” motivational speaker Kim Strobel shares a true story that proves the enormous impact one small act of kindness can have—not just for someone else, but for you, too. With her signature authenticity and heart, Kim weaves together real-life connection, brain science, and practical wisdom that will leave you inspired to show up for the people around you.

Connection Starts on the Front Lawn

Kim opens up about Cameron, a young technician from Mosquito Joe, who started treating her yard for bugs. It would’ve been easy—expected, even—to keep things strictly transactional. But Kim went a step further: She chatted. She noticed Cameron’s extra care. She complimented his thorough work. Through these everyday exchanges, a connection blossomed, and a deeper story unfolded.

Cameron, just 24 years old and a devoted dad of three, shared his journey—how, at age 14, with no support and a baby on the way, he hustled for his family, pushing a lawnmower across town to make ends meet. Kim related with vulnerability, remembering her own challenging season as a single mom, paycheck to paycheck, cobbling together every dollar.

What happened next was both simple and extraordinary: Kim celebrated Cameron’s perseverance on social media—a gesture that caught fire online and deeply moved Cameron. His heartfelt text in response revealed just how unseen so many people feel, and how one public act of kindness can shift someone’s entire worldview.

The Science of (Small) Happiness Habits

But here’s where Kim’s story rises above feel-good anecdote. She expertly links this experience to the science of happiness: Our brains are hardwired for negativity—a leftover relic from our “saber-toothed tiger” days. Unless we make it a conscious habit, we default to stress, worry, and self-protection. That’s why these little moments of kindness matter so much; research shows that both the giver and the receiver gain a happiness boost. In fact, Kim calls random acts of kindness one of the “top five happiness habits” for rewiring our brains toward positivity and resilience.

Real Kindness. Real Change.

As Kim says, you never truly know the battles someone is fighting—the Mosquito Joe guy, the cashier, the neighbor next door. But you have the power, every single day, to make someone feel seen and valued. And in doing so, you lift yourself up, too. Even a moment of acknowledgment or gratitude can make a week, a year—or maybe, someone’s life.

How You Can Spread the Ripple

Kim’s story with Cameron isn’t just a heartwarming tale—it’s an invitation. Who in your life could use recognition or encouragement today? How could your workplace or school become a space where small kindnesses are the norm, not the exception?

Bring Kim’s Science-Backed Happiness Habits to Your Community

Keynote Speaking: Energize your next conference or event with Kim’s actionable insights and stories, delivered with humor and heart.
Professional Development: Enroll in research-driven workshops or courses to help teams and individuals cultivate ongoing habits of positivity, well-being, and connection.
The Book—Teach Happy: Learn how to up-level happiness in concrete, manageable steps—personally and professionally.

As Kim powerfully reminds us:

“One tiny act of kindness can change the course of someone’s day—or their year. The world doesn’t just need big heroes. It needs you, showing up in small ways, every chance you get.”

Ready to be the positivity someone else is searching for? Share this episode with a colleague, a friend, or anyone who needs to know just how much their kindness matters. Practice your own small act today—and witness the ripple.

Discover more on cultivating happiness for yourself and your organization at strobeleducation.com. Let’s create a kinder, more joyful world, one small act at a time.

See Shownotes

SHOWNOTES:

In this uplifting episode, Kim Strobel shares a moving real-life encounter that beautifully illustrates how a single act of kindness can ripple out and change lives—starting with a meaningful conversation in her own backyard. Through the story of Cameron, a hardworking young father and dedicated service provider, Kim reveals how taking a few moments to connect, acknowledge, and uplift someone can foster deep connection and spark a brighter outlook—for both giver and receiver.

What’s in this episode:

– The extraordinary impact of recognizing and uplifting the everyday people who cross our paths—for example, the service technician, cashier, or mail carrier

– Kim’s firsthand account of meeting Cameron, an inspiring young father, and how their honest exchange opened doors for empathy and encouragement

– The science behind our brain’s natural “negative bias” and how small acts of kindness can help retrain our minds for positivity and joy

– How sharing someone’s story (even on social media) can create a wave of encouragement—sometimes making someone’s whole week or year

– Simple, research-backed habits for cultivating daily happiness, drawn from Kim’s own teachings and latest book, “Teach Happy: Small Steps to Big Joy”

Kim challenges listeners to notice the “Camerons” in their lives—those whose stories often go unheard—and to take that extra moment to see, value, and encourage them. By sharing her experience and Cameron’s grateful response, Kim demonstrates that kindness is not only transformative for the receiver, but deeply rewarding for the giver.

Key Takeaways:

– Pausing to make someone feel seen, heard, and valued can lift both your spirits and theirs—sometimes in ways you never expect.

– Our brains may be wired for negativity, but cultivating daily acts of kindness can reprogram us for positivity and fulfillment.

– Sharing and celebrating the hard work and resilience of others (even through a simple Facebook post!) can multiply hope in unexpected ways.

– Practicing random acts of kindness is one of the top habits that improve overall happiness and well-being—for both giver and receiver.

“So please share this episode with a friend… and go out and practice your own random acts of kindness.” — Kim Strobel

Thank you for listening to She Finds Joy! If Kim’s story inspired you, pay it forward by sharing this episode and leaving your own story or review at kimstrobel.com/review.

Remember: It only takes a small act—a smile, a kind word, a few minutes of attention—to set off a chain of positivity. You have the power to be that spark.

TIMESTAMP:

00:00 Teen Parent Hustles for Family

04:29 Viral Post Celebrates Young Entrepreneur

08:20 Reprogram for Positivity and Happiness

11:41 “Spread Kindness for Happiness”

See Transcript

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi everyone, and thanks for being back here on the podcast today. I actually want to talk about something that happened to me last Friday. So every month we have our yard sprayed for mosquitoes and ticks and we use Mosquito Joe and it seems like there’s a lot of turnaround employees there. And so we had someone new who started this year in April, and his name was Cameron. And I noticed right out of the gate that Cameron was full of charisma. He was very professional. He listened to me explain that we’re having this huge issue with ticks and that my dogs are coming in the house with ticks. And I noticed from right out of the gate that he went above and beyond in how he treated our yard. He did multiple paths down the woods. He did all around the woods, some areas, he did them twice. And he sent me a really nice text message after telling me everything he had done.

Well, I noticed that every month when Cameron came, I always took a moment to go outside just to go over everything, say hello to him, even though that’s not necessary. You don’t even have to be home when they come. But I, I was just used to many times getting a different person each time who didn’t know where our yard lines are and, and where to spray. But I got Cameron again the second time and Cameron again the third time. And I kept telling him, Cameron, you are just so good at this. You’re one of the best we’ve ever had. You’re doing such a great job of making sure that you’re spraying all the woods.

And I just continued to converse and get to know him. This past Friday when Cameron came, I again was outside talking to him and he was telling me that he had been to three of his nine year old’s baseball games this week. And this kid looks pretty young. And said, I said, oh my gosh, Cameron, you have a nine year old? And he said, yeah, I’m 24 and I had him when I was 14. And he said I also have a four year old and a six month old all with the same lady, she’s my fiance. And. But he said it was really hard. He said when I was 14, she got pregnant and, and he said, you know, Nobody can hire 14 year olds and I needed to be able to make an income. And so the only thing I figured out I could do was I strapped a gas can onto my back and I pushed a push mower around town trying to get yards to mow because it was the only way I could earn income for my young family.

And I was so moved by this young man who didn’t really, I guess, have any kind of support system and had to try to figure all of this out at the age of 14. And I was explaining to Cameron that I too had to do and hustle in a little bit of a different way, but that when I was 26 years old, I was the mother of a two month old baby. I was going through a divorce, so I was a single mom of a two month old. I made $8 an hour as a program assistant because at that time there were no teaching jobs available, believe it or not. And so I struggled to make ends meet. So when they asked for somebody to ride the special needs bus in the morning for an hour and in the afternoon for an hour after school, I, I volunteered to do so because that generated an extra $16 a day. And 16 times five days a week was $80. And back in the year 2000, my son’s daycare bill was $80 a week. And so I was just explaining to Cameron that at one time in my life I lived paycheck to paycheck. I also hustled and did a full time job and several part time jobs and just to make ends meet.

And he and I just had this really heart to heart conversation. And I was just so moved by this young man who shows up and does an excellent job with my yard every month, goes above and beyond, puts pellets in my flower pots for me just as an extra thing to do. He I had a baby bird’s nest on the deck and he would always make sure that he was real careful when he was spraying the deck for bugs that he didn’t, you know, get near the baby bird nest. He’s just an astounding young man. And so I said, Cameron, would it be okay if I were to take a picture of you in front of your mosquito Joe Van and do a post about Facebook? Because I think people need to hear these stories because lots of people have struggled or they’re in the struggle and these stories inspire others. And he was very excited and let me take his picture. And so I did a post to Facebook and. And it kind of went crazy. Everybody was commenting and saying what a wonderful young man, how inventive and creative it was for him to do what it took to take care of his family, his work ethic. They were just commenting so much.

And I got a text message from Cameron later that night and I want to read it all to you because it shows you that a little small kindness just Hearing someone’s story, connecting to them, taking time out of our day for a few minutes to meet and talk to the person who delivers our mail or services our house or cleans our house or the people that the cashier at Walmart. These little moments throughout the day when we can make others feel seen and heard and valued. It makes all the difference in the world. And that’s the point of me doing this podcast episode today because I was so moved because by this story. And you can actually go to my Facebook Kim Sable House Strobel. You can see the picture of Cameron in front of the mosquito Joe truck. This would have been posted around July 10th because I’m recording this on July 14th even though it’s probably not airing until later.

But I wanted just to tell you how much me taking the time to get to know this young man and doing a post about him. He was so moved that I got this message from him later in the day and it says Kim, this is Cameron. I felt I should reach out and thank you. The amount of joy that you brought me seeing all the positivity surrounding your post. I really hope that someone sees it and that it helps them in some way. Even if it’s just a smile for the day, that’s one smiling face and that contagious is all it takes is one. But honestly, from the bottom of my heart to thank you so much.

And then I just responded to him and then he came back and said this post you did has really made a difference in just the way I view the world. It’s so easy to get caught up on the negatives because of how much negativity is thrown around. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack to find positivity. So you just grasp to the negative stitch so easily because it takes time to find the few positives. But your post today has definitely taught me to look for it because this has made my week for sure, maybe even my year.

And I just kept responding to him and telling him how proud I was and I was so glad that he read the comments and that if he felt good and I talked to him a little bit about how all of our brains have negative bias, which means we are wired to to look for the negative in our life. It’s a biological, physiological part of our brain because back in caveman and cave women times we have this thing called the amygdala that’s still part of our brain today. And the amygdala has one job and that one job is to scan and look for danger everywhere. Because in caveman and cave woman times, that’s the very thing that kept us alive. Our brain was constantly scanning for the saber tooth tiger or, or is there, you know, an angry clan that’s going to come in and try to steal our shelter or fight us for food. And so it’s today, it’s 2025, we still have an amygdala and the amygdala still scans for danger.

And so I was just explaining to him that it is normal that we, we look for the negative, we grasp onto the negative unless we’re super conscientious of cultivating positive habits in our life that reprogram our brain to look for the positive versus the negative, neutral or stressed. And this is what I talk about in the Science of Happiness keynote that I give to schools and businesses all across the country. I did a keynote for the FBI recently and I was explaining that we can reprogram our brain to positive more than negative, neutral or stress, but it takes us cultivating these research based happiness habits in order to do so.

That’s what my book Teach Happy Small Steps to Big Joy is all about. It’s all about how we can increase our happiness levels by up to 40% by cultivating daily habits. And those daily habits retrain our brain to be positive versus negative, neutral or stressed. So going back to Cameron, just as we’ve continued to talk, he was explaining that if anybody sees my Facebook post and they mention Cameron when they call Mosquito Joe in their area to get served, get, get their yard sprayed, that he gets $25 for every person who calls. And so I said, cameron, I’ll do another post explaining all of that next week. I said, you deserve every bit of this. You are making Mosquito Joel look so good in my eyes. Like you. And the way you’ve handled our yard is absolutely amazing. Your personality, the way you show up, the way you do your job, your work ethic, the way you follow up after each time you do.

And so he was telling me that he, that that $25 per customer who calls in will really help him because he’s never had a car, his family’s never had a car. And again, it just goes to show you that we just don’t understand that people’s struggles, we don’t know the stories that come with the person who is servicing us, talking with us, passing by us, whatever it is. And it really, you know, just put it into perspective that just me doing a very small act of kindness, just getting to know the person who is coming and treating my yard and servicing our home each month, how valuable it is when we take the time to make others feel seen, heard, valued and believed in. And as Cameron was saying, that one positivity post, it just meant the world to him.

And you and I have the ability to have that impact on others on a daily basis, to lift one another up, to encourage one another. It can be a small act of kindness. It can be a gratitude. It can be something that you notice that somebody is doing really well. But I will tell you that that one moment, that one little act of kindness means so much to the person receiving it. And the happiness research actually says that you, as the giver of the kindness, you receive just as much or maybe even more. Positivity hits to your brain as the giver of the kindness. And in fact, random acts of kindness is one of the top five happiness habits that help us reprogram our brain to positive versus negative neutral stress.

So if you know of somebody who needs to hear this message or who might feel uplifted or encouraged in their own life, maybe they’re having a hard time, please share this episode with them. My goal is to share and get this message out so people hear these stories. They don’t just hear these stories from me on a stage talking or from social media, but they hear the impact of these tiny, small little acts of kindness. So please share this episode with a friend, a family member, or someone that you think needs to be uplifted or encouraged today and go out and practice your own random acts of kindness.