I am in St.Paul, MN the next few days giving a series of keynote speeches at the River Centre for the MLT Vacations conference. They’ve put me up at a lovely historic hotel, The Saint Paul. As with any chi-chi hotel, you need to take out a small loan for breakfast. So, headed out to find a diner, breakfast place, something that wouldn’t cost my entire per diem for a couple of huevos.
There enters the Q Kindness Café. A wonderful find. A diner with great prices, a good strong cup‘o’joe and every day lessons in paying it forward. Lots of signs and sayings encouraging kindness. Nice people greeting you and bringing you above said breakfast. And encouragement to do something nice right then and there.
As we left, there was a young teen waiting to pay for a bag of snacks behind us. How could I resist? The Q Kindness Café suggests customers pay for the next guest – a cup of coffee, their entire breakfast; just do something to pay it forward. So, I asked the young man if that was all he was getting, that I would pay for it. What a wonderful smile he had. “Really, you are buying this for me?” “Yes I am and a drink too, go get one.” For a second, he looked like he was even considering hugging this strange foreigner at the cash register with the Texas accent. Instead he just grinned and said “Mam, you have made my day.”
Well, you made mine too. Thank you Q Kindness Café.
So what are YOU doing to pay it forward today?
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Being a law enforcement officer is a job that all too often is thankless, so I often will ask the server to discreetly bring me the tab for a couple officers in a restaurant. I tell the server that they are only to know that “a grateful citizen” picked up the their tab. It’s my hope that they’ll look around and think it could be anyone in the restaurant and feel even more appreciated.