Are you ready to show a little kindness next week? In 1988, Lorraine Jara, a resident of Toms River, New Jersey, started Be Kind to Humankind Week. For the past 35 years, from August 25–31, Jara has encouraged people to look for ways to put their own wants aside to help someone else in need. Her plight started when two young men were involved in a boating accident near her home. Even though they were in distress, other boaters ignored them. One of the two died from his injuries. Jara was so upset by this news, that she decided to do something to remind people to be kind to one another. "People need people; it’s as simple as that,” she said. "In order to have the power to make the world a better place, we must first change our attitudes for the better.”

You may think that it would take more than a website with daily kindness suggestions to make the world a better place, and you would probably be right. It takes action. Thinking good thoughts and being well-intentioned won’t change anything. However, for those who take up the challenge to show kindness—even for a week at the end of August—it can make a difference. For those who show kindness more than once a week during the year, it can be truly transformational.

This is a business blog, or more specifically, a marketing business blog. Today, I would like to lay that aside and talk about making a difference in people’s lives and making that a lifestyle. I did not have to look far in my own life to see this modeled. This Saturday would have been my mother’s 97th birthday. She passed away earlier this summer. You might be tempted to think that someone who had lived that long had played out all of their good deeds. That was not true of my mother. She was always the one who would seek out the person who was lonely to befriend. It was true of her as a much younger woman, but it was also true right up to the moment she took her last breath. A 99-year-old woman on hospice refused to eat lunch the day my mother died because they had agreed to sit together while they dined. They were friends. At her funeral, I was approached by scores of people who all had a story of how my mother touched them with a kind word or a benevolent gesture. It was her lifestyle. It made a difference.

I would encourage you to find a person next week and show them kindness. It doesn’t need to cost anything. Acknowledging someone by their name, looking them in the eye, smiling and spending a few minutes in conversation goes a long way. Maybe you live near a child. Take some time to speak to them. Ask them how they are doing. Find out what they like to do. You might live near an elderly person. Start a conversation and ask them about their life. So many older folks feel forgotten by the world. They don’t think they matter any longer. Let them know they matter to you. Don’t forget the people who look like they have it all together either. Behind the exterior, many people are hurting inside.

Be Kind to Humankind Week may be a bit contrived; however, the reminder to take just a week to be kind might make people think twice about passing by someone in need. Who knows, it may become a lifestyle for them… and you!