“What’s the best thing that happened to you all day?” It whipped me out of a grumpy, self-absorbed mood over some banal incident that hung over me like a dark cloud. I now use it fairly regularly on others.
One time, I shared it with a hotel desk clerk and encouraged her to try it out on guests. She did, and got a sarcastic, “I woke up today” response. A couple of hours later, the guy called down to leave a wake-up call and added, “You know? I’ve been thinking about what you asked me, and I’d like to change my answer. I called home and asked my teenaged daughter the same question. She said that she got an A on a test. She actually talked to me briefly about what was going on in her life. That’s the best thing that has happened to me today.”
Try this question out sometime. You might be pleasantly surprised about what you hear.