Years from now, you want people to say, “I’m glad I met them.” That’s built one small interaction at a time.

A reputation for being good to be around is not produced by any single memorable act. It comes out of hundreds of ordinary exchanges where you were slightly warmer, slightly more attentive, slightly less in a hurry than you had to be. None of those register individually, and together they are the whole thing.

Treat the next small interaction as if it counts, because in aggregate it does. Hold the door, answer the message, let the person finish the sentence. You will not notice the accumulation, and neither will anyone else, until it is what people say about you.