The Place: The Driskill

The Cup: Coffee for me (leftover from my cup with Brandie). Arie didn’t have anything to drink.

Background: While chatting with Brandie, she introduced me to Arie and he agreed to hang out and visit with me.

Arie, as you can see by his shirt, is a hugger. So much so, that he gets on a train every year around Christmas to dole out hugs to anyone who is in need. Think I’m pulling your leg? Think again, my dear friends. Hug Train USA is the real deal.

How did Arie end up on a train, hugging folks? I’ll get to that in just a bit. But first, what else is this dude up to?

Arie is a business consultant specializing in social. He tells me, “I help businesses move at the speed of social. Social media and social responsibility.”

In his consulting practice, Arie encourages businesses to gear their marketing around three metrics:

• Thank you!
• Wow!
• Done!

Thank you! is about being remarkable, providing great service and giving your clients and customers a reason to say, “Thank you!”. It’s also about showing gratitude for their support, their business and their loyalty.

Wow! can be generated by great content, an amazing product or going out of your way to do something fantastic. It’s whatever might cause someone to say, “Wow, you gotta check this out!” to the people they know.

Done! is getting people to take action. It goes beyond getting people to “like” something, or retweet you or follow you. It’s about sparking something within them that makes them want to buy from you or refer their friends to you.

Arie points out that social media has made sharing easy. We can share good things and we can just as easily share the bad stuff. Arie helps his clients structure their businesses in ways that create happy work environments. When you start with happy employees, its much easier to ensure happy customers. By taking care of everyone, being active socially and being socially responsible, people are excited to do business with you.

Another interesting statement Arie made is “Everything old is new again.” He went on to explain that many years ago someone walked into a store and talked to a salesperson over a counter. There weren’t displays of items like we see in retail today. You had a one-on-one relationship with a storekeeper or salesperson and they got to know you. You would walk into the store and they’d say, “I’ve set a few items aside for you that I thought you might like.” Now, with technology and micro segmenting, we are getting that kind of service again. Granted, it’s not human-powered, but it’s customized just the same. You’ve got to admit, it feels nice to be noticed and recognized, even if it is a computer doing it. Well, at least I think so anyhow.

On the one hand, you have this technology-focused side of Arie, helping businesses be more profitable through their social resources. The other side of Arie is the guy who embraces, literally, old school connecting in the form of one-on-one, good old-fashioned hugs. How on earth did this get started?

Several years ago, Arie heard about a woman who had planned to go around the world on a global hug tour. Unfortunately, her project didn’t raise enough money and she had to cancel the trip. Around the same time, Arie had planned a train ride around the US to visit some friends before moving from his home in Montreal to London. He decided, since the trip was already paid for, that he’d take on the hugging cause. Why? Well you can visit his website to get the whole story, but essentially he  wanted to spread cheer and improve mental health awareness. “The holidays are a difficult time for many people,” Arie said.”I wanted to make a hug available to anyone needing one.”  The project was such a success that he’s done it four years in a row and will start planning his fifth trip shortly. Wow, that’s pretty remarkable.

I asked Arie if he has a daily ritual that contributes to his success. He tells me he used to grab his phone first thing upon waking. He’s recently replaced that habit with a new practice. First, Arie expresses his gratitude for waking, then gratitude for his source, then expresses his understanding of oneness with his creator followed by 20 seconds of mindfully feeling happy.

Mindfully feeling happy? What’s that about? In exchange for some consulting work, Arie received professional life coaching. His coach worked with Arie, who admitted he tends to get wrapped up in negative emotions, to transform those emotions into good one. “Happiness is a state of mind. It’s an attitude.  What we all want is to be happy. It turns out all you have to do in order to be happy, is to be happy.” So every morning he practices happiness by spending 20 seconds feeling happy. For Arie, it’s made an incredible difference. And I’d say if you asked the people who’s lives he’s touched or those he’s hugged over the last few years, that happiness might be catching.

To learn more about Arie and find out how to get a hug, follow him on Twitter, visit his Hug Train USA site or check out his business site.