I'm Megan Snedden

Kindness Advocate and Founder of the Kind Effect.

I travel the world performing good deeds for strangers and make videos about these heart-warming moments to uplift humanity with the joy of kindness. We could all use positive stories, right? You can find these acts of kindness videos on YouTube and Facebook. Click here to subscribe.

The Inspiration Behind the Kind Effect

Once upon a time I was a successful journalist who traveled around the world writing stories for major publications like BBC, the International Business Times, and National Geographic Traveler. Despite working hard to create what looked to be “the dream” career, I just kept coming back to one question: why does my life feel so meaningless?

I wanted the stories I told to inspire hope and call attention to the simple good things that happen every single day.

But then in the midst of self discovery, I hit rock bottom.

What I Imagined Was The End

One day, working toward my dream in New York City, I received that unexpected phone call no one wants. The voice said, “a plane crashed in the mountains, and we’re 99.9% sure the pilot was your dad.” I asked the man how I’d know for sure (hanging onto that .1% chance it wasn’t my dad in the cockpit). He said, “when the sheriff comes to your mom’s house.” I called my mom, but her friend answered instead and said she couldn’t come to the phone. The sheriff was at the front door.

My life, I knew, would never be the same.

The years that followed his crash were a blur of depression, isolation, anger, confusion, and pain as my problems compounded. I went to therapy and found myself working through not only career struggles and the tragic loss of my dad but also old anger that had been hanging around since childhood. As if losing my father weren’t enough, my brother had also been killed in a hit-and-run accident when I was five years old. I never took the time to heal that old wound and forgive the woman who took my brother’s life. So, additionally processing that loss also became part of my journey as well.

Was all of this too much to take on at once? Yep. You bet it was. I remember catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I sat in bed eating a hot tray of brownies thinking, this is the worst your life is going to get.

Turns out when you choose to go to therapy, you can’t really just go in and fix one problem - everything is tied together. I honestly thought my pain and depression were going to annihilate me, but they didn’t. Of the many lessons, I discovered that we are stronger than we can ever imagine.

(*Note to reader: in case you haven’t noticed, this is the part of the story where things got worse before they got better, but don’t worry they do get better).

So How Did I Arrive At Kindness? It’s a Long Story.

The answer: step by step, literally. During my years of what comedian Gary Gullman affectionally calls “The Great Depresh” (aka depression), I started going for walks to ease my symptoms. It was also, the only exercise I could muster. During these walks, I’d pick flowers from the neighborhood, assemble them into tiny bouquets, then give them to people as I’d stroll. This simple act of good lifted my spirits so much, I started doing other random acts of kindness as well.

At some point, friends caught onto what I was doing. They encouraged me to document my acts of kindness and start sharing them on social. The idea made sense to me: I’d left behind my journalism career, but still self-identified as a storyteller. Plus, I wanted to create stories that made people laugh, feel connected to their hearts, and become more optimistic about their potential do good in the world despite the unpredictable turns life can take.

The first video I created went viral, so I made another one, then another one, then another one, then … I just kept going. Eventually, I created the Kind Effect because - welp - I guess I was on a roll.

What We Do (And What We Don’t Do) Matters

Through my on-again-off-again relationship with “the depresh,” I’ve always craved the things that make our mental health just a little brighter: connection, acceptance, reasons to smile, love, … joy. Performing random acts of kindness invites these great things into our lives, and so much more. When we do random acts of kindness, we connect the dots and realize that we matter because what we do matters to others. When we realize that what we do matters, and therefore we matter, our lives fill with purpose.

In the United States, I think we’ve put the conception of purpose on such a high pedestal that it can feel unattainable when really it comes down to seeking purpose in our everyday actions.

What if experiencing a greater sensation of purpose = doing little things regularly that make a positive impact instead of seeing it as this beaming light in the distance we could spend our life time chasing yet never catch?

How Kindness and Self Love Fit Together

While on a five-month solo backpacking trip around the world in 2018, I realized something very important:

You can only give to others at the extent to which you give to yourself.

While on said backpacking trip, I lived at a Buddhist center in the Alps so I could sit silently and listen to my heart. That’s when it came to me: self love and acts of kindness must coexist. They feed each other. It is a-oh-k to only give in accordance with what you are capable of giving at that time. Boundaries are a beautiful thing. Curious about my perspective on self love? Watch this vid: