THE STORY

I would like to start by saying thank you for stopping by! The fact that you are here means that you are our people and not only like to smile, but get just as much enjoyment from making everyone around you smile as much as we do.

The story begins on a solo backpacking trip through Europe. Specifically, on the beautiful island of Santorini, Greece. After a one-of-a-kind sunset on the Oia side of the island, I navigated my way through the maze of walkways that make up the town of Oia. I got slightly lost with only minutes to make it to the bus that would take me back across the island to my hostel. I hopped behind a large Asian tour group. Acting like I was a part of the group, they led me straight to where I needed to go. Back at the hostel, I sat down at a table of fellow travelers from all over the globe. After a few beverages, stories, and laughs, one of them mentioned they were going skydiving in a couple days outside of Athens. He looked around the table and asked if any of us would like to join. I sat there and thought about it for a few seconds and then it clicked! I responded with “What do you get when you spell Tony backwards? Y-NOT” without knowing it at the time, the first part of the brand was born! Yes, I did in fact willingly jump out of a perfectly good airplane a couple days later.

To understand where and why the SMILE part of the brand started. We have to go back a couple of years before the Europe trip. I was in a pretty gnarly accident that almost ended my time here on this planet. While in the ICU recovering “smile” was born. I was on the top floor and one of the last rooms that the docs made their daily rounds to. One of the first days the docs came in to do their checkups, they came in with pretty bad attitude and made it about one minute into their talk, then I kindly asked them to exit my room and not come back in until they had a smile on because I didn’t want that negative energy in there. They agreed, left the room and came back in with a smile on. Whether their smiles had real happiness behind them that day, I will never know. Every daily visit after that, they came in with smiles and eventually looked forward to making it to my room.

Bringing the two together, the “proper” start of the brand happened in a tent on my coast-to-coast cycling across the United States in 2023. On that 4,600 mile, 4-month ride I had a lot of time to myself and in my head. It was the 10 year anniversary of the accident. I needed to do something that tested my mind, heart and soul. I figured a little bike ride would be the perfect way to achieve that. Somewhere along the way I had the idea to bring Y-NOT SMILE to life and hopefully leave my mark on this world before the inevitability of my time ends on this planet.

During that wild experience and time in my life, I realized that we are the only ones in control of our lives. Although we can’t control everything that happens to us, we can control how we react. By no means am I saying that a smile will solve any bad situation. Life happens and we all have good days and bad days. Putting a smile on and knowing that there is always light on the other side of the darkness is what it’s all about. Smiles are one of the most contagious things on this planet and can completely change the course of someone’s day! Just acknowledging someone with a simple smile and “hello” could be that little light peeking through the darkness that they needed.

Our world has moved online, our friends are now digital and most of our interactions with others are through a screen of some sort. So, the main reason for starting Y-NOT SMILE is to bring people together through positivity and real-world human interaction. With everything going on around us, we could all use more smiles to lighten up the day. So I challenge you to be the reason someone smiles today—it could just make your day too. This brand isn’t about the material things we sell, they are just a vessel to spread the message of positivity! Thank you for being here and I hope to hear from you soon.

Cheers,

Founder, Tony Olmsted