Thankful Living: Embracing the Power of Gratitude for Transformation
In this transformative episode of Broken Beautiful Me - Stories of Hope, Gratitude & Resilience, Kelly Buckley welcomes Kevin Monroe, a globally recognized gratitude consultant, keynote speaker, and leader of a worldwide gratitude movement. Kevin works with companies and corporate teams to instill gratitude as a foundational principle, helping individuals and organizations experience profound personal and professional transformation.
As the creator of I'm Grateful for You and the distributor of gratitude cards across the globe, Kevin has sparked a movement that inspires people to appreciate life's blessings and share that gratitude with others. His work emphasizes the power of gratitude in enhancing emotional well-being, fostering stronger relationships, and creating positive cultural shifts in the workplace.
During this episode, Kevin shares actionable insights on how gratitude can lead to a more fulfilling life and offers practical tools to cultivate thankfulness in everyday moments. Whether you are an individual seeking to embrace gratitude or a leader looking to infuse it into your organization's culture, this conversation will inspire you to harness the transformative power of gratitude.
To connect with Kevin Monroe, visit his websites kevindmonroe.com and imgratefulforyou.co, or reach out on LinkedIn at Kevin Monroe LinkedIn.
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00:00:00
Thank you.
00:00:01
So hello, everybody,
00:00:03
and welcome to another
00:00:04
episode of Broken Beautiful Me.
00:00:06
I am your host, Kelly Buckley.
00:00:09
And today I am so honored to
00:00:11
have Kevin Munro.
00:00:13
He is the preeminent expert
00:00:15
on the transformative power
00:00:17
of gratitude in the workplace.
00:00:19
And if you've been following me,
00:00:21
you know that gratitude is
00:00:22
big on my list.
00:00:24
So as a workplace gratitude consultant,
00:00:26
he helps organizations
00:00:27
struggling with top talent departures
00:00:30
employee disengagement,
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experience renewed motivation, retention,
00:00:35
and performance by
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utilizing his proprietary
00:00:38
framework and assessments.
00:00:40
He's a graduate of Gonzaga
00:00:42
University with a Master of
00:00:43
Arts in Organizational Leadership.
00:00:46
He has an undergraduate
00:00:47
degree in theology from
00:00:48
Mercer University.
00:00:49
He is a fellow with Creating
00:00:51
the Future and the Colson Center.
00:00:53
And he lives in Woodstock, Georgia,
00:00:55
where he enjoys being a husband, father,
00:00:57
grandfather, friend, creator,
00:01:00
and Gratitude Guide, which I love.
00:01:02
So welcome to the show, Kevin.
00:01:04
Thanks for being here.
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Oh, Kelly, thank you.
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Thank you.
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And you that are joining us,
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I want to say thank you.
00:01:13
Kelly,
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I realize they're well over 1
00:01:16
million plus podcasts in the world.
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So the fact that
00:01:22
You who are joining us chose to join us,
00:01:25
join this podcast,
00:01:27
join Kelly on her journey,
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join us for this conversation.
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It just says something about you.
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And I don't take that for granted.
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So thank you for joining us today.
00:01:38
Oh, that's great.
00:01:40
So I want to start with just
00:01:43
a little bit of background for you.
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So it's one thing to read a bio,
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but I like to have our
00:01:49
listeners understand,
00:01:50
maybe people who haven't
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been exposed to your work.
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Just give us a little bit
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about the personal journey
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and experiences and wisdom
00:02:02
that brought you to this critical work.
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I'm sorry, I'm laughing, Kelly.
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So our questions are not planned today.
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I love organic, unscripted conversation.
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And I'm thinking about the
00:02:19
title of your show.
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And when you ask about my journey, well,
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Kelly,
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it started in a puddle of brokenness,
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right?
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That's why I'm laughing.
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It's like, wow, you asked this.
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in one sense, right?
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I grew up in a small town in Perry,
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Georgia at a time when people were taught,
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people of my generation
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were taught to say, please, thank you.
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Yes, ma'am.
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No, ma'am.
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Yes, sir.
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No, sir.
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So if you'd ask me any point in my life,
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are you grateful?
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I would have said, well, of course I am.
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Because anytime anybody
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sticks anything in my direction,
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I take it and I go, thank you.
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Thank you.
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Right.
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Because I was taught to say, thank you.
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And for the first
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50-something years of my life,
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I equated gratitude and thankfulness.
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I just thought they were synonyms.
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The last eight years,
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I've discovered they're not.
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And it was this one morning.
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I am an early riser without
00:03:28
an alarm clock.
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And I mean, I don't say that.
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It's just how I'm wired.
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I mean, as a matter of fact, today,
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I've been up since 3.15.
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I love early morning.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And I was so excited about
00:03:46
our conversation.
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And there was another
00:03:49
project I was working on.
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But April 17th, 2018.
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Yeah, April 17th, 2018.
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I couldn't get out of bed.
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I woke up several times that
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morning and I'd turn over,
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I'd look at the clock and
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there's five o'clock, there's 5.30,
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there's 5.45, there's 5.47.
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I mean,
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sometimes it seemed like a lot of
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time had passed and it's
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just two minutes later.
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Probably around 7.45 or so,
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I finally just peeled myself out of bed,
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right?
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There is no joy, there is no
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excitement.
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There's no enthusiasm.
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I was just at a point of despair.
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And I've had a couple of
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bouts of depression in my
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adult life and I recognize
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the signs and I'm like, oh my gosh,
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you know, I am on the slippery slope.
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And if, if something doesn't change,
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who knows how deep this
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will go and who knows how
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long it will last.
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Now,
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I am a person,
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I take it you probably are too,
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loving early mornings.
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I have morning rhythms, rituals,
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routines that I do every morning.
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That morning I didn't feel
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like doing any of it,
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but out of a routine and
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out of that rhythm, I grab my journal,
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because in his kind of,
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I can say 744 days before,
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I'd had a mentor I'd reconnected with,
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a guy I'd lost contact with for 12,
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14 years.
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He had invited me in 2016 sometime to,
00:05:29
he said to me, he said, Kevin,
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would you join me in
00:05:31
praying 15 minutes a day?
00:05:33
And I looked at him, I was embarrassed.
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I'm like,
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well, Doug,
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I haven't prayed 15 minutes in a year,
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right?
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I mean, I don't know.
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You're asking a lot, 15 minutes in a day.
00:05:43
And he said, I'm not talking about,
00:05:45
I'm just talking about sitting down with,
00:05:50
in my faith tradition,
00:05:51
the Bible in a journal and
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just see if God has
00:05:54
something to speak to you
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or lay on your heart.
00:05:57
Well, that morning, Kelly,
00:05:58
there's nothing I feel like praying.
00:06:00
There's just nothing.
00:06:01
But I have my journal and I
00:06:03
finally just write out of my brain,
00:06:05
out of my emptiness, Holy Spirit,
00:06:09
you are the creative spark
00:06:11
of the universe, spark creativity in me.
00:06:14
And I'm in this,
00:06:15
what I would call liminal space,
00:06:17
in and out of drowsiness,
00:06:18
probably nodded off a few times, right?
00:06:21
Because I just felt nothing.
00:06:22
And 45 minutes later,
00:06:24
I sit up erect with this
00:06:27
powerful idea that's 85,
00:06:28
90% fully formed.
00:06:28
Launched.
00:06:31
a 13-week,
00:06:32
90-day journey and call it the
00:06:35
Extraordinary Experiment.
00:06:37
And it was 13 weeks and they
00:06:39
stair-stepped up.
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Each week got a little more of a challenge,
00:06:43
but they were called a challenge.
00:06:44
It started with week one,
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just inviting people to
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notice what's around you,
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be aware of your surroundings, right?
00:06:51
Rather than so immersed in
00:06:52
your digital device or
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newspaper or magazine,
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if you commuted to work
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Week six,
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we had called the Gratitude Challenge.
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So we'd labeled each of these weeks.
00:07:04
And on Monday,
00:07:05
we would drop a video
00:07:07
explaining what we're
00:07:08
inviting people to that week.
00:07:10
And when we went to explain gratitude,
00:07:14
it was kind of like, well,
00:07:15
that's the first time that
00:07:17
I remember consciously trying to...
00:07:24
Understand the difference.
00:07:26
Are we inviting people to be thankful?
00:07:28
Are we inviting people to be grateful?
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What's the difference?
00:07:31
And that started me on a journey.
00:07:34
And as we were talking beforehand,
00:07:37
the other part of this,
00:07:38
I didn't set out to do gratitude.
00:07:40
I set out to escape a
00:07:44
scarcity mindset that had
00:07:46
stayed with me from my youth.
00:07:49
Right.
00:07:50
I grew up in a loving family,
00:07:52
but a family that we didn't have a lot.
00:07:54
But I didn't know we didn't
00:07:55
have a lot because we had love.
00:07:57
So we had everything we needed.
00:07:59
Right.
00:07:59
But there was always this scare.
00:08:01
Both of my parents grew up
00:08:02
in the Depression and that.
00:08:04
to them.
00:08:05
So there was this scarcity
00:08:06
mindset and just never
00:08:09
believing we had enough or
00:08:10
would have enough.
00:08:12
And I wanted to break that in my life.
00:08:15
And I had read a book that
00:08:18
compared and contrasted the
00:08:19
scarcity loop and the abundance loop.
00:08:22
And that's when I saw that growth
00:08:24
Gratitude was the key or the
00:08:26
gateway to leaving scarcity
00:08:30
and embracing abundance.
00:08:31
So I started leaning into that,
00:08:33
but it all started with
00:08:35
this really dark day.
00:08:38
And fortunately, that time, Kelly,
00:08:40
because of the decisions I
00:08:42
made and the action I took,
00:08:44
I did not stay in despair.
00:08:47
Right.
00:08:48
There was something to do.
00:08:50
And so here's if you find
00:08:51
yourself in despair and I
00:08:53
am no stranger to despair.
00:08:57
Right.
00:08:57
It still comes.
00:09:00
Winston Churchill called it the black dog.
00:09:03
He was constantly plagued by
00:09:06
that dog of depression.
00:09:07
It was never he said.
00:09:10
And Winston Churchill
00:09:11
actually said traveled a lot by ship.
00:09:12
He never got too close to the rail.
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because of fear that the
00:09:19
black dog might push him over.
00:09:22
I mean, that he might.
00:09:22
Yeah.
00:09:23
Yeah.
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I mean,
00:09:24
you can read Winston Churchill's
00:09:27
biographies and that it's there.
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It's like, wow.
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So, um,
00:09:32
But we have agency as humans.
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We have agency.
00:09:37
We can do something that
00:09:39
changes our situation.
00:09:41
And so when we take action, right,
00:09:44
any kind of idea.
00:09:45
So that day I had this idea.
00:09:47
We took action on it.
00:09:49
We announced this as a
00:09:51
journey the next day.
00:09:55
In today's world, you can spin up
00:09:57
what's called a landing page
00:09:59
to announce it pretty quickly.
00:10:01
So I worked with a friend,
00:10:02
we spun up a landing page.
00:10:04
We had 273 people that
00:10:06
ultimately signed up for
00:10:07
this extraordinary experiment.
00:10:10
And three weeks later we launched it,
00:10:13
right?
00:10:13
So that's what got me on this journey.
00:10:16
I'll fast forward a year later,
00:10:18
June of 2019 is when things
00:10:21
went to a whole nother level.
00:10:24
Uh,
00:10:25
Early that morning, June 17th, 2019,
00:10:28
I had this idea to launch
00:10:31
or to host a gratitude challenge,
00:10:34
to do something to grow
00:10:36
gratitude and see if people would join.
00:10:40
And I thought we would host
00:10:43
one 10-day gratitude challenge.
00:10:46
And we announced that no planning.
00:10:50
You and I were kind of talking about it.
00:10:53
It was an inspired idea that
00:10:55
was built on a podcast
00:10:57
schedule without really
00:10:58
looking at the calendar.
00:10:59
Episode 100 of the podcast I
00:11:01
hosted at that time aired on July 2nd.
00:11:05
So on July 2nd,
00:11:06
we announced that on July 8th,
00:11:08
the following Monday,
00:11:09
we're launching a gratitude
00:11:11
challenge because we wanted
00:11:13
to do it in tandem with episode 101.
00:11:14
And then we realized, oh, gosh,
00:11:17
we're trying to recruit
00:11:18
people on the week of July 4th.
00:11:23
We struggled like crazy to get 100 people.
00:11:26
And then on Saturday, July 6th,
00:11:28
a friend of mine caught
00:11:29
wind of this and asked,
00:11:30
could he share it?
00:11:32
And he did.
00:11:34
And 194 of his friends joined us.
00:11:37
So we launched this with 294
00:11:39
people rather than 100.
00:11:39
Kelly,
00:11:39
the next day we had 100 people on a
00:11:41
waiting list.
00:11:46
Because we ran it as a closed cohort.
00:11:48
So we began three weeks
00:11:49
later with 349 people.
00:11:53
I ended up hosting 22
00:11:56
sessions of this 10-day
00:11:58
gratitude challenge.
00:12:00
We had 2 unique people join,
00:12:02
because a lot of people
00:12:03
join multiple times,
00:12:04
from 73 countries of the world.
00:12:09
And in that journey, Kelly,
00:12:12
I became the gratitude guy.
00:12:13
Okay.
00:12:17
That is so wonderful.
00:12:19
I mean, people respond to that.
00:12:22
You know,
00:12:22
I think that's the thing that the
00:12:24
message that you received is that, wow,
00:12:27
you know, I'm putting this out there.
00:12:29
And the response back is, yes, we,
00:12:32
we were searching for that.
00:12:34
We need to have some sort of
00:12:36
prompt that will put us in
00:12:38
that mind space.
00:12:40
Um, it's difficult.
00:12:42
Kelly, let me tell you, let me, oh,
00:12:45
so I'm a guy that had had
00:12:48
what I would have called a
00:12:49
gratitude practice for
00:12:50
years because your mentor of mine,
00:12:53
and I think the way Ken
00:12:55
said it was think of three
00:12:56
things you're thankful for.
00:12:58
But again, you know, I'm a guy that I,
00:13:00
I equated thankfulness with
00:13:01
gratitude for a long period of time.
00:13:03
Um,
00:13:04
So he said,
00:13:06
before your feet hit the floor
00:13:07
in the morning when you get out of bed,
00:13:08
think of three things
00:13:09
you're thankful for.
00:13:11
So sadly, if I'm honest,
00:13:14
for about 10 years,
00:13:16
I said the same three
00:13:18
things almost every day.
00:13:21
I'm thankful for my wife.
00:13:22
Our kids are home.
00:13:23
My wife, our kids, our job, right?
00:13:24
And if somebody would say, gosh, Kevin,
00:13:26
can't you be more specific?
00:13:27
I would like, okay, Gwen, Josh, Lindsay,
00:13:30
right?
00:13:30
I mean...
00:13:32
And so when we were
00:13:34
launching this 10-day gratitude challenge,
00:13:37
we wanted to do something
00:13:38
different rather than simply ask people,
00:13:42
hey, what are you grateful for today?
00:13:43
List three things.
00:13:45
Next day,
00:13:45
what are three things you're
00:13:46
grateful for today?
00:13:47
The next day, right?
00:13:48
We wanted to mix it up.
00:13:50
We wanted to raise the bar
00:13:53
on how we express gratitude.
00:13:55
So on the idea to host a
00:13:57
challenge was on Tuesday, June 17th,
00:14:01
Tuesday morning, June 19th.
00:14:03
I mean, Wednesday morning,
00:14:04
I have this idea.
00:14:05
There's an artist who will
00:14:07
join and create artwork for
00:14:09
the gratitude challenge.
00:14:10
I'm like, gosh, that's interesting.
00:14:12
But I don't know any artist.
00:14:14
The idea would not leave.
00:14:16
So finally, 733 that morning.
00:14:18
And I know that exact time
00:14:20
because I have a timestamp of the tweet.
00:14:22
I posted a tweet.
00:14:24
Just curious,
00:14:25
any artists willing to
00:14:26
contribute artwork for
00:14:29
Gratitude Challenge?
00:14:30
And I just posted it on Twitter, let it go,
00:14:33
forgot all about it.
00:14:35
Eight hours later,
00:14:36
a friend of mine in the UK
00:14:38
retweets it and tags three
00:14:40
people in the post.
00:14:42
And all three respond.
00:14:45
The first two couldn't.
00:14:46
The third said, well,
00:14:47
I'm not really an artist,
00:14:48
but count me in.
00:14:50
And she is an amazing artist
00:14:52
and she now knows she's an artist.
00:14:54
So I said, she said, what do you need?
00:14:58
And I said, well,
00:14:58
we're doing a 10 day challenge.
00:15:00
She said, well,
00:15:00
what if I create 11 images?
00:15:02
One for the overall
00:15:03
challenge and one for each day.
00:15:05
So I'll show you a couple of
00:15:07
the images because we had
00:15:08
so much fun with these.
00:15:11
Things that we would do to
00:15:13
inspire gratitude in a fresh,
00:15:15
different kind of way.
00:15:20
We ended up.
00:15:23
A year and a half later,
00:15:24
we created a card deck out of this.
00:15:26
Right.
00:15:26
So but at first these were just sketches.
00:15:28
So this is the beauty of nature challenge.
00:15:32
And we would ask people,
00:15:34
what is something about the
00:15:35
beauty of nature that
00:15:36
sparks gratitude in your life?
00:15:39
post a picture and kill it.
00:15:42
It's amazing.
00:15:43
All of a sudden when people
00:15:44
started posting pictures of some,
00:15:49
I remember, right?
00:15:49
The cliffs of Wales or like, wow,
00:15:53
look at this.
00:15:54
A friend in Australia posted something.
00:15:58
A lady from Oregon posted a
00:16:00
picture being on the ocean
00:16:03
in Oregon with their pet
00:16:04
llama at the beach camping.
00:16:06
Yeah.
00:16:07
First off,
00:16:07
I didn't know people had pet llamas.
00:16:10
And if you had a pet llama,
00:16:11
I didn't know you took it
00:16:12
on the family camping trip with you.
00:16:15
That's kind of new for me, too.
00:16:17
That's it.
00:16:18
But great.
00:16:20
Another one was the superstar of your day.
00:16:23
Look back, think back.
00:16:24
Yesterday, who showed up as a superstar?
00:16:27
Maybe it was a stranger.
00:16:28
Maybe it was the cashier at
00:16:30
the grocery store.
00:16:31
Whoever it was,
00:16:32
maybe you don't even know their name.
00:16:34
But if there's a superstar,
00:16:35
talk about them.
00:16:36
And if you have the
00:16:37
opportunity to thank them,
00:16:39
send them a note.
00:16:40
Tell them you appreciate
00:16:41
them because most people have no idea.
00:16:44
That what they did had such
00:16:46
an amazing impact on your life.
00:16:49
One more we did,
00:16:51
we called it the Sesame Street Challenge.
00:16:53
You know,
00:16:53
agencies building alphabet blocks.
00:16:57
And just said,
00:16:57
pick a letter of the alphabet.
00:16:59
How many things can you come
00:17:00
up to be grateful for that
00:17:01
start with the letter Q?
00:17:04
And then we had a married
00:17:05
couple from Sweden.
00:17:11
And they took turns recording a video,
00:17:15
started with A and went
00:17:17
through Z and took turns back and forth.
00:17:20
It's just creative ways to
00:17:22
express gratitude that was
00:17:23
so much different than just, hey,
00:17:27
three things you're grateful for today,
00:17:29
three things, rinse and repeat tomorrow.
00:17:31
So that was fun, right?
00:17:34
To realize there's so many
00:17:36
different ways we can
00:17:38
inspire and invite gratitude.
00:17:41
Well,
00:17:41
and it sounds like instead of just
00:17:44
requesting that people look
00:17:46
for those things,
00:17:47
that you gave prompts that
00:17:49
turned into action.
00:17:51
So gratitude in action.
00:17:52
So you are moving out within
00:17:55
your existence, within your world,
00:17:57
and you're actively seeking out things,
00:17:59
which then makes you notice
00:18:01
things that you probably
00:18:03
aren't paying attention to, right?
00:18:05
So when when you go out in nature,
00:18:07
my husband laughs at me
00:18:08
because I love to mow the lawn.
00:18:10
We have this little ride on mower.
00:18:12
We're out in the country and
00:18:14
I keep telling him I'm
00:18:15
going to get a bedazzled.
00:18:17
So but I love it because I
00:18:19
get to drive around.
00:18:21
And he said, you stop more than you mow,
00:18:23
because I have my camera.
00:18:24
I'm listening to my podcasts
00:18:26
on my headphones as I'm driving my mower.
00:18:29
And I stop because I'm like, oh,
00:18:31
look at that flower.
00:18:32
I have to take a picture of that.
00:18:33
That's so beautiful.
00:18:34
Oh, look at that.
00:18:35
Or look at this.
00:18:36
And I find all of these things.
00:18:39
And that's one of the things
00:18:40
that I talked about with,
00:18:41
with my group last week was
00:18:43
a lot of people say, oh,
00:18:45
you have to mow the lawn.
00:18:47
And my,
00:18:48
my response is I get to mow the lawn.
00:18:51
I get to.
00:18:52
Yeah.
00:18:55
Notice it's one of the
00:18:56
single biggest shifts when
00:18:59
we embrace gratitude.
00:19:00
We move from have to to get to.
00:19:03
Yeah.
00:19:04
Yeah.
00:19:05
And it's, it's life changing.
00:19:07
And I, I, as I speak to people about that,
00:19:09
when you,
00:19:11
when you start realizing that
00:19:13
mowing the lawn or going
00:19:15
for a walk that there, and I mean,
00:19:17
it requires a little bit of
00:19:18
perspective from you as
00:19:19
well to kind of look around and say,
00:19:22
not everybody has the same
00:19:24
unique opportunities and
00:19:26
possibilities in their life.
00:19:28
And so if I am presented with that,
00:19:31
I really need to give thanks, you know,
00:19:34
I think that's a shift.
00:19:50
We're having a little
00:19:51
trouble with your mic there, Kevin.
00:19:52
Just if you could come a little.
00:19:55
Yeah.
00:19:56
Oh, there you are.
00:19:57
You're back.
00:19:58
Okay.
00:19:59
Every once in a while, I have a noise.
00:20:02
That's all.
00:20:02
I don't know.
00:20:03
So you said action.
00:20:05
There were several words you
00:20:06
said that sparked things for me.
00:20:08
One of those was action.
00:20:10
One of those was noticing.
00:20:11
But let's talk about action for a moment.
00:20:13
I saw a post a friend of
00:20:14
mine wrote that was
00:20:15
inspired by something a
00:20:17
mutual friend of ours had
00:20:18
posted that he saw on his walk.
00:20:21
Well, the moment I see this,
00:20:23
and this is an hour ago,
00:20:25
hour and a half ago, Kelly,
00:20:28
I'm reminded of brother
00:20:30
David Stendhal Rast,
00:20:32
who has one of the most
00:20:33
amazing TED Talks on gratitude.
00:20:37
He talks about gratitude.
00:20:39
Look up, look at the sky.
00:20:41
We don't spend enough time
00:20:44
looking at the sky.
00:20:45
And anytime you look at the sky,
00:20:47
there's something to notice, right?
00:20:49
It's always different.
00:20:50
So I stopped right then.
00:20:52
I looked up, I took a picture.
00:20:55
And I posted it.
00:20:56
And I said, hey,
00:20:57
who else will post a
00:20:58
picture of what you see
00:21:00
when you look up today?
00:21:02
Now, right before I joined you,
00:21:04
I noticed a friend of mine
00:21:06
in Austria posted this most
00:21:10
amazing picture of a
00:21:12
mountaintop he happened to be on.
00:21:14
And you just see the sky, the mountains,
00:21:18
the valley.
00:21:19
And how it sparks gratitude
00:21:21
is what David Stendhal Rast was saying.
00:21:26
So, you know, hey,
00:21:28
if you're listening sometime today,
00:21:30
whenever it is that you're listening this,
00:21:32
go outside, look up, do what Kelly did.
00:21:36
We should take a picture of the flower.
00:21:38
Take a picture of the sky.
00:21:40
Share it with us.
00:21:41
I'm serious about that.
00:21:43
Let's see how much gratitude
00:21:44
we can spark and spread
00:21:45
because gratitude does lead to action.
00:21:49
Now, Kelly, you said,
00:21:50
so I've got to share this.
00:21:52
I use this simple magnet or
00:21:54
simple triangle.
00:21:55
This one happens to be a magnet.
00:21:56
Pause, notice, express.
00:22:00
Pause, notice, express.
00:22:01
Love that.
00:22:03
How...
00:22:04
I realized, I mean, I'm a slow learner,
00:22:07
you know, I jokingly say.
00:22:09
I probably answered this question 50 times,
00:22:13
different people, before I realized, gosh,
00:22:14
I say basically the same
00:22:16
thing every time when people say,
00:22:17
how can I be more grateful
00:22:19
when people ask?
00:22:20
What can I do to grow
00:22:21
gratitude or how can I be more grateful?
00:22:23
It's like, it's pause.
00:22:25
It all starts with pausing.
00:22:27
Because most of us live such fast-paced,
00:22:29
such busy lives that we don't pause.
00:22:32
So when you pause, then what do you do?
00:22:34
You're mowing the lawn and you pause.
00:22:37
And then you notice something.
00:22:39
Yes.
00:22:40
And that noticing it
00:22:41
captures your attention.
00:22:43
It activates your imagination.
00:22:45
And then you take a picture
00:22:48
or you just express
00:22:49
gratitude for or you write
00:22:50
a note or you thank someone.
00:22:53
Right.
00:22:53
If it's a person that does something,
00:22:55
you just take an extra moment and go, oh,
00:22:57
my gosh.
00:22:58
So I have a friend.
00:23:00
She'll listen to this.
00:23:02
She's she's just an amazing human.
00:23:05
Her name's Vicki.
00:23:07
Lives in New Jersey,
00:23:08
right outside of New York.
00:23:09
Does a lot of work in New York City.
00:23:11
And she'll be at the
00:23:13
Starbucks or a coffee shop
00:23:15
and she'll just ask the barista, hey,
00:23:18
did you make my coffee with love today?
00:23:22
And Kelly, you know, 90, 90,
00:23:24
95% of the time the baristas say, yes,
00:23:27
yes, I did.
00:23:28
Oh, that's beautiful.
00:23:30
And then that provides Vicki this, well,
00:23:33
thank you, right?
00:23:34
I know it's going to taste better.
00:23:37
I mean, and I want to I'll point out here.
00:23:40
So to me,
00:23:41
that is the difference between
00:23:44
thankful and grateful.
00:23:47
It is really for expressing thanks,
00:23:50
saying thanks to be purely transactional.
00:23:54
Right.
00:23:55
The barista sticks a cup of
00:23:57
coffee in your direction.
00:24:00
You may be glued to your
00:24:01
phone looking at something,
00:24:04
not even connecting with
00:24:05
the barista as a human.
00:24:07
Reach out, collect the coffee and say,
00:24:10
thanks.
00:24:12
And go on.
00:24:13
Or you can take that as a
00:24:16
moment and look the barista
00:24:19
in the eye and see them as a human.
00:24:23
Value them as a human and
00:24:27
speak some word of
00:24:29
affirmation or gratitude
00:24:31
that lands in their heart.
00:24:35
Right.
00:24:35
Because I see you.
00:24:38
I value you and I appreciate you.
00:24:42
So when we say I'm I'm grateful for you,
00:24:44
we're not just saying thank you.
00:24:46
We're saying, oh, I see you.
00:24:48
I value you.
00:24:49
I appreciate you.
00:24:51
And every person on the
00:24:53
planet has an innate desire to be seen,
00:24:56
to feel seen, heard,
00:24:58
valued and appreciated.
00:25:00
Exactly.
00:25:02
And I mean,
00:25:03
when you think about like I
00:25:04
galloped at a poll about
00:25:06
the epidemic of loneliness,
00:25:09
not only in our country,
00:25:10
but in the world.
00:25:11
And we are more connected than ever,
00:25:12
but we feel more disconnected.
00:25:16
And so.
00:25:18
It's so important, like you said,
00:25:21
to make a person feel seen.
00:25:23
But just think about the end
00:25:25
result of that interaction.
00:25:26
So you look at someone and
00:25:28
you tell them that they are seen,
00:25:29
that they're valued,
00:25:31
that their work is appreciated.
00:25:32
Because let's face it now,
00:25:35
when you go in for that coffee,
00:25:37
you need it.
00:25:37
You need it.
00:25:38
You're relying on that
00:25:39
person to get you that
00:25:40
coffee so that you're going
00:25:41
to make it through that
00:25:42
first meeting that morning.
00:25:43
You know what I mean?
00:25:44
Exactly.
00:25:46
So express that appreciation.
00:25:48
But then the secondary piece
00:25:51
of it that I think that we
00:25:53
we have lost sight of is
00:25:54
when you turn around and
00:25:56
you're walking out of that
00:25:57
store and you've just taken
00:25:59
a moment to lift someone else.
00:26:02
What are you feeling in your own gut?
00:26:04
What are you feeling in your own heart?
00:26:07
It reciprocates and comes
00:26:08
right back to you.
00:26:09
It ripples right back into your own life.
00:26:11
When you show people they matter,
00:26:14
you start to view yourself
00:26:16
in a different way.
00:26:18
Would you agree with that?
00:26:19
You can't not.
00:26:21
You just can't, right?
00:26:22
If you do this,
00:26:24
and this is one of those things, gosh,
00:26:28
we should...
00:26:30
So this is the first time I've met Kelly,
00:26:31
right?
00:26:32
So Kelly is now one of my new BFFs.
00:26:34
I can tell.
00:26:36
Yes.
00:26:36
We ought to explore some
00:26:38
things to do together with
00:26:39
some people and invite people into this.
00:26:42
We just did something in the
00:26:43
month of July that we called,
00:26:45
we declared July Don't Wait to Thank.
00:26:48
And we were inviting and
00:26:51
inspiring as many people as
00:26:53
we could to say thank you
00:26:55
to at least one person
00:26:57
every day for the month of July.
00:26:59
Now,
00:27:00
we're going to make this an evergreen
00:27:02
program that any community
00:27:04
can do anytime they want.
00:27:05
And we're building a toolkit
00:27:07
to help communities, groups, launch,
00:27:10
you know,
00:27:10
whether it's a week long or
00:27:11
month long blitz of
00:27:14
expressing gratitude and appreciation.
00:27:17
Kelly, it's so amazing when people do this,
00:27:20
right?
00:27:21
When people,
00:27:22
and the way there's the ripple effect,
00:27:25
there's the boomerang effect, right?
00:27:28
Because quite often in that,
00:27:31
I've heard so many stories.
00:27:33
We launched something a
00:27:34
little over two years ago
00:27:37
And I'm grateful for you as a movement.
00:27:39
And the biggest benefit to
00:27:41
me is I've just been the
00:27:43
curator of stories from
00:27:45
around the world of what
00:27:47
happens when something has that moment,
00:27:51
what you just said.
00:27:53
Two weeks ago today,
00:27:54
maybe three weeks ago today,
00:27:55
my dear friend, Gina Anderson,
00:28:06
I had commented on something
00:28:08
and she comments on it on a
00:28:10
LinkedIn post.
00:28:10
And then all of a sudden I'm
00:28:11
sending her a text and then
00:28:13
she just calls me and I was
00:28:14
able to answer the call.
00:28:15
And we have this amazing
00:28:17
conversation and she's
00:28:18
telling me of an encounter
00:28:19
she had that morning, early that morning,
00:28:21
3.30 in the morning at the
00:28:23
hotel she was at in Iowa.
00:28:25
And then her flight got canceled.
00:28:27
She was up for an early
00:28:28
departure and she contacts
00:28:31
the front desk and asks,
00:28:32
can I get the room for another day?
00:28:36
need to stay.
00:28:36
The front desk clerk was amazing.
00:28:40
And then a couple of hours later,
00:28:42
like 5.30 in the morning,
00:28:43
Gina goes down for coffee,
00:28:45
and the coffee shop isn't open yet.
00:28:50
And she's going to ask the
00:28:52
same clerk that had helped
00:28:53
her earlier about this,
00:28:55
but she has to hear the
00:28:58
exchange she's having with
00:29:00
a very rude guest.
00:29:03
who just comes unglued on
00:29:06
this clerk and talks to
00:29:08
them in a very inhumane
00:29:10
fashion for something that
00:29:13
was not the clerk's responsibility.
00:29:16
And you know how that happens.
00:29:17
Frontline service workers
00:29:19
get dumped on all the time.
00:29:22
And that's where this kind
00:29:23
of action... Okay, that's a theme word,
00:29:27
action.
00:29:28
When you express gratitude to someone...
00:29:32
A couple of things happen.
00:29:33
So anyway,
00:29:34
Gina then goes up and she owns
00:29:36
her own company, employs a lot of people.
00:29:38
She goes, gosh,
00:29:39
I want to affirm you for
00:29:40
the way you dealt with that jerk.
00:29:44
And I'd be honored to have
00:29:45
somebody like you working
00:29:46
in our company because the
00:29:48
way you respond, building this person up.
00:29:51
Gina asked about coffee and she goes, gosh,
00:29:54
the coffee shop doesn't
00:29:55
open for another hour.
00:29:56
And she goes, but let me get you a cup.
00:29:57
So she gets Gina a cup.
00:29:59
Yeah.
00:30:00
Won't charge her for the cup.
00:30:01
Right.
00:30:02
Gina goes up to her room.
00:30:03
She goes, what I just witnessed,
00:30:04
I need to express gratitude.
00:30:06
So she writes a note to this
00:30:09
clerk and she takes a gift.
00:30:12
Gina always carries little gifts with her,
00:30:14
takes a gift,
00:30:15
goes down and gives it to the woman.
00:30:17
Now, I don't know how old the woman was.
00:30:19
I'm guessing she was mid 40s to 50s.
00:30:21
Mm hmm.
00:30:24
And Kelly,
00:30:25
I'm taking time with this story
00:30:26
because I've heard, I mean,
00:30:27
I've heard this story a
00:30:28
hundred times in some variation of it.
00:30:31
And it moves me to tears
00:30:32
every time I hear it.
00:30:33
When Gina shares,
00:30:34
and Gina's still emotional.
00:30:36
I'm crying when Gina's telling me this.
00:30:38
She shares this and the
00:30:39
woman looks at her and goes, what?
00:30:43
No one,
00:30:44
no one has ever told me they're
00:30:48
grateful for me.
00:30:50
Oh my.
00:30:52
No one has ever expressed gratitude.
00:30:56
And when we do that, right,
00:30:59
it's not what we were just saying.
00:31:00
It's not expressing gratitude.
00:31:02
It's all of that.
00:31:04
It's seeing the person.
00:31:05
It's communicating care, kindness,
00:31:08
compassion, value, dignity.
00:31:12
And it moves people.
00:31:14
It does.
00:31:15
And you and I, and you watching,
00:31:17
you listening,
00:31:18
we have that opportunity
00:31:20
multiple times a day.
00:31:22
If we'll pause and notice, right,
00:31:25
that there's this moment
00:31:27
happening and maybe this
00:31:29
person's having a really bad day.
00:31:30
Now, the research tells us this.
00:31:32
We know this.
00:31:33
When we express gratitude,
00:31:35
there are three audiences impacted.
00:31:39
And you already talked about the first one,
00:31:41
the person that expressed gratitude,
00:31:43
they're walking out of the
00:31:44
coffee shop and they just
00:31:46
express gratitude,
00:31:47
but they're feeling good.
00:31:49
Yeah.
00:31:50
Because when you express gratitude,
00:31:53
it does things.
00:31:54
It releases neurons and
00:31:57
neurotransmitters in your
00:31:58
brain and in your body and
00:32:00
hormones are flooding your
00:32:01
body and you feel good.
00:32:03
The person to whom you
00:32:05
expressed gratitude feels good.
00:32:08
Yep.
00:32:10
And the third is anybody who
00:32:12
happens to witness the exchange.
00:32:15
Yes, I love that.
00:32:18
And research shows this.
00:32:20
Research, I think it's from USC,
00:32:24
and I think it's written up
00:32:25
in the Greater Good Science
00:32:27
Center at Berkeley.
00:32:29
But there are
00:32:31
studies around this.
00:32:32
But I have anecdotes as well.
00:32:34
A lady in the grocery store,
00:32:36
she has a moment and gives the cashier,
00:32:40
and I'm grateful for you card,
00:32:41
writes a note.
00:32:42
The cashier puts it in her name badge,
00:32:45
right?
00:32:46
The next time she's there,
00:32:47
she sees it still tucked in
00:32:49
her name badge.
00:32:51
But
00:32:52
The person in front of her
00:32:53
had been a little short with the clerk,
00:32:56
right?
00:32:56
And then she's kind to the cashier.
00:33:00
Well, the person right behind them,
00:33:02
they've witnessed this too.
00:33:04
Yes.
00:33:06
What are the chances they're
00:33:07
going to be kind or cruel
00:33:12
when they've just witnessed
00:33:14
you being kind and grateful?
00:33:17
Exactly.
00:33:18
Exactly.
00:33:19
They may not be grateful,
00:33:20
but I promise you they will
00:33:22
be less cruel than they would have been.
00:33:24
And here's another anecdote.
00:33:26
I didn't even know I had on this shirt.
00:33:29
I wasn't aware of this shirt
00:33:30
I was wearing.
00:33:31
I was wearing a shirt that said,
00:33:32
humankind be both.
00:33:34
And my wife and I are
00:33:36
walking into the restaurant.
00:33:39
And I had opened the door
00:33:40
for this gentleman and his
00:33:42
family to go in.
00:33:44
And all of a sudden he
00:33:45
looked and he's holding the door for me.
00:33:47
He goes, no, you go, you go.
00:33:49
And I'm like, well, thank you.
00:33:50
He says, I just saw your shirt.
00:33:53
I can't not hold the door for you, right?
00:33:56
And I'm like, and I look, right?
00:33:58
There's that message.
00:33:59
He saw a message on a
00:34:01
t-shirt and it reminded him, oh,
00:34:04
I want to be kind.
00:34:07
So we have that power by our example,
00:34:13
by us connecting with somebody.
00:34:16
It inspires someone else to
00:34:19
express gratitude.
00:34:21
Or the person that's received gratitude,
00:34:23
maybe when they go home that night,
00:34:26
they're expressing
00:34:27
gratitude to people in their circles.
00:34:30
It's the ripple effect.
00:34:31
So it's amazing the power we have.
00:34:35
And it truly,
00:34:36
like from the science
00:34:37
perspective that you brought up,
00:34:39
it truly doesn't take long
00:34:41
for your neural pathways to
00:34:43
change once you decide to
00:34:45
make this a practice, a daily practice.
00:34:49
But you have to decide to take that turn.
00:34:51
So if you are the person who
00:34:53
received the gratitude,
00:34:55
You say, okay, well,
00:34:56
I'm going to pass that on.
00:34:57
I'm going to pay that forward.
00:34:59
If you're the person that's
00:35:00
giving the gratitude, okay,
00:35:01
I'm going to keep that up.
00:35:02
That's working.
00:35:03
And if you're the person
00:35:05
behind that grateful person in line,
00:35:08
you are inspiring that
00:35:09
person to then start their own practice.
00:35:13
And that's the way we really
00:35:15
change the world, right?
00:35:16
It happens one person at a time.
00:35:20
The way that I express
00:35:21
gratitude is I call it my
00:35:23
one little thing,
00:35:23
my one little things for the day.
00:35:26
And so I said, I always ask,
00:35:28
what's your one little thing for today?
00:35:29
I mean, some days it's peach yogurt.
00:35:32
Some days it's a letter from a friend.
00:35:35
Some days, you know, it just it depends.
00:35:39
But every time that I do it,
00:35:41
I'm building my practice.
00:35:43
It's becoming commonplace for me.
00:35:45
So years later,
00:35:46
I look around my life and
00:35:49
it's just natural for me
00:35:50
now to look for what's
00:35:52
right rather than what's wrong.
00:35:54
So Kelly, okay, go ahead.
00:35:57
No, no, you go ahead.
00:35:58
I came from a background where, you know,
00:36:01
I come from a healthcare
00:36:02
background and I also
00:36:05
worked with strategic
00:36:06
initiatives and in healthcare leadership.
00:36:10
And so a big part of what I did in my job
00:36:14
was to look for things that
00:36:16
could potentially go wrong.
00:36:17
I mean, that was in my job description,
00:36:19
was to look at things that
00:36:21
could potentially go wrong
00:36:22
and find plan A, B, C,
00:36:24
and D. And it took training
00:36:27
for me not to carry that home.
00:36:29
I had to work at not
00:36:30
carrying that mindset home
00:36:32
and looking around my life and saying, OK,
00:36:35
that's wrong, and that's wrong,
00:36:36
and that's wrong,
00:36:37
and start looking at what was right.
00:36:40
And so it is when we say
00:36:42
living a grateful life,
00:36:44
we're not just saying you
00:36:45
wake up one day and I'm
00:36:46
going to live this grateful life.
00:36:47
We're saying you have to
00:36:48
wake up one day and say,
00:36:50
I am going to practice this daily.
00:36:52
And that's how my grateful
00:36:54
life will arrive.
00:36:56
That's how I'm going to
00:36:57
discover or rediscover
00:36:59
because the blessings are
00:37:00
still all around you,
00:37:01
whether you notice them or not.
00:37:05
So, so many things.
00:37:06
One,
00:37:06
going back to this pause notice express,
00:37:09
somebody said to me, Kevin, you know,
00:37:15
I think you've become a
00:37:16
better noticer on this journey.
00:37:20
And I'm like, absolutely.
00:37:22
And so January 1st of this year,
00:37:24
it's 2024 when we're recording this.
00:37:26
So January 1st, a friend of mine, Mariel,
00:37:29
in the Philippines posted
00:37:31
that she was starting her
00:37:33
second full year of
00:37:35
expressing gratitude every single day,
00:37:37
that she had just finished
00:37:39
one year of doing this.
00:37:41
And I said, oh,
00:37:42
I've got a question for you, Mario.
00:37:46
After doing this for a year,
00:37:49
what do you notice?
00:37:50
What's your big learning
00:37:52
from doing this for a year?
00:37:55
I notice how many more
00:37:56
things there are to be grateful for.
00:38:01
Right?
00:38:01
Because it's what you're looking for.
00:38:04
We start looking for it.
00:38:05
We have now developed.
00:38:06
We're building that muscle.
00:38:08
And we're starting to notice where...
00:38:11
I know people that when they start,
00:38:13
it's like, I mean, really?
00:38:14
You want me to think of
00:38:15
three things to be grateful?
00:38:18
I got one.
00:38:18
I'm serious.
00:38:21
I've known people that have struggled.
00:38:23
I can come up with one.
00:38:25
You do this, you do this,
00:38:27
you keep doing this.
00:38:28
And then all of a sudden, 366 days later,
00:38:31
Mario goes, I keep, right?
00:38:33
There's so many things
00:38:35
because now all of a sudden,
00:38:37
one of the cards I didn't share with you,
00:38:39
but we talked about coffee earlier.
00:38:41
What if you just stop for a
00:38:42
moment and you're drinking
00:38:44
a cup of coffee or a cup of
00:38:45
tea and you think about how
00:38:49
many people were involved in
00:38:53
in making that cup of tea or
00:38:57
cup of coffee possible for
00:38:59
you to enjoy now.
00:39:01
Right.
00:39:02
Going all the way back to
00:39:04
the farmer who planted...
00:39:07
the coffee tree or bean, right?
00:39:10
And harvested, took care of those,
00:39:14
harvested the beans and
00:39:16
then dried the beans and packed the beans,
00:39:19
shipped the beans, roasted the beans,
00:39:22
ground the beans, made the coffee,
00:39:24
made the pot that brewed the coffee,
00:39:27
the cup you, I mean,
00:39:29
hundreds of people are
00:39:31
involved in the simple act
00:39:33
of us having a cup of coffee
00:39:35
how many people touch that
00:39:37
along the way to make that
00:39:39
possible so in in modern
00:39:42
life if we start thinking
00:39:44
about all of the people
00:39:46
that made all of the
00:39:47
technology possible that
00:39:49
you and I can join on this podcast today
00:39:55
It's crazy, Kelly.
00:39:57
I mean,
00:39:57
there's thousands of people that
00:40:01
were involved in processes
00:40:03
that made this one episode possible.
00:40:07
So you struggle to be, just pick an item.
00:40:10
So one time somebody did
00:40:11
this and they're like,
00:40:12
I was at a concert and I
00:40:14
started thinking about all
00:40:18
of the people that had a
00:40:20
role to make our evening of
00:40:22
enjoying music possible.
00:40:27
Yes.
00:40:29
We can pick anything, right?
00:40:31
Anything can be that catalyst.
00:40:34
So build that muscle.
00:40:37
Oh, there was something else.
00:40:38
I want to cut back to this.
00:40:39
So you were trained to find defects.
00:40:45
I was, yeah.
00:40:47
prevent defects.
00:40:48
So have you ever noticed, right?
00:40:50
This is something for those
00:40:52
of you that may be thinking, well,
00:40:54
what's the impact of this?
00:40:56
I get this personally,
00:40:57
but can this really matter in my work?
00:41:00
So Kelly, would you agree that,
00:41:03
and I know you do because
00:41:04
you already said it,
00:41:05
that the questions we ask
00:41:07
determine the answers we find?
00:41:10
Yes.
00:41:11
If we're asking what's wrong
00:41:13
here or what can go wrong here,
00:41:17
We see everything, right?
00:41:18
And you were working to not
00:41:20
carry that home because you
00:41:22
realized the skill you had
00:41:23
developed to be successful
00:41:24
at work would not lead to a
00:41:28
happy life at home, right?
00:41:30
No, it would not.
00:41:32
What happens then if we take
00:41:35
this gratitude,
00:41:37
we've started building personally,
00:41:39
and we take it into the workplace?
00:41:41
And if you are a leader in an organization,
00:41:46
what if you start your...
00:41:48
conversations,
00:41:50
even if they're just
00:41:51
one-on-one conversations,
00:41:52
you start your
00:41:52
conversations with
00:41:54
appreciation for the person.
00:41:56
You're leading a team
00:41:58
meeting and you start the
00:41:59
meeting with a question,
00:42:01
what do we have to celebrate?
00:42:04
Because most meetings in
00:42:06
most companies in the world
00:42:08
today start with what's the
00:42:10
problem we need to address now.
00:42:13
And if you start by focusing
00:42:15
on the problems,
00:42:17
the problems are going to grow.
00:42:19
And if you start by
00:42:20
celebrating the successes,
00:42:22
you're going to realize
00:42:22
there's more success to celebrate.
00:42:25
And there's greater energy
00:42:27
to then address the
00:42:28
problems when you get
00:42:29
around to addressing the problems.
00:42:32
So the questions we ask
00:42:34
determine the answers we
00:42:35
find and the energy we create.
00:42:37
So you can take this very
00:42:39
discipline that we're
00:42:40
talking about and bring it
00:42:42
into the workplace and
00:42:44
start infusing gratitude
00:42:46
into your conversations,
00:42:48
into your correspondence,
00:42:51
into your meetings,
00:42:52
into your presentations,
00:42:54
and you will experience a shift,
00:42:56
which is another word you mentioned,
00:42:58
right?
00:42:59
We can use gratitude to architect a shift.
00:43:04
That is so true.
00:43:05
And I mean, you know,
00:43:07
I think in management books,
00:43:09
it talks about when you're
00:43:10
presenting something difficult,
00:43:12
when you're doing kind of someone,
00:43:13
one of your employees has a
00:43:15
learning experience,
00:43:16
that maybe starting off
00:43:17
talking about strengths is
00:43:19
a good way to open the door
00:43:21
to a more meaningful conversation.
00:43:24
And I agree that in the workplace,
00:43:28
we tend because of, you know,
00:43:29
time crunch and, and
00:43:32
everything happens so quickly these days,
00:43:35
like news cycles shift in a
00:43:37
matter of hours.
00:43:38
And it's the same way with
00:43:40
the pressures that I think
00:43:41
we put on ourselves in a
00:43:42
professional setting is that, you know,
00:43:45
we just have to get things done.
00:43:46
So we don't have time to
00:43:47
talk about the fluff of gratitude.
00:43:50
And I say that in quotations because,
00:43:52
you know,
00:43:52
people have responded to me when
00:43:54
I talk about gratitude,
00:43:56
especially in the workplace,
00:43:57
as we don't have time.
00:44:00
But well, so what do you have time for?
00:44:04
Do you have time for
00:44:06
worrying about employee retention?
00:44:08
Because gratitude will help you with that.
00:44:11
Do you have time to think
00:44:12
about staff morale?
00:44:14
Because gratitude will help you with that.
00:44:16
Do you have time to worry
00:44:18
about where you're going to
00:44:20
get those applicants for
00:44:21
these jobs because you have
00:44:23
this reputation of this
00:44:24
workplace that doesn't have time?
00:44:27
to take care of their employees.
00:44:29
So you,
00:44:30
you do always have time for
00:44:31
gratitude because it doesn't take long.
00:44:34
That was, that's what I wanted to,
00:44:36
to piggyback on inside.
00:44:37
That's, that's.
00:44:39
The amazing part with when people go,
00:44:42
I don't have time for this.
00:44:43
I'm like,
00:44:43
how much time do you think this takes?
00:44:47
I mean,
00:44:48
we're not talking about every
00:44:49
single time stopping and writing a letter,
00:44:53
a note or a letter.
00:44:54
Right.
00:44:54
It's not that what I've the
00:44:58
way I approach this in the
00:45:00
workplace is talk about
00:45:01
developing a moment mentality.
00:45:04
Yes.
00:45:05
Right.
00:45:05
And when you see an amazing
00:45:08
moment happening and
00:45:10
amazing moments happen in
00:45:12
workplaces every single day,
00:45:16
somebody does something
00:45:17
that's relatively ordinary
00:45:19
task and they do it with
00:45:21
such finesse or flair or
00:45:23
fervor that that ordinary
00:45:25
task is suddenly an
00:45:27
extraordinary activity
00:45:30
because of the way they approach it.
00:45:32
Well, that's a moment.
00:45:33
Well,
00:45:33
we can either miss those moments or
00:45:37
we just minimize it.
00:45:38
Oh, gosh, she's always amazing like that,
00:45:41
right?
00:45:41
Kelly, she just always does it.
00:45:44
Or we could just seize the moment.
00:45:48
and magnify that and go, oh my gosh, Kelly,
00:45:51
I saw what you did.
00:45:54
That was amazing.
00:45:56
Thank you for doing that.
00:45:57
Now you might write a note later.
00:45:59
You might even,
00:46:00
we use these little impact
00:46:03
cards is what we call them.
00:46:04
It's a business.
00:46:05
It says,
00:46:06
I'm grateful for you on the front.
00:46:07
People carry these and they
00:46:08
just write a note to the barista,
00:46:10
write a note to somebody and just go,
00:46:12
I saw what you did.
00:46:13
That was amazing.
00:46:14
That seals that moment.
00:46:17
You see the moment, you seize the moment,
00:46:19
you seal the moment.
00:46:20
But it comes from having a
00:46:22
moment mentality and it
00:46:24
only takes a moment.
00:46:27
But most of us just we live
00:46:29
again because we don't pause.
00:46:31
We don't notice.
00:46:33
So we never get to express
00:46:34
because we're life's a blur.
00:46:38
That's so true.
00:46:39
So I want to talk a little bit now.
00:46:41
So let's go from the
00:46:42
boardroom to the living room.
00:46:44
So I primarily work with bereaved parents.
00:46:50
And there is such a feeling
00:46:54
of groundlessness in those
00:46:55
early days of grief.
00:46:56
And I will tell you from my
00:46:58
own personal experience,
00:47:00
looking for one little thing,
00:47:03
The concept of that, of going and saying,
00:47:05
I am looking for one little
00:47:07
thing today to be thankful for.
00:47:09
That, for me,
00:47:12
came from a place in my
00:47:15
broken heart where I wasn't
00:47:17
sure if there was going to
00:47:18
be one little thing.
00:47:19
When I started off, I was so broken.
00:47:23
I wasn't sure if I was going
00:47:24
to find one little thing.
00:47:25
So I didn't want to put too
00:47:26
much pressure on me.
00:47:27
I didn't want to go to the three things,
00:47:28
Kevin,
00:47:29
because I didn't know if I was
00:47:30
going to be able to find one.
00:47:32
So I said, okay,
00:47:32
I'm just going to go for
00:47:33
one little thing.
00:47:34
And I will tell you that
00:47:36
early in that journey of
00:47:39
just sadness and despair that many days,
00:47:43
here are my one little
00:47:44
things I'll tell you.
00:47:46
One little thing that my
00:47:49
broken heart continues to beat.
00:47:53
That I have a 12-year-old
00:47:56
son who looks at me hoping
00:48:00
for a happy life,
00:48:01
and I am going to give that to him.
00:48:04
You know, from hell or high water,
00:48:06
I'm going to make this happen.
00:48:09
Today,
00:48:09
I am grateful that I had the courage
00:48:12
to walk to the mailbox.
00:48:14
I mean, those are real things.
00:48:16
Those are real things.
00:48:18
And so I want to really
00:48:21
solidify for people.
00:48:23
You don't have to be
00:48:25
skipping down the road,
00:48:28
happy as a clam to have a
00:48:29
gratitude practice.
00:48:31
I found my most,
00:48:33
the deepest and most
00:48:35
authentic gratitude
00:48:36
practice for me started
00:48:38
when I was at the lowest
00:48:40
point in my life.
00:48:43
So Kelly, gosh, I'm sorry.
00:48:46
Thank you for sharing this.
00:48:48
Thank you for opening this.
00:48:50
And I'm thinking of a friend
00:48:53
named Cindy who I met last
00:48:56
year and we met in a group.
00:48:59
We had some conversations
00:49:01
and she is a parent who lost a child.
00:49:05
And she said to me, Kevin,
00:49:07
I used to be very positive.
00:49:09
I was upbeat.
00:49:10
I was I was the most
00:49:12
grateful person people knew.
00:49:14
And then this happened and
00:49:16
it had been three, four or five years.
00:49:18
She goes,
00:49:19
I just don't think I'll ever get
00:49:22
there again.
00:49:22
And we had a couple of
00:49:28
conversations and Kelly,
00:49:30
I remember I'm like, gosh, you know.
00:49:35
She was on this quest of one
00:49:36
little thing and finding
00:49:38
this little thing and going
00:49:40
a little further the next
00:49:42
day or doing a little more, right?
00:49:44
And so I have a friend, Chester,
00:49:47
in the pandemic,
00:49:49
his company launched a
00:49:50
hashtag that was called
00:49:51
Find Your Gratitude.
00:49:53
And we started doing work
00:49:55
together around that in
00:49:56
sessions to help people find it.
00:49:57
Because, right,
00:49:58
there are times when it's abundant.
00:50:00
You just walk out.
00:50:01
Oh, gosh,
00:50:02
there's so many things to be
00:50:03
grateful for.
00:50:03
Life is good.
00:50:04
And then there are other
00:50:05
times it's hard to find one thing.
00:50:09
I get it.
00:50:10
I know those days, Kelly.
00:50:13
And when I said to Cindy, I said,
00:50:18
can I ask you something?
00:50:19
I mean,
00:50:19
I just think this is really important.
00:50:23
What if being grateful from
00:50:26
this point forward looks
00:50:28
completely different to
00:50:29
what you thought being
00:50:31
grateful looked like?
00:50:35
I said,
00:50:35
because I don't sense that you're
00:50:38
ungrateful.
00:50:39
I don't sense any sense of
00:50:40
entitlement in your life.
00:50:43
I just think you think to be
00:50:45
grateful means you have to be upbeat,
00:50:49
positive, and perky like you used to be.
00:50:54
Right.
00:50:57
And she's like, oh, my God.
00:51:02
Right.
00:51:02
It's like, thank you.
00:51:03
Right.
00:51:04
Because she just thought she
00:51:06
had she had in her mind
00:51:09
being grateful means.
00:51:13
Right.
00:51:14
And I think perky and positive.
00:51:18
It doesn't.
00:51:19
It doesn't.
00:51:20
And I think I always say, too,
00:51:23
when we talk about
00:51:24
especially suffering and
00:51:27
people talk a lot about
00:51:29
alleviating the suffering
00:51:31
through mindfulness.
00:51:33
And so this is what I say
00:51:34
about one little thing.
00:51:36
So finding one little thing.
00:51:39
looking for your one little thing,
00:51:41
that's gratitude in action, right?
00:51:43
It cannot change the pain of
00:51:45
your suffering,
00:51:47
but it can alleviate some
00:51:50
of the suffering that you feel.
00:51:52
And when you are in action,
00:51:55
seeking out gratitude,
00:51:57
seeking out something,
00:51:58
you're looking around your
00:51:59
life for something to be
00:52:01
thankful for on that day.
00:52:04
You're not looking back at
00:52:06
the regrets of the past.
00:52:08
You are not looking forward
00:52:11
with the worries of the future.
00:52:13
You are right here, you are right now,
00:52:17
and you are safe and okay.
00:52:19
And you are mindful.
00:52:21
So when people talk about mindfulness,
00:52:23
some people get caught up
00:52:24
in it and they're like,
00:52:25
what is this mindfulness?
00:52:27
This whole,
00:52:27
like everybody's talking about
00:52:28
being mindful.
00:52:30
It's being present in those circumstances.
00:52:32
And sometimes the biggest
00:52:36
alleviator of pain in your
00:52:37
life is just grounding
00:52:40
yourself in that present moment.
00:52:42
And what better way to do it
00:52:44
than gratitude?
00:52:46
Yeah, what better way?
00:52:48
Okay, two things from that.
00:52:49
One, you just...
00:52:54
almost quoted verbatim,
00:52:56
my favorite gratitude quote,
00:52:58
which is a lock screen on my phone,
00:53:01
comes from Ann Voskamp.
00:53:03
No amount of regret changes the past.
00:53:07
No amount of anxiety changes the future.
00:53:10
Any amount of gratitude
00:53:12
changes the present.
00:53:14
Oh, I love that.
00:53:16
No amount of regret changes the past.
00:53:21
If you're grieving now,
00:53:23
no amount of regret is
00:53:25
going to change that.
00:53:27
There's no going back and
00:53:28
undoing any of that,
00:53:30
and no amount of anxiety is going to
00:53:34
change the things you're worried about.
00:53:37
But in this moment,
00:53:38
if you can find one little thing, right?
00:53:42
And the little,
00:53:42
the one little thing may be, gosh,
00:53:45
you're still alive.
00:53:48
And I think of something, a friend of mine,
00:53:50
anonymous,
00:53:51
she didn't know who it was from,
00:53:52
but she tweeted it to me years ago.
00:53:53
And it's just stuck in my heart.
00:53:55
As long as you have a pulse,
00:53:58
you have a purpose.
00:54:00
Yes.
00:54:02
You're alive today.
00:54:03
There's still hope, right?
00:54:04
There's still hope.
00:54:06
There's an opportunity to move forward.
00:54:09
There's an opportunity to find redemption.
00:54:13
There's an opportunity to
00:54:15
find grace right through
00:54:17
this really hurtful
00:54:18
hardship that you're going through.
00:54:23
So no amount of regret changes the past.
00:54:26
No amount of anxiety changes the future.
00:54:29
Any.
00:54:30
Amount of gratitude changes the present.
00:54:33
And being present, right?
00:54:35
It's the mindfulness thing.
00:54:40
Yeah.
00:54:41
Oh, the other one you said.
00:54:44
One day I heard myself say this.
00:54:46
Do you ever have these experiences, Kelly?
00:54:48
Somebody asks you something,
00:54:49
you're in a conversation,
00:54:50
you say something out loud
00:54:51
and you hear yourself say that and you go,
00:54:54
I didn't know I knew that.
00:54:55
Every day, Kevin.
00:54:56
Every day.
00:54:56
Every day.
00:54:59
So one day we're in a
00:55:00
conversation and I said, well, you know,
00:55:04
gratitude isn't a cure-all,
00:55:08
but it's one powerful cope-all.
00:55:12
And there's so many people
00:55:13
that teach gratitude.
00:55:14
Oh, if you'll just be great.
00:55:16
No,
00:55:17
it doesn't alleviate all your problems.
00:55:19
A couple of years ago,
00:55:20
I was hosting a group
00:55:22
conversation and I asked this question.
00:55:25
I asked,
00:55:25
what benefit of gratitude are you
00:55:28
enjoying most now?
00:55:30
I still remember the words
00:55:33
when they popped up on the
00:55:34
screen because it was an
00:55:35
interactive tool people could post on.
00:55:39
It lessens the overwhelm.
00:55:44
Yes.
00:55:44
I love that.
00:55:47
Yes.
00:55:48
Right.
00:55:48
It doesn't make things go away.
00:55:50
It doesn't make it.
00:55:51
It's not this panacea.
00:55:53
But if being grateful today
00:55:56
lessens the overwhelm
00:55:59
you're feeling in this moment,
00:56:02
gratitude is a good thing in your life.
00:56:06
Oh, Kevin,
00:56:07
I think I could talk to you for
00:56:08
another 10 hours.
00:56:10
I know you don't have time for that,
00:56:11
but this has just been so
00:56:14
wonderful to chat with you
00:56:16
about gratitude.
00:56:16
You're going to have to come
00:56:17
back again because this is
00:56:20
this conversation is far from over.
00:56:22
There's so much more I would
00:56:23
love to explore with you
00:56:24
because I just I feel like.
00:56:28
um sometimes that there are
00:56:30
people out there who just
00:56:32
close their minds to a
00:56:33
gratitude practice because
00:56:35
they just think it's very
00:56:36
superficial when in fact
00:56:38
like you said it lessens
00:56:40
the overwhelm and we all
00:56:41
feel that overwhelmed these
00:56:43
days I mean it's hard not
00:56:44
to unless you're you know
00:56:46
on an island by yourself um
00:56:49
it's hard not to feel
00:56:50
overwhelmed with with the
00:56:51
world sometimes and gratitude
00:56:54
can ground you in the moment
00:56:57
and remind you that no
00:56:59
matter what your circumstance,
00:57:01
no matter what's swirling around,
00:57:03
that you're okay.
00:57:05
You're more than okay.
00:57:07
You have more than enough.
00:57:09
Kevin, thank you so much.
00:57:11
So before we end this beautiful interview,
00:57:15
I just want you to tell our
00:57:17
listeners how they can find you.
00:57:19
And if you have anything you
00:57:22
want to just give a plug for,
00:57:24
I would love to hear it.
00:57:26
Okay.
00:57:30
KevinDMonroe.com is our website.
00:57:34
I mentioned LinkedIn a couple times.
00:57:36
If you're on LinkedIn, look me up.
00:57:39
Obviously,
00:57:39
I was on LinkedIn early enough
00:57:41
that I'm just Kevin Monroe there.
00:57:42
You can find me.
00:57:44
No numbers after my name or anything.
00:57:47
LinkedIn, you know,
00:57:48
dot com slash in slash Kevin Monroe.
00:57:51
And I'll offer this, Kelly.
00:57:53
We created something around
00:57:55
this since I talked about
00:57:56
pause notice express.
00:57:57
We created something, a five day program.
00:58:02
Beginner's Guide to Growing
00:58:04
Gratitude is what it's called now.
00:58:05
We used to call it a fast start,
00:58:06
but it's just the
00:58:07
Beginner's Guide to Growing Gratitude.
00:58:09
And it's whether you're
00:58:10
beginning for the first
00:58:11
time or you're wanting to
00:58:12
begin a new season of gratitude.
00:58:14
It walks you through.
00:58:16
It's a free e-course that
00:58:18
drips five days and just
00:58:21
teaches this pause, notice,
00:58:24
express framework.
00:58:27
And helps you develop that
00:58:29
understanding and get in a
00:58:31
rhythm of pausing, noticing,
00:58:33
and expressing.
00:58:34
And you can get that at
00:58:35
letsgrowgratitude.com.
00:58:38
Letsgrowgratitude.com takes
00:58:40
you right there.
00:58:41
Free e-course you can participate in.
00:58:46
That is so wonderful.
00:58:48
Kevin, thank you for your important work.
00:58:52
I encourage everybody to go
00:58:53
to Kevin's website.
00:58:54
It's fantastic.
00:58:55
And some of the tools that
00:58:56
you have there are just
00:58:58
really inspiring and just
00:59:01
serve as a great reminder for people.
00:59:03
And I think that's the thing
00:59:04
is that you are not...
00:59:08
just throwing out,
00:59:09
you should have a gratitude practice.
00:59:10
You're showing them how to
00:59:11
put that in action.
00:59:12
And I couldn't applaud you any louder.
00:59:15
So yay for you.
00:59:17
Thank you, Kelly.
00:59:17
Thank you for hosting this conversation.
00:59:20
And again, I'll just say you,
00:59:22
you who are listening to us, watching,
00:59:24
listening, thank you for joining.
00:59:27
And if you're dealing with grief, gosh,
00:59:31
my heart goes out to you.
00:59:36
We, we all,
00:59:38
experience hurt and heartache in life.
00:59:41
And gratitude doesn't make it go away,
00:59:44
but gratitude does help us
00:59:46
get through each day, right?
00:59:49
Finding the one little thing,
00:59:52
one little thing,
00:59:54
gratitude will help you get through.
00:59:57
It won't help you get over.
00:59:58
It will help you get through the grief.
01:00:01
That's beautiful.
01:00:02
Thank you so much, Kevin.
01:00:04
I really appreciate it.
01:00:06
And thank you all.
01:00:07
We'll see.
01:00:08
We'll talk to you on the next episode.