Gratitude

There's always something spectacular happening. Going and searching for it is like this lack of faith in it. It pushes it away from you. Just the idea that you're wanting to be grateful is something to be grateful for.

Welcome to The Art of Accomplishment, where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease. I'm Brett Kistler, here today with my co-host, Joe Hudson. So I've been working with a CEO client who recently, they wanted to bring more connection into their meetings, into their leadership meetings. And so I asked how, if at all, gratitude is involved in their meeting process. And first he was a little shocked, and then he kind of laughed and squirmed a little bit. And I was like, what's the squirm? And he's like, Yeah, I just can't imagine explicitly inviting my team to share things they're grateful for in a structured way in our meetings. I just, I'd be embarrassed. And, you know, I found that fascinating. And it's also not at all uncommon. Somehow, especially in a lot of business circles, but kind of across our culture in a lot of ways, gratitude is often seen as something that's orthogonal or unrelated to productivity or efficiency. Superfluous even. So in that spirit, I want to take up an entire episode to talk about just gratitude.

Let's be superfluous. Let's be superfluous and just talk about gratitude. I love it. Let's do it.

And let's also do it in a way that even the most hardcore productivity nerds could get behind.

Okay.

See if we can do that. Sound good?

That's good. Let's do it.

Awesome.

Yeah.

So, so kind of start with like in, in our meetings internally in AOA, we, we have this practice. We always take a moment to share something we're grateful for. We'll kind of do a round. Uh, we've even had entire meetings here at AOA that have been fully dedicated to gratitude or celebration in critical moments. And I imagine that wasn't always the case in your career as a VC. I imagine that wasn't always the norm. And so I'm curious just to ask you first, to start this off, how did that come to be that gratitude became such an explicit part of work culture for you?

Yeah. Yeah. Interestingly, like it didn't really happen in a lot of the board meetings, but our internal meetings almost from the start as a venture capitalist, we did gratitude. Um, and it was my idea. It came to be because I, One, I just knew it was a really powerful practice. And the original thought was I had no idea of all the benefits that it would bring and how, for the productivity nerds, how much more efficient and productive we would be because of it. But I just wanted a way for us to connect. And what I noticed was that most of the time we were spending, we were talking about problems. What are the problems? Occasionally, we'd be like, this went well, but most of the— in business in general, it's just like you've spent a lot of time focused on what's not going right. And as you should, if you're going to pay attention to only the things that are working in your company, you're not going to make improvements and you're probably not going to get where you want to go. So, you really want to focus on where you can improve on things. And so, that usually presents itself as a problem and you're considering and thinking about problems or thinking about how to make something better, but you're not really being grateful for what's happening. And what I just noticed is that humans without that shared experience of being grateful, it's just harder to connect. And so that's all it was. It was just like, I wanted our team to feel more connected because I knew that would be good for me and I knew it'd be good for them. And that's how it started. And then later I just found out, holy crap, I had no idea how powerful of a practice that is. If it's done well, then it's an incredibly powerful practice.

Yeah. Beautiful.

Yeah. And, and how, how about you with gratitude? Like, was there any gratitude in air sports or like, like how, like, was there like, wow, besides like, I'm grateful I didn't die.

Like what, what, yeah.

How was gratitude, if at all, a part of your, your world before this?

Yeah. Well, I mean, grateful I didn't die is a, is a big one, but, and there's, there's actually some like depth to it, but initially it was just like, this is a dream to be able to do this thing that I like, saw and then went after and then did and be able to go in the mountains with my friends and just have these beautiful vistas and have these beautiful flying experiences. Yeah, there's a lot of gratitude for that. And it was, you know, very quickly when, when you're doing something that's really risky, what the fuck are you doing it for if you're not really deeply enjoying it and grateful for the experience? Uh, so it quickly started to become obvious when I was just starting to do it for the You know, for the goal achievement oriented kind of aspect without really actually being with a gratitude.

Yeah.

Um, but there were also, it also started to become really functional in a, in a deeper way. Uh, for example, if you, if you make any kind of jump, you are on some level, your skill and your training is involved. And on some level there's just luck and grace. And so after any jump, there'd just be a process of even during the jump, but like really after jump, especially one where something went a little bit hairy, you know, and you're like, woo, you got that like fear moving through the system. You got that adrenaline. And there's just like the, I found that the more that I let myself really feel the gratitude for, for my own actions and behaviors and skills and whatever, but also just for the configuration of reality that occurred that allowed me to get through the the situation, the more it actually allowed me to really integrate what had happened and update my, you know, update my model, update my decision-making, update my abilities and, uh, make different decisions in the future and also be doing, doing it less from a seeking kind of a place, less from, uh, chasing the dragon, more from the really reveling in the beauty.

Yeah. That makes a ton of sense. Yeah. That's cool. Thanks for sharing that.

Yeah. Yeah. So I want to kind of go into like, how do we in this work define gratitude? What is it that we're talking about here? Just so we can tease that out relative to what people might perceive gratitude to be.

Yeah. So I don't think anybody's too confused about gratitude. It's, you know, the feeling of thanks or gratefulness for a situation. I think the the distinction in our work compared to other work is that it's a full-body sensation. It's a full-body sport. Gratitude is not like Thanksgiving dinner table. I'm really grateful for the food. Can I fucking eat? It's not that. It's a felt sense that is typically tingly and warm and and in it there's this acknowledgment of something greater than yourself. The natural part of gratitude is that it's something that's beyond you. Like you said, oh, I could have died. It wasn't completely up to me that when it went hairy, I might have had something to do with it. But even that, there's this acknowledgment like, oh, man, I turned just at the right time. And in that is a relief of pressure. There's like the ego pressure can get out of the balloon a little bit because it lets that pressure out because there's an acknowledgment that you're not fully in control of this thing. And I'm sure there's viewers who are like, I'm in control of it. It's like my response there would be, you can't even decide the next thought you're going to have or the next 10 thoughts you're going to have. So if you're not even making that decision, which is what's propelling all the rest of your decisions. There's something greater moving and call it life if you want to, but there's just something that's beyond us that's occurring. And even if it's our genetics, right? But it's not that sense of ego. And in that, so the sensation also comes with a relief, the emotion of gratitude. There's a kind of a certain sense of expansion and a certain sense of relief that comes with it. And so, that's how I would describe it. And if you're not feeling it, you don't get the benefits of all the many benefits of gratitude. You don't get them if you're not actually allowing yourself to experience the gratitude. Yeah.

And that leads really well into my next question, which is around what makes gratitude so uncomfortable for people. So, not everybody, but Yeah, there, there is a certain, there is a certain kind of keeping at the borders. And I imagine that might be related to the, the egolessness of it, the letting it come from outside of ourself, the surrender, the, that, that is, that can be a scary experience, especially if you're trying to really get things done and you've got a mission.

Right.

But I want to ask you, like, what do you think makes it not as much of an explicit practice, a full-body sport, as you say? In our society commonly.

What's funny about that is you asked me the question, I was like, I don't think I have an answer for that one. And then you're literally giving me the answer while saying it's like it comes from the outside. That was good. Yeah, I think, yes, probably some part of it, if not all of it, comes from the idea that there is something beyond you that you're not fully in control. And that can be scary until you actually allow that feeling in. And usually it comes also just from a certain level of chaos. What I've noticed is there's a certain amount of chaos in your earlier life. It's harder to get in touch with gratitude except for maybe in extreme ways. Something that's really like life or death or something to that effect. And so there is a sense of loss.

I wonder who that might apply to.

I think the other thing that makes it difficult is that feeling good in front of people in our society is kind of kinky, meaning we can laugh together. But, you know, imagine you're sitting at a table at a restaurant and one of your friends like goes into ecstasy. It's going to make everybody really, really uncomfortable. I mean, even, you know, sexually, when you watch Tara eat purple potatoes. Exactly. Watching Tara eat as an example. She takes so much pleasure in it. Or, you know, I think it's why so even so much of our sex is so transactional even with ourselves. Masturbation is a very transactional thing is because that pleasure, to allow yourself to totally feel the pleasure in a way, it makes people self-conscious. Oftentimes, people feel shame around pleasure. And so, that also happens. It also, if you really allow yourself to feel pleasure, there's a certain safety that comes with it and then there's that lack of control, but there's also the lack of self. If you feel— what people don't usually say is, I felt total ecstasy and I felt very solid and grounded in my sense of self. Ecstasy in itself is like, oh, it's kind of transcendental. It's like, ah. So I think that's the other thing is there's this loss of control/self. In feeling good that is, even though everybody wants it, is a bit challenging to allow or to let in, which is why it's not as prevalent.

Yeah.

And so those are the reasons. And the only thing I'll add there is in groups or in businesses, it's even more profound than that because we're supposed to be serious. We're supposed to be productive. I'm valuable by what I've created. And most of the people who are really high performers in business, this isn't required to be a high performer, but what motivates a lot of people in business is trying to satisfy a critical parent or this feeling like they're not good enough and then they have something to prove. And so to actually allow themselves to feel satisfied is scary because the sense of identity goes away and their mind goes, if I allow myself to feel satisfied or grateful, I'll stop trying. I'll stop being productive, I'll stop being ambitious.

Yeah. Yeah. When we've learned to use the trauma or the, the, those patterns to drive us, then it's scary to let them go. So yeah, if gratitude unravels these things and allows us to actually be present and enjoy where we are, then yeah. Yeah. That, that can really fuck with the mind a little bit. And so, yeah, it does. So kind of given that, um, given that there's this sort of push-pull here in, in society and a lot of our culture, what are, when people do allow that gratitude as a full body experience, a full body sport, uh, I want to talk a little bit about what are some of the low-hanging fruits of just doing a little bit of practice of gratitude. And we'll later on talk about what that practice looks like. But I want to talk about what are sort of the easy gains in the productivity sense, and also what are some of the benefits that are available from doing a deeper practice, from really making it a lifestyle.

Yes, I would say a deeper, like a little bit in a deeper practice, there's not too much of a difference between them, but we'll go into that as we talk about the practice. It's, you know, maybe the difference of 7 minutes a day or something to that effect. But so, okay, so productivity-wise, the first thing is gratitude really helps you solve problems. What that means is that we're usually solving a problem with what's wrong and how do I fix it. Gratitude allows you to say what's right and how do I grow it. So I don't think I've told this story, but if I have, I apologize. There is this classic story of a guy who was in Save the Children or Feed the Children or something like that, and he went to Vietnam and he wasn't welcome and he only had a $50,000 budget and his job was to stop childhood malnutrition in an entire county or two or something like that. And, he got greeted on the plane and they were like, "We don't believe in you. We want you gone, but I've been told to let you try for 3 months." And, he had no budget. And so, he walked around, he just looked, and he found one village where the kids weren't malnourished. And he noticed what they were doing. And they were taking the same amount of rice, but they were putting into 3 meals instead of 2. They were taking little insects out of the fields that looked like micro shrimp, and they put them in the rice, and they cut these bitter greens, and they chopped them really finely and put them in the rice. And he saw that they did it. And then he brought all the mothers together, and he showed them all the difference in the weight and the way the kids were and everything like that. And then the whole county changed. And so he solved the problem by going, what's right and how do we grow that instead of what's wrong and how do we fix it? He would've been like, how do I get another $50,000? How do I convince the government to, how do I, like, that's one way to solve the problem.

This was a completely different one and very efficient.

So that's one thing really helps you solve the problem. It particularly helps you solve a problem in another way too, which is if you, start doing gratitude practice and you learn that you can be grateful for difficult shit, it's going to be okay, not denying the pain of difficult stuff but actually being grateful for the pain of difficult stuff, then you see opportunities where very few people see the opportunities where it's like, oh, it's COVID. And if you can really get into the gratitude, oh, I get to be home alone with my family and I get to really focus on myself and here are some things I'm grateful for. Yeah, I'm not going to say it doesn't suck, but in that, then you can say, oh, well, what do I want to do? I want to learn while I'm home alone. Oh, I could do an online course. And then you're taking advantage of an opportunity. So that's another one, two ways that it solves problems that just gives you a whole different set of problems. And another great benefit is I think we talked about this in the money episode, but if you have poverty mentality around anything, time, money, smarts, whatever, a lot of that is because you define yourself as stressed or you define yourself as not smarter, you define yourself as poor. If you start doing gratitude in a way that allows you to see the wealth that you do have, to see the intelligence that you do have, you change your definition of yourself. And so that also solves problems. Countless people I know have done like a 10-minute gratitude a day on something that they feel like they have lack of, and they're just grateful for all the ways they don't have lack. Like, oh yeah, I'm poor and I have a house to live in and I have food on the table. And having like a deep gratitude for that, not just saying it, but having that deep gratitude. I don't know how many people I know that has totally helped them transition their money issues. So that's another great solution that works as a team too, as a company. If you can do the practice of here's what we're shy of, let's be grateful for all that we do have. And it turns lack of resources into resourcefulness. So that's another really great one. And that is the changing a sense of self. Gratitude can really change your sense of self. And we behave mostly by who we think we are, not by anything else. If we think that we are studious, we study. If we think that we love working out, then we work out. And so if you're working out and you're grateful, I'm so grateful that I want to work out. I'm so grateful that I told myself it's time to work out. I'm so grateful for working out. I'm so grateful for how I feel when I'm finished working out. You're going to keep working out. Like, eventually that, that identity is going to come into place of you're the person grateful to work out instead of you're the person who doesn't work out and says you should work out. Yeah, so that's another one.

Yeah, or, or somebody who's been told by their parents that they're, that they're manipulative because they have emotions and needs, that they're manipulative, right? And so then they end up learning to be manipulative, right? And then the gratitude could be, oh, you know what, yeah, I'm actually really cunning. Yeah, that's great.

Right. Right. Or I'm grateful that I had needs. I'm grateful that I expressed my needs. I'm grateful that I stood for the stuff that I needed, even in ways that I couldn't. I look at all the ways that I'm also just kind and generous. And then all of a sudden, you're a person who respects other people's needs and your own needs.

Yeah.

And the manipulation, if there is any, just kind of flips away. So that's another one.

Yeah.

So change of identity, it speeds transformation. So if you're transforming and you are constantly thinking, I'm not going fast enough, this isn't working, just like the working out thing. Why is there any change? This is all going to go away. I wonder if this is going to last. All that shit's going to slow you down. If you're like, oh, I'm so grateful I saw that. I'm so grateful that I did this. I'm so grateful I did the class. I'm and you feel it, not just say it like I was, but really feel that deep gratitude, then, yeah, it speeds transformation instead of slows it down. So, that's another really good one, including in a company. If you can show gratitude for the changes that are happening in the right direction, it totally speeds that transformation. And I'd say the last one that I— there's others, but just because I'm rambling at this point a little bit, there's just an emotional yoga thing that happens as well, which is Because positive feelings are difficult for us, this is a practice of actually allowing that emotional experience into your world. And so, it just begets more of those emotional experiences. So, once you start opening up to them, you stop being as scared of them. They just are more plentiful. All of a sudden, they're everywhere and there's— God, it's hard for me to walk through a day and not see 1,000 things to be grateful more.

Yeah, one thing that strikes me from all the things you just listed is that gratitude seems to just be like the universal acid for doubt, just like striking, cutting through doubt.

Oh yeah, I usually say that it's like you can't have doubt with a closed heart. Um, but I like that because in a weird way, one of the things about gratitude is that it opens— you can't have gratitude with closed heart.

Yeah.

Like there's an openness to— there's a required openness to experience gratitude, which, which also might be why people are scared to do it because, right, you know, letting love in is really fucking scary for most folks.

Right. And that, that the same goes for the relief. The, there's the, the letting go of the tension.

Yeah.

The patterns.

Yeah.

That, that also requires the open heart and that, that I think interplays with a lot of the benefits that you just described is that relief of tension.

The other thing I'll say for all the non-productivity nerds out there, it just fucking makes life feel good. So what's the benefit? It just feels fucking good. Like, if you want to feel good, do gratitude.

Yeah. Well, that statement seems like it answered the next question that came to mind, but I still want to ask it, which is how do you know if what you're feeling is actually— if what you're feeling is gratitude and you're really letting it happen and it's not just a dissociative form of positivity, positive thinking, or yeah, looking on the bright side.

Yeah. Or telling yourself you shouldn't feel bad. That's a great question. I mean, yes, it's going to feel really good. It's— it's— you're not going to— you're not going to have to— there's no convincing. In real gratitude of yourself or of anybody else. So that's one clue. It physically feels really good. That's another clue. I think the other, this one's a little more subtle, but when I do gratitude, sometimes I cry. When I have gratitude, sometimes there's anger. So it's not denying another emotional experience. It's not trying. There's no trying in it. And you're not pushing something down to feel this. Gratitude, the experience of gratitude, it encompasses everything. I can be really grateful about my anger and I can be really grateful about my sadness and I can be really grateful for my fear. In fact, Oftentimes being grateful about the things that we find difficult is incredibly transformative.

Yeah. So I'm hearing this a lot about the, the breadth and the depth of where gratitude exists and is applied.

Yes.

That's— so there's kind of emotional yoga in expanding the range of motion of where we can allow the gratitude to be. That's right. In our experience.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, yeah. I'm curious to get just kind of like any tips for people who want to step into that flow of the gratitude without forcing it or trying. What is a good way to really be in that allowing and let that current move you?

Yeah, I mean, the— so trying to get there is going to not bring you there. So like, there's no trying that can— gratitude almost feels like a receiving. So that's part of it. It's like, oh, I'm not trying to get there. I'm receiving gratitude is more of the feeling of it. And the other thing that I would say is there's always something spectacular happening. And so the job is to— so the job, you don't have to find it. You don't have to go searching for something to be grateful for. There's just always something in front of you is, oh, here we are. I'm speaking on a Zoom thing. I don't have to go to a recording studio anymore. I get to talk and be with people like you and people listen and what the hell? And people love this podcast. What? Like, whoa. It's all around. Just not to even mention the technology. If you saw my rig and the fact that I can afford this, that almost anybody working can afford this if this is what they want to do. And the microphones and the technology is stunning. So to feel the gratitude, going and searching for it is like this lack of faith in it. And so it pushes it away from you rather than just Oh, it's— there's something right here to be grateful for. I don't have to look. Just the idea that you're wanting to be grateful is something to be grateful for.

Yeah, that's beautiful. I really like that. And I also want to talk about— so this was, this is sort of like how— this was about feeling the gratitude. And also there's the aspect of, you know, there's there's the way that people might cling to it and want it to stick around, but also there's something really valuable in just noticing the ways that we fall off of it. You know, like kind of like walking a slackline I've talked about before.

Yeah.

Is the process of learning all the ways you fall.

Yeah.

So that you notice them and bring yourself back or fight them less.

Yeah.

And so I'm curious, what are some of the ways that when people feel gratitude and it is overwhelming, and then skip away from it. What are some of the different ways that that occurs so that people can become aware and notice that more?

So much in that besides your question that I want to answer. So, so I'll answer your question last. So, so one thing is, if you notice that you have fallen away from gratitude, that's something to be grateful for. Because you've noticed. Like, the, the harder thing is when you don't notice. But the good news is when you don't notice, there's nothing you can do. So, so it's like, so then it shows up and it's like, and everybody's like, what a lot of people do, like, goddamn it, I wasn't grateful, when they remember, instead of, oh, oh, look at that, I'm great, like, I can be grateful again, I'm grateful that I just remembered that, like, So that's one thing. The other thing is I don't want gratitude to become moral or something that has to be done or that you should be doing. That'll take all the joy right out of gratitude and there won't be any gratitude there to find because it becomes this big should. So I think that in itself, to realize that gratitude isn't a should, makes gratitude a) more available and less intense. Now, for your question, which is, yeah, if you really get into gratitude, it can be incredibly overwhelming. And I will just say the fear that arises in deep gratitude is the fear of our freedom. It's the fear of our identity slipping away. And yeah, take your time with it. Allow your system to digest what it can digest. And just the knowing that this is just dissolution and it's the thing I'm actually looking for. The thing that's scary is the fact that I'm looking for this thing and I'm finding it the same way. You might feel like in the last stage of a video game and you're like, oh my God, I'm here and I'm home. I could almost get finished. And then, ah, fuck. You know, yeah, um, the same, it's the same thing. And so to just to know that actually is incredibly helpful. Um, and, and the other one is if you are in the overwhelm, see what, like, what makes it not pleasurable. Like overwhelm is overwhelming, but it can be really pleasurable. Overwhelm is usually, you know, as we've talked about before, it's, it's like we're not letting ourselves feel the whole thing. So the overwhelm typically is the resistance to the gratitude, not the gratitude itself. And take your time with it. There's no rush. You don't have to— that's the other thing about gratitude is there's a way in which it creates a gentleness that allows us to more like the Marines say, I guess, or the Army, slow is steady, steady is fast. Or slow is smooth, smooth is fast. I can't remember which one.

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

Yeah, yeah, there's like a— there's something about that too with gratitude. Yeah, it allows you to, to be at a pace that's actually most productive, even though it feels a little slow.

Yeah, so slowly moving to this next, uh, what comes up for me right now. I, I, as I was preparing for this episode, I thought of like, okay, a lot of people talk about gratitude and there's a lot of people who talk a lot about gratitude. I don't see them necessarily living it, or I don't necessarily see their lives transforming. Um, and so I want to really make sure that we, like, this episode has, has some juice, has some meat. And so I sat down and I thought about different projections that we might have onto gratitude that I've seen, that I've seen in myself. And so I'm curious to kind of go through a couple of these and see see what comes up here. Okay. The first one that showed up for me was a pattern—

Before we go there, I just want to say I have another idea where we could actually just do a gratitude practice at the end of this, like you and I just—

Oh, we will.

Oh, cool. Okay, cool.

Okay. I'm not letting us get out of that.

You're like, oh, that's happening, Joe.

Yeah, that's happening.

Yeah. Cool. Great.

But yeah, the first one that I came up with that I've noticed is when we see gratitude as a result, something that's caused.

Yeah.

Once I have X, Y, Z, then I'll be able to feel the gratitude. But if I'm not feeling gratitude now, it must be because something, some condition isn't right.

Yes.

And that needs to change so that I can feel the gratitude.

Yeah. Oh, that's fucking hell. That's like, uh, right. It's the same thing as like, once I am a certain way, I can be loved. Um, and then I can act lovable, but acting lovable is actually the thing about being loved. It's like, it's allowing the love in. And it's the same thing with gratitude. Gratitude. Yeah. That, that it, in a weird way, it's like, if you're It takes a tremendous amount of ego, and it's not the ego maybe that we think of, like we're the greatest thing ever, but there's a tremendous amount of ego, meaning self-definition, to say, I can't be grateful until X, Y, and Z happens. It's like really not acknowledging all your ancestors, the people who are providing the lights for you, who built your house, the electricity that came in, the technology that you're using, like all the ways that you are supported. It is really just saying fuck you to all that support, all that effort in the world. And that requires a real ego to do that.

Yeah, that makes my heart break a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah.

And there's the flip side of that one, which is using gratitude as a strategy.

Yeah.

Like, I'm, I'm going to be grateful so that XYZ happens, which is interesting because we're talking about all the benefits of gratitude. And so I want to kind of challenge us, like, what is the, what's the difference here between like really feeling gratitude and getting the benefits of it and relegating gratitude to a strategy that is just for an outcome?

So what I would say is that most of the stuff that we teach, if you do it to get to the place it stops working. Gratitude is not one of those things, interestingly, assuming that you're feeling it. Like, if you're feeling the gratitude, it kind of self-corrects. It's like this amazing tool that it just like— it's like you become so grateful that the outcome starts becoming kind of silly, and then you're not so concerned about the outcome, and then the outcome happens. So it's like one of the few tools that we teach that actually self-corrects. If you're actually feeling it. Now, if you're saying, I'm really grateful for money for these 6 reasons so that I can be rich, then you're fucked because you're not going to feel it. But if you really feel it, it self-corrects, which is odd. It's one of the few that I can point to that does that.

Yeah, I love that. And another one that came up is using it as a scorecard or a measurement, whether that is in the sense of like, am I there yet? Am I enlightened yet? Or in the sense of like, I'm going to project, or I'm going to display my gratitude so people can see where I'm at in my journey. Like both of those seem like different ways of like using gratitude as a measurement or scorecard. How does— yeah, what do you have to say about that? How does that play in here?

Oh, I would say it's not a great scorecard. Um, and The other thing about gratitude is it's this weird thing where there's this great study of people picking tomatoes and they say, "We'll pay you more money if you pick more tomatoes." And what it ended up doing is making everybody pick less tomatoes. And that doesn't work with all humans, but the majority of humans, they just pick less potatoes. I mean, sorry, tomatoes. And so I think it's a really similar thing. If you are scoring yourself on your development, it slows down the process. Like, if there's a map and you're paying attention to it, just think, oh, what might happen next or whatever. But if you're engaged in, like, how do I become— how do I get to the next level? How do I get to the next stage? There's a certain slowness that that creates. Gratitude also over time starts taking away that desire. If you're doing gratitude a lot, the desire to score yourself doesn't matter because you've got the thing at the end, right? Like if you're grateful all the time on a regular basis, you've already won the game. So why do you give a fuck about the scorecard? And yet you still are productive and you're still ambitious and you still want to do a lot of shit, but you're not doing it from that sense of lack or that sense of anxiety. And, and therefore you do things smoother, with more intention, with more effectiveness, because you're not bringing that fear that chases everybody away.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and speaking of the sort of the in the relation to everybody aspect here, uh, another piece that I noticed is just around shame. Like when gratitude feels shameful or embarrassing or something that we feel like we need to have socially earned or deserve. I, I imagine there being a common pattern of like, I can feel gratitude in my, in the secrecy of my heart or when I'm alone, but if I'm if I'm flaunting it out there, running around showing my gratitude, letting people see it, then I'll be shamed, I'll be attacked, I'll be making people feel bad. I'm curious about that pattern.

Yeah, there's some truth to that, meaning if you're grateful and you show it, you will get some skepticism, maybe a little attack, but usually a little bit of skepticism because if somebody can't feel the gratitude, they are going to be skeptical of your gratitude. And that used to stop me. Honestly, it used to stop me from showing my gratitude. And now, fuck them. You can be skeptical all you want. And what I notice is that they usually cave in about 10. If I'm grateful for them and I'm making sure that I'm never grateful as a way to chase their love or to make them happy. I think that's actually a real pothole of gratitude. It's like, wow, I'm really grateful for you. It's like, that's just people pleasing. But if there's an authentic gratitude that comes up and you say it with somebody, almost all folks, you know, in the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th one, it's going to start like they're not going to be into the skeptical of you thinking you're doing it to kiss their ass or whatever. And if they still are after 10, there's a really good question to be asked, which is like, what am I doing hanging out with this person? One of the things that happens when you have gratitude practice is people around you start becoming more grateful or they go away, or there's just more people around you that are grateful. I think about our community and gratitude is normal in our community. And my personal life, and that's just part of who I want to hang out with and a life that I like leading. And so to some degree that they just go away. So that's why I just do it because I'm standing for the future that I want to live in by living in it right now. I'm going to be grateful and we'll see who slaps off.

Yeah.

And who meets me.

Yeah. I love that. So I have, uh, we, we've talked a little bit about how gratitude, even for the difficult experiences or in the midst of grief and difficulty, can be really, really beneficial and growthful. And I wanna share just kind of like a really brief story and then ask your thoughts on this. Uh, there's a friend of mine who was recently in a base jumping accident and they, they broke a bunch of bones including their hand and they somehow managed to use their broken hand to pull out their phone. You know, they called their girlfriend and of course first asked the girlfriend how she was doing and listened to her talk about her day before mentioning that they were broken and waiting for a helicopter. Um, which is just hilarious on a totally different level. Um, when I heard about this and, uh, I, uh, when he was receiving calls in the hospital, I called him and I was like, hey, what's going on? Like, how are you? Tell me, tell me how he told me that whole story. Um, but I was like, and how are you holding up? I asked and he's just like, I don't understand it, but I'm just like so full of gratitude for, yeah. You know, I mean, the, the helicopter was there quickly. The people were there to like rescue me. I got to the hospital. People have been treating me really well. Um, but also like there's a weird way I'm actually grateful for the, for the whole thing. I'm like, already you're still laid up in the hospital broken.

Yeah.

And you're like, what?

Yeah. How?

And so that's my question for you is like, what have you seen in all your, in all this work around how gratitude influences post-traumatic growth?

Yeah. So yeah, it's really interesting. There's something there. I read something about, don't quote me, but I've read some article. I never verified it, but It was about lottery winners and people who had some sort of significant accident. And the people who won the lottery, like, 3 years later really weren't grateful for the fact that they were just like, that was fucking— they were poor again. Nothing. Whereas the people who had gotten these really bad accidents had more gratitude and were happier. And so I've read a little bit about how a lot of folks find gratitude through significant injury. I'm talking like paralyzation and stuff like that. I think being confronted with the fragility of life is something that brings us closer to gratitude generally. Almost losing our life brings us closer. I think also it's like one of the few ways out if you are paralyzed or something like that. There's just having gratitude, accepting what is and having gratitude, like, can relieve half the pain. And fighting it is just horrendous. And so to some degree, I think it's forced on a certain group of people because there's just like, it's either that or I'm going to just go crazy in my head wondering what if I would have done this, what if I would have done that, or crazy in my head because I'm constantly going, I could have, I could have, I could have, I should have, I should have, or why me, why me, why me. All that will just drive you nuts. So at some point, like, you have an option to do that or to— and then the contrast of that will make you feel so— like, that gratitude feels so fucking sweet. Like, it's so sweet because you've been living in this shithole of I could have, I wish I would have, why me, you know, that whole thing. So I think that's my guess as to that and just like, holy shit, I almost lost everything. And so that really makes things present. Yeah, it's interesting. It also seems like to some degree those moments, like the further those moments get away, the gratitude seems to dissipate for some folks. There's like a little, like life gets back to normal and there's not quite as much gratitude as You know, when they first discover it, it seems. So yeah, it's a strange phenomenon, but please, you don't have to go through that to find gratitude.

It's almost as though there's like a resource of gratitude that like comes up. It's like a homeostatic response that our body just has sometimes. It's like, okay, this is actually going to be what is needed for healing. And it's actually available to us all the time. It's a natural state.

Yeah.

And when we have like little problems or problems that feel like big problems in our story, we might not feel like we have access to it, but then something just cracks through it. Like happened for Byron Katie or for Buckminster Fuller. Each have stories involving this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that, yeah, I think that's beautifully said. And I love the idea that like it's for our healing, but that's like a more succinct way to discuss gratitude. We could have used that as the as the definition. What is gratitude? It is a healing medicine. There is something deeply healing about gratitude.

That's beautiful. Gratitude is a healing medicine. Yeah.

It's why I call it one of the foundations of doing any transformative work. It is incredibly important for— if you're doing transformative work, if you do this, it's the right fuel for the engine.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm just thinking now of people who sign up for MasterClass and they're like, okay, I'm gonna do this like leadership development program. And step one, I'm gonna start with my homework. Gratitude practice.

Gratitude. Every day.

Oh boy.

Oh boy. Oh goodness. But it, I mean, you see all the transformation that happens in Groundbreakers and like, it's like everybody's going through these big shifts and nobody's like, oh, it's the gratitude that's doing it, but it's the base. It's like the fuel for all of it because it is the daily practice really. And so it's easy to overlook, but it is absolutely in my mind one of the things that makes MasterClass so effective.

Yeah. Yeah. So I want to leave then, leave our listeners with some concrete practice that they can bring into their lives to bring gratitude into their personal, their work? Maybe start with the general, like what is just the core practice, like one really baseline thing that people can do?

Yeah. So it's just best with another person, anybody. If you can't find somebody, reach out to our community. There's people who want to do it where you just sit across with somebody and you say, One of you says you're grateful for something, you savor that. The other person says they're grateful for something, you savor that. First person says they're grateful for something, you savor that. And you just go back and forth for 7, 10 minutes. The important aspects there is that you keep the gratitude short. And the reason for that is if you make the gratitude long, which people have the propensity to do, I'm really grateful for the da da da da da, and then also this, and because of this and the other thing, Oftentimes, there'll be a lot of hedges in those sentences. And the other thing is it puts you in your head so you don't get the full visceral experience, somatic experience of gratitude. So, it's really important to make the gratitude very short, always less than a sentence, definitely not a run-on sentence or a compound sentence. I mean, you might mess up once or twice, it doesn't matter, but generally, you're being as concise as possible. And then the other thing is to feel the gratitude before you say it. So it's not a full body sport. It's a full body sport. So it's not a— and if you need to say something to yourself for a while to get yourself into the gratitude or think of something to get yourself into the gratitude, that's fine. But have the visceral sensation of it and then speak the thing you're grateful for. And then if you want to up the ante, if you want to take it to the next level after you're nice and sunk in, then you can start finding things you're grateful that are, that are a little difficult, you know, such as something that's a trial. Find something you're grateful for inside of a trial or a problem that you're having. That's it.

Awesome.

That's how you do it.

And what would be a couple of quick practices that could be brought into a workplace, for example, into like a meeting format as, as a leader?

Or you can do what we do is like we start the meetings with the round of gratitudes or a couple of— we used to do a couple rounds of gratitudes and really have it, again, be a full-body sport when it's done, have the explanation. So that's one, gratitude. The other thing that you can do is if you have a problem that's intractable or two people are fighting or something like that, to share a gratitude about what's the gratitude for the opportunity in this situation. So, you can start solving problems. If you have a problem that you're all solving together that feels hard or something like that, you can say, "Hey, let's just do a gratitude for the problem." And then, everybody can show gratitude for what is the potential of learning or what they're learning or what they get to do because of this problem. And then, solve the problem. And that changes, that usually helps solve the problem a lot.

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, opens up the problem space, the solution space. Yeah, that's right. I love it.

That's right, right. Instead, where usually people come in and they're like, oh, I gotta solve this, I'm not gonna solve this, like, which is really not kind of the self-fulfilling best problem-solving state of mind.

Yeah, awesome. Well, how about a round of gratitudes? To close this out?

How about a round of gratitudes for, um, for our, for our listeners and viewers?

Yeah. Oh, that's great.

Yeah, yeah, I'd like that.

I'm really grateful to see how much people have been loving the work and sharing it on social media. It just feels so good. So, so good.

I am grateful that, uh, so many listeners showed up for our free Q&A today and that they had this base of work from the podcast when they showed up. It was lovely.

I'm grateful that there are listeners who have been with us from the beginning several years ago, and they still reach out with questions and Appreciations and gratitudes. I love receiving gratitudes from listeners. Feels so good.

Uh, I'm grateful, uh, that I get to do it with you and that people get to experience us.

I'm grateful that there's a 100+ episode record of our journey as teacher-student, co-facilitators, friends, business partners, the whole thing.

I'm grateful, um, for the stories of people listening to a podcast and crying or pulling over the side of the road to puke, where the, the, they, where viewers take it in and really allow it into their body. I'm very grateful for that.

I'm grateful for the times that I hear of somebody who I'd, I'd never made any contact with, they've never come to one of our courses, but they've been listening to the podcast and it's been impactful for them. And when I hear that, I'm like, wow, I never even, never even knew.

I'm grateful that we are in the top 35 self-help podcasts of all time because of our listeners. Feels so good.

According to GoodPods. Thank you, GoodPods.

According to GoodPods.

Lastly, I'm grateful I got to see the eclipse and see with my eyes the perspective on the solar system that that made available. That was cool. Awesome.

Thanks for a great, great podcast.

Yeah, thank you, Joe. Thank you, everybody. I feel all mushy and gushy now, so I don't even know how to close this out. Like us and things. Send us gratitude.

We're on social media. Find us. If you want to, don't if you don't.

Bring gratitude into your life and spread it around. Enjoy it.

Take care.

Ciao. Thanks for listening to The Art of Accomplishment. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe and rate us in your podcast app. We'd love your feedback, so feel free to send us questions or comments You can reach out to us, join our newsletter, or check out our courses at artofaccomplishment.com.