GA 420 | The Benefits of Gratitude with Rick Foreman

That element of gratitude affects our health, affects our family, affects our business. There's really not an area of life that this genuine appreciation doesn't impact in a positive way.

Today I'm excited to welcome my friend Rick Forman back to the show. Today Rick and I talk about gratitude. Now this is a topic that he and I have been sort of brainstorming and kicking back and forth, playing a little catch ball for several weeks now. John Miller, one of my business partners, wrote a blog article on the topic of gratitude which got me to thinking about gratitude and just digging into it a little bit more. And I wanted to do a podcast and I couldn't think of anybody better than Rick to partner up with this. So Rick actually in preparation for this typed up three pages of just random thoughts and quotes and notes on the topic of gratefulness. Going to Rick's kind enough to, to share those with everybody. So we're going to link those up in the show notes. So if nothing else, go download that document and just, just read through it. You know, again, it's just, it's, it's nothing, it's not a book or anything like that. It's just a bunch of different thoughts written down on paper. So really good stuff. So in this episode we obviously talk about gratitude. What is it and why should we care as continuous improvement practitioners or just human beings? And then towards the end we get into some ideas and some practical thought what we can all do to practice being more grateful. And one of the things that I'm going to do, I just want to mention it now just in case you don't get to the end is I'm going to, I'm going to put in my calendar every day a reminder to write one thing that I'm grateful for. It could be work related, personal, anything. And I'm going to write it on a post it note and I'm going to stick it on my wall right to my, to the right of my desk and I'm just going to give it a go. I'm going to run the experiment, see what happens. But finding ways to be intentional and be deliberate about being grateful, I feel like it's going to help everybody. We talk a lot about the benefits of being grateful and there's, there's physical benefits, I mean there's, there's been studies done showing how it can positively impact your immune system and how your, your central nervous system calms down when you're more grateful. So lots of really good things about this topic. So show notes which will include Links to everything we talk about can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 420. And again, be sure to download the document that. That Rick put together. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. Rick, welcome back to podcast to another Face to Face interview. I love doing these, man. Thanks for coming in today.

Glad to be here. All right.

All right. Well, we've been talking about this, this particular episode for a while and. And you've done a lot of preparation for this one. We're going to talk about gratitude. We've been hinting at this for folks that follow either Rick or myself on LinkedIn and various platforms like that, and so really excited for this one, Rick. I think it's an important topic that we don't talk about enough. Definitely don't talk about it enough. I would say within sort of the lean community, but even outside of the lean community, just as human beings, I don't think we talk about it enough. So let's open up with. With a quote. What do you got?

All right, I'm going to go with a Chinese proverb that says, those who drink the water must remember those who dug the well. Yep.

There's some. There's some power in that one.

There's a lot of. A lot of digging that went on before we got where we are today. I mean, not to rehash everything, but we just talked about the very first Gemba thing we did together in 2008. There's been a lot of digging since then. So I think there's a lot to be grateful for and reflect on. And it was spurred on, too, by John Miller's blog when he was talking about Towards a practice pattern for gratitude. Yeah. He even referenced in that. Is there a. Is there a gratitude kata? What would that look like?

Well, yeah, and what I appreciated about John's article, and, you know, John was pretty. I. I felt he was pretty vulnerable, really, in that blog article. We'll link to it in the show notes. But, you know, he talked about that he's something he's not good at. Right. And I think many of us can raise our hand and say, you know, we're not as grateful as we should be. Given all of the incredible, you know, opportunity and blessings and everything else that we have afforded to us.

It's tough. You know, I've talked about this, too. How do we make it authentic and meaningful versus just a passing by? No different than another checklist or another five. Why? Or another thing we're supposed to do. Right. Because it's the process thing to do. How do we make it authentic? I remember reading this book, the Power of Thanks, and reading somebody else was saying, you know, they were. And this one guy was just sending out thank you notes. He would get on a plane in his hour or two on a plane, he would fill out thank you notes to people. And I thought, man, that's just genius. So I started carrying thank you notes with me and looking for those opportunities. And with the best of intentions, I'll go a month or two and I'll get three or four out and then I'll go six months. I'll never get any. So I think there's this aspect and even John kind of hit on this is how do we make that more a practice and it become who we are and what we do rather than going by it. And for me, I've always had this when I go into a place and we've talked about this before too, I. I'm so trained in seeing what's not working, you know, or seeing the waste that that's almost what I see every time first. And so to be intentional and go, what can we be grateful for? Yeah, what is working well? And build on that and to build the people as well off of that. Versus, wow, look at that over there. That's crazy.

Yeah. I almost feel like within the continuous improvement world in particular, there's a sense that, you know, you should never be satisfied. Right. With the status quo. You know, if you're not improving, you're dying or, you know, that sort of thing. And sometimes I wonder if that mindset, which is, it's not bad, obviously it's how we make a living, but is it at odds with being grateful? You know, what do you think?

I don't know that it's at odds, but I think it shadows it for sure. I think psychologists would probably tell us if we focused more on what has gone well or is going well.

Yeah.

Versus what we need to improve on, it'd probably get improved. And one thing that spurred that conversation too is the book the Gap and the Gain. And the context of that was that before you look at the US leaning acts, you know, what's the next thing we got to get done? We got to improve this. We got to get to that next thing. But before we get to that next project, next improvement, whatever it is, stop and reflect on what's gone well and why did it go well before, and. And that will get us closer to making that improvement. So I don't know that it's in contradiction, but I think it shadows it to some degree for sure.

Well, one thing that's interesting, I wish John was on right now because he could help me with this. You know, I remember him telling me when we.

We.

We often translate Hansai, or, you know, as reflection in the West. And John, actually, as many people know, he's. He. He was raised in Japan, so he speaks Japanese fluently. And he. He said it is actually one of the words that hansai can be translated as more accurately is sort of like repentance, you know. And so it's. There's almost of like, you know, but just. I'm wondering if there's any aspect of gratitude that's supposed to be naturally built into Hansai. I don't have the answer to that. Maybe we can. We'll have John on sometime to talk about that. But. So there. That's an example to where it's like, hey, we finished the project. Let's do Homsai. How could we do better? How could. Instead of, hey, great job, everybody, And. And now what could we do better? So.

Right. And make it authentic. Right. And make it tangible.

Right.

And I think studies have been done, too, that a genuine, authentic thank you or I appreciate what you did is as powerful as a bonus or it's not always attached to money.

Right.

And I think gratitude's another connection to what Karen's been sharing about kindness, you know, and those things.

Oh, yeah. Karen Ross.

Yeah. And I think they go together. Yeah. And I think. I think if you're grateful or more grateful, you'll be more kind. Yeah. And I think that matters. What does real kindness look like? It comes out of an actual practice of gratitude. Yeah. And a practice of it. Right. A little bit more intentional.

Hey, let's. One thing that I wanted to kind of get towards the beginning of this conversation is just if you were to define the word gratitude, like, what would you say? Like, what is gratitude? Because it's a word, and I can say, I'm grateful for knowing you, Rick, and I could mean it, or I could just say, I'm grateful for knowing you, Rick. And maybe it's just like a. Ron's just a real nice guy and he says nice things like that, you know?

Yeah. I had this. I wrote this one down because I thought it had a little more depth to it. It said, gratitude is about expressing a genuine feeling of appreciation for others in a way that they comprehend your sincerity. And so it's a bit subjective. Right. It's like, I don't Know if they did they really comprehend my sincerity or not. But that, that awareness of that definition I think should pull us back a bit that it's more than just, hey Ron, thanks for being a good friend. I really appreciate you, which I do, by the way. But there's a. There's another level of that awareness that makes it a bit more sincere beyond words. It's a. You show it, right. It's got to be in the practice of it. And I don't think in words only, but maybe even the tone of the words, the timing of the words, that presentation. So you know, Webster, whatever says the quality of being thankful, readiness to show appreciation and to return kindness. But I really liked that it's a. It's expressing a genuine feeling and appreciation in a way that others comprehend that sincerity. And so it has that thought of others first before you even do it. And even that can be troublesome. Right, because we could say, you know, this is who I am, therefore my behaviors like that, and you want that as well. But we can get caught up in the lean world once again of this is the things we do, you know, because that's the way it's supposed to be, right? Versus is it more sincere and authentic? So I, I think that's a big part of it.

Why is it so hard? I mean, I'm wondering, like personality types play into it, you know, like someone that's got more of a sort of a melancholy kind of personality versus somebody that's just more flowery or something. I don't know. Hap. They seem happier, you know, like is can be hard to be grateful sometimes.

Well, I, I think to some extent maybe we live in a what about me world right now. So I'm not sure if. And it's not everywhere I think there's a turnaround coming, but there is that. You know, we think even in self improvement. Right. I'm thinking about myself sometimes, even if it's me to get better. But I think there's that part of, you know, we're just executing to the next thing we're doing life and for most this the culture itself. It's a bit counterintuitive to the way the culture's gone as well. And probably mentioned this on a previous podcast and I don't want to anger all the real engineers out there, but part of it is our training too is how we filter things based on our. Our training. I know we have this. We've had some amazing engineers. I've worked like high level genius guys that just blow me away. They're not typically wired. Even though they're good people and thoughtful people, they're not wired to be like that. They filter things in an analytical way. So their filter is a bit different from a people skill, engagement level. It doesn't make it wrong. It just. It's just different. So I think. I think that's a part of it to our education and how we're trained in things impact that as well. Yeah, some people, if you do the disc profile or strengths finders or even the spiritual gifts or any of those type things, you know, emotional intelligence, any of those, they're gonna. They're gonna give you an area that you could probably look at this and say, I. I probably need to adjust that some and get better at it. I would say today we all need to get better at this. And I think that was kind of John's point and what he wrote was to take a deep reflection and say, and I'm with him at times. I think I'm pretty decent at it. I want to be decent at it, but I. If I don't get intentional with the practice, and that can seem like, well, you just got to do it. But sometimes before it becomes a real behavior, you got to practice some of this stuff. Yeah, I think that's tough at times.

Yeah, I'm actually right in the middle. Nearly halfway through this 90 day. It's kind of a spiritual exercise. Me. And so my. My real close friends do is called Exodus 90. And. And we sort of detach from the world away, like no social media and all that kind of stuff. So unless it's for your work, you know, and one of the things that. That we're supposed to be doing on a daily basis, every night, basically before bed, is sort of doing an exam. And so a daily exam. And like, how did the day go? And you know, was there anything that I, you know, did poorly and I wish. Wish I would have done better or, you know, do I need to say I'm sorry for any reason to anybody or any, you know, anything like that? But then gratefulness is a big part of it. You know, it's just like every night, you know, sort of before closing your eyes, you know, what are you thankful for, what are you grateful for? And I tell you, it's. It's. It's powerful when, you know, to the engineer thing, it's like part of that, the process. So I know I got to do it. So I'm sort of a. I'm an engineer. Right. I mean, so I'm like Got, I got it. There's a box on my app that I got to press, you know, and I want to press it, so I got to do it, you know, and. But it does help, Rick. It really does.

Yeah. And I looked at that program you're in, and I was like, man, that looks really good. I really need to do that. Too bad. I don't know anybody really going through that right now. I'd hook up. I would need a partner to collaborate to go through that program for the very reasons. But, you know, to sit there and look at that, I think that's huge. And write it down. On a personal level, last year there was a situation I ran into that was really something I wouldn't have comprehended on a personal level, whatever. It was like super, super painful. And it was like. It was almost. I can't believe that happened, you know. But what helped me through that was to set back and reflect. Similar like you in the, in the group of guys you're going through is to sit right down and go, okay, what can I be grateful for out of that? Yeah, what can I learn from it? You know, and, and, and go from there. And from a scientific experiment, God apart, it's like, okay, I can't change that. That thing's already over. Is it worth having a conversation about it?

Right.

Where's that really going to go? Or can I just study this thing? Set back as I said it probably previously in the other, you know, my favorite book, just be still and know sometimes you just need to. And I think that reflection for gratitude comes in. You got to get still sometimes and just sit and reflect. There's a lot of studies out now for CEOs, leaders throughout any organization that they're encouraging you to stop and take 30 minutes here, there, and just go do nothing but stop and reflect. Yeah, just stop and reflect on what's going well. And I would hope that, you know, we're reflecting on some of the things that are going well or the good in something that, you know, that isn't so fun. I mean, we can look over the past two years and the impact of COVID on industry, on manufacturing, on the lean world and things like that. I'm thankful for technology. I'm thankful that I can take a surface pad and set my office in Euless and I can view an assembly line in Delaware, Ohio, and we can bounce ideals back and forth on how to make that better. Right. And you know, it's not like being face to face, which is the ultimate gimba, but I'm thankful for technology that we can still engage. Yeah. And things like that, you know, whereas it was a big frustration. It's like, man, I got to get to the plant floor. I got to be a part of this.

Right.

And well, you can't right now. Okay. But I can this other way. So.

Yeah.

I think even in the context of that, I think there's good all around us and things to be thankful for, I think having to stop write it down. Andy Andrews, who's a favorite author of mine, he talks about this gratitude journal. And like every Monday or one Monday a month, just open it and just till you can't go anymore, just write down everything you're thankful for. Like every Monday, just write it down. Yeah. And it's a stretch, right?

Journaling is something that I've always wanted to do, but I've, I've, I've, I've done it off and on, but I've never been consistent with it. What about you? Do you.

I second that motion.

Yeah.

Well, and I, I get confused about should I hand do it right? Would it be better if it was digital? And then I go, should I put it notes in my phone or my iPad or should I just write it down? And, and what if I can't read my own writing? And you know, and then where do I put it? And you know, sometimes the, when I was traveling, carrying that journal around with me or something like that, but I've struggled with it. But this here brings it all back again. Still reference John, you know, and others that Thanksgiving. I know people that take the whole month of November and every day they'll post something on social media what they're thankful for. Write it down. And I think the opportunity for us, and we've talked about this, there are studies out that element of gratitude affects our health.

Oh yeah.

Affects our family, affects our business. There's really not an area of life that this, I'll go back to the definition this genuine appreciation doesn't impact in a positive way. Pretty stressful world going on right now.

We were talking right before we hit record that one of my goals of this podcast is to make sure everybody knows that gratitude isn't some woo, woo, you know, kind of, oh, let's just be happy and be thankful, you know, but it's real. You know, I think the University of California, we'll link it up in the show notes. But there's hard science showing that how gratitude does impact your. Was it your parasympathetic nervous system or whatever calms you down? Exactly it's got a positive, you know, influence on your immune system. So it's not just this thing that make you feel better, make you a nicer person, although it does those things, it genuinely changes you physically. It changes you emotionally, obviously, spiritually, all that kind of stuff. But if there's physical benefits. So even if you're, you know, doubting whether or not you should be grateful, nobody wants to get sick, right. So, you know, being grateful is going to help, you know.

Oh, for sure. I think it was John Dumas, the Common Path to Uncommon Success. He was in Iraq and. And one of the things that helped him get through that was to maintain this perspective of gratitude. And he was in the battles, and so it was pretty trying. But one of the things I think he said, when can you use your past to help remind of how good you have it today? And said, perspective is a powerful weapon, wield it wisely. And so I think, once again, it's also that perspective that you do it. But for him, having that attitude was literally life and death at times, too, to sit there and not get, you know, the down and the depression and all of that. I don't know if it's Mark Batterson or whomever said, or maybe a psychologist that say it's almost impossible for a person to stay depressed if they're, I don't want to say professing, but if they're speaking out loud, gratitude, it's hard for somebody to stay down. And maybe the quote, maybe Maxwell said it's hard to be grateful and depressed at the same time. Right. And so, yeah, I think mentally, physically.

We all know there's hormonal changes, you know, happening in your, in your body. You know, chemicals are being released when you're. You're genuinely grateful. Right.

So it goes back to Frankel. Right.

I mean, I wanted to talk about Viktor Frankl because if there's somebody that's more of the poster child for all the things that we're talking about. My goodness.

Yeah. For him to have that attitude of gratitude and he talks about that's one of the things, the difference that got him through all of that was to identify something every day he could be grateful for. And in the choose, I think that one thing is the last of one's freedoms, is to choose one's attitude in any given circumstance. And he chose gratitude, which blows my mind, that in the worst of worse circumstances and having lost his entire family and everything, and that was the difference, though, of survival, was to have this gratitude. So it had to impact him not just mentally, but physically as well. Right. For what was going on. So. Yeah.

So what do you. Do you have any thoughts, Rick, on ways that we can, you know, we. We talk a lot within Continuous Improvement World, Lean World in particular, we talk a lot about this deliberate practice. You know, we can randomly practice or we can deliberately practice. So what are some practical ways do you think folks can deliberately practice Gratitude?

I've thought about this and know at times we'll have people do a safety Gamba safety walk, a waist walk, and maybe just, you know, no different than success or anything else. Some of us like me, like you said, I started these journals and I let them go. Well, what happened? Well, sometimes maybe we need to put something in place that helps us get into a habit. So I've thought about putting on my calendar a gratitude walk instead of a waist walk. Oh, I like that. And at least what are you going.

To do on your gratitude walk?

I'm going to look for something to be thankful for and tell somebody, hey, I appreciate that you show up every day and I appreciate what you're doing. I appreciate the quality of what you're doing here.

You can tell them in person or on the phone. What about if they're. What do you think?

Yes. Well, if I'm in the plant, I think I'm going to go on a literal walk and with the other team members we have, whether it's Lean Champions or whoever, if you're listening to this anyway, you know, but to look for that. But we'll turn in the lean champions or plant managers will turn in a wastewalk every month. And so what are we trying to do? Get deliberate practice, the safety game. But what is it? It's really deliberate practice. It's just a lot of things will come up and yeah, I'm going out on the plan every day. I should be looking for safety opportunities. I should be looking for improvement opportunities. I don't know if maybe somebody's got it humming really well, but in our world, there's a million interruptions for all the people executing and leading that. There's a million distractions that can come, a million emails with the best intentions. You, you want to get on the plant floor, you want to do this. And that's the same for me with gratitude. I had the best intentions of. I actually have my annual goals and I put down stuff. Here's the word for me. And you know, I'm going to. Now is the time. Now finish doing it. So I have this time aspect that I felt like God gave me for this year. And part of it too was this, you know, send one thank you card a week. I think I'm two for this year, two out of eight weeks. But I didn't have it in my calendar.

Yeah.

And so one of the thoughts I have is in the lean world, if we don't capture it, if we don't make it visual, if we don't have some mechanism, we'll put a powder.

Your leader standard work.

Exactly.

Right.

Yeah.

Put it in your calendar, put it in your plan.

So. And I don't like the word walk as much, but it sounds better than a gratitude engagement. I mean, I like a gimba engagement. I like the waist walk. But yeah, I'm going to put in my calendar because this is all just. And you know, I gave you four or five pages of notes. I was already working on this because I think it's another spurred by Karen and John and all of this. I think there's this other level of opportunity that we should be engaged with because it's real and it matters. We should be doing it anyway. And so I am not the best at it.

Right.

And so when I do it, I think I do it well, but I don't do it often enough because I'm the guy pointing out, okay, this isn't where it needs to be. That isn't where it needs to be. We still need to do this. And we have a lot of new people and a lot of change, too. So some of it's like starting over. And for me, I think that book, the gap in the gain kind of caught me to step back and say, look back, look back at all the things that have changed and the investment of what everybody's done. Look back over the two years. Still in the game. Yeah, that's almost miraculous in itself. Just be grateful that you're still in the game. With so many that have lost their businesses and family members and everything else, there's a lot to be grateful for.

Well, I mean, we're recording this here, you know, February 28th. This will be released many weeks later. But I saw, you know, obviously the horrible situation in Ukraine is, is right in process as we, as we speak. And I saw this video. Oh, my gosh, it just haunts me. This man is a Ukrainian man. He's at the train station and he's, he's, he's saying goodbye to his little, little daughter and his wife. You know, they're leaving and he's got to stay and he wants to stay. Right. Obviously to defend his country and, you know, and he's just weeping and he's crying and who knows if you'll see his little girl again, you know, And I'm like. And here I am moaning and groaning because my 15 year old son made me angry last night for being a 15 year old boy, you know, and, and I'm like, oh my gosh, what is wrong with me? You know, as far as, like, all the things I should be truly grateful for. Right? And it's so easy to just find something to be irritated about, right? While this guy's sending his, his daughter off and may never see her again.

Yeah. On my little journey over here, the light changed on Keller Parkway up the road here. One SUV ran and I was beside him, not, thank God, I went in front of him and nobody else went out. But the first car ran the red light, the second car ran the red light, and then a cement truck, like one minute after it changed rain it. Which was a miracle. Nobody pulled out. You know, years ago, I used to let that type of stuff get to me or whatever, and now I'm just like, slow down, just pull back. Don't let those things have power over you. The same thing, you know, And I'm thinking, I watched that same video and I'm like, oh man, what would I do? You know, my granddaughter just turned nine and I'm thinking, you know, if I had to tell her goodbye or something like that, you know, as young as she is, and it's like, okay, you may never see grandpa again, like, ever. Yeah. And so I think for us, it helps us put things in perspective. But as with anything else, with lean and continuous improvement. I don't know, I even, I try to pitch this often and sell it, the why behind it, but I'm not sure we're good at the why behind gratitude. Once again, I'm not sure it's intuitive for everybody. So I, I think we got to give the value behind it too. Yeah, we see a scene like that and it moves us, and so we're emotional and we get it. But when that's not happening, what do I need to do?

Right?

And, and the studies are showing that the more we do that, the more effective we'll be, and it helps develop people. Charles Schwab, one of the things he said is the way to develop the best in a person is by appreciation, encouragement, of course. Zig said, you know, you can get anything in life you want if you help enough people get what they want. I just say that as a focus, you know, on Others. And if you want to develop others, you know, grow the people, grow the business.

So Rick's typed up. That's incredible. 1, 2, 3, 4, 3 and a half pages of single spaced notes on gratefulness. Just quotes and just some thoughts and, and he's been kind enough that he's gonna share this with everybody listening. So we're gonna, we're gonna link this up in the, in the podcast show notes. Just, just all these different thoughts somewhere on here. Where is it that comparison is to the Thief of Joy or something to that effect? You know, I feel like that's another one especially for our young people. You know, you just met my daughter over there, you know, she's interning here and you know that that age group, you know, these kids are, you know, unfortunately on social media more than they should be. And they're seeing all these beautiful people and you know, comparing themselves, girls in particular, you know, and comparing themselves these people who probably don't really look like that anyhow. And you know, because the filters are pretty incredible now in these, these cameras. But I'm wondering if there's a, a relationship between that and gratitude. Can you be grateful when you're always trying to, you know, compare yourself or, you know what I'm saying, trying to, trying to be like that person.

Well, that gets back to our favorite book kind of stuff right there. Because you have to accept that, you know, you're loved and okay just for who you are. And that's a struggle in today's world because everything's so visual. There's all these, you know, comparison and analysis in front of all of us. I mean, if you're in lean, why aren't you as good as Toyota? And you know, if you're in the S1 for sure, why aren't you that?

Or I'm the Lean Sente who developed such and such business system, you know, like, okay, good, you know, so what are you supposed to make of that, right? Like I'm not as good as you, you know what I mean? So you can let that kind of stuff get to. And it robs you of any kind of spirit of gratefulness or thankfulness or any just positivity. It makes you negative, right?

I was with a friend over the weekend, him and his wife and his, like, I think his son was maybe 7 or 8. And we were going to dinner Friday night and we were talking about lean or continuous improvement. I think my friend said, you know, well, I think he said Uncle Rick or something. You know, it was like he's A lean expert. And I go, whoa. And I said, I said, I really don't like the word expert, you know, and Grayson's his name. He's like 8 or whatever. He's in the back seat. And he goes, well, Uncle Rick, why don't you like the word expert? And I said, well, I said, we're kind of in the world of continuous improvement, so there's really never an ending. And I said, I can assure you, for Uncle Rick, he's not finished yet either, and there's plenty of continuous improvement opportunities for him. So I said, I got a lot of years in it, a lot of experience, and I think I'm decent at it. But I said, I really shy away from that word expert. I don't like it because I just, you know, I know where I am or whatever, but I think, you know, and some people are fine with that, and some people really are experts to some degree. And I'm not sure how you define that, but. But I think for us, you know, is having that humility and a humble spirit, too, that in the lean world, are we really there to help our people? Is it just about the check, you know, or why are we doing what we doing? And I think even some people I talked with, you know, over the weekend, I was like, what's your purpose statement? Why are you here? Do you have a purpose statement? And they were talking about opportunities, this or that in comparison, all that. And I said, well, what's your purpose statement? What's your personal purpose statement? What's your mission or purpose statement? And I like purpose statement better than mission statement. What's your purpose? Why are you here? What's your purpose statement for you, your family, your business, your organization, your team? What's your purpose statement? I think once you get to that, and if you can dial it in with some depth, you have some opportunity to look at where am I really at, where's my team really at, and what can I do to get better? And part of that, I think, is going to start with reflecting on. And some things have gone pretty well. We have a lot to be grateful for. You know, I'll always quote my boss that retired a couple years ago, and he would say, you know, baby steps are okay, zero steps are not okay, you know, so be grateful for the baby steps. Just make sure you don't camp out there right then. There's other things that we'll have in these notes. I think that was actions, you know, is you could implement just for whatever meetings you have, and depending on how many people you have there. But if you have a small group of 10 people, just start the meeting off with, hey, what's one thing you're thankful for? You could do that at the dinner table, say, hey, what's one thing you're thankful for today? Whatever. We live in Texas, but it's been bizarre. I'm thankful for AD and son and I'm thankful for HE. When it's 20 something and sleeting outside and it's a sheet of ice. You know, things like that. You know, thankful for provision. Thankful for, you know, a vehicle and you say, wow, gas has really gone up. I'm thankful I have a vehicle to drive around back to the Ukraine. I was astonished with the visual of. There is one crossing, I guess where people can cross to another country, Poland or whatever it is. But it's only for people a car can't get. So there's just. Who knows how long it was just hundreds of cars parked. People just left their cars, belongings and everything. Mostly women and children and just walked across to another country. Yeah. And I've heard of people that have walked 50 miles to get to safety.

Yeah.

So, you know, right now I'm thankful for gas at 329 or whatever is.

Don't even say the price because certain parts of the country start saying, I'd.

Like to apologize to California.

Right.

Some of my friends out there. Yeah.

Kevin, my business partner, he's in Morro Bay.

Yeah.

He'll laugh at 329.

But I think those are ways to be intentional. I think if you're a leader, you need to take some time to set aside. Maybe you just have a gratitude retreat once every once a quarter or once every six months. Just go take a day and instead of strategizing out the next six months or what you need to do, look back over the past six months.

That's a great idea. How about this? Like just say, hey listen, next week or next month or whatever we're gonna. Instead of our normal meeting of whatever abc, whatever meeting you have, you know, it's if, if you want to, you don't have to optional but just type up, write up a list of things that you're grateful for that you're thankful for. Work related, personal related, whatever it is and bring it and share it. Yeah, that's it. It didn't have to be complicated.

No. And I mean you one. It, it's great. It's great reflection because personally you're going to have to. It's like a personal internal five why of yourself yeah. You're going to have to sit there and think about that and some of it'll. And when I started doing that every Monday for a while and then I dropped it, but man was real easy at first. Well, I'm thankful for, you know, and you get the first 20 things down. Bam. And that then you have to start thinking, you have to really start reflecting, which is really good because then you start peeling that onion back and there's way more good there that Than what we would automatically think. I guess we probably take too much for granted, I would think.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm going to try that here again by Academy. So we'll try that just as a team and see how it goes. We'll run the experiment. Right. See what we learn.

Yeah. This one quote. And I shared this with somebody a while back and it really stuck with me because I'm still working on this. I'm a work in progress. But I don't even know who said it, but what you appreciate, appreciates and. And back to the genuine, you know, engagement of that it promised what you genuinely appreciate, appreciates. Yeah, I think. And so I think there's a power in that and you know, somebody could write a lean book on lean and gratitude.

Yeah.

And what it would do. I think we're at a place where we are in our culture and as a whole in the world that it. We need to simplify. Although I have three or four pages of notes.

Well, yeah, right. I mean there's a lot. There's. It's a big topic. I mean, maybe to wrap things up, one thing that I've. I think might be beneficial. We talked a little bit about Habits and one of my favorite books, I think you've read it, Atomic Habits with James Clear.

Love that book.

And you know, one of the. He talks about just starting small. You know, if you want to develop that habit of flossing your teeth, we'll pick one tooth and you floss one tooth for. For the whole week, you know, and then next week you go to two teeth and you go to three. So maybe we got to start small with this and you know, maybe it's just have a sheet of paper at your. At your. Or put it in your calendar. I think that's the most important thing, you know, because if we just try to just pick up a fancy new moleskin and we're all excited about our new pen and it writes so smooth and you know, and you know, and just. But just put it in your calendar and get a post it Note and write one thing on a post it note and stick it on your wall, you know, and just that you're grateful for. You get a gratitude wall there. That's another thing. You got office. Get a little post it note. Write one thing each day and stick it up on your wall and then take a picture and tag me and Rick, you know, and, and on LinkedIn and you know, that's another practical way, but just being intentional. Put it in your calendar. Repeating recurring every day, you know.

That's awesome. It reminds me of the we've done the safety thing. Why do we need to be safe? And we had one of those walls and people would put picture of their children up there and things like that, you know. Yeah. What's the why behind safety? Well, we don't get hurt. We're alive. Right. A lot of people put up pictures of their family and their kids up there.

Yeah.

And I was like blown away about how cool that was that they got it. You know that there's way more to this. But yeah, that'd be a great way. I've, I've got it in my calendar. I'm just starting with that for sure. I like the sticky note thing too, but I got it in my calendar because I've been good at it at times, but then it falls off and so I got to get it more the visual management leaders standard work aspect in front of me. But yeah, those are great, great suggestions.

All right, my man. Well, I knew it. Here we are, 40 minutes. Well, just how it goes, right. When we get going, hard to stop. How can people connect with you, Rick? What's the best way?

I'm on LinkedIn. I think this is my third or fourth Gimba Academy podcast so people know where I am.

Yeah. So yeah, Rick Forman. We'll link it up in the show notes. So gimbap podcast.com look for episode 417. Hey man, thanks as always and let's do it again. I know we will, but hopefully this, this episode has added some value. It's a little bit different than, you know, talking lean, but it's, it's, it's all related, man. It's all related for sure.

I'm super excited to see if people shoot us some pictures, post them of a gratitude board or whatever or what they're doing. I think that'd of be kind. Awesome.

I love it. Awesome. Thanks, Rick.

All right, thanks, Ron.

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