Experiencing JOY & Gratitude

Welcome to the Charged Life. This is Brendan Burchard. Hey everybody, it's Brent Richard, author of the New York Times best selling book, the Motivation Manifesto. And welcome back to week number eight of your motivation Manifesto online course. It's an honor to be here with you. Where we talk today about declaration number five. We shall practice joy and gratitude. If there's a chapter that I've heard from readers that they just love, it's this chapter. And I think it's because it's the way that the book is built in that we start off with Declaration 1, talking about how to meet life with full presence and power. And then we talk about in declaration two, how we can reclaim our life agenda. Declaration three, we're talking about how do we defeat our demons? Declaration four, we talk about, well, how can we now advance with abandon? Well, those first couple declarations, they don't leave a lot of leeway or room in our lives to sort of not acknowledge what's happening with ourselves. There's a high level of accountability and power and ferocity in that riding. And then all of a sudden, boom, this declaration comes along and it's about, you know what? Even as we look at our lives, even as we advance ferociously towards our dreams, even as we people, hey, look, no, I can't work with you on this. I can't do on that because this is my life agenda now. Even as we do those things, we can experience a tremendous amount of joy in life. You know, I think it's not just because this book builds towards that where it's so intense and then pow, it lightens up with this positive feeling of just this sense that life should feel more vibrant and joyous and good. But I think it's beyond the book. I think it's also because we're at a time and place in the world right now where people are overwhelmed, where they are tired, where they are stressed, where they are uncertain about where to go. And so when they realize that on this journey that can be so challenging that they can also bring an incredible amount of joy to that, an engagement with the moment and, and a gratitude to the divine, a gratitude to God, a gratitude to the universe, or a gratitude just to daily life, whatever it is for you, that we can not only enjoy this process, but we can deeply appreciate it. That's where we start to find magic in this journey. It's easy to become motivated in our lives when we can find in every given moment joy. It's easy to become motivated in our lives when we go to bed every single night. And we're grateful for the day we had and we're looking forward to tomorrow so we can be even more grateful. And motivation seems to take care of itself when we discover the ability to be joyous and to be grateful. And that's what this chapter is all about. We started off pretty strong talking about the challenges that we all face in this world right now. And I like to share this quote here from page 156, that it seems that a great tidal wave of cynicism and pessimism has washed ashore and and drown the dreams of our people. The emotional energy of the world is flatlining. And I know that's a pretty hard thing to say in the book, but I don't know if you're out there on the road and you've kind of traveled around a lot, but if you travel around and you're engaging with lots of people, you start to see that a lot of the world is kind of down and out right now. It's not because the economy, it's not because of political freedom. It's not because of all these areas and reasons we would provide the excuses for. It's because we have lost that grand ability to be more self aware and accountable for who we are. There's an incredible cynicism that has washed over people, even towards joyous people. It's like, oh, what are you so happy about, right? It's like, why are you so happy? It's the cynicism that you can't be happy and joyous without some kind of reason or hidden agenda. People are always like, brendan, why are you doing these three videos? It must be some hidden agenda. I'm like, because I'm trying to change the world. Well, you can't be this happy all the time. Okay, you're right. I go home and I'm depressed. I mean, people just can't believe that people can actually be happy and joyous. They can't believe it. And that cynicism is pushing people away from exploring themselves to discover who they really are so that they can find a greater level of joy in life. And that pessimism, I mean, so many people are drowning in these pools of pessimism because we've got now almost 30 years of major media celebrating negativity. And so as we continue to see all this negativity, one person does one bad thing in one small town and the whole country's got to hear about that. We don't hear about all the positive things. As we hear more and more and more and more negative things. We end up finding this place in reality, in our culture, where the pessimism is so deep, it's hard not to get sucked in. It's hard not to think about tomorrow without thinking about all the things the headlines are saying are bad today. And so we start thinking about tomorrow in negative ways, and we start losing that vibrant optimism that has not only been a part of the great advancement in everything that we've done, that excitement, enthusiasm for tomorrow that keeps us alive. You know, that's one piece of motivation, as you studied in the first chapters of this book, that our motivation is never really sustained if we can't sustain ultimately our attention and our efforts, but also our attitude and our environment. So think about what's happening right now. Why are people so unmotivated? Because they're living in an environment that is poisoning them with pessimism. They're living in an environment where people are so negative, so down and out, and that's celebrated so much in the media. It's so much easier to get media to spread about some negative thing. It's so much easier to get media spread about when someone says something bad about somebody. And gossip and tripe and sensationalism, all of that spreads so easily. And it's not because people love that stuff. It's because often people are not engaged joyously enough in their life, so they look for stupid entertainment, little things that like, oh, that's interesting, like share. But these things aren't moving the needle of the world towards advancement. And so we're faced with this reality where there's so much cynicism and so much pessimism that it's easy to get sucked in. And that's why I say the emotional energy of the world is flatlining. And remember, I deal with, I believe, probably some of the most happy people in the world. I mean, when you come to High Performance Academy, one day you're gonna be in a room with thousands of people who are out of their mind, excited about life, who have a deep appreciation for their mind, their body, their spiritual, for their relationships with other people, for the leadership they're providing to the world, the service they're providing the world, the legacy they're going to leave. You're going to meet an extraordinary amount of buoyant, incredible people. But that is not necessarily representative of everybody. And I don't think that the whole world is depressed by any means. And we certainly know that in terms of clinical depression, I mean, it's barely in the double digits, right? So it's Not a challenge that the world is all depressed. It's that we're facing a reality in which we're just surrounded by information that seems negative. And because of that, we've got to take back control of our mental faculties and aim our focus back towards living a vibrant life. And to do that, we can't be focused on all the negative. Now, I know you guys know that this is like preaching to the choir a little bit, but it's so easy to get sucked into other people's energy that we need to take back control of where we're at. Otherwise, frankly, as a culture and perhaps as a species, we end up being a bunch of negative, spewing brats and blamers. And that's not what this is about. This is about taking back control of our own attitude and our own environment so that we can insert joyousness, so we can insert gratefulness, so that we can have that as part of our overall life experience. When we do that, life feels different. So let's move on. I would like to do a reading from page. If you grab out your books, grab out your highlighters, grab out your notebooks, we're going to jump to page 156 to 157. One of my favorite sections of the book leading into the Declaration. I'm on page 156, third full paragraph. Humans are not destined to be the lazy, tired, greedy, boring caricatures of gross abundance splashed before us today with such sensationalism. Sadly, from afar, it would appear that many people have become resigned that they have been given. That they've been given up their. That they have given up their remarkable potential, that they are consenting to creep instead of soar. That they risk turning into a culture of slow moving, low aiming, negativity, spewing brats and blamers. One of my favorite lines from the book, which sounds so horrible because it's so negative. But isn't that a line? Negativity spewing brats and blamers. One by one, we are seeing so many people for whom we care get sucked into the awful whirlpool of negativity. The energy of all this is palpable and it must be. Our imperative to change must be a main aim of our lives, to rekindle the magic of life. We mustn't live in the darkness of our doubts, the shadows of the joyless, or the clutches of the energy vampires. Let us remember that life's purpose is to live. To live freely, vibrantly, joyously, madly, consciously, lovingly, enthusiastically. Our nature gives us an intrinsic charge for such a life. And it is time to fire it once more. We are to be radiant, grateful, buoyant people basking in our blessings and striving cheerfully toward our dreams under the bright and loving sunshine of the divine. It takes only will and conditioning to enjoy such a life. Let us make the choice to reexamine our attitude and orientation to life to cultivate a more positive and present pulse. Let us declare we shall practice joy and gratitude. Like everything in this book, some of this, if it sounds common sense to people, they say, yeah, sure, I should practice some joy and gratitude in my life. But then they go about the day and it's not a true intention. It's not like an initiative in their life. They never get to experience it. They think, yeah, joy is important, but it's not important if they're not doing it every day. If you're not doing it every day, don't tell me it's important in your life. And that's why I keep reminding you common sense is not always common practice. We all know we should be grateful, but when's the last time you showed true appreciation to your wife? We know we should be grateful. When's the last time you showed true adoration and appreciation appreciation to your husband? How well do your kids know how grateful and alive with joy and love your heart is for them? How often do we forget to say thank you, I love you, I'm thankful for you, I appreciate you. If they're not practices in our lives that we do them on an often basis, they're not important. They're a conceptual maybe hope, but they're not a life practice. And that's why I oriented this whole book towards practices. We shall practice joy and gratitude and that's the work we're never going to finalize Joy. You're never going to be perfect at joy, you're never going to be perfect at gratitude. And that's why we ought to be doing it every day. It's challenge, it's difficult. Joy and gratitude are like throwaways for some people. It's so easy to go through a day in kind of like a bah humbug mood where you just kind of go through and you notice, well, you know these people at work, right? You go to work and you get around the water cooler and they're like, well, traffic, gosh, the traffic sure sucked today. The weather, ah, it's raining today again. Oh, you know the stupid co worker over here, the system is down. Oh, I'm so overwhelmed with My inbox. All they do is speak about the things they're frustrated about or that are negative or sort of common sense conversation. And I say, let's get away from those common sense conversations that bend towards negativity. Yeah, you know what? Traffic sucked. It might suck every day. So guess what? Put some great audio in that car and learn to rock out that whole drive and enjoy it. Call your grandmother, call your mother. Use great. Use that time to make something of it. Like all these people I used to commute in San Francisco Bay area, which many of you know, if you're watching from that area, they can be. You mean locked in traffic for hours? Two hours. That became some of my favorite time of my life. Everyone else got to work and complained about it and I got work fired up. We all have the same challenges. It's how we deal with them that determines whether or not we're going to get experience, joy and gratitude in life. So you can bring your joy to anything that you're doing, but you have to architect it. I know I'm going to have to get in the car. And so when I get in the car, I. I'm going to do some things that are going to fire off my brain and make me excited in life. And I'm never ever going to engage in conversations with people who just sit there and complain about things. And I mean any, ever. I never sat there. As soon as someone at the two, three people are at the water cooler, oh, the traffic sure sucked today. Oh gosh. I get my water and I just walk away. I'm not rude. I don't diss them for it, but I don't want to be part of that conversation. What's going to come of that conversation? Are they going to change the traffic tomorrow? Nothing's going to come from that. All it's doing is spinning negativity right there in that environment. And I don't want to be in that time warp. I don't want to be in that feeling, that sense, that energy at all. That's not where I belong. And so I'm going to remove myself and I'm going to go and I'm going to find joy in my engagement with my work or my other co workers who aren't talking about that stuff. I know that might sound like just like, wow, does he do that all the time? Yeah, I don't like that. If I'm sitting at a dinner with friends and they're just all going off about something negative, I've just hopefully wait for it to Abate or I'm going to change the subject or come up with something to say, or when the waiter comes over, I'm going to make a joke and engage him in a way. I'm going to turn the energy that table as a mission, not as an accident, not as a hope, not as I go. I don't go home and then complain to my spouse. Golly, you know, that my friends tonight sure sucked. They were just complaining the whole time. One, I'm lucky not to have any friends like that anymore in my life because I decided that's not my thing. And the second thing is, even if they get trapped in that cycle, which can be so easy, I'm going to be the guy to break it as a practice. I take it that seriously. And I think if you can start practicing it even more in your own life, you'll start to feel maybe a different quality of life. Let's move on. We alone activate the very energy and emotion through which we experience life. If we wish to feel joy and gratitude in our lives, then we must direct our beliefs and our behaviors in order to accomplish that end. And we must do it constantly, with such force and repetition that the emotions become the hues of. Of our daily attitude. That's everything in this book. It's everything. This is from page 157 of the Motivation manifesto. If you're listening to this in our advanced course. It's so critical to understand if you want to experience any emotion, for that matter, you want to experience love, you got to turn your mind, your thoughts and your actions towards experiencing more of it. And then you'll have more of it. But you got to align those two. Your beliefs and, and your behaviors. And every one of us, as we mature and reach even higher levels of consciousness or enlightenment or whatever the word is for you. Actualization, spirituality, completeness, perfection, divinity, whatever it is for you is how you would describe that place where you reach your best, right, Your most natural. Just that place where you're totally in sync with yourself, with the world, the universe, others, whatever it is for you. We don't reach that if we're not very focused on what we're doing with our mind and what we're doing in the world. And we gotta realize that the only way to feel anything is to generate that emotion. Often on purpose, not by luck. I never go and go. Gosh, I hope I feel grateful today. No, I sit and I think, what could I be grateful for? What could I recognize and appreciate in the small moments and the big things to today that will make me feel grateful. What can I be thankful for from my past? What can I be thankful for that I'm going to have an opportunity to do tomorrow? If you want to feel these things, you generate them. And I think that next level enlightenment comes for people when they take the next level of accountability for who they are and how they show up in the world and the emotions that they're continually expressing and feeling. Look, any of us can feel bad on any given day. We can have a sad accident, we can have a negative thing that happens and it can wipe us out. It can make us feel for an hour or 10 minutes or two days kind of down or depressed or upset. But our long term enduring emotion is a quality of practice and intention, not luck. And soon as we discover that, we discover our true personal power. Soon as you discover. I remember thinking of this in college. I remember reading the book Barry Neal Kaufman's Happiness is a Choice. Such a simple little book. And I read it later on. I thought that seemed to change my life. But you know, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. I happen to read the book at a right time in my life. I thought when I was unhappy and I thought, I can be happy. Happiness is not an art. Happiness is kind of a science. We've kind of figured it out. And if we figure it out, we can choose to do it just like you can choose to make your breakfast in the morning. There's a process to that, but there's a process to becoming more happy and more grateful. And if that's true, if we can create the emotion of happiness once, then we can do it again. And we can do it again. The only difference I've had in my life and what I do with all my clients is I teach them to do it with great amounts of force, repetition. If you don't like the word force, use the word intensity. Use the word fullness. Like I help people get so that they understand that they can generate so much happiness and joy in their life. And once they do it one time, now they got personal power because they know they can do it again. It's the same in business, right? I remember the first time for me, I reached one of my big levels of a goal. I wanted to have a seven figure brand. And I made my first seven figure brand. And I remember being so happy with it and so excited about it. And people said, what are you most excited about? I said, I'm most excited that I can do it again. That I just developed the skill set to do it again. Happiness, love, sadness, frustration, exuberance, enthusiasm. These are emotions. And those emotions can be chosen, they can be cultivated, and they can be conditioned. And the more we start doing that, the more we choose it, the more we cultivate it in our lives, the more we condition it with great force and repetition. It's ours. People are like, you're so happy. I'm like, yeah, because I do happy a lot. Nothing happened to me to make me happier. I just said, I want to live in that emotion. And I know you don't need this huge, long conversation because you already know the power of your thoughts. My question is not, is this common sense? Is it common practice? How often are you, with great intensity and real attention, cultivating the positive emotional range of life in your body, in your mind? If you do it as a practice, maybe you know what? Maybe to add it as part of your meditation practice, or once or twice a day, just sit down, close your eyes and think about, what am I just happy about in my life right now? What could I be happy about? What. What can I do to bring some happiness to the world? And just start stewing on that and challenge yourself, like, how can I feel more happy right now? And just challenge yourself to get in that space. Challenge yourself to be grateful and appreciative of some things that have happened in the past. Challenge yourself to be excited and engaged with something here in the present that brings you passion, joyous alertness. Challenge yourself to look to the future and say, wow, what am I excited about tomorrow? Or what could I be excited about? Or what can I start building towards to be excited about? You focus on that past, the present, the future, in those ways, and you'll start feeling excited. You'll start feeling that gift, that rise of enthusiasm, that rise of gratitude, that rise of engagement, joy or flow. Do that a bunch of times. Try to do it every single day. Watch what happens to the quality of your life. You might already know this. My question is, are you doing it? I have a question for you. Have you succumbed to energetic conformity? It's a phrase in this book, in this chapter here in Declaration 5, that I think is so powerful because it's easy to say, yeah, I'm going to be more happy, right? We all say that. Beginning of the new year, right? We're going to do all these things. And at the new year, we say, I'm going to do all these things so I can be more happy. We always say that we're going to set all these goals, all these intentions, make all These plans so I can be happy, and then what ends up happening? We're out in the world. We're back at that water cooler. There's our co workers complaining about the weather, complaining about traffic. Here's a practice. Just never do that again. Just stop. If you hear yourself talking about the traffic, just stop. If you hear yourself talking about the weather, just stop. You're more intelligent, and there's more things in the world to talk about than those two things. Don't be average. And average is, well, what do you think of the traffic? It's like, come on, we have better things to talk about in life. I challenge you there alone, but I want you to notice the emotional range that you've been experiencing in your life. And I want you to ask, where is that coming from? Like, where is your emotional range coming from? I mean, do you. Do you feel highs or lows? Do you feel in between? Do you feel bland or bored about life? Where are you in that spectrum? And if I think. If you think about this for a moment, you might come to realize that you might be an amalgamation of the emotional energy of, let's say, the 10 people who you consistently interact with. Is that true? If you really think about it, most people's emotional range is very similar to the 10 people they interact with the most. Why? Well, we're built that way in our brains. We have a high level of incredible capability to mirror other people. And as you know, emotions are contagious, right? Feeling is contagious. You know this when your spouse walks in and they're in a bad mood, you can feel it and like, oh, here we go. You can sense that from them even before they say anything. You just sense it. That comes from the apparatus in our brain called our mirror neurons, that they've literally been able to see and prove that our brain, that we have a specific set of neurons that come active when we look at another person's face. And we tend to automatically mimic it, even if we don't know why. It's the same reason you take a very stoic, strong, big man and then you introduce him to his child, and within minutes or hours, the big strong man who's not super emotional is making these faces to that baby. He can't help it because his mirror neurons take over. It's why you feel like you have to, like, you look at a baby and all of a sudden your face contorts. It's worldwide. No matter what culture you go into, soon as people engage with a baby or an infant, they. Their Face contorts, their voice changes. They start mimicking the baby, and the baby starts mimicking them. It's a natural impulse. But that natural impulse, that was really built there originally to give us the ability to sense terror, to sense challenge, to sense trouble, so that we knew when to run. Like, here we are. Oh, gosh, here comes a pack of wolves. And I see the look on your face. You're terrified. I don't even look at the wolves. I see you're terrified and you're running. We're gonna run together. I don't even know what I'm running from, but we're running. That's the mirror neuron saying, hey, pay attention to your social surroundings. Trouble. Boom. We're running. I don't even know what we're running from. That's my mirror neurons responding to you. The challenge is over a period of time that that same capability can hurt us today when we're not dealing with those kinds of fears or terrors that are physically in that way, unless there's a bar fight or we're attacked some way, the challenge is we just start connecting with other people in a way that the mirror neurons were also built for, which is for compassion, for community, and for connection. And so they were also built for that. And so it's easy for us to see someone down and to feel like, well, if I get down with them, then we'll connect. If I can get to the same. She's having a bad day. Let me slow down my pace and meet her where she's at. And by the way, that's okay, except 99% of the world stays there. Right? Oh, gosh, that's so bad. That's so terrible. Yep. Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry. And then they never lift out. And so they've conformed to the energy of the people around them, and they didn't direct themselves nor the others back into the positive range purposefully. Isn't that the challenge? So we've got to take that back. It's okay to. If you're like, brendan, I gotta meet my wife where she's at, and I gotta talk to this person like, how they are. That's cool. I agree. But at some point, you need to lift yourself out or them out. Take that as a challenge, and you'll be back in control. And it's not that hard. I mean, we make it hard to do all these things, but, I mean, I think we can return to a very simple time in our lives to remember how do we bring more joy Let us return then to the instruction of happy children. Again and again, as they do research on happy children, they tend to find these things. They're curious. And now, I mean, Most children are 10 times more curious than adults. Adults, we get, you know, stuck in our routines. They release expectation. They just do stuff. They're not really looking for the outcome or the result all the time. They're just kind of in the moment. They take pleasure in the small things, and they expect good things. When they do have expectation, they cheerfully engage in the moment when watch a child play. And it is one of the great joys of life, one of the great parts about parenthood. Parents will always tell you they just love to sit and watch their kid play. They'll be on the couch, the kid's playing with the toy, the TV's on, but they like to watch the kid play because the kid just smiling, and it brings smiles to them. Their mirror neurons are activating because they're seeing the kid in joy. And that is why parenthood creates such an incredible bond. It's bringing back curiosity to people who often lost it. It's bringing back that expectation. They don't care about what's going on. They just want to play. They just want to be bit with dad, they want to be with mom, they want to be with a toy. And that's amazing. And so let's remember to cheerfully engage in the moments of our lives, whatever they are, like happy children. If you've hung out with me a lot, you see, I dork out about things. I get excited about things pretty easily. It doesn't take a lot, just little things. I find that's so cool. I mean, it doesn't matter what it is. I like stuff. And I've taught myself to be curious. One of my favorite phrases that I say to myself is, a lot of people, if you've been with my advanced masterminds, is I teach people when you walk through the doors of any room, that's a trigger set off an intention, right? I teach people the same thing. If you ever come to High Performance Academy, we teach you to trigger yourself when you see the eyes of your loved one, to fire off some words in your mind every time you see their eyes, some words go off in your mind. You just condition it so that over time that becomes an intention and it becomes almost automatic. And you do it with enough force and consistency. We talked earlier and now it's powerful. And one of the things I do when I walk in any room and I knew there's going to be. There's people in it, right? Maybe not when I'm by myself, but when I walk in the room and I know there's going to be people into it, I fire off this thought every time I go, what's this going to be like? That's my question. What's this going to be like? In a positive direction, right? I'm thinking, what's this going to be like? It makes me pay attention, it makes me get curious, it makes me get excited. What's this going to be like? And I have this immediate connection with that phrase, what's this going to be like? And it makes me say, wow, I'm excited for this. You know, I'm expecting good things. I can't wait for a story to come out of this. I can't wait to learn about somebody. And now I'm cheerfully engaged in the moment. It's just a little life practice. So maybe that's not your question. But what I want you to do, excuse me, is when you walk in the door next time into a social environment, including the office where you're having those stupid weekly conference meetings that you wish you could get out of, I want you to teach yourself. When you walk into that room, fire off question or an intention. The door frame is your trigger. You see that door frame, you pass through that door frame and imagine passing into another world of intention or experience that you're going to create. Do that enough times and suddenly the world becomes something you've co created. Next, become the joyous master. It's one of my favorite phrases in the world. Joyous master. You know, the joyous masters know that amid all the chaos and conflict, all the hurry and wickedness of the world, there is something solid within that is beautiful and steady and good. You know, the joyous master has this way of looking at life that just knows that, you know, they've got this, that they're okay, that the world's going to be okay, that they can find appreciation, joy, cheer in the little things. And because of that, they are in their personal power. I know I can walk in any environment and I'll bring the joy. If you've ever been to my events before, it's a phrase we all scream, bring the joy. Right? I don't care what it's going to be. I mean, I walk. And you know me, if you know my story, I spent over a decade in hospices. I have spent so much time with people as they pass from this world to wherever you believe they go next. I have spent so Much time with people in cancer centers. I've spent so much time with clients who are dealing with extraordinary difficulties. I myself has faced a lot of those situations personally, and I can share it with you. Doesn't matter. I'm gonna bring the joy. My dad, in his last month of his life, when he was in the hospital for leukemia and he was getting chemo treatments, I tell you, when I walked in that hospital, I was so wrapped up in concern for him, I didn't know what to do. I was just in such a dark, emotional place because I just. I love my dad so much. He was such a huge part of my life and still is. And I walked into the hospital, and I remember walking down the hall to go into his care room, and I heard all this laughter. And I walked in, and there's my dad. He's lost all his hair from chemo. They got a little beanie cap on him. And he's joking and having a great time with the nurses and the doctors in the room, and they're just. They're all laughing. And I'm like, he's on his deathbed, and he knows he's on his deathbed, right? And is he not taking this seriously? No, he was taking it seriously. And. And that's why he was bringing the joy, that his attitude was so good. When we left there, the nurses came up and they were crying with us. When we left there, it was like he brought so much joy and light and positive attitude, even as he was dealing with a disease that ultimately took his life. And so I can share with you. Let's not get in this. Well, my life is so hard, Brendan. You don't understand. No, I've been with people, and they're dying, and they could bring the joy. They chose to have that attitude. So don't tell me, oh, you had a bad day. Yeah, well, we all have a bad day. But if we live there, we have a bad life. We can say, I had a bad moment today. Let me shift gears. And it is that practice of doing that over and over and over again that gives us personal power. Next. I believe that our most vibrant and happy life begins at the path gratitude. I don't know what your practice is for gratitude. You know, if you ever heard Oprah's story, Oprah says the most significant thing she ever did in her personal development was start a gratitude journal every day. She just writes in her gratitude journal every day for decades. That makes all the difference in the world. I don't know anyone who's achieved an extraordinary amount of success or joy or happiness in their life who don't take gratitude very seriously. It's a practice. It's just like, look as much as you go to the gym to look great, you need to go to the gratitude to feel great. And so you have to have some kind of practice. I don't know what yours are, but I'm going to suggest an idea to you. Let's hop to page 163 in the manifesto. Page 163 under the header of the Path of Gratitude. Let me read something to you and then suggest something to you. We should not focus on the shadow in the corner and be so foolish as to miss the fact that the shadow exists only because the room is illuminated. There is light all around. There is much to be grateful for in the seemingly dark world. And so all we must do is pull our gaze from the shadow and look to the ocean of divine light and and grace in which we are blessed to live. To the attuned and grateful, the cascade of the universe's blessings feels like a magnificent waterfall of luck and wonder. In searching for things to be grateful for, we need not look far. One must simply release the ego, let down the Persona that feels it has created all things, or must perfect all things, and accept the natural, the unexplainable, the energy that has graced us with vitality and a world of magic. A vibrant and happy life begins at the Path of Gratitude. So let us be more appreciative and thankful each day. Let me be thankful for all the light that surrounds me. Let me be thankful to any caregivers who inspire me. Let me be thankful to my lover who overlooks my shortcomings. Let me be thankful to the women and men who risk their lives to protect my freedoms. Let me be thankful for the blue tint of the sky and the beauty of our natural world. Let me be thankful for the heart that drums life through me. Let me be thankful for last night's rest, no matter how long its length. Let me be thankful for my gifts of free will, of volition, of endurance. Let me be thankful to my mentors and to the traders who also instructed me. Let me be thankful that I'm not living in deeper need and squalor. Let me be thankful for my home, for my daily bread, for my clean water. Let me be thankful for the opportunity, work and create and earn. Let me be thankful for the luck that has advanced me and the disasters and tribulations that have educated me. Let me be thankful for the blank slate that Comes with each morning. Let me be thankful for my breath and the clean moment at hand. Let me be thankful to my Creator. It is in finding so many things to be thankful for that we become appreciative and alive. Just as we have done with joy. Let us make it our aim to become masters. Gratitude. Now, I don't know what you are thankful for in your life. Do you? And do you repeat that list to yourself? And if you don't have a list, start one. If you need ideas, read this. What if you just read this passage, this little passage from page 163 to 165. This little passage, the path of gratitude. What if you just read that once a day out loud. It's just a challenge. I. I'd like you to try it for 10 days. Read this passage once per day, out loud. Whether with yourself or with your family, or you got the kids reciting it with you. Just try it. I just want you. By the way, write your own. I'm totally cool with that. I just want you to have the experience of having a list of things that you are thankful for and reading them out loud to remind yourself of them, to experience them, to feel the force of your voice saying to God, the universe, the Creator, or just yourself exactly what you're thankful for. We don't verbalize it as much as you think we would. As many of you know, my master's degree was in communications and I studied organizational communication, mostly focused towards leadership. But one of my fascinations after my experience in grad school was starting to pay attention to the patterns and the rhythms of people's communication. What I found over and over and over again in all those patterns and all those rhythms was a lack of content geared towards gratitude. People don't say what they're grateful for as much as you think. And you know this, if you've ever been in a relationship where someone looked at you and said, finally, I don't feel like we're connecting anymore. I don't feel like you appreciate me. If you've ever felt with that, even if you felt in your body, you know, I love you, honey. They didn't feel it and sense it because you didn't say it. Gratitude has to be an explicit thing in relationships. It's fundamental to the health of the relationship. Well, I believe the same thing in our personal lives. Gratitude has to be an explicit thing. If we pray, pray out loud once in a while, you know, if we're thankful for something or meditating, say it out loud too. At the end of the meditation. Give voice to the things you're grateful for and it changes the fruit force in which those things integrate into your body. Makes sense, right? If this book is doing something for you, if you're thankful for this, if you have any grateful for this gratitude for this, then I just have my own special request of you. I'm so thankful for what you guys have done already to help the Motivation Manifesto get out there. But I also feel like I can do more. I can bring more joy. I can bring more gratitude in this world by sharing this, by getting people to watch the same video. Did this video make a difference for you? Did it remind you of a few things? Did it make some common sense, Some common practice? Then share it. Everybody in your life can be watching this video. All they need to do is go to motivationmanifesto.com if they will sign up to get a book which is free. We'll ship it anywhere in the world for seven bucks. Anywhere. We will ship it to Nairobi, we will ship it to Australia, we will ship it to Denmark, we will ship it anywhere around the globe for seven bucks. I lose money every time we ship the thing, except I also gain mission so I'm willing to make the trade. So if this is a part of mission for you to bring some joy and gratitude, please share the book. Please help get it out there. Please also make sure you do this. Create a practice of gratitude in your life. It will shift everything. Create a practice of bringing cheer and joy to the everyday moments of your life. It will shift everything and suddenly you will find yourself more motivated. I hope you enjoyed declaration 5 of the motivation Manifesto. I look forward to seeing you and discussing Declaration 6 next week. Until then, go out there every single day of your life. Stay motivated and as always, make sure you live fully, you love openly and you use this day to make your difference. Hey everyone, it's Brendan. Did you like this episode? Be sure to subscribe to the next one and tell a friend about us. If you want free books and world class training on motivation and high performance, visit me@brennan burchard.com and enter your name and email for our newsletter list. Until next time, stay charged and go out there every day of your life and live fully, love openly and make your difference.