10 Tips to Having Gratitude and Appreciation | Jack Canfield

Hi. I'd like to take a few minutes today to talk to you about the importance of appreciation. You know, a lot of you are practicing the law of attraction, or you want to use the law of attraction to get to where you want to go. And in order to do that, you have to raise your vibration. And we're told over and over, the first step of manifestation is to appreciate what you already have. And when you appreciate that, you're in a state of high vibration, which means you're more attractive to attract more into your life at that same vibration. You know, one of our early Chicken Soup for the Soul books, I put a story in there by a man named Art Buchwald who talked about a man who was walking down the street with a friend, and all of a sudden, the man stopped and he looked over at the construction workers, and he said, I just want to thank you guys for building these amazing buildings in New York. I know how hard it is. I really appreciate the contribution you're making to the city. As they walked away, my friend said, or his friend said, what was that about? He said, well, I just want to thank those guys to kind of make their day. He says, oh, okay. So a couple minutes later, he's down. He sees a taxi driver, and person gets out of the taxi, and he says, wow, I just want to. He reached into the taxi. So I just want to thank you before you pull off for all the work you're doing, because you're taking people all around the city every day long, fighting with the traffic, making it easy for them to get to where they want to go. Hope you have a great day. His friend's starting to think he's a little bit crazy now. And they walk a little further, and he smiles at this very unattractive woman. This friend says, what's with you? You just smiled and told a very unattractive woman to have a great day. Why'd you smile at her? He said, well, maybe she's a teacher, and if she's a teacher, she goes to her classroom. Those kids are in for a really good day. And so the reality is, every time you smile, every time you appreciate someone, every time you appreciate anything in the universe, you are creating ripples of that love and appreciation going out into the world. I have a friend named Janet Atwood who developed the Passion Test, and also a friend named Ken Honda who lives in Japan, who I've been over there speaking for him. He wrote a book called Happy Money, which I recommend if you get a chance to read it, and they wrote a book called Morrow up, and the book is about a man in Japan by the name of Wahei Takeda. Now, Wahei Takeda is known in Japan as the Warren Buffett of Japan, probably the most wealthy investor in Japan. And what they did was they interviewed him to try to find out why was he so successful. And he said, well, because I'm always grateful. And in Japan, the word arigato means thank you. He says, I am saying arigato all day long, almost like a mantra. Arigato everything. I look at the plants, arigato. The camera that's filming me, arigato the cameraman behind me that's doing that. Thank you for that. Arigato. Arigato. Arigato. And that level of thankfulness raises his vibration. And he said, when I'm in that vibration, I always know the right thing to do. And I'm attracting opportunities, I'm attracting money, I'm attracting venture capitalists that want to play with me, that have great ideas and so forth. And so to be staying in a constant state of appreciation. And so I want you to also start thinking about how can you appreciate the negative events in your life, the negative situations? Because often we go, well, why is that happening to me? And literally, you can start to appreciate even those, you know, I got divorced a number of years ago, and the reality was that I lost about $8 million in that divorce. And I was really upset for a while. Then I began to ask myself, what's the opportunity that this is? And that's a great question to ask yourself. No matter what's going on, what's the opportunity that this is? Well, I had to go back to work and get a little more, I should say effortful, focused, intentional, about creating the life I wanted because most of my cash was gone. And that's when I wrot success principles, which I may not have written otherwise. And there were many other positive things that came out of that. You know, one of the things about being 75 years old is you can look back and you've got to start to see that everything I thought was a problem. I got to develop qualities like perseverance, like courage, like the ability to enroll people in my vision to ask. Asking was very difficult for me for a number of years. But as I got better at asking, because I had to, to survive, I got many, many more things came into my life as a result of that. I want to share with you 10 things that wahi said about marrowing up. He wrote, these are 10 ways to marrow up 10 ways to get yourself into a state of living from the heart, living from compassion, living from love, and living from a higher consciousness. Number one, he said, walk in nature. Every time you go into nature, everything vibrating, like right where I'm standing, is vibrating at a very high level. None of the plants here are comparing themselves to other plants. They're not worrying about the future. They're not regretting the past. They're just living in a high vibration of nowness. Acquaint yourself with art. Art uplifts you. Art is a thing that is a higher vibration to it. Our poets, our songwriters, our painters, they see at a different level and they raise amazing vibrations inside of you when you're appreciating that art. Allow yourself to be moved. That's another thing to do. You know, go to some movies, read some books. Allow yourself to be moved emotionally by the music at a concert, by the story, in a. In a movie, etc. Visit places of worship. When I was on my honeymoon with my wife, which we did in Italy, every time we would see a church or a basilica, we would stop, we would go in, we would feel the energy, look at the beautiful art and architecture, and then we would meditate for at least 20 minutes. And sometimes that was five or six times a day. But it kept raising our vibration because in those buildings, buildings, for years, people have been praying and being grateful and being thankful for things, and that vibration becomes part of that building. Do what excites you. You know, I've Talked about doing 20 things you love to do. What excites you to do. And make sure every day you do something that uplifts you. That's exciting. Follow your intuition is another thing he recommends. We are getting inner guidance all the time. And when you follow it, when you allow yourself to listen to it and actually do what it's telling you to do, life becomes actually easier and more magical and more successful. Keep giving thanks. We talked about that. Aragato arigato arigato or thank you. Thank you, thank you. When I was a kid, we always said grace before our meals. Grace, you know, gracias is Spanish for thank you. And so I want to just. I've started doing it again. Thank the food. Thank that. You know, if it's an animal, it's given up its life. It's vegetables and fruit. Someone picked that fruit, someone stored it, someone transported it, they sold in the store. You know, thank all the people involved in making that meal possible, the people who cooked it and so forth. Give to others. Anytime you give and you give with an idea of uplifting somebody. Not from a place of, oh, I have to give. But giving out of joy, giving out of love, that raises your vibration. That's why I tithe. That's why I give a lot of free seminars and scholarships out to people, because I want to not only help, but I want to feel how good it feels to give. And number nine, wish people happiness. You know, always be wanting the best for everybody. As you're doing that, you're raising your own vibration. Number 10, love and be loved. Put yourself in situations where you can express your love and also put yourself in situations where you can receive the love that's given to you and say thank you and allow yourself to really let it in. I know at the end of a talk when people are giving me a standing ovation, I used to go like this just to calm them down, say, no, that's enough. And now I just stand there and I let it in. It allows them to give to me and me to experience that love and give it back to them at the same time. I'll end with the quote from Mr. Takeda. He says, once affirming and smiling becomes a habit, the world around you miraculously transforms. So you're doing it for yourself, you're doing it for others. You're doing it for all of humanity. So make sure to spend more time in appreciation. Hey, thanks for watching today. And if you like what you saw, make sure to like it, share it with a friend who may need it, and subscribe to my channel. If you'd like to receive more videos like this, and if you'd like more information about the topic we talked about today, go to my website@jackcampfield.com for some resources that you can use to apply even more of what you learned today. Thanks again for watching.