036 Finding Fulfillment and Gratitude

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey there. Welcome to this episode of the affluent entrepreneur show. This one's a good one. It's a special one because it's a special time. So this is about how do you live a more fulfilled life? So stay tuned. I'll see you in the episode. Cheers.

This is the affluent Entrepreneur show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham, and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, scale your money, and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom, because that's what it really means to be an affluent entrepreneur.

All right, welcome to this episode of the affluent Entrepreneur show. This one's going to be cool because I actually want to have a frank conversation with you about something that I think we need a whole lot more of in our world, especially in today's time. So when this episode is about to air, it's going to be here in the United States. It's going to be the week of Thanksgiving, which is a time for us to reflect. It's a time for us to think about life, to think about the things that maybe we're grateful for, that we're thankful for. And, you know, unfortunately, sometimes that's the only time we do it. But I think we need to make it more of a daily practice. And so one of the things I want to talk about is this whole idea of gratitude and how that works into your life. How do you make it a daily practice? I'm going to walk through a framework of mine called the gratitude grid. Because here's the thing, when we talk about the affluent entrepreneur, we say that there's three critical outcomes. And the first critical outcome is that they live a richer lifestyle. Richness isn't about money yet money has an impact on it, but richness is about life. It's about experiences, it's about feelings, it's about doing things differently. And richness comes from also being grateful and knowing what that can be for us. And so often, especially given the times that we're in, the times that we've gone through, the things that we've seen, the pandemic and everything else. God, when we don't get this gratitude thing right, believe it or not, it seems flippant to just talk about gratitude. Gratitude, you know, we hear it all the time. Let me ask, when's the last time you stopped and thought, I'm truly grateful? You didn't just think it, you felt it. You felt it. My wife and I, we had to attend a celebration of life this past weekend. And I. I sat there as some of the family members and friends would get up and talk about the person who passed away. And I couldn't help but think, I wonder if he knew what they felt, what they thought. You kind of sit back and say, how often do we allow things to just live in the land of the unspoken? How often is it that we don't allow someone to understand how much of an impact they had on our life and how truly grateful we are, and what would it be like if they did? And I didn't know the person that well, it was someone on one of the friends from Stephanie's side. But I think that we look at it and start to ask ourselves, why should we wait to give reverence to the beauty of their life once they're gone? Why shouldn't we give reverence to their life while they're here, so they get a chance to relish it, to appreciate it, to feel that, too? And so that's what this episode is about. And as much as we talk about affluence and money and wealth and financial independence, this is a big part of it. We talk about affluence being a meaningful life, being an impactful life. Well, gratitude is a big deal. So here's the thing. I'm going to jump to my iPad for those of you that are listening. We'll make sure that you have all graphics in the show notes and make that happen. But I just want to walk through a couple of things to think about and to consider why this is important, this idea of finding gratitude in your life, in your business. Because it is, to me, the path of feeling fulfilled. Because when. When we don't get it right, you know, why does this matter? Well, here's the thing. When we're not grateful for the things that we have. When we're not grateful for what's going in our life, what we find is that we feel drained. It starts to take our energy away. It starts to eliminate or limit our capacity to do things. And you may notice that when you feel drained or tired or something of that nature. Yeah, that starts to get to you. And the other thing that happens is this, is that we feel angst. There's something. There's just something that's unsettling about things, something that just doesn't feel right. And you can't figure out what the angst is or where it's coming from. But we end up feeling angst and this anxiousness. And part of that is because we're not slowing down to appreciate what we actually do have. We spent a whole lot of time in society talking about the bad stuff, talking about the dirty laundry, talking about all those things. What about just slowing down and saying, wait a second, what if I just looked at the things I do have, my ability to do things that I'm alive, I'm vibrant, I get a chance to go and do things. I think we need to slow that down to be able to do that. And the other thing that I think happens is that when we don't feel grateful for what we have, we have the sense of feeling alone. We have the sense of not being with. With anyone else and that we're isolated. And my gosh, in today's world, with all the shutdowns and everything that we've done, we siloed everyone. And the sense of loneliness, the sense of separation is huge. It's huge. We hadn't even had the opportunity to express the gratitude because we've been separated. And so I think it's important for us to start to look for opportunities to make that happen. Because when we are. When we bring gratitude into our world, world, what ends up happening is our energy is lifted. Our energy starts to grow. We feel like the energy is unlimited. The other thing that I think happens is this, is that we actually find some peace and happiness because we're looking at the things we do have rather than spending the time on the things we don't have. The idea of comparison in social media and criticism in social media and the media is huge. And that dissipates our energy, that dissipates our. Our happiness. And you know what, Is it real or is it just something that is a perception that's being created because someone has a bigger house, because someone has a nicer car? Do you think they're more happy? Because I know a lot of people that are. Yeah, I remember when, when I got diagnosed with the cancer, a lot of people said, asked me, you know, how the cancer change you? I bet it got, I bet it got your priorities straight. I said, yeah, it did. It really did. Because I realized that there isn't a priority list. They're just a single priority. It's life, it's living it, it's embracing it, each and every moment. The other thing that happens is that when we get this gratitude piece right, not only do we have the happiness, we actually become magnetic. You might have some of these people in your life that for some reason, no matter what's going on, the world could be falling in around them. They see the good in the world and they're always exuberant, always excited. They're always, always coming at it with a different bend and saying, hey, let's just look at the glass half full. What is good about it? And they become this magnet. You know, people will call it charisma. I think that some of that is just that. You can see the fact that there's this reverence and appreciation for the moment, the reverence and appreciation for what they do have. The opportunity to serve, the opportunity to be there, the opportunity to be in a relationship, the opportunity to be a dad or a mom, the opportunity to be a brother or sister, the opportunity to be an entrepreneur. I feel grateful for the path, for the journey, for the life that I've been blessed to live. Even with the pains, even with the trials and tribulations, even with the mistakes, even with the losses and the suffering, the struggle. Because it's the contrast between the suffering, the struggle that gives me the opportunity to appreciate what I do have. So if this is why, what do you need to know? What do you need to know to make this happen? And I think that there's three core principles that when we talk about gratitude and fulfillment and feeling this way and feeling that richness of life, the first thing is this is to realize that it's all generated from within. Too often we're looking outside to get validation, to get appreciation, to bring that. But our true gratitude, our true appreciation is generated from within. It's a feeling inside of us when we walk into a store, when we walking down the street, to have a reverence and appreciation for that ability to do that. And it seems like not a big deal, but it truly is. Because when we take control, we can take control back to how we feel, to make it self referential, if you will, and not external Then we don't find ourselves on the whim and at the mercy of the flows of what's going on around us. The society, the media, the social media, the zeitgeist, we're internally referenced. So that's the first principle I think that we need to know. The second principle is this, is that your actions will give it life. We can think about it, and that does something that gets you maybe to level one. But when we turn around and we take action on it. When's the last time you legitimately said hello and smiled at someone walking down the street? Well, first off, gotta make sure you don't have the mask on. But I know where I live, not directly where I live, because most people are casual and very, very friendly here, but in general, in, say, in Los Angeles, when we say hello to someone, sometimes they look at you like, what do you want? And they're checking for their wallet to make sure it's like. But it's just a legitimate, sincere hello, a wave, a smile to take action on things I think becomes important. The other thing is to realize that gratitude is a practice and that we create the habit of gratitude on a regular basis. And sometimes when we don't have that habit, we haven't been doing it, we have to actually create something, a mechanism, if you will, to trigger it, to make sure that it becomes part of our life. When we ingrain it and we embed it in our life, that's when all of a sudden it becomes second nature. And when it becomes second nature, it becomes who you are. It starts to embed into your identity, and it's how you show up. And so one of the things I want to do is I want to walk you through something that I use. It's called the gratitude grid. It actually is a weekly practice that turns a daily practice. And we'll talk about the gratitude game plan and how you do this and what that can look like. And by using this framework and doing it on a weekly basis, you're going to find that over time, it just becomes part of who you are. The habit from the practice becomes an identity. Hopefully that makes sense. All right, so when we talk about this, and I'm going to draw this out on the iPad for those of you that are on YouTube or watching video. So here's the way that this comes into play is that when I look at it in this regard, there's three types of categories or three little areas I want us to look at from three aspects. So when we do this, what I want us to start to understand is that gratitude falls into three different categories, or at least when we start to try and build it. The first is this, is that we need to consider things from an internal perspective internally. What's going on inside of us. What's going on inside of us when we do this. Second, just like we just said, it's part of practice. We need to look at it and say, what is the action or the activity I need to take on? What is the thing I need to do? Okay, so internal is what I feel or think. Activity is an action I take. And then how do I create a practice out of it? How do I create something that's going to allow this to take hold? Okay, so one of the first things when we start to look at this gratitude grid is that we need to consider something and say, how about we just start noticing things? And what I mean by this is that really just taking notice of what is good around you and asking yourself what happens is look at the goodness that exists in the world. Look at the goodness that lives in your life. Look at the goodness. You could sit back and say, I want a bigger house. I wish you had a nicer car. But you have a house and you have a car. Why not appreciate that for the moment to live in the goodness and notice the goodness and be aware of the goodness and have the appreciation for the goodness. Okay? Because when we do that, when we start to understand how that plays out, that starts to give us some appreciation to move from. Okay? Second aspect of the internal is that when we look at the goodness that we turn around and then also consider it with humility. Okay? With humility, I look at this and, and realize my life. And I, and I have said this before, but I don't believe that anyone is self made. Anyone who says that I am self made, I'm a self made millionaire, they're lying. Absolutely, they're lying. And I feel this very strongly because I am a product of my environment. I am a product of the people around me. I am a product of my audience. I'm a product of my clients. My customers. I'm a product of the people that have blessed my life. And to come at it with some respect and humility and leave the ego in check. The ego is the enemy of appreciation. Now we have an opportunity to start looking at things and saying, yeah, I'm human, I make mistakes, I'm just human. But I come at it with a humility, that's a different game. And then the last element of the internal, so there's three of each. In each of these. The last element of the internal is really this idea of commit. But what are we committing to? Oh, man. Now, this one actually sounds really easy, but it's not. I want you to commit to no complaints, criticism, or gossip. All right? Think about this. Think about what it would be like to try and not complain about something. Oh, the coffee's too hot, the coffee's too cold. Or this person is that. Or that person is this. I'm guessing that also means you probably can't watch the news on that day. Okay. Because when we spend our time living in the complaint, living in the criticism, living in the gossip, how can we find the appreciation? There's a guy by the name of Will Bowen, and he started a movement called a complaint. Free World.org, okay? Accomplate Free World.org and what they have is these. They have these rubber bands that you put on your wrist, and every time you complain, you got to move it to the other wrist and you're supposed to go complaint free for 21 days. And it sounds easy, but it's not. It's not great. Can you imagine what it would be like if we just said, I'm not going to complain for 21 days? And see, because here's what happens. When you're successful with committing to no complaints, what else are you going to do? You're going to appreciate the good. You got to replace the urge, the feeling like, I'm going to complain with something. What do you replace it with? The appreciation of the moment, the appreciation of what's good about it, the appreciation, the gratitude. And imagine the kind of person you'll be like on the other side of that 21 days when you've lost the need and the necessity and the feeling to complain. So that's the internal. Is to truly look at it from that perspective, that we notice the goodness that we come with humility. And then we commit to no complaints, criticism, or gossip. Now, what's the activities that we need to put into play? Well, truly, the first activity is. And it seems simple, but a lot of people don't do it, and that is this. How about journaling? Journaling about your day? You can do it on a weekly basis. I think you ought to do it on a daily basis. It doesn't take long. Okay, but ask what happened today? Here's the questions. Ask what happened today? Okay.

What did you learn today? What could you do better from today? And what are you grateful for? So what happened? What did you learn? What could you do? Better and what are you grateful for? And so we take a moment just to simply journal the day. And what it forces you to do is it forces you to slow down, to reflect. Too often we're just running like crazy. Too often we're going too fast. And we don't even take the time to reflect, to understand.

So the first activity is to journal. The second activity is to compliment.

To actively seek out the ability to compliment. To sit back with sincerity. To sit back and say, someone, you know, you look nice today. Now, not in a creepy way, but to say you look nice. To even just say hello. You know what? It throws cashiers off when I go to the store, or even I call someone, Someone answers the phone and say, hey, this is Mel Abram. How are you doing today? I stopped the conversation to ask sincerely, how are you doing today to find a way to give someone a compliment. You know, when you felt a compliment, you stand taller, you smile bigger, you feel better. That's a gift. And it costs nothing. It costs nothing. But what you do is that that gift then just keeps on giving because that person will pass it on. So the second activity is really to compliment. And.

The third activity is really about oops. Cause. And really what I mean by this is that I want you to believe and feel that you are at cause. You're not at the effect of everything that's going on. That everything that you do and everything that happens is because of you. It is for you. And that you truly are at cause. And that means that when you are at cause, you have the ability to change and shift what is happening by making different choices. Choices. Okay? So that activity becomes based on the realization that I'm empowered and I am in then. And I have the power to shift. I have the power to change. I have the power to do something. So we come from a grateful place. We reflect in our journal, we compliment on a regular basis. And we know that we're at cause of everything that happens in our life. We may not understand it, but we're at cause for everything. Okay, that leads me to the third aspect, and that's really about the practice. And the first idea with the practice is this is really this idea of transform. Now, this is twofold. Transform is twofold in the sense of I want you to look at how do you transform yourself in this? How do you transform yourself in this and who you become in this process and how you transform those around you. And this comes right back to the idea of not perpetuating negativity to look at Things and say, there's negative associations all around us that create and stir an emotion. Let's break that. Let's start creating positive associations. Let's start creating positivity in a way that we start to look at things differently. To sit back and say, I choose to transform how I approach this. I choose to transform how I see it, how I feel about it, because we're at cause. And then look at it and say, how can I transform the people I'm in front of, the people I meet, the people I greet, the people I talk to, the people you serve? How do I know? One of the things that we did at the karate school a lot of times I said, well, we teach self defense. And I said, we don't teach self defense. Self defense is a commodity. What we bring to these children do you bring to our youth is self esteem, caring and respect. And in the process of teaching self defense, the primary goal is to have them build their self esteem, to have respect and feel cared about. Now we approach it differently. It's the same thing with this transform is that when we look at things and we say, well, I'm providing a product or service. No, there's something higher, there's something that will transform them at the cellular level. When you deliver that at that level, things shift, things change. That brings me to this next piece and that is this. Is that a practice of learning, of truly looking at it and saying, I am human and I know that I'm going to learn, I'm going to make mistakes, there are bad situations, things are going to happen and that I'm still going to be grateful for it. I'm actually grateful for the cancer. Not because I had it, but because of what it did to me, how it woke me up to look at things differently, what it has provided for me to look forward to do differently. So we want to learn from the bad situations. We want to learn from our mistakes. We want to learn and be open to that learning and make that a practice. And that's why when we journal, one of the questions we have to ask is what did I learn today? See how all this works together. That leads me to the third piece of practice. And that is to come at this with a sincere heart, to truly look at it with some sincerity, with some reverence, with some ability to look at this in a way that you can be joyous in the moment, to be sincere when you say I'm sorry, when you say thank you, that it's not just a throwaway, but you truly mean it. That it's not the words that you're saying, it's not even the action that you do. It is the feeling behind it, that you come at it with sincerity. And when we do this on a regular basis, when we start to look at things from the internal, from the active, the activity and the practice, when we're building things, we're noticing, we have humility, we're committed to no complaints, we're journaling. So we reflect, we're complimenting on a regular basis. We believe that we're at cause we know that we want to transform, we're willing to learn, and we approach it with sincerity. Things shift. Things completely shift for you. And that's where fulfillment lies, is in the gratitude, in the process, in creating that into a daily practice. Okay, so how do we do this? Here's what I call the gratitude game plan and what I would tell you to do in this idea. Let me move back to the slides and I'll show this to you. But the gratitude game plan is something where I want you to.

Choose three to five, three to five people each week. So I do it on Sunday, I do it on Sunday, and I choose three to five people that week that I am going to connect with and I'm going to create a gratitude plan with. And so this gratitude game plan, you ask yourself, I want three to five people that I'm going to connect this week with, and I'm going to do it either in writing, speaking, video, or a card or something. So first off, it's who it is. And what's the relationship you have with them. I want you to look at when's the last time you talked to them and what were the insights, the things that they told you about? And then what do you know about them? What specifically do you know about them that's personal to them? Like, I like key lime pie. If you know that and say, hey, man, have you had any key lime pie lately? There's this instant connection. There's this instant rapport when you do that. What is it? What is it that they've done that you're truly grateful for? Express that to them. To sit back and say, hey, you know, I just, I just wanted to call you. I do this all the time. I'll send a video, text and I'll say, hey, man, I was just thinking about you. Hey, I'm just really grateful because of this, this, and this. And I just want you to know that. And then I'll always end with this. Hey, do me a favor, let me know if there's anything you're working on that I can help you with, sincerely, just reach out to me and let me see what I can do to support. If it's an introduction, if it's some resource, let me know. And so literally every Sunday, I will sit down and I'll do a game plan and I'll know the three to five people that I'm going to connect with. I know who they are. I know what my relationship is. I know what the last time we connected was about. I know something about them. I tell them specifically what I'm grateful for and ask them how I can help them. And if you just did this, let's just say you did it for three people once a week, and you change that and you rotate that out, can you imagine the depth of the relationships, the depth of one year, gratitude, what they would do in return? Because now they bring gratitude your way. This.

This is what richness is about, that you're enriching other people's life. And you know when people appreciate you.

What it feels like.

Well, you be the catalyst for that appreciation. You be the one that starts that cycle of appreciation and see what comes your way. I promise you that this is a practice that I have done for many, many years, and in one way or another, it always comes back. But in the moment where you're expressing gratitude, it always feels good. And that's the key. So I just wanted to do something specific. Because of the time of year, it is in hopes that we don't just look at it as, oh, well, in the US it's Thanksgiving. So I'll reflect, I'll be thankful, and I'll be grateful for this week, but rather that we use it as a springboard to a new practice, a new process, a new way of showing up in people's lives. Because I believe our society today is starved for this and that when you have the ability to show up with gratitude, appreciation for your own life, for everything you do have, still yearning some of the things that you're striving for, but that you come from a platform of appreciation, the likelihood that you get to where you want to be, I think is far greater. And in the process, you left a trail of beautiful souls that you blessed with your appreciation and your gratitude along the way, that's a gift. And that's a gift that doesn't cost you anything. And so I hope that you know that I appreciate you for being here, for being part of the show, being on this journey with me. I feel blessed in this moment to know that I get a chance to do what I love to do, to allow people to live the life that they want, to maybe light the way in some way shape or fashion and to lend a helping hand. And so I appreciate you for allowing me to live my calling, to live my, my what? My purpose in this season of my life. And so with that, I just, I hope that you found this of value and that you leave me a comment, let me know. Do me a favor, if you haven't reviewed the show, leave a review and I'm going to read them on the air. We'll start back to reading them on the air and we'll get a chance to then award some one on ones with me for anything that is read on the air. But more importantly, go out there not just this week, but from this week on and express your gratitude. First, start in the mirror. Be grateful for who you are and how you show up and everything that's gone on in your life. And then go outside and start expressing gratitude to other people. You'll see the richness in your life expand until we get a chance to see each other or talk to each other on another show. Always, always, always strive to live a life that outlives you. Cheers. Bye. Thank you for listening to the affluent entrepreneurs entrepreneurship with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of building your money machine where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.