Steve Shallenberger: To all of our Becoming Your Best listeners and those that are getting ready to just crush it this year and into the new decade, it’s always nice to have some really great tools to help lead you through that, and the Becoming Your Best planner is ready to go if you don’t have one already. It’ll help lead you through with your vision, setting clearly actionable goals in the different areas of your life, which will help bring balance. It’s a process that helps you stay focused, day in and day out, on the things that matter most, while still bringing balance and vitality. So, if you don’t have one yet, you can just go to store.becomingyourbest.com. To get 25% off on your planner, just put in the promo code “20 planner 25”. And here is to a fabulous new year!
Greetings and welcome to this podcast. This is Steve Shallenberger, and it is a delight to be together with you today. This podcast, from Becoming Your Best Global Leadership is dedicated to vision, values, high performance, and productivity, and that is the spirit of Becoming Your Best. And, by the way, if my math is right, this is BYB podcast #212. I laugh because that is the boiling temperature of water, and that is when things really start cooking and happening.
Well, what we’re going to talk about today is one of those things that really make things happen in life and can be such a game-changer on our motivation, our feelings, and our happiness. And today, I would so much enjoy having the opportunity to just sit together with you to discuss this subject. It’s a simple one, yet enormously profound: It’s about gratitude!
Yesterday morning I was exercising on my Peloton – a virtual exercise bike with a live trainer to guide you along, even though it’s remote – and it was a serious workout! Well, to my surprise, the leader and guide not only led us in a very vigorous workout but, at the same time, talked about what she was grateful for.
The “good book” teaches us to be thankful in all things and in all circumstances. Well, this experience with the Peloton really got me thinking about this. Among the traits and 12 Principles of Highly Successful Leaders and People, principle #11 is Live in Peace and Balance. In other words, among the 12 things that these people that consistently are high performers do, one of those is, in the middle of the battle, in the middle of all the things going on, they find a way to quiet their soul and live in peace and balance. One of the characteristics that help you live in peace and balance while at the same time being a high performer and highly productive in your life is to have gratitude.
As I thought about my riding instructor’s affirmation of “I am grateful for…“, I asked myself, “What am I grateful for?” And as I took a few extra minutes and started writing down the answers to that question, I have noticed the huge impact it’s had on my motivation, my feeling of gratefulness, and joy, and appreciation for life.
For this podcast today, it’s really not about me, it is about you! You can ask the question, “What are you grateful for?” This is a question you can also pose to your family members – regardless of their age – friends, and your team. It’s a simple, brief, yet a powerful exercise or activity.
In the spirit of sharing and learning together, I will share with you what I am grateful for, but I hope it will do the same thing of stimulating and inspiring you to think about what you are grateful for. I hope you’ll do the same thing, and take a few moments, and when you have a bit of a filler or pondering time, you can write down the things that you are grateful for. This could be a great scientific experiment. In other words, what impact does it have on you? I’d love to have you share it with me. Just write your experience to support@becomingyourbest.com and I’d love to write back to you and we can visit about it. Especially be thoughtful about some of your statements and watch what happens.
What I am grateful for, as I listed many things, I realize some of our listeners may not have some of the things that I have. We are grateful for them, those people, and pushing forward to overcome what they don’t have. There are definitely going to be some things you have that I don’t have. Nonetheless, I am grateful for what I do have.
Well, here we go! I am going to use the language, “I am grateful for…” and then I’m just going to add whatever that is. It’s quite a list for me, and they are in no particular order or ranking – they’re just what I’m grateful for. All right, let’s give this a try. Here we go.
– I am grateful for my feet! I have feet that carry me.
– I am grateful for legs! I can run, I can go upstairs, and I can go downstairs.
– I am grateful for arms! I can move them and extend myself, and that I have hands and fingers – I can pick things up!
– I am grateful for my eyes and my ears! I have sight in only one of my eyes. Oh, how grateful I am for that! I’ll never forget, five or six years ago – when I lost the sight in my left eye – when I looked up to see a full moon and how beautiful that was, how grateful I was to have my other eye that I could see it with, to have ears to compensate maybe for things I don’t see as well.
– I am grateful for my brain and that I can think!
– I am grateful for my health! I can get up in the day. I especially appreciate my health when I don’t have it – and what a precious gift that is!
– I am grateful for my job and how stimulating it is, and how it causes me to grow and stretch!
– I am grateful for a paycheck! How wonderful that is to be able to pay my bills and have a source of income!
– I am grateful to get up in the morning and be able to see a beautiful new day every day!
– I am grateful for the security and safety of my home and workplace! I see the things that happen throughout the world and, oh, my goodness how grateful am I for security and safety!
– I am grateful for food. Talk about all the variety of food that there is.
– I am grateful to be able to drink and for all these types and varieties we have in this area.
– I am grateful for warmth! I look outside – right now, at this particular season, it’s winter, it’s freezing outside. Well, I know it’s different in different parts of the world, but at least this season, right now, today, how grateful I am that I’m warm and comfortable!
– I am grateful for life and all of the experiences that I’ve been fortunate to have.
– I am grateful for the beauties of God’s creations. As I look around and see the mountains, and the deserts, and the Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone Park, and Hawaii volcano, the National Volcanic Park, and places around the world, the ocean, lagoons and it goes on and on; the lights in the cities.
– I am grateful that I can breathe, and I can just easily take in a breath and let it out!
– I am grateful for my family, for children and grandchildren, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, cousins, and my ancestors. How grateful am I have for people that have gone on before and set such a great example!
– I am grateful for mentors, and how they’ve blessed my life and what a significant role they’ve played!
– I am grateful for friends! I think about my dear friends and people that have blessed my life and loyalty, and comfort, and interest.
– I am grateful for new friends that will come.
– I am grateful for the energy that I have, and that I’m able to move around and I feel like doing things!
– I am grateful for problems that challenge me and that stimulate my mind to find great solutions and good solutions -good, better best!
– I am grateful for opportunities that keep life interesting and keep challenging me.
– I am grateful for failures. Nobody really wants failures – and boy, I’ve had some doozies – but I’m grateful for the lessons learned.
– I am grateful for success. When you’ve had some big-time failures and then you’re also able to enjoy some success, how sweet that is? That you can appreciate it in contrast, and how wonderful it is!
– I am grateful to feel happy.
– I am grateful for when I feel sad, that I can stay focused on the bigger picture, and find hope.
– I am grateful for technology. I’m grateful for phones, and that I can talk across the planet and I can actually see somebody at the same time, and it can be instant, the technology. I’m grateful for all the resources, and the apps, and artificial intelligence that’s coming, and oh, my goodness, how exciting is that?
– I am grateful for my Creator, and humbled to think of the role that He plays in my life and the interest that He has in me!
– I am grateful for prayer and impressions that come!
– I am grateful for eternal life, that perspective in the tender mercies of God!
– I am grateful for good examples!
– I am grateful for faith and hope!
– I am grateful for church!
– I am grateful for good, and the good that exists all over the world!
– I am grateful for babies, toddlers, youth, young adults, middle-aged, and wonderful people that grow older gracefully. It’s certainly not easy, but I’m grateful for the examples of people that are just trying.
– I am grateful for pets!
– I am grateful to go hiking in beautiful places!
– I am grateful to learn! To read, watch, attend, and hear, and to learn from others, to give me new ideas, a fresh perspective.
– I am grateful for sports, which teaches us how to handle winning and losing – and it can be so fun, especially if you win, but you have to deal with it if you don’t.
– I am grateful for politics, for opposing ways of thinking!
– I’m grateful for Becoming Your Best, the 12 Principles of Highly Successful People and Leaders, the Six Principles of Planning and Execution – these are powerful guidelines that have been so helpful for me, that I can count on, that really are like an anchor. They’re like the North Star.
– I am grateful for working with extraordinary people! This is an amazing part of life. How grateful I am for them!
– I am grateful for airplanes, jets, and travel.
– I am grateful for time-tested historic figures that can teach us so much.
– I am grateful for people, good people, all over the entire planet, and I’m glad that I can travel all over the planet. We have far more in common than we are different, and what an inspiration that this is!
I didn’t have a list in mind, but today, in this short time, I’ve spoken of over 45 things that I’m grateful for. I’m sure, as I am open to all of the good in life, that more certainly will come. This is not even a challenge to come up with these things. It’s not a challenge to come up with a certain number. It’s not a competition, it’s simply reflecting upon these things in our life. Gratitude is about simply realizing how fortunate every single one of us is, regardless of where we live, what our circumstances are, how much we earn or don’t earn. I love the quote, “It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”
A friend of mine, Terry, shared how he uses his Becoming Your Best Planner also as a gratitude journal. Each day, he writes down something that happened, that he’s grateful for, that he recognizes, and is careful to jot down.
As you, and I, move forward to Becoming Your Best, to making a difference, to work to be a high performer and highly productive in our lives personally, and in our workplace, gratitude will be a motivator and help to maintain that special peace and balance in life.
This is Steve Shallenberger with Becoming Your Best, wishing you a great day, with gratitude that I have the opportunity to associate together with you. Thank you, and good day!