Episode 61: Thanksgiving, Gratitude, and Health in 2021

Welcome to another edition of “Around with Randall,” your weekly podcast making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and Founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.

I’m so grateful to have you join me here on this edition of “Around with Randall” and grateful because it's the right time of the year. It's thanksgiving and as I try to do every year, I want to spend maybe a shortened version talking a little bit about Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday. 

My fondest memories as a child surround Thanksgiving Day and Thanksgiving weekend - around the dining room table at my house with my parents, my sisters, my grandparents house - both of them, both my parents, my mother's parents and my dad's parents, in Omaha and Lincoln. So the first level of gratitude is just I have these phenomenal memories and lived some nearly 30 years before I lost my first grandparent. To have these amazing opportunities to hear about family heritage and history and to take those into my adult life and share them with others. Gratitude has, as we've talked about in podcasts and I talk about when I teach, when we talk about grateful patients we talk about generosity. Gratitude has such powerful, powerful healing and healthier behaviors and outcomes from vital signs to the way your brain works. There's a study saying that the more grateful you are in long, long term the more likely you are to live a longer life. There's so many medical studies but really it's about attitude. It's about realization of amazing things going on and being able to enjoy life, which only comes along once and is desperately shorter than any of us want, and having gratitude for moments and being open to that gratitude allows you, allows me, allows all to live a more whole life.

Thanksgiving in its heritage here in the United States goes all the way back to 1620 when the pilgrims landed in the late fall of that year they had a celebration feast on the shores of Cape Cod. And unlike today where we have rice and or potatoes depending where you are in the country, and certainly turkey and whether it's baked or fried and outside hopefully their meal wasn't anything like that, it was actually lobster and seal and swan, but the spirit of Thanksgiving was just the same. The next year William Brand Bradford, the governor of, first governor of Massachusetts, with the pilgrims brought the Natives to join as a way of being grateful for them. As well at various times up until the Revolutionary War there were moments of Thanksgiving, but it wasn't until George Washington declared different days of Thanksgiving in the Revolutionary War to give his soldiers the opportunity to be appreciative of their lives and in some of those cases it was the worst parts of the war for the American effort - Valley Forge in the winters, people dying -  there were moments of gratitude because George Washington maybe not having the medical science had the forethought and the realization that gratitude can be a positive impact on people, and thus his soldiers. Abraham Lincoln instituted a more regular idea of Thanksgiving in 1863 and really was the first to push the idea of Thanksgiving on the final Thursday at that time of November and that continued along growing in popularity until Franklin Roosevelt made an adjustment kept it in November but moved to the fourth Thursday in 1939, and in 1941 it became official the fourth Thursday of the month of November as the official Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. Interesting that you see during the American Revolution, when you see the Civil War, you see the Great Depression, 1939, you see some of the most challenging times in our country's history and that gratitude, Thanksgiving was being pushed and again the medical science wasn't as good but leaders knew what gratitude and hope can do to not only the individual spirit or the family spirit but the collective spirit. 

So as I look at Thanksgiving, what am I most thankful for? Well it certainly starts with what happens in my house. I’m thankful beyond belief for my wife and my children. I like to say and you may have heard if you know me personally, I out kicked my coverage, a football metaphor, when I got married 20 plus years ago. Best thing that ever has happened to me in my lifetime. I found a partner and someone much smarter, much more adept at the world, much wiser that I can go home to every day and know that, frankly, I’m getting the better end of the deal and we were blessed enough to have two children who bring us an immense amount of joy and spirit. And then I look a little bit further from my house and my parents who are still alive and just doing great - live six blocks away - and my sisters, their amazing husbands - I love my brothers-in-law, they're great people - they are great to my sisters and they're great fathers, and then I think back to my grandparents where I started all of this. My family has been incredibly important to anything that I’ve ever accomplished and it makes me so joyous to know that I get to spend additional time with them over the holiday. And I have friends out there that I appreciate whether it's Nathan, whether it's Rick, whether it's Gus, whether it's a whole bunch of people - too many to name - Tim, people that I value their thoughts and their their kinship, they mean an awful lot to me. 

The second thing I’m thankful for is health and for many the pandemic has, I think, made us realize how important health is. And for those of us who have gotten through it in a relatively healthy way and not been as affected by it, it gives you great sense of appreciation of life because there's been so many people that have been affected. So we should be thankful that we have gotten through, I hope, the worst of Covid-19. In this pandemic as we continue to bring maybe a sense of regularity, I’m not sure we'll ever get back to normal, but maybe regularity in our lives, I think the other thing is is that for me in particular, health has additional importance. Those who know me know that we had immense health challenges with our son early on in his life and to be very candid he probably shouldn't be here breathing on this earth had it not been for the spectacular assistance care that we received from physicians and nurses in an 18-month journey from about day six or seven of his life to about his 18-month birthday and yes we celebrated his birthday every month because we didn't know what was coming next. So our little mini thanksgivings as a parent when you have a sick child you realize how fortunate health is and that sometimes we take it for granted. I think that was exemplified even further from my wife and I when we had our second child. It was a long journey to have both. To be candid was not easy for us but when Margie was born and it was a short labor and she's been as normal as the day is long, gives you context about what you've gone through and how blessed you are when you have health. So when you add that in a personal way in the pandemic for all of us, I hope you take a moment to think about your health and the health of those that you love. And that while we all get older and things get a little bit more trying there's so many good things that we can be appreciative of. 

The final thing I will mention that seems related to this podcast that I’m thankful for… I’ve been doing this for right at a year, maybe 13 months. As thanksgiving falls this year, I’m thankful for a couple things that are part of that experience that is Hallett Philanthropy. I’m thankful for clients - not for being paid but I am appreciative for paying me - but for the relationships. I get to be a teacher, a mentor, a little bit of an expert a guide all kinds of different ways of saying, I get to help people. There's no greater joy in my professional life than that. It's not the money, it's the ability to see people grow. I feel like a coach, and if you talk to coaches who do this long enough, whether it's football and you're talking about a Bobby Bowden or Tom Osborne, or in today's world Nick Sabin, or you're in basketball and you're dealing with the legendary Red Auerbach or John Wooden or you're doing some other particular, what I’ll call coach - my wife's a classically trained musician maybe it's that long-standing musician that taught you the instrument - I think what they'll tell you is it's not the destination but the journey. It's the ability to help people be what all they could be or want to be. That joy is just so powerful. So I’m appreciative for the relationships, for the people over this last year, that I have got to work with, from Canada to the United States to Australia… had a few conversations in Europe. I feel as if I was the winner and anything that you may have think you that I did for you pales in comparison to how you made me feel to be helpful. I’m also appreciative and grateful for the journey. It's been interesting. I’ve got to use my business skills, my legal skills, teaching skills to build out something that I’m awfully proud of, and I’m grateful and thankful for the journey that this has delivered me in the last year. And I’m also thankful for the lessons. What did i learn along the way? This was not perfect. I made more mistakes than you can count. But I learned from those mistakes and I think that with all the education I have achieved in my life - and that's way too much for any one person - I appreciate that I got to be and do something new all the time, to learn, to become better, to do, as Maslow said, to try to be self-actualized, to be okay with who you are, who I am, but realize the shortcomings and the learning opportunities and then jump at those learning opportunities. And I am grateful and thankful for that in this Thanksgiving.

No tactical except this. I hope you take a second do whatever it is you do to kind of find a sense of peace, whether that's listen to music or find quiet, do yoga, whatever that is ,and take a moment and realize the great Thanksgiving of your life personally, professionally, religiously, health-wise, business-wise, professionally, whatever. I want you to realize the great appreciation that is Thanksgiving and then realize it's not about the turkey and the mashed potatoes and the rice, which I love, or the rolls, but about the moments, the opportunities, and the people that make the difference for you. And if you're listening to this or if you're a client listening to this, if you're a family member listening to this, if you're a physician or a caregiver listening to this, let me end by saying thank you I’m grateful for you.

No final reminder about the website or blogs or anything else just remember what I say every week - some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, then there are those who wondered what happened. Thanksgiving’s about people who are trying to find a way to get out of that wondering what happened so they can be someone who makes something happen for someone else. I can't thank you enough for joining me on this short version of “Around with Randall,” the Thanksgiving version of the podcast, and we'll get back to a little bit of normal next time right here on “Around with Randall.” Happy Thanksgiving and don't forget make it a great day.