Episode 109: Thanksgiving and Gratitude This Year

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 grateful to have you join me right here on "Around with Randall." Today it's a short version, but I think an important one considering the time of year. And it's really all about the idea of gratitude. In Thanksgiving, in the past, I've done the history of Thanksgiving when we got to this time of the year, and in the importance of it. Today I want to connect some of the dots, which I talk about all the time in my work regarding gratitude and why it's so important and how it's tied into what we're going through this week. Hopefully, for most of us, a time of Thanksgiving. Gratitude has so many positive effects. The ability to look at one's life and realize what are the good fortunes within it.

Number one, it affirms the things that one receives that it takes an inventory or stock of things that are important. At the same time it also gives you a chance to reflect and realize those people, experiences that allowed you to get to wherever you're at with that gratitude. Maybe it's larges, i.e. the love of a spouse or a parent or a significant other. Maybe it's just in the tactical moment of someone that was nice enough to let you get that parking spot when the two of you showed up there at the same time. Gratitude doesn't have to be overwhelming, it just has to be a realization of the good fortunes of life. But I think the thing that we're seeing more and more of and particularly for that of what we deal in health care is is that gratitude has healing and healthy principles. When we practice gratitude when we think about the great functions and opportunities of our own life, the good things that have happened. Or when we express gratitude and have it received to someone else it has mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, health-related benefits. If you're more grateful living a more gratitude-based life, if you're spending time which we'll get to in a moment, maybe how to do that. Just real simple, easy because if it's more complex I'm not going to do it.

So you're probably not going to do it is really about what we get out of it, and what we get out of it is number one is that we have better relationships. That we know in terms of of psychological and relational studies that when we practice gratitude we have deeper and more meaningful relationships with those that are both professional and personal. We actually can see, and it's been proven, that when we express or when we practice gratitude, express it, have it received, it reduces aggression which societally would be a good thing for everybody. To be candid, we get better sleep when we practice gratitude. It improves our self-esteem. I think about my favorite psychologists, psychiatrist, Abraham Maslow, and the hierarchy of needs. The self-actualization in some way requires the ability to build self-esteem, to get to self-actualization. Do you believe in yourself and do you know who you are and how you can improve or be a better person?

It also, and it helps with our mental health. Mental health, which is really important right now. I think that the challenges of mental health for kids who probably weren't in school enough, to adults who were challenged with the pandemic, or financial concerns, or things that nature, mental health is becoming more discussed and thank goodness conversation for many people. Gratitude can help us with our mental health to be more aware of the good things in life, and that life may not be as bad, and for those you know struggling with a lot of challenges, gives them a sense to kind of level set. It has direct health benefits when we express gratitude.

When we practice gratitude we realize and express the idea of Thanksgiving, we have lower blood pressure. We have kind of a lessening of what, or prevention of affecting, or positively affecting overeating and particularly this weekend on Thanksgiving weekend I plan on practicing as much gratitude as possible. I'll eat a little less. It provides us wanting to do more exercise. I certainly notice I walk more and I'm grateful. It has healing principles and health principles on our heart and cardiac function. It lowers the need for pain medication. It increases our pain tolerance. Maybe a better way to say that it strengthens our immunity. It lowers our blood glucose levels.

The ability for us to practice and know and understand gratitude, Thanksgiving, can help us with our health mental, physical, emotional spiritual. Why does it work this way? Well I talk about the example of a neighbor who watches your house, waters the grass, gets the mail while you're on vacation. And you come home from that vacation and most likely one of the first things you're going to do is you're going to take them a gift. Maybe you brought them something from the trip. Maybe you bought, maybe you bought a bottle of wine or a gift card or you would have them over for dinner. The question I always like to ask when that's expressing gratitude, not for just your life but for someone else who's helped you is, is that the question to be posed. is who's the beneficiary, the real beneficiary. The Tactical or kind of low-level beneficiary, certainly the person receiving the bottle of wine or the gift from the holiday. But the beneficiary is you for giving.

Because what we know is that Equity Theory, which Jay Stacey Adams posited that 1963, is that the idea of relationships are based on a sense of equilibrium and that when we have a sense of equilibrium we actually feel better about our relationships and the people we deal with. But here's the crazy thing I've come to appreciate as I've thought about gratitude an awful lot in my, certainly the last 10 years, but throughout my career, is that it's tough to have gratitude with the neighbor unless you start with the gratitude in your own life. It's tougher if you're hard on yourself and don't see any good in your own life to think someone else might be contributing to your betterment. So it starts internally and then builds into other people.

What are some ways that you can simply realize the great fortunes of your life no matter where you're at no matter what the challenge is? There are moments in my life, and I'll do this at the very end where certainly I have more that I realize, that I'm grateful for than others because that gratitude's crowded out by business challenges, kid challenges, home challenges, parent challenges, life challenges, and it may be as stupid as my plane's late to as important is my kid's really sick, those crowd out moments of gratitude.

So here are some things you can do that I think could benefit you this Thanksgiving. It could be appreciative of the great blessings good fortunes of your life. Write a thank you note to someone who's made a difference. I talked about this several podcasts ago I think I'm getting better at it. I need to continue to improve. I'm not a big fan of Boss's Day. It should be mentors day. Who are the people that have made a difference for you personally and professionally? Mentored you personally from a growth opportunity, professionally in your career?Write them a note and say, may seem out of the blue but I was thinking about you I'm grateful to you. Write your loved one, your significant other, spouse, husband, wife whomever a simple note that says thanks for making me who I am.

You can journal. Write down your good fortune. You'll find that there's probably a lot more of it and the science says, and the there's been several people who have indicated that they've been able to see this when we do it on a regular basis, like in a journal. We actually see a much better a happier positive life.

I think an interesting one which I use quite often is, think about the moments in life where things weren't all that great and compare it to maybe where you are now. I'm not trying to belabor moments that are challenging, but sometimes we forget that there was a time when things weren't as good. Even if things aren't great now. I remember when I had my thyroid out it actually it was before they actually could physically take it out and I'm sitting in a hospital room for nearly three weeks. Man that sucked. I don't know the way to put it and because of a whole lot of complications, because I couldn't figure out what a whole lot of things nobody cares about, but it gave me a chance to reflect on kind of a mid-life point to say do I like who I am. Do I like what I stand for? Do I like being a husband, a father, a business professional? Could I do things differently? Those were low moments because there was a lot of thinking. that's all I could do is sit in the hospital room kind of quarantined before the, before the pandemic made it much more fashionable. Consider those moments. I look at what I got now and I'm like man, I got challenges but I ain't got those. What in your life did you struggle with and how is it better now?

Share your good fortune with others at the dinner table every night. When I say the prayer I talk about the fact that we are blessed as a family and the responsibilities of the gifts that we're so lucky to have aren't ours to keep, but ours to share. Sometimes that's talking about the good gratitude and fortunes of our life. Sometimes it's actually doing something. So keep in mind sharing is power for you.

Lastly I want you, if possible, to take two minutes, four minutes, five minutes sitting in the car in the parking lot, sitting at home in a quiet moment and the term is meditation. I think we make more of it than it needs to be. It's a quiet moment where you kind of drop into your own thoughts and mind. Think of the good things in your life, whatever they are, and no matter how challenging things are now there are good things. Sometimes they're a little harder to see but they're there. And breathe and listen to your breath. Listen to the depth. Get it slower and deeper, and what you'll find is, if you're thinking and listening to that, breathing life will become more clear as you think about the moments and the things and the people that you're most grateful for. Is there a smell that comes up? Maybe it's the smell of Bounce from the laundry, or in my case the soap my wife uses, or the flowers outside. Is there a smell that you can get a hint of, and begin to look around and see the good. In the spirit of this, when I meditate which, I'm not going to do here on the podcast because it'll be incredibly boring, I'm grateful for my health, from my wife and our relationship and how I just would rather be at home than anywhere else in the world, for my children who are both an inspiration and the energy of everything I am and want to be, for my parents who are getting older who gave me the formation that I have to be hopefully a little bit self-actualized, for my sisters who when I went looking for a wife I actually ended up going looking for them, and the fact that they're pretty cool people and we have pretty good relationship, more small family but we're a tight family, for other family members, for my professional life. I appreciate my clients thinking I have something to offer, something to give them. They believe I have something that's going to help them be better, that they have faith in me at least a little bit.

Appreciate all the things that go on. To me that are very basic, and while probably not expressed because I'm like my dad I keep my religious perspective kind of inside. It's a very personal thing for me. They're all blessings. Most important question I'm going to ask this Thanksgiving is not only going to be grateful, but can I share. Can I make somebody else's world a better place? And I've got six weeks to concentrate on it and a full year to come to do it. What's your gratitude? When you pull back a little bit, what are you grateful for? And that is the best Thanksgiving wish I can give to you that you see it, feel it, know it, and appreciate it, whatever those graces are. If you can then I say Happy Thanksgiving to you.

We'll see you next time right back here on "Around with Randall". Don't forget make it a gratitude great day!