A Word On Gratitude

This week, we celebrate Thanksgiving (at least here in the U.S.). For many, it is just a day to relax and abuse ourselves nutritionally. Others, however, remember the meaning of the day. It is…

Thanks. Giving.

A day to express thankfulness and gratitude for the people and things in our lives.

It is a great concept, of course, but it has a problem…

It is only one day. I strongly believe that one of the core fundamentals of true success is a routine and heartfelt expression of gratitude. It shouldn’t be just one day…. it should be a daily habit.

Without gratitude, you are never wealthy. Wealth is not a measurement of your material possessions.

Think about it for a moment… if you don’t appreciate what you have, then you always have this built-in scarcity in your mind. You will focus on the glass half-empty. You do not allow yourself to be wealthy because you have a vacuum which you don’t allow to be filled.

But, what is this thing – gratitude?

On first glance, it is just an expression of thanks for what you have. This is a form of gratitude that we’re often taught as children. We express thanks for our homes, our health, our possessions, a car, your family, etc.

This gratitude is good, and is certainly better than having a scarcity-driven mindset. However, I feel that this form of gratitude isn’t really meaningful enough. After all, it is easily forgotten. It is easily given lip service. It is sometimes used as a mental justification for not having more…. almost like “Well, I’m thankful that my life isn’t worse than this.” I could easily say, “I’m thankful for my car.”, but then the next day, totally forget about it.

I think most people operate on this level of gratitude, which is why a day like Thanksgiving is often seen as “turkey day” and nothing deeper. People just go shopping the next day and forget all about it.

Gratitude can and does go deeper than that. While it is hard to put into words, I’m going to try…

Deeper Into The Rabbit Hole…

Have you ever been engaged in some experience that you enjoy, and while you’re doing it, you mentally move outside of what is happening and simply appreciate the experience?

Let’s say you are out sailing. The water is streaming by the haul…. you’re moving at a pretty decent clip. You look up and see the sails…. they’re nice and tight as they should be. You can hear the waves breaking on the waterline, the flutter of the edge of the mainsail, the roar of the breeze as it goes by your face.

You’re sailing.

You’re actively engaged in doing it, but for a moment… you simply change your viewpoint. You remove yourself from the details of the moment and just look at the entire situation as an observer rather than a participant.

It is beautiful!

You just appreciate the world, with all the wonder and aesthetics within.

This is a higher plane of being. One where you can literally become exterior to the world you’re operating in and – enjoy the experience.

When you’re in this mindset, the details are all secondary. With practice, you get good at being in this state alot. See, as a spiritual being, you’re literally imbuing the world around you with beauty. When they say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that statement is true on a much deeper level than many people even realize.

This level of gratitude is a two-way street.

See, on the first level of gratitude, you are “grateful for….”. It is a reactionary form of gratitude.

On the deeper level I’m talking about, you are simply grateful.

Gratitude is something you ARE.

It is part of your existence.

It is 2-way because you’re not simply expressing gratitude for things which are; you are instead actively determining this state and creating it. You are actively creating the beauty of your own world. You are causing it.

I encourage people to really think that through. It can require a real change of viewpoint for many people. We’re so used to thinking of ourselves as mere products of our environment that we’ve forgotten the truth…

That our environment is really a product of us.

In Everyday Life…

At this point, some might be thinking, “OK, Dave. Sounds good and all, but how does this translate into the real world?”

Just take it in baby steps. To start out, one most definitely wants to express gratitude for the things they have.

The baby steps, though, come in doing it on a routine basis.

Many have said in the past that they routinely create the emotion of gratitude for themselves. For some, this means making it a daily ritual (perhaps in bed before going to sleep) to think of all the things you are grateful for. For many, this simple act has helped to facilitate a deeper level of gratitude over time. It gets to be a habit. And it develops.

Whatever works for you, do it. Do it long after Thanksgiving is over.

Once you’re creating that deeper gratitude I talked about above, you’ll notice how your life has changed. You’ll notice how the circumstances, relationships and opportunities that show up in your life will align with your goals.

You might think they just happened… that you just hit a string of good luck.

But, no – you will have created it.

My Gratitude…. To You

I find it utterly amazing to be able to do what it is that I do, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t feel gratitude for that.

Last week, I was invited to be interviewed in front of a local internet marketing group here in the Tampa area. I had around 25 people show up, some driving as much as 50 miles, just to come see me be interviewed. In the process, I had this guy raining all kinds of kudos down on me. It was weird, in all honesty.

I recently had the opportunity to speak at Blogworld, and to hang out with some of the top bloggers on the planet. The week after, I was in Phoenix surrounded by some of the top entrepreneurs in the country. Coming back to my local town again, I recently was able to help put together a dinner with Chris Guillebeau when he was in town for a book signing.

In short, I’m just beyond humbled that I am in the position that I am. I am routinely floored when I find out that this little thing I do from a spare bedroom of my house actually has so much influence outside of my house. I KNOW that so many others in this position feel the same way. Hell, there are a lot of people who have a LOT more influence than I do. I’m small potatoes compared to some. But, the very fact that I have it at all – amazing.

When people walk up to me at an event and already know who I am, I am still amazed. I’m not really used to it.

Really, I’m talking about you. After all, you read my blog, read my tweets, get my emails. I mean, if you guys didn’t pay any attention to what I did online, I’d be doing something completely different for a living.

It really is a huge case of irony. I mean, I was a big loner in high school. A socially inept nerd. I was afraid to wear shorts or even short sleeves for a couple years because of a fear of exposure. In a symbolic kind of way, it was actually a shield between me and the world. To fast-forward all these years and be in a business where “social” is the name of the game, where I make a living via communication and, yes, shorts and sandals are a basic staple of my existence…. MY! what a journey.

I’ve changed as a person since then. A lot of it is because of things I have done personally, while making a few leaps into the unknown and seeing that it worked out OK. But, a lot of it was fueled by the Internet. By people reading my sites. By you.

So, thanks for being there. My aim is to continue to help you guys as much as you help me.

My Gratitude… For Them

And, yeah, I’m a dad. So, I’m gonna brag my ass off. 🙂

I’m a lucky man. Here’s why…

Those are my kids. I need no bigger motivation than that, really.

Kids are weird. See, they can annoy me to no end sometimes. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably seen some of my escapades with regard to my daughter. I mean, she in her “terrible two’s”, and let me tell you, that shit is REAL. And she’s about to go into her terrorist 3’s. 🙂

But, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It means she’s got energy. It means she has spunk. My little boy is the same way…. he’s a bundle of energy and I can tell he’s probably going to make my daughter seem tame by comparison.

My kids are a gift. The word “gratitude” doesn’t even scratch the surface.

And then there’s my wife, Malika. The two of us are like ying and yang, but it works. For one, while I am insanely entrepreneurial and pretty much hate the idea of a regular job – she digs it. In fact, no matter how successful I am with my business online, I expect that she will have a regular job. She’s an engineer and she likes that sort of thing.

My wife and I complete each other, and I don’t mean that in the weird movie-esque stereotypical sense. It literally is the kind of thing where she is good at the things I’m not good at, and vice versa. Where I can be impatient, she’s patient. Where she can be more unorganized, I’m organized. Together, it works.

My entire family is out of my league. My wife is beautiful, my kids are cuter than hell, and then there’s me. Or at least that’s how I see it. 🙂

Happy Thanksgiving!

I want to end off with that. No more needs to be said, really.

I want to leave you with one thing…. I’ve shared what I am grateful for. But, what about you? Perhaps you can share below what you’re grateful for (in comments)…. that is, if you’re not too busy eating your faces off. 😉

Lastly, remember that it should continue past today. Think deeper about gratitude, because as I said a couple days ago, it goes deeper than simply expressing thanks for your life.

Stay awesome.