Welcome to another episode of Limitless Leaders™ Podcast.  

We’re almost halfway through 2022, and what a year it’s been. After some health challenges two weeks ago where I ended up getting rushed to emergency with severe abdominal pains, with a four-hour waiting emergency and then overnight in emergency because there were no beds. While I’m continuing to get my health back in order, it’s prompted me to want to talk about gratitude today.  

So today, I wanted to just share what I’m seeing out there as we have teams, reconnecting back in the office, we’ve still got a lot of companies having what I’m calling the back to Office resistance, and adapting to these new ways, you know, people that have got partners that have started working during COVID. And now they can’t be in the office as much as they used to.  

GRATITUDE AND RECOGNITION ARE INTERLINKED:

[02.09] Today, I’m going to call it gratitude, and I’m going to call it out for what it is.   

  • Gratitude and recognition are obviously interlinked. And what I love about gratitude is it forces us to reinforce the positives in our lives.  
  • We can be grateful for people – we can be grateful for situations we can be grateful for so many different things.  

 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING THANKFUL AND GRATEFUL: 

 [02.43] I got asked the other day, what is the difference between being thankful and grateful.  

  • I write about this in my international award-winning book, if mindset under the gift of gratitude, being thankful, I think it’s a bit more internal, you know, where you feel thankful?  
  • Research is suggesting that gratitude is not simply a cultural construct, but it’s actually rooted in our evolutionary history. 
  • When we’re grateful, we actually focus on what we do have, not what we don’t.  

 [03:22] 

  • So if I go back to the hospital scenario, I could have been I did for a while. I’m a realist, and I was in a lot of pain. I pay private health care, and I’m out in a corridor overnight feeling like this, that I watched the frontline workers in action and the amazing job they did, and I went, you know what, I’m actually grateful that they’re here.  
  • They’re a stone’s throw away from me if something gets worse. And I’m grateful that I’m in the best place I can be right now. And it really helped me to surrender that mindset. And I guess be in the moment and be ready to heal. 

BEING GRATEFUL IN THE WORKPLACE: 

 [03:58] 

  • Gratitude is the untapped currency for retention.  

[04:25] 

  • You know, you can throw more money at people, you can try and find them different roles, you can beg them to stay.  
  • But I think it’s coming back to what I’m calling the soft skills of the future – things around optimism, things around curiosity, things around connection and gratitude, all of those things that I believe make up limitless leaders, teams and organizations. 

 THREE KEY BUCKETS TO GRATITUDE: 

 [05:02] 

  • So, the first is the obvious one, through our actions. So this could be saying thank you to someone, it could be sending someone a bunch of flowers or sending them a book or sending them a beautiful text saying I appreciate you.  
  • We also can be grateful through our feelings. So that’s when we feel grateful for something or someone, it’s a bit like thankful.  
  • And we can also have what we call a grateful mindset. I’m one of those people. And a grateful mindset means that we’re open to see the positive experiences in challenges, which is what the gift mindset is all about.  

BARRIERS ARE THE ENEMY TO GRATITUDE: 

[06:58] 

  • One I see a lot is gray gratitude is what I call it. It’s not black, it’s not white, it’s wishy washy. .  

[07:24] 

  • Another barrier is self-reflective time. So, making the time if you’re running a business, or if you’re in a team or leading your team suggests making a time, or even kicking off some of your meetings with who will what are you grateful for, gets people to be forward thinking and not focus on the negatives, which is a really good one. 

[07:49] 

  • You know, I think now is the time to look at what’s what people are missing and ensure that’s part of your everyday conversation with your team or if you’re in a team. 

THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF SHOWING/EXPERIENCING GRATITUDE: 

[08:17]

  • There’s definitely a relationship between expressing gratitude and increased productivity and job satisfaction. When people feel appreciated.  
  • There’s this connection, there’s motivation.  
  • There’s what I call commitment, not just compliance, not just turning up or clocking on, but actually going with a committed energy and conviction to do a good job.  

TIPS ON HOW TO EXPRESS GRATITUDE: 

So, I want to give you this a few tips. And these are actually extracted out of my book gift mindset, which is available now on Audible, Amazon, and all good bookstores, which is quite exciting.  

[11:43] 

  • First one is compliment. colleagues on the fly, don’t always wait for a formal invitation to go, what are you grateful for?  
  • Let colleagues know what they mean to you.  
  • So, as you’re listening to this, my challenge for you after listening to this podcast, is reach out to somebody that you’re grateful for. 
  • Be thankful for the growth opportunities that challenges give us. 

[13:49] 

  • Be grateful for learning something new, and share this with others.  

 [14:10]

  • Invest in moments to be thankful for. So, what I mean by this is, take the time to express and live the gift of gratitude.  
  • So, I used to journal and journaling is a great thing to do. 
  • And, I think about three things I’m grateful for before I get out of the bed.  

TIPS FOR EXPRESSING GRATITUDE IN TEAMS: 

[14:56] 

  • I want to give you some things for teams so individually or as a team kickoff, you catch up with who or what are you grateful for? And go around and everyone gets 20 seconds.  
  • And. you could actually say, who are what are you grateful for in this meeting on this catch up? Or who were you? What are you grateful for?  

 [15:34] 

  •  Another one I want to give you is a three to one ratio. So, for every negative, that’s brought up, come up with three positives. 

[16:23] 

  • Some companies I’m working with over the years have introduced Win Wednesdays, that’s a really good one. So, everyone shares a win big or small, how they got to that. And you can bring gratitude into that conversation as well.  

[16:38] 

  • And last, but not least, you know, I want everyone that’s listening to this, to acknowledge the silver lining, or what I call the gift of all situations and what it’s taught you. 

IN SUMMARY:  

You know, I think, now is the time to amplify practices in the workplace to really elevate gratitude, create forums, bring it into conversations. You don’t have to call it gratitude. You know, I last year, during one of the lockdowns, we were running the gratitude Cafe, and it was just a Zoom Room drop in. And we were talking about things we’re grateful for in ourselves, our family, our teams, our friends in the world. And the conversation was electrifying, the stuff that came out of that. 

I really believe the conduit to strong and connected relationships, and a collaborative culture that people want to be part of stems down to, you know, a lot of different things. But I think gratitude can get small wins. It can help, you know, build morale and motivation, especially at times like now. 

 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES AND PROGRAMS: 

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