Principles and Components of Gratitude
What is wrong with the world? And why is gratitude needed? Now more than ever, take a look at the people in power or the people surrounding you where the people you serve. There's likely a lot of resentment, competition, entitlement, neuroticism, and narcissism here in America. As a society, we have developed a culture that's more about the individual than it is about the whole, and social media has allowed us to connect and share our ideas. Still, it doesn't necessarily create the opportunity to listen. That's where gratitude comes in.
So many people out there are worried about the future. What is coming next? This article was written at the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic, and the world is a pretty unknown and uncertain place.
Why Gratitude?
The future is filled with doubt, significant risk, uncertainty, insecurity, and the problem with putting your emotions so focused on the unknown in the future is that it leaves you off-kilter. It makes you nervous, anxious and even scared of the unknown. Now the great antidote to thinking so fearfully about the future is to dive into the past. And that's where gratitude comes in. When we can pause and reflect and dive way back into the past, in a safe and comfortable space, we will bring forth some fantastic stories to share. Gratitude is the tool to get us there.
Gratitude is this unique mythical creature. You know it as some spiritual virtue, a universal way of giving thanks that survive for millions of years. Well, let's get scientific about it. Gratitude is a trait. It's in motion. It's a mood. You can train your body to be open to receiving gratitude. You can have a grateful disposition. These are long term, character-defining traits.
Gratitude is something that can be habitual. Being grateful is also something that can be for a moment. And that's an emotion, and that alters your mood. So it's applicable to both the long term and short term. Gratitude is free, easy, immediate, and impactful. The ideas that we're talking about do not cost a single dollar. You can switch on the brain to have gratitude, and you can go on and take action right now.
Gratitude is a virtue. The misconception is that gratitude is just for religions. That gratitude is solely a thing you hear in the Bible or from spiritual leaders, religious leaders, or yoga practitioners. But it's not just that. Science and psychology have now caught up to gratitude, and that's what this article is about. So how do you cultivate gratitude? Our favorite prescription is through gratitude interventions. We'll use an example that applies to our exact life right now, but it can be applied anywhere.
Gratitude in Practice
We host social events in real life or virtually, and we call them Gratitude Experiences. People arrive at our experiences feeling every kind of way: Lonely, tired, unfulfilled, insecure, and anxious about the future. Then we shake up the system using gratitude, and they walk out, having been positively emotionally transformed.
Our Gratitude Experiences are the simplest way that we know to show gratitude. At every dinner we asked the same question. "If you could give credit or thanks to one person in your life that you don't give enough credit or thanks to, who would that be?" Please take a moment to pause with me for a second. Think about that answer. Give me 30 seconds of your time in peace and calm.
Who have you never thanked? Whether someone you're related to someone you've never met before. I want you to write down that person's name. Who are you writing down? How have you learned from that person? What obstacles did they help you overcome? How did they show up for others? If they were here with you right now, What would you say to them?
This gratitude exercise is free, easy, immediate, and impactful. Gratitude acts as a moral barometer, a motivator, and reinforcer. To have gratitude, you first have to take a moral barometer to recognize that you've received value from others. Gratitude is a moral motivator and it simply feels good to give gratitude. I encourage you to reach out to that person you wrote down. Give them thanks. Pay it forward and payback.
Reinforcement of Gratitude
You have to reinforce these principles. You don't just answer that question in a single moment in life. I've had the privilege of answering that question thousands of times at our dinners, in our interviews, at our keynotes, and in one-on-one meetings with people. You have to reinforce these tendencies to become habit-forming.
We also use gratitude to create what we call a posture of openness in the world. Everybody is so excited to talk and share their opinion of something. But we want you to use gratitude as a tool to stop talking and do the listening. Creating a posture of openness, whether it's at the dinner table or in a one-on-one meeting with your team or customers, requires eye contact and attentive body posture. We need to be physically present.
We also need to turn on the brain to listen actively. Listening is a verb, and it's tough to do. Talking is easy; listening is hard. We also need to be able to ask genuine, deep follow-up questions. When you want to create a dialogue with someone, don't ask yes or no questions, ask them to elaborate on what they just gave gratitude. You can help them connect the dots looking backward by asking more profound follow-up questions in the moment.
Autobiographical Memories
Gratitude retrieves positive or negative autobiographical memories. If you wrote down someone from the gratitude question that had a positive impact on you, the retrieval of that positive autobiographical memory helps you remember the positive emotion attached to it. This positive retrieval further develops your brain and the thought-action repertoire needed for positive emotions in the future. It's going to inspire a lot of great things if you gave credit and thanks to someone who had a negative impact on you.
Let's say you gave credit thanks to your third-grade bully, who made you hate yourself. Over time you may have realized that they gave you the fuel in the fire to succeed. By talking or thinking about a negative memory from your past, you reframe the memory and decrease the negative emotion associated with it. With this, you can now use the memory as a learning opportunity. Gratitude is that tool for doing that.
As you can see, gratitude motivates moral behavior. It's inspiring and it's energizing. The only reason I had so much energy when I woke up this morning is because I have a daily gratitude practice. That's it. It's the critical link between giving and receiving. When someone gives you something, you want to show your gratitude back or show your gratitude to pay it forward.
Mentorship
Let's say a mentor gives you their time to teach you something about life. Not only do you share gratitude back to that mentor, but you pay it forward to mentor others. Gratitude is the link. Gratitude motivates something we call upstream reciprocity. When someone gives you something, you want to share it through the line of command through the chain of command. You want to show gratitude to people you learn from, and you want to give it downstream to the people who learn from you.
Actionable Gratitude
Gratitude inspires action rather than responds to it. We have a habit of spending more time, effort, and energy in our society on band-aids or drugs that treat our problems rather than spending on preventative methods. Gratitude is a tool to inspire further action; it acts as preventative rather than responding to a crisis. Gratitude builds social resources.
We live in a Cartesian age society of, "I think, therefore I am." Gratitude helps us develop into a community of "You are, therefore I am." "You are, therefore I am" builds grateful relationships. It also strengthens and maintains existing relationships. Self-help can sometimes be confused with gratitude. But gratitude is not about yourself; gratitude is about others.
Gratitude is about admitting you've received the benefit of something from others and paying that forward into a community. Take gratitude forward into your daily life, and I promise you all the joys in the world you could ever hope to achieve. Remember, it's your world, go explore.